“Kimmuriel, then!”
Beniago shrugged.
“Is there no way for me to get to Gauntlgrym?”
Another shrug from the drow who remained in his disguise as a red-haired human. “Can you even stand?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Soon enough,” Wulfgar promised.
“Then you could go through the Underdark tunnels or overland, but either way, you would almost certainly be killed before you reached the dwarven complex. And even if not, how would you get in? Gauntlgrym is surrounded by an army of demons and hostile drow.”
“Kimmuriel could get me in!”
Beniago shrugged again, then stepped aside as Kimmuriel walked through the door.
“You are alive because of me,” Kimmuriel stated.
Wulfgar stared at him hard, but couldn’t disagree.
“I did not keep you alive because I care at all that you are alive,” the drow added.
“Jarlaxle told you to protect me.”
Kimmuriel snorted. “That matters not. You remain here now and I have sent a priestess to tend you because I desire your assistance.”
“Then promise me that journey to Gauntlgrym.”
“No. But you will help me.”
Wulfgar narrowed his eyes even more.
“I suspect that you wish to kill Brevindon Margaster and the demon that holds him even more than I,” Kimmuriel said.
That had Wulfgar leaning back and widening his eyes in surprise. “You are surrounded by powerful allies, powerful warriors.”
“I doubt any of them could deliver the physical blow I desire.”
Wulfgar considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Lead on.”
But Kimmuriel was shaking his head. “There is much to settle about us in Luskan,” he explained. “When it settles as I foresee, I will call upon you. Until then, heal. I doubt you will survive our attack.”
That had Wulfgar looking back curiously.
“The death of this demon leading the attack on Luskan will be worth your sacrifice, should that come to pass,” Kimmuriel said. “I am sure you agree with that.”
After a moment of consideration, Wulfgar answered, “I do.”
“Ah, a true warrior, as I suspected. To die does not frighten you—”
“I have died before,” Wulfgar interrupted.
Kimmuriel looked at him in shock for just a moment, and Wulfgar smiled when he plowed ahead, for such a detail simply wasn’t going to be important enough to the drow for him to bother asking for an elaboration.
“Your honor is far more important, and losing that honor would be worse than death,” Kimmuriel said. “So, I offer you the chance to strike a great blow for your friends in the south, and yes, for Jarlaxle and we drow who rule in Luskan. But at great risk. You have felt the bite of Brevindon’s blade.”
“Give me one strike,” Wulfgar replied. “I will not miss him a second time.”
“It will not be on a ship that you stupidly sink beneath us, at least,” Kimmuriel said dryly as he walked out of the room.
Wulfgar sat alone, trying to find his center, trying to expel the fever, the pus, the pain. When the door opened yet again, he looked up to see Bonnie Charlee entering.
“I will kill Brevindon Margaster and the red-skinned demon elf he harbors inside,” Wulfgar told her determinedly before she could even begin to ask the many questions obviously stirring within her.
“Ye seem certain,” she replied.
Wulfgar nodded, and the motion induced another round of vomiting.
She was in her own throne room, but Matron Mez’Barris couldn’t help but squirm a little at the array of power that had come in to see her after her refusal to meet the matron mother in her home ground of House Baenre.
Five matrons, Quenthel Baenre included, and their entourages of powerful drow priestesses, wizards, and warriors, stood before her—or in Matron Zeerith Xorlarrin’s case, sat before her on a floating and decorated magical disk, and in Matron Mother Baenre’s case, sat upon an ornate purple-and-black throne, some portable seat more impressive than the throne of House Barrison Del’Armgo.
Mez’Barris licked her lips, pondering the offer put before her. “If I die, someone will replace me,” she told Matron Mother Baenre.
“If I die, you know who will replace me,” Quenthel replied.
Mez’Barris considered it for just a moment, glancing at priestess Sos’Umptu, who stood resolutely beside her sister. But no, she realized, Sos’Umptu did not want the mantle of Matron Mother.
“Yvonnel,” Mez’Barris answered, barely able to spit the name of Gromph’s powerful and unusual daughter, a drow child still, but in the body of a young woman and with the command, wisdom, intelligence, and experience of her namesake.
“Yvonnel,” the Matron Mother confirmed.
“Is she even in Menzoberranzan?”
“She will be a thousand times your nightmare,” Quenthel continued, ignoring the question. “For she is staked in this and will remember your refusal. She will not tolerate you, Matron Mez’Barris, nor the continuing games of your house.”
“Are you threatening war, Matron Mother?”
“Not I. I have no such desire. But I am certain of the path Matron Mother Yvonnel would pursue.”
Mez’Barris glanced around at her house nobles.
“A thousand times your nightmare,” the matron mother reiterated. “And perhaps I have more to offer.”
Soon after, a vast army marched out of Menzoberranzan, aided by magic to speed their way to the lower gates of Gauntlgrym. Such an army had not marched from the drow city in more than a century, the last march of the great Yvonnel the Eternal, Matron Mother Baenre, in her desire to conquer Mithral Hall.
The drow academies lay silent; the drow houses, noble and common, lay silent.
The tunnels of the Underdark cleared before them, for none of the denizens of this dark place wanted to face the full power of Menzoberranzan bared.
Chapter 27
The End
The vampire Thibbledorf Pwent sat on the Throne of the Dwarven Gods in the empty entry hall of Gauntlgrym. The dwarves had rushed through to the deeper chambers, dropping the entry block wall behind them. Now that wall was shaking, bits of stone falling from it from the battering on the other side.
“Ah, me gods, what’ve ye given me here?” the dwarf asked. “Take me home, Moradin. Ye got me caught twixt me heart and me hunger. Aye, the hunger. She’s always there—or better called the thirst. Sweet blood.”
Over to his right, the wall collapsed and the giant spider golem crashed through, skittering across the floor, turning up sideways on the wall to fit through the door leading to the lower levels.
Thibbledorf Pwent shook his head, not even knowing what that might mean. What monster, this?
He saw the demons pouring in behind. Surely Bruenor and the others had known this would happen, that the wall could never hold against such a horde. Why had they run?
To his surprise, there came the sound of terrific fighting, suddenly, in the chambers just beyond the entry hall.
Pwent hopped up from the throne, his corporeal form beginning to dissolve into mere smoke even as he landed. Off the vampire flew to investigate. It didn’t take him long to understand that the dwarves now fighting demons furiously in the corridors and chambers beyond had let the spider monster pass.
But why?
Down flew Pwent, quickly catching up to the giant arachnid golem as it scrambled along the descending ways of Gauntlgrym, moving down walls in the high-ceilinged lower caverns with spidery ease, spitting a spindle of webbing at one point to accelerate its descent. Not a dwarf stood against it, not a crossbow quarrel or catapult payload flew to intercept the spider’s run.
As they came into the lower chambers and tunnels, the sounds of the demon battle fading far behind, Pwent realized the spider’s destination, and in gaseous form, he actually flew ahead of the monster into the most coveted chamber, wherein sat the Great Forge of Gauntlgrym.
It was empty of dwarves.
By Moradin’s hairy beard, me king, what’re ye doing? Pwent thought.
He noted that the door to the primordial’s chamber was more than open; in fact, it had been removed, revealing the short tunnel from the forge room to the large pit which held the godlike beast.
Pwent hesitated, but the spider did not, scrambling down that corridor, squealing loudly as if in sudden and hungry pursuit.
Pwent followed, but before he ever entered that chamber, he heard a tremendous rumble, shouting dwarves, and a screeching spider, and as he entered, he was greeted by the blinding flash of a monstrous lightning bolt.
This is madness, Zaknafein’s fingers signaled in the intricate drow hand code to Jarlaxle, who stood beside him at the far end of a most wondrous chamber, a long cavern bathed in an orange glow from the roiling fires and lava of the primordial beast that powered the forges of Gauntlgrym. Trapped in a deep chasm along the back half of the room, to Zaknafein’s right as he looked back to the corner where sat the entry door, the godlike beast’s movements kept the chamber constantly vibrating. Water elementals swirled about just below the lip of that gorge, constantly reinforced by sheets of water raining down from the ceiling above.
As we asked King Bruenor to trust us, so we should trust him, Jarlaxle’s fingers moved in reply. He has earned that much, many times over.
Zaknafein glanced past his friend to the dwarf in the one-horned helm, small buckler on one arm, many-notched axe in the other. He tried to dismiss his doubts—how might they trust a dwarf? And a surface dwarf at that!
The world seemed so mixed up to poor Zaknafein then. All of his life had been spent in learning the truth of the world, but that, he was beginning to understand, was the truth of the drow world only. And it was a truth distorted by ill intent. All that he had learned—nay, more than learned, had come to know as truth—seemed to him then like a knot beginning to loosen, as if his world was on the edge of fully unwinding.
A crash down the way, beyond the door at the far end of the left-hand wall, demanded his attention.
“So be it,” the drow weapon master muttered, and he prepared to die.
Bruenor had lured the spider here and had set the wall to the right with a line of strange and huge wheeled contraptions—juicers, Bruenor had called them.
The whole thing seemed ridiculous to Zaknafein. Comical, even, except that his life was among those on the line here.
Into the room crashed the spider, taking pieces of the door and wall with it. It slid a bit as it scrambled to turn, and Zaknafein had a fleeting moment of hope that it would pitch over into the fiery chasm.
But no, on it came, straight for him, staring at him, he knew.
One of its eyes flared and a beam of greenish light shot down at Zaknafein, and for a moment he felt his heart stop.
In shock, though, and not from the beam, for the invisible wall of force Jarlaxle had enacted before them did its job and stopped the monster’s ray.
But the spider came on, its focus fully on Zaknafein.
Then did the dwarven teams along the wall leap into action, taking up the poles of the juicers and driving the heavy contraptions forward, broadsiding the massive demonic golem. With roars and cheers, the dwarves pressed on, lifting the side of the spider with the angled front plates of the war machines. Four of the spider’s legs waved up above the front of those contraptions, trying to gain a hold, the mighty retriever teetering on the very edge of the chasm!
But there the dwarves stalled, the spider holding fast to the floor and now regaining its stability and fighting back. Another of its eyes arched with tingles of sudden power. The chamber shook with a thunderous retort.
The farthest juicer shattered and smoldered, its team down and writhing, the target of the monster’s lightning bolt, and the abyssal nightmare quickly gained the advantage, turning to bring its eyes up over the top of the juicer wall, several of them glowing with mounting magical power.
“For my son!” Zaknafein cried, sprinting and feeling his way around the wall of force, swords in hand.
He charged at the retriever, his distraction complete, and the beast turned on him suddenly, eyes sparkling with eagerness and power.
A blast of webbing flew forth from one, but Zaknafein fell to his knees and bent backward, sliding right beneath the sticky trap. The weapon master came up into his continuing run, determined to close those last few strides.
“Me king!” came a bellow before him and to the left, and despite his focus, Zaknafein couldn’t help but gawk for just an eyeblink, seeing the strangest dwarf he had ever imagined, a veritable ball of spikes and edges, running, leaping, flying even—flying?—across and above the struggling juicer teams, launching himself with some magic Zaknafein did not understand right into the side of the retriever’s head, spiked fists driving hard.
“Where do you intend to go?” Regis asked, the carriage still bouncing along. He had just been awakened from a short nap, having handed the reins to Dahlia, by a particularly powerful jolt. “I doubt we’ll be able to find our way into Gauntlgr—”
The carriage jerked to the side. Dahlia yelped and slapped herself on the cheek.
“What?” Regis asked, trying to help her slow the team. He looked down as he grabbed the reins and saw a dark spot on the bench seat, an insect Dahlia had slapped, now spinning about as if trying to fly.
“Ow!” Dahlia called again, and again, and Regis had to pull with all his strength to stop the carriage from pitching into a ditch at the side of the road.
He glanced at Dahlia as soon as he could, and found her slapping—even with her broken arm—at several wasplike insects buzzing about her face. For a moment, he figured that they must have ridden over a ground-wasp nest, but then he caught a clear glimpse of one of the insects, a face more human than bug, and he knew they were in trouble.
Then he heard the humming of a swarm behind him, right behind him, and he feared they were doomed.
He fumbled unsuccessfully with the reins, for the wagon had run into mud at the side of the road. “Run!” he yelled, and scrambled down from the bench seat.
Dahlia leaped down opposite him and quickly broke her staff into a pair of nunchaku, spinning them about like horsetails fending off flies, banging them together to build that magical lightning charge. She grimaced in pain with every contact, her broken arm throbbing.
The swarm suddenly grew loud as the carriage door on Regis’s side fell open and a cloud of the tiny creatures flew out.
The blood drained from Regis’s face, but they went right by him, sweeping over the horses without a single sting, flying in at Dahlia.
She cried out and spun, clacking the nunchaku together to release arcs of lightning, getting stung or bit or both repeatedly, then finally falling and rolling, flailing desperately. She managed a larger burst of lightning, a shock that widened out from her and blasted her as well as the attacking creatures, leaving a rain of them falling dead about her, and leaving her shaking wildly, smoke wafting from her clothes.
The remaining wasplike monsters flew away.
Regis ran to her and helped her up to her knees, where she remained for a long while, sobbing, aching, her face swelling, eyes puffy.
“We have to go,” he implored her.
She nodded, cringing in pain, and struggled to her feet, cradling that agonized arm.
“They came out of the carriage,” Regis explained, and moved with her to the open door.
Inside, the cocoon enwrapping Entreri lay still, though it had tumbled from the seat and was half on the floor, including the end from which it had been hanging from the ceiling.
Dahlia wailed, for that end of the strange sarcophagus, lying near the door, continued to spew the wasplike beasts. She had been stung or bitten a dozen times and the excruciating pain remained, but it was clear now that these little monsters had been feasting on her beloved for days!
She crashed her nunchaku down on the end of the wrap, o
ne after another, pulsing forth the last bolts of lightning, frying the little monsters before they could get clear, charring the end of the cocoon. Her rage overcoming the pain, Dahlia grabbed the cocoon and dragged it out of the carriage to flop limply onto the ground, then began tearing at the burned top of it. She pulled a knife from her belt and stabbed at it repeatedly, viciously, frantically.
“No! No!” she cried every time she paused to inspect it to see that she had caused no real damage.
“Dahlia,” Regis quietly called to her. “Dahlia. We have to leave.”
“Help me!” she yelled at him.
“Dahlia, not now. We have to leave.”
She looked up at him and sneered, but her anger mellowed when she came to realize that Regis wasn’t even looking at her as he spoke, but was staring back the way they had come. Dahlia snapped her head around.
The little white-eyed girl was floating down the road toward them, smiling.
So horribly smiling.
“Help me,” Dahlia cried, grabbing at the cocoon and trying to hoist it back into the carriage.
“He’s gone, Dahli—”
“Help me!” Her voice promised murder, and it was no idle threat.
The two bundled the cocoon into the carriage again and scrambled to the bench, where Dahlia grabbed the reins and whipped the team until they dragged the carriage out of the mud and thundered down the road once more.
The woman passed out soon after, exhausted and agonized.
They had already put Waterdeep far behind them and the team was tired, but Regis kept them rolling to the north.
What mad dwarf was this, Zaknafein wondered, for the fool—the dear, brave fool—threw himself right into the retriever’s face, giant mandibles snapping closed about him, and took the full blast of the demon golem’s next magical beam—a bolt that began to turn him to stone.
Zaknafein couldn’t question it, and could only hope that what was now a statue of a dwarf would block any more magical rays.
But no! For even as Zaknafein closed those last steps, his swords slashing hard at the nearest spider leg, the strange dwarf became a cloud of gas.
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