Archmage (14 page)

“I allowed him to defeat me as you instructed,” Bilwhr’s bellowing voice informed the Spider Queen and the balor Errtu.

Lolth chuckled at that, and Errtu snickered, a most horrid and shiverinducing sound, something akin to steel scraping against teeth.

“ ‘Allowed him’?” Errtu said incredulously. “You ‘allowed’ the Archmage of Menzoberranzan to defeat you?”

“You doubt my power?” Bilwhr retorted with a threatening growl. But then again, everything Bilwhr said was accompanied by a threatening growl.

“You were obliterated,” Errtu said plainly. “Perhaps you meant to follow Lolth’s demands and ‘allow’ it, but by the time you even realized that you were supposed to do so, Gromph Baenre had already blown your corporeal form to pieces.”

“My spies were about,” Lady Lolth said calmly before the volatile Bilwhr could argue.

“You said that if I was banished by the archmage, I need not serve a century,” Bilwhr replied.

“Patience,” said Lolth. “I assured you, of course. Patience.”

Bilwhr grumbled and growled, but followed Lolth’s waving hand and meandered off into the stinky mists.

“Two,” Errtu said. “Marilith and Bilwhr. And three if you count me.”

“Why would I count you?” Lolth asked. “What have you done to earn my favor?”

A look of panic crossed the balor’s face. “The slave, K’yorl . . .” the great fiery beast sputtered in protest.

Lolth laughed at him and waved at him to put him at ease. “You will find your way to the Underdark, perhaps even the surface of Toril, in time,” she promised.

“When?”

“Gromph will reach out to the Faerzress with a full demand before the turn to the Year of the Rune Lords Triumphant,” she said.

Errtu had to spend a moment considering that. They were now in the sixth month of the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls, 1486 by Dalereckoning.

“By the end of this very year?” the balor asked eagerly.

Lolth smiled and nodded. “The archmage is finding his way there as we speak. The first summoning has been completed. Next will be a major demon, a glabrezu likely, and when he is confident that he can fully command the beast . . .”

“One which you have ordered to appear fully under his command, no doubt.”

The Spider Queen didn’t bother to answer. “From there, he will reach higher. A nalfeshnee, a marilith, a . . .”

“A balor,” Errtu growled.

“He will call for Errtu,” Lolth explained. “But you will not answer that call.”

Errtu winced.

“He will believe that he has called for Errtu,” Lolth explained. “In his arrogance and cravenness, Archmage Gromph will reach much deeper. Too deep. Patience, my loyal friend. Patience.”

L
ongsaddle,” Doum’wielle said in answer to Tiago’s question. “You have been here before?”

The elf woman shook her head. “I have heard of the place, whose reputation is larger than such a hamlet would expect. It is the home of a family of wizards, some powerful but all, by the tales, inept.” Tiago looked at her incredulously. “Inept and powerful?”

“A dangerous combination,” Doum’wielle agreed. “The recklessness of the Harpells who rule Longsaddle is the talk far and wide, and has been for centuries.”

“Yet the dwarves march to this place?”

“The Harpells are long allies of Mithral Hall,” she replied. “They were there, beside the dwarves, when your people attacked. The dwarves still sing silly songs about them, about one in particular—I believe his name was Harkle. I heard these songs often as a child, though I could never decipher most of the words in that heavy Dwarvish accent—some references to his head being where his arse used to be, or some other nonsensical thing.”

Tiago looked back to the west, to the mansion on the hill in the distant village, and Doum’wielle followed his lead. Even from here, they could see the line of dwarves running from the gates in front of that house, down the main road of the town, and out to the south, where the rest of the dwarven force had settled in a tight encampment. It looked like a river, Doum’wielle thought, running from the mansion to a living lake of dwarves.

A howl, the call of a wolf, turned the pair’s attention to the side, to the forest.

To arms!
Khazid’hea screamed in Doum’wielle’s thoughts, but even with that telepathic prodding, Doum’wielle did not draw her weapon before her companion had his own in hand, Tiago’s magnificent Vidrinath coming up so quickly that the blade seemed to be an extension of the drow’s arm. Even so, Tiago found himself immediately hard-pressed, and Doum’wielle nearly run over, when a group of strange hybrid creatures, half-man, half-wolf—werewolves!—leaped out of the brush upon them.

Doum’wielle reflexively pushed her sword ahead, and the fine blade impaled the nearest charging creature, sliding so easily through the werewolf’s flesh and even into the bone. With almost any other sword, Doum’wielle’s reaction would have spelled her doom. The werewolf kept coming, so hungry for her blood that it simply ignored the wound, and worse, a second creature was even then sweeping in to the side of the first.

But this was Khazid’hea, the blade rightly called “Cutter.” Doum’wielle yelped and started to fall back, and started, too, to try to get her sword in line with the second creature, simply by angling it out to her right.

With this sword, that instinctive action proved to be enough. Cutter slashed right through the side of the impaled werewolf, nearly cutting the beast in half, and as Doum’wielle continued across, the vorpal blade gashed the second creature from hip to mid-thigh. Back came Doum’wielle’s arm desperately, Khazid’hea cutting as if through air, though again drawing a deep line on the second werewolf, and speeding across to lop the head from the first.

Doum’wielle drew the blade in close, turning the tip down. She hopped back and to her left to avoid the stumbling second creature, and brought the sword across, gashing it across the spine as it stumbled to the ground. And there it writhed, broken beyond repair.

Doum’wielle felt Khazid’hea’s admiration and even awe. For a heartbeat, she thought the sword was complimenting her on her double-kill, but she understood differently when she backstepped a bit more and considered her companion.

She had never seen such grace and speed.

Tiago had been closer to the attackers, and so four of the six had leaped at him. One flopped on the ground, blood flying from its multiple wounds.

The other three looked little better.

Tiago went down low under a clawing swipe, his shield—huge now, as it had spiraled outward, widening to his call—going over his ducking head, his forearm braced against his skull. Down atop it slammed a werewolf, arm and shoulder driving, but any balance and leverage the lycanthrope might have had over Tiago was thrown away by a simple tilt of the shield
Orbbcress,
Spiderweb, and it grabbed the werewolf as it tilted. At Tiago’s call, the shield let go just as the creature tried to pull back against the stickiness.

And up came Tiago, now beside and behind the beast, and one stroke from the starlight blade of Vidrinath laid the werewolf low.

Already, Tiago was moving to his defensive stance, shield sweeping across to defeat the attacks of the remaining two werewolves.

Doum’wielle thought that she should go to him, but Khazid’hea hit her with a wall of countering demands, holding her in place to watch the spectacle. The veteran sword understood, if Doum’wielle did not, that Tiago was fully in control of this battle.

Behind the shield, the blade named Vidrinath stabbed out, once and again, small cuts on the two werewolves.

Tiago went into a spin, quick-stepping to the right, then back to the left as the werewolves pursued. He leaped into a back somersault, landing gracefully on his feet and in a run right back at the werewolves, but angled to the side.

He went by them to the left, his shield easily defeating the swing of the nearest as he ran past. Easily defeating, and catching with its magical filaments.

Tiago went down to one knee, his drop yanking the werewolf off balance, lurching over. Back the other way went the drow, releasing his shield’s grip, turning as he went to sweep his slightly curved sword across the lycanthrope’s face.

It howled and fell away as Tiago came together with the remaining creature.

Now one-against-one, Tiago didn’t bother with any of his twirling and ducking moves. He fought straight up, his sword and shield darting and sweeping, always ahead of the werewolf, finding its way past the feeble attempts at defense and increasingly putting the beast off balance.

Whenever his movements put him near one of the other beasts, Tiago worked a downward coup de grace into his dancing flow, so effortlessly, so gracefully that it seemed like part of a previously choreographed and rehearsed dance.

And always he was back up against the still-standing werewolf, blocking and stabbing. At first Doum’wielle thought that her drow companion was simply wearing the werewolf down. Its movements began to noticeably slow.

She remembered the name of Tiago’s sword.
Vidrinath
was the drow word for “lullaby,” or at least, the drow version of the word, which referred to a taunting melody sung to those struck and caught by the infamous drow sleeping poison.

The elf woman just shook her head as the fight continued, as Tiago increased his pace and the werewolf slowed.

An arm went flying, severed at the elbow. Then a hand from the beast’s other arm twirled into the air.

Tiago Baenre didn’t simply beat the werewolf, he dismembered it, disemboweled it, and ultimately decapitated it as it stood there flailing with stubby arms, ridiculously still trying to battle him.

From a balcony on the northern side of the Ivy Mansion, Catti-brie, Drizzt, and their hosts heard the cries of the werewolves.

“The Bidderdoos,” Penelope Harpell explained with a sad shake of her head. “They are so numerous, and so . . .” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head again.

“I knew Bidderdoo Harpell,” said Drizzt. “He was a good man."

“A sad legacy he has left,” said Penelope.

“Is there nothing that can be done?” Catti-brie asked.

“You are a priestess—a Chosen, it is said,” Penelope answered. “Pray to your goddess for inspiration. Many in the Ivy Mansion work their spells and ply their alchemy in search of an antidote, but lycanthropy is a stubborn disease.”

“Regis,” Drizzt quietly muttered.

“The little one?” Penelope asked.

“An alchemist,” Catti-brie explained. “He carries an entire workbench in that magical pouch at his side.”

“I do remember,” said Penelope. “He showed me. I just assumed that he was out with the dwarves . . . and Wulfgar.”

The telling hesitation before she mentioned the giant man had Catti-brie and Drizzt exchanging sly grins, and when their gazes turned back to Penelope, she merely shrugged and nearly giggled, not about to deny the rumors. “Neither are here, I fear,” Catti-brie explained, and Penelope’s expression soured just a bit.

“Not killed, I pray.”

“They are off in the east, to Aglarond to find Regis’s love,” Catti-brie explained. “An extraordinarily beautiful halfling, to hear him tell it.

Truly, our diminutive friend is smitten.”

“They will return, then?”

“We hope,” said Drizzt. “Every passing day, we look to the east, hoping to see them riding back to join us.”

Penelope sighed. “Well, perhaps they will, then, and perhaps we will find our cure for the poor Bidderdoos, or perhaps Regis will ride in and save the day.”

“He has become quite adept at that of late,” said Catti-brie, and they all shared a laugh.

“And of course, if there is anything we can do,” Drizzt offered. “We have a Bidderdoo in our dungeon,” Penelope explained, and she held up her hand when the others showed a bit of shock at the remark.

“She came to us in a moment of lucidity and is being treated well. The brave woman wishes us to do whatever we think may help, and has endured great pain through our failed attempts to cure her. But still, she does not ask for release. She is determined that she will help the pack of doomed souls wandering the forest about Longsaddle. Perhaps you can go to her later, and take your goddess with you,” she said to Catti-brie.

“If any of the beings we name as gods can help such creatures, Mielikki of nature’s domain would seem a logical choice.”

“I will do whatever I can, of course, Lady Penelope,” Catti-brie replied with a graceful bow. “How much I do owe to the Harpells, and most of all, I owe you my friendship.”

Penelope nodded and smiled, then even stepped over and wrapped Catti-brie, once her protégé, in a great hug.

“And what may I, might the Harpells, do for you now?” Penelope asked. “You come to my door with an army of dwarves—such an army that has not been seen beyond the memory of elves, I expect!"

“We have come for respite,” Drizzt explained. “It has been a long road, and that after a long and bitter war. We seek the hospitality of Longsaddle, whatever may be spared, while mud-rotted feet heal, boots are mended, and our animals can be rested and shod.”

“On your way to the west,” Penelope said, a logical conclusion, of course, since they had come from the east.

Drizzt and Catti-brie exchanged another look. “We travel to . . ."

“Gauntlgrym, in the Crags,” Penelope finished.

That brought a couple of surprised, but surely not astonished, stares. “The whispers precede you,” Penelope told them. “Did you think you could march an army of five thousand dwarves across the breadth of the North without drawing attention?”

“Perhaps we’re simply traveling for Icewind Dale,” Drizzt said. “For a visit?” the clever Penelope asked.

Drizzt shrugged.

“Gauntlgrym sits there in wait, and the Delzoun dwarves march in great numbers,” Penelope offered. “One does not need an abacus to add those clues to their obvious answer. And this time, you aren’t going to Gauntlgrym to rescue a cursed vampire dwarf, but to rescue the most ancient homeland of Bruenor’s ancestors, and those of King Emerus and the twin kings Bromm and Harnoth as well.”

“King Bromm is dead,” Catti-brie told her. “He fell to a white wyrm on a frozen lake early in the War of the Silver Marches.”

“And King Harnoth remains in Citadel Adbar, the lone blood king of the Silver Marches remaining on a dwarven throne,” Drizzt said. “Bruenor is out in the encampment, as is King Emerus, who gave his throne to another, as is King Connerad, the Eleventh King of Mithral Hall, who surrendered his crown to a deserving Dagnabbet Brawnanvil that he could join in this greatest quest of the Delzoun dwarves.”

“It seems you have quite a story to tell,” Penelope said. “And quite a story yet to write. Go and fetch these dwarf kings, Master Drizzt, if you will, and whatever other dwarves they wish to bring in, and you can tell the Harpells your tale in full, and over the finest meal you’ve had in tendays.” Drizzt and Catti-brie nodded, and turned to the stairs.

“Just him,” Penelope said to Catti-brie, who looked back at her curiously. “You and I have so much to catch up on. Please remain."

“Of course,” Catti-brie said, and she gave Drizzt a kiss and sent him off. She had barely settled in a comfortable chair beside Penelope when they saw the drow thundering down the hillside on his magnificent white unicorn.

“I’m honored that you and your army chose to come through Longsaddle on your march,” Penelope said. “I expect that you played no small role in that decision.”

“It seemed a reasonable respite, and one much needed."

“And?”

“You see right through me, lady,” Catti-brie said.

“I know you well, Delly Curtie,” Penelope replied, using the woman’s old name, the one she had worn when first she had come to Longsaddle those few years before. “Or Ruqiah, perhaps?”

Catti-brie laughed. “I do wish to spend some time in the libraries of the Ivy Mansion,” she admitted. “And to discuss some thoughts with the greatest of the Harpell wizards, yourself and Kipper, surely, who is so well versed in the matters of teleporting.”

“You don’t think we can transport an army, I hope,” Penelope replied with a laugh.

“No, no,” Catti-brie answered, laughing too. “But when Gauntlgrym is retaken, and I have no doubt that it will be . . . the dwarves have responsibilities in other lands.”

“Ah,” Penelope purred, nodding as she figured it out. “You wish to magically connect Gauntlgrym to Mithral Hall with something akin to a permanent gateway.”

“And to Adbar and Felbarr, perhaps Icewind Dale, and perhaps other Delzoun dwarf fortresses,” Catti-brie admitted. “How much more secure would my father’s people—”

“Your father?”

“Bruenor,” Catti-brie explained. “My adoptive father.”

“In another life.”

“In this one, as well.”