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  But Zaknafein’s right-hand blade came up horizontally to lift that stabbing blade, and the weapon master’s parrying weapon bent over diagonally so that the lifted sword got pinched between it and the blocking lower sword. Up went Zaknafein’s arms, lifting Dinin’s arms and swords up high, lifting Dinin up on his tiptoes.

  Zaknafein stepped in close and snapped his head forward, driving his forehead into Dinin’s nose. As the younger warrior fell back a step, Zaknafein rushed forward, still holding arms and swords up high, and let go of his left-hand blade, leaving it still hanging from the trap of swords above.

  The weapon master stepped his left foot across to the right and ahead, then looped it back behind his opponent even as his left hand slammed against Dinin’s chest, tripping him backward.

  Dinin didn’t resist, disengaging his swords from Zaknafein’s, landing easily and smoothly, and rolled perfectly over into a crouch, weapons ready for Zak’s advance.

  But Zaknafein wasn’t there.

  The weapon master’s sword clanged down from on high, sent spinning by Dinin’s disengage, since Zak had let it go. Only when it landed, the sharp sound a signal, did Dinin lower his blades.

  He knew.

  Of course he knew.

  Zaknafein had mirrored his movement and was behind him, and that remaining sword whacked the young Do’Urden hard on the back of his head.

  “Do better,” Zaknafein whispered in Dinin’s ear, and he left his defeated opponent there, crouched and pained.

  “And put these swords away and tidy up the room,” Zaknafein continued as he walked away, tossing his remaining practice weapon to the floor.

  “You embarrass me!” Dinin called after him in a threatening tone.

  “You embarrass yourself,” Zak answered. “I am just a mirror. The ugliness of your weaknesses are yours alone.”

  “A great pity that would be,” Briza dared to somberly reply, and she felt the cold glare of Matron Malice as soon as she had uttered the sentence. She thought herself foolish, dangerously so, and felt suddenly vulnerable.

  “Pity?”

  “The sacrifice,” Briza stammered. She understood that she should have let it go and allowed her mother to vent her fears without giving them any credence at all. Malice had only mentioned the possibility of her child, Zaknafein’s child, being a boy in her remark that it could not happen, that Lolth would not let it happen.

  “But it will not happen,” Malice said again, biting short every word. “The Spider Queen would not allow it to happen.”

  “Of course, Matron. It cannot be.”

  “Then why did you cast your voice with such lament?”

  “Because I wish it could be,” Briza blurted, hardly thinking it through. She was just trying to say something, anything, to calm her very pregnant mother.

  “You wish?” Malice retorted, her eyes flashing with anger. “What priestess would wish for a mere boy?”

  Briza paused then, unsure. “Zaknafein’s boy,” she decided. “Zaknafein is a mere man, true, but he has brought great advantage to House Do’Urden. What might . . .”

  Malice fell back in her seat and gave a hearty laugh, and Briza exhaled.

  “Great advantage and great pleasure,” the matron agreed. “Yes, daughter, any child of Zaknafein, boy or girl, could be a boon to House Do’Urden, but it cannot be any child, can it? Most of all, we must hold strong in the favor of the Spider Queen, particularly now as I ask of her this great surge of divine power with which to punish Matron Ginafae for her heresy.

  “We know what is necessary to achieve that,” Malice continued. “Or what would be necessary if this child of Zaknafein was of the lesser gender. What are we to do? I have already birthed two boys, and both remain alive. The laws of Lolth cannot be questioned.”

  Briza nodded and kept her head bent, her gaze to the floor.

  She left her mother soon after, marveling at Malice’s leadership. Matron Malice hadn’t asked her to do anything, yet she understood exactly what her mother wished.

  And Briza had an idea of how she might grant that wish.

  She found her brother on the front balcony of House Do’Urden, overlooking the city, high up from the floor. House Do’Urden was built into the western wall of the cavern that held Menzoberranzan, this balcony and the one for the house chapel both affording grand views of the magically lit city, stalactites and stalagmites dancing in the colored flames of faerie fire, the giant timeclock pillar of Narbondel glowing softly in the distance. These balconies were also the only way to get into the house’s second floor, affording a measure of protection against the mundane shock troops used by most drow houses who could not levitate.

  Even though he had the hood of his piwafwi pulled up over his head, Briza noted her brother’s dour expression as she neared. The set of his jaw gave it away as he stood leaning on the rail, staring out over the city. She noted, too, when he turned to look at her, that he had his head wrapped in a bandage.

  “Nalfein did that to you?” she asked, with both surprise and more than a little bit of mocking in her tone.

  “Zaknafein.”

  “I thought you were sparring Nalfein this day in preparation.”

  “The weapon master had a few lessons to offer us both after that match,” Dinin said, practically spitting the words.

  “Yes, I’ve noticed his foul mood of late,” Briza said, taking a spot at the balcony beside him and turning her gaze to the city. “It is expected, of course.”

  “Why? Zaknafein loves the battles—he lives for them!—and this will be the greatest challenge yet by far. You think he is afraid?”

  “Afraid?” Briza echoed with a snort. “Of what? Of defeat? Of dying? I think Zaknafein would welcome his own death, so great is his self-loathing.”

  That drew a curious stare from Dinin, and he silently mouthed, Self-loathing?

  Briza hid her smile. Like her brother, she knew that, if anything, Zaknafein was too in love with himself, too haughty, and believed himself somehow above the edicts of the priestesses who served the Spider Queen. That truth didn’t serve her now, however.

  “His mood might be based on fear,” Briza added, “but not for himself or for House Do’Urden. We will win, and he knows it. But there is another involved, one whose future is far less certain.”

  Dinin’s expression grew more puzzled still, and Briza resisted the urge to reach out and slug her slow-witted brother. How Dinin had ever survived so long in Menzoberranzan, she would never know, for she didn’t consider him clever enough in the webs of drow culture.

  “You may have noticed that Matron Malice has grown of late,” she said dryly.

  “Yes, with Zaknafein’s child, it is whispered. So?”

  “It is his, this time for sure.”

  “And the rumors speak of Vierna as his, as well. Perhaps he has others scattered about the city—he was coveted by many for breeding in the distant past, so I have heard.”

  “This one is different to him, and likely to Matron Malice. This one is surely of his loins and will bring immediate aid to House Do’Urden in the very act of being born. And this one is very possibly in immediate mortal peril.”

  “Because of the spell?”

  “Shh,” Briza scolded. “Lower your voice. That is known to the nobles of House Do’Urden alone. But no, not because of that. Think, brother. You more than I should understand.”

  “Third son,” Dinin said after a moment of pause, and both his voice and expression showed that he hadn’t thought of that before.

  “And so Zaknafein is in a foul mood, and so is Matron Malice, I warn. She will not dare disobey the edicts of the Spider Queen, of course, and particularly not now, when she is asking Lolth for so much in the coming battle. But a male child of Zaknafein would be grand indeed, in her estimation. A most worthy addition to the Do’Urden ranks.”

  “She would value a girl more,” Dinin argued. “Of course she would.”

  “If it is a girl, then there is no issue. But Mat
ron Malice is coming to believe that it is a son she carries,” said Briza. “Still, I think you are wrong there, brother. In this case, given the sire, I think the notion of a boy truly intrigues Matron Malice. Another fighter of Zaknafein’s caliber? She could enrich the family simply by renting him out to other matrons once he becomes a man.”

  “She could do that with Zaknafein now,” Dinin said, seeming quite annoyed. “And you misread her, I am sure.”

  “Take care how you speak to a high priestess,” she warned.

  “That is exactly my point,” Dinin replied. “No matter how great this son might be, he will never be as great as . . . as Briza. But a girl, a daughter of Zaknafein?”

  “Like Vierna?” Briza retorted, chortling.

  “Neither you nor I are children of Zaknafein.”

  “And yet I remain far superior to Vierna in every measurable way. Far superior, and that will not change. Matron Malice has no love for Zaknafein—it is simply family business. I fear not at all the possibility that Matron Malice will have another girl, another daughter of Zaknafein. I remain the high priestess of House Do’Urden and next in line to the title of matron. By the time a new child could possibly grow strong enough to challenge me, Matron Malice will likely already be dead, or will have sealed the line of ascension.

  “But a boy, Dinin, a son of Zaknafein! That could shake the very foundation of house noble ranking among the men of D’aermon N’a’chezbaernon.”

  Her use of the formal and ancient name of House Do’Urden focused Dinin’s thoughts more clearly. “But you just said that Malice would not go against the edicts of the Spider Queen, surely, in these critical times.”

  “Malice?” Briza said quietly, threateningly.

  “Matron Malice!” the flummoxed warrior corrected.

  “Certainly not,” Briza said. “But neither would Matron Malice be displeased if one of her other sons found the misfortune to fall in the battle with DeVir.”

  “Unlikely.”

  “But not impossible,” said Briza, and she turned and walked away, confident her words had resonated.

  Chapter 4

  The Ever-turning Wheel of Menzoberranzan

  Dinin was in a foul mood when he exited the lizard corral and the lower level of House Do’Urden, making his way to a spot below the chapel balcony. His mission, the last before the battle, had been successful. He had identified and magically marked the sentient shrieker mushrooms along the House DeVir border wall, and had gone to see the Faceless One, relaying to him the timing of the assassination of the DeVir wizard, Alton, who remained at Sorcere.

  With that success, Dinin had returned to the stable in fine spirits, excited for the battle, which would prove the most consequential of his life thus far, he was sure. But inside, the whispers among the lizard handlers had confirmed the secondboy’s concerns.

  Matron Malice, they now knew, would deliver a son.

  The son of Zaknafein, the third son of D’aermon N’a’chezbaernon, and thus, a child to be sacrificed to Lolth. Malice would resent that, Dinin knew. After his talk with Briza, he could not ignore that his mother would greatly lament this precious sacrifice, and he knew her well enough to understand that her resentment would linger for years, decades, and it would be aimed primarily at the two persons responsible for the sacrifice of Zaknafein’s son: Dinin and Nalfein.

  He had other fears, as well, suspecting that Briza had not come to him unbidden by their mother. And if that were the case, she had likely gone, too, to Nalfein.

  Yes, it made sense to him, and it worried him. If Matron Malice lost Nalfein this night, Zaknafein’s son, almost certainly a warrior, would grow in the shadow of elderboy Dinin, also a warrior. But if it was Dinin who died this night, then the elderboy would be a wizard, and no rival to the growing secondboy warrior.

  There were three possibilities here, none of them ideal, but one, Dinin believed, better than the other two.

  He tapped his house emblem and floated from the floor, rising up easily in the shadows of the exposed portions of the compound, then stepping over lightly onto the balcony, releasing the magic.

  “Where have you been?” he heard even as he touched down upon the stone. He turned to see Vierna approaching. “You have been gone too long!”

  “Be at ease, sister, I had much to do.”

  “I know what you had to do,” an obviously nervous Vierna retorted.

  “Do you? Have you ever marked shriekers, sister? Not so easy a task. One step too close and they sound their alarms, and yet you have to be quite close to put the silenced hand-crossbow quarrels into their thick stems. And if you miss, guess what happens?”

  “I need not your sarcasm, brother. Not now.”

  Dinin started to reply, sharply, but he leaned back instead and took full measure of Vierna, allowing her the benefit of his doubt. She was his favorite sister, after all, the closest in age to him and one who did not flaunt her station above him as a woman, a noble daughter, and a priestess of Lolth.

  “What do you know, Vierna? Pray tell me.”

  “It will be a boy,” Vierna admitted.

  “The whispers of that have already reached the stables,” Dinin agreed.

  Vierna sighed heavily.

  “Does it bother you because it is your brother, both sire and dam?” Dinin asked, trying not to taunt Vierna here. “Or is it because of the thought of what must be done, perhaps what Matron Malice will make you do personally?”

  “High Priestess Briza will wield the dagger,” Vierna said quickly, but the speed of her words could not hide her discomfort.

  Dinin did not chuckle but couldn’t suppress his grin. He had always known Vierna’s heart to be softer than that of the typical drow woman, and much more so than the typical drow priestess, surely. Briza’s remarks to him concerning Vierna came flashing to mind. Yes, why would the powerful and vicious Briza ever fear her station as Matron Malice’s heir to this one, the weak Vierna? Would compassionate Vierna even have the temperament to be nominated as a high priestess?

  “Go take your place,” he told Vierna, reminding himself that he had to be kind to her at this time. She was the one assigned to send him magical messages in the fight, after all. “I must report and assemble my battle group.”

  Vierna took another breath, gave a slight nod, and scurried away, through the archway and down the house’s main central corridor.

  Dinin gave her a few moments, then started in boldly, down the corridor to the ornate brass door marking the antechamber to the house chapel, the audience hall of the high priestesses.

  And this night, the war room of House Do’Urden.

  Soon after he had delivered his assurances to Matron Malice and the others, Dinin led his column out of House Do’Urden, sixty drow soldiers and a hundred goblinkin fighters marching close behind him. With the clumsy humanoids waiting back a safe distance, the drow battle group crept into position.

  Other battle groups soon arrived, the silent hand codes working up and down the line as the commoner priestesses took their places and found their marks—the marks Dinin had put on the alarm shriekers.

  The moments slipped by, seeming like hours to anxious Dinin.

  The priestesses on the battlefield finally moved, stepping forth to cast their spells of protection—beginning all at once, as if they had received confirmation that the time was upon them.

  The magical waves rolled along the Do’Urden line, bolstering, protecting, silencing.

  Dinin rushed out and produced a sheet of shiny metal and a small pinprick magical light source—quite literally a tiny dweomer cast at the inner base of a hollowed pin. He flashed the object three times to signal his brother and Rizzen, the house patron, and their respective brigades.

  Then Dinin spun it up into the air, and his own brigade took the signal and stepped forward, hand crossbows firing at the marked shrieker mushrooms, each throwing a dart enchanted by the priestesses with magical silence.

  On came the drow warriors, quietly to t
he wall and over the wall, Dinin at the front. He was the first to encounter a DeVir sentry. The man drew a sword and stabbed at Dinin as he came over the wall, but the blade never got close to the fine warrior, Dinin’s superior sword coming up fast to parry, then riposte, a stab that had the DeVir warrior half turning to dodge.

  In rushed Dinin between the man and the parapet. Dinin rolled about as he went, turning his back to the man but sending his left-hand blade around and out to block the DeVir’s backhand as he, too, pivoted.

  In came the DeVir’s second blade for the crouching Dinin, almost reaching its target.

  Almost.

  For Dinin used a blunt tactic instead, bracing himself against the stone parapet and double-kicking out, a move unexpected from a nimble drow swordsman.

  A move taught to a select few by Zaknafein, who was without peer among the drow in rather unorthodox fighting styles.

  Both feet landed, and the DeVir warrior flew from the ledge, tumbling the twenty feet to the floor of the house courtyard.

  Dinin went down right behind, dropping fast and enacting his levitation only at the very end to ease his landing. The other drow, rolling to absorb some of the damage, came up shakily and gingerly on a wounded leg. Without his balance, Dinin overwhelmed him, hitting him with a series of sudden and brutal stabs and slashes.

  The DeVir warrior fought well. He blocked almost half of Dinin’s strikes.

  As he fell over dead, several sudden flashes to the left turned Dinin about in time to see the main gate of House DeVir swinging inward, smoking and sparking from a series of Do’Urden lightning bolts, and then bursting into its own explosions—fireballs, lightning bolts, and even an ice storm—as the DeVir glyphs and wards went off.

  The magical barrage amused Dinin, because none of it made a sound. The Do’Urden priestesses had performed well.

  Other Do’Urden soldiers came down beside the noble secondboy. Goblins and bugbears rushed in through the breached gate and kept charging across the compound. So fast and so silently had the initial assault come that the main DeVir forces hadn’t even yet risen to oppose the attack.