“Tough stones to crack, both one of them,” said Horgar, who stood immediately to Nimor’s left.
The gray dwarf prince came barely to the drow’s waist but had wider shoulders than the slender Nimor. He scowled down at the map, absently rubbing his bald head with stubby fingers. His two guards—duergar like himself, one of them with a scar that stretched from chin to ear along the cheekbone—kept a wary eye on the pair of half-demons that stood on the opposite side of the map.
“Quite so, Crown Prince,” replied Nimor. “Which is why I want the duergar to lead the assault on Tier Breche. A frontal assault down the tunnel from the north. Your troops will establish a siege wall, then, from behind it, use catapults to lob stonefire bombs into Sorcere and Arach-Tinilith, reducing them to a smoking ruin.”
“Easily said,” Horgar challenged, “but not easily done. That tunnel will be thick with jade spiders. We may be able to smash our way through one or two of them but not all.”
Chuckling, Nimor reached into a pocket and pulled out half a dozen flat ovals of green jade, each pierced by a hole through which a silver chain had been threaded and inscribed with a name. Holding them by their chains, Nimor jiggled them so they tinkled together.
“Thanks to an associate who’s managed to penetrate deep into Menzoberranzan, I’m able to guarantee you they won’t be a problem,” he told the duergar.
The scarred prince snorted and said, “And where will the tanarukks be while we’re making our attack? Bravely bringing up the rear?”
This elicited a growl from Kaanyr Vhok, who bared perfect teeth and thumped the hilt of the rune-inscribed sword he held against his golden breastplate.
“My Scoured Legion could outfight your mushroom-men any day,” he growled, glaring angrily across the map at the scarred duergar. “Why, even our orcs would be a match for—”
A tug on his arm from Aliisza stopped him in mid bluster. He glared at her but listened as she whispered in his ear, then slowly lowered his sword.
“Gentlemen, please,” Nimor said. “Hear me out.” He turned to Vhok. “The Scoured Legion will indeed be involved in the fight. You will take Donigarten, the city’s food and water supply, then fall upon Qu’ellarz’orl from the east. That will cause the matron mothers to withdraw their defenders south, allowing the duergar to take up positions in the north. But not all of the duergar. One company, at least, must march together with the tanarukks, spread amongst their ranks to give the impression that our force as a whole is committed to an attack on Menzoberranzan’s First House.”
Vhok narrowed his eyes and asked, “We are to be a mere distraction?”
“Not at all,” Nimor assured him, a twinkle in his eye. “You also have a chance at victory—an excellent chance. I’ve taken steps to take House Baenre out of the fight with a little surprise that I’ve got planned for its matron mother. Once Triel is eliminated, the other females of House Baenre will begin vying for her throne. The companies each commands will begin fighting each other—which will keep them too busy to bother about something so insignificant as defending their city.
“When the other noble Houses see Baenre in disarray, they’ll sense its weakness and strike. One or more of them will try to usurp Baenre’s position as First House. While they’re busy fighting each other, Lord Vhok’s troops can swoop in and seize Qu’ellarz’orl.”
Vhok scowled and said, “An interesting theory.”
“It’s not just theory,” Nimor countered. He paused to brushed rock dust off the sleeve of his immaculately tailored gray shirt. “It’s drow nature. We’re like spiders reacting to the twitching of a web. When we think we have our prey at our mercy, we strike.
“Only this time,” Nimor said, “the prey will be the drow themselves. Menzoberranzan will fall. I guarantee it.”
Triel coldly regarded the prisoner who had been brought before her: a young male drow. He lay on his back on the floor of her audience chamber, wrists bound tightly behind him and ankles likewise tied above his bare feet. His black pants and shirt hung in tatters, the slashes revealing a myriad of lacerations that dribbled blood onto the floor. The hair on one side of his head had been burned down to stubble, and his face was covered in blisters. One eye was fused shut, its eyelid blistered and weeping, but the other glared up at Triel with undiminished defiance.
Triel crinkled her nose at the stench of burned hair and flesh and toyed with a perfectly balanced throwing dagger—the only one still in the fellow’s bandoleer when he was captured. She could tell by the tingle it sent through her fingers that it was magic—as had been the blades that had killed four of her elite guard.
“This is an assassin’s weapon,” she observed, handing it to one of the females who stood on either side of her: two of the House guard who attended her at all times, magical shields and maces at the ready.
A third member of the guard—an officer—stepped forward to conclude her report.
“The intruder was captured on the fifth level, Matron Baenre,” she said. “We believe he was trying to reach your private quarters.”
Triel stared at the officer, who, despite all that was happening, looked as if she was freshly turned out for inspection. Her adamantine chain mail was a glossy black, her long white hair neatly braided. She stood at rigid attention, a polished mace hanging from her belt and a hand crossbow strapped to the back of each wrist. Five black spiders, embroidered into the shoulder of her silver tunic, proclaimed her rank.
“How did he get inside, Captain . . . ?” Triel let the sentence trail off, an obvious invitation for a name.
“Captain Maignith,” the woman answered, meeting Triel’s eyes for precisely the amount of time that was appropriate. “He didn’t get in through any of the lower doors. I questioned the guards—thoroughly. All were at their posts, and the wards are still in place. He didn’t slip past us. He must have gotten in from above.”
That said, Captain Maignith glanced at a second officer—a lieutenant of the lizard riders—who stood several paces farther back, as befitted a male. He wore tight-fitting, padded leather breeches and a piwafwi trimmed in silver. He held his plumed silver helmet in the crook of one arm and seemed to be having trouble looking Triel in the eye.
“Matron Mother, I . . . My riders saw nothing on the outer wall,” he stammered.
Triel noted the shift of words with amusement. A magic earring told her the lieutenant was speaking the truth—as he believed it to be. She could hear none of the echoing quaver that accompanied a lie.
She toyed with the handle of the whip of fangs that hung from her belt, twin to the one carried by her sister Quenthel. The vipers hissed softly in anticipation, sensing her desire. The lieutenant deserved punishment—and would receive it, in due time.
Her hand fell away from the whip.
“Go and fetch your lizard,” she said.
The lieutenant hesitated a moment too long, a mix of relief and puzzlement on his face. Then, suddenly remembering his place, he bowed deeply and backed from the room.
The captive smirked, obviously pleased with the concern his intrusion had caused.
Not liking the look in his eye, Triel drew a wand of braided iron that hung beside her whip. The tip of the wand was set with a tiny white feather, which she pointed at the captive as she spoke a command word. No visible force came from the wand, but the effect was instantaneous. The captive screamed—a sound of acute terror that filled the audience chamber—and drew his legs up to his chest. Had his hands been free, he would no doubt have wrapped them around his legs. He rocked back and forth, whimpering. When Maignith nudged him with the toe of her boot he screamed anew and rolled away, leaving a stain of pungent urine among the blood spatters on the floor.
Triel sighed, hoping she wasn’t wasting her time. There were so many other matters in need of her attention. On the outskirts of Menzoberranzan, an army of duergar, tanarukks and other, lesser races were preparing to assault the city proper. Triel should have been in her war room, communicating with
the officers who would hold the invaders at bay, but there had been an assassination attempt on her—not nearly the first, of course—and she needed to know who was behind it.
Had one of her sisters decided that she could do a better job as matron mother? Did Triel need to strengthen her defenses from within? Or had the assassin been sent by one of the other noble Houses? House Barrison Del’Armgo, perhaps? That seemed unlikely, since the second-ranking House was just as badly off as House Baenre just then. After the disastrous battle at the Pillars of Woe, Mez’Barris Armgo had come straggling back with what remained of her forces—and the sorry tale of how her troops had been driven up a side tunnel and lost onequarter of their forces and all of their wagon trains.
As she waited for the lieutenant to return with his lizard, Triel walked to the thronelike chair that had once been her mother’s. Shaped like an enormous spider and forged from solid adamantine, it balanced on eight curved legs. The chair had been imbued with powerful spells, not the least of which was a magical symbol that would instantly turn any attack directed at the matron mother back upon whomever had been foolish enough to initiate it. The chair was a symbol of Lolth, but even though the goddess had fallen disturbingly silent, its magic still functioned, since it was powered by wizardry.
As Triel settled cross-legged onto the chair—her two personal guards shifting to stay on either side of her—she thought of Gromph, and wondered, once again, where the city’s archmage had disappeared to.
The door to the audience chamber opened, and the musty smell of lizard wafted into the audience room. The lieutenant walked in, leading his mount by the reins. The lizard squeezed in through the door, the sticky pads on its feet making faint sucking noises as they were lifted from the stone floor. With a body twice as long as a drow—three times as long, if the lashing tail was counted—it was a formidable sight. Its leathery skin glowed with a sparkling blue luminescence that faintly illuminated the otherwise dark room. As it scuttled past the captive, tongue flickering in and out, it twitched its head to the side, inhaling the man’s scent. The assassin, still feeling the effects of Triel’s wand, whimpered and cringed away from it.
Triel drummed her fingers on the cold metal of the throne.
“So,” she said, making her observations aloud. “The assassin couldn’t have climbed the outside of the stalagmite. If he had, the lizards would have picked up his spoor.”
The lieutenant closed his eyes in relief.
“Which begs the question,” Triel continued. “How did he get in?”
Beside the lieutenant, the lizard’s tongue continued to flicker in and out, licking at the blood smeared across the floor. Its round, black eyes stared, unblinking, at the captive.
Triel smiled.
“Your mount appears hungry, Lieutenant,” she observed. “Why don’t you slip the muzzle and let it feed—on a nonessential part, of course.”
Grinning, the lieutenant did as he was ordered.
The lizard twitched its tail in anticipation, its luminescent skin darkening momentarily to a deeper blue, but it waited for its master’s hand signal before it sprang forward. Teeth cracked through bone with a loud crunch, severing the assassin’s bound legs at the ankles. The assassin screamed once as his feet disappeared down the lizard’s throat, then he fainted.
Grabbing the lizard’s reins, the lieutenant pulled it back.
Triel looked dispassionately at the blood that was pumping onto the floor.
“Staunch those wounds,” she ordered.
Obediently, Maignith stepped forward and tapped each of the assassin’s severed ankles with the head of her mace. The magic possessed by the weapon caused the head to flare brightly, cauterizing the wounds. When they stopped sizzling, Maignith grabbed what remained of the assassin’s hair and bent his head back. She slapped him awake.
The assassin’s one functional eyelid fluttered, then opened. His burned face, once a throbbing red, had gone gray.
“Do you want to live?” Triel asked.
The assassin seemed to have recovered, at last, from the effects of the wand.
“You’re going to kill me, no matter what,” he croaked.
“Not necessarily,” Triel answered. “You obviously have some talent, to get as close to my quarters as you did. Perhaps I’ll recruit you for my House.”
“With no feet?”
“We have regenerative magic,” Triel answered.
“Not any more,” the assassin said, wincing as he tried to smile. “Lolth is dead.”
Triel shot to her feet, yanking out her whip, and shrieked, “Blasphemer!”
For a heartbeat or two, the vipers in the whip lashed, hissing their fury. How dare this male speak to her like that? She, who had been first in Lolth’s favor and who was Matron Mother of House Baenre. A distant corner of her mind recognized that fear was driving her fury. The lack of a report from Quenthel was filling her with worry, increasing as each cycle passed. But if Lolth awoke from her silence and learned that Triel had not punished the male for his insolence . . .
Then Triel realized she was being goaded. The assassin was trying to draw her closer to him. She couldn’t see what attack he could possibly mount, wounded and bound with magical rope as he was, but she hadn’t survived so many centuries by underestimating her foes. She stroked each of the vipers in turn to soothe them—and herself—then she tucked the whip away.
Lolth’s grace might be out of Triel’s reach—for the moment—but Triel had other magical abilities at her disposal. She used one of them, the power of her voice. Dropping into a husky, seductive tone that vibrated with magical energy, she began planting a suggestion in the captive’s mind.
“You might as well tell me who sent you,” she told him. “If it was a matron mother of another House, she’s safe enough. I’m not about to waste my troops in striking back at her with this siege on. If it was one of my sisters, you have as much to gain by serving me as you do by serving her. So tell me . . . who hired you?”
“I am no mere hireling,” the man gritted.
Ah, pride. Triel could work with that.
“Of course not. You’re proud of who—and what—you are. Why don’t you share this information with me? Surely telling me about yourself won’t betray anything about the matron who sent you.”
“I serve no female,” the assassin spat. “Nor will any male, soon enough. The Masked Lord will see to that.”
A ripple of tension passed through the room as the officers and guards reacted to the name. With an effort, Triel kept her temper. Instead she focused on the information he’d just let slip.
Vhaeraun’s worship was strictly forbidden in Menzoberranzan. Admitting to it was tantamount to suicide—slow suicide, since its worshipers were typically tortured to death in an effort to root out the names of other blasphemers. The assassin had just signed his own death warrant, which meant that any promises Triel made to spare his life would be ineffective.
No, he wanted to die. And slowly.
Triel stared down at him.
“If you hope to be rewarded by Vhaeraun, think again,” she told him. “You failed in your mission. You’ll be lucky if your god lifts his mask to spit upon you. And your fellow conspirators are feeble and weak. Just look what they sent to do the job, a mere boy? They’re not even worth my contempt.”
The assassin’s good eye blazed.
“Laugh while you can,” he spat back at her. “You’ll be weeping soon enough, when the Jaezred Chaulssin come to call.”
Triel smiled to herself as she pondered the name. It was obviously an organization of some sort—perhaps one that had arisen during the slave rebellion that had been so recently put down. Could they be some ragged refugees from the ruins of the city called Chaulssin?
“I’ve never heard of this Jaezred Chaulssin,” she said disdainfully. “They’re obviously as inconsequential as they are ineffective.”
The captive gave a croaking laugh and said, “Hardly ineffective. My master brought an army to
your doorstep.”
Triel seized upon the information.
“Your master is a duergar then . . . or a tanarukk? Kaanyr Vhok?”
“Much more than that. Much more than that mercenary Vhok. My master has powers that you could only dream of. It was he who engineered your army’s defeat at the battle of the Pillars of Woe.”
Triel raised an eyebrow and asked, “Oh, did he?” She could guess who the assassin was referring to but needed confirmation. “Then no doubt he’d like me to know his name—to know which male dared attack Matron Mother Baenre in her own home. Or is he afraid of me, as all good little drow males should be?”
That goad, combined with Triel’s magical suggestion, tipped the balance.
“My master is no mere drow,” he said. “Nimor is—”
He bit off the rest, aware that he had already revealed too much.
“Nimor?” Triel growled. The name was unfamiliar. Then she realized who it must be. “You mean Captain Zhayemd of Agrach Dyrr, don’t you? The traitor who led the army of duergar to our very doorstep?”
The prisoner nodded defiantly and said, “Your master, soon enough.”
Triel thought about that for a moment. Zhayemd was clearly an assumed name—had the assassin’s leader also assumed the name of the Sixth House? She wondered how deeply Agrach Dyrr’s treachery truly lay. Had Nimor persuaded the soldiers to attack their allies on his own, or had he the backing of the House itself? An important question, since Agrach Dyrr’s household was under siege by forces of Menzoberranzan that could better be used to battle the duergar and tanarukks.
R. A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Extinction, Annihilation, Resurrection Page 7
