Just looking at Kiriy then made Saribel’s blood burn with the memories of that awful poison, made her throat dry at the feeling of the fiery vomit burning all the way up her throat.
“Whose tenure,” Kiriy had said, and not “whose reign.”
Saribel’s thoughts whirled in a hundred different directions. She wanted to speak with Matron Mother Zeerith, but she knew Zeerith would be secretly out of the city that same day and might not return for years, or decades even.
She thought she should go to the matron mother, but realized that Quenthel Baenre would more likely murder her than aid her.
Tiago might be the answer, she realized, and that thought troubled her more than any other. Her only path to the throne of House Do’Urden would be beside Tiago, and he, not she, would have to forge the trail. Saribel hated that thought, hated the notion that Tiago would hold sway over her even if she realized her highest ambition and became Matron Mother Do’Urden.
How many years would she have to suffer him beside her?
A loud boom shook the balcony, and the whole of the city, the final burst of celebratory fireworks for the appointment of Archmage Tsabrak Xorlarrin.
Saribel again glanced at Kiriy, whose eyes gleamed as she fixed them upon the distant ceremony. Saribel was not close to her brother Tsabrak in any way. He was older, the eldest of the Xorlarrin children, but only a few years senior to Kiriy. The two of them had been more parent than sibling to Saribel and Ravel, with Berellip in the middle, always pitting the older Xorlarrin children against the younger two, particularly against Saribel.
It occurred to Saribel only then that with Tsabrak’s ascension and Matron Mother Zeerith’s expected long absence, Kiriy had just gained a mighty ally.
Perhaps, Saribel thought, she would be wise not to covet the untimely demise of Matron Mother Darthiir Do’Urden.
CHAPTER 5
They were of Clan Battlehammer. This he knew as he silently slipped past the torn dwarf body. Stokely Silverstream had warned of this. They had found some of the Icewind Dale dwarves battered but alive in the tunnels immediately around the Forge Room and the chambers the drow House had taken as its home.
But for those deeper in the mines …
The Hunter looked at the ankle cuff binding the dwarf to the stone. The poor fellow had nearly torn his foot off trying to slip free of it.
Because he had known, as the Hunter knew now.
The tunnels were thick with demons.
Around a corner in the low lichen glow, the Hunter saw another dwarf victim, or pieces of the poor lass, at least. He slid Taulmaril back over his shoulder and drew out his scimitars. He wanted to see the beasts up close.
He wanted to feel the heat of their spilling blood.
This was the darkness of the Underdark, where Abyssal creatures were surely at home. But this was the home of the drow, too, and the Hunter was their perfect incarnation.
He caught a snuffling sound up ahead, around a left-hand corner, and recognized that some beast had caught his scent. The corridor ended at that corner, but went to the right as well, so going fast around it would expose his back to any allies of the creature.
He glanced back at the torn dwarf, and he cared.
He glanced ahead at the intersection, imagined the potential trap, and the Hunter did not care.
He went around the corner in a blur, hands working furiously before he ever came in sight of the creature, scoring a first hit before he realized the identity of this demon, a balgura, a dwarf-like thug two feet taller than the Hunter and thrice his girth, and that bulk all muscle and heavy bone.
Icingdeath dug into the demon’s shoulder, and the brute howled when the scimitar bit at its Abyssal core. Around came the beast, a huge hammer swinging, and the Hunter dived back into a roll, disengaging his blade. The corridor shook violently under the weight of that blow. Stones and dirt tumbled from above.
And the Hunter realized the trap as he came around, noting a trio of emaciated manes ambling in at him. He started for the balgura but cut back fast, spinning and slashing, then boring ahead, his blades tearing and chopping with every step, sending bits of these least demons flying.
He went through them like a mole through soft dirt, burrowing and chopping and shoving aside the dying husks. He heard the heavy footsteps of the balgura behind him and thought to dive into a roll and bring forth his bow.
But no, this was personal.
He wanted to feel the heat of its spilling blood.
He stopped and spun, ducking so low that his bum touched the stone floor, the heavy hammer sweeping over his head to smash into the corridor wall once more.
Up came the Hunter, flipping his scimitars in his hands and digging their tips into the heavyset demon with overhand chops, walking them up the way he might use them to climb an ice sheet.
On pure instinct, before he was even consciously aware of the move, he threw his legs out behind him and up high, his form parallel to the floor, and the backhand swing of the lumbering demon swiped harmlessly below him.
His feet touched down and he quick-stepped forward, but threw his shoulders back tearing free the blades and rolling straight back to avoid another corridor-rattling swing.
The opponents paused and squared off and the Hunter saw pain in the balgura’s black eyes, and saw the lines of blood streaming from the wounds, particularly the deep shoulder cuts. And the Hunter felt that blood on his own bare forearms, and he was glad.
In he charged as the balgura brought its heavy hammer behind it for an overhead chop. The Hunter’s blades worked a dizzying blur, stabbing and slashing, and into the air he went, diving forward, scimitars crossed. He passed over the squat creature and tucked fast, setting the crook of his blades against the rising warhammer.
He lifted over the warhammer, twisting and pressing, and only finally releasing it as he spun to land lightly. Not so agile was the balgura, caught by surprise by the bold and speedy move, its balance and weight all askew. It hopped weirdly, barely able to still bring the hammer over its head, and it stumbled as it did, crashing shoulder-first into the corridor wall.
With a roar of protest, the demon bounced off that stone and whirled about.
“I wear no shackles!” proclaimed the Hunter, who was too close by then. In bore his blades, and this time, when Icingdeath found the Abyssal creature’s throat, the Hunter did not retract. He pressed in all the harder, Twinkle working independently to keep the demon’s grasping hand aside, and to repeatedly dart under the extended Icingdeath to stab at the arm that still held the warhammer.
Like a trained fighting dog, the Hunter would not let go. Icingdeath feasted, and the balgura howled.
And the balgura died.
With an angry twist of his wrist, the Hunter cut the demon’s throat as it slumped to the floor.
A roar from behind, from the corridor where he had first turned, and the Hunter had his bow in hand, fitting an arrow so fluidly that it would have appeared to any onlookers that the missile had been set on the bowstring all along.
A second balgura bore down on him, crossing the perpendicular corridor.
But the Hunter held his shot. Out of that corridor came another form, a lithe form not unlike his own.
A slender blade led, plunging through the balgura’s side. The demon howled and threw itself against the far wall, trying to turn and keep up as the second drow sped behind it, the blade working fast, thrust and retract, thrust and retract, and so cleanly and smoothly did it travel, deep into the demon’s muscle and gristle with every plunge, that the Hunter could only watch in appreciation.
With undeniable skill and perfect aim, the drow drove the deadly weapon home again and again, and always was he one stride ahead of the turning, dying demon.