R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

“We will go to Narbondellyn?” Gromph asked with open and determined skepticism, referring to the neighborhood of manor houses, theaters, and arenas, and the compounds of two of Menzoberranzan’s eight ruling Houses. While Narbondellyn was a fashionable enough address in the City of Spiders, and indeed Gromph often visited the area, rarely before had all the nobles of House Baenre left Qu’ellarz’orl, the grandest district of the city, wherein resided the greatest of the noble Houses-except to go to war. The tradition of the Festival of the Founding called upon unallied Houses to dine together in a rare show of unity, but House Baenre usually used that tradition to host Matron Mez’Barris and her Second House, Barrison Del’Armgo, or vice versa.

“I await Matron Byrtyn’s invitation,” Matron Mother Quenthel said slyly, her grin now firmly aimed at Gromph. With that, she rose and departed, leaving the old mage quite flummoxed.

House Fey-Branche, the Sixth House of Menzoberranzan, the House of Minolin.

Why had Quenthel-Matron Mother Baenre-arranged this, Gromph wondered, and indeed, how?

She was among the oldest drow in Menzoberranzan and the longest-serving matron mother, even though her House, Barrison Del’Armgo was the second youngest of all the great Houses in the city, having formed a mere eight centuries earlier. Under her guidance, House Barrison Del’Armgo had climbed the ranks swiftly to the penultimate rank in the city. Barely a quarter-millennium before, the little known House had been considered no higher than the forty-seventh House of the city, barely known and with little consideration of any of the true powers of Menzoberranzan. The leap in ranking, all the way to sixteenth, had caught their attention, though, and when the matrons of the Ruling Council had at last bothered to look more closely at the Armgo ways and powers, it had become quite obvious that Mez’Barris would not be watching the Ruling Council from afar for long.

Mez’Barris had found her niche of power. Other Houses competed for the favor of Lolth by building chapels and training priestesses, but Matron Mez’Barris had veered her family down an opposite path. Barrison Del’Armgo was known for its House wizards, as were their arch-rivals, the Xorlarrins, but more than that, this House was the home of many of Menzoberranzan’s greatest warriors. Every year, the ranks of Melee-Magthere, the drow academy of warriors, included a full complement of budding Armgo warriors.

The thousand soldiers of Barrison Del’Armgo formed the backbone of the city’s martial garrison and granted Mez’Barris the firmest foundation for her House army, one not subject to the whims of a fickle deity or the ebbs and flows of magic.

And now things had become more interesting. Matron Mez’Barris was well aware of the growing instability within the one House, House Baenre, that kept her from the pinnacle of Menzoberranzan’s power.

“They march as if the entire city should stand and gape in awe,” High Priestess Taayrul said to her mother as they stood together on one of the more obscure balconies in the sprawling compound. Only recently had Barrison Del’Armgo relocated to Qu’ellarz’orl from their previous location in Narbondellyn, and so their compound was not nearly as magnificent or magic-highlighted yet as the great Baenre compound.

“They are Baenre,” said Malagdorl, Elderboy and Weapons Master of Barrison Del’Armgo. “Let Menzoberranzan embrace them with awe, for those are the admiring looks we will know soon enough.”

“Do not speak of such things openly, my impetuous child,” Mez’Barris scolded, but her tone showed more pride than anger. She could well imagine the parade below her being the march of her own House someday soon.

But she couldn’t deny the pageantry and beauty of the procession of House Baenre, soldiers marching crisply, in disciplined precision, in their battle armor, so finely cut and fitted. The glint of hundreds of weapons shone and sparkled in the accented magical lighting, all done to exacting precision, with spells set and aimed perfectly to catch the gleaming metal of sword or battle-axe or javelin tip. Faerie fire of purple, blue, and orange highlighted the group commanders and their great subterranean lizards. Light spells seemed to emanate from within the accompanying magical jade spiders, pony-sized versions of the great monstrosities that guarded the Baenre compound and several other Houses on Qu’ellarz’orl. Those spiders flanked the most important contingent, the noble priestesses, and it didn’t take Mez’Barris long to spot Matron Mother Quenthel as she glided out of the Baenre gates, floating on a translucent disc of purple and blue energies, her eldest daughter and Sos’Umptu close behind and flanking, left and right, on discs of their own. A magical red flame burned in the center of their triangle, backlighting Quenthel perfectly so that she seemed seated in a halo of red light. That hue caught the matching color of her eyes so keenly that Mez’Barris could see her eyes even from this distance. For just a moment it seemed that Quenthel was staring right back at her.

Undeniably, the Baenres knew how to march, and all the city would tremble at their passing. It took breathless Mez’Barris many heartbeats to realize that this procession was not normal, even for the Festival of the Founding. Not any more, at least. She had not seen such a thing from the vaunted Baenres in decades, a century and more, even, not since …

“Yvonnel,” she whispered, and it was clear to her that Matron Mother Quenthel was making an important statement, to the entire city, and likely, given the departure of Matron Zeerith and the Xorlarrins, most keenly of all, she was sending a warning to Matron Mez’Barris.

Malagdorl gave a little growl as the lead of the procession moved past House Barrison Del’Armgo, barely fifty feet from the balcony where the Armgo nobles had gathered. Weapons Master Andzrel Baenre led the procession, riding a lizard with a barding of jewels and bells, sitting tall and proud.

“Indeed,” Mez’Barris said, noting the source of his ire, and so full of her own spittle. “Tell me again why you have not found the opportunity to kill that one?”

Malagdorl lowered his eyes. The great rivalries between the weapons masters of the first two Houses went back many decades, to the legendary fights between Uthegental Armgo and Dantrag Baenre. So it had seemed would be the case with their successors, and Malagdorl wanted nothing more. But Andzrel had shied from any conflicts of late.

Mez’Barris knew why. She knew of Tiago, growing strong and building a great name for himself, and she knew of Elderboy Aumon, Quenthel’s oldest son, who had just completed his first year at the Academy. Andzrel was playing cautiously, because any mistake he might make would see him supplanted as weapons master by one of the two eager upstarts.

On and on, the procession went. Finally Mez’Barris noted Gromph, surprisingly far back in the long line, riding a spectral mount of shifting hues and amorphous magic. It seemed a hellhorse, then a rothé-like creature, then something in between, then something entirely different.

A smile creased Mez’Barris’s tight lips. Gromph hated Quenthel as much as she did, she knew-or thought she knew-and with the rise of the stature of wizards among Lolth’s flock, he would be the downfall of Mez’Barris’s rival.

“They will not dine with the Xorlarrins?” Priestess Taayrul asked when it was clear that the Baenre army was moving past the wizard spire of the Third House and out of Qu’ellarz’orl altogether. By that point, the Baenre line stretched all the way from the Baenre gate to the giant mushrooms that separated Qu’ellarz’orl from the rest of the city.

“It is the Founding,” Malagdorl reminded her with confidence. “They are to dine with a House that is not allied …” His voice faded with his confidence as the two priestesses stared at him with clear amusement that he would be so concerned with such a quaint tradition.