Ричард Байерс - Dissolution

Quenthel had no idea how the thralls and outcasts could have conspired together, nor did she have time to stop and ponder the question. She had to stop the driders before they destroyed her company from above. She levitated upward through the smoky air, meanwhile looking about for the mage who'd created the flame. Barbed arrows and bolts of light streaked at her from all directions. She shielded her face with a fold of her piwafwi, and the missiles rebounded or dissolved when they encountered her layers of enchanted protection. The impacts stung but did no serious damage. When she'd ascended to their level, she recognized certain snarling faces even with the fangs, driders whom she herself had helped to make. Perhaps it explained why they'd throw magic at her despite the inevitable damage to the mob of orcs. She quickly unrolled another scroll and read the trigger phrase therein. Blades appeared, floating among the driders in front of her, then began to revolve around a central point. The razor-sharp slivers of metal sped along so fast they were invisible, and their orbits curved through the bodies of their foes. The blades sliced and pierced the half-spiders without even slowing down, reducing the brutes to scraps of meat and splashes of blood. Quenthel laughed and started to twist around to face the driders atop the stalagmite buildings on the opposite side of the street. A length of something sticky lashed her and looped tightly about her torso, binding her free hand to her chest. It was webbing. She knew that some driders could spin the stuff. As they sought to reel her in, she levitated once more, resisting the pull like a fish on a line. Meanwhile, she struggled to reach another scroll despite the constriction of her arm. The vipers bit and chewed at the cable. Pharaun levitated into view, and sizzling white lightning leaped from his fingertips. It stabbed one drider, then leaped to the next, then another, until the twisting, dazzling power linked all the half-spiders like beads on a chain. They danced spasmodically until the magic ended, then instantly collapsed. Stinking smoke rose from the remains. Pharaun smiled at Quenthel and said, «I've often wondered why the goddess doesn't transform our misfits into something harmless,» he said. «I suppose driders are another tool for culling the weak.» Ignoring his blather, Quenthel peered down to see what was transpiring on the battlefield. Malaggar's contingent had arrived and was tearing into the enemy's flank. At virtually the same instant, the Auvryndar threw open their gates, and, mounted on their lizards, charged forth in a sortie. Teeth gritted, Quenthel pulled the gummy web off her person and floated down to rejoin her troops on the ground. Contemptuous of the enemies' arrows, Pharaun continued to hang above the warriors' heads from which point it was no doubt easier to aim his magic. The scholars only had to fight for a few more minutes then, hammered on three sides, the mass of goblins collapsed in on itself, the implosion laying a carpet of corpses in its wake. Quenthel allowed her troops only a few minutes to collect themselves, then she formed them up and marched them on toward the next of the goddess only knew how many battles.

«Out!» Greyanna shouted. «Now!» The canoe maker gawked at her and sputtered, «Wh-what about my stock?» The items in question sat about the floor of the workroom or hung cradled in straps hooked to the ceiling. «The goblins will destroy them,» the scar-faced princess said. «Like this.» She smashed a half-finished kayak, a fragile-looking construction of curved bone ribs and hide, with a sweep of her mace. «Afterward, you'll make more, but only if you live. Now get moving, or I'll kill you myself.»

The craftsman scrambled off his stool, and she chivvied him out the door. Up and down the street, her half dozen minions were rousting out the occupants of other manufactories and shops. A mob of hairy hobgoblins, all well-armed and many a head taller than the average dark elf, slouched around a corner onto the thoroughfare. They spotted the drow, bellowed their uncouth battle cries, and charged. After the disastrous encounter with Ryld Argith, one of the twins was dead. The other, and Relonor, lay grievously wounded, as they still did in House Mizzrym.

There they would live or die without recourse to further doses of healing magic, since Miz'ri declined to squander the House's limited resources on such incompetents. Greyanna had entirely agreed. After taking the wounded home, Greyanna, with the questionable aid of Aunrae, had selected five new males to join her in the hunt. This time, they'd stalk Pharaun on foot, Greyanna having belatedly realized that foulwings weren't lucky for her. She and her band had been wandering the streets seeking word of their quarry when the rebellion erupted. Once she'd grasped the magnitude of the disturbance, she wondered if it was the raid on the Braeryn that she had engineered, that brutal attempt to flush her brother out of hiding, that had inspired the thralls to revolt. In a mad, dark way, the possibility pleased her, but she decided not to share her hypothesis. Few would see the humor. Most of her thinking, however, was given over to practical considerations. She thought her hunting party could help put down the undercreatures, but only if it could combine forces with a bona fide army. Otherwise, the larger mobs would overwhelm it. In those first minutes of slaughter and destruction, she watched for some noble clan to ride forth from their castle and drive the goblins before them. To her consternation, none did, at least not in her immediate vicinity. Her little troop was on its own. Life then became an infuriating business of running and hiding from orcs of all things, of watching beasts no better than rothй destroy beauty and sophistication they couldn't even perceive. Occasionally, she and her companions slew a small group of goblinoids wandering on their own, but it meant nothing, would do nothing to arrest the dissolution of all that was finest in the world. Where was the Spider Queen? Perhaps she was bored with her toy Menzoberranzan, magnificent though it was. Perhaps she intended to break it to make space for a new one. In time, Greyanna's dodging and backtracking brought her to a street she recognized, a double row of prosperous shops—to be precise, establishments owned by tradesmen under the patronage of House Mizzrym. She herself had called hereabouts, collecting rents and fees, occasionally chastising a fool who was late paying on a loan or had otherwise displeased Matron Mother Miz'ri. It occurred to Greyanna that if the merchants perished, they'd contribute no more gold to Mizzrym coffers. Whereas if she conducted them to safety, she might curry some favor with her mother. Miz'ri had grown impatient with her continuing failure to kill Pharaun and had even hinted that another might carry the mantle of First Daughter with more grace. At the very least, preserving Mizzrym assets would feel more constructive and less frustrating than simply skulking about, and so Greyanna instructed her followers to extract the frightened traders and artisans from their homes.

She loosed a crossbow bolt at the hobgoblins, and her soldiers did the same. Her wizard conjured a cold, towering shadow like the silhouette of a mantis, which mangled several thralls in its oversized pincers before melting out of existence. In all, at least a dozen brutes fell, but others shambled forth from the smoke and fiery glare to take their place. Voices of torment, she thought, how many undercreatures were there in Menzoberranzan? Until that day, Greyanna had never really noticed. She guessed no one else had, either. The hobgoblins charged. The Mizzrym princess shouted, «Dark wall!» Three of her retainers, those closest to the onrushing thralls, stooped and touched the ground, conjuring a curtain of shadow between themselves and the undercreatures, then fell back. One of the Mizzrym warriors herded the shopkeepers farther from the threat. The rest, Greyanna included, scrambled to form a line at a narrow place three yards behind the intangible barrier. The princess pulled a little silver vial from her belt pouch and guzzled the bitter, lukewarm contents down. She shuddered and doubled over as her muscles cramped, and the discomfort gave way to a tingling warmth. Hobgoblins strode from the darkness. They'd dwelled among dark elves too long for the trick to deter them more than a few seconds. At least the blinding veil precluded their advancing in anything resembling a coherent formation. They screamed and charged in a gapped and formless wave, which looked murderous even so. The first hobgoblin to lunge at Greyanna was particularly large and, in marked contrast to his fellows, hairless from the shoulders up. A mistress or master had depilated the slave to prepare the canvas for a work of art, hundreds of tiny round burn scars arranged in a complex swirling pattern. The thrall cut at Greyanna's head. Under other circumstances, she would have retreated out of range, but that would break the line. Wishing she'd brought a shield to the revel, she lifted her mace in a high parry. The hobgoblin's broadsword rang against the stone haft of the war club and skipped off. At once she riposted with a strike to the flank, and the undercreature whipped his targe around to block. The blow bashed a dent in the round steel shield and knocked the hobgoblin reeling back, his slanted eyes wide with surprise. He didn't know about the potion that had lent her an ogre's strength. Greyanna struck to the side, slaying the slave who was menacing her neighbor, then her own bald adversary came edging back. He hovered a second, then feinted to the flank and finished with a cut to the chest. Discerning the true threat, she half-stepped inside the arc of the attack and swung at his jaw. The blow crunched home, and he toppled backward with a shattered, bloody chin and a broken neck. She killed two more hobgoblins, then something prodded her shin, a thrust that failed to penetrate her boot. She looked down, and it was a kobold, armed with a fireplace poker, who had apparently been scurrying about the feet of the larger slaves. Greyanna killed the reptilian imp with a roundhouse kick. She cast about for her next adversary. She didn't seem to have one. The fight was over, and the few surviving hobgoblins were running away. «Form up!» she shouted. «I want a column with the traders in the middle. Fast!» Once the procession was under way, Aunrae, striding along at Greyanna's side, asked, «May I know where we're going? An ally's castle?» «No,» Greyanna replied. «I suspect we couldn't get in. We're going to hide our charges in Bauthwaf.» The column crept past corpses and burning stone, and as they made their way to the cavern wall, other commoners came running out of their homes to join the procession. Greyanna's first impulse was to turn away those without ties to House Mizzrym, but she thought better of it. Many of the newcomers carried swords, and she could press the dolts into martial service if needed.