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  She was barefoot, Quenthel and Zeerith both noted then, and somehow that seemed even more fitting for this one, like a promise of something unbridled and so very pleasing.

  The door closed, but it took Zeerith a while to compose herself and look back at her host.

  “She is quite … lovely,” Matron Mother Zeerith said, and Quenthel understood well that her counterpart had to pause there to search for the right word, because “lovely” certainly didn’t seem sufficient.

  “Do you plan to tell them I perished in the fight?” Zeerith asked, and she shook her head and seemed removed from the enchantment of Yvonnel then, and apparently had forgotten all around the surprising revelation of that one’s parentage.

  Was Yvonnel’s appearance that distracting, Quenthel wondered, or had the young witch cast a spell to remove thought from Zeerith’s mind?

  “I do not believe that to be our best course, if I may offer advice, Matron Mother,” Zeerith rambled on.

  Was Yvonnel powerful enough to do that so casually? To an accomplished matron mother of a powerful House?

  Yes, she was, Quenthel realized with a sigh.

  “If you have other designs …” Zeerith offered, somewhat sheepishly.

  “No, no, my mind was other-where. So much has happened and so much is yet to come. You are correct, my friend, of course. Matron Mother Zeerith is not to be rubbed from the ranks of Menzoberranzan—hardly that! You will circle and reside outside the city and together we will find opportunity.”

  “While my children ascend,” Zeerith added with her eyes sparkling.

  “High Priestess Kiriy is in House Do’Urden?”

  Zeerith nodded, then asked, “First Priestess?”

  “Saribel is First Priestess,” Quenthel corrected her, somewhat sternly. “And that is something Kiriy must understand and accept.”

  “Yes, Matron Mother,” Zeerith said and respectfully lowered her eyes. It was no surprise. Though Kiriy was far more accomplished than Saribel, and much older, indeed the eldest daughter of the House, Saribel had something that Kiriy did not: a Baenre husband.

  “When time for ascent comes, who will it be?” Zeerith asked.

  “That is a discussion for another day,” Quenthel replied. “I know that you favor Kiriy.”

  “Saribel is a bit of a dullard, I must admit,” said Zeerith. “It pains me to say that, but would that Lolth had accepted her as my sacrifice instead of Parabrak, my third-born son.”

  “Pray to Lolth to forgive your words,” Quenthel said half-jokingly—but only half.

  “I wish I could join you at the Ruling Council,” Zeerith said. “If only to see the face of the witch Mez’Barris when she is formally told that Tsabrak Xorlarrin will assume the mantle of Archmage of Menzoberranzan.”

  “You will witness the ceremony,” Quenthel promised and Matron Mother Zeerith swelled with pride.

  “THEY ARE SUCH petty creatures,” Yvonnel remarked to Minolin Fey in the anteroom, where the young upstart had enchanted a scrying pool so that she could look in on the conversation in the Baenre audience chamber. “They puff and preen over the most unremarkable and fleeting things.”

  Yvonnel gave a sigh and turned to her mother, who stood staring.

  “How did you do that?” Minolin Fey asked. “How do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “All the time,” the woman went on. “In there, with Matron Mother Zeerith. With all you see—or all who see you. Man and woman alike, taken aback, thrown from their guard, with a simple glimpse upon you.”

  “Why Mother, do you not think me beautiful?” Yvonnel coyly asked.

  Minolin Fey could only shake her head and reply, her voice barely a whisper, “Many drow are beautiful.” She kept shaking her head. She knew there had to be more to it than that.

  “Your mother, Matron Mother Byrtyn,” Yvonnel began, “she is a painter, yes? I have heard that some of her portraits hang in this very house.”

  “She is quite talented, yes.”

  “Get her, then. I wish to pose for her.”

  “I do not know that she—”

  “She will,” Yvonnel said. “Tell her the matron mother insists upon it, and that she will be well rewarded.”

  Minolin Fey seemed off-balance then. Matron Mother Byrtyn had not even seen this child yet, her granddaughter, who should be no more than a toddler.

  “Matron Mother Byrtyn was told of me by the avatar of Lolth in the parlor of her own House,” Yvonnel reminded Minolin Fey. “Tell her that she will come to House Baenre the day after tomorrow, after Tsabrak is named as Archmage of Menzoberranzan, and she will begin her work. And she will return every day thereafter until it is completed.”

  Minolin Fey stared blankly.

  “I am not asking you,” Yvonnel warned. She turned back to the scrying pool, then sighed with disgust and cleared the image from the water with a wave of her hand.

  “So boring and petty,” she said as she pushed past Minolin Fey and skipped to the door at the far end of the room.

  “You speak of the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan,” Minolin Fey reminded her.

  “Yes,” Yvonnel answered. “And why?”

  She shrugged, winked, and exited, leaving Minolin Fey to stand there dumbfounded with that simple yet devastating question hanging over her. She glanced back at the unremarkable water in the bowl. Minolin Fey couldn’t begin to cast a clairvoyance dweomer powerful enough to get past Quenthel Baenre’s wards, as Yvonnel had so easily done. She considered the conversation in the other room. The incessant plotting and conniving, the desperate pursuit of a goal that would often be nothing more than the platform from which to pursue another goal.

  “Why?” she whispered through her own frown.

  FROM THE BALCONY of House Do’Urden, the Xorlarrin sisters watched the ceremony across the way. Ravel and Jaemas were there, on the grounds of Sorcere, as was Tiago, whose presence had been commanded by the matron mother.

  “It was always Matron Mother Zeerith’s dream, of course,” Saribel said when a great burst of fireworks exploded up by the ceiling, shooting from the alcove of Tier Breche, the raised region that held the three Houses of the drow academy. “To see a Xorlarrin rightfully in place as the Archmage of Menzoberranzan …”

  “Better in these times than not at all, I suppose,” said a less-than-enthusiastic Kiriy.

  “Better regardless,” Saribel corrected. “Why would a Xorlarrin noblewoman wear such a frown on this day?”

  “Dear sister, shut up.”

  Saribel sputtered for a moment before declaring, “I am the First Priestess of House Do’Urden.”

  Kiriy turned slowly to regard her and looked her up and down. If she was impressed at all, she surely didn’t show it. “House Do’Urden …” she whispered quietly and dismissively.

  “It was a terrible fight?” Saribel probed, trying to find the root of her sister’s anger.

  Kiriy looked at her with puzzlement.

  “In Q’Xorlarrin,” Saribel clarified.

  “Hardly a fight,” the older sister replied. She looked back to the distant ceremony. “More like a whimper and a retreat.”

  “Do you think Matron Mother Zeerith erred in surrendering the—”

  “I think that if all the Xorlarrin nobles were in Q’Xorlarrin, as they should have been, and if Menzoberranzan had offered proper support instead of sending an army of demon beasts, too busy chewing the flesh of each other to understand our enemy, then you and I would not be having this conversation.”

  The blunt words and determined tone set Saribel back on her heels.

  “So now here we are,” Kiriy went on, “anointed nobles of the wicked joke that is named House Do’Urden.”

  “Whose matron mother sits on the Ruling Council,” Saribel reminded her, and Kiriy snorted.

  “Matron Mother Darthiir’s reign will be short,” Saribel added.

  “Oh indeed,” said Kiriy. She backed away a step and looked Saribel up and down, smiling as if sh
e knew something her sister did not. “And you are First Priestess Saribel, whose tenure will be long, if you are wise.”

  Saribel felt very small suddenly, and very vulnerable. Her thoughts went back to her childhood, when Kiriy used to discipline her mightily and mercilessly and often—so often! Under Kiriy’s stern guidance even the slightest infraction of etiquette would get the child Saribel beaten to unconsciousness, or bitten by a snake-headed scourge.

  Just looking at Kiriy then made Saribel’s blood burn with the memories of that awful poison, made her throat dry at the feeling of the fiery vomit burning all the way up her throat.

  “Whose tenure,” Kiriy had said, and not “whose reign.”

  Saribel’s thoughts whirled in a hundred different directions. She wanted to speak with Matron Mother Zeerith, but she knew Zeerith would be secretly out of the city that same day and might not return for years, or decades even.

  She thought she should go to the matron mother, but realized that Quenthel Baenre would more likely murder her than aid her.

  Tiago might be the answer, she realized, and that thought troubled her more than any other. Her only path to the throne of House Do’Urden would be beside Tiago, and he, not she, would have to forge the trail. Saribel hated that thought, hated the notion that Tiago would hold sway over her even if she realized her highest ambition and became Matron Mother Do’Urden.

  How many years would she have to suffer him beside her?

  A loud boom shook the balcony, and the whole of the city, the final burst of celebratory fireworks for the appointment of Archmage Tsabrak Xorlarrin.

  Saribel again glanced at Kiriy, whose eyes gleamed as she fixed them upon the distant ceremony. Saribel was not close to her brother Tsabrak in any way. He was older, the eldest of the Xorlarrin children, but only a few years senior to Kiriy. The two of them had been more parent than sibling to Saribel and Ravel, with Berellip in the middle, always pitting the older Xorlarrin children against the younger two, particularly against Saribel.

  It occurred to Saribel only then that with Tsabrak’s ascension and Matron Mother Zeerith’s expected long absence, Kiriy had just gained a mighty ally.

  Perhaps, Saribel thought, she would be wise not to covet the untimely demise of Matron Mother Darthiir Do’Urden.

  CHAPTER 5

  The End Straightaway

  THEY WERE OF CLAN BATTLEHAMMER. THIS HE KNEW AS HE SILENTLY slipped past the torn dwarf body. Stokely Silverstream had warned of this. They had found some of the Icewind Dale dwarves battered but alive in the tunnels immediately around the Forge Room and the chambers the drow House had taken as its home.

  But for those deeper in the mines …

  The Hunter looked at the ankle cuff binding the dwarf to the stone. The poor fellow had nearly torn his foot off trying to slip free of it.

  Because he had known, as the Hunter knew now.

  The tunnels were thick with demons.

  Around a corner in the low lichen glow, the Hunter saw another dwarf victim, or pieces of the poor lass, at least. He slid Taulmaril back over his shoulder and drew out his scimitars. He wanted to see the beasts up close.

  He wanted to feel the heat of their spilling blood.

  This was the darkness of the Underdark, where Abyssal creatures were surely at home. But this was the home of the drow, too, and the Hunter was their perfect incarnation.

  He caught a snuffling sound up ahead, around a left-hand corner, and recognized that some beast had caught his scent. The corridor ended at that corner, but went to the right as well, so going fast around it would expose his back to any allies of the creature.

  He glanced back at the torn dwarf, and he cared.

  He glanced ahead at the intersection, imagined the potential trap, and the Hunter did not care.

  He went around the corner in a blur, hands working furiously before he ever came in sight of the creature, scoring a first hit before he realized the identity of this demon, a balgura, a dwarf-like thug two feet taller than the Hunter and thrice his girth, and that bulk all muscle and heavy bone.

  Icingdeath dug into the demon’s shoulder, and the brute howled when the scimitar bit at its Abyssal core. Around came the beast, a huge hammer swinging, and the Hunter dived back into a roll, disengaging his blade. The corridor shook violently under the weight of that blow. Stones and dirt tumbled from above.

  And the Hunter realized the trap as he came around, noting a trio of emaciated manes ambling in at him. He started for the balgura but cut back fast, spinning and slashing, then boring ahead, his blades tearing and chopping with every step, sending bits of these least demons flying.

  He went through them like a mole through soft dirt, burrowing and chopping and shoving aside the dying husks. He heard the heavy footsteps of the balgura behind him and thought to dive into a roll and bring forth his bow.

  But no, this was personal.

  He wanted to feel the heat of its spilling blood.

  He stopped and spun, ducking so low that his bum touched the stone floor, the heavy hammer sweeping over his head to smash into the corridor wall once more.

  Up came the Hunter, flipping his scimitars in his hands and digging their tips into the heavyset demon with overhand chops, walking them up the way he might use them to climb an ice sheet.

  On pure instinct, before he was even consciously aware of the move, he threw his legs out behind him and up high, his form parallel to the floor, and the backhand swing of the lumbering demon swiped harmlessly below him.

  His feet touched down and he quick-stepped forward, but threw his shoulders back tearing free the blades and rolling straight back to avoid another corridor-rattling swing.

  The opponents paused and squared off and the Hunter saw pain in the balgura’s black eyes, and saw the lines of blood streaming from the wounds, particularly the deep shoulder cuts. And the Hunter felt that blood on his own bare forearms, and he was glad.

  In he charged as the balgura brought its heavy hammer behind it for an overhead chop. The Hunter’s blades worked a dizzying blur, stabbing and slashing, and into the air he went, diving forward, scimitars crossed. He passed over the squat creature and tucked fast, setting the crook of his blades against the rising warhammer.

  He lifted over the warhammer, twisting and pressing, and only finally releasing it as he spun to land lightly. Not so agile was the balgura, caught by surprise by the bold and speedy move, its balance and weight all askew. It hopped weirdly, barely able to still bring the hammer over its head, and it stumbled as it did, crashing shoulder-first into the corridor wall.

  With a roar of protest, the demon bounced off that stone and whirled about.

  “I wear no shackles!” proclaimed the Hunter, who was too close by then. In bore his blades, and this time, when Icingdeath found the Abyssal creature’s throat, the Hunter did not retract. He pressed in all the harder, Twinkle working independently to keep the demon’s grasping hand aside, and to repeatedly dart under the extended Icingdeath to stab at the arm that still held the warhammer.

  Like a trained fighting dog, the Hunter would not let go. Icingdeath feasted, and the balgura howled.

  And the balgura died.

  With an angry twist of his wrist, the Hunter cut the demon’s throat as it slumped to the floor.

  A roar from behind, from the corridor where he had first turned, and the Hunter had his bow in hand, fitting an arrow so fluidly that it would have appeared to any onlookers that the missile had been set on the bowstring all along.

  A second balgura bore down on him, crossing the perpendicular corridor.

  But the Hunter held his shot. Out of that corridor came another form, a lithe form not unlike his own.

  A slender blade led, plunging through the balgura’s side. The demon howled and threw itself against the far wall, trying to turn and keep up as the second drow sped behind it, the blade working fast, thrust and retract, thrust and retract, and so cleanly and smoothly did it travel, deep into the demon’s muscle and gris
tle with every plunge, that the Hunter could only watch in appreciation.

  With undeniable skill and perfect aim, the drow drove the deadly weapon home again and again, and always was he one stride ahead of the turning, dying demon.

  When at last it crumbled in death, the second drow was once more between the Hunter and the newest kill, and Drizzt recognized him by his outrageous hat before he even turned about and dipped a polite bow.

  “Well met again, my old friend,” Jarlaxle said, and he saluted with a sword Drizzt knew well: Khazid’hea, the sword more commonly known as “Cutter.”

  Curiously, though, another blade rested on Jarlaxle’s hip where he would normally sheathe Cutter.

  “I have searched long for you,” Jarlaxle said. “Though not as long as I might have feared,” he added with a chuckle, kicking at the balgura Drizzt had killed. “You do leave a trail of easily followed crumbs.”

  “As bait for the other demons,” Drizzt explained. “Let them find me and make my hunt easier.”

  “There are some powerful foes down here,” Jarlaxle warned.

  “I have not yet even brought Guenhwyvar to my side. I will save her until I find another marilith, perhaps.”

  Bigger foes, Jarlaxle thought but did not say. He had been apprised of the events in full and believed that several of the demon lords had come into the Underdark, with hosts of major demons with them.

  “You came to join in my hunt, then,” Drizzt said. “I am glad for the company.”

  “You came to find any more survivors from Icewind Dale.”

  Drizzt solemnly shook his head, certain that none would be found alive.

  “So you stay to exact vengeance.”

  “To clear the corridors for King Bruenor’s people,” Drizzt corrected, though the thoughts were not mutually exclusive, and both were true.

  “I will join in your hunt, then, if you will have me,” said Jarlaxle. “But that is not why I have come, my friend.”

  Drizzt looked at him curiously, not sure what to expect.

  “I have tidings, many, both dark and hopeful, from the lower tunnels,” Jarlaxle explained. “Come, let us be gone from this fetid place. I will set us a fine dinner.”