So last time, we saw Drizzt settle into Blingenstone and make friends! He also has a pretty understandable PTSD-type flashback, where he beats the shit out of a stone basilisk, but that's okay. His new friends understand! I realize the exclamation points might sound sarcastic, but they're not. I think this is great.

...at least until everything goes to Hell. Probably sooner rather than later.



So we start with a svirnebli patrol. They're less than a day out of their city, and they've stumbled across some goblins that have been hacked to pieces. They identify it as drow work, based on the cuts (only the drow wield such "slender and wicked-edged blades").

Interestingly, the svirnebli have a neat racial ability: an empathy that allows them to communicate basic thoughts rather than speak outloud during times of danger. That's actually a really cool, and environmentally useful ability. (Far more useful than levitation or a globe of darkness, in my opinion.)

One of the patrol seems more alert than the others. We're told that they're the one who insisted on silent communication as well: they don't think it's normal that the goblins are just slaughtered, as opposed to enslaved.

The leader, Burrow-Warden Krieger, takes some convincing. But another svirneblin points out the gold and silver coins left in the pouch. And while he floats a few alternate theories: like a goblin or orc using a drow weapon, but the precision of the cuts is unlikely to be anything else. And worse, this isn't the first sign of drow activity either.

They decide to go back, without realizing that zombie-Zak is watching them go, and marking their path. Eep.

I have to compliment Salvatore for that nice little reveal. There's something ominous about the fact that zombie-Zak can watch and wait like that.

-

They report to King Schnicktick, which is an unfortunate name, but these are gnomes after all. He's not sure he believes this is a drow incursion, but he wants to find out. He closes some of the tunnel sections from mining operations (which makes everyone groan), and limits them instead to war patrols. He also doubles the patrols, and extends their range to within a three day march of the city.

Interestingly, the svirnebli apparently have some agents in the drow city. The king doesn't want to involve them yet, though, as they may not be terribly reliable and he doesn't want to let the drow know that they suspect their movements. They will however keep their ears open.

I think I like this king. These all seem like reasonable precautions.

So anyway, the scouts do find Drizzt's old sanctuary and everyone's pretty sad about the dead myconids and their mushroom grove. But at no point do they actually spot any drow.

Inevitably, talk goes to the one drow in the city.

“Has he caused any trouble?” Schnicktick asked.

“Minor,” replied the councilor. “And Belwar Dissengulp, the Most Honored Burrow-Warden, speaks for him still and keeps him in his house as guest, not prisoner. Burrow-Warden Dissengulp will accept no guards around the drow.”

“Have the drow watched,” the king said after a moment of consideration. “But from a distance. If he is a friend, as Master Dissengulp most obviously believes, then he should not suffer our intrusions.”

God, look at how reasonable this dude is. I was sure at the beginning of the chapter that suspicion, however irrational, would fall on Drizzt. I was clearly wrong. The svirnebli are fucking awesome. (They even know about Drizzt going apeshit on the stone basilisk! And they're okay with that!)

So anyway, the councilors don't believe the drow intend to invade. There are no camps or signs of larger movements. And they've left so many signs of their activities. None of this makes sense if they're planning a large-scale attack that would require surprise.

Schnicktick is on board with the speculation, but he still doesn't like that this is all happening so close. They speculate about what else the drow might want, and hit on the idea that they're looking for something.

Or someone.

“Perhaps we should invite our drow guest to sit with us in council?”

“No,” the king replied. “But perhaps our distant surveillance of this Drizzt is not enough. Get orders to Belwar Dissengulp that the drow is to be monitored every minute. and Firble,” he said to the councilor nearest him. “Since we have reasonably concluded that no war is imminent with the dark elves, set the spy network into motion. Get me information from Menzoberranzan, and quickly. I like not the prospect of dark elves wandering about my front door. It does so diminish the neighborhood.”

Councilor Firble, the chief of covert security in Blingdenstone, nodded in agreement, though he wasn’t pleased by the request. Information from Menzoberranzan was not cheaply gained, and it as often turned out to be a calculated deception as the truth. Firble did not like dealing with anyone or anything that could outsmart him, and he numbered dark elves as first on that ill-favored list.

Is it weird that I'd read a whole book about the svirnebli? Sadly, the whole race/settlement themed book seems to be more of a Dragonlance thing than a Forgotten Realms thing. But I find their politics really interesting.

So now we switch focus to Zak. And this is interesting, because we start to get an idea of how aware/not aware the zombie actually is.

The spirit-wraith watched as yet another svirfneblin patrol made its way down the twisting tunnel. The tactical wisdom of the being that once had been the finest weapon master in all of Menzoberranzan had kept the undead monster and his anxious sword arm in check for the last few days. Zaknafein did not truly understand the significance of the increasing number of deep gnome patrols, but he sensed that his mission would be put into jeopardy if he struck out against one of them. At the very least, his attack against so organized a foe would send alarms ringing throughout the corridors, alarms that the elusive Drizzt surely would hear.

Similarly, the spirit-wraith had sublimated his vicious urges against other living things and had left the svirfneblin patrols nothing to find in the last few days, purposely avoiding conflicts with the many denizens of the region. Matron Malice Do’Urden’s evil will followed Zaknafein’s every move, pounding relentlessly at his thoughts, urging him on with a great vengeance. Any killing that Zaknafein did sated that insidious will temporarily, but the undead thing’s tactical wisdom overruled the savage summons. The slight flicker that was Zaknafein’s remaining reasoning knew that he would only find his return to the peace of death when Drizzt Do’Urden joined him in his eternal sleep.

Aw.

Anyway, the zombie ends up deciding to follow another of the patrol and a tiny sliver of memory, the word Blingdenstone, pops into its mind. He tries to say it, but it only comes out as a snarl.

And with this curious little attempt at self-expression, the chapter ends.