Robert Salvatore: Siege of Darkness

The balor leaped out and lashed out with his whip, catching the glabrezu by the arm. No minor fiend, the glabrezu moved to strike

back, but stopped, seeing that Errtu did not mean to continue the attack.

"It is a deception!" Errtu roared.

The glabrezu, its twelve-foot frame hunched low, great pincers nipping anxiously at the air, paused to listen.

"I was to come forth on the Material Plane," Errtu went on.

"You are banished," the glabrezu said matter-of-factly.

"Lloth promised an end!" Errtu retorted, and the glabrezu crouched lower, as if expecting the volatile fiend to leap upon him.

But Errtu calmed quickly. "An end, that I might return, and bring forth behind me an army of tanar'ri." Again Errtu paused. He was improvising now, but a plan was beginning to form in his wicked mind.

Baenre's call came again, and it took all the glabrezu's considerable willpower to keep it from leaping through the flaring portal.

"She will allow you only one kill," Errtu said quickly, seeing the glabrezu's hesitance.

"One is better than none," the glabrezu answered.

"Even if that one prevents my freedom on the Material Plane?" Errtu asked. "Even if it prevents me from going forth, and bringing you forth as my general, that we might wreak carnage on the weakling races?"

Baenre called yet again, and this time it was not so difficult for the glabrezu to ignore her.

Errtu held up his great hands, indicating that the glabrezu should wait here a few moments longer, then the balor sped off, into the swirl, to retrieve something a lesser fiend had given him not so long ago, a remnant of the Time of Troubles. He returned shortly with a metal coffer and gently opened it, producing a shining black sapphire. As soon as Errtu held it up, the flames of the magical portal diminished, and almost went out altogether. Errtu was quick to put the thing back in its case.

"When the time is right, reveal this," the balor instructed, "my general.»

He tossed the coffer to the glabrezu, unsure, as was the other fiend, of how this would all play out. Errtu's great shoulders ruffled in a shrug then, for there was nothing else he could do. He could prevent this fiend from going to Baenre's aid, but to what end? Baenre hardly needed a glabrezu to deal with Drizzt Do'Urden, a

mere warrior.

The call from the Material Plane came yet again, and this time the glabrezu answered, stepping through the portal to join Matron Baenre's hunting party.

Errtu watched in frustration as the portal closed, another gate lost to the Material Plane, another gate that he could not pass through. Now the balor had done all he could, though he had no way of knowing if it would be enough, and he had so much riding on the outcome. He went back to his mushroom throne then, to watch and wait.

And hope.

******

Bruenor remembered. In the quiet ways of the tunnels, no enemies to be seen, the eighth king of Mithril Hall paused and reflected. Likely the dawn was soon to come on the outside, another crisp, cold day. But would it be the last day of Clan Battlehammer?

Bruenor looked to his four friends as they took a quick meal and a short rest. Not one of them was a dwarf, not one.

And yet, Bruenor Battlehammer could not name any other friends above these four: Drizzt, Catti-brie, Regis, and even Guenhwyvar. For the first time, that truth struck the dwarf king as curious. Dwarves, though not xenophobic, usually stayed to their own kind. Witness General Dagna, who, if given his way, would kick Drizzt out of Mithril Hall and would take Taulmaril away from Catti-brie, to hang the bow once more in the Hall of Dumathoin. Dagna didn't trust anyone who was not a dwarf.

But here they were, Bruenor and his four non-dwarven companions, in perhaps the most critical and dangerous struggle of all for the defense of Mithril Hall.

Surely their friendship warmed the old dwarf king's heart, but reflecting on that now did something else as well.

It made Bruenor think of Wulfgar, the barbarian who had been like his own son, and who would have married Catti-brie and become his son-in-law, the unlikely seven-foot prince of Mithril Hall. Bruenor had never known such grief as that which bowed his strong shoulders after Wulfgar's fall. Though he should live for more than another century, Bruenor had felt close to death in those

weeks of grieving, and had felt as if death would be a welcome thing.

No longer. He missed Wulfgar still—forever would his gray eye mist up at the thought of the noble warrior—but he was the eighth king, the leader of his proud, strong clan. Bruenor's grief had passed the point of resignation and had shifted into the realm of anger. The dark elves were back, the same dark elves who had killed Wulfgar. They were the followers of Lloth, evil Lloth, and now they meant to kill Drizzt and destroy all of Mithril Hall, it seemed.

Bruenor had wetted his axe on drow blood many times during the night, but his rage was far from sated. Indeed, it was mounting, a slow but determined boil. Drizzt had promised they would hunt the head of their enemy, would find the leader, the priestess behind this assault. It was a promise Bruenor needed to see the drow ranger keep.

He had been quiet through much of the fighting, even in preparing for the war. Bruenor was quiet now, too, letting Drizzt and the panther lead, finding his place among the friends whenever battle was joined.

In the few moments of peace and rest, Bruenor saw a wary glance come his way more than once and knew that his friends feared he was brooding again, that his heart was not in the fight. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Those minor skirmishes didn't matter much to Bruenor. He could kill a hundred—a thousand! — drow soldiers, and his pain and anger would not relent. If he could get to the priestess behind it all, though, chop her down and decapitate the drow invading force …

Bruenor might know peace.

The eighth king of Mithril Hall was not brooding. He was biding his time and his energy, coming to a slow boil. He was waiting for the moment when revenge would be most sweet.

* * * * *

Baenre's group, the giant glabrezu in tow, had just begun moving again, the matron mother guiding them in the direction her scrying had indicated, when Methil telepathically informed her that matrons Auro'pol and Zeerith had been continually entertaining thoughts of her demise. If Zeerith couldn't find a way through

Mithril Hall's lower door, she would simply organize a withdrawal. Even now, Auro'pol was considering the potential for swinging the whole army about and leaving Matron Baenre dead behind them, according to Methil.

Do they plot against me? Baenre wanted to know.

No , Methil honestly replied, but if you are killed, they will bethrilled to turn back for Menzoberranzan without you, that a new hierarchy might arise.

In truth, Methil's information was not unexpected. One did not have to read minds to see the discomfort and quiet rage on the faces of the matron mothers of Menzoberranzan's fourth and fifth houses. Besides, Baenre had suffered such hatred from her lessers, even from supposed allies such as Mez'Barris Armgo, even from her own daughters, for all her long life. That was an expected cost of being the first matron mother of chaotic and jealous Menzoberranzan, a city continually at war with itself.

Auro'pol's thoughts were to be expected, but the confirmation from the illithid outraged the already nervous Matron Baenre. In her twisted mind, this was no ordinary war, after all. This was the will of Lloth, as Baenre was the Spider Queen's agent. This was the pinnacle of Matron Baenre's power, the height of Lloth-given glory. How dare Auro'pol and Zeerith entertain such blasphemous thoughts? the first matron mother fumed.