“Is there even a House Janquay remaining in the city?” the Fey-Branche woman asked, her eyes on the new deserters.
“Does it matter?” Braelin angrily retorted.
“Am I to expect Tiago or the Xorlarrins to take up your cause?” she replied without hesitation. “They appointed you out of convenience, and resent your presence in their House. They think you Jarlaxle’s spy. And of course, you are.”
“Then you would be wise to fear me,” Braelin countered. “For that makes me valuable to Jarlaxle, does it not?”
The woman seemed less sure suddenly, as did the other three of the patrol group remaining with Braelin.
“You are confused, and with good cause,” Braelin said to the four. He was trying to be somewhat conciliatory here, but also determined to show no sign of weakness. “What is this House Do’Urden? What future might it hold for any of us? Trust me when I tell you that I remain as tentative as any of you-we are pawns of powerful matron mothers, all of us. And our current abode, this House Do’Urden, is viewed as an abomination by many of the powerful Houses.”
“But under the protection of Matron Mother Baenre,” the young woman of House Fey-Branche reminded him. “That is no small thing.”
“Allied with your House,” another added, and he, along with yet another, nodded their agreement at the reminder of the matron mother’s protective shadow.
“That is no small thing, true,” Braelin admitted. “But for how long?”
“You should ask the matron mother,” said the Fey-Branche priestess and she ended with a wicked smile. “I am certain that she will welcome your questions.”
Another of the soldiers, the other female remaining, snickered, but one of the men seemed less amused and revealed that he was far more concerned with Braelin’s point when he asked, “What of Bregan D’aerthe?”
“What of them?”
“Do you plan to continue to pretend that you are not of Jarlaxle’s band?” the drow, an older warrior, pressed. “We all know.”
“And we know, too, that the cadre of nobles of House Do’Urden do not look with favor upon Jarlaxle or his minions,” said the other male.
“Tiago is Baenre, and House Baenre supports Jarlaxle’s endeavors, of course,” Braelin said. “And House Xorlarrin is not at war with Bregan D’aerthe.”
“Not the Houses, but these particulars,” the male replied. “Tiago is Baenre, true, but he has no love for Jarlaxle or any of Jarlaxle’s band. None of them do.”
“They would have cared not at all if you did not return to House Do’Urden,” said the Fey-Branche woman.
“And so perhaps I will care not at all when Matron Mother Baenre looks away from them long enough to allow those who hate this incarnation of House Do’Urden to overrun their-your-compound,” said Braelin. “And where will you turn in that event?”
“It depends what you are offering,” said the older male fighter.
Braelin welcomed their obvious intrigue. He understood that many of the commoners of House Do’Urden would be looking for a way out if an attack came. They knew their own former Houses wouldn’t help them. Any attack on House Do’Urden would surely result from a powerful alliance-likely one that included House Barrison Del’Armgo, second only to House Baenre. What might House Fey-Branche or the scattered refugees of House Xorlarrin do in that event?
He knew he had to let the matter drop, determined not to get too far ahead of anticipated events. He had planted a seed among these four. Let the whispers of a planned assault on the Do’Urden compound fester, and they would come to him, begging.
Bregan D’aerthe could offer them an escape route. All other roads would lead only to death, or worse.
Braelin looked at the older warrior and chortled. “The eight who deserted us assured their participation in the next Do’Urden patrol,” he said.
“Deserted you, you mean,” the Fey-Branche priestess said, and with a laugh she moved to the corner of a building, leaning into the alleyway as if she, too, was thinking of leaving.
Braelin didn’t much like her. If it came to an escape with Bregan D’aerthe, he decided, he would invite that one along then kill her as soon as she believed herself free from the disaster of House Do’Urden.
“As you wish,” he started to say, but he mumbled out the last two words as the priestess’s expression changed to surprise.
The others noticed it, too. All eyes went to that Fey-Branche woman.
She sucked in her breath, eyes going wide, as she jerked back just a bit. Then the source of her discomfort became clear as the tip of a huge spear exploded out of her back, pieces of lung and heart still attached.
Into the air she lifted, her assailant still unseen, and with a flick of the spear shaft, she was flung from the weapon to bounce off the structure across the alleyway and flop grotesquely onto the boulevard.
And then came her assailant: huge and powerful, eight-legged and two-armed.
The four remaining drow gasped in unison at the sight of the mighty drider, and drew their weapons as one. But before any combat could be joined, the air filled with stinging bees-darts from hand crossbows. Braelin and the others, for all their agility, armor, and clever movements, could not escape the swarm.
Braelin was hit several times, and he felt the burn of poison immediately. Being of Bregan D’aerthe, he had been trained in resisting the sleep poison. Not so for one of his companions, who slid down onto the street.
“Form and run!” he told the other two. They started for him, the older male moving well, but the remaining woman strode sluggishly, fighting the call of the poison with every step. She surely wasn’t moving swiftly enough to escape the drider.
It didn’t really matter, though, Braelin realized. The trap had been well-coordinated and every route was blocked now by driders backed by drow.
“Melarni,” Braelin mumbled under his breath. That House of vicious fanatics was known for its driders, and no fewer than four of the abominations skittered out around the trapped patrol.
Four driders backed by drow soldiers against three drow. Braelin glanced around, expecting a second barrage of poisoned darts, and saw just one possibility for escape, back the way they had come. Only a single drider and a single drow enemy had come out that way.
If they could move swiftly and decisively, he, at least, might be able to slip past and run free. He turned to his companions just in time to see the older warrior bring his sword to bear on the slumping, sluggish woman. Braelin realized the man had not been struck at all by any of the darts.
“Second House!” the older warrior cried to the attackers as he cut his companion down. “I serve Matron Mother Mez’Barris!”
And so Braelin Janquay knew he was alone.
He turned and sprinted at the lone drider, dived into a roll to avoid a flying hand crossbow dart, and came up into a sudden charge, his swords working together to turn the creature’s thrusting spear aside, out to his left.
He disengaged his right hand from the parry and leaped up and ahead, stabbing furiously and finding some measure of satisfaction at least when his blade entered the belly of the large half-arachnid creature.
But Braelin was struggling even as he retracted the blade, as filaments filled the air around him and his opponent, magically coagulating into a web.
Braelin growled and rubbed his thumb across the ring on the index finger of his left hand, enacting the magic, just a small spark, but one that lit the web even as it formed. The Bregan D’aerthe scout, knowing what was coming, ducked under his protective piwafwi, and the drider shrieked in sudden stinging pain. Then shrieked again as Braelin scrambled across the beast itself, running along its bent spider legs, his second sword coming in hard to slash the drider’s chest.
Braelin leaped away, thinking to sprint off into the shadows, but where he landed was not the boulevard, as he had expected, but a deep hole into which he tumbled, rolling and skidding to the bottom. Even as he managed to recover from that shocking descent, Braelin looked up to see the hole ringed by drow, half a dozen hand crossbows aimed his way, a trio of wizards and another two priestesses already into spellcasting.