Bury her once more, the mercenary signaled, deeper under the pile this time, but not completely. I want the body found, but not for a while.
His hard boots making not a sound, his ample jewelry quiet, the mercenary leader started from the alley.
Are we to rendezvous? one soldier flashed to him.
Jarlaxle shook his head and continued on, out of the remote alley. He knew where to find the one who had killed Jerlys Horlbar, and knew, too, that he could use this information against him, perhaps to heighten his slavish loyalty to Bregan D'aerthe, or perhaps for other reasons. Jarlaxle had to play the whole thing very carefully, he knew. He had to walk a narrow line between intrigue and warfare.
None in the city could do that better.
Uthegental will be prominent in the days to come.
Dantrag Baenre cringed when the thought drifted into his mind. He understood its source, and its subtle meaning. He and the weapon master of House Barrison DerAnngo, House Baenre's chief rival, were considered the two greatest fighters in the city.
Matron Baenre will use his skills, the next telepathic message warned. Dantrag drew out his surface-stolen sword and looked at it. It flared a thin red line of light along its impossibly sharp edge, and the two rubies set into the eyes of its demon-sculpted pommel flared with inner life.
Dantrag's hand clasped the pommel and warmed as Khazid'hea, Cutter, continued its communication. He is strong and will fare well in the raids on Mithril Hall. He lusts for the blood of the young Do'Urden, the legacy of Zak'nafein, as greatly as you do—perhaps even more.
Dantrag sneered at that last remark, thrown in only because Khazid'hea wanted him on the edge of anger. The sword considered Dantrag its partner, not its master, and knew that it could better manipulate Dantrag if he was angry.
After many decades wielding Khazid'hea, Dantrag, too, knew all of this, and he forced himself to keep calm.
"None desire Drizzt Do'Urden's death more than I," Dantrag assured the doubting sword. "And Matron Baenre will see to it that I, not Uthegental, have the opportunity to slay the renegade. Matron Baenre would not want the honors that would undoubtedly accompany such a feat to be granted to a warrior of the second house."
The sword's red line flared again in intensity and reflected in Dantrag's amber eyes. Kill Uthegental, and her task will become easier, Khazid'hea reasoned.
Dantrag laughed aloud at the notion, and Khazid'hea's fiendish eyes flared again. "Kill him?" Dantrag echoed. "Kill one that Matron Baenre has deemed important for the mission ahead? She would flay the skin from my bones!"
But you could kill him?
Dantrag laughed again, for the question was simply to mock him, to urge him on to the fight that Khazid'hea had desired for so very long. The sword was proud, at least as proud as either Dantrag or Uthegental, and it wanted desperately to be in the hands of the indisputably finest weapon master of Menzoberranzan, whichever of the two that might be.
"You must pray that I could," Dantrag replied, turning the tables on the impetuous sword. "Uthegental favors his trident, and no sword. If he proved the victor, then Khazid'hea might end up in the scabbard of a lesser fighter."
He would wield me.
Dantrag slid the sword away, thinking the preposterous claim not even worth answering. Also tired of this useless banter, Khazid'hea went silent, brooding.
The sword had opened some concerns for Dantrag. He knew the importance of this upcoming assault. If he could strike down the young Do'Urden, then all glory would be his, but if Uthegental got there first, then Dantrag would be considered second best in the city, a rank he could never shake unless he found and killed Uthegental. His mother would not be pleased by such events, Dantrag knew. Dantrag's life had been miserable when Zak'nafein Do'Urden had been alive, with Matron Baenre constantly urging him to find and slay the legendary weapon master.
This time, Matron Baenre probably wouldn't even allow him that option. With Berg'inyon coming into excellence as a fighter, Matron Baenre might simply sacrifice Dantrag and turn the coveted position of weapon master over to her younger son. If she could claim that the move was made because Berg'inyon was the better fighter, that would again spread doubt among the populace as to which house had the finest weapon master.
Chapter 8 OUT OF PLACE
He moved without a whisper along the lightless tunnels, his eyes glowing lavender, seeking changes in the heat patterns along the floor and walls that would indicate bends, or enemies, in the runnel. He seemed at home, a creature of the Underdark, moving with typically quiet grace and cautious posture.
Drizzt did not feel at home, though. Already he was deeper than the lowest tunnels of Mithril Hall, and the stagnant air pressed in on him. He had spent nearly two decades on the surface, learning and living by the rules that governed the outer world. Those rules were as different to Underdark precepts as a forest wildflower was to a deep cavern fungus. A human, a goblin, even an alert surface elf, would have taken no note of Drizzt's silent passage, though he might cross just a few feet away, but Drizzt felt clumsy and loud.
The drow ranger cringed with every step, fearing that echoes were resounding along the blank stone walls hundreds of yards away. This was the Underdark, a place negotiated less by sight than by hearing and the sense of smell.
Drizzt had spent nearly two-thirds of his life in the Underdark, and a good portion of the last twenty years underground in the caverns of Clan Battlehammer. He no longer considered himself a creature of the Underdark, though. He had left his heart behind on a mountainside, watching the stars and the moon, the sunrise and the sunset.
This was the land of starless nights—no, not nights, just a single, unending starless night, Drizzt decided—of stagnant air, and leering stalactites.
The tunnel's width varied greatly, sometimes as narrow as the breadth of Drizzt's shoulders, sometimes wide enough for a dozen men to walk abreast. The floor sloped slightly, taking Drizzt even deeper, but the ceiling paralleled it well, remaining fairly consistent at about twice the height of the five-and-a-half-foot drow. For a long time, Drizzt detected no side caverns or corridors, and he was glad of that, for he didn't want to be forced into any direction decisions yet, and in this simple setup, any potential enemies would have to come at him from straight ahead.
Drizzt honestly believed that he was not prepared for any surprises, not yet. Even his infravision pained him. His head throbbed as he tried to sort out and interpret the varying heat patterns. In his younger years, Drizzt had gone for weeks, even months, with his eyes tuned exclusively to the infrared spectrum, looking for heat instead of reflected light. But now, with his eyes so used to the sun above and the torches lining the corridors of Mithril Hall, he found the infravision jarring.
Finally, he drew out Twinkle, and the enchanted scimitar glowed with a soft bluish light. Drizzt rested back against the wall and let his eyes revert to the regular spectrum, then used the sword as a guiding light. Soon after, he came to a six-way intersection, two crossing horizontal corridors intersected by a vertical shaft.
Drizzt tucked Twinkle away and looked above, up the shaft. He saw no heat sources, but was little comforted. Many of the Underdark's predators could mask their body temperatures, like a surface tiger used its stripes to crawl through thick strands of high grass. Dreaded hook horrors, for example, had developed an exoskeleton; the bony plates shielded the creature's body heat so that they appeared as unremarkable rocks to heat-sensing eyes. And many of the Underdark's monsters were reptilian, cold-blooded, and hard to see.