R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

He knew he had to let the matter drop, determined not to get too far ahead of anticipated events. He had planted a seed among these four. Let the whispers of a planned assault on the Do’Urden compound fester, and they would come to him, begging.

Bregan D’aerthe could offer them an escape route. All other roads would lead only to death, or worse.

Braelin looked at the older warrior and chortled. “The eight who deserted us assured their participation in the next Do’Urden patrol,” he said.

“Deserted you, you mean,” the Fey-Branche priestess said, and with a laugh she moved to the corner of a building, leaning into the alleyway as if she, too, was thinking of leaving.

Braelin didn’t much like her. If it came to an escape with Bregan D’aerthe, he decided, he would invite that one along then kill her as soon as she believed herself free from the disaster of House Do’Urden.

“As you wish,” he started to say, but he mumbled out the last two words as the priestess’s expression changed to surprise.

The others noticed it, too. All eyes went to that Fey-Branche woman.

She sucked in her breath, eyes going wide, as she jerked back just a bit. Then the source of her discomfort became clear as the tip of a huge spear exploded out of her back, pieces of lung and heart still attached.

Into the air she lifted, her assailant still unseen, and with a flick of the spear shaft, she was flung from the weapon to bounce off the structure across the alleyway and flop grotesquely onto the boulevard.

And then came her assailant: huge and powerful, eight-legged and two-armed.

The four remaining drow gasped in unison at the sight of the mighty drider, and drew their weapons as one. But before any combat could be joined, the air filled with stinging bees-darts from hand crossbows. Braelin and the others, for all their agility, armor, and clever movements, could not escape the swarm.

Braelin was hit several times, and he felt the burn of poison immediately. Being of Bregan D’aerthe, he had been trained in resisting the sleep poison. Not so for one of his companions, who slid down onto the street.

“Form and run!” he told the other two. They started for him, the older male moving well, but the remaining woman strode sluggishly, fighting the call of the poison with every step. She surely wasn’t moving swiftly enough to escape the drider.

It didn’t really matter, though, Braelin realized. The trap had been well-coordinated and every route was blocked now by driders backed by drow.

“Melarni,” Braelin mumbled under his breath. That House of vicious fanatics was known for its driders, and no fewer than four of the abominations skittered out around the trapped patrol.

Four driders backed by drow soldiers against three drow. Braelin glanced around, expecting a second barrage of poisoned darts, and saw just one possibility for escape, back the way they had come. Only a single drider and a single drow enemy had come out that way.

If they could move swiftly and decisively, he, at least, might be able to slip past and run free. He turned to his companions just in time to see the older warrior bring his sword to bear on the slumping, sluggish woman. Braelin realized the man had not been struck at all by any of the darts.

“Second House!” the older warrior cried to the attackers as he cut his companion down. “I serve Matron Mother Mez’Barris!”

And so Braelin Janquay knew he was alone.

He turned and sprinted at the lone drider, dived into a roll to avoid a flying hand crossbow dart, and came up into a sudden charge, his swords working together to turn the creature’s thrusting spear aside, out to his left.

He disengaged his right hand from the parry and leaped up and ahead, stabbing furiously and finding some measure of satisfaction at least when his blade entered the belly of the large half-arachnid creature.

But Braelin was struggling even as he retracted the blade, as filaments filled the air around him and his opponent, magically coagulating into a web.

Braelin growled and rubbed his thumb across the ring on the index finger of his left hand, enacting the magic, just a small spark, but one that lit the web even as it formed. The Bregan D’aerthe scout, knowing what was coming, ducked under his protective piwafwi , and the drider shrieked in sudden stinging pain. Then shrieked again as Braelin scrambled across the beast itself, running along its bent spider legs, his second sword coming in hard to slash the drider’s chest.

Braelin leaped away, thinking to sprint off into the shadows, but where he landed was not the boulevard, as he had expected, but a deep hole into which he tumbled, rolling and skidding to the bottom. Even as he managed to recover from that shocking descent, Braelin looked up to see the hole ringed by drow, half a dozen hand crossbows aimed his way, a trio of wizards and another two priestesses already into spellcasting.

He had nowhere to run.

“You are caught!” one drow warrior cried out, his red eyes flashing.

The older male of Braelin’s group moved up beside that one, glanced down at Braelin, and snickered.

“You will not replace her!” High Priestess Kiriy Xorlarrin said to her younger sister. Kiriy grabbed Matron Mother Darthiir by the arm and thrust her forward. The confused surface elf, looking as always as if she had partaken of far too much Feywine, stared blankly in Saribel’s direction while not actually looking at the priestess.

“Save yourself the disappointment and dismiss that thought now,” Kiriy finished. She spun Dahlia to face her and gently stroked the dazed elf’s face. “She is pretty, is she not? The perfect plaything.”

“She is the Matron Mother of House Do’Urden,” Saribel managed to gabble.

“She is Matron Mother Baenre’s toy and nothing more, you silly child,” Kiriy corrected. “Is that why you are so stupid as to believe that you are destined to lead House Do’Urden, because you believe that this, this, this creature from the sunlit world is somehow taken seriously among the matron mothers?”

“Quite the opposite,” Saribel said. “I believe it because Darthiir is not!”

But Kiriy laughed at her. “Then why do you suppose that you will replace her? Do you think the rules that apply to the other Houses have any meaning here in this abomination called House Do’Urden?”

“No, because they do not,” Saribel argued. “I am the wife of Tiago Baenre, and so I am Baenre, and so I am favored …”

Kiriy’s laughter stopped her.

“Understand this, my young and foolish sister, when Matron Mother Darthiir falls, as surely she will, it will be because Matron Mother Baenre is wise enough to no longer afford this iblith her protection. In that event, Matron Mother Baenre will have turned House Do’Urden over to Matron Mother Zeerith most of all, and which of us do you suppose our great mother might decide is most worthy to serve as Matron Mother of House Do’Urden in her continuing absence?”

Saribel didn’t answer, but silently reminded herself not to put too much stock into Kiriy’s predictions. Something was wrong here, and out of kilter. Saribel had not heard from Matron Mother Zeerith since the fall of Q’Xorlarrin-rumors said that Zeerith was hiding in the Underdark under the protection of, or at least with information supplied by, Bregan D’aerthe.

“If that is the case, then Matron Mother Zeerith will return,” she said meekly.

“She will not,” Kiriy taunted. “You will likely never see our mother again in this city. Her ways have long been gossiped about unfavorably by the other matron mothers, and now that Q’Xorlarrin has failed, more than one matron mother will think Matron Mother Zeerith a fine target for earning them the favor of the Spider Queen. Our path is to hide under the banner of Do’Urden-Xorlarrin is dead in Menzoberranzan. The sooner you understand that, the better your chances are of surviving.” She paused and grinned wickedly, making sure that Saribel was listening very intently before clarifying, “Of surviving my rule.”