Sojourn (forgotten Realms: The Dark Elf Trilogy, #3; Legend of Drizzt, #3)

The third and final book in the Dark Elf Trilogy follows Drizzt Do'Urden, a drow (dark elf) renegade who has fled the evil underground city of Menzoberranzan to begin a new life on the surface world. Set in the Forgotten Realms, a high-fantasy setting of magic, monsters, and multiple races, the novel traces Drizzt's years-long search for a place to call home, complicated by the fear and hatred that surface dwellers hold toward his kind.

Drizzt sits on a mountainside watching his hundredth sunrise. The painful light is destroying his drow-made equipment: his piwafwi, a magical cloak that shielded him from detection, disintegrates, and his boots and scimitars weaken. He worries that the onyx figurine he uses to summon Guenhwyvar, his magical black panther companion, may also fail. Despite his doubts, Drizzt reaffirms his commitment to the principles that drove him from the Underdark, the vast subterranean realm beneath the surface. On a nearby mountain, a barghest named Ulgulu—a goblinoid monster banished from Gehenna, another plane of existence—watches the same sunrise, close to reaching maturity. Barghests grow strong by devouring life force, and Ulgulu nears this threshold through murder.

In his first months on the surface, Drizzt encounters a band of gnolls, dog-faced humanoids, who offer him an alliance. When he discovers they plan to raid an isolated farmhouse and murder the family, he kills them with Guenhwyvar's help. Uncertain whether his actions were justified, Drizzt spends days observing the Thistledown farming family on the outskirts of the village of Maldobar. Convinced they are good people, he attempts contact, but Connor, the eldest son, charges with a sword. Drizzt disarms Connor without injury, but the terrified children flee.

The village mobilizes. Roddy McGristle, an aggressive bounty hunter, leads a search party. Tephanis, a quickling sprite, a tiny, supernaturally fast creature serving Ulgulu, stabs Drizzt and steals one of his scimitars. In the ensuing fight with Roddy, Drizzt drops a tree on the bounty hunter, costing Roddy an ear and leaving severe facial scars. Ulgulu then exploits the chaos: the barghest shapeshifts into drow form and slaughters the entire Thistledown family, leaving Drizzt's stolen scimitar as evidence. When Drizzt discovers the carnage, he is devastated.

Dove Falconhand, a renowned ranger and sister of Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon, arrives from the city of Sundabar with companions including Kellindil, a surface elf archer. At the Thistledown farm, Dove finds evidence that the barghests, not Drizzt, committed the murders, but Roddy, driven by personal vengeance, insists on pursuing the drow. Meanwhile, Drizzt tracks the murderers to Ulgulu's cave lair and storms it with Guenhwyvar. Despite broken ribs, he kills Kempfana, Ulgulu's barghest brother. Guenhwyvar battles Ulgulu, who transforms into a massive wolf; when the overbalanced beast falls into a gorge and dies, Drizzt flees into the mountains.

Dove's party pursues Drizzt, discovering the barghest corpses along the way. When Drizzt approaches Kellindil one night seeking connection, the elf attacks with hatred, and Drizzt flees without fighting back. The pursuit leads into stone giant territory, where Dove's party is pinned by boulders. Drizzt and Guenhwyvar trigger a massive avalanche to protect the trapped group, risking the drow's own life. Kellindil witnesses this selfless act and chooses to let Drizzt go, leaving a flask of healing potion as a peace offering.

Drizzt reaches Dead Orc Pass, a remote river gorge, and endures a brutal first winter. He shares a cave with a hibernating bear called Bluster, calming the animal through instinctive empathy. Montolio DeBrouchee, a legendary blind ranger living in a fortified evergreen grove nearby, monitors Drizzt through his animal network, especially a great horned owl named Hooter. Kellindil and his elf kin also watch from a distance, secretly leaving firewood outside Drizzt's shelter.

In spring, Drizzt crosses into orc territory and is ambushed. His drow-made scimitar, weakened by months of sunlight, snaps mid-fight. Montolio intervenes with devastating archery and invites Drizzt to his grove. The drow initially refuses, citing the danger he brings to others, but Guenhwyvar's nudging and Montolio's charm wear him down.

Montolio teaches Drizzt the common tongue, literacy, and ranger skills. He gives the drow new scimitars and defeats him in a sparring match fought inside Drizzt's own darkness globe—a sphere of impenetrable magical darkness—proving blindness is no weakness. Over many evenings, Drizzt confides his life story. When Roddy comes searching, Montolio lies, sending the bounty hunter away. A letter from Dove confirms that the barghests murdered the Thistledowns, vindicating Drizzt. Montolio also introduces Drizzt to Mielikki, the goddess of the forest, arguing that gods are personifications of inner principles rather than external tyrants. Drizzt resists at first; his experience of worshiping Lolth, the cruel spider goddess of the drow, has made him distrust all deities. Yet he gradually recognizes that his love of nature and defense of the innocent align with Mielikki's tenets.

Roddy conspires with Graul, the local orc chieftain, who resents Montolio's interference with his raids and accepts Roddy's claims that the drow-ranger alliance threatens his tribe. Graul musters roughly a hundred fighters, worgs (large, evil wolf-like mounts), and a stone giant. Drizzt and Montolio prepare elaborate defenses: bent-tree traps, jaw traps, crossbow lines, and a hidden ranseur, a long pike with barbed hooks. The battle is fierce. Guenhwyvar kills Caroak, a great winter wolf leading the worg pack, and Drizzt lures the stone giant onto the hidden ranseur. The orcs are routed. In the aftermath, Kellindil, who joined the battle as an ally, captures Roddy, but Tephanis frees the bounty hunter, and Roddy kills the elf before fleeing.

Montolio grows frailer and asks Drizzt to promise that when the ranger dies, the drow will seek his place in the wider world. Montolio dies peacefully with the first snow, and Drizzt buries him. Honoring his promise, Drizzt departs in spring.

Years of wandering follow. Every village meets Drizzt with fear and hostility. He joins the Weeping Friars, a band of religious beggars, as their guardian but finds no true friendship. When Tephanis locks Drizzt and the friars inside a tunnel leading to the lair of Hephaestus, a venerable red dragon, Drizzt devises a ruse: drawing on Montolio's dragon lore, he claims to be a black dragon polymorphed into drow form, flattering the vain beast long enough for the group to escape.

The friars buy Drizzt a horse. Inspired by a friar's description of Ten-Towns, in the frozen expanse of Icewind Dale, as a place where rogues find a home, Drizzt rides north. Cassius, the spokesman of Bryn Shander, the principal city, refuses him entry but offers a pragmatic arrangement: Drizzt may settle on Kelvin's Cairn, the solitary mountain overlooking the dwarven vale, as a frontier scout.

On the mountain, Drizzt meets Catti-brie, the spirited eleven-year-old adopted daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer of the local dwarf clan. The girl's innocence reminds Drizzt of an elven child he once saved from slaughter during a drow raid. Over several visits during winter thaws, they become friends. Bruenor, learning of the drow, forbids Catti-brie from visiting. When Roddy arrives and tells Bruenor his version of the Thistledown massacre, Catti-brie breaks her promise and goes to Drizzt, who tells her the truth. She believes him and warns him that McGristle is hunting him.

Roddy ambushes Catti-brie on the trail. Drizzt intervenes, fighting the bounty hunter while avoiding lethal force. When Roddy, pinned with scimitars at his throat, taunts Drizzt to kill him, the drow beats him unconscious and walks away. Bruenor finds Roddy, defeats him, and drives the bounty hunter from the valley.

That evening, Bruenor climbs to a rocky overlook where Drizzt sits, packed and ready to flee. In a rambling, gruff speech, the dwarf admits his assumptions about dark elves have been wrong. He tells Drizzt to watch over Catti-brie and, beneath layers of bluster, grants the drow a place in the community. Drizzt looks out over the lights of Ten-Towns with Guenhwyvar beside him, understanding the essential meaning of the dwarf's words: welcome home.