R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Quenthel settled comfortably then, mulling it over.

“May I return to Luskan?” Jarlaxle asked after a short silence.

“No,” the matron mother sharply replied, and then more calmly, “No, but you may return half your foot soldiers from House Do’Urden back to Beniago’s command.”

“I am to join in the procession to the east, then,” Jarlaxle said with enough of a sigh to show that he would consider that a tedious task indeed.

“No,” Quenthel said flatly.

Her answer surprised the mercenary. From everything she had said, and everything he had heard elsewhere, the work in the east would be that of diplomacy more than combat, after all. And who better for that task than Jarlaxle?

“It will not be a large force that we send to the east,” the matron mother explained, but perceptive Jarlaxle heard something else in her dodge, something personal regarding him, he suspected. “Our posture there is as advisors, directing the orc thousands. I’ll not repeat Yvonnel’s mistake. Win or lose in the Silver Marches, the price will not be high to Menzoberranzan.”

“You are stirring a wasp’s nest,” Jarlaxle warned.

“And letting the wasps bite where they may,” Quenthel agreed.

Jarlaxle mulled that over for a bit. The idea that Menzoberranzan would start a war and care so little about the outcome did not seem correct to him. Not at all.

He considered his surroundings, and considered the target. He spent a long while studying Quenthel.

Was this about Drizzt? Drizzt had once killed Quenthel, after all, and quite painfully.

“House Do’Urden will lead the fight in the east, but you will remain right here, by my side and at my call,” Quenthel said flatly.

Because of his relationship with Drizzt, Jarlaxle understood, but did not dare say.

The mercenary bowed, recognizing the meeting to be at its end.

“So the march against the Silver Marches will be led by Tos’un, the Patron of House Do’Urden,” Gromph said to Quenthel when they were back in his quarters at House Baenre. “And by Tiago, Weapons Master of House Baenre.”

“Well reasoned,” Quenthel replied. “And where is the prideful whelp?”

“He will be along,” Gromph assured her. “Will you send Sos’Umptu to the east?” he asked, eager to change the subject, for he did not want to fill the volatile Quenthel in on Tiago’s excursion to Icewind Dale.

“Mez’Barris already asked as much.”

“Tell me personally,” Gromph bade her.

“No,” she answered after pausing for a moment to take a close measure of Gromph. “Priestess Saribel will serve.”

“How many of our House will go?”

“Few,” Quenthel replied. “The city will send perhaps a hundred warriors in total, with a score of that number from House Barrison Del’Armgo and the rest of the ranks filled with weapons masters of lesser Houses, eager to make their reputation. The contingent of priestesses, again from lesser Houses, will serve Saribel, and Q’Xorlarrin will supply the contingent of wizards-all of them, save one.”

“Me,” the archmage remarked, and he made sure he didn’t sound enthusiastic about the possibility.

“Nay, your lackey,” Quenthel corrected to his surprise and delight. “Whoever you decide that to be. Your duty is simple, my Archmage: You keep a direct line open to Tiago’s fortress in the east, wherever he makes it. We would converse with him regularly on the prosecution of the war, and we will go to him with a sizable force if necessary, or recall him if prudent. I’ll not lose Tiago in this excursion.”

“Because he will help House Do’Urden rise to legitimate promise, affording you a second vote on the Ruling Council at your will,” Gromph replied.

“After our glory in the east, House Do’Urden will ascend in rank, favored by Lolth,” Quenthel agreed, and Gromph understood then that Quenthel was determined about two things in the east: that Tiago would not fall and that Tos’un Armgo would.

He saluted his clever sister with a bow.

In life, stealth had never been Thibbledorf Pwent’s greatest strength. Quite the contrary, the ferocious battlerager usually took great pride in announcing his presence to his enemies long before battle was joined, even if that meant a few arrows or spears flying his way during his inevitable charge.

Not so in death, however, for Pwent’s vampirism afforded him a congruence with the shadows that he could use as a great advantage, along with a lightness to his step enhanced by his coexistence within two forms, solid and gaseous, and two planes of existence. He was hunting among and against the dark elves, the masters of darkness, the silent killers, whose domain was the eternal night of the Underdark, and so the vampire had honed his craft to perfection now, so he believed. He wove around the drow and the goblins and the half-drow, half-spider abominations with impunity. They couldn’t find him, couldn’t begin to even sense him, save the shivers that coursed their spines from the chill of his proximity or the tiny hairs standing along their arms or at the back of their necks as he passed just below their conscious senses.

Pwent had murdered a score of drow, and taken nearly half of those as undead minions, and he had feasted liberally on the blood of goblin slaves many times.

Yes, this was his domain now, for none alive knew the ways of Gauntlgrym better than he. Every corridor, every broken crack, both from the sheer age of the complex and from the volcanic eruption when the primordial had found a decade of freedom, was known to him.

Never was he out of place here, for this was his place. He fancied himself the Steward of Gauntlgrym, the protector of the dwarven homeland.

He knew that to be half of his existence, at least, even while he hated the other half, the darker half, the half that could turn him against even Bruenor, his king of old.

He wanted to suppress that darkness now, he reminded himself as he crouched at the corner of a four-way intersection. His king was close, he knew, along with the others, and they, too, were friends of Gauntlgrym, though he knew not how or why or where he had once known them, if he had at all.

“Me king,” he silently mouthed, but he ended with a sneer, and it was all he could do to stop that twisted scowl from becoming an audible, feral snarl.

He couldn’t take a deep breath, of course, since he no longer drew breath, but Pwent settled himself more comfortably on his feet, as if allowing the gaseous aspects of his form to solidify. He eagerly rolled his fingers together, his ridged and spiked gauntlets squeaking slightly with the rub.

He knew where they were and understood where he could set an ambush with his dead drow minions.

“Me king,” he mouthed again, pointedly reminding himself that he didn’t want to set an ambush.

Or did he?

He glanced back, thinking how clever it would be to summon his undead drow minions, and he noted movement as he turned just slightly, just out of the corner of his eye, and so close that he knew he could be struck before he could react.

How had the dark elves gotten so close? What scout was this?

He turned around to face the would-be assassin and allowed a growl to escape his lips, and moved as if to pounce.

But he did not, for Drizzt Do’Urden stepped out before him.

Pwent eyed him carefully, shocked that he had gotten so close so easily, so invisibly, so silently. The dark elf ranger hadn’t drawn his scimitars, the magical blades resting comfortably at his hips.

The vampire’s roving eye met Drizzt’s gaze and Pwent let another soft growl escape his lips.

“I left you in a cave,” Drizzt said. “As a friend. In trust.”