F O U R (76 page)

Up and down the street, her half dozen minions were rousting out theoccupants of other ma

A mob of hairy hobgoblins, all well-armnufactories and shops. ed and many a head taller than theaverage dark elf, slouched around a  corner onto the thoroughfare. Theyspotted the drow

After the disastrous encounter with R, bellowed their uncouth battle cries, and charged.yld Ar

The other                 gith, one of the twins was dead. ,  and Relonor, lay grievously wounded, as they still did in House

Mizzrym. There they would live or die without recourse to further doses ofhealing magic, since Miz'ri declined to squander the House's limited resources on such incompetents. Greyanna had entirely agreed.

After taking the wounded home, Greyanna, with the questionable aid ofAunrae, had selected five new males to join her in the hunt. This time, they'dstalk Pharaun on foot, Greyanna having belatedly realized that foul-wings weren'tlucky for her

.

She and her band had been wandering the streets seeking word of their quarrwhen the rebellion erupted. Once she'd grasped the m        yagnitude of the disturbance, she wondered if it was  the raid on the Braeryn that she hadengineered, that brutal attempt to flush her brother out of hiding, that had inspired the thralls to revolt. In a mad,  dark way,  the possibility pleased  her  butshe decided not to share her hypothesis. Few would see th        ,e humor.Most of her thinking, however, was given over to practical considerations . Shethought her hunting party could help put down the under-creatures, but only if it could combine forces with a bona fide army. Otherwise, the larger mobswould overwhelm  it.

In those first minutes of slaughter and destruction, she watched for somenoble clan to ride forth from  their castle  and drive the goblins before them. Toher consternation, none did, at least not in her immediate vicinity. Her little troop was on its own.

Life then became an infuriating business of running and hiding from  ores ofall things, of watching beasts no better than rothe destroy beauty and sophistication they couldn't even perceive. Occasionally, she and her companions slew a small group of goblinoids wandering on their own, but it meant nothing, would do nothing to arrest the dissolution of all that was finest inthe world.zoberranzan, mWhere was the Spider Queen? Perhaps she was bored with her toy Men-agnificent though it was. Perhaps she intended to break it toma

In timke space for a new one.e, Greyanna'srecognized, a double row of prosperous shops—to be precise, dodging and backtracking brought her to a street she establishments owned by tradesmen under the patronage  of House Mizzrym. She herself had was late paying on a loan or had otherwcalled hereabouts, collecting rents and fise displeased Matron Mother Miz'ees, occasionally chastising a fool who ri.It occurred to Greyanna that if the merchants perished, they'd  contribute no more gold to Mizzrym  coffers. Whereas if she conducted them  to safety, she might curry some  favor with her mother. Miz'continuing failure to kill Pharaun and had  even hinted that another mri had grown impatient with her ight carry the mantle of First Daughter with more grace.

At the very least, preserving Mizzrym  assets would feel more constructive and less frustrating than simply skulking about, and so Greyanna instructed  her

Richard Lee Byers

209

War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

followers to extract the frightened traders and artisans from  their homes.She loosed a crossbow bolt at the hobgoblins, and her soldiers did the sa

me.

Her wizard conjured a cold, towering shadow like the silhouette of a mantis,which m

angled several thralls in its oversized pincers before me

existence. In all, at least a dozen brutes fell, but others sh     lting out of ambled forth from the

sm

Voke and fiery glare to take their place.oices of torment, she thought, how ma

Menzoberranzan?             ny undercreatures were there in

Until that day,  Greyanna had never really noticed. She guessed no one elsehad, either

.

The hobgoblins charThe Mizzrym  princess shouted, "Dark wall!"ged.

touched the ground, conjuring a curtain of shadow between themThree of her retainers, those closest to the onrushing thralls, stooped and selves and theundercreatures, then fell back.

One of the Mizzrym  warriors herded the shopkeepers farther from  the threat. Th

e rest, Greyanna  included,  scrambled to  form a line at a narro

yards behind the intangible barrier. The             w place three her belt pouch and guzzled the bitter  princess pulled a little silver vial from

,  lukewarm  contents down. She shuddered and doubled over as her m

uscles cramped, and the discomfort gave way to a

tingling warmth.Hobgoblins strode from  the darkness. They'd  dwelled among dark elves t

oo

long for the trick to deter them  more than a few seconds.At least the blinding veil precluded their advancing in anything resembli

ng a

coherent formation. They screamed and charged in a gapped and formless wave

which looked m                            ,urderous even so.

The first hobgoblin to lunge at Greyanna was particularly large and, in marked contrast to his fellows, hairless from  the  shoulders up. A mi

stress or master  had

depilated  the  slave  to  prepare  the  canvas  for  a  work  of  art,  hundreds  of

round burn scars arranged in a com                   tiny The thrall cut at Greyanna'   plex swirling pattern.

s  head. Under other circumstances, she would have

retreated  out of range, but that  would  break  the  line.  Wishing she'd brought a

shield  to  the revel,  she lifted  her  mace in  a high  parry.  The hobgoblin's

broadsword rang against the stone haft of the war club and skipped off.

his tarAt once she riposted with a strike to  the flank, and the undercreature whipped ge around to block. The blow bashed a dent in the round steel shield and

knocked the hobgoblin reeling back, his slanted eyes wide with surprise. Hedidn't know about the potion that had lent her an ogre'

s strength.

Greyanna struck to the side, slaying the slave who was menacing her

neighbor, then  her own bald adversary  came  edging back. He  hovered a  second,

then feinted to the flank and finished with a cut to the chest. Discerning  the  true

threat, she half-stepped inside the arc of  the attack and swung at his jaw.  The blow crunched hom

and a broken neck. e, and he toppled backward with a shattered, bloody chin

She killed two more hobgoblins, then some

that failed to penetrate her boot. She  looked down, and it was a kobold, thing prodded her shin, a thrust armed with a fireplace poker

,

lar           who had apparently  been scurrying about the feet of the

She cast about for her next adversaryger slaves. Greyanna killed the reptilian imp with a roundhouse kick.. She didn't seem  to have one. The fight

was over,  and the few surviving hobgoblins were running away.

Richard Lee Byers

210

War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

"Form  up!" she shouted. "I want a column  with the traders in the middle.

Fast!"

Once the procession was under way,  Aunrae, striding along at Greyanna'sside, asked, "May I know where we'

re going? An ally's  castle?"

"No," Greyanna replied. "I suspect we couldn't get in. We're going to hide ourchar

The colum
ges in Bauthwaf."
n  crept past corpses and burning  stone, and as they ma

the cavern wall, other com                 de their way to moners came running out of their homes to join  the

procession. Greyanna's  first imMizzrym, but she thought better of it. Many pulse was to  turn away those without ties to House of the newcomers carried swords, and

she could press the dolts into martial service ifneeded.Occasionally someone collapsed, coughing feebly, poisoned by the stinging

sm

Somoke. The rest stepped  over her and pressed on.eone gave a thin, high cry,  as if

around. The goblins weren't attacking. Heat an unexpected pain. Greyanna spun r client the canoe maker had simseized his opportunity to knife another m                 ply

ale in the back.

"A competitor, " the craftsman explained.

o

The labyrinthine fortress known as the Great Mound contained a number ofmagically sealed areas. Unbelievably,  the rebellious slave troops penetratedeverywhere else. The Baenre fought the  goblinoids in the stalagmite towers,across  the aerial bridges  that connected  them,  and through the  tunnels beneath them, even along the balconies and sreclaiming their domain a bloody inch at a timkywalks of the stalactite bastions, e.

The  thralls  made  their  final  stand  in  the  courtyard,  a  spacious  area  surrounded by a web like iron fence. The barrier was a potent magical defense, and, as theBaenre had just discovered, of no use whatsoever if one's  foe was already insidethe com

T  pound.riel floated down from  the battlements above  to take a hand in the last of thefighting. Jeggred, who'd stood beside her since the battle commedown as well. Both m                    nced, drifted other and demi  demon son wore  ablood, none of it their own.                copious spattering of In truth, Triel could have left the task she was enjoying herself. Partly, it was of clearing the yard to her warriors, but simple drow bloodlust, but she'd alsofound a directness, a simplicity, in slaughtering goblins that was sadly lackthe com                             ing in plex task of ruling the city. For the first time since ascending to her mother's  throne, she felt she knew what she was doing.

Half a dozen minotaurs, formidable brutes she had often empersonal guards, chanted, "Freedom! Freedom!" as they swung their axes or ployed as her own crouched to gore an enemy with their horns. Triel read the last line of runes from  a scroll that, when the rebellion commenced, had contained seven spells.

Dazzling flame blazed up from  the ground beneath the minotaurs'  hooves. Four of the huge beasts fell down screaming and thrashing. The other two leapedclear of the conflagration. They didn't escape harm  entirely.  The fire burned awapatches of their shaggy fur and seared the flesh beneath,  but the injuries  didn'yt slow them  down. They bellowed and char

A minotaur towered over a drow of normged. l stature, and ma       ade Triel look like  a

Richard Lee Byers

211