Ричард Бейкер - Condemnation

Behind her, unseen on the other side of the circle, Tzirik continued his spell, speaking the harsh words of the magic with confidence and ease. Halisstra felt an electric jolt race through her body from hand to hand as the magic began to take life, joining her to Ryld and Danifae with a strange, tingling sensation. A sense of detachment swept through her, as if she’d all at once become weightless. She seemed to be floating up and out of herself, drawn by some irresistible force tugging on her in a direction she could not relate to up or down, left or right. The stone ceiling wavered and grew dim, pulling away from her faster and faster.

And she was gone.

Triel Baenre stalked gracefully past the ranks of her battered soldiers, her face held rigidly expressionless by nothing more than sheer iron determination. The exhausted troops stood at attention for her as best they could in the narrow tunnel. She’d had Nauzhror transport her immediately to the scene of the retreat to view with her own eyes the scope of Menzoberranzan’s defeat, and she found that she did not like what she had seen. She did not like it all.

The passage was the better part of ten miles long, one of the main thoroughfares leading from the way-meeting at the Pillars of Woe to the shell of twisting passages and wild caverns known as Menzoberranzan’s Dominion. It seemed that every second or third soldier she passed carried some obvious injury—a bandaged torso here, an arm in a sling there, a fellow using a broken spear shaft as a crutch against the other wall. The wounded did not bother her, though. What Triel found truly disconcerting was the fatigue and moroseness of the soldiers. She’d expected to find them tired, of course—Andzrel had marched the army for a day without halting to salvage something from the disaster of the Pillars of Woe—but she hadn’t expected to find her soldiers so ... defeated. They’d been beaten, and they knew it.

Andzrel trailed a respectful step behind the matron mother, not presuming to speak until addressed.

“How bad were the losses?” she finally asked, not looking at her weapons master.

“For the whole army, somewhere around a quarter to a third of our strength, Matron Mother. Some Houses fared much better or much worse than that, depending on the fortunes of battle.”

“And House Baenre’s contingent?”

“Ninety dead, forty-four seriously wounded,” Andzrel replied. “About a quarter of our strength.”

“We were fortunate to save that much, Matron Mother,” Zal’therra added. “Some of the minor Houses were slaughtered to a male in—”

“I did not address you,” Triel said.

She folded her arms and tried not to let the sick horror in her stomach show. It will be a miracle if the Council doesn’t rise in open revolt against me, the matron mother thought. Thank the goddess that Mez’Barris is lost somewhere, and Fey-Branche so badly weakened. Byrtyn Fey must guard her response with half her House army destroyed, and I will have some time to consider what must be done before I have to confront Mez’Barris, Lolth willing.

Then again, she thought, what was left of the Council, anyway? Faen Tlabbar, the Third House, was in the hands of an untried girl, and Yasraena Dyrr was not likely to present herself at the next meeting, was she? She and all her filthy House were barricaded in their castle, awaiting the arrival of their duergar allies, and apparently quite prepared to stand a siege.

That left Zeerith Q’Xorlarrin, Miz’ri Mizzrym, and Prid’eesoth Tuin as the only matron mothers she need concern herself with.

To distract herself from the unpleasant prospect ahead, Triel turned to face Andzrel and Zal’therra. More than anything, she longed to punish the weapons master and her cousin Zal’therra for leading her army into a disastrous ambush, but as far as she could tell, Andzrel’s skill and Zal’therra’s decisiveness had most likely extricated the Army of the Black Spider from a dreadful mauling. Menzoberranzan’s army was battered, but intact.

“Where are the duergar now?” she asked.

“About three miles south of us,” replied Andzrel. “House Mizzrym currently serves as rear guard, though I’ve sent almost a hundred of our own soldiers to stiffen the defense.” Triel understood what Andzrel really meant—he’d put Baenre soldiers beside the Mizzrym to make sure that another betrayal of the sort Agrach Dyrr had engineered didn’t take place. “The Scoured Legion advances through another passage to our east, circling around us. We don’t dare try to make a stand in this tunnel, or the tanarukks will get by us.”

“It would only take a hundred soldiers to hold this tunnel against almost any force, wouldn’t it?” Triel asked.

“Yes, but the duergar have enough war wizards in their ranks, and siege engines in their train, that they wouldn’t be halted for long by a rearguard action.”

“Try it anyway,” Triel grated. “Use slave troops, and leave enough officers behind to make sure they don’t break and run. We need time, Weapons Master, and that’s what rear guards are for.”

Andzrel didn’t argue the point, and Triel paced away to gather her thoughts. Drow rebels, slave revolts, duergar armies, dark treachery, a missing archmage, and tanarukk hordes—it was hard to see how matters could get much worse. Where could she even start to address any of these problems? Assault Agrach Dyrr, without the magical might of the city’s assembled priestesses? Pick another spot to meet the duergar, and allow the tanarukks to sweep past?

“How did this happen?” she muttered aloud.

“Agrach Dyrr was in league with our city’s enemies,” Zal’therra replied. “They contrived to make up the vanguard of our army, and instead of holding the Pillars of Woe against the gray dwarves, they led us into a trap. They must be obliterated for their treachery.”

“I was not speaking to you,” Triel growled, and this time she could not restrain herself.

Though she knew Zal’therra was not to blame for the disastrous battle, she had to strike out at something. She slapped the girl, hard, rocking her to her heels despite the fact that Zal’therra towered almost a foot taller than her, and outweighed her by thirty pounds.

“You must come to expect treachery, you simpleminded fool!” Triel snarled. “Why were there no Baenre officers among our scouts? Why did you take no steps to verify the reports the Agrach Dyrr fed to you? If you had exercised even the most minimal amount of caution, our army would not be in tatters.”

Zal’therra shrank back, saying, “Matron Mother, we all approved of Andzrel’s plans—”

“Andzrel is a weapon, Zal’therra. Our House army is a weapon. Yours is the hand that must wield those weapons against our enemies. I sent you out to exercise your judgment and make decisions, to use your head and think!”

Triel whirled away to keep herself from striking Zal’therra again. If she did, she didn’t think she’d be able to stop, and like it or not Zal’therra was probably the most promising of her cousins. Triel wouldn’t be around forever, and she needed to give thought to leaving House Baenre with at least a few competent priestesses in the event that the day came when she would have to have her sisters murdered.

“Matron Mother,” the girl managed, her eyes wide with fear, “I apologize for my failure.”

“I never asked for an apology, girl, and a Baenre should never offer one,” the matron mother rumbled, “but I will give you the opportunity to demonstrate that you have some redeeming portion of merit and resourcefulness. You will take command of the rearguard.”

Triel gestured toward the south. There was an excellent chance that she was sending her cousin to her death, but she needed to know if Zal’therra had the wits and the resolve to become a leader of House Baenre, and if she found a way to survive the assignment and obtain any degree of success at all, Triel might consider permitting her to live.