Relentless

by R. A. Salvatore

Zaknafein crept along the intertwining tunnels, one deliberate and slow step at a time. He didn’t dare make a sound, didn’t dare step hard enough to cause vibrations in the stone. He was well-versed in the region he and the others had entered, and agreed with Beniago’s decision to send all off alone.

  Two together would alert the burrowers, if any were about, and Zaknafein knew what had created this winding, overlapping, intersecting, and often forking maze.

  The smaller holes were those of thoqqua, worms about as long as a drow was tall. They could move through stone as fast as a drow might walk an open chamber. These didn’t scare Zak—he knew well that he could dispatch a thoqqua, or several, fairly easily, and thoqqua weren’t particularly aggressive unless directly threatened.

  The larger tunnels, however, the ones he could walk upright, were not made by thoqqua, obviously. While the wormholes were smooth, the stone melted by the creatures, these larger corridors were rough-edged, chopped and hewn, and not by axes.

  No, these had been made by umber hulks, giant and fearsome and formidable. Umber hulks would attack him without hesitation, and Zak had a short list of potential enemies he’d consider more dangerous.

  If he encountered one, however, at least he, unlike most other drow, had a fighting chance. That was why Beniago had sent him out ahead instead of the main scouts, neither of whom could possibly stand against such an abomination.

  Or perhaps their earlier conversation had convinced Beniago that Zak was expendable.

  He took no chances. Every fifth step, he put his ear to the wall, listening for the sounds of an umber hulk or a thoqqua burrowing, noises every drow at the academy was taught well.

  He paused before every bend in the winding tunnels, turning all his senses forward with every subsequent inch he moved. He examined every pile of rubble from afar, for the detritus of umber hulk burrowing was most often large enough to conceal a dangerous enemy.

  Time and distance had no meaning to him.

  Everything was caution and safety in this one spot of ground he inhabited.

  If Beniago was impatient, Zaknafein simply didn’t care.

  His caution paid off. He came up on a bend to the left, the left-hand wall deep in broken stones. As he began to skirt that pile, turning his attention to the tunnel ahead as he became certain the pile itself was safe, he heard a soft whisper.

  Up onto the rubble pile he went, carefully picking his steps to avoid upending any loose stones. As he neared the sharper area of the bend, he went down on his belly, crawling to the edge, and peered around. The area ahead was more a chamber than a tunnel, a place where many of the tunnels intersected, and not all at the same level, leaving a multitiered Underdark version of a meadow. Enough lichen and glowworms had settled in the place to give it a brighter aspect than many of the tunnels behind him, affording Zaknafein a wider and longer view.

  He saw the deep gnome first, a small, skinny-armed but broad-shouldered fellow dressed in gray, wearing a pickaxe on his hip, a thick cloak back over his shoulders, bulging behind him above a large pack.

  Across from him, not far, stood a tall drow woman, a priestess, surely, given her wondrous, spider-emblazoned robes. She had her back mostly to Zaknafein, as if he was peering over her right shoulder.

  The gnome held something out to her. She took it and brought it in close, then nodded.

  “You will get this for me,” she said quietly.

  “I will get this for you,” the gnome responded.

  “You will get this for me quickly,” she said.

  “I will get this for you quickly.”

  “You will be careful.”

  “I will be careful.”

  “But if they find you out, then you will run away, back here, back to me.”

  “Always to you,” the gnome replied.

  The stilted conversation had Zak’s jaw hanging open, but as he tried to sort it out, something else came to mind.

  He had to run down there and join in the conversation.

  He started to move, then caught himself.

  No, hurry, he told himself, or thought he told himself. They want to be friends with you. There is great gain to be had here!

  Zaknafein closed his eyes and fought off the compulsion, then opened his eyes just in time to notice something crawling—no, not crawling but flowing—under the rubble across the way.

  Every instinct within the warrior told him that something was greatly amiss. The hairs on the back of his neck, on his arms, all stood up, tingling. His muscles tightened.

  He couldn’t identify why this all was . . . off, but he knew it to be true.

  Zaknafein crept back, hopped down from the pile, and ran away.

  “Jarlaxle’s band was watching,” Bolfae told Iccara, after Iccara’s conversation with the deep gnome Symvyn. “You picked well the meeting place.”

  “Of course,” Iccara replied. “I have spent a long while preparing this. I know Jarlaxle well enough. He is clever for a man, and he has no intention of allowing House Hunzrin to threaten his extra-Menzoberranzan trading partners, particularly not the svirfnebli, and particularly not if they have really found arandur.”

  “You know him well enough to hate him, you mean.”

  Iccara shrugged, as if it hardly mattered, and of course, it did not. “The conflict between the two bands, house and rogue, is inevitable. Both seek glory beyond the city and that means crossing over each other’s pathways. Better for all that this is settled quickly.”

  “Better for us that we get to watch it and enjoy it,” Bolfae corrected, and Iccara did not argue the point.

  “Who will win?” Bolfae asked.

  “Who cares?”

  “Yvonnel Baenre will care. She favors her lost son and the secret knowledge and power he brings to her.”

  “True enough, but this will be no fight that carries back to Menzoberranzan,” Iccara predicted. “This is a prod, a skirmish, and little more. Although the deep gnome miners may find themselves in the midst of a conflict that is beyond them.”

  “I hold you in a place of honor to so hold this gnome in your thrall. I had thought them more difficult to dominate.”

  “Not so difficult, particularly when you tempt them with that which they secretly desire. It is the same with drow.”

  “Not with the drow watching your meeting then,” Bolfae explained.

  “Were you close enough to try?”

  “I was, and I did. And he rejected the intrusion wholly. He may even have sensed it, I fear.”

  Iccara nodded. “Jarlaxle selects his minions well, and trains them as if they were nobles in his house. Even the least of them.”

  “I doubt this was the least of them, in any case. I felt strength of will there as great as I have encountered before.”

  “Did you discern his name?”

  Bolfae shook her head, then straightened and cleared her throat as Priestess Du’Quelve and some others approached.

  “Priestess,” Iccara greeted her. “It is good that you have come. The gnome traitor gave me this.” She held up a small piece of the blue-green mineral. “He has promised me a sizable haul, enough to outfit Matron Arolina in a full suit of arandur armor.”

  “And enough for me as well?” Du’Quelve asked.

  Iccara smiled. “He will come to Menzoberranzan with us, to serve House Hunzrin. He knows the secret of the metal. Your glory will be complete, your ascent to high priestess assured.”

  Du’Quelve started beaming at that, but fell back a step and looked at Iccara with puzzlement. “How did you . . . ?”

  Iccara’s smile widened. “I told you, priestess. My sister and I are not of Menzoberranzan, but we did not seek out the Hunzrin traders by accident. We have eyes in the city. We know, and we approve. When Matron Mother Baenre sees Matron Arolina Hunzrin bedecked in a shining suit of beautiful arandur mail, she will want a suit of her own, no doubt.”

  “What matron mother would not?” Bolfae added.

  “And to get one of her own,
she will eradicate this gnome band and set her own goblin slaves to mining the ore,” Iccara went on. “But all she’ll have is the ore. House Hunzrin will have Symvyn in their possession, and the gnome holds the secret of refining. Thus, House Hunzrin will become greatly favored by Matron Mother Baenre, and Matron Arolina will use that to hold an exclusive imprimatur from Matron Mother Baenre to trade with Enclave Arach, as we both desire.”

  “As we both desire,” Du’Quelve agreed. “There is another concern. We have noted spies—”

  “It is the mercenary band, of course,” Bolfae interrupted her. “Bregan D’aerthe is what you call them, yes? They are of no concern. If they get too close, we will help you destroy them.”

  Priestess Du’Quelve scoffed at that. “They are in the favor of Matron Mother Baenre.”

  “Their leader is, yes,” said Iccara.

  “But the one named Jarlaxle is not here,” Bolfae added.

  “How do you know this?”

  “We already told you, Priestess Du’Quelve,” Bolfae replied. “We have eyes in the city. Jarlaxle is known to us, particularly since we are interested in the svirfnebli.”

  Du’Quelve wore a strange expression as she digested that, looking confused but as if she were trying to make some connections with her bits of information. There were rumors all through Menzoberranzan that someone was dealing with Blingdenstone, both of the visiting priestesses knew, and now, likely, Du’Quelve was beginning to realize that the rumors were true, and that Jarlaxle was almost certainly the one doing the dealing.

  “Perhaps it is time House Hunzrin made it clear to Bregan D’aerthe and everyone else in the City of Spiders that they and they alone are the primary source of extra-Menzoberranzan trading,” Iccara offered, after giving the Hunzrin priestess a few moments to sort through her puzzlement.

  Du’Quelve spent a long while staring at Iccara, and again it was clear she was processing the information and trying to play out all the possibilities. Slowly but surely, she began to nod her agreement.

  Iccara and Bolfae glanced at each other.

  Let the entertainment begin, Iccara telepathically told her sister.

  Chapter 16

  The Winding Ways of Umber Hulk Corridors

  “We should be gone from here,” Zak told Beniago when the troupe had regrouped back at the assigned meeting spot.

  “Gone? We know the gnomes are about and mining, and now can be fairly certain that House Hunzrin has plans regarding . . .”

  Zaknafein was shaking his head through every word, prompting Beniago to pause and stare at him.

  “What?”

  “They are mining, and yes, House Hunzrin is trying to work with them, or with a traitor among their ranks, at least,” Zaknafein explained. “I saw the exchange, a priestess who I think not of House Hunzrin . . .”

  “One of the visitors to the Hunzrin troupe, then,” said Binnefein, and Zaknafein glanced at his old housemate and nodded.

  “He gave her some ore as proof of the find,” Zak explained. “Arandur, I expect.”

  “And you wish us gone from this place?” Beniago asked incredulously. “This is exactly why we are out here.”

  “And now we know.”

  “And now we must stop it,” Beniago said. “We either stop it by chasing away the Hunzrins, or remove this traitor from the equation. In either case, we ruin their plans. This arrangement cannot stand.”

  “You do not understand,” Zak said. “There is more afoot here than we know. Something . . . strange . . .”

  Beniago looked at him curiously. Binnefein moved closer, as did Nav Rayan Dyrr, both leaning in after the atypical uncertainty in Zak’s voice.

  “There was something strange in the way the gnome echoed every command from the priestess,” Zak clarified. “That alone hinted to me that someone or something was in my mind, as well, trying to compel me to go down and join in the exchange.”

  “To slay the priestess and take the ore as your own?” Nav Rayan Dyrr asked.

  “No! Hardly that.”

  “You always did so enjoy killing priestesses,” Binnefein remarked.

  “No . . . I mean, yes,” said Zak, shaking his head emphatically. “But I didn’t want to kill her. I wanted to go down there to join with her and aid her in her endeavors.”

  All three looked at him with open skepticism.

  Zak nodded, accepting and agreeing with their incredulity. “Someone or something was in my mind, trying to compel me, to dominate me.”

  “Priestesses are demons,” Nav Rayan Dyrr remarked.

  But Beniago held up his hand to silence Dyrr and forgo any returning quip from Binnefein. “Matron Mother Baenre herself would have a hard time magically enlisting you to her whims,” he told Zaknafein.

  The weapon master shrugged. “Which is why I have a bad feeling about our endeavor. There is more to this than I saw. More to this than House Hunzrin trying to gain a trading partner among the deep gnomes. More to this than House Hunzrin itself. Of that, I am certain.”

  Beniago looked to his two other principle scouts. They were a small band here and badly outnumbered by the Hunzrin group, which sported no fewer than four priestesses.

  “We know what we came to know,” Nav Rayan Dyrr said. “The Hunzrins are trying to work with this splinter svirfneblin mining troupe, and they have some outside help.”

  “We should let Jarlaxle determine our next steps,” Binnefein agreed. “Perhaps his Oblodran friend can determine some of the unanswered questions about these new observations.”

  “Objections?” Beniago asked, looking to the two scouts, then to Zak.

  “I think it best we be gone from this place,” Zak said. It hurt him to say it. He didn’t want to be back in Menzoberranzan at this time, surely, given the nasty ramifications to his son. But he knew what he felt, and it was obvious to him that their position out here was tentative at best. If someone or something had tried to dominate him, to say nothing of almost succeeding, then that being knew he was out here, and so the Hunzrins likely knew that all of them were out here.

  Just as Beniago nodded his agreement, a call from around the corner startled the four. Moments later came the sound of fighting and the goblinoid guttural grunts of bugbears.

  Zaknafein had his swords in hand before the others had even begun to register the noise. And as he always did, Zak ran toward the trouble. He came around the corner to see a trio of Bregan D’aerthe warriors about to be overwhelmed by the sheer size and ferocity of a half-dozen bugbears.

  He saw his opening and charged in between a pair of fighting drow, his right-hand sword leading with a thrust into the nearest bugbear’s chest, his left-hand blade slashing out wide to drive back the next beast in line as it pressed a drow. Just in time, too, for a second bugbear farther along had tied up that drow’s weapons just enough to offer a clear opening to the one Zak had driven back.

  “Finish them quickly!” Zak called to his three fighting companions, and it seemed likely, since six bugbears shouldn’t prove much of a threat to four superbly armed and trained drow warriors once the element of surprise had been turned back.

  Zak accentuated his point by skipping ahead, swords going out left and right to push back the bugbears to either side. The one he had stuck roared and leaped at him, not realizing his speed—who ever realized the speed of Zaknafein until it was too late?

  His swords came back in, one high enough to defeat the bugbear’s attempted club attack, the other darting forward, impaling the charging brute right beside the lesser hole Zak had already put into its chest.

  It fell away and there were five, but with more coming judging from sounds further along the tunnels, of the shouts of dark elves, the roars of goblins. A bright light flashed from around the corner, orange and flickering, like a flame strike, and Zak understood that the priestesses were not far afield.

  Beniago, Nav Rayan Dyrr, and Binnefein were not so inclined as Zaknafein. They knew the odds against them, had a good guess at the strength o
f the Hunzrin force. The sound of battle in their precarious position did not urge them forward to the fight.

  Rather, it sent them fleeing, three together down one corridor, then Nav Rayan Dyrr peeling off at the first intersection, Beniago and Binnefein splitting at the next.

  Only Beniago’s footsteps slowed as the sounds of fighting receded. He had left Zaknafein behind. Others, too, but Zaknafein . . . That was enough to give him pause.

  He knew how Jarlaxle felt about this one. So many thoughts swirled about him, foremost among them that he was a Baenre. Would the Hunzrins dare attack him if he identified himself and surrendered?

  He could go back and end this conflict, perhaps, simply by announcing his true name. What house in Menzoberranzan would dare incur the wrath of Matron Mother Yvonnel Baenre?

  If he did that, though, his time in Bregan D’aerthe would be at its end, his cover blown to all who would hear the omnipresent rumors.

  Which distressed him more: Jarlaxle’s anger about the loss of Zaknafein, or Beniago’s relegation to once more become a simple minor noble in a house thick with them?

  He searched for a third option.

  Zaknafein stabbed at the bugbear to his left a third time, then spun about and bore into the one on his right, his right-hand sword rolling figure eights in the air before him, each diagonal slash powerful and demanding attention. The sword moved so quickly, he had the bugbear’s eyes following the movement, and so he suddenly flashed that sword back out to the right, then sprang ahead and drove his left-hand sword up under the brute’s chin and into its brain before it had refocused its attention back on him instead of the mesmerizing blade.

  Behind him, a third bugbear went down. Before him, along the line to the right, one of the drow warriors cut down a fourth. The remaining two stumbled backward and the battle was won, or paused long enough for Zak to glance back for Beniago, Dyrr, and Binnefein.

  The weapon master gave a sigh. They weren’t coming.

  He tried to rally the three standing with him, but two were already running away, and when he looked to the third, he found the fellow standing perfectly still and unblinking. Too still, too frozen.