The svirfneblin spoke again, more loudly, and jabbed the very sharp point of his iron spear in Drizzt’s direction. Drizzt could not begin to understand or respond to the foreign tongue. Very slowly and in obvious view, he slid one hand down over his stomach to the clasp of his belt buckle. The deep gnome leader’s hands wrung tightly over the shaft of his weapon as he watched the dark elf’s every movement.
A flick of Drizzt’s wrist released the clasp and his scimitars clanged loudly on the stone floor.
The svirfnebli jumped in unison, then recovered quickly and came in on him. On a single word from the leader of the group, two of the guards dropped their weapons and began a complete, and not overly gentle, search of the intruder. Drizzt flinched when they found the dagger he had kept in his boot. He thought himself stupid for forgetting the weapon and not revealing it openly from the beginning.
A moment later, when one of the svirfnebli reached into the deepest pocket of Drizzt’s piwafwi and pulled out the onyx figurine, Drizzt flinched even more.
Instinctively, Drizzt reached for the panther, a pleading expression on his face.
He received the butt end of a spear in the back for his efforts. Deep gnomes were not an evil race, but they held no love for dark elves. The svirfnebli had survived for centuries untold in the Underdark with few allies but many enemies, and they ever ranked the drow elves as foremost among the latter. Since the founding of the ancient city of Blingdenstone, the majority of all of the many svirfnebli who had been killed in the wilds had fallen at the ends of drow weapons.
Now, inexplicably, one of these same dark elves had walked right up to their city doors and willingly surrendered his weapons.
The deep gnomes bound Drizzt’s hands tightly behind his back, and four of the guards kept their weapon tips resting on him, ready to drive them home at Drizzt’s slightest threatening movement. The remaining guards returned from their search of the stairway, reporting no other drow elves anywhere in the vicinity. The leader remained suspicious, though, and he posted guards at various strategic positions, then motioned to the two deep gnomes waiting at the city’s doors.
The massive portals parted, and Drizzt was led in. He could only hope in that moment of fear and excitement that he had left the hunter out in the wilds of the Underdark.
Chapter 5.
Unholy Ally
In no hurry to stand before his outraged mother, Dinin wandered slowly toward the anteroom to House Do’Urden’s chapel. Matron Malice had called for him, and he could not refuse the summons. He found Vierna and Maya in the corridor beyond the ornate doors, similarly tentative.
“What is it about?” Dinin asked his sisters in the silent hand code.
“Matron Malice has been with Briza and Shi’nayne all the day.” Vierna’s hands replied.
“Planning another expedition in search of Drizzt.” Dinin motioned halfheartedly, not liking the idea that he would no doubt be included in such plans.
The two females did not miss their brother’s disdainful scowl.
“Was it really so terrible?” Maya asked. “Briza would say little about it.”
“Her severed fingers and torn whip revealed much,” Vierna put in, a wry smile crossing her face as she motioned. Vierna, like every other sibling of House Do’Urden, had little love for her eldest sister.
No agreeing smile spread on Dinin’s face as he remembered his encounter with Drizzt. “You witnessed our brother’s prowess when he lived among us.” Dinin’s hands replied. “His skills have improved tenfold in his years outside the city.”
“But what was he like?” Vierna asked, obviously intrigued by Drizzt’s ability to survive. Ever since the patrol had returned with the report that Drizzt was still alive, Vierna had secretly hoped that she would see her younger brother again. They had shared a father, it was said, and Vierna held more sympathy for Drizzt than was wise, given Malice’s feelings for him.
Noticing her excited expression, and remembering his own humiliation at Drizzt’s hands, Dinin cast a disapproving scowl at her. “Fear not, dear sister,” Dinin’s hands said quickly. “If Malice sends you out into the wilds this time, as I suspect she will, you will see all of Drizzt you wish to see, and more!” Dinin clapped his hands together for emphasis as he ended, and he strode right between the two females and through the anteroom’s door.
“Your brother has forgotten how to knock,” Matron Malice said to Briza and Shi’nayne, who stood at her sides.
Rizzen, kneeling before the throne, looked up over his shoulder to see Dinin.
“I did not give you permission to lift your eyes!” Malice screamed at the patron. She pounded her fist on the arm of her great throne, and Rizzen fell down to his belly in fear. Malice’s next words carried the strength of a spell.
“Grovel!” she commanded, and Rizzen crawled to her feet. Malice extended her hand to the male, all the while looking straight at Dinin. The elderboy did not miss his mother’s point.
“Kiss,” she said to Rizzen, and he quickly began lavishing kisses onto her extended hand. “Stand,” Malice issued her third command.
Rizzen got about halfway to his feet before the matron punched him squarely in the face, dropping him in a heap to the stone floor.
“If you move, I shall kill you,” Malice promised, and Rizzen lay perfectly still, not doubting her in the least. Dinin knew that the continued show had been more for his benefit than for Rizzen’s. Still, unblinking, Malice eyed him.
“You have failed me,” she said at length. Dinin accepted the berating without argument, without even daring to breathe until Malice turned sharply on Briza.
“And you!” Malice shouted. “Six trained drow warriors beside you, and you, a high priestess, could not bring Drizzt back to me.”
Briza clenched and unclenched the weakened fingers that Malice had magically restored to her hand.
“Seven against one,” Malice ranted, “and you come running back here with tales of doom!”
“I will get him, Matron Mother,” Maya promised as she took her place beside Shi’nayne. Malice looked to Vierna, but the second daughter was more reluctant to make such grand claims.
“You speak boldly,” Dinin said to Maya. Immediately, Malice’s disbelieving grimace fell upon him in a harsh reminder that it was not his place to speak.
But Briza promptly completed Dinin’s thought. “Too boldly,” she growled. Malice’s gaze descended upon her on cue, but Briza was a high priestess in the favor of the Spider Queen and was well within her rights to speak. “You know nothing of our young brother,” Briza went on, speaking as much to Malice as to Maya.
“He is only a male,” Maya retorted. “I would―”
“You would be cut down!” Briza yelled. “Hold your foolish words and empty promises, youngest sister. Out in the tunnels beyond Menzoberranzan, Drizzt would kill you with little effort.”
Malice listened intently to it all. She had heard Briza’s account of the meeting with Drizzt several times, and she knew enough about her oldest daughter’s courage and powers to understand that Briza did not speak falsely.
Maya backed down from the confrontation, not wanting any part of a feud with Briza.
“Could you defeat him,” Malice asked Briza, “now that you better understand what he has become?”
In response, Briza flexed her wounded hand again. It would be several weeks before she regained full use of the replaced fingers.
“Or you?” Malice asked Dinin, understanding Briza’s pointed gesture as a conclusive answer.
Dinin fidgeted about, not knowing how to respond to his volatile mother. The truth might put him at odds with Malice, but a lie surely would land him back in the tunnels against his brother.