“If I didn’t have ye with me, I’d not be out in front o’ the group,” he replied, and dropped a friendly hand on Athrogate’s shoulder.
“Aye, and an added pleasure it is that th’ other three are lasses,” Athrogate said, lowering his voice so that the trio, who were not so far away, couldn’t hear. “I know ye’re me king here, and know that ye’ve got me allegiance, but I’m beggin’ ye to keep yer charms from me girl Ambergris. I’ve ne’er known a sturdier lassie, and oh, but she’s taken me heart in her hands!”
Bruenor just stared at him curiously.
“What?” Athrogate asked when he finally caught on to that expression. “Were ye thinkin’ o’ takin’ her from me, then?”
“I’m yer king?” Bruenor asked, seeming genuinely surprised.
And Athrogate seemed genuinely wounded. He stuttered about for a response for several heartbeats, then whispered, as he had in the Rite of Kith’n Kin, “Ar tariseachd, na daoine de a bheil mise, ar righ.”
“Ye’re here because Jarlaxle sent ye here, and no pretendin’ other,” said Bruenor. “Ye’re not serving me, Athrogate, and I’m not to hold any fancies on it. Ye serve Jarlaxle and his band o’ drow, and ye serve yerself, and so ye have since when first I met ye.”
That statement seemed perfectly logical, given the history, but it clearly caught Athrogate by surprise and rocked him back on his heels, and put on Athrogate’s face an expression caught somewhere between surprise and sadness.
“I’m not judgin’ ye,” Bruenor was quick to add. “I’ve had Jarlaxle aside meself, as well.”
Athrogate winced.
“What, then?” Bruenor asked.
“I came to Nesmé as Jarlaxle’s spy,” Athrogate answered. “I’m not for denyin’ that. Never did.” He paused and looked at Ambergris. “But me spyin’ showed me more than I was thinkin’.”
“Jarlaxle’s band’ll accept yer girl, if that’s yer worry,” Bruenor assured him.
“Nay,” Athrogate said. “Not me worry.”
“Then what?”
“Not a life for a dwarf,” Athrogate said, and he seemed genuinely choked up by then.
“What’re ye sayin’?” Bruenor prompted. “Speak it straight out.”
“I’m hopin’ to call ye me king. So’s Amber Gristle O’Maul o’ the Adbar O’Mauls.”
Now it was Bruenor’s turn to rock back on his heels. Despite the Rite of Kith’n Kin, despite even that the Throne of the Dwarf Gods had accepted Athrogate, Bruenor’s surprise at the level of Athrogate’s intensity and pleading here was genuine, his eyes wide, his jaw hanging slack until he could fumble around in his thoughts enough to find words for his shock. “Ye think Jarlaxle’s to just let ye go?” he said, because he had nothing else to say.
“Why’s it got to be one or th’ other?” Athrogate replied. “I … we, me and me girl, will be Jarlaxle’s eyes, ears, and mouth in Gauntlgrym.”
“Serving both?” Bruenor asked, his tone showing that he was none too pleased by that prospect. Was Athrogate asking him to willingly accept a spy in Gauntlgrym’s midst?
“Serving the king o’ me clan,” Athrogate replied without hesitation, and with sincere conviction. “Tellin’ Jarlaxle only that what ye’re tellin’ me I can be tellin’ him! And I’ll be lettin’ him know that right up front, what, and if that’s not good enough for him, then good riddance to him!”
Bruenor stared at him hard, and found that he truly believed every word.
The other three came over then, Fist and Fury obviously eager to be on their way.
“More …” Tannabritches began.
“… to hit,” Mallabritches finished, and the two punched each other in the shoulder.
“Lot o’ trust, ye’re askin’,” Bruenor remarked.
Athrogate shrugged.
Bruenor nodded. For some reason he couldn’t quite sort out at that moment, it all seemed to fit. He had thought that Bungalow Thump would become his new Thibbledorf Pwent. Both had headed the Gutbuster Brigade, after all, and both could fight in the manner of a tornado.
But this seemed more appropriate to him. The fit was right. Other than Drizzt, and perhaps Pwent, Bruenor could not think of anyone above Athrogate he would rather have beside him when battle was at hand.
He had no reason to trust Athrogate now. The dwarf had been a fine fighting partner throughout the campaign, and particularly of late in Gauntlgrym, but asking Athrogate to fight well was like asking a fish to swim. If Athrogate’s loyalties remained with Jarlaxle, wouldn’t he have spoken the exact words Bruenor had just heard?
And yet, Bruenor knew better. Perhaps it had been the surprised expression, which appeared so genuine. Perhaps the hours of close-combat battle, joining these two as comrades.
Or perhaps because it just seemed to fit, and just seemed to make sense.
Bruenor silently cautioned himself against overthinking his feelings. He had led his people for centuries by relying on his gut, and his gut’s reaction to Athrogate now was clear.
“Welcome home, me friend,” he said quietly.
Athrogate grinned widely, so widely! But that was just to cover up the moisture that had come to his dark eyes, Bruenor realized. He could see that Athrogate wanted to respond verbally, but that he wouldn’t dare, afraid he would break out in an open sob.
“What’re we missin’?” Ambergris asked.
“Me axe ain’t missing nothing,” Bruenor replied. “So let’s find it something to hit!”
“Aye!” the Fellhammer sisters said together, with such enthusiasm that Bruenor almost expected them to launch into aerial somersaults.
Off went the one-hand catastrophe.
SOMETIME LATER, A scratching sound, like a spear tip against stone, alerted them that they were not alone, and a quick survey placed the sound behind a barred door in a perpendicular corridor.
Tannabritches slid past the door on her knees, skidding to a stop just to the far side of the jamb. Mallabritches came right behind, skidding up to the nearer edge.
“Might be a wizard,” Bruenor whispered to Ambergris, the two and Athrogate back at the corridor corner, just a few strides from the kneeling sisters. The priestess nodded and quietly began preparing a spell.
Bruenor motioned to Athrogate and the two moved up to stand in front of the portal and between the sisters. Tannabritches and Mallabritches slowly grasped the locking bar.
Bruenor glanced back to see if Ambergris was ready before he took up his shield and axe and motioned to the pair.
Off went the bar, thrown aside. Athrogate leaped up and kicked in the door.
Then he screamed in shock and fell away, a tumble of thick limbs and bouncing morningstars. Before they could begin to react, before they could properly fill the void left by the diving dwarf, the Fellhammer sisters, too, were knocked aside by a huge living missile. And they, too, screamed, or seemed as if they were crying out, but Bruenor couldn’t hear a sound.
Ambergris’s magical spell of silence filled the area.
So Bruenor’s scream, too, was no more than a facial expression. In front of him, the Fellhammers tumbled, but he hardly noticed, falling instead behind his shield to try to brace—futilely, though, as he was hit hard and sent flying into the wall across from the door, which smashed in and crushed down. He felt the huge claws scraping against him as his attacker set its powerful legs and sprang away.
Bruenor twisted and tried to unwind himself from the awkward position. He saw the blackness flying away, saw, but couldn’t hear, Ambergris crying out in surprise. The priestess fell to the floor as the missile—as Guenhwyvar—twisted and hit the wall beside her and hit it running, going around the corner right above her and speeding off down the hall.
The four dwarves fell all over each other trying to get back down the hall.
“… th’ elf’s cat?” Bruenor heard Athrogate finish as he, too, came out of the area of silence. Bruenor turned the corner first, in a full run, extending his hand to Ambergris and yanking her u
pright as he stumbled past.
“Guenhwyvar!” he cried, but the cat was already out of sight, around a right turn up ahead.
The dwarves ran in swift pursuit, turning corners so fast that they rebounded off the far walls of the new passageways.
Guenhwyvar always seemed just ahead of them, enough for them to catch a glimpse of a black tail retreating around another bend.
Bruenor called out to her repeatedly, but she wasn’t slowing to his call. And when they finally caught up to her, a gasping, horrified Bruenor understood why.
CHAPTER 16
Vortex
DOUM’WIELLE STOOD THERE, STARING BLANKLY, SHOCKED AND NOT understanding.
Now! Khazid’hea screamed in her thoughts, but the poor young elf was too surprised, stupefied even, to begin to move.
Her golden hair swept out behind her as a sudden wind appeared from out of nowhere. She heard a groan behind her and managed to turn just a bit, just enough to see Tiago, struggling to rise and holding his bleeding side.
Her eyes widened in horror as she looked past him to the wall, where a swirling vortex had appeared, like a black tornado spinning on its side, black smoke roiling and twisting ominously.
“Doum’wielle!” Tiago cried desperately, reaching out for her.
She grabbed at his hand, but a blast of wind rose up and slammed Tiago away, sending him tumbling, lifting him right off the stone floor, bouncing and rolling.
The vortex ate him, swallowing him into darkness.
Doum’wielle didn’t know how to react. She couldn’t understand the directional nature of the wind, and the … purposefulness of it! Was this roiling vortex some living creature? Had it inhaled Tiago?
Panicked, she spun, leaning against the wind that continued to buffet her, determined to run away.
And then she saw him, terrible and powerful, standing opposite the sidelong tornado, with her between him and it. She knew this one to be the source of that incredible power, knew then that the tornado was no living thing, but was, rather, a tool for the Archmage of Menzoberranzan.
Now! a desperate Khazid’hea implored her. The sentient sword found its plans unraveling, saw the target of its wrath slipping away.
Hardly thinking of the movement, Doum’wielle lifted the blade, and Gromph lifted his hand.
A sharp burst of wind tore the sword from her grasp and sent it bouncing back, to disappear into the vortex.
“I killed …” Doum’wielle started to say, but her words became a shriek as a blast of wind as tangible as a giant’s punching fist hurled her backward. Instinctively she braced, or tried to, certain she was about to collide with the stone wall.
But she did not.
She fell, instead, speeding along a tunnel of dark clouds, rolling and tumbling over and over.
JARLAXLE SIGHED.
“He must be the center of all creation,” he said with great lament, he and Kimmuriel watching Gromph’s victorious walk across the room, to his own enhanced dimensional tunnel. The archmage paused only briefly to consider the splatter on the far wall, the boots hanging, waggling a bit in the continuing wind from his spell.
He, too, sighed, and no doubt at his brother, Jarlaxle knew.
Gromph stretched out his arms, his great robes flapping in his own magical wind, catching him like a kite and sending him into the tunnel.
Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel followed, the mercenary pausing only to scrape some goo onto his hand. Kimmuriel went in first, Jarlaxle close behind.
Jarlaxle was still wiping that sticky goo from his fingers when he passed through the dimensional tunnel to exit into the audience chamber of House Do’Urden right beside Kimmuriel, where Archmage Gromph held court.
Ravel Xorlarrin and his sister Saribel were there as well, along with Dahlia, who sat on the throne looking very much like a mannequin—or a corpse, perhaps. The image pained Jarlaxle greatly, but alas, what was a rogue to do?
“Archmage,” Ravel breathed. He had been trying to help the injured and confused Tiago up from the floor, but now let his friend fall and backed away deferentially—terror often resembled deference.
Gromph didn’t bother to look at him. His eyes stayed locked on Doum’wielle, who was splayed on the floor, her fine sword not far from her.
She looked back at the archmage, and she felt, and seemed to all around, so tiny and small. For some reason Jarlaxle couldn’t understand—surely she didn’t intend to try to stand against Gromph!—her hand crept out for that lost blade.
Gromph lifted his hand and began to circle it in the air in front of him. “That is a Baenre blade!” he warned her, his voice booming with grand magical enhancement—so grand that even the near-comatose Dahlia started in surprise and looked at him.
Gromph thrust his hand forward at Doum’wielle, launching his spell past her, and another vortex appeared, a sidelong tornado on the room’s far wall. And this one seemed lighter in the eye, bright and sunlit, perhaps, but there was a coldness associated with that light.
“A Baenre blade!” Gromph roared just as Doum’wielle foolishly reached for Khazid’hea. The sword flew from the floor to Gromph’s waiting hand.
Doum’wielle stared at him, terrified and lost … so lost!
But there was no mercy to be found in the amber flame of Gromph Baenre’s eyes.
“You do not belong here, iblith,” Archmage Gromph declared.
A great howl of wind sounded, shaking the room, focusing on Doum’wielle. Her eyes went wide with terror, she clawed at the floor so desperately that she tore her fingers, and left more than one fingernail behind when the wind finally caught her and lifted her, and flipped her, somersaulting, into the vortex.
Jarlaxle winced and whispered, “Poor girl.”
The vortex spun faster and faster, its diameter shrinking, the storm’s eye becoming a dot. Then it was gone, as if collapsing in upon itself, leaving only the blank wall there in House Do’Urden’s audience chamber.
“Tend to your husband, foolish priestess,” Gromph told Saribel. “And know that if he dies, you will quickly follow him to the grave.”
“THE UPPER LEVELS are lost,” Hoshtar said with finality. “Even were you to throw every drow, every spell, every slave up above, it would be to no avail. They are mighty, led by capable warriors and with clever generals in support. And they are securing every footstep of ground they gain. My Matron Mother, they’ll not be easily dislodged.”
“Nor easily stopped,” Matron Mother Zeerith said, staring at the spy.
Hoshtar merely shrugged, not about to deny the obvious truth.
“How long can we fend them off?” Matron Mother Zeerith asked.
“Their journey to the lower city will be difficult,” the spy answered. “The drop to the main entry cavern of the lower levels is considerable and the stairway cannot be raised, of course. The stair is down, folded and secured, and will remain so. I expect that the dwarves will employ magic to get them down to the lower level, but doing so will give us ample opportunity to sting at them with arrows and magic.”
“Considerable magic,” Tsabrak promised from the side, and Matron Mother Zeerith nodded in appreciation.
“There are other ways to access the lower levels,” Matron Mother Zeerith reminded him.
Hoshtar nodded. “All narrow and easily defended.”
“See to that defense.”
“My Matron Mother,” said Hoshtar, bowing, and he rushed from the room.
“They will find their way down here,” Tsabrak said when he and the matron mother were alone. “Do not underestimate the resilience and cleverness of dwarves. Matron Mother Yvonnel did so a century ago and the price she paid was her very life.”
“I understand the danger,” Matron Mother Zeerith assured him, her voice dead, defeated.
“You have no choice,” said Tsabrak.
“You ask me to beg Matron Mother Baenre.”
Tsabrak didn’t bother to answer.
“Facilitate the conversation,” Matron Mother Zeeri
th instructed, and Tsabrak nodded and moved to a scrying pool.
Soon after, the image of Matron Mother Baenre appeared in the still waters, and Matron Mother Zeerith moved into her view.
JARLAXLE AND KIMMURIEL followed Gromph across the city to his tower abode in Sorcere. All along the way, Gromph continued to point out the damage the demons had caused, including one scene where several drow bodies lay strewn along a side street, torn apart, limbs asunder, as if clipped by the pincers of a glabrezu.
“Bregan D’aerthe might soon expect a command from the matron mother to clean up the streets,” Gromph told them when they entered his private chambers.
“Of bodies, or rampaging demons?” Jarlaxle asked, seeming unamused.
“Both, I would expect,” said the archmage.
“Bregan D’aerthe is not a—” Kimmuriel started to protest.
“Bregan D’aerthe is whatever the matron mother tells you it is,” Gromph interrupted. “Have we not already seen as much?” he added, looking to Jarlaxle. “House guards, perhaps?”
Jarlaxle remained unamused.
Gromph got a curious expression on his face then, seeming somewhat surprised. He reached down to his belt, putting a hand on the hilt of the Baenre sword he had just taken from Doum’wielle Armgo.
“It calls to me,” he explained, drawing the fine-edged blade and holding it up in front of his eyes.
“Are you its new wielder, then?” asked Jarlaxle, who of course was no stranger to Khazid’hea.
“Hmm,” Gromph mused. “Perhaps I am.” His expression turned skeptical, and quite amused then. “Or perhaps not, if the sword has any say in the matter.”
“Khazid’hea is not pleased to be held by a wizard,” Jarlaxle surmised. “The blade wants to taste blood.”
“What Khazid’hea wants is irrelevant,” Gromph replied.
The archmage started then, as if hit by some unseen force, wincing like someone who had been flicked by a finger under the nose, or some other stinging but harmless disrespect.