Night of the Hunter

by R. A. Salvatore

  Do not resist, the third serpent, Hsiv, advised, a soothing melody whispering through Minolin’s thoughts, and one so discordant with the excruciating pain of serpent Qorra’s fiery poison.

  The fifth snake, Yngoth, did not strike, but swayed tantalizingly before Minolin’s eyes as the priestess slumped back against the wall. In those black eyes, Minolin would see hope, Matron Mother Quenthel knew, for the living serpents of her scourge imparted to her their methods, of course, and asked her permission to continue.

  Minolin Fey was overwhelmed. Only the wall held her up as the snakes retreated.

  Then it was the iron grasp of Matron Mother Quenthel, taking her by the arm and dragging her away through another door from the balcony and into a small sitting room. Baenre shoved Minolin forward. The priestess crashed through some chairs and barely held her balance.

  She struggled for a few moments, seeming on the verge of collapse, but then stood straight and spun around to face her adversary.

  “You dare strike me in my own house? And on this day of festival?” she started to growl, but the words caught in her throat as Baenre lifted a clawed hand and reached out with her magic.

  “Yield,” she said simply.

  Minolin wanted to spit, of course, but instead, she fell to her knees, driven there by the power of the spell, held there by the will of Quenthel Baenre.

  “I will never underestimate you again, clever assassin,” Matron Mother Quenthel said. “Indeed, my scorn for you is removed, replaced by—”

  Gromph Baenre burst into the room.

  “—admiration,” Matron Mother Quenthel finished, smiling wickedly and looking at the archmage as if to ask him what had taken him so long.

  “On—on this day?” Gromph stammered with obvious shock. “In this time?”

  Matron Mother Quenthel lowered her scourge, the snakes going to their writhing dance and sleep as the weapon fell to the end of its wyvern hide loop at her hip. She held her hands up innocently, as if in surrender.

  “Decide where your loyalties lie,” she said to Gromph. “The Spider Queen will not have her archmage divided in his loyalties, not in this majestic time. You would secretly lead House Baenre, so you hoped, and a tenday ago, your choice would have been an easy one.”

  “Dear sister,” Gromph said, and in that instant, the face of the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan darkened with rage and twisted with the weight of centuries, and for just a flash of time, glared at him with an awful power bared.

  “Matron Mother,” he quietly corrected, lowering his gaze.

  “No!” cried Minolin Fey, her eyes wide, her expression shocked to see mighty Gromph so cowed.

  “You will never lead Baenre,” the matron mother calmly remarked.

  “Strike at her!” Minolin cried. “It is just Quenthel!”

  Gromph’s gaze snapped up, full of anger, but it fell over Minolin and not his sister. The priestess of Fey-Branche fell back, her arms coming up defensively as if she expected Gromph to destroy her utterly, then and there. “I am with child!” she shrieked as she fell away to prostrate herself on the floor. “Your child!” she begged pathetically.

  Matron Mother Quenthel smiled knowingly as Gromph turned his astonished expression her way. With a nod to Minolin, the matron mother began to cast a spell, and the wizard followed suit. A pair of spectral drow hands, one male, one female, appeared above the prostrated priestess, and together they reached down and grabbed her around the folds of her robes and jerked her back to her feet so abruptly that it took her a moment to even realize that she was standing.

  She started to speak once more, both Gromph and Matron Mother Quenthel moving to silence her, but then all three fell silent as there erupted a great tumult from inside the Fey-Branche house, shrieks and screams and the clatter of dropped glasses and tumbling furniture.

  “House Baenre wars upon us!” Minolin Fey said with a gasp.

  “Matron Mother?” Gromph asked, turning Quenthel’s way.

  But the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan wore a look of serenity, her expression telling the other two that this was no attack.

  The interior door of the sitting room swung open and in strode a drow female of extraordinary beauty and presence.

  “Yor’thae,” Matron Mother Quenthel greeted, using the term reserved for the greatest Chosen being of Lady Lolth, a particular priestess who had become the vessel of Lolth in the War of the Spider Queen. Matron Mother Quenthel, the leader of Menzoberranzan, the supreme drow of the City of Spiders, ended her greeting with a deep and respectful bow.

  Minolin swallowed hard before the specter, the avatar of the Spider Queen herself. Beyond the female, in the other room, the minions of House Fey-Branche and the four remaining Baenres followed the glorious creature, and all of them were on their knees, crawling, and with their eyes respectfully aimed at the floor.

  Minolin shuffled uncomfortably, almost imperceptibly, but Matron Mother Quenthel caught it, and understood. Minolin knew that she should be kneeling, of course, particularly when Gromph fell to his knees beside her. She wanted to drop, but she could not, Baenre knew, because the avatar before them, a priestess who had once been known as Danifae Yauntyrr, would not let her fall.

  Matron Mother Quenthel fixed Minolin with a knowing glance and a taunting grin. Any thoughts Minolin Fey had entertained of revenge against Matron Mother Quenthel had just been washed away, they both knew.

  The incarnation of Lady Lolth glided across the room, passing before Minolin, and pausing there only to put her hand on the trembling priestess’s belly, not yet swollen with child. She moved to stand before the matron mother, and nodded and smiled, then fixed Quenthel Baenre with the most passionate kiss.

  “My Eternal Servant,” the avatar said, gently stroking the matron mother’s tender cheek.

  Then she walked past Baenre, out onto the balcony, and floated off into nothingness.

  “Lolth appeared!” cried one of the priestesses in the room beyond, several daring to climb to their feet once more.

  “The festival is a success!” another yelled, for indeed, the Festival of the Founding was a day when all the drow of Menzoberranzan hoped that Lady Lolth would make an appearance among them, a sign that they remained in her good graces.

  Cheers and chatter echoed around the compound, spreading out to the streets beyond. All the city would soon know of Lolth’s appearance, Matron Mother Quenthel understood. Matron Mez’Barris Armgo would soon know.

  Matron Byrtyn moved up beside her, and Baenre was glad to see the look of reverence splayed upon the old matron’s face.

  “It is a sign to us,” Baenre quietly explained. “House Fey-Branche is vulnerable no more. You are no longer without an ally.”

  Matron Byrtyn bowed before the supreme Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan.

  “You will marry,” Matron Mother Quenthel instructed Gromph and Minolin.

  “Marry?” Gromph chortled, for indeed, Minolin was hardly the first priestess to bear one of his children, and, if he had his way, she would hardly be the last.

  Matron Mother Quenthel turned and waved Sos’Umptu and Myrineyl back, then waved the door closed in their faces, leaving only Byrtyn, Gromph, and Minolin in the room with her.

  “You are with child, and that child is a girl,” she explained to Minolin. “She will be raised in House Baenre, where you will forever more reside, at my side.”

  “Minolin is the High Priestess of Fey-Branche!” Matron Byrtyn protested, but Baenre silenced her with a look.

  “And your child will be groomed as my successor,” Baenre said. Byrtyn gasped. “And you will name her …” She fixed Gromph with a sly look.

  “Yvonnel,” he finished for her quietly, catching on.

  The matron mother sidled up to Minolin, who trembled visibly. Baenre reached up to stroke her smooth cheek and the priestess tried unsuccessfully to shy from the touch. “If you fail in this, you will suffer eternity at the feet of the Spider Queen, her poison burning in your blood with an
agony that will never relent,” she warned.

  “I will serve,” Minolin said, her voice thin and shaky. “When the child is born, I will properly train—”

  “You are an egg and nothing more,” Matron Mother Quenthel sharply interrupted. “Do not think yourself worthy to train Yvonnel Baenre.”

  Minolin didn’t dare respond.

  “Yvonnel the Eternal,” Matron Mother Quenthel said, turning back to Gromph. “The babe’s instruction will begin at once.”

  It took Gromph a moment to figure out what she meant, but when he did, his eyes widened and he gasped audibly, in disbelief, “No.”

  Baenre’s smug smile mocked him. Both she and Gromph imagined the tentacles of Methil crawling over the naked flesh of Minolin Fey-Branche, finding their way to the growing consciousness of the life inside her, imparting the memories and the sensibilities that Gromph had saved within the split skull of his dead mother.

  CHAPTER 4

  UNFORGIVEN

  A MUDDY GANG OF FIVE CROSSED INTO THE NORTHERN END OF THE PASS that led south through the Spine of the World. Their trip from Ten-Towns across the tundra had been uneventful, but hardly easy in the days of the early spring melt, where bottomless bogs hid cleverly among the patches of ice and sludge, where sinkholes opened suddenly to swallow a rider and his mount whole, where mud bubbles of trapped gasses grew like boils as the ice of winter relinquished its hold. Such bulbous sludge mounds appeared all about the trail, sometimes blocking it, and were known to explode, sending forth a shower of cold mud.

  This group had found more than their share of those natural mud bombs, particularly the three walking beside the tall mount that carried the man and the woman. They appeared almost monochrome, head-to-toe layered in brown, where even their smiles, on the rare occasions they managed one, showed flecks of mud. Heavy boots pulled from the grabbing ground, sucking sounds accompanying each step.

  “Sure but I’m not to miss this foul land,” said the dwarf, and she lifted her boot and turned her leg, scraping at the mud pack. Her effort cost her balance, though, and she stumbled to the side, crashing against the large steed, which snorted in protest and stamped its fiery hoof hard, splattering mud and sending the dwarf and her two cohorts ducking.

  “Ah, but control yer smelly nightmare!” the dwarf bellowed.

  “I am,” Artemis Entreri casually replied from his high perch. “It did not stomp you into the ground, did it? And believe me when I tell you that the hell horse would like nothing more.”

  “Bah!” Amber the dwarf snorted in reply, and she wiped a patch of mud from her shoulder, then snapped her hand out at Entreri, throwing the mud his way.

  “It is not the best season to be crossing the tundra, I expect,” said Brother Afafrenfere. The monk had trained in the Bloodstone Lands, in the mountains of Damara, right beside the frozen wastes of Vaasa, so he was the most experienced of the troupe in the manner of terrain found in Icewind Dale. “Another tenday in one of the towns would have served us well.”

  Afafrenfere never looked up as he spoke, just kept his head low under the cowl of his woolen hood, and so he did not see the scowl from the woman riding on the nightmare behind Entreri.

  “Another tenday deeper into the spring would have meant more monsters awake from their winter nap, and prowling around, hungry,” Entreri said, and the others all recognized that he made the remark merely to calm Dahlia, who had been in a foul mood since they left Drizzt Do’Urden on the slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn a dozen days before. None of the five hardy adventurers were afraid of such monsters, of course, and indeed, they were all itching for a fight.

  They had awakened from a sleep in an enchanted forest, a slumber that had seen the passage of eighteen years, though had seemed no more than a night’s sleep to the band. After their numb shock at the revelation, they had tried to look on the bright side of their magically created dilemma, for, as Amber had pointed out, they had gone to sleep as fugitives, with many powerful enemies searching for them, yet had awakened in freedom, in anonymity even, if that was their choice, likely more so than any of them had known in decades.

  But since that night on Kelvin’s Cairn, the mood had turned sour, particularly with Dahlia, and none had found much relief from the dismal pall while tramping through the endless mud of Icewind Dale.

  “We’re not yet in civilized lands,” warned Effron, the fifth of the group, a small and skinny tiefling warlock with a broken and twisted body, his collar and shoulders mangled so that his right arm swung uselessly behind him.

  All eyes turned his way. These were among the first words he had spoken since their departure from the mountain.

  “You have seen them, then?” Entreri asked.

  “Of course, shadowing us, and it frightens me that I travel with companions who have not noted the clear signs.”

  “Ye think ye might be talkin’ less in riddles for the rest of us?” Amber asked.

  “We are being followed,” Afafrenfere answered. “For more than a day now. Large forms, bigger than goblins, than hobgoblins, even.”

  “Giants?” the dwarf asked with a glint in her eye.

  “Yetis,” Afafrenfere replied.

  “Do tell.” Entreri crossed his arms on the neck of his conjured nightmare steed and leaned forward, seeming amused.

  “Vaasa is known for such beasts,” the monk explained. “They are quite ferocious, and a mere scratch of their claws is known to cause disease and a lingering death—that is, if you are fortunate enough to avoid being eaten alive by them.”

  “Never heared o’ them,” said the dwarf.

  “Nor I,” Dahlia added.

  “Then let’s hope they remain no more than the warning of a tired monk on a muddy trail,” Afafrenfere said, and started away.

  “Well, since you two are up high and not crawling in the mud like the rest of us, perhaps you should keep your eyes to the horizon,” Effron said. There was a clear undertone of disdain in his voice, underlying the general discontent that had followed the quintet out of Ten-Towns, an argument that had become particularly virulent between the twisted tiefling warlock and his mother, Dahlia.

  Dahlia returned his words with a sharp glare, but Entreri continued to lean, and to wear his amused grin.

  They climbed a narrower trail through a maze of tumbled boulders, which had them all on edge since the huge stones provided fine cover to any would-be ambushers. The path soon leveled off, then began a descent into the gorge cutting through the towering mountains. Any who ever crossed this way could not help but imagine enemies far above, raining death upon them in the form of arrows or stones.

  Entreri and Dahlia led the way on the nightmare, and it was a fortunate choice. Barely had the group returned to level ground, walking amid a boulder-strewn, wider section of the trail, when the ground before them exploded. A large and thick, hairy creature leaped up from the concealment of a puddle of mud.

  Seeming like a cross between a tall man and a burly bear, the hulking creature lifted up to its full height in the blink of an eye, heavy arms raised high above its head, dirty claws ready to swipe down.

  The nightmare reared and snorted puffs of black smoke from its wide nostrils, but it was not afraid as a normal horse surely would have been. Hellsteeds did not know fear—only anger.

  Dahlia went with the movement, gracefully rolling off the back of the mount as its forelegs rose up into the air. She landed on her feet, though the mud nearly took them out from under her, and skidded aside quickly, scrambling away from the dangerous rear legs of the battling nightmare. She started as if to charge around the horse and Entreri, her magical quarterstaff at the ready, but no sooner had she landed than Amber called out from behind. Reflexively glancing that way, Dahlia saw that this tundra yeti had not come after them alone.

  As surprised as he was, for the tundra yeti had blended perfectly into the muddy tail ahead, Entreri managed to hold his saddle, although only barely, tightly gripping the reins against his chest with all his strength.r />
  The nightmare lashed out with its forelegs as the yeti brought its claws sweeping down, both monsters striking hard, both crying out in response—the yeti with a heavy grunt as the blow from the hoofs sent it skidding backward, the nightmare with an otherworldly shriek that sounded of pain, perhaps, but more so of anger.

  The steed fell to all fours and tugged back against Entreri with such power that it almost flipped him forward over its head, and indeed, he smashed his face into the nightmare’s neck. He felt the warmth of blood trickling from his nose, and a wave of pain that again had him holding on desperately as his mount leaped forward to engage.

  Entreri shook the dizziness away and, wanting no part of this monstrous tangle, threw himself off the side of the nightmare right before the powerful combatants collided. He hit the ground in a roll, sloshing through puddles and mud, and came around to one knee just as the area behind him uplifted in a spray of mud and stones, a second yeti lifting up from concealment, towering over the kneeling, seemingly helpless man.

  At the back of the line, Effron spun around to see a yeti leap up from behind a boulder to stand high atop the rock. It beat its powerful chest and issued a great roar.

  “Yell louder,” Effron quietly implored it as he lowered his bone staff and lashed out with a bolt of dark magic that shot from the eyes of the small skull that topped the powerfully enchanted weapon.

  The ray hit the yeti in the belly, sizzling its brown coat, and indeed it roared all the louder, nearly falling off the back of the rock from the impact.

  Effron, hardly about to wait around for the creature to regroup, cast a second spell, one he always kept ready, and his body flattened, becoming two-dimensional, more like a shadow than a living being; and the yeti roared all the louder, in protest then, when the twisted warlock slipped down into the ground.