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Diplomacy Her thick auburn hair bouncing below her shoulders, Catti-brie worked furiously to keep the drow’s whirling scimitars at bay. She was a solidly built woman, a hundred and thirty pounds of muscles finely toned from living her life with Bruenor’s dwarven clan. Catti-brie was no stranger to the forge or the sledge.
Or the sword, and this new blade, its white-metal pommel sculpted in the likeness of a unicorn’s head, was by far the most balanced weapon she had ever swung. Still, Catti-brie was hard-pressed, indeed, overmatched, by her opponent this day. Few in the Realms could match blades with Drizzt Do’Urden, the drow ranger.
He was no larger than Catti-brie, a few pounds heavier, perhaps, with his tight-muscled frame. His white hair hung as low as Catti-brie’s mane and was equally thick, and his ebony skin glistened with streaks of sweat, a testament to the young woman’s prowess.
Drizzt’s two scimitars crossed in front of him—one of them glowing a fierce blue even through the protective padding that covered it—then went back out wide, inviting Catti-brie to thrust straight between.
She knew better than to make the attempt. Drizzt was too quick and could strike her blade near its tip with one scimitar, while the other alternately parried low, batting the opposite way near the hilt. With a single step diagonally to the side, following his closer-parrying blade, Drizzt would have her beaten.
Catti-brie stepped back instead and presented her sword in front of her. Her deep blue eyes peeked out around the blade, which had been thickened with heavy material, and she locked stares with the drow’s lavender orbs.
“An opportunity missed?” Drizzt teased.
“A trap avoided,” Catti-brie was quick to reply.
Drizzt came ahead in a rush, his blades crossing, going wide, and cutting across, one high and one low. Catti-brie dropped her left foot behind her and fell into a crouch, turning her sword to parry the low-rushing blade, dipping her head to avoid the high.
She needn’t have bothered, for the cross came too soon, before Drizzt’s feet had caught up to the move, and both his scimitars swished through the air, short of the mark.
Catti-brie didn’t miss the opening, and darted ahead, sword thrusting.
Back snapped Drizzt’s blades, impossibly fast, slamming the sword on both its sides. But Drizzt’s feet weren’t positioned correctly for him to follow the move, to go diagonally ahead and take advantage of Catti-brie’s turned sword.
The young woman went ahead and to the side instead, sliding her weapon free of the clinch and executing the real attack, the slash at Drizzt’s hip.
Drizzt’s backhand caught her short, drove her sword harmlessly high.
They broke apart again, eyeing each other, Catti-brie wearing a sly smile. In all their months of training, she had never come so close to scoring a hit on the agile and skilled drow.
Drizzt’s expression stole her glory, though, and the drow dipped the tips of his scimitars toward the floor, shaking his head in frustration.
“The bracers?” Catti-brie asked, referring to the magical wrist bands, wide pieces of black material lined with gleaming mithral rings. Drizzt had taken them from Dantrag Baenre, the deposed weapons master of Menzoberranzan’s First House, after defeating Dantrag in mortal combat. Rumors said those marvelous bracers allowed Dantrag’s hands to move incredibly fast, giving him the advantage in combat.
Upon battling the lightning-quick Baenre, Drizzt had come to believe those rumors, and after wearing the bracers in sparring for the last few tendays, he had confirmed their abilities. But Drizzt wasn’t convinced that the bracers were a good thing. In the fight with Dantrag, he had turned Dantrag’s supposed advantage against the drow, for the weapons master’s hands moved too quickly for Dantrag to alter any started move, too quickly for Dantrag to improvise if his opponent made an unexpected turn. Now, in these sparring exercises, Drizzt was learning that the bracers held another disadvantage.
His feet couldn’t keep up with his hands.
“Ye’ll learn them,” Catti-brie assured.
Drizzt wasn’t so certain. “Fighting is an art of balance and movement,” he explained.
“And faster ye are!” Catti-brie replied.
Drizzt shook his head. “Faster are my hands,” he said. “A warrior does not win with his hands. He wins with his feet, by positioning himself to best strike the openings in his opponent’s defenses.”
“The feet’ll catch up,” Catti-brie replied. “Dantrag was the best Menzoberranzan had to offer, and ye said yerself that the bracers were the reason.”
Drizzt couldn’t disagree that the bracers greatly aided Dantrag, but he wondered how much they would benefit one of his skill, or one of Zaknafein’s, his father’s, skill. It could be, Drizzt realized, that the bracers would aid a lesser fighter, one who needed to depend on the sheer speed of his weapons. But the complete fighter, the master who had found harmony between all his muscles, would be put off balance. Or perhaps the bracers would aid someone wielding a heavier weapon, a mighty warhammer, such as Aegis-fang. Drizzt’s scimitars, slender blades of no more than two pounds of metal, perfectly balanced by both workmanship and enchantment, weaved effortlessly, and even without the bracers, his hands were quicker than his feet.
“Come on then,” Catti-brie scolded, waving her sword in front of her, her wide blue eyes narrowing intently, her shapely hips swiveling as she fell into a low balance.
She sensed her chance, Drizzt realized. She knew he was fighting at a disadvantage and finally sensed her chance to pay back one of the many stinging hits he had given her in their sparring.
Drizzt took a deep breath and lifted the blades. He owed it to Catti-brie to oblige, but he meant to make her earn it!
He came forward slowly, playing defensively. Her sword shot out, and he hit it twice before it ever got close, on its left side with his right hand, and on its left side again, bringing his left hand right over the presented blade and batting it with a downward parry.
Catti-brie fell with the momentum of the double block, spinning a complete circle, rotating away from her adversary. When she came around, predictably, Drizzt was in close, scimitars weaving.
Still the patient drow measured his attack, did not come too fast and strong. His blades crossed and went out wide, teasing the young woman.
Catti-brie growled and threw her sword straight out again, determined to find that elusive hole. And in came the scimitars, striking in rapid succession, again both hitting the left side of Catti-brie’s sword. As before, Catti-brie spun to the right, but this time Drizzt came in hard.
Down went the young woman in a low crouch, her rear grazing the floor, and she skittered back. Both of Drizzt’s blades swooshed through the air above and before her, for again his cuts came before his feet could rightly respond and position him.
Drizzt was amazed to find that Catti-brie was no longer in front of him.
He called the move the “Ghost Step” and had taught it to Catti-brie only a tenday earlier. The trick was to use the opponent’s swinging weapon as an optical shield, to move within the vision-blocked area so perfectly and quickly that your opponent would not know you had come forward and to the side, that you had, in fact, stepped behind his leading hip.
Reflexively, the drow snapped his leading scimitar straight back, blade pointed low, for Catti-brie had gone past in a crouch. He beat the sword to the mark, too quickly, and the momentum of his scimitar sent it sailing futilely in front of the coming attack.
Drizzt winced as the unicorn-handled sword slapped hard against his hip.
For Catti-brie, the moment was one of pure delight. She knew, of course, that the bracers were hindering Drizzt, causing him to make mistakes of balance—mistakes that Drizzt Do’Urden hadn’t made since his earliest days of fighting—but even with the uncomfortable bracers, the drow was a powerful adversary, and could likely defeat most swordsmen.
How delicious it was, then, when Catti-brie found her new sword slicing in unhindered!
Her joy was stolen momentarily by an urge to sink the blade deeper, a sudden, inexplicable anger focused directly on Drizzt.
“Touch!” Drizzt called, the signal that he had been hit, and when Catti-brie straightened and sorted out the scene, she found the drow standing a few feet away, rubbing his sore hip.
“Sorry,” she apologized, realizing she had struck far too hard.
Copyright © 2025 by R.A. Salvatore. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
