“What do we do?” Jolen Firth asked Bruenor.
“They’re not to come against us fully, but to hoot and holler in the fields as our arrows get spent,” the dwarf explained. “Seen this before from the dogs.” He didn’t add when he had seen it, because few around him would have believed him to be more than three hundred years old, but it hardly mattered.
“And yet,” Bruenor finished, “we’re still wantin’ to kill ’em, eh?”
“Bait ’em back,” Athrogate said with a wry smile.
“It’s what I’m thinking,” said Bruenor.
Jolen Firth looked from one to the other curiously.
“Open yer gates,” Bruenor told him.
“Are you mad?”
“Ye boys keep sayin’ that and I’m sure to get me feelings hurt,” Bruenor replied. “Put yer riders all about and open yer damned gates. Get yer wizards all on the wall above ’em and when enough of them goblins have come in, fill the place outside with fire to stop the press, and shut the gates. Then ye got a fishbowl full o’ goblins for easy killing.”
Jolen Firth wore a skeptical smile.
“Or are ye as stubborn as them what went afore ye?” Bruenor asked.
But Jolen Firth wasn’t, and he offered a nod to Bruenor and rushed down from the wall, calling his elite riders together and moving them off to the sides of the courtyard before the main gates.
A handful of wizards joined Bruenor and his two companions along the parapets topping the two main guard towers, and all around held their breath when the gates creaked open.
“Ye hold yer fireballs until I’m tellin’ ye,” Bruenor said.
“Moths to the flame,” Athrogate said with a laugh. “Fool goblins are sure to be getting their wings burned, bwahahaha!”
It was true enough, they could see, for the goblins, despite their orders to serve as dancing decoys, simply could not resist the invitation. Like water finding a low channel they swarmed about the gates of Nesmé, pressing into the city by the score.
They flooded the courtyard inside the wall, archers turning around to rain death upon them. Then came the horns and the Riders of Nesmé, bursting from the shadows in tight cavalry groups to surge into the crowd, cutting apart the goblin ranks. And how much stronger was that counterpunch when mighty Andahar, bells singing sweetly, thundered up the southern boulevard, bringing Drizzt into the fray!
Up on the wall above the gates, Bruenor and his two friends smiled widely at the drow’s devastating charge, at the ranks of goblins fleeing before him, or falling dead to his spinning blades, or getting crushed under Andahar’s powerful hooves, or gouged by the unicorn’s horn to be thrown high into the air!
“Burn ’em,” Bruenor told the wizards, and all five fell into spellcasting, their fireballs erupting one after another right outside of the gates, like a solid dam of flames to hold back the tide.
Jolen Firth’s men pressed in to get to those gates and close them. Archers concentrated their fire on the goblins nearest the portal, breaking resistance.
Then down went Bruenor, Athrogate, and Regis, leaping from the parapet into the midst of the swarm, centering the counterpunch that cleared the gates. It was Bruenor himself, with an assist from giant-strong Athrogate, who set the great locking beam back in place, sealing the city, and sealing the fate of the goblins caught inside.
Andahar galloped up to the dwarves, but Drizzt only had time for a quick nod as he leaped from the unicorn’s back up to the battlements, Taulmaril in hand. Following the drow’s lead, the archers and wizards turned their attention back outside the walls, driving back the monstrous press with furious volleys of missile and magic.
And the courtyard filled with blood, and not just goblin blood.
Soon after, the outside enemy forces turned and fled, and Bruenor nodded at the retreat, and warned Jolen Firth and all around that the enemy would be back for real next time, and in short order.
And so it came, the great assault, for indeed that first attack had been a ploy to expend the city’s magical defenses, to wear down wizard and archer alike.
For hours the defenders battled as the city was pressed on all sides, and the fields blackened with orc and goblin dead, with fallen ogres and giants and trolls alike.
Many times were the walls breached, and yet, the Companions of the Hall were always there to meet the enemy, the five friends and Athrogate, and Andahar and Snort, and Guenhwyvar, too, for Drizzt needed her once more.
And when it was done, at long last, the walls of Nesmé stood tall.
Catti-brie’s work had just begun, as had that of the other clerics of the city, and of the gravediggers and the groups assigned to throw the dead monsters back over the wall.
“Piling ’em so deep, the wall’s getting shorter,” Bruenor lamented at one point, standing beside Drizzt and Wulfgar on the north battlement. “The dog’s’ll be just walking over soon enough.”
It was an exaggeration, of course, but not as great an exaggeration as Drizzt wished.
“What’s his call, elf?” Bruenor asked, nodding to Athrogate, who searched among the carnage in the courtyard, helping to find the wounded city defenders.
“He is a powerful ally.”
“Aye, that much I’m knowin’, but why’s he here?”
“For Jarlaxle,” Drizzt said with a shrug, for he could hardly know the depth of it.
“Then where’s Jarlaxle?”
“Watching and soon to come, let us hope.”
“Or maybe not,” said Wulfgar and the other two looked to him, intrigued by the sly tone of his voice. The barbarian directed their stares out over the wall, to the campfires of the besieging army. “Led by drow, we were told,” he reminded them.
“Not Jarlaxle,” Drizzt assured him, and he looked to the bloody courtyard again, then out over the wall. “No, not Jarlaxle,” he repeated, as much to convince himself as the others, for if indeed Jarlaxle was a part of this tragedy, then everything Drizzt had believed about the mercenary was surely a lie.
A whistle from below directed their attention to Regis. “Jolen Firth will speak with us,” the halfling called up.
“Good news, I’m sure,” Bruenor muttered.
His sarcasm proved well-placed, they learned a short while later, when they went to meet with the First Speaker, to find him sitting with the five humans that had been chased through the Trollmoors.
Grim-faced, Jolen Firth looked to the woman at his side and nodded.
“Sundabar is besieged,” she explained. “By thousands.”
“Silverymoon, too,” said another.
“Sundabar will not hold much longer,” said the first, and she turned her gaze over Bruenor most especially, “And no dwarves will come to her aid. Not Felbarr, nor Mithral Hall. And the enemy count giants among their ranks—hundreds—and aye, they’ve dragons, too.”
“Alas for Luruar,” said yet another.
Drizzt noticed the twitch in Bruenor’s eye, and realized that his poor friend could hardly draw breath.
Bruenor said not a word as the tale unfolded, the five newcomers detailing the slaughter of the Knights in Silver at the Crossings of the Redrun, the rumors of the death of a dwarf king in the disastrous Battle of the Cold Vale, and the black sky and foul work of the drow—House Do’Urden, they all declared, and one after another cast a stern look Drizzt’s way.
“The Silver Marches are lost,” one flatly stated, and he might as well have added, “on the signature of a dead dwarf king,” Drizzt understood as he studied the grave mask Bruenor’s face had become.
“I telled ye, elf,” Bruenor said as they made their way from the First Speaker’s keep. “Smelled it when I was through here a few years ago. Smell o’ war, orc war. Ah, but I seen this one comin’, don’t ye doubt.”
He ended with a strange sound, half a growl, half a laugh, and aptly reflecting the look on his face. Studying that expression, Drizzt realized that Bruenor was not dismayed by the events at hand. Far from it, he was seeing this as
his chance to make things right.
But he was angry, too, and likely at himself almost as much as at the orcs.
With a look back at Drizzt, gray eyes narrowing and another little growl coming forth, Bruenor slapped his axe over one shoulder and strode away.
“There is not enough orc blood in the world to satisfy him,” Wulfgar remarked, and he dropped his hand on Drizzt’s shoulder.
Drizzt didn’t have an answer for that. He bid Wulfgar a good night then went to his room in the inn called Torch and collapsed on the bed. He let himself fall into a deep reverie, the elven sleep, too exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed to battle the slumber.
He awakened some time later, how long he could not tell, to find Catti-brie against his side, curled about him.
“It’s ugly,” she whispered.
“It’s not just Nesmé.”
“I know. I spoke with the others. They remain out at the wall.” She snuggled closer, and Drizzt felt her shoulders bob a bit, as if she was stifling a sob.
“What is it?” he asked and kissed her forehead.
She shook her head. “It is me being a fool, and nothing more.”
“You have seen much suffering this day.”
“I have facilitated much suffering this day.”
There it was, a frank admission, a feeling from the heart, and one that had Drizzt sucking in his breath. She had sounded so confident back in Icewind Dale, decrying the orcs and evil giantkind, speaking the word, she claimed, of Mielikki. But now, in the heat of battle, with the harsh realities of burning flesh and the screams of the dying, the pain was clear.
“How many were saved, my love,” he whispered. “Should we have let the giants crash through the walls?”
“No,” she said weakly, then repeated more forcefully, “No! Of course not.” She rolled up over him a bit, looking down at him, her long auburn had tickling his bare shoulder and chest. “My magic should be to create and to heal,” she explained. “Not to destroy.”
“By destroying evil in the world, are you not facilitating goodness and the peace you seek?”
“Is that not the foolish claims of every general …”
“… in every war,” Drizzt finished with her, for that was one of his favorite sayings.
“They are orcs,” the drow went on, thinking to take it back to Mielikki and the divine guidance. “By your own admonishments to me …”
Catti-brie kissed him to silence him, and as she pulled back, her fingers gently stroking his cheek, she whispered, “Shut up,” but in a sweet voice.
THE MOCKERY
DAHLIA SAT ON THE EDGE OF THE GRAND CANOPIED BED, LOOKING EVERY bit the part of a House Matron Mother in Menzoberranzan in her silky, revealing nightgown, the lace patterns creating spider-like revelations of her flesh.
Looking every bit the part except for the color of her skin, of course. The elf woman’s hair had grown out a bit, thick and black and rolling about her strong but delicate shoulders. She had kept the red streaks in that raven mane, for Dahlia now had plenty of time and unlimited resources for such vanities, and indeed, such trivialities seemed the only thing upon which she could focus her thoughts.
Indeed, unless summoned by Matron Mother Baenre to Council, Dahlia had nothing at all to do. She was the leader of House Do’Urden in rank, but not in any practical manner. Not that she understood any of that, in any case.
And so too did Kimmuriel, who hid in the shadows at the edge of Dahlia’s room, know. Most of the soldiers in the House held fealty to Bregan D’aerthe, complemented by a sizable force on loan from House Baenre, and with both answering to Andzrel Baenre, the First House’s weapons master.
This was all a temporary situation, of course, with the appointed nobles of House Do’Urden—Tiago Baenre and his wife Saribel, patron Tos’un Armgo and his daughter Doum’wielle, among others—off in the east on the surface, directing the war of the Silver Marches.
Kimmuriel didn’t expect that much would change for Dahlia when the warriors returned, though. She was a mockery in the city, and nothing more. Oh, when Tos’un returned, Dahlia would be called upon to perform as his marital partner, no doubt, and it was likely that Tiago, too, would demand such privileges with Dahlia, as Matron Mother Baenre and Matron Mother Mez’Barris battled over which might produce the heir to Dahlia’s unlikely, and likely soon enough to be vacant, throne.
Was Dahlia aware of that?
Was Dahlia aware of anything, really?
Kimmuriel had secretly visited this chamber several times in the last tenday, and had secretly invaded Dahlia’s mind, and still he could not be sure.
The psionicist sent out waves of mental energy, imparting suggestions of sleep to the elf woman, and soon after, she rolled herself back onto her bed and sank into deep reverie.
Kimmuriel was there almost immediately, by her side on the edge of the bed. He placed his fingers on her forehead and face, gently, delicately, and created a deep connection.
A swirl of discordance swept about his brain as he melded with the woman. The threads of her thoughts wound and knotted, rolling over each other and going nowhere. Even in her reverie dreams, often the most intense moments of concentration for an elf, Dahlia could not follow a thought anywhere near to conclusion.
He saw a flash of Drizzt, and of Entreri—she was reaching back for a memory, he knew.
And then there was a tunnel, a dead goblin, a pit of writhing snakes …
It made no sense, because that was exactly as Dahlia’s enemies had planned. In these sessions, Kimmuriel had learned nothing more than the unrelenting confusion swirling within the woman’s destroyed mind.
And yet, Matron Mother Baenre was using Dahlia on the Ruling Council. Angry whispers throughout Menzoberranzan spoke of Baenre’s power grab by putting nothing more than her own echo in the eighth chair.
With that in mind, Kimmuriel took a different route and used the connection to impart a thought into Dahlia. He gave her an image of Drizzt, violet eyes shining in the starlight, sliding into bed beside her, kissing her, touching her.
He felt the memory unwind within Dahlia, the visceral, telepathic prompting carrying her to a place beyond confusion. She grabbed at Kimmuriel—she believed him to be Drizzt, he knew from her own thoughts.
And she relived a memory, and the knots of discordant thoughts couldn’t block her or turn her aside.
She took Kimmuriel with her through that memory.
It wasn’t quite what he had intended, but it did answer some questions for Kimmuriel as Dahlia became the aggressor and shoved him over onto his back, climbing atop him with a hunger that denied the fog that had been injected into her mind.
With a blast of psionic energy, he could have blown her aside like a leaf in an autumn gale, but he found himself mesmerized by that which he was witnessing in Dahlia’s mind. Her thoughts were jumbled, a piled of interwoven night-crawlers, but he had cleared a path through the knotted worms now, it seemed, and Dahlia ran along it furiously.
“Why, Kimmuriel, I had no idea that you were interested in such carnal pleasures,” Gromph Baenre said to the psionicist when Kimmuriel had finished with Dahlia and was preparing to leave House Do’Urden. With the new insight he had gained into the morass that was Dahlia’s jumbled mind, Kimmuriel had thought it time to depart Menzoberranzan for a bit and see to his business on the surface. His intended teleportation journey was interrupted, however, by the rather powerful psionic intrusions of Methil El-Viddenvelp, the illithid standing at Gromph’s side when the archmage met Kimmuriel in the ante chamber just outside of Dahlia’s room.
“I was learning,” Kimmuriel replied dryly, “as the subject of an experiment.”
“One for which I am sure you could find many willing subjects,” Gromph teased.
Kimmuriel stared at him blankly, revealing his boredom. “What do you want, Archmage?”
“I?” Gromph asked innocently. “Why, Master Oblodra, you are the one who is where he does not belong.”
&nb
sp; Kimmuriel hardly failed to miss the unsubtle reference to his surname—the name of a House Gromph’s mother, with the power of the Spider Queen flowing through her, had utterly obliterated. “Bregan D’aerthe has been ordered to serve in House Do’Urden, has it not? I lead that band.”
“I am sure that Dahlia … Matron Mother Do’Urden, is pleased with your service.”
“Your unrelenting quips waste my time, Archmage. Is there something of substance you wish to discuss? Like, perhaps, why you instructed Methil to interrupt my attempt to be gone from this place?”
“Because I wished to speak with you, of course.”
“Then speak of something worthy of my attention.”
The illithid’s tentacles waggled then, and Gromph heard Methil’s silent call and nodded.
“Were you impressed with Methil’s work on that pathetic creature?” the archmage asked.
“He has twisted her brain in circles,” Kimmuriel replied. “That which was Dahlia, the consciousness, the memories, the thought patterns, the expected behaviors, has been wound into indecipherable knots, for the most part. He has driven her quite insane.” Kimmuriel cast a disgusted look at the torn and battered illithid.
“Perhaps for Methil El-Viddenvelp, that could be considered propagation,” Kimmuriel quipped.
Methil’s tentacles wagged at that—Kimmuriel could feel the creature’s confusion, then just a hint of anger—and Gromph laughed aloud.
“Well played,” the archmage congratulated. “I do not believe that I have ever seen a mind flayer angered before.”
I would very much like to discuss with you your actions against Dahlia, Kimmuriel imparted telepathically to the illithid. A most impressive … knotting. You have made great gains into the pattern of thoughts and memories, Methil, and for this I salute you and wish to learn from you. Both with Matron Mother Quenthel and now with Dahlia, your work has been magnificent.
Kimmuriel keenly felt the response, which was not humble and not appreciative of the compliment, but rather, was simply an acknowledgement that Methil believed Kimmuriel quite correct in his assessment.