Relentless

by R. A. Salvatore

He had their attention, both of them, on the whip and not on Zak’s feet.

  A subtle turn and set launched Zaknafein forward, a final crack of his whip going forward this time, slicing between the two drow, cracking hard against the floor.

  The drow to his left glanced at that last crack of the whip, reacting by stepping out wider. She realized her mistake and swung back, lifting her swords defensively.

  Too late.

  Zak’s sword stabbed above them, clicking off her fine armor and lifting to dig into her collarbone and the side of her neck. She fell back, stumbling, as Zak bulled forward.

  He didn’t finish the charge, instead stopping short, slashing a wide and powerful backhand that drove through the second woman’s single sword, catching her across her chest in the precise moment she was reaching for another dagger. She staggered to her left with a wobbly step, then dropped to one knee, her free hand coming up to her gashed torso.

  She looked at Zak and fell facedown.

  Zak barely noticed, already sprinting down into the maze of corridors, trying to put as much ground between himself and the Hunzrins as possible.

  A short while later, though, he came to a fork in the tunnel, and his thoughts screamed at him to go to the right.

  Too much so, he realized, and so he understood, too, that the source of that instinctual compulsion was neither instinctual nor internal.

  Someone was trying to manipulate him here, to drive him down that right-hand corridor, to try to slip past him back the other way, and likely with guards down the right-hand corridor waiting to engage.

  Zak growled and started right, but skidded to a stop before he had taken his second step. The violation angered him, outraged him.

  The violator was to the left.

  Zaknafein, too angry and too powerful to be so coerced, went left.

  He saw the back of the deep gnome, hands in the air, pleading with Priestess Du’Quelve Hunzrin. The fellow was trying to twist her away from her desires that he fully betray his people, that he set them up for slaughter, by answering her every demand with a question about what had just happened. “Who is that drow man who ran through here?”

  Du’Quelve told him it was none of his affair.

  “If the city isn’t behind you, how can I offer that which you ask?” the svirfneblin tried to argue.

  Du’Quelve signaled to the two warriors flanking her to take him. “You will tell us what we want to know,” she warned the gnome. “One way or another.”

  The poor fellow shrieked and tried to run away, but the guards were right behind, reaching for him, and he couldn’t outrun the agile and graceful drow.

  A globule flew at the shocked gnome and he ducked, though the aim had been perfect and the rolling, amorphous green blob would have gone over his head anyway. Over his head, but not over the heads of his two pursuers, who were too busy trying to grab the little fellow to see the viscous glob flying at them.

  With grunts muffled by a wall of sticky goo, the two stopped in their tracks and tumbled backward, and the goo that seeped between and around them stuck to the stone floor as it had to their faces, holding them fast.

  The gnome glanced back, any relief he might have known thrown aside in the piercing ring of another shriek, for behind him, Du’Quelve rolled her hands, head bobbing, lips moving in a magical chant, fiery energy building visibly about her fingers.

  The gnome turned and cried out in surprise, for the floor was gone before him and he pitched headlong into nearly complete darkness. He landed hard and rolled about, looking up from the unexpected pit to the glowworms crawling on the ceiling high above.

  But the darkness closed around him as the edges of the hole came together, and then there was only darkness, complete and absolute.

  It didn’t last long, as a blue glow revealed his newest captor, a drow man wearing a ridiculously wide hat.

  “Be at ease, Symvyn,” Jarlaxle said, speaking the svirfneblin tongue and not the cruder and less precise Undercommon typically used by the reasoning races of the Underdark when conversing interracially—and speaking it with such perfect inflection and dialect that had Symvyn not been staring straight at the drow, he might have thought a burrow warden was addressing him.

  “You’re safe now and free of the magical domination that led you to this place.”

  You do understand that House Oblodra survives at the suffrage of Lady Lolth? the yochlol asked Kimmuriel. You are heretics, one and all, and yet K’yorl Odran sits in a place of honor among the Ruling Council of Lolth’s city.

  Not heretics, Kimmuriel telepathically responded. We worship no other goddess.

  Atheism is heresy, as is agnosticism.

  We believe in Lolth, of course. Are you not proof of her existence? Are not the magical weavings of the high priestess proof of her existence? Kimmuriel argued.

  You play a dangerous game, Odran.

  Oblodran, Kimmuriel corrected. And how so? I am here with Bregan D’aerthe, a band covertly, even overtly, sanctioned by Matron Mother Yvonnel Baenre, as you know well, Handmaiden Bolifaena.

  And I serve Lolth directly, the yochlol, now in the guise of a drow priestess—and one naked at this time, for she had just returned from the form of oozing black goo. As does my sister, Yiccarda—

  That is not my concern, Kimmuriel said, cutting her short. I have no imprimatur to ignore the demands of Jarlaxle, who speaks for Matron Mother Baenre within the movements of Bregan D’aerthe.

  Above the commands of a handmaiden? Bolifaena asked, her telepathy conveying a clear sense of outrage.

  You did not announce your presence to us, nor did you announce your intentions regarding the minor House Hunzrin to Matron Mother Baenre. Or if you did, she did not think it important enough to dissuade us in our efforts here, Kimmuriel fought back, not giving a bit of ground. I did not know that I was dealing with handmaidens, but even had I known, I am commanded by Matron K’yorl to serve Bregan D’aerthe as I would serve House Oblodra, and thus am I bound. Why did you come here to do this thing?

  That is none of your concern, Handmaiden Bolifaena retorted, and Kimmuriel sensed the change in her tone. He had her back on her heels, illusionary though those drow heels might be. The overall disposition of this dastardly intervention will be adjudicated by Lolth alone, so be not so certain of your correctness here. Beyond that, I warn you, if this goes badly for my sister, I will hold Kimmuriel accountable.

  Kimmuriel didn’t bother to respond to the threat, but neither did he mask his amusement to Bolifaena. He understood handmaidens well enough to realize that she was no match for him. Their greatest powers lay in mental deception and domination, and Kimmuriel was far beyond them in that regard.

  Find Jarlaxle and the warrior and call them back, Bolifaena ordered.

  Go home, Kimmuriel countered. The traitor svirfneblin is free of you. You have failed. House Hunzrin’s bid here is ended.

  Bolifaena glared at him through her drow eyes—perhaps she wanted to communicate a bit more, but Kimmuriel shut the conversation down, shut her out of his mind altogether. So she stared. Then she assumed a true yochlol form once more, a half-melted giant candle of mud waving appendages wildly. From there, she diminished to nothingness and was gone.

  Kimmuriel considered her last order to him, to go and stop Jarlaxle and Zaknafein.

  He thought not.

  He turned for Menzoberranzan.

  Zaknafein sprinted down the tunnel and around a bend, not slowing. There she was, the other priestess from the first room, eyes closed, right hand lifted and in a clawing position as she continued her attempt to dominate him telepathically—and from the looks of her, she thought she was succeeding.

  So did the man, the Hunzrin guard, standing before her, and he only noticed the charging Zaknafein at the last moment. He gave a shout and lifted his hand crossbow toward Zak.

  A cracking whip took the weapon and wrapped his hand in the same flow enough for Zak to tug him before disengaging the weapon.

  It
wasn’t a large tug, just enough to slightly bend the man forward, to slightly alter and lower the angle of his defense. To most, it wouldn’t have seemed as much of anything, but to Zaknafein, the opening was huge, and exploited.

  His sword took the man in the gut, sending him sprawling aside, grabbing at his belly. He wasn’t coming back into the fight any time soon.

  “You dare!” the priestess scolded. “Do you know who I am?”

  “A dead priestess,” Zak replied. “Who you were before that will hardly matter.”

  “You have doomed yourself!” the priestess roared at him. “Behold, you, a handmaiden of the Goddess of Chaos!” She continued to bluster until Zak cut her short, using his whip as an exclamation point of an answer, reaching it out to its full eight-foot length to snap it across the side of her face. He used the power of the whip, as well, drilling a line of extraplanar fire right through her cheek and into her mouth.

  She shrieked and fell back, staggering, a line of blood erupting from the left side of her torn face.

  Or was it blood?

  Zak’s confusion about the oozing substance coming from the woman’s cheek did not freeze him in place—quite the opposite. He had learned from years of battle that moments of indecision could be fatal, and so his reflexes answered his perplexed thoughts by propelling him ahead.

  But then he did skid and stop, when the drow before him was no longer a drow, when the yochlol revealed herself in all her ugly glory, her priestess robes tearing apart as she widened and transformed into the roper-like demonic form.

  “Doomed, foolish male,” the creature said in a gurgling voice that sounded like the popping bubbles in a heated mud puddle. “I am—”

  Zak leaped into the creature, springing fast between the waving appendages, driving his sword deep into the monster’s torso. He dodged aside to avoid the vomit of muddy goo, tearing free his sword, then plunging it right back in.

  The yochlol shivered and shuddered, flailing its eight appendages, missing with almost every swing, but landing a few heavy blows on the weapon master.

  Zak ignored them, accepted them. Again and again he struck, determined to overwhelm the demonic creature with sheer ferocity.

  Then it was a drow again, naked now, cheek still showing the tear. The handmaiden leaped backward, then set herself strongly and jabbed a finger at Zaknafein, throwing a powerful psionic attack and command: “Stop!”

  And he did, as surely as if he had been hit by a giant-thrown boulder.

  The yochlol stood straight and narrowed her red eyes. “I will take you with me,” she promised. “Lady Lolth—”

  Zak ended his feint—he had felt the telepathic assault, but it had not stopped him!—and whipped her again across the face, then leaped in for the kill.

  But she was gone, replaced by a cloud of roiling green smoke and stench, choking Zak and burning his eyes. He knew he had to get out of there, and fast, knew he had to find this demon before it played more tricks.

  He stumbled and swallowed the vomit climbing his throat.

  He had to get out. He had to get away.

  The cloud paced him, surrounding him, suffocating him, and only then did Zak realize the truth: the stinking cloud was not a magical spell. The stinking cloud was the handmaiden.

  Zaknafein waved his sword wildly, but the gas just swirled about it.

  He couldn’t escape!

  He couldn’t hurt it!

  He tried to call out and vomited.

  He tried to run and stumbled and dropped his sword. He started to reach for it, but changed his mind suddenly and instead straightened and took up the whip in both hands, wildly snapping it back and forth, bringing tears in the material plane with every snap. Lines of fire dripped all about him, and bits of the cloud crackled and sparked, the gas hissing in protest.

  His senses failing him, his eyes burning, Zak knew that to inhale was to falter, and so instead he screamed, a long and loud wail of protest and outrage, his whip snapping all the while, the air about him dripping fire.

  Then he was joined in his scream by the agonized voice of a yochlol in its drow guise once more. Zak looked at her only momentarily, just long enough to realize that she was lined with sharp burning gashes—the whip’s violent work had crossed through her material forms.

  She turned to him as if to strike, but Zak had never slowed, and now rolled his whip across instead of back and forth. He didn’t snap it this time but let it roll around her neck, once and again.

  Zaknafein turned and yanked and leaped away from her, pulling with all his strength. The unwinding whip turned her, pulled her, threw her off-balance, and jerked her from her feet, to flip and roll in midair, spinning about to land hard on her back.

  Zak let go of his whip, drew his remaining sheathed sword, then fell over her, plunging the weapon down with both hands into her chest.

  The yochlol flailed and screeched. It reverted to its natural form only briefly before melting into a black ooze—and from that, Zaknafein leaped back, fearing for his sword, fearing for his whip, which was under the goo.

  But no, this was not a living and battling ooze. This was simply the demonic creature melting from the material plane, back to the smoke of the Abyss where it belonged.

  Out of breath, throat burning, eyes burning, Zak sat down heavily on the stone and nearly rolled fully prone.

  It took him some time to realize that he was not alone. He turned about to see the Hunzrin man he had gut-stabbed just a few steps behind him.

  The man stood straight—or tried to, but could not, his arm still wrapped across his belly. He dropped his sword from his other hand and held it up, pleading for mercy.

  Zak just stared at him. He had no breath to reply, had no strength to stand and face the man.

  The Hunzrin staggered away, Zaknafein’s glare following him every step.

  Until he was out of sight.

  At which point, Zaknafein slumped to the ground and passed out.

  Chapter 18

  Making Feywine from Rotten Grapes

  “He’s awake,” Zaknafein heard as he struggled to open his eyes. His vision came into focus slowly, revealing a small figure standing over him . . .

  A svirfneblin.

  Zak’s hands went reflexively to his swords, but he relaxed when he found that he still carried them, and when a more familiar figure appeared, towering over the gnome.

  Zaknafein sat up, grabbing at his throbbing head, squeezing his eyes closed for just a moment to push the pain away. When he opened the eyes, he found Jarlaxle’s hand extended toward him to help him up.

  “Noxious gas,” Zak mumbled.

  “And a fair thump in the head, I expect, given the lump rising beside your left eye,” Jarlaxle replied in Undercommon and not drow.

  Zak took the hand and pulled himself to his feet, unsteady for only a moment. He looked around at the floor, which was still smoking with dissipated demonic goo.

  “It was no drow priestess, I think we can agree,” Jarlaxle remarked.

  Zak looked about, replaying the fight. He looked at Jarlaxle when he answered, though, wanting to gauge the mercenary’s response. “Yochlol.”

  Zak didn’t miss the shadow that passed over Jarlaxle’s face. He had expected the answer, Zak realized, but the confirmation swatted him hard.

  “The Hunzrins with a yochlol? What does it mean?”

  “I do not know,” Jarlaxle admitted, the words he most hated saying.

  Zaknafein looked past Jarlaxle then, to note a man sitting against the wall farther along—the fellow he had gut-stabbed, he realized. “Did you tend to him?”

  “Of course. I give you Intarn Vielle.”

  “Intarn Vielle Hunzrin,” Zak said.

  “Not necessarily,” Jarlaxle said with a wry grin, one that Zak had seen so many times before. “Can I trust you not to kill him while I bring this gnome home to his burrow warden?”

  “Good question.”

  “He didn’t kill you as you lay there,” J
arlaxle explained. “He could have.”

  Zak stared at Jarlaxle, then at the wounded Hunzrin.

  “Good,” said Jarlaxle, as if that answered that. “I’ll return presently, and if not . . . well, run.”

  Zak nodded, his thoughts still back on his battle with the handmaiden, and on what was left of the demonic creature.

  He had destroyed a handmaiden of Lolth—or had done as much as one could against such a creature of the lower planes while on this plane of existence.

  He tried not to think of the implications.

  “He’s not lying,” Symvyn insisted to Burrow Warden Belwar. “He saved me, and the damned drow fought the other damned drow.”

  “It amazes me, I tell you, that any o’ the damned drow’re still alive,” Belwar Dissengulp replied. “Their blades are bloody more than their lips are wet.”

  “But this one saved me, and he wasn’t alone,” Symvyn insisted.

  “Saved you from yourself, you mean.”

  Symvyn shuffled nervously from foot to foot. “Aye,” he admitted.

  “Come on, then,” Belwar invited him, and led him into the entry foyer of the multichambered cave Belwar had taken as both office and home. In there, the strange drow with the wide-brimmed hat and the uncomfortably easy way about him reclined on a rock, hands behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles, showcasing a remarkable pair of high, hard-soled black boots—more remarkable to Belwar because all the reports of this one’s entrance into Dun Arandur spoke of the absolute silence of his movements.

  “Do not be too hard on Master Symvyn,” the drow said, rolling from the stone to stand. “It was not his choice to betray you. It was never his choice. The enemies who found him coerced him with magic, not with promises of personal enrichment. Surely, you cannot hold poor Master Symvyn responsible for that.”

  “You’re asking me to believe all that happened out front,” Belwar replied. “I’m old enough to know that believing a drow is a risky proposition.”

  “My associate freed him of the magical domination,” Jarlaxle said.

  “You intervened right when we came to know that Symvyn was the one selling us out to the drow, stealing our ore and selling it.”