“Does it matter?” Braelin angrily retorted.
“Am I to expect Tiago or the Xorlarrins to take up your cause?” she replied without hesitation. “They appointed you out of convenience, and resent your presence in their House. They think you Jarlaxle’s spy. And of course, you are.”
“Then you would be wise to fear me,” Braelin countered. “For that makes me valuable to Jarlaxle, does it not?”
The woman seemed less sure suddenly, as did the other three of the patrol group remaining with Braelin.
“You are confused, and with good cause,” Braelin said to the four. He was trying to be somewhat conciliatory here, but also determined to show no sign of weakness. “What is this House Do’Urden? What future might it hold for any of us? Trust me when I tell you that I remain as tentative as any of you—we are pawns of powerful matron mothers, all of us. And our current abode, this House Do’Urden, is viewed as an abomination by many of the powerful Houses.”
“But under the protection of Matron Mother Baenre,” the young woman of House Fey-Branche reminded him. “That is no small thing.”
“Allied with your House,” another added, and he, along with yet another, nodded their agreement at the reminder of the matron mother’s protective shadow.
“That is no small thing, true,” Braelin admitted. “But for how long?”
“You should ask the matron mother,” said the Fey-Branche priestess and she ended with a wicked smile. “I am certain that she will welcome your questions.”
Another of the soldiers, the other female remaining, snickered, but one of the men seemed less amused and revealed that he was far more concerned with Braelin’s point when he asked, “What of Bregan D’aerthe?”
“What of them?”
“Do you plan to continue to pretend that you are not of Jarlaxle’s band?” the drow, an older warrior, pressed. “We all know.”
“And we know, too, that the cadre of nobles of House Do’Urden do not look with favor upon Jarlaxle or his minions,” said the other male.
“Tiago is Baenre, and House Baenre supports Jarlaxle’s endeavors, of course,” Braelin said. “And House Xorlarrin is not at war with Bregan D’aerthe.”
“Not the Houses, but these particulars,” the male replied. “Tiago is Baenre, true, but he has no love for Jarlaxle or any of Jarlaxle’s band. None of them do.”
“They would have cared not at all if you did not return to House Do’Urden,” said the Fey-Branche woman.
“And so perhaps I will care not at all when Matron Mother Baenre looks away from them long enough to allow those who hate this incarnation of House Do’Urden to overrun their—your—compound,” said Braelin. “And where will you turn in that event?”
“It depends what you are offering,” said the older male fighter.
Braelin welcomed their obvious intrigue. He understood that many of the commoners of House Do’Urden would be looking for a way out if an attack came. They knew their own former Houses wouldn’t help them. Any attack on House Do’Urden would surely result from a powerful alliance—likely one that included House Barrison Del’Armgo, second only to House Baenre. What might House Fey-Branche or the scattered refugees of House Xorlarrin do in that event?
He knew he had to let the matter drop, determined not to get too far ahead of anticipated events. He had planted a seed among these four. Let the whispers of a planned assault on the Do’Urden compound fester, and they would come to him, begging.
Bregan D’aerthe could offer them an escape route. All other roads would lead only to death, or worse.
Braelin looked at the older warrior and chortled. “The eight who deserted us assured their participation in the next Do’Urden patrol,” he said.
“Deserted you, you mean,” the Fey-Branche priestess said, and with a laugh she moved to the corner of a building, leaning into the alleyway as if she, too, was thinking of leaving.
Braelin didn’t much like her. If it came to an escape with Bregan D’aerthe, he decided, he would invite that one along then kill her as soon as she believed herself free from the disaster of House Do’Urden.
“As you wish,” he started to say, but he mumbled out the last two words as the priestess’s expression changed to surprise.
The others noticed it, too. All eyes went to that Fey-Branche woman.
She sucked in her breath, eyes going wide, as she jerked back just a bit. Then the source of her discomfort became clear as the tip of a huge spear exploded out of her back, pieces of lung and heart still attached.
Into the air she lifted, her assailant still unseen, and with a flick of the spear shaft, she was flung from the weapon to bounce off the structure across the alleyway and flop grotesquely onto the boulevard.
And then came her assailant: huge and powerful, eight-legged and two-armed.
The four remaining drow gasped in unison at the sight of the mighty drider, and drew their weapons as one. But before any combat could be joined, the air filled with stinging bees—darts from hand crossbows. Braelin and the others, for all their agility, armor, and clever movements, could not escape the swarm.
Braelin was hit several times, and he felt the burn of poison immediately. Being of Bregan D’aerthe, he had been trained in resisting the sleep poison. Not so for one of his companions, who slid down onto the street.
“Form and run!” he told the other two. They started for him, the older male moving well, but the remaining woman strode sluggishly, fighting the call of the poison with every step. She surely wasn’t moving swiftly enough to escape the drider.
It didn’t really matter, though, Braelin realized. The trap had been well-coordinated and every route was blocked now by driders backed by drow.
“Melarni,” Braelin mumbled under his breath. That House of vicious fanatics was known for its driders, and no fewer than four of the abominations skittered out around the trapped patrol.
Four driders backed by drow soldiers against three drow. Braelin glanced around, expecting a second barrage of poisoned darts, and saw just one possibility for escape, back the way they had come. Only a single drider and a single drow enemy had come out that way.
If they could move swiftly and decisively, he, at least, might be able to slip past and run free. He turned to his companions just in time to see the older warrior bring his sword to bear on the slumping, sluggish woman. Braelin realized the man had not been struck at all by any of the darts.
“Second House!” the older warrior cried to the attackers as he cut his companion down. “I serve Matron Mother Mez’Barris!”
And so Braelin Janquay knew he was alone.
He turned and sprinted at the lone drider, dived into a roll to avoid a flying hand crossbow dart, and came up into a sudden charge, his swords working together to turn the creature’s thrusting spear aside, out to his left.
He disengaged his right hand from the parry and leaped up and ahead, stabbing furiously and finding some measure of satisfaction at least when his blade entered the belly of the large half-arachnid creature.
But Braelin was struggling even as he retracted the blade, as filaments filled the air around him and his opponent, magically coagulating into a web.
Braelin growled and rubbed his thumb across the ring on the index finger of his left hand, enacting the magic, just a small spark, but one that lit the web even as it formed. The Bregan D’aerthe scout, knowing what was coming, ducked under his protective piwafwi, and the drider shrieked in sudden stinging pain. Then shrieked again as Braelin scrambled across the beast itself, running along its bent spider legs, his second sword coming in hard to slash the drider’s chest.
Braelin leaped away, thinking to sprint off into the shadows, but where he landed was not the boulevard, as he had expected, but a deep hole into which he tumbled, rolling and skidding to the bottom. Even as he managed to recover from that shocking descent, Braelin looked up to see the hole ringed by drow, half a dozen hand crossbows aimed his way, a trio of wizards and another two priestesses a
lready into spellcasting.
He had nowhere to run.
“You are caught!” one drow warrior cried out, his red eyes flashing.
The older male of Braelin’s group moved up beside that one, glanced down at Braelin, and snickered.
“YOU WILL NOT replace her!” High Priestess Kiriy Xorlarrin said to her younger sister. Kiriy grabbed Matron Mother Darthiir by the arm and thrust her forward. The confused surface elf, looking as always as if she had partaken of far too much Feywine, stared blankly in Saribel’s direction while not actually looking at the priestess.
“Save yourself the disappointment and dismiss that thought now,” Kiriy finished. She spun Dahlia to face her and gently stroked the dazed elf’s face. “She is pretty, is she not? The perfect plaything.”
“She is the Matron Mother of House Do’Urden,” Saribel managed to gabble.
“She is Matron Mother Baenre’s toy and nothing more, you silly child,” Kiriy corrected. “Is that why you are so stupid as to believe that you are destined to lead House Do’Urden, because you believe that this, this, this creature from the sunlit world is somehow taken seriously among the matron mothers?”
“Quite the opposite,” Saribel said. “I believe it because Darthiir is not!”
But Kiriy laughed at her. “Then why do you suppose that you will replace her? Do you think the rules that apply to the other Houses have any meaning here in this abomination called House Do’Urden?”
“No, because they do not,” Saribel argued. “I am the wife of Tiago Baenre, and so I am Baenre, and so I am favored …”
Kiriy’s laughter stopped her.
“Understand this, my young and foolish sister, when Matron Mother Darthiir falls, as surely she will, it will be because Matron Mother Baenre is wise enough to no longer afford this iblith her protection. In that event, Matron Mother Baenre will have turned House Do’Urden over to Matron Mother Zeerith most of all, and which of us do you suppose our great mother might decide is most worthy to serve as Matron Mother of House Do’Urden in her continuing absence?”
Saribel didn’t answer, but silently reminded herself not to put too much stock into Kiriy’s predictions. Something was wrong here, and out of kilter. Saribel had not heard from Matron Mother Zeerith since the fall of Q’Xorlarrin—rumors said that Zeerith was hiding in the Underdark under the protection of, or at least with information supplied by, Bregan D’aerthe.
“If that is the case, then Matron Mother Zeerith will return,” she said meekly.
“She will not,” Kiriy taunted. “You will likely never see our mother again in this city. Her ways have long been gossiped about unfavorably by the other matron mothers, and now that Q’Xorlarrin has failed, more than one matron mother will think Matron Mother Zeerith a fine target for earning them the favor of the Spider Queen. Our path is to hide under the banner of Do’Urden—Xorlarrin is dead in Menzoberranzan. The sooner you understand that, the better your chances are of surviving.” She paused and grinned wickedly, making sure that Saribel was listening very intently before clarifying, “Of surviving my rule.”
Saribel left that meeting more shaken than she had been in many tendays. She had just started to find solid ground beneath her feet, had just begun to assert herself and press forward with daring plans to someday rule House Do’Urden.
And now entered Kiriy, her oldest sister, the First Priestess of House Xorlarrin, with a greater chance of ascension than she.
Saribel found herself wishing that Matron Mother Zeerith would return and assume command of the House. Surely that would destroy her own plans to become Matron Mother Do’Urden, perhaps forevermore, but better Zeerith and her even hand than the volatile Kiriy.
“You are a Baenre now,” Saribel whispered repeatedly, trying to convince herself that she would survive the reign of Matron Mother Kiriy.
Or maybe, she thought, she could quietly whisper in Tiago’s ear, and let Kiriy deal with his family should it come to that.
“I will be Matron Mother Do’Urden,” she stated, nodding. She thought then that perhaps she should go out into the Underdark to find her mother—she could preemptively warn Matron Mother Zeerith that allowing Kiriy to assume the throne of House Do’Urden could bring dire ramifications to the remnants of House Xorlarrin.
But she shook her head at that unsettling possibility. She would throw in with Tiago, she decided. If Kiriy got in her way to the throne of House Do’Urden, Saribel would find a way to use Tiago to be rid of the witch.
Saribel was pondering the benefits of being part of three separate families—Xorlarrin, Baenre, and Do’Urden—when word came of an urgent meeting in the audience chamber. She rushed across the compound to find Kiriy, Ravel, Tiago, and Jaemas already in attendance, along with a couple of House soldiers who had recently returned from the outer corridor patrol. Matron Mother Darthiir was there, too, sitting in the back like an ornament—and what more might she be?
The patrol members were in the middle of recounting their tale when Saribel neared the group—they hadn’t bothered to wait for her, clearly. She shot a sharp glance at Kiriy, who pretended not to notice.
Saribel sighed, but it was cut short when she finally realized the subject of the tale.
And the weight of it.
These drow, a formal patrol of House Do’Urden, clearly marked as such, had been attacked in the streets of Menzoberranzan!
“We must inform the Ruling Council immediately,” Saribel blurted.
“Do shut up,” said Kiriy, and when Saribel looked to Tiago, she found him looking back at her with open disgust.
“Likely rogues,” Kiriy went on. “What of Braelin Janquay?”
The scouts shrugged and shook their heads—too conveniently, Saribel thought, as if they had been coached.
“Was it Bregan D’aerthe, then?” Kiriy asked Tiago.
“To what end?” Jaemas added, his skepticism clear.
“Jarlaxle hates Tiago—that is common knowledge,” said Kiriy.
“Jarlaxle sides with the heretic Drizzt,” Tiago added.
Saribel stared at her husband, trying to read him. Given his honest reactions and expressions to Kiriy’s startling deduction that Bregan D’aerthe might have perpetrated the ambush, Tiago didn’t seem to be in formal league with Kiriy, thank Lolth. But he was no admirer of Jarlaxle. And particularly not now, when he was convinced that Jarlaxle had played more than a minor role in foiling his attempts to kill the heretic in Gauntlgrym and elsewhere.
Equally intriguing to Saribel was Jaemas’s reaction, though. He clearly wasn’t buying this theory Kiriy had floated, and indeed, seemed more than a little suspicious of Kiriy herself.
That might be a lead worth following, she noted.
“We should use this to defer from any further patrol responsibilities,” Kiriy said.
“We should prepare for an assault on our House,” Jaemas countered. “This was a brazen attack in a time when the Ruling Council has forbidden such infighting.”
“Bregan D’aerthe does not listen to the Ruling Council,” Kiriy replied.
“If it was Bregan D’aerthe,” Jaemas countered. “We have no evidence—”
“Who gave you permission to speak to me in such a manner?” Kiriy asked bluntly. “You are a nephew to Matron Mother Zeerith, and with no direct line to the throne of House Xorlarrin, yet you address the first priestess of your House with such familiarity?”
Jaemas shrank back. “Your pardon, First Priestess Kiriy.”
“If it was Bregan D’aerthe, then they have Braelin, apparently,” Ravel remarked. “In that case, they know much of our House defenses.”
“A third of our warriors were culled from the ranks of Bregan D’aerthe,” Tiago said. “They know everything of our defenses, and are inside our line already.”
Despite his dramatics, the others really didn’t seem too alarmed at his claim. Bregan D’aerthe had indeed supplied many of the House Do’Urden soldiers—in the beginning of the new House, Jarlaxle himself had
been among that group. But Jarlaxle had slipped away and had replaced nearly all of his Bregan D’aerthe veterans with new recruits plucked from the Stenchstreets, Houseless rogues who offered little threat to House Do’Urden. Indeed, if it came to a fight with Bregan D’aerthe or anyone else, those new Do’Urden recruits who did not outright flee would almost surely fight for this House, their only House, their only real chance to survive with any dignity in what might come after.
Saribel found herself off-balance, as did Jaemas and Ravel, she noted. She would be wise to hold some private meetings with those two, perhaps.
“AND NOW YOU serve me,” Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn said to Braelin Janquay.
The beaten rogue stood naked, his arms stretched out to the sides by taut chains affixed to stout metal poles. Two of Zhindia’s priestesses sat at the base of those poles, occasionally casting minor arcane enchantments: stinging jolts of lightning coursed the metal to Braelin’s singed and smoking wrists.
They cast their little spikes of torture quite often—too often for them to be actually casting the spells. Likely they possessed magical items with the magic stored for easy access, such as rings or wands.
Or more likely, Braelin realized, the brutal Melarni had constructed this torture location right in their chapel, with such magic built into the securing posts.
He wanted to get a look at the contraptions, out of simple curiosity and a desire to be distracted, but every time his eye wavered from the specter of Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn, who was sitting on a wide-backed chair with its metal twisted and etched to resemble a spider’s web with a thousand arachnids scrambling about, the priestess behind him whipped him with her scourge.
Braelin had not been very familiar with the Melarni in his days in Menzoberranzan. Like every male in the city who was not of House Melarn, he wanted nothing to do with the Lolth zealots. They were a particularly cruel lot, even by the standards of Menzoberranzan.
And they loved their driders, and had warped more drow into the eight-legged abominations than any other House in the city—than any ten Houses combined.
Maestro Page 17
