Yes, he's a Master at Melee-Magthere and one of the main characters in War of the Spider Queen. He's a commoner and surprisingly nice for a drow, but not really "good" either. Like Zak, he's more the kind of person who does what they have to do without liking it. Not to mention that he is a great fighter. For some reason I always imagined that Zaknafein might have been one of Ryld's teachers at the Academy. Canon never even hints to that, but Ryld and Zak have a lot of things in common, they'd get along perfectly. I can easily see them having a rather close mentor-student-relationship.

And don't worry, Zak will be very annoyed by Drizzt very soon. He doesn't like it when people are bitchy to HIS Artemis. ^^