Try as he might, Nimor couldn’t tell whose magic would prevail, as the whole terrible scene descended into complete anarchy. In the space of a few dozen heartbeats, the sheer mass of Menzoberranyr troops in the middle of the cavern checked the initial rush of the duergar charge, the two armies tangling in a long line of contact that snaked across the cavern floor for hundreds of yards. Standards waved and fell, war-lizards reared and plunged, as the great charge bogged down into a thousand individual duels.
Rushing columns of heavily armored duergar pressed through the seams where dark elf Houses met, streaming in and around their desperately battling foes. Nimor smiled grimly. The dark elves had very little notion of how to weld their companies together to make an army into a single weapon, but each House contingent was a small army of deadly, seasoned veterans by itself. The duergar assault had smashed the Army of the Black Spider into twenty smaller forces that swarmed and stung back like a basket of scorpions that had been kicked over.
“Our victory is still in question, Nimor,” Horgar called from above. “The cursed wizards have checked our first assault!”
“Yes, but you have forced the Pillars, have you not?” Nimor shouted back. “I’d thought the initial charge would break the Menzoberranyr outright, but it seems the House armies are not so easily swept away.”
As he surveyed the battle, Nimor thought the gray dwarves, with advantage of surprise, would most likely be able to defeat the Houses of Menzoberranzan in detail, but it would be a long hard day of fighting to reduce the dark elf force. House Baenre, in particular, had managed to close the Pillars of Woe for the moment, and the longer Andzrel held the pass, the better the dark elves’ chances were.
Fortunately, Nimor had taken steps against this very possibility. The Menzoberranyr seemed heavily engaged to the front with the gray dwarf assault. It was time to slip his knife between Menzoberranzan’s ribs while their swords were locked.
“Now, Aliisza,” he said into the raging air.
Nimor wheeled his mount around, drew his sword, and spurred his war-lizard down into the confused fray. Mez’Barris Armgo and Andzrel Baenre were somewhere near the center of the fight, and he intended to make sure they did not escape the destruction of their army.
A little less than half a mile away, crowded into a small tunnel that descended from the east toward the upper field at the head of the Pillars of Woe, Aliisza stood with her eyes closed, her mind focused on the spell that allowed her to observe Nimor. By virtue of the magic she used, she heard his every word as if he’d spoken clearly in a quiet room. She shook herself and allowed the spell to dissipate.
“It’s time,” she said to Kaanyr Vhok.
“Good,” the warlord said. His pointed teeth were bared in a fierce smile, anticipating battle. He glanced at the assassin Zammzt, who stood nearby. “Well, renegade, I suppose this is your lucky day. I will throw my warriors against the dark elves, not your duergar allies.”
Zammzt inclined his head and replied, “I assure you, you will not regret it, Warlord. Destroy this army, and Menzoberranzan will lie naked before you.”
Kaanyr strode past the alu-fiend and the dark elf to the place where his standard-bearers stood.
“Sound the charge!” he cried.
Instantly, a dozen bugbear drummers struck their instruments, sounding a simple three-beat ruffle, repeating three times. Thronging the tunnel below, the tanarukks of Kaanyr Vhok’s Scoured Legion howled in bloodlust and pressed forward, stamping their feet and clashing their axes as they poured down the tunnel. Kaanyr drew his own molten sword and joined his charging troops, as his guards and standard-bearers hurried to keep up. Aliisza caught her breath at the sight, and took to the air to wing after Kaanyr’s standard. A battle like this didn’t come along every day, after all.
Ahead of the charging tanarukks, one of the cavern walls on the flank of the Army of the Black Spider seemed to shimmer, and abruptly vanished, revealing a gaping tunnel mouth that had been concealed by a clever illusion. The screaming horde of slavering tanarukks poured from the hidden roadway, streaming out to take the drow army from behind while the great Houses were engaged by the duergar riders who had come up through the Pillars of Woe. Aliisza glimpsed Kaanyr’s red banner flying proudly at the head of the force, and the Scoured Legion slammed into the battle.
Only a handful of minor Houses stood in the path of the onrushing horde. The wave of bloodthirsty orc-demons overran them, a spear of red-hot iron punching deep into the army’s flank. Aliisza found herself whooping in exultation and terror, gripped by the terrible spectacle and helpless to express her excitement in any other way. The Army of the Black Spider was hopelessly entangled in the very battle it did not want to fight, a wild melee in open terrain against the combined armies of Gracklstugh and Kaanyr Vhok. Like islands in a swirling sea of foes, each House of Menzoberranzan stood alone against a tide of steel and spell, battling for its life.
The alu-fiend alighted atop a blunt stalagmite and stared down at the battle below her.
Ah, Nimor, she thought. What a great and terrible thing you have done!
Nimor Imphraezl, Anointed Blade of the Jaezred Chaulssin, waded through a scene such as all the devils in all the hells could hardly have imagined. The blood of dozens of highborn drow mingled on his rapier and splattered his black mail. His war-lizard was long gone, burned out from under him by a lightning bolt hurled by a Tuin’Tarl wizard, and his limbs ached with fatigue and a dozen minor wounds, but Nimor grinned savagely, giddy with the results of his deadly work.
“Who has accomplished something now, Revered Grandfather?” he laughed aloud. “Zammzt may have delivered Ched Nasad into your hands, but I have brought low the favored city of the Spider Queen!”
The battle had raged for several hours. Instead of holding an impregnable line between the Pillars of Woe, the Army of the Black Spider had found itself beset on all sides by a foe who’d picked the terrain and the moment to strike. Of course, like a great dumb beast with a mortal wound in its belly, a broken army could take a long time to die, thrashing and convulsing for hours as its blood slowly ran out. In the battles of the World Above, perhaps the defeated drow would have thrown down their arms and hoped for good terms from the victors. In the ruthless calculus of warfare in the Underdark, quarter was neither given nor asked. The gray dwarves had no intention of allowing a single dark elf to survive the day. The warriors of Menzoberranzan knew that, and they fought to the death.
Some of the smaller Houses were smashed apart and scattered throughout the cavern, leaving drow in pairs or threes to sell their lives as dearly as they could. Bands of duergar, bugbears, ogres, and other soldiers loyal to the Crown Prince of Gracklstugh roamed the cavern, drunk on slaughter as they hunted the wretched drow whose companies had been scattered by the assault. Some Houses stood where they were in the great cavern, fighting furiously as the duergar tide rose higher and higher, assailing them from all sides, and some of the Houses held together and tried to cut their way out of the fray, hoping to snatch survival from the specter of a catastrophic defeat.
The soldiers of Barrison Del’Armgo had been driven into a narrow, twisting side-tunnel, and forced from the field. Retreating through a passage only twenty feet wide, the proud warriors of the Second House held off repeated duergar assaults. Mez’Barris was penned in and unable to join with any other Houses, while her supplies burned along with the rest of the train, fired by the Agrach Dyrr infantry who had brought up the rear of the day’s march. Del’Armgo would have a long and hungry march home.
House Xorlarrin’s company, well stocked with the potent wizards the House was famed for, was caught near the center of the cavern, far from any place of relative security. The Xorlarrin mages kept five times their number of duergar at arm’s length for most of the day by raising walls of fire and ice, and lashing out with sweeping blasts of destructive energy—but their wizards were tiring, exhausting their spells. Hundreds of duergar lancers mounted on war-lizards waited for th
e chance to ride down the Xorlarrins when their arcane defenses failed.
The proud company of House Baenre, more than five hundred strong, stood like a rock as lesser Houses were shattered and pulled down around them. As Nimor had predicted, Andzrel Baenre had been forced to relinquish the Pillars of Woe soon after seizing them, and his forces had slowly battled their way across the cavern to the tunnel mouth through which the Army of the Black Spider had marched only hours before. The Baenre turned their full attention on the Agrach Dyrr who barred escape back down the path of the march. Quarrels, javelins, and deadly spells flew thick and fast as the two Houses battled furiously. While the Baenre outnumbered the treacherous Agrach Dyrr more than two to one, the warriors of the First House were obliged to defend themselves against attacks on all sides while they tried to cut their way through to escape.
Nimor stalked toward the thick of the fighting, picking his way past the dead and the dying. Fortunately, he’d readied several spells of invisibility for the day, otherwise he would have been waylaid time and time again by raging tanarukks or grim duergar anxious to slay any drow they encountered. Hundreds of Horgar’s Stone Guards clashed with the Baenre footsoldiers ahead of him, while the Agrach Dyrr barricaded the mouth of the main tunnel on the opposite side. Nimor carefully skirted the fight, catching sight of Andzrel and Zal’therra beneath the Baenre banner.
The Baenre leaders led their soldiers into the thick of the battle against the Agrach Dyrr, slowly but surely cutting their way through the warriors of the treacherous House. A tight knot of bodyguards surrounded them.
The assassin grinned, seeing his opportunity. The Baenre leaders had committed themselves to the fray. If he could destroy them, he would decapitate the Baenre contingent, and if their force disintegrated, there was an excellent chance that nothing of the Army of the Black Spider would survive the day.
Nimor spotted Jazzt Dyrr, who stood back from the melee, directing the Agrach Dyrr soldiers. The nobleman held his hand to a bloody slash across his ribs. The assassin hurried over and released his invisibility.
“A job well done, my kinsman,” he shouted to Jazzt. “Continue to hold the Baenre on this side, and the crown prince’s guard will grind them to nothing.”
Jazzt looked up. Fatigue and pain faded from his face as he surveyed the fight.
“Easier said than done,” he said. “The Baenre fight like demons, and more than a few of our own lads won’t be going home.” He straightened, and offered Nimor his hand. “I had my misgivings about you, Zhayemd, but your plan seems to be unfolding well enough. I’d say we could use you here, but I take it from the blood all over you that you’re keeping yourself busy.”
“The great Houses still hold in the center of the cavern floor, but this is the spot of decision,” Nimor replied. His eyes were fixed on the Baenre banner. “Lend me whatever lads you can. I mean to kill the Baenre commanders.”
“Good, we need the help,” Jazzt replied. He gestured sharply, and brought up a reserve of a dozen seasoned warriors. “You lads, you go with Zhayemd. Take the Baenre banner!”
Nimor readied his rapier and dagger while the fresh fighters gathered behind him. The melee edged closer, as the Baenre continued to claw their way toward escape. He could see the Baenre standard, waving above the center of the fight. Andzrel himself stood near the forefront, surrounded by the best House Baenre had to offer, while Zal’therra hobbled along a few steps back. The priestess was struggling with a bad wound in her hip, and she had her arm around another Baenre as the line advanced.
Nimor waited until the leading Baenre guardsmen were within a spearcast of his soldiers, and shouted, “Up and at them, lads!”
With a ragged cheer the warriors of Agrach Dyrr dashed forward from their hiding places, some firing crossbows into the Baenre before discarding the weapons and drawing blades. Quarrels hissed in the tunnel mouth. Some bounced from the armor of the Baenre guards and priestesses, but other quarrels struck home. The Baenre guards readied themselves for Agrach Dyrr’s charge as best they could. Zal’therra hopped to one side of the tunnel and defended herself with a huge, black, two-headed flail, unwilling to trust her injured leg enough to press into the skirmish but still far from helpless—as an Agrach Dyrr soldier learned when she expertly tripped him and followed up with a blow that pulped the wretch’s skull. In a moment the din of steel on steel and the awful sound of steel in flesh filled the corridor, accompanied by the screams, grunts, and curses of the fighters.
Andzrel, unlike his kinswoman, threw himself into the fight, wielding a double-ended sword with expert skill and lashing out with brutal spinning kicks to hammer his foes to the ground while they parried his flashing blades. Nimor watched in admiration as the furious assault swayed back and forth, then, the Agrach Dyrr making way, he approached the Baenre weapons master.
“Greetings, Andzrel,” he called. “Your master of scouts must report that the duergar seem to have slipped past our line at the Pillars of Woe, and now pose a considerable danger to the Army of the Black Spider.”
Andzrel Baenre fell still as the skirmish swept away from him. Hard anger seethed beneath his disciplined manner.
“Zhayemd,” he spat. “You have made a grave mistake in confronting me. You would have been wiser to savor the fruits of your treachery from afar.”
“We shall see,” Nimor replied.
He leaped forward and aimed a murderous thrust straight for the center of the Baenre’s torso, but Andzrel was not unprepared. The weapons master twisted aside and brought up his double-sword in a spinning parry that deflected Nimor’s blade, and whirled in close to slam his armored elbow against the side of the assassin’s head. Had Nimor been the slight drow he appeared to be, the blow might have fractured his skull. Instead it merely jolted him, hard. He responded by spinning the other way and bringing up his off-hand dagger in a hidden slash that scored Andzrel beneath the breastplate. The weapons master took half a step back and leaped into the air, planting his boot in the assassin’s ribs, but Nimor merely grunted and threw Andzrel back with contemptuous strength. Andzrel rolled and came up with his sword high, his eyes wide. “What in all the goddess’s hells are you?” he muttered. Before Nimor could compose a suitable answer, the weapons master’s hand flashed down to his boot and he hurled a knife straight for Nimor’s throat. The assassin threw his arm in front of his face and caught the blade in the meat of his left forearm. He snarled and pulled it out, blood spattering the dusty cavern floor.
Andzrel didn’t wait for him, of course. The Baenre followed his thrown dagger by hurling himself forward and rolling under Nimor’s guard, trying to run him through with a quick jab.
Nimor jumped clear over the weapons master, pulling his feet up close to his body, and landed on the other side. As Andzrel reversed his thrust and came back up, Nimor punched his rapier through the Baenre’s breastplate and scored a deep wound in the weapons master’s side. Andzrel grunted and stumbled, losing his balance. He sprawled to the ground at Nimor’s feet, his two-ended sword flat on the ground below him.
“A good effort,” Nimor said, drawing back his sword to finish off the Baenre.
Before he could strike, a globe of amber energy encased him. Magical force halted the thrust of his blade as surely as if he’d tried to skewer Narbondel, and resisted his knife as well.
“What in the Nine Hells?” Nimor demanded.
The assassin snarled in rage, even as he realized that the sounds of battle in the tunnel had increased threefold at the same instant. He glared out of the sphere, trying to determine where it had come from and what was happening.
Outside, dozens of fresh Baenre troops poured into the fight from the tunnel behind the Agrach Dyrr, catching Jazzt and his footsoldiers between hammer and anvil. The Agrach Dyrr blocking the tunnel were quickly driven away or killed, clearing the retreat for the House Baenre contingent. Nimor watched in cold wrath as the Baenre began to stream past his magical prison, reinforcing their embattled kin. In the space of a few
moments, the battle rolled away from him and back into the main cavern.
Nimor glanced back down the tunnel, and found himself looking at a tall, round-bodied wizard in the colors of House Baenre, who studied the amber globe with a smirk of self-satisfaction. Zal’therra and Andzrel both stared at the newcomer as well.
“Nauzhror,” said the priestess. Blood streamed from her injured hip. “Your timing is impeccable.”
“A fortunate accident, really,” the wizard purred. “The matron mother instructed me to obtain news from the field, and so I scried the army, found the battle underway, and noted your difficulties. I made use of a very valuable scroll to raise a gate and bring you some help.” He turned and studied Nimor in the globe of energy. “Isn’t this fierce fellow Captain Zhayemd of Agrach Dyrr?”
“So he says, anyway,” Andzrel gritted. “Can you destroy him in that sphere?”
“Not right away. It simply captures someone for a time, encapsulating the victim in an impervious shield of magical force. It will fade in a short while, after which you may kill him at your leisure.”
“Later, then,” Andzrel said, dismissing the question of the trapped Nimor.
With one hand he groped for a small vial at his belt—a healing potion, Nimor guessed—and drank it down. He glanced back at the fighting, his face expressionless as he studied the savage melee.
Zal’therra limped up beside him and said, “Make ready to charge. With Nauzhror’s reinforcements, we can turn the tables on these cursed dwarves and tanarukks.” She looked over to the wizard. “How many soldiers did you bring?”
“Only a single company, I fear. The matron mother did not want to risk any more of our strength in a lost battle, if things go poorly.”
Zal’therra began to protest, but Andzrel set a hand on her arm.
“No,” he said, “the matron mother was right. Now that we’ve secured our line of retreat, we must withdraw any Houses we can from the fight. The duergar and their tanarukk allies have won the day.”
R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation Page 107