War Of The Spider Queen - Condemnation Part 10

"Your intelligence is somewhat out of date," she said. "My lord commands over two thousand hardened tanarukk warriors, each of them as strong as an ogre and three times as smart. We have built forges and armories, perhaps not as grand as those of Gracklstugh, but sufficient to arm and armor our soldiers. We command auxiliary troops as wellbugbears, ogres, giants, and suchmore numerous than our tanarukk legion." She leveled her gaze on Borwald and added, "We don't have the strength of the Deepkingdom, Firehand, but we could take on twice our number of gray dwarves and give them a fierce fight. You denigrate Kaanyr Vhok's Scoured Legion at your peril."

"I am not unaware of Kaanyr Vhok's growing strength," Horgar muttered, tugging at his beard. "Speak plainly. What does your lord want?"

No subtlety at all, Aliisza lamented. Kaanyr might as well have sent a dim-witted ogre to deliver this message.

"Kaanyr Vhok wants to know if you intend to march on Menzoberranzan. If you do, he wishes to join you. As I have just said, I believe that the Scoured Legion could be a valuable ally."

"We might not want you for an ally, if we were thinking of any such thing," Horgar said. "We might think we have sufficient strength to get what we want without splitting the prize."

"You might think that," Aliisza conceded. "If you were correct, the dark elves of Menzoberranzan would be well-advised to seek allies against you. I wonder to whom they could turn for help?"

"I would crush Kaanyr Vhok if he did anything so foolish," Horgar growled. "Go back to your demonsp.a.w.ned master and tell him"

"A moment, Prince Horgar," Nimor said, stepping between the duergar and the alu-fiend. "Let us not be hasty. We should give Lady Aliisza's message careful thought before we consider our reply."

Horgar snarled, "You do not tell me how to conduct my kingdom's affairs, drow!"

"Of course not, my lord prince, but I would very much like to confer with you at greater length on this question." Nimor turned back to Aliisza and said, "I presume you would be willing to remain as a guest of the crown prince while we discuss your master's offer?"

Aliisza merely smiled. She let her eyes linger on the slim figure of the dark elf. Given an opportunity, she felt sure that she could convince him to see the virtues of her proposal, though she also sensed that there was more to this Nimor than met the eye. Unfortunately, Horgar and his Marshal Firehand were less likely to succ.u.mb to her special talents. She could wait a day or two and see if Nimor succeeded in advancing her arguments for her.

The duergar prince measured her, mulling over Nimor's words. Finally, he relented.

"You may stay a short time, while I think about your offer. I'll have the captain set aside quarters in the palace for you. Your soldiers will have to stay in a barracks near my own guards. They will not be permitted in the castle."

"I will require some attendants."

"Fine, you can retain two, if you wish. The rest go."

Horgar looked toward the end of the hall and gestured. His captain came trotting up.

"We will speak again when I have made up my mind," he told her.

"In that event, I will be available at your convenience," she said to Horgar, but she let her eyes linger on Nimor as she spoke.

"It can't be done today," Thummud of Clan Muzgardt told Ryld, Valas, and Coalhewer. The fat duergar stood with a mallet in his hand, carefully sealing a fresh keg of mushroom ale. "Try again in a day or two, I guess."

Coalhewer swore under his breath, but the two drow exchanged wary looks. It hardly escaped Ryld's notice that over a dozen duergar brewers happened to be hard at work very close by the spot where Thummud stood, and that many of them had the unmistakable glint of metal beneath their smocks. The brewer wasn't in the habit of taking chances, it seemed.

"That's what you said yesterday," Ryld said. "Time is pressing."

"Not my problem," Thummud replied. He finished tapping down the lid, and set the mallet on top of the cask. "Ye'll have t'wait, like it or not."

Valas sighed and reached for the purse at his belt. He jingled it judiciously and set it down nearby.

"You'll find gemstones in there worth better than twice what we agreed on," the scout said. "They're yours if you get us that writ today."

Thummud's eyes narrowed. "Now I'm wondering what ye really be up to," he said slowly. "No honest purpose, of that I'm sure."

"Consider this a personal bonus," Ryld said quietly. "Your laird expects two hundred pieces of gold per head, and you'll see to it he gets that. What's left over, he doesn't need to know about, does he?"

"I can't say as ye wouldn't get what ye want some other time," Thummud admitted with a shrug, "but the laird was certain of his words to me on this matter. I'd be crossin' him to do this bit o' business with ye, and old Muzgardt would have me head for it." The brewer thought about things for a moment, and added, "Better make it three or four days, I think. The crown prince's lads are all over the city, and I don't need 'em to see ye coming here every d.a.m.ned day."

The stout dwarf heaved the keg up onto his shoulder and stomped off, leaving the two dark elves standing with Coalhewer in the middle of the sullen crowd of brewers.

"Now what?" Ryld asked Valas.

"Go back to the inn and wait, I'd say," Coalhewer muttered. "Ye'll have no luck standing here. Come back in a couple of days."

"Quenthel won't like that," Ryld said, still addressing the drow scout.

All Valas could do was shrug.

The two drow and their guide left the Muzgardt brewery, wrapped in their own thoughts. They marched along for a short distance, putting the brewery well behind them.

"I'm beginning to wonder whether we shouldn't just write our own letter of pa.s.sage," Valas said softly. "We wouldn't need it for long, after all."

"That's a bad idea," Coalhewer said. "Ye might forge a letter that looks about right, but ye need Muzgardt's blessing. If ye get stopped, ye'll be held while they check to be sure that ye've got the blessing of the laird. That ye won't have until Muzgardt grants it to ye."

"d.a.m.n," Valas muttered.

Ryld examined the situation, trying to figure what to make of it. Either Coalhewer had purposely led them to a dead end, or the difficulty in obtaining the pa.s.ses was unfeigned. For the first possibility, Ryld couldn't see any reason why Coalhewer would delay the company in Gracklstugh. Perhaps the dwarf meant to set them up in some way, but if that was the case, wouldn't he have had ample opportunity to spring whatever surprise he might have had in mind? On the other hand, if Coalhewer and Thummud weren't collaborating in some elaborate deception, why would the crown prince happen to choose the occasion of the company's visit to Gracklstugh to crack down on foreigners moving about the realm?

Because he's got something he doesn't want foreigners to see, of course, Ryld decided. What wouldn't he want outsiders to see?

Ryld halted dead in the street. Valas and Coalhewer turned a few steps farther on, looking back at him.

"What is it?" Valas asked.

"You and I have something we need to do," Ryld said to Valas, then he turned to their guide. "Come to the inn tomorrow morning."

Coalhewer frowned.

"Fine," he said. The duergar turned and headed down the street, muttering under his breath, "Don't blame me if ye get arrested for doing whatever it is ye have in mind. I won't speak up for ye. I'll be on me boat if ye need me."

What is it? Valas asked after the dwarf disappeared into the shadowed street.

The crown prince is limiting freedom of movement for foreign merchants and travelers, Ryld answered. He doesn't want news from the city to get out. 1 think the army of Gracklstugh is going to march.

Valas blinked and signed, You think so?

"It's what I would do," Ryld answered. "The question is, how to make sure of it."

He glanced around the street. As always, any gray dwarf in sight was staring at the two dark elves with undisguised hostility.

Investigating your suspicion makes us exactly the sort of fellows the crown prince's soldiers will be looking for, Valas signed. The wiry scout frowned, thinking. What would you need to see to confirm your fear?

A supply train, Ryld answered at once. Wagons, pack lizards, that sort of thing. You wouldn't gather that together unless you meant to march, and it would take several days to do it. You'd need a lot of s.p.a.ce.

Agreed, Valas answered.

Valas thought, frowning as he tugged absently at the odd charms and tokens he carried on his clothing.

Feel like taking a chance? the scout signed.

Ryld glanced around the street. Thummud had pretty much told them outright that things wouldn't change for several more days at a minimum, and that was not going to please Quenthel. If Gracklstugh meant to attack Menzoberranzan, he wanted to know about it before the duergar army marched. They would want to find a way to send a warning back home. The duergar were no slave rabble to be crushed at the leisure of the great Houses. The army of the City of Blades would be large, strong, disciplined, and well armed for an a.s.sault on the drow, and Ryld didn't like the thought of what an army of that sort might do to his home city.

Let's go, he replied.

Valas nodded and set off at once. Instead of heading back to the lakeside district and the Cold Foundry, he turned deeper, toward the heart of the cavern. They weaved through the foul-smelling streets and dark alleyways for a fair distance, pa.s.sing through business districts where duergar artisans and merchants kept their shops in cramped buildings of field-stone. The hour was growing late, and traffic along the dwarf city's streets seemed to be diminishing. The two dark elves finally reached a street that ran along the edge of a deep cleft or chasm bisecting the city's higher, more inaccessible districts from its ramshackle lakeside neighborhoods. Numerous bridges of stone spanned the gap, leading to narrow streets that continued on the far side. A squad of vigilant duergar soldiers stood watch at the foot of each, barring pa.s.sage across the chasm.

The scout drew Ryld into the shadow of an alleyway and nodded toward the rift and its bridges.

Laduguer's Furrow, he signed. Also known as the Cleft. Everything on the west side is strictly off limits to foreigners. There are a couple of large side caverns on the far side that might serve as good marshalling grounds, and they'd be secure from any casual observation.

Ryld studied the Bregan D'aerthe scout thoughtfully, wondering how he knew so much about a part of the city that was supposedly off limits.

I take it you've been there before? Ryld asked.

I've pa.s.sed through Gracklstugh a couple of times.

I wonder if there's anyplace Valas hasn't been, Ryld thought. He shifted in the shadows to get a better look at the guarded bridges. He was a fair hand at staying out of sight when he needed to, but he didn't like the possibilities offered by the narrow, railless spans. There was no cover at all once one set foot on any of the bridges.

How do we cross? he asked.

Valas finished his knots and stepped close, setting his right foot in one bottom loop and crooking his right arm through the topmost.

"Stay close to this stalagmite as you ascend," he said. "We'll want the cover."

Ryld nodded and reached up absently to touch the insignia pinned to his breast. It identified him as a Master of Melee-Magthere, and like the clasps and brooches of many n.o.ble Houses, it was enchanted with the power of levitation. Valas didn't doubt that Ryld had fought long and hard to win the right to wear it.

As he'd hoped, the enchantment proved strong enough to support both Ryld's weight and the Bregan D'aerthe's. Effortlessly they glided up into the smoke and gloom of Gracklstugh's upper reaches, until the fumes obscured the streets below. From the top of the great cavern, the floor seemed shrouded in haze and smoke, glaring firelight making bright circles of glowing red mist in a hundred spots around them.

"This is better than I thought," Valas said. "The smoke and fumes give us some concealment."

"And they make my eyes water," Ryld said. He reached the ceiling and found that the cavern roof was rough and pitted. "Which way?"

"To your right. Yes, that's it."

Valas indicated the northern wall of the city with a jerk of his chin, keeping his foot and arm secure in the rope stirrups he'd fashioned. Carefully, Ryld turned to face the ceiling more evenly, and he pulled himself along hand over hand as if he were climbing a vertical wall of rock. The scout shifted to secure his grip, and kept his own eyes down at the cavern floor below, directing the weapons master in his progress.

"One gray dwarf wizard with a spell of cancellation would certainly ruin our day," Ryld remarked. "Aren't you a little nervous in that arrangement?"

"I've always had a good head for heights, but let's not talk about it anymore."

Ryld chuckled.

For days, the journey had been simply uneventful and dreary. The tactical challenge of spying in the heart of the duergar city, though, fully engaged them both.

"Head more to your left," Valas said, interrupting his own thoughts. "There's a bit of a ledge on the cavern wall that should run the way we want to go."

Ryld complied, and the two of them carefully leveled off and descended along the sloping roof of the cavern until they found the place where it dropped more or less straight down and became the wall. There, an old weathered seam circled the cavern like the eaves of an old tavern. The weapons master looked at it dubiously, but as they drew close Valas disentangled himself and leaped lightly down to crouch in the s.p.a.ce like a skinny spider.

Ryld followed, somewhat more awkwardly. He could manage it, barely, but he was lucky to have the magic of his insignia to fall back on if his footing or grip failed him.

Valas moved confidently forward, following the seam as it descended sharply and disappeared around a sharp bend overlooking a side cavern.

Ryld scrambled down after him, cursing silently as his foot dislodged some loose rock and sent it clattering down the clifflike wall. The forges and hammers of Gracklstugh covered the sound fairly well, though, and they were still above Laduguer's Furrow. The rock skittered into the abyss and vanished.

Valas glanced back from his perch at the bend.

Carefully, he signed. Come up here and see this.

Ryld worked his way up beside the scout, finally stretching out on his belly to stay on the ledge. The seam ran down to a side cave and turned in sharply. From their vantage a hundred feet or more above the floor, they could see a good-sized cavern, perhaps three or four hundred yards long and about half that wide. The walls were hewn into barracks rooms, enough to house quite a large number of soldiers, but the floor of the place was level and open, a good drilling ground for bodies of troops.

From end to end, it was crowded with wagons and pack lizards. Hundreds of duergar swarmed over the scene, securing great panniers to the ugly reptiles, loading wagons, and preparing siege engines for travel. The noxious reek of the city's smelters didn't suffice to mask the heavy smell of animal dung in the large chamber, and the lizards' hisses and rasping croaks filled the air.

Valas began counting wagons and pack beasts, trying to estimate the size of the force that might be on the march. After a few minutes, he finally tore his eyes away.

Somewhere between two and three thousand? Ryld said.

The scout frowned and replied, I think somewhat more, maybe four thousand all together, but there may be more trains gathering in other caverns nearby.

Is there any reason to think they're not bound for Menzoberranzan? Ryld asked.

We're not their only enemies. Still, I don't like the timing.

"I don't believe in coincidences, either," Ryld whispered. He carefully began to worm his way back from the edge, taking great pains to dislodge no more rocks. "I would suggest checking the other caves for more soldiers, but I think we've seen more than the duergar would want already, and I don't feel like pressing my luck. We'd best get back and report this to the others."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

"We should just leave," growled Jeggred. His white fur was streaked with red wine, and hot grease from a roast of rothe meat stained his muzzle. The draegloth didn't take well to long waits, and two days of confining himself to the Cold Foundry had been hard for him. "We could be out of the city before they knew we'd gone."

"I fear it wouldn't be as simple as you make it sound," Ryld said. He knelt by his pack, stuffing sacks with the least perishable items from the buffet. He dropped the sacks into a yawning black circle beside hima magical hole that could be picked up and carried as if it was nothing but a piece of dark cloth. It could hold hundreds of pounds of gear and supplies, but weighed nothing at all. "You may not have noticed, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who marked the spies watching this inn. We wouldn't make a quarter mile before we were swarmed under duergar soldiers."

"So?" the draegloth demanded. "I fear no dwarf!"

"Duergar aren't goblins or gnolls, too stupid to use their numbers well, too clumsy and crude to stand a chance in a one-on-one duel. I've met duergar swordsmen nearly as good as I am. I have no doubt that a number of such formidable fellows would be banded together against us, and the duergar count skilled wizards and clerics among their ranks, too."