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In the Demon's Claws (2219 words) by
MerfillyChapters: 1/1
Fandom:
Forgotten Realms,
The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. SalvatoreRating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Drizzt Do'Urden & Vierna Do'Urden
Characters: Drizzt Do'Urden, Vierna Do'Urden
Additional Tags: Ensemble Cast, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Violence, Resurrection
Summary:
Things in the Hall went slightly different, but still Drizzt chooses the road, and learns of one more quest.
In the Demon's Claws
Drizzt Do'Urden gazed out over the lands, thinking about everything endured. If Regis had not escaped sooner — no, it didn't bear thinking about. What he knew had let them disarm the trap, though not without personal cost for Drizzt himself. He had caused his father's death, brought about the deaths of his House from afar, and now… personally slain his sister, both by dam and sire.
His only consolation had been seeing her less a zealot, more sane in her eyes even, as the light faded, letting him cast true blame upon Lloth once more. It had been Catti-brie who supposed the entire raid had been concocted as but one thread of a web, given how near it had been to losing Wulfgar to the yochlol, how strange that they had chosen to come for Drizzt inside the dwarven stronghold rather than upon the road some night when he would be alone.
Bruenor had thundered, and Wulfgar had pledged support, with Regis managing advice based on his studying Artemis Entreri while the human consorted with drow. Aid had come from the region, and it would be a long time before Menzoberranzan could stir from its cesspool of hate and anger.
Catti and Wulfgar needed to work upon their relationship. Regis still had much recovery to make from his ordeal. Bruenor had a much expanded clan to lead to prominence.
Drizzt?
He looked back to the road for salvation from that which ate at his soul. A passing remark from one of the Harpells had reminded him of unfinished business concerning a crystal… and a demon that had been defeated once.
There had never been any chance of an ending that led anywhere but to the Demonweb Pits, Vierna had known. Either she would arrive in favor, and become one of Lloth's own servitors in some form —
— or she would arrive in full disfavor to be tortured.
She had learned three things as she endured the torture, and then the bartering deal with the balor.
Her father was not in the Demonweb Pits. This had been clear while she was still tortured under the servants of Lolth. He would have been an instrument in those tortures, as she had, again, fallen into that strange emotion surrounding Zaknafein, on seeing how true to himself her brother had remained.
There was the fact that Lloth had never been worth her devotion. This point — she'd had sight of it in the fall of her House — had clarified when the religious madness fell from her eyes even as her brother was lowering her body to the floor. If she had only managed to learn it earlier, and used her power to protect the two males she'd felt strong emotions over!
And, somehow, this balor intended to use her against her brother. Errtu could not keep himself from alternately salivating over his plans against Drizzt Do'Urden or raging in a froth of madness over what the impertinent drow had done to him.
She would just have to help her brother beat the demon at his own game. Vierna was looking forward to his death at Drizzt's hands.
Drizzt's concerns about the demon had proven too correct. He finished cleaning Icingdeath, his mind turning over the words spit at him by the fiend before its death. The gloating, brash taunts of what Errtu meant to do with him — after Errtu finished rending the soul of one that Drizzt cared for — had been too in line with what he knew of the balors. They were incapable of getting over a defeat that had been meted out to them.
Only? Errtu had an advantage over him. The only person's soul that could possibly be at risk to the demon was his own father. Drizzt would no more leave the soul in peril than he ever would have risked the man in life, had he but been a little wiser.
He didn't dare not follow up on this, no matter the source. Since Drizzt had left Mithral Hall, burdened by the suffering, deaths, and his own actions, he'd been seeking a purpose. He would recover the damnable crystal, and trek to a land known to hold the knowledge of the ages. Surely he could learn what was needed to save his father and destroy both threats if he but tried hard enough.
With resolve etched in every line of his body and soul, Drizzt plunged into the frozen north once more, intent on his goals.
The Crystal Shard couldn't be tricked by Drizzt. Nor could it offer him what he wanted, not in a way that ever tempted the drow. The psychic effect of merely carrying it in a quiescent state was enough to make Drizzt constantly question his own mind as he traveled. Guen, on her visits to the Material Plane, also kept a watchful eye on him.
It was a necessary evil, bait for the demon that was seeking vengeance. After the not-so-minor trouble of getting back to it, finding it, Drizzt was just as relieved to find his next destination after a stop in Longsaddle. He'd kept the artifact's presence carefully hidden, indulged Harpell curiosity as some were in residence now that he had not met before.
"If you're dead set against leaning into the alliances you've made in Silverymoon," Bella began, the brighter eye rolling with what she thought of that and the dull one fixed on him, "you need to head for Tethyr, a small kingdom down there with a cathedral being built.
"The priest of Deneir, Chosen they say, will point you to the knowledge you need to deal with this demon you need to be rid of."
"It seems I should see if Captain Deudermont will aid me in my journeys, then," Drizzt said, not keen on going so far south once again, but he was no priest nor wizard, to be able to banish the demon for good… and with luck, this cleric might well know how to rid the realms of the Crystal Shard.
With the right tools, Drizzt Do'Urden would be willing to wager against the evil ones, and try to reclaim his father's soul from the Abyss.
"You could become a cleric of sufficient rank in the decades you have left. Or a wizard of strength," Cadderly mused at Drizzt, even as the wizened Chosen walked beside Drizzt in the garden, aware that Pikel and Ivan both were still keeping an eye on the solitary drow.
"They say time stretches in the Abyss, and I feel that taking the time to do so would further torment the one I seek to rescue. Likewise, I will make no bargain with a Power to become a warlock."
Cadderly looked at Drizzt then, leaning on his staff as they paused. "And yet you refuse your goddess Her offer?"
Drizzt flushed, looking down, and Cadderly knew the ranger had not expected that to be known. When he looked up, it was with an expression of sadness. "She has been good to me, and I will serve Her so long as She walks the path I view as right.
"But I do not trust myself with a spark of who She is."
"Which is of course why She would most want it to be you, for that very distrust, but. You have closed that door — for now — and having a pressing need to save one you care for. The vile artifact's destruction is what you seek, but not before you are able to barter with and defeat the balor.
"A complicated task you have set yourself, but I will set people to the research of it."
"Thank you; it is all I can ask."
Vierna felt something change in her captor. He was eager, close to success of some kind? She felt weaker than she had even in the moments after Lloth forsook the House. How could she aid her brother like this?
When the demon back-handed her for daring to spit in his direction, she lolled in her bonds, feigning unconsciousness and made the choice to reach out to a different power. Never again would she submit to the divine… but bargain with one? That she could — and would! — manage.
~Vhaeraun son of Araushnee and Corellon, god of drow,~ she prayed, all of her singular focus on inviting the Named One to take notice of her. Even now, out of favor and having renounced her former goddess, the names burned in her mind, invoking pain.
Pain that she further used to fuel her call to the one that could make her plans work — she would not fail! Her brother, the boy she had taught and raised, needed her, and this time, she was embracing that.
Little did she know that her very need to aid a male sibling was the right spark to bring the god's attention to her.
"As long as your darkness holds," Danica coached, "the thing will be destroyed."
Drizzt looked past her to the rather unassuming man with them, very little giving away his draconic nature.
"And Icingdeath will guard me from the flames," he reminded himself.
"Yes, a superb frostbrand," Vaeros said, having inspected the magic on the blade to be certain.
"The breach of magic has made it possible for the balor to come to a simple summoning," Drizzt recited. "I will offer the artifact, and then we will be 'attacked', at which point the crystal will burn while I hold darkness — and evade the enraged demon while protecting my father."
"Presuming that the captive is brought, and that it is your father," Danica agreed. "Should be simple for the drow that decimated Menzoberranzan's might."
Drizzt stared at her, then saw the twitch of her lips, and gave into the laughter at that outrageous elaboration of his part in the war of Mithral Hall.
"We will do this, Ranger, on our shared love of the Wilds," Vaeros said, once the laughter had worn off, with the effect of living Drizzt lighter in spirit.
"So we shall."
It was not Zaknafein.
That small fact half-broke Drizzt's willpower at first. He wanted to angrily decry that he didn't care about Vierna.
His heart knew that for a lie.
She looked mangled in the grasp of the demon, and trickles of blood had formed where the clawed hand pierced flesh.
She was conscious, and her eyes locked on his.
Distantly, he could remember the plan even as the sealed case with Crenshinibon hung from an outstretched hand, the demon gloating within the summoning circle.
His mind toured over early, harsh lessons. He recalled the gentle touches that had been rare and treasured. He remembered that someone had to have told Zaknafein of his speed and skill with both hands. He recalled the look of sanity in her eyes, at the end of her life, blood spilling from a wound he'd made in her.
Something in her eyes told him she trusted him, and that she was ready for whatever came next.
"Let her go, and you can have what you want."
"You think I am unaware of the treachery lurking in your soul, drow?" Errtu demanded, hand closing more —
— and Vierna uttered a quick phrase in formal drow, one that called upon Vhaeraun, god of the male drow. The next moment, she was small, transformed into a bat that eluded the demon's grasp, fluttering valiantly into the hood of the cloak Drizzt wore.
He prayed that was enough to protect her, as he gave himself over to the Hunter, Icingdeath more than eager to drink the blood of this balor once more. Errtu had no chance to evade, or even dispel the darkness, as Drizzt furiously fought for his life, the crystal's end, and for the daughter of his father.
Vierna awakened at the feeling of healing being pushed into her, the kind that traced fire in her veins, counter to her very nature but helping abate the last tortures' marks upon her.
She found herself looking into the purple eyes that had entranced her since his birth.
"We're in a small cave. I didn't want to impose on my allies," he told her softly. "You turned back to drow after the fight ended."
"I did not ask for it to be a permanent change," Vierna said, but she reached for his hand on her shoulder. "You can heal?"
"If my patron agrees, yes," he said, taking her hand and shifting so he could sit more comfortably and hold it. "Vhaeraun?"
"I promised Him I would become a potent cleric for Him, if He let me aid my troublesome little brother against the balor."
Her smile on those words provoked one from him.
"I thought it was my — our father."
"And yet, you still pushed through with the plan you had made." She squeezed his hand. "We will have peace, Drizzt. I swear it on my continued life."
He contemplated her words a long moment, then laid down on the bedroll, sliding an arm under her neck, tucking close to give her the warmth he had.
"Good. There's been enough strife for us both, I think."
She closed her eyes, shifting a little to be comfortable, and decided that he was still strange to her.
But she had become something different and wanted to embrace the strangeness with him.
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