Relentless

by R. A. Salvatore

  “I only ask when it’s not for meself,” he prayed to Moradin. “And I’m knowing that this one’s not one o’ yer own by blood heritage. But it’s me grandchild, and know that whate’er me girl has here, it couldn’t be more me own than if it was me own, or me own blood girl’s own. So don’t ye let the babe die in this place now, I beg.”

  He felt the sticky blood on his cheek when he moved to wipe his tears. “Damned I’ll be if I come back here just to see this all fall down,” he muttered, rambling through the halls and down the stairs—all empty except for patrols and guard posts he had ordered kept in place, and the occasional couriers heading back to the entry cavern, bearing weapons and tools and other supplies, and one group of eight carrying a side-slinger catapult.

  Their determination and attention to duty and detail lifted Bruenor’s heart as he made his way, but another quake from the primordial tempered his hopes.

  They were going to have to leave, likely, and soon. Bruenor entertained thoughts that perhaps they could break out into the Underdark.

  He only hoped that if that occurred, his enemies would take the place right behind their departure, and have the primordial blow the whole durned complex up right under their feet, and good enough for them!

  Would Bruenor again soon be crowned king of Mithral Hall, far to the east?

  He shook that thought away as soon as it entered his head. If they lost here, he would die here, almost certainly, and if by some strange chance he and his fellows did escape, Bruenor would take to the road, following the path of adventure.

  Aye, he thought. He’d gather Rumblebelly and find Wulfgar, and they, with Catti-brie, when she was able, would go . . .

  It all seemed so hollow suddenly.

  The Companions of the Hall were four now, not five.

  No time for such dark thoughts! Bruenor chuckled then, imagining what Guenhwyvar would have done if she’d heard him so excuse her from the companions!

  Bruenor ran on, finally coming to Catti-brie’s private chambers. He was surprised, but only momentarily, to find Zaknafein already there waiting for him. The drow’s clothing was torn in many places, blood and demon gore splattered all over him. He had a gash on one cheek, and his eye above it was swollen nearly closed.

  “What do we know, good king Bruenor?” Zaknafein asked, scrambling up to him.

  “How’d ye . . . ?” Bruenor started to ask, but he understood when Zaknafein pointed to the anklets he wore.

  “Thought ye was wearin’ ’em on yer wrists, as they were made,” Bruenor asked.

  “I wanted to get here fast, so I put them on my ankles as my son does . . .”

  The tense of his words, the desperate intimation that Drizzt was alive, stiffened Bruenor with discomfort.

  “Ain’t knowin’ nothin’ yet,” said Bruenor. “Me girl’s soon to be a ma, so I been telled, but ye beat me here.”

  He nodded to the door.

  “I haven’t gone in,” Zaknafein replied. “I thought it best to wait for you.”

  A loud groan came from the other side of that door.

  Bruenor hesitated. “Ain’t never seen something like this before,” he admitted.

  Zak managed a laugh. “Where I come from, any child’s birth witnessed by a man would likely mean the immediate execution of both the child and the witness.”

  “Yeah, lovely place,” Bruenor said, and when another, louder, cry sounded, the dwarf moved past Zak and pushed into the room.

  They found Catti-brie kneeling on the bed, leaning forward, blowing out her breath powerfully. Her face was bright red.

  “Aye now, good ye’ve come, but get ye out o’ here!” said the priestess tending her. The second midwife, holding Catti-brie’s hand, scowled mightily at her king.

  “Aye, aye,” Bruenor apologized. “Me girl . . . I’ll be right outside.”

  “You stay,” Catti-brie gasped between blows, and when the dwarf priestesses tried to argue, she said, “He stays!” with such intensity that the both of them fell silent.

  “I will wait outside,” Zak offered. “All my good thoughts and prayers are with you . . .” Zak paused and seemed unsure. “My daughter,” he finished.

  Catti-brie couldn’t manage a smile, it seemed, but she did manage a nod, and with a return acknowledgment and an awkward bow, Zak went out of the room. He started to close the door behind him, but stepped aside as Penny and another drow rushed past him.

  The sight of Yvonnel surprised Bruenor, but he was glad that the powerful priestess had come. When the two women crossed into the room, Bruenor saw past them to two others: Regis, who looked as battered as Bruenor had ever seen him, his fine clothes splatted with gore and bits of blood. Beside the halfling stood Jarlaxle, looking very much like he was about to attend a formal court ball, not a mark or a splatter on him.

  Of course not.

  “It’s past,” Catti-brie said then.

  “Aye, lie her down,” Penny said. “Poor girl’s looking like she’s crawled all the way from Waterdeep.”

  They got Catti-brie down and covered her with a blanket quickly. Yvonnel moved up and brushed the three priestesses aside. “Go away, to the other room,” she told them. “I must speak with Catti-brie.”

  “What’re ye about?” Bruenor asked, but Yvonnel ignored him. “When a king asks ye what ye’re about in his house, ye’re wise to tell him,” Bruenor reminded.

  “I have to speak with Catti-brie,” Yvonnel replied. “It’s about the delivery of her child, which I expect will be before the dawn.”

  Bruenor didn’t move.

  “Me da can hear whatever you’ve to tell me,” Catti-brie said.

  Bruenor looked to his daughter, then nodded to the still-open door and the drow eagerly leaning toward them, obviously nervous.

  Catti-brie agreed.

  “Zaknafein, get in here,” Bruenor called.

  He didn’t have to be asked twice and stood at Bruenor’s side in the span of an eyeblink.

  Bruenor saw that Catti-brie appeared quite fine with Zak being there, so he turned his attention to Yvonnel, and noted her look at Zak, one that was first sour, but quickly, it seemed, accepting.

  “You actually have some knowledge of this,” she said to the weapon master, drawing a curious stare in reply. “Perhaps when I am done and have departed, you can help this woman make her decision.”

  Catti-brie grunted in pain, then puffed it away in short and determined blows. “If you want to talk, do it now,” she insisted through gritted teeth.

  “There is a secret among the drow, known only to a few priestesses—matrons—among us,” Yvonnel began. “It concerns a magic, little used and sometimes dangerous, uncontrollable, even. In our own history, it is utilized only when available, and only in desperation.”

  “Birth magic,” Zak whispered, nodding, for the war with House Hun’ett was a fight he would never forget.

  “Magic to assist in the birth?” Catti-asked, and winced. “If you have something—”

  “No, not that,” Yvonnel interrupted. “Not that at all. The moment of childbirth is the most powerful moment of creation a person can know. There is nothing to rival its intensity. It is the epitome of a woman’s closeness to the powers of the universe—call them gods, call it nature, call it . . . a primordial. There is a magic that can channel that intensity into a thrown spell, and send it wide across great distances.”

  Catti-brie’s face twisted in more than the grimace from her discomfort.

  “As I have told you, we did not use it often,” Yvonnel said. “The last time in Menzoberranzan was to utterly stun an entire room of priestesses, many high priestesses, even a matron, as one house overtook another. Many believe that victorious house would not have had a chance in that fight, except that the matron, in the moment of giving birth, battered her enemies.”

  “You ask me to deliver my child in a moment of great destruction?” Catti-brie asked, her tone somewhere between disbelief and anger. “I cannot . . .”

  �
��It does not have to be that,” Yvonnel replied. “At least, I believe it does not, though with my own people, with my long memories, I admit I have no example of something other than war.”

  Catti-brie was sweating now, her face turning bright red. “Leave me,” she ordered Yvonnel.

  “I can teach the dwarves attending you the ritual easily,” the drow replied. “It is similar to their other rituals—they serve as no more than the conduit for your amplification—”

  “Leave me!” the woman demanded.

  Yvonnel nodded and stood. “Of course,” she said, and bowed. “I pray that you and your child will come through this easily, and hope that he or she will live up to the integrity and beauty of the parents.”

  She gave a look and shrug at Zak and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  Zak offered a resigned look at Catti-brie.

  “You cannot agree with this,” the woman growled at him. “Do not make me believe that all I have come to hope about you was folly, and that you really are a drow of Menzoberranzan in your heart and soul.”

  Zak offered a helpless laugh at that. “I know well the incident to which Yvonnel just referred,” he said. “The last time birth magic was used in Menzoberranzan, I was the spear thrown behind the magical stun. My sword, my whip, took down the enemy priestesses. It was Matron Malice who threw . . .”

  Catti-brie was already replying, angrily, and so it took her a moment to realize what Zak was saying. Then she stopped arguing, staring at him dumbfounded.

  “It was the birth of your husband,” Zak confirmed. “Drizzt was born in the moment of birth magic, powerfully thrown. Destructive magic, indeed. I see no proof that Drizzt was badly damaged by the act.”

  “So you would have me do it?”

  “I would have you do whatever you think best. My place here is merely to support you and to fight for King Bruenor and those others my son thought dear.”

  “Pretty words.”

  “If you didn’t believe them, would you have given me Drizzt’s scimitars?”

  “And what of you, me da?” Catti-brie asked Bruenor, who was sitting perfectly silent and stone-faced.

  Bruenor shook his head.

  “I need a better answer.”

  “I can’no’ know,” Bruenor replied. “Could ye open the gates, then? Could ye banish a thousand demons? Suren that’d be a grand thing to make yer babe a hero even as it’s born. But how am I to know, me girl?” He shook his head.

  Catti-brie started to reply but stopped, fumbling for words. A moment later, it didn’t matter, for a brutal contraction lifted her head right from the pillow, doubling her over.

  Led by Penny, the dwarven priestesses rushed into the room. Some priests came in, as well, but Yvonnel was not to be seen.

  Chapter 29

  Of Fire Born

  As with her first journey, Yvonnel had to use some spells and pick her way carefully to get through the drow army now flanking House Baenre. Their positioning was no accident, she now understood more clearly, and that only reminded her of the urgency and critical nature of these next few hours, or perhaps minutes.

  When she arrived, finally, at Matron Mother Quenthel’s side, she found the Baenre camp astir, soldiers and priestess preparing the expected battlefield—and notably, spending as many recourses securing their flanks and rear guard as their forward positions, the west, where they expected Matron Zhindia to be.

  “What word?” Quenthel asked her. Myrineyl, Minolin Fey, and all of the other Baenre priestesses were there with Quenthel, with the notable exception of Sos’Umptu.

  “Where is Matron Zeerith and Matron Byrtyn?”

  “They are with us,” Quenthel assured her, but her voice did not relate the confidence she obviously tried to put forth.

  “They will do what is best for them,” Yvonnel said. “Loyalty will play only a small part.”

  It became obvious that Quenthel couldn’t disagree with that harsh reality. “Perhaps we should reconsider,” she said. “Matron Zhindia’s case of Lolth’s great favor is apparent to many others. Perhaps they are correct in their assessment.”

  “But you and I know better now,” Yvonnel answered. “He showed us the truth.” She pointed to Kimmuriel, who stood a short distance away, heavily and restrictively guarded, she noted, by Baenre soldiers.

  “Do we?” Quenthel asked, her resignation clear. “Or does it matter? If we are hopeless here in our ‘truth,’ then what purpose does it serve? Do we fight half, perhaps even seven, of the ten greatest drow houses?”

  “House Baenre has faced such possibilities for millennia,” Yvonnel rightfully pointed out.

  “But here, away from our house and defenses, and with Matron Zhindia commanding an army of a hundreds of driders and hundreds of demons? She alone is our match, I expect. With the others, with Barrison Del’Armgo . . .”

  Yvonnel held up her hand, her eyes going to the distance, for she felt then a tremor beneath her feet, tiny at first, but growing.

  “The primordial?” Myrineyl asked with great concern. “Is the beast breaking free?”

  “Matron Zhindia,” Kimmuriel Oblodra called from the side. “Her running driders are shaking the ground.”

  All eyes went to Yvonnel and Quenthel.

  “We should try again, and immediately,” Yvonnel suggested. “If we fail, then that is the will of Lolth, it would seem, and we will still have time to make our ultimate choice.”

  Quenthel mulled on that for a bit. Yvonnel knew what she was thinking, for they shared the pertinent memories here, recollections from a time long past, two thousand years and more, in the fledgling days of Menzoberranzan.

  The stark difference could not be dismissed. Seeing that without, as Kimmuriel had noted, the “sequential effect” was so dramatic that Yvonnel and Quenthel could not ignore it, and so it was hope and not fear that drove the Matron Mother forward when she said, “All priestesses and wizards in line to support us.” To some nearby sentries, she ordered, “Go to House Do’Urden and House Fey-Branche. Quickly. Tell the matrons to send us all of their wizards and priestesses. Tell them to come and join in this.”

  “The matrons won’t come,” Yvonnel told Quenthel when they headed back for their respective trees at the end of the wide trail that spilled onto the meadow. “And their aid, if any, will be thin.”

  “I know,” Quenthel replied.

  “If we fail, they can deny participation,” Yvonnel warned.

  “That will hardly matter if we fail,” Quenthel said. “But if we succeed, they will be more wedded to House Baenre and will deign to show it to forego the wrath of the victorious Matron Mother.”

  They parted then, and Yvonnel gave silent approval to her aunt. Her invitation was putting Matron Byrtyn, and particularly the wavering Matron Zeerith, into a tight box.

  They took their places at their respective trees, each supported by a bevy of priestesses and wizards. With a shared nod, they again began to weave.

  Little seemed to come of their efforts.

  The ground began to shake more noticeably under their feet.

  Sweating and exhausted, Catti-brie tried to put aside the acute pain and her very real fears that the primordial had damaged her coming child. She tried to put aside the critical situation outside of this room, where the dwarves of Gauntlgrym fought for their very existence against seemingly overwhelming odds. She tried to sift through the confusion of Yvonnel’s request and Zak’s clarification—and that led her back to Drizzt, her Drizzt, the love of her life.

  More than anything at all, that settled Catti-brie. The memory of her husband pushed the pain away, threw any fears aside, and gave her the strength she needed both for this birth and more.

  Much more.

  She whispered the words Yvonnel had given to Copetta and Copetta to her. She whispered the incantation as she blew in short breaths to push the pain away.

  And there, as the magic began to execute, she found something, something wonderful, something
beautiful.

  The beauty of creation, of a life coming forth.

  And in that creation, power as the woman had never known before.

  She sent her magical voice out far and wide, like an announcement of the birth to bolster the dwarves and their allies, to shake their enemies. She had no specifics to add to that simple message dweomer at first, unlike when Matron Malice had blasted the room in House Hun’ett to paralyze the priestesses.

  Not at first.

  Brother Afafrenfere knew that he was lost, deliciously so. He had come to this spiritual state to escape the lethal bite of a blade, and then determined to find Drizzt, but now, all of that was gone from him, as were any thoughts of returning to his physical body, of being alive in any sense of the word he had ever known.

  For now he was alive, more than ever. Now he knew truth and eternity and the beauty of . . . everything.

  And he could be a part of it. He was a part of it, and that was good. Any grounding he had to the world he had left behind wisped away to almost nothingness.

  Almost.

  For then Afafrenfere heard a voice, sweet and strong. He knew it to be Catti-brie, sweet Catti-brie, powerful Catti-brie.

  He heard her call, heard her announcement, felt her determination, her sheer force of will, and it beckoned him back, reminding him of his unfinished business.

  Her voice found him and guided him like a beacon on a distant shore. The path to reforming his physical body and fighting with his allies was clear to him then, and the call beckoned.

  Yvonnel’s fingers began to move as if not of her own accord, weaving in the air as if she was playing some unseen harp.

  Across the way, Quenthel similarly fell into a rhythm that surprised her consciousness.

  For there was a music in the air, but one of magic, not notes. They felt the power of Catti-brie, thrown out to them as Matron Malice had done to House Hun’ett, except to reverse effect. Where Malice had paralyzed the Hun’etts, Catti-brie now filtered her power into the two Baenres, lending them strength, giving them harmony, lifting their magic to heights they knew only from the memories of Yvonnel the Eternal, first in Matron Mother Yvonnel Baenre’s own use of birth magic in the early days of Menzoberranzan and then a second time when Yvonnel the Eternal had dropped House Oblodra into the Clawrift.