Night of the Hunter

by R. A. Salvatore

  And he wound it all back to Gauntlgrym, to Delzoun, the heritage, to all that had been, and to all that must be again.

  Not all that could be, but all that must be.

  And he was King Bruenor, the living legend, and so when he said it, the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer believed it, and when he said it would be so, so they determined they would make it so.

  And the flagons raised and the cheers echoed, and the flagons raised again.

  “Ah, but the dwarves, always up for a toast,” Regis remarked, sitting in the corner at the back of the hall beside Wulfgar.

  Wulfgar gave him a wry smile, and said with sly irony, “You only live once.”

  “Twice,” Catti-brie corrected, and she slid into the chair between the two.

  “Aye,” Wulfgar agreed. “And for some, it seems, it takes the second turn around to understand the joy of it.”

  Both Regis and Catti-brie looked at him curiously, and looked at each other, each offering a shrug.

  “I loved you, you know,” Wulfgar said, and Catti-brie’s expression turned to one of sympathy and sadness.

  “Oh no,” Regis whispered under his breath.

  “Honestly, and with all my heart,” said Wulfgar.

  “Wulfgar …” she started to reply, her eyes scanning as if searching for some way to stop this course.

  But Wulfgar pressed on. “I just wanted you to know that.”

  “I do—I did,” she assured him, and she took his hand and stared into his eyes, and he into hers, and a great grin spread over his face.

  “My heart does not ache,” he said.

  Catti-brie looked at Regis again, neither having an answer.

  Wulfgar burst out laughing.

  “Am I missing a finer tale than the one Bruenor is telling again?” Drizzt asked, moving up to the table.

  “No,” Catti-brie said.

  “You are missing an apology, my friend,” Wulfgar said.

  Drizzt moved to the chair opposite Catti-brie. “An apology?”

  “I was simply telling your wife that my love for her was honest and true,” Wulfgar said matter-of-factly.

  “And it still is, then?” asked Drizzt.

  Wulfgar laughed again, heartily, without the slightest hint of sarcasm or regret to be found.

  “Aye,” he said. “Aye! How could it not be?”

  Drizzt didn’t blink.

  “Look at her!” Wulfgar cried. “As beautiful as the sunrise, as warm as the sunset, with the promise of peace close behind. Would you have me lie to you and tell you that I have no love for fair Catti-brie? Would that make it easier for you to travel the road beside me?”

  “Yes,” Catti-brie said, at the same instant that Drizzt emphatically answered, “No!”

  Drizzt and Catti-brie turned to each other, both appearing as if they had been slapped with a cold, wet towel.

  “I’ll tell no lies to make our journey more comfortable,” Wulfgar said. “Of course I love her. I always have and I always will.”

  “Wulfgar …” Catti-brie started to reply, but he spoke right past her.

  “And I’ll always love him, fool dwarf, who gave me a life with mercy he ever denies he possesses. And you,” he added, looking to Regis. “Once I traveled to the end of Faerûn to find you, and I would do so again, with a song on my lips, and should I die trying, then know I died well!”

  He turned to Drizzt and held up his huge hand, and Drizzt took it.

  “And you, my brother, my friend,” Wulfgar said. “Do you fear my love for your wife?”

  Drizzt stared into Wulfgar’s eyes for a long time, and gradually his lips curled into a confident smile. “No.”

  “I would never betray you,” Wulfgar said.

  Drizzt nodded.

  “Never,” Wulfgar said again. He glanced over at Catti-brie. “Nor would she, of course, but then, you know that.” Drizzt nodded.

  “You spoke of a second time around,” Catti-brie said, drawing their attention. “What have you learned?”

  Wulfgar grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips for a gentle kiss. “My friend,” he said, “I have learned to smile.”

  Catti-brie looked to Drizzt, and to Regis, the three passing around a grin none could quite decipher.

  “And now if you will grant me your pardon,” Wulfgar said, hoisting himself to his feet with great effort, and clearly, he had offered more than a few huzzahs and heigh-hos of his own through Bruenor’s continuing tale. He nodded his chin to the far corner of the room, and following that motion, the friends noted a dwarf lass staring back at him.

  “A pretty thing and I’ve always wondered,” Wulfgar said with a laugh.

  “Truly?” Regis said.

  Wulfgar straightened his shirt and pants, turned back to the halfling, and winked. “You only live once, eh?”

  He sauntered away.

  Regis gave a little snort, shaking his head.

  “Go and watch over him,” Catti-brie bade the halfling, but as Regis started to stand, Drizzt put a hand out to stop him.

  “What do you know?” Catti-brie asked him.

  Drizzt was still staring at the departing barbarian. “I know that he is content. His heart is full.”

  Catti-brie started to argue, but stopped before a single word had come forth. She looked back at Wulfgar, noting the unmistakable lightness of his step.

  “He completed his journey the first time,” Catti-brie remarked, as much to herself as to the others, thinking those words would solve any riddle here. But when she turned back, she found the other two both staring at her to elaborate.

  “He was married, with children,” she explained.

  “Grandchildren,” Regis added. “All gone now.”

  “So he lived by the rules and traditions,” said Catti-brie. “He did his duty to his people and to his god.”

  “And now?” Drizzt asked.

  Catti-brie looked back at Wulfgar, who was dancing with the young dwarf lass by then. “Now, he will play,” she said.

  “It’s all a game to him,” Regis said, nodding as he reasoned it out. “Time borrowed from the calendar of the gods for pleasure and adventure, beyond what any man could ask or expect or hope to know.”

  “He is free,” Catti-brie said as if only then understanding it.

  Drizzt looked at the big man, and found, to his surprise, that he envied Wulfgar at that moment. But that moment passed, and instead the drow determined that he would learn from his large friend.

  For in looking at Wulfgar, Drizzt couldn’t deny the light, the joy, which surrounded the man like a halo sent from the gods. With a burst of heartfelt laughter, Drizzt lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, gaining the attention of a dwarf handing out flagons.

  Why not, indeed?

  CHAPTER 6

  D’AERMON N’A’SHEZBAERNON

  DRIDERS,” THE SOLDIER REPORTED. “A TRIO AT LEAST, HOLED UP IN THE rear chamber of the former chapel.”

  Matron Mother Quenthel looked to Gromph.

  “Melarni,” he confirmed.

  Quenthel Baenre looked to Vadalma Tlabbar, one of the other three matron mothers who had accompanied her this day. Vadalma had ruled her fanatically devout House, Faen Tlabbar, for less than a century, but in that time had earned herself an amazing reputation for sadism and promiscuity. She would copulate with anything or kill anything, so it was said, and sometimes at the same time.

  And Vadalma was always plotting, Matron Mother Quenthel knew, much like Vadalma’s dead mother, Ghenni’tiroth. Yes, like her. The memories of Yvonnel, given to Quenthel by the illithid, explicitly warned of the fanatical Tlabbars.

  “Should I have them killed then?” Matron Mother Quenthel asked her three escorts.

  “Yes,” Matron Miz’ri Mizzrym of the Fifth House answered immediately, drawing a laugh from Zeerith Xorlarrin. Miz’ri pointedly looked to Vadalma as she answered.

  Miz’ri had heard the rumors, too, the others understood, for by all whispered accounts, a quiet alliance was
being forged. House Faen Tlabbar and House Melarn, considered the two most fanatical in their devotion to the Spider Queen but each taking their rituals and practices in different directions, were hardly friendly with each other. Their priestesses at Arach-Tinilith argued constantly, sometimes violently, over the proper ways to show their love of Lady Lolth. Still, despite the disputes, the quiet whispers about Menzoberranzan now hinted that Matron Vadalma had recently been approached by agents for House Melarn, offering a truce of sorts.

  It made sense, as these four matrons understood all too well. With House Xorlarrin leaving, there would be a major opening on the Ruling Council, and every House below Xorlarrin would vie for that coveted position. Perhaps House Melarn would go to war with House Mizzrym, the Fifth House, then ascend to the fourth rank as House Faen Tlabbar, House Melarn’s secret ally in their endeavors against Miz’ri’s family, climbed into the vacant third spot.

  “Matron Vadalma?” Matron Mother Quenthel asked innocently.

  “I do not think it wise to destroy driders of any House, or of no House at all,” the Tlabbar leader answered. “They suffer by living. That is why they are driders.”

  Matron Mother Quenthel turned her smirk to Gromph.

  “She has a point,” the archmage agreed.

  “Flush them out and capture them,” Baenre ordered. “Take them in webs to House Baenre for … retraining.”

  “Matron Zhindia of House Melarn will protest,” Zeerith Q’Xorlarrin warned. “But then, she is always protesting, is she not?”

  “How many have we defeated already who are quietly associated with her House?” Matron Mother Quenthel asked, and she moved to the balcony of the loft and looked down over the wide audience chamber below, where the defeated resistance, some alive and shackled, others dead and piled, had been brought. “By what right does Matron Melarn utilize this place?” She spun on the others fiercely. “By what right do any enter here, in this most cursed of locations?”

  “Until now?” Matron Zeerith asked, right on cue. She and Matron Mother Quenthel had practiced this very exchange, after all.

  “Until now,” Matron Mother Quenthel replied. “Now we are sanctioned by the goddess. So says First Priestess Sos’Umptu Baenre, who is First Priestess of the Fane of the Goddess, which is near to this place.”

  “And so says First Priestess Kiriy of Xorlarrin,” said Zeerith.

  “And Sabbal, First Priestess of Mizzrym,” Miz’ri was proud to add, turning to Matron Tlabbar with a smug expression as she spoke. And why shouldn’t she appear so? Matron Mez’Barris Armgo hadn’t been invited along—indeed, it was likely that some of the wayward dark elves the Baenre forces had chased out of this compound had belonged to House Barrison Del’Armgo, while others had been merely Houseless rogues, and most others had been of House Melarn. If the rumors of House Melarn trying to ally with House Faen Tlabbar were true—and it seemed from Vadalma’s sour expression that such was indeed the case—and that House Faen Tlabbar was entertaining the possibility, this expedition had likely put a screeching end to that unified march.

  “And First Priestess Luafae of Faen Tlabbar,” said Vadalma, clearly trying to bring some determination and exuberance to her tone.

  Matron Mother Quenthel almost laughed at her.

  Almost.

  Just close enough so as to let the others, Vadalma included, know that she wanted to laugh at her, but, out of deference to Vadalma’s station, the temperate Matron Mother Quenthel had restrained herself.

  Matron Mez’Barris Armgo paced around her chapel, huffing and snorting and shaking her head. “What are you about, Quenthel?” she whispered to herself.

  House Baenre had sent a sizable force to West Wall, to the old Do’Urden compound, scouring the place, and beside Quenthel had gone the matrons of the three Houses ranked immediately below Baenre and Barrison Del’Armgo. It seemed an almost unprecedented power play, so startling from the weakling Quenthel, a warning to any Houses thinking to climb into the top hierarchy that any such attacks would be met by a unified alliance of overwhelming power.

  And perhaps it was, as well, a threat to House Barrison Del’Armgo. Matron Mez’Barris did not fear any of the other Houses individually; even House Baenre would never openly attack her. The cost would prove far too high.

  But all four of these together? Might this be the start of a great realignment? The creation of a grander tie between Menzoberranzan and the fledgling city of Q’Xorlarrin before Matron Zeerith and the rest of her family departed for their new home?

  Weapons Master Malagdorl entered the chapel then, his stride fast and anxious.

  He nodded back at Matron Mez’Barris’s inquiring look.

  “Witch,” Mez’Barris said under her breath. Malagdorl had been sent to Melee-Magthere to speak with spies House Barrison Del’Armgo had placed about Aumon Baenre, Quenthel’s son. It was an open secret in Menzoberranzan that House Baenre had sanctioned House Xorlarrin’s journey to the complex known as Gauntlgrym, but in light of these new developments, Mez’Barris suspected more than a simple sanction. Malagdorl’s nod spoke volumes: Quenthel had arranged that expedition, Mez’Barris knew now, for as she had suspected, the brash upstart warrior, Tiago Baenre, had traveled with the Xorlarrins.

  Tiago was the grandson of Weapons Master Dantrag, whom Mez’Barris hated. Dantrag had been the greatest enemy and rival of Uthegental, her beloved warrior son, the greatest weapons master Menzoberranzan had ever known, so Mez’Barris believed and preached.

  “Gol’fanin, too,” Malagdorl said, and Mez’Barris nodded, her lips disappearing in a profound scowl. Gol’fanin, the greatest blacksmith in the city, had traveled with Tiago Baenre to the legendary Forge of the Delzoun dwarves. Mez’Barris could well imagine what that might portend.

  She looked at Malagdorl pitifully, and dismissed him with a wave. Did he understand, she wondered? Did her rather dimwitted grandson realize that Tiago would come back armed to kill … him?

  No sooner had Malagdorl departed than First Priestess Taayrul poked her head in through the ornate door. “Minolin Fey has arrived, Matron,” she said quietly.

  “Take her to my private chambers at once,” Mez’Barris answered. “Quietly. And let no word go forth that she is here. House Melarn will likely come calling soon enough. Matron Zhindia is surely outraged by the brash move of Quenthel Baenre, and no doubt House Melarn has lost many foot soldiers this day.”

  “Driders and captured drow foot soldiers were just carted from West Wall to Qu’ellarz’orl,” Taayrul solemnly replied. “To House Baenre, it is presumed.”

  Matron Mez’Barris snorted and shook her head. Quenthel had truly surprised her with the boldness of this move. She had never thought the sniveling Baenre whelp was possessed of such courage.

  To openly abduct Melarni driders?

  “Put the garrison on war footing,” Matron Mez’Barris said suddenly.

  Taayrul’s red eyes widened. “Matron?”

  It had been an impulsive command, and one of great consequence, but as she considered the events transpiring, Mez’Barris found herself agreeing with that impulse even more. “Recall all of Barrison Del’Armgo, noble and commoner. Close the gates and prepare every defense.”

  “Matron,” Taayrul said with a respectful bow, and she scurried away.

  Leaving Mez’Barris alone with her worries.

  Soon after, the four matron mothers and their elite escorts rejoined Archmage Gromph in the wide nave of the two-story chapel of House Do’Urden. Only a short while before, the four had watched, Matron Mother Quenthel and Matron Miz’ri with great amusement, as the three driders, cocooned in webbing, were dragged past them by struggling foot soldiers.

  “It has been so long since I looked upon this place,” Matron Mother Quenthel said. “I had forgotten how much it resembles the Baenre Chapel, although far less magnificent, of course.”

  “Indeed, it is amazing that a House with a chapel of such design could have fallen so far from the Spider Queen’s favor,�
�� Matron Vadalma put in, the sweetness of her tone doing little to cover the cattiness of her remark.

  But Matron Mother Quenthel merely smiled at her. It didn’t matter, Baenre knew, because the plan was in full execution and the other three had bought in wholly. When first they had entered this abandoned compound in Menzoberranzan’s West Wall district, following an army of Baenre foot soldiers and wizards and beside the archmage himself, Vadalma Tlabbar and Miz’ri Mizzrym had both worn sour expressions. They had learned soon after the secret invitation the gist of this little adventure, no doubt, particularly since those invitations had come from Matron Zeerith and not from House Baenre, but had been sent in deference to the demands of House Baenre.

  Through the maze of the complex’s entry caverns, the four matrons had been greeted over and over by Baenre warriors, dragging out the many rogues who had come into this place unbidden and without permission.

  None were supposed to be in here, by order of the Ruling Council, but it was an ill-kept secret in the city that Houses Melarn and Barrison Del’Armgo used this place as training quarters.

  In a powerful stroke, then, Matron Mother Quenthel had struck a blow against both of those Houses, the uneasy Second House and the ambitious Seventh. If Baenre’s choice of dining with House Fey-Branche during the Festival of the Founding hadn’t warned House Melarn to temper those ambitions—indeed, if the appearance of Lolth’s Avatar at the dinner, if the rumors were to be believed, hadn’t done so—then surely this bold strike would make the demand crystal clear to Matron Zhindia Melarn.

  And Zhindia could not even raise her grievance at the next iteration of the Ruling Council, because this place, once the home of Malice Do’Urden, the birthplace of the infamous Drizzt Do’Urden, could not be inhabited or visited, by direct and unambiguous edict of the Ruling Council.

  Until now, when the First Priestesses of the four Houses in attendance had independently confirmed to their matrons that this mission was Lolth’s will.