And then... the unexpected– an argument was about to take place.
“What else do we know about the drow?” asked their teacher.
There was a long pause before Ronthiel finally spoke. “They are effective assassins as well as relentless and immoral.”
Draugo immediately challenged, looking at Ronthiel. “You seem to have formed quite a negative opinion of them. Any reason for that?”
“Perhaps I don’t defend them because my hair is not white like a drow’s,” Ronthiel answered.
Draugo jumped up. “Brave words for one whose hair is as red as a drow’s eyes!” he shot back.
The class was amazed to see two students openly argue in class. This had never happened before. Their eyes got big.
“Sit down, both of you!” the teacher ordered. “But let us discuss the features of a drow now that the point has been raised. As Master Ronthiel stated, drow do have white or silvery hair, much as Draugo does. But what rules Draugo out as being a drow?”
“I’m not blinded by the light of day for one thing!” Draugo retorted.
“Quite correct,” the teacher said. “What else tells us Draugo is not a drow? Master Ronthiel?”
“He doesn’t have dark skin or red eyes,” Ronthiel said in disgust, crossing his arms with a scowl.
“That’s very good. And Master Draugo,” the teacher said, “what eliminates Master Ronthiel here from being a drow?”
“A drow does not have red hair,” was Draugo’s own reluctant admission.
“Correct!” the teacher stated. “So now we have all learned how to recognize a drow. A drow looks like us but has white hair, dark skin, and red eyes. Does anyone know where drow live?”
“Underground,” Draugo said flatly, likewise crossing his arms and frowning the same as Ronthiel.
“Yes. They live underground because sunlight blinds them. Yet they can see underground nearly as well as you and I can see above ground. You should remember that if you should ever decide to go underground after one. The advantage is theirs. Further, when they’re underground, a drow has certain powers. Who knows what they are? Does anyone? What about you, goat boy? Do you know?”
No, the boy did not.
“No one knows?” their teacher asked.
No hands came up.
“They have the following powers,” their teacher explained, “dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire. Like yourselves, they are also immune to sleep spells and similar magical effects, plus they are able to spot secret doors.”
“They sound superior to us,” Draugo said flippantly, his arms still crossed indignantly.
“Vampire… drow. What’s the difference?” said Ronthiel, also indignant.
The other students reacted with smiles and stifled laughter.
“Gentlemen!” their teacher told the two. “May I remind you that the purpose of our discussion is to engage and not to enrage?”
“He started it by defending drow!” Ronthiel accused.
“I didn’t defend them!” Draugo shot back. “I merely questioned our knowledge of them. Most everyone here probably believes the childhood stories that they’re ugly and deformed. And yet they’re not! And we think ourselves superior to them and yet they have superior powers to us! We claim they can’t organize and yet they can! It seems we are greatly mistaken about them!”
“Maybe you are,” Ronthiel said, “But I’m not. The drow use SPIDERS as freaking PACK ANIMALS! They worship a SPIDER GODDESS. Their arcane casters can summon SPIDER DEMONS. And drow outcasts become HALF-SPIDER!”
“You mean driders?” Draugo said with a scoff. “Your goat boy friend doesn’t seem to be too bothered by them. He’s friends with one!”
The eyes in the class had been watching them argue with amazement now all turned to the boy in astonishment at that. The boy was friends with a drider?
But the boy was no longer listening and had no idea everyone’s attention was now on him. He had lost interest in the argument when he had found a more demanding and serious subject for his attention. A red fire ant had the misfortune to cross his paper and now the boy did torment it. Every time the ant sought to retreat, the boy blocked the way with his fingernail. And when the ant sought to do battle with its adversary, all its strong jaws found was the boy’s fingernail. With its jaws unable to penetrate, the boy was free of pain to antagonize the prisoner.
Only now the schoolmaster was suddenly leaning over him, his face pouring down into a scowl that made the boy jump at the unexpected surprise of being caught unawares and his resultant shaking of the paper caused the fire ant to fall off.
The boy knew the teacher had asked him a question, and he had failed to answer. Not that this was even one bit unusual, but it was unusual for the teacher to come over directly and put himself over him. Seems the last words he had heard were “drow”.
“And what do you have to say?” the teacher demanded.
Say about what? What was there to say about drow? The ant forgotten, the boy told all he knew.
“They are creatures born of cruelty and malice!”
“And?”
And what? What else was he to say?
“Their women are bigger and stronger than their men,” he said.
The red fire ant that had fallen off his paper had landed in his lap. Yet the boy never saw it, nor did he even think of it. He was looking up at the demanding eyes of his teacher. He obviously wasn’t giving the right answer because now the teacher was correcting him
“Driders,” the teacher said, “live in darkness and are outsiders, but relish their outsider status. They are bereft of conscious and do as they please. They are stealthy and elegant and deadly.”
“Driders?” the boy replied. “I thought you were talking about drow!”
“They are one and the same!” his teacher said. “Now what is this I hear that you know one?”
The boy suddenly felt a fiery pinch of red-hot pain. It came from below his waist and under his fur. His eyes looked down.
The fire ant!
Now all ants can pinch and red ants most of all, but all red ants bow in a distant second place to the dreaded fire ant, so named for just how truly hard an ant can pinch–it is a pinch like fire. The boy’s reaction was like a marionette suddenly yanked by invisible strings, momentarily springing him upright in his seat as if an electric shock had coursed through him. The fire ant’s vengeance felt like a hundred needles digging into his flesh. His hand went down in an instant to extricate the invader, but in all his goat’s hair it was not to be found.
“Well?” his teacher demanded.
That’s when it pinched him again.
This time, the boy jumped up completely out of his seat. That ant’s pinch burnt like a lit match to him. In fact, given his choice, the boy probably would have preferred the lit match. They called them “fire” ants for a good reason.
And then the ant chomped down again!
The boy let out a two-step dance, trying to get that ant out, his long, curly blonde hair falling forward into his eyes. But no luck—he was dancing like an elf with his pants on fire and there were now several snickers and tee-hee’s from his fellow students watching, especially Draugo whose eyes shined in dark delight. The fire ant, meanwhile, dug in for the fourth time.
That was it. The boy gave out a yelp and lit out of the school at the speed of light to drown the intruder in the school’s swimming hole.
The boy went home from school red-faced about the incident and then had to relive the humiliation all over again before his aunt. There, Sith replayed the incident over dinner to her in excruciating detail. Fortunately, in Sith’s glee of describing the ant incident, he completely forgot to mention the subject of the boy knowing a drider. So the boy didn’t have to explain that part.
But the important point was that the boy had been in school to learn about drow and had even participated in the discussion and his aunt brought out his reward for doing so; the gift Graybeard had left him.
And now he eagerly awaited his reward. What would it be?
She handed him a long black sheath with a looped top intended for a belt. Extending out from the top was a round metal handle, like a sword’s. The hand grip had a diamond texture pressed into its polished surface. She laid it across his lap before him and it was long enough to cover both legs, even with his thighs comfortably spread apart.
The boy was open mouthed, eyes stunned, staring at it in disbelief. He hadn't expected anything like this. Was it really his?
Removing the handle from the sheath produced a wondrous blade. It was a knife like no other. The blade was so bright it gleamed like a sliver of the moon, its sharpness cutting through the air with the whispered promise of swift precision. It was dazzling.
It wasn’t just the workmanship that was impressive. It was the design. The top, flat heavy side of the blade was notched for cutting, either for sawing off branches or ripping your opponent's inside's out. Near the end of the blade, the top tip curved downward like a scimitar for stabbing your opponent deeper and with a serrated edge for scaling fish or dicing tomatoes. The pointed tip was sharp on both sides, just like the blade for cutting and gutting, and the handle had a wrist guard protector for fighting with a top thumbhole ring through it for producing powerful, downward cutting pressure. It was a masterpiece of thought and design, and the whole thing was long enough to reach from his elbow to the tip of his middle finger!
It was so sharp as to slice a human hair as if it weren’t even there. And, to keep it that way, the sheath even had its own pocket for carrying the finest sharpening stone the boy had ever seen.
There wasn’t another elf anywhere that had anything like it!
"Remember," his aunt reminded him. "A knife only does what it is told to do, so you be sure to give good instructions."
The boy nodded and took it to bed with him that night and slept with it. He vowed he would wear it always.
Little did he realize that was exactly Graybeard’s intention, and how soon he would need it.
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