R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

“Matron Vadalma?” Matron Mother Quenthel asked innocently.

“I do not think it wise to destroy driders of any House, or of no House at all,” the Tlabbar leader answered. “They suffer by living. That is why they are driders.”

Matron Mother Quenthel turned her smirk to Gromph.

“She has a point,” the archmage agreed.

“Flush them out and capture them,” Baenre ordered. “Take them in webs to House Baenre for … retraining.”

“Matron Zhindia of House Melarn will protest,” Zeerith Q’Xorlarrin warned. “But then, she is always protesting, is she not?”

“How many have we defeated already who are quietly associated with her House?” Matron Mother Quenthel asked, and she moved to the balcony of the loft and looked down over the wide audience chamber below, where the defeated resistance, some alive and shackled, others dead and piled, had been brought. “By what right does Matron Melarn utilize this place?” She spun on the others fiercely. “By what right do any enter here, in this most cursed of locations?”

“Until now?” Matron Zeerith asked, right on cue. She and Matron Mother Quenthel had practiced this very exchange, after all.

“Until now,” Matron Mother Quenthel replied. “Now we are sanctioned by the goddess. So says First Priestess Sos’Umptu Baenre, who is First Priestess of the Fane of the Goddess, which is near to this place.”

“And so says First Priestess Kiriy of Xorlarrin,” said Zeerith.

“And Sabbal, First Priestess of Mizzrym,” Miz’ri was proud to add, turning to Matron Tlabbar with a smug expression as she spoke. And why shouldn’t she appear so? Matron Mez’Barris Armgo hadn’t been invited along-indeed, it was likely that some of the wayward dark elves the Baenre forces had chased out of this compound had belonged to House Barrison Del’Armgo, while others had been merely Houseless rogues, and most others had been of House Melarn. If the rumors of House Melarn trying to ally with House Faen Tlabbar were true-and it seemed from Vadalma’s sour expression that such was indeed the case-and that House Faen Tlabbar was entertaining the possibility, this expedition had likely put a screeching end to that unified march.

“And First Priestess Luafae of Faen Tlabbar,” said Vadalma, clearly trying to bring some determination and exuberance to her tone.

Matron Mother Quenthel almost laughed at her.

Almost.

Just close enough so as to let the others, Vadalma included, know that she wanted to laugh at her, but, out of deference to Vadalma’s station, the temperate Matron Mother Quenthel had restrained herself.

Matron Mez’Barris Armgo paced around her chapel, huffing and snorting and shaking her head. “What are you about, Quenthel?” she whispered to herself.

House Baenre had sent a sizable force to West Wall, to the old Do’Urden compound, scouring the place, and beside Quenthel had gone the matrons of the three Houses ranked immediately below Baenre and Barrison Del’Armgo. It seemed an almost unprecedented power play, so startling from the weakling Quenthel, a warning to any Houses thinking to climb into the top hierarchy that any such attacks would be met by a unified alliance of overwhelming power.

And perhaps it was, as well, a threat to House Barrison Del’Armgo. Matron Mez’Barris did not fear any of the other Houses individually; even House Baenre would never openly attack her. The cost would prove far too high.

But all four of these together? Might this be the start of a great realignment? The creation of a grander tie between Menzoberranzan and the fledgling city of Q’Xorlarrin before Matron Zeerith and the rest of her family departed for their new home?

Weapons Master Malagdorl entered the chapel then, his stride fast and anxious.

He nodded back at Matron Mez’Barris’s inquiring look.

“Witch,” Mez’Barris said under her breath. Malagdorl had been sent to Melee-Magthere to speak with spies House Barrison Del’Armgo had placed about Aumon Baenre, Quenthel’s son. It was an open secret in Menzoberranzan that House Baenre had sanctioned House Xorlarrin’s journey to the complex known as Gauntlgrym, but in light of these new developments, Mez’Barris suspected more than a simple sanction. Malagdorl’s nod spoke volumes: Quenthel had arranged that expedition, Mez’Barris knew now, for as she had suspected, the brash upstart warrior, Tiago Baenre, had traveled with the Xorlarrins.

Tiago was the grandson of Weapons Master Dantrag, whom Mez’Barris hated. Dantrag had been the greatest enemy and rival of Uthegental, her beloved warrior son, the greatest weapons master Menzoberranzan had ever known, so Mez’Barris believed and preached.

“Gol’fanin, too,” Malagdorl said, and Mez’Barris nodded, her lips disappearing in a profound scowl. Gol’fanin, the greatest blacksmith in the city, had traveled with Tiago Baenre to the legendary Forge of the Delzoun dwarves. Mez’Barris could well imagine what that might portend.

She looked at Malagdorl pitifully, and dismissed him with a wave. Did he understand, she wondered? Did her rather dimwitted grandson realize that Tiago would come back armed to kill … him?

No sooner had Malagdorl departed than First Priestess Taayrul poked her head in through the ornate door. “Minolin Fey has arrived, Matron,” she said quietly.

“Take her to my private chambers at once,” Mez’Barris answered. “Quietly. And let no word go forth that she is here. House Melarn will likely come calling soon enough. Matron Zhindia is surely outraged by the brash move of Quenthel Baenre, and no doubt House Melarn has lost many foot soldiers this day.”

“Driders and captured drow foot soldiers were just carted from West Wall to Qu’ellarz’orl,” Taayrul solemnly replied. “To House Baenre, it is presumed.”

Matron Mez’Barris snorted and shook her head. Quenthel had truly surprised her with the boldness of this move. She had never thought the sniveling Baenre whelp was possessed of such courage.

To openly abduct Melarni driders?

“Put the garrison on war footing,” Matron Mez’Barris said suddenly.

Taayrul’s red eyes widened. “Matron?”

It had been an impulsive command, and one of great consequence, but as she considered the events transpiring, Mez’Barris found herself agreeing with that impulse even more. “Recall all of Barrison Del’Armgo, noble and commoner. Close the gates and prepare every defense.”

“Matron,” Taayrul said with a respectful bow, and she scurried away.

Leaving Mez’Barris alone with her worries.

Soon after, the four matron mothers and their elite escorts rejoined Archmage Gromph in the wide nave of the two-story chapel of House Do’Urden. Only a short while before, the four had watched, Matron Mother Quenthel and Matron Miz’ri with great amusement, as the three driders, cocooned in webbing, were dragged past them by struggling foot soldiers.

“It has been so long since I looked upon this place,” Matron Mother Quenthel said. “I had forgotten how much it resembles the Baenre Chapel, although far less magnificent, of course.”

“Indeed, it is amazing that a House with a chapel of such design could have fallen so far from the Spider Queen’s favor,” Matron Vadalma put in, the sweetness of her tone doing little to cover the cattiness of her remark.

But Matron Mother Quenthel merely smiled at her. It didn’t matter, Baenre knew, because the plan was in full execution and the other three had bought in wholly. When first they had entered this abandoned compound in Menzoberranzan’s West Wall district, following an army of Baenre foot soldiers and wizards and beside the archmage himself, Vadalma Tlabbar and Miz’ri Mizzrym had both worn sour expressions. They had learned soon after the secret invitation the gist of this little adventure, no doubt, particularly since those invitations had come from Matron Zeerith and not from House Baenre, but had been sent in deference to the demands of House Baenre.