F O U R (77 page)

War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

tiny sprite. Still, she smslaves focused on her and the otheriled as she stepped forward to meet the foe. One of the

The m            ,  on Jeggred.atron mother knew a minotaur liked  to overwhelm  an opponent with the

momentum  of its initial rush. She waited  until the creature was nearly on top of

her,  then sidestepped. He was lumbering too fast to stop or compensate, and she

smashed his knee with her mace as he plunged by.

The slave fell on his face, and she robbed  him  of the use of his limbs with  a bone-breaking strike to the spine. Meanwhile, Jeggred sim

u

on his own opponent'                  ltaneously chewed s  neck and ripped at  the brute's torso,  hooking the guts out.After that, T

r

foes. Panting, the Baenre strode to the iel and the draegloth killed several gnolls before running out of high enough to peer beyond the eminence of Qu'foot of a wall and floated upward again,

ellarz'orl to the burning cit

beyond. Jeggred followed.                        yEarlier

,  when she'rebelling, she'd used a certain md first discerned that slaves throughout Menzoberranzan were

agical diamond to call the males of  Bregan

D'aerthe from  their secret lair. The sell swords were at their work.

One neighborhood in the south of the city was thick with goblins. Even from the Great Mound, she could m

ake out the boil of motion in the streets.

over the course of just a few seconds,  that agitation ceased, as  th   Then,e creaturesapparently fell dead all at once.

It was an extraordinary feat of mass assassination, but the mercenaries hadonly cleared one small part of Menzoberranzan. They couldn't reclaim  the entire

city by themselves, if, in fact, the j ob could be done at all.
 
Triel shouted down into the yard, to any officer within earshot, "Assemble m

y  troops. We're maout."                               rching

admittedly young life, and heJeggred couldn't speak for joy

.  This ha

was drunk on slaughterd already been the . He'd  killed and killed and best night of his killed and killed again, an ecstasy that put  his sport with Faeryl Zauvirr to shame.

And his mother said it wasn't  over! They  were going to descend  into the city  to

gorge on murder, and Jeggred would know a fiend's transcendent bliss.  The  onlhard part would be remembering not  to kill dark elves, just e          y

ver

He squeezed T                    yone else.riel's shoulder with a quivering hand, one of the smaller ones.

Valas Hune skulked around the cornerwhere no bastion should be—then the huge thing m, then  blinked. A keep blocked the street, oved.knew that somNo, not a keep after all, but the biggest  stone giant he'd ever seen. The scout e  Houses kept giant slaves as well as the more common goblinoids specimen still wore iron bracelets dangliand ogres, and, gray in the firelight, with  a long head and black, sunken eyes, this somewhere it had procured a great axe si  ng lengths of broken chain. From was using it to pulp any drow it noticed scurrying about.zed for a creature of its immensity, and Valas had gotten separated from  his comrades sometime back. That was all

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War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

right. He was used to traversing wild places  by himself, though in truth, he'd  neverexplored any tunnel as perilous and unpredictable as Menzoberranzan had becom

e

this night.He'd

ran out, close in with his kukris. He' been killing ores and gnolls, first with his short bowd  thought he was m, and, after the arrows aking someprogress until he encountered this.                   genuine

someone would have to k

as well as the little ones, if MenzoberranIt was a daunting sight, but      zan was to survive ill the big under-creatures and Bregan D'aerthe

was to be paid for its services.V

alas touched a fingertip to a nine-pointed tin star pinned to his shirt, and

murmured a word in a language of a race few Menzoberranyr had ever even  heard

of.  In  the  blink  of  an  eye  he  was  crouched  on  the  stone  giant's  shoulder.

The surface was smooth and rounded. He started
 
to

the accomplished rock climber he was, negated his weight aslip off, but, reacting like He clambered within reach of the giant'          nd caught himself.

s  neck and started hacking at the arteries

within the behemoth's  neck with both kukris.

To  no avail. Perched somewhat precariously, Valas couldn'

weight to full advantage, and his first  stroke  skipped  harmlt use his strength and essly  off  the  giant'srocklike hide.

nearly brushing VThe behemoth did feel the impact, though. Its head snapped around, the chin atim       las away. The giant glared down at him, and he struck, this

e with  greater success. With  a crackle  of  lightning,  th

the slave's lower lip.                e enchanted weapon split Crying out in pain and anger

,  a deep  sound Valas felt in his bones, the stone

scrambled forward and cut giant flinched its head awayat the colossus'. A huge gray hand rose up to catch the drows neck.            , who

Dark, thick blood leaped forth and washed  Valas into space.  He fell hard onto a rooftop and watched the giant stumble about, clutching at its th

roat. After a few

wandering bysteps, the huge thrall fell backward, crushing some unlucky  hobgoblins that were .

the foot of Narbondel the saGromph was in a vile humor as he floated up the clif

f face. He'd

me as always, and the world exploded into madness. cast light into Ores lunged out of nowhere

summarily dumped his luxur and attacked his guards. His own ogre litter-bearers uprising.          ious conveyance on the ground and joined in the

nothing happened. SomeThe archmage had sought to strike the one had conjured a magical dead zoneundercreatures dead with a spell, but around him.Either one of the ores was a sham

an powerful enough to create such an effect, or,

more likely,  one of the brutes had stolen a talisman from his owner.

However they'd  maGromph'       naged it, the beasts were charging, and the spells in

s memory were just odd little rhymes, his robe and cloak, mere flim

cloth, and his weapons, inert sticks and ornam             sy ents. Well, probably not all of them, but he wasn't  reckless enough to  stand and experim

ent while the ores

assailed him  with their pilfered blades.  Forfeiting his dignity, he turned and ran.

The exertion made his chest throb where K'rarza'q had gored him.

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zone. He'When he reached the edge of the plaza, he thought he m

ust have exited the dead

d

legs catching up behind him better have, because he could  hear the grunting ogres with their long .  He turned,  pointed a wand, and snarled the triggerword.

A drop of liquid shot from  the tip of the rod. It struck the belly of the lead ogre and burst into a copious splash of acid.

With his ma         ph obliterated every attacker who lacked the

sense to run awaygic restored, Grom. His dark elf attendants were already dead, leaving him  to

make his way back to Tier Breche alone.

As it turned out, the slave rebellion  was pandemic, and the trek wasn'taltogether easy

.  He considered going  to ground in some

when he saw the flames gnawing stone, he knew he had to get castle or house, but back.

Dirty,  sore, and coughing, he eventually made it home, and when he rose to thetop of the limestone wall, he saw som

ething that lifted his spirits,  albeit only  a

little.

Eight Masters of Sorcere stood in the open air,  chanting, gesturing, attema ritual, while an equal number of a                pting

fetched m             pprentices looked on. The wizards had uch of the proper equipment out  of the tower.  That was something,

Gromph supposed, but the incantation was a useless mess.

The Baenre reached out and hauled hims

and knees, another irksome affront to his dignityelf onto solid ground and his hands .He rose and shouted, "Enough!"

The teachers and students twisted around to gawk at him.  The chanting died."Archmage!" cried Guldor Melarn. He  was supposedly without peer in th

e

realm  of elemental magic, though it couldn't be proved by his performance thus

far that night. "W"I'      e were worried about you!"

m  sure," said Grom

sent out looking for m ph, striding closer. "I noticed all the search parties  you e."Guldor hesitated. "Sir, the mistress of the Academ

y commanded—""Shut up," said Gromph. He'd

come  close enough to see that the teachers were

standing in a com"Pitiful."     plex pentacle, written in red phosphorescence on the ground.

He extended his index finger and wrote on the air.  The magic words and sigilsreshaped themselves.

"My lord Archmage," said Master Godeep. "Wthe fires below                e drew this circle to extinguish

.

"I'      If you break it—"m             ph, "I'm  fixing it." He turned his gaze on  one

of the apprentices, som not breaking it," said Grome  commoner youth, and the dolt flinched. "Fetch me  a bit of fur

,  an amber rod, and one of  the little bronze gongs the cooks use to

summon us to supper.

"Archmage," said Guldor
Runf
, "you see we already have all the necessary foci for fire

magic." He gestured to a brazier of ruddy coals. "I'm  whispering to the flames

below,  commanding them  to dwindle."

"And making more smoke in the process.  That's  just what we need." Gromph

kicked the brazier over,  scattering embers across the rock. "Your approach isn't

working, elementalist. I should exile you  to the Realms  that See the Sun for afew decades, then you might figure out what  it  takes  to  extinguish a fire of this

ma

The mgnitude."ale came sprinting back with  the articles Gromph had requested. The

Baenre whispered a word of power, and the pentacle changed from  red to blue.

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