War Of The Spider Queen - Condemnation Part 22

A tall, powerful female, the matron mother of the Second House was the ranking priestess present and nominally in command of the entire expedition. Each of the Houses had contributed some number of its priestesses to command their contingents in battle, ranging from unblooded acolytes to first daughters and matron mothers. Weapons masters such as Andzrel and malesincluding Nimor in his role as Zhayemd Dyrrcommanded warbands, companies, and cavalry squadrons, attending to the endless details of organizing the army of Menzoberranzan.

"My cousin presents House Baenre's views, Matron Mez'Barris," Zal'therra Baenre rasped. "Matron Triel endorses the weapons master's battle plan."

Foremost of Triel Baenre's cousins, Zal'therra looked nothing like the pet.i.te Matron Mother of House Baenre. She was tall and broadly built in the shoulders, a strapping female with a remarkable amount of physical fort.i.tude and a coa.r.s.e, intimidating manner. She and Mez'Barris were two of a kind in physique, yet the Matron Mother of House Del'Armgo possessed a brilliant, vicious cunning that was nothing more than a sullen streak in the Baenre priestess. Mez'Barris fixed her red eyes on the younger woman, but did not respond.

Andzrel knew better than to speak while the two females sparred. He waited through a moment of silence before he continued the briefing.

"Here is Rhazzt's Dilemma," he said, "where Captain Zhayemd of Agrach Dyrr reported the duergar vanguard yesterday morning. It lies about twenty-five miles south of the Pillars of Woe, at the lower end of the canyon. a.s.suming the worst, we can expect the duergar to storm the outpost and force the entrance by sometime late today, perhaps tomorrow if we're lucky. Duergar are hearty soldiers and can march all day long, but they're slow, and their army will be burdened with a long supply train and heavy siege engines. Ascending the gorge will be difficult going. It seems that, in the worst case again, they should reach the Pillars in five daysmore likely seven or eight."

"How do you know the gray dwarves haven't overrun the outpost already?" a priestess of Tuin'Tarl asked.

"We do not, Mistress Tuin'Tarl. The duergar wizards and clerics are preventing our efforts to scry the surroundings, a common tactic in warfare of this sort." Andzrel nodded to Nimor and added, "That is why it is essential to deploy a screen of capable scouts, to find out through mundane means what our wizards cannot see. Zhayemd of Agrach Dyrr is charged with the command of our reconnaissance."

Andzrel waited a moment to see if the priestess had any more questions, then went on, "In any event, our armies travel faster than the gray dwarves, and we have a much easier route. I would expect our vanguard to reach the Pillars of Woe three to four days from now. If we hold the upper exit from the gorge, the duergar will never break our defenses. As you can see, it is something of a race, and therefore we should make all possible speed."

"What plan do you have for battle, Zal'therra?" asked another priestess, the mistress of the House Xorlarrin contingent.

Nimor smiled at the remark. Zal'therra had certainly been instructed by Triel to rely on her House weapons master's advice in planning the battle, but the high priestesses naturally talked past Andzrel as if he wasn't even there.

"Andzrel will present it," the Baenre priestess replied, as if she'd just finished explaining it all to him and choose to allow him to show off her genius.

If the weapons master took note of the slight, he did not show it.

"We will build a strong, well-anch.o.r.ed line across the mouth of the gorge. A few hundred troops should suffice for this, but we will commit a thousand. The remainder of our soldiers will be held in reserve and secure various small pa.s.sageways and flanking caverns in the vicinity." Andzrel set down his baton and faced the a.s.sembled priestesses, his face expressionless except for the keen glitter of determination in his eyes. "I mean to allow the duergar to come to us, and break them between the Pillars of Woe. When they have hurled their strength on us in vain, we will pursue them back down the gorge and slaughter them and their minions in heaps."

"And what if the duergar choose not to force the Pillars?" Mez'Barris asked, addressing Andzrel directly.

"The duergar are invading our lands, Matron Mother, so the burden of action is on them. If they decide not to try the Pillars, we will wait them outour supply lines are much shorter than theirs. In a matter of days they will have to choose between going forward and going back."

Mez'Barris gazed at the map, considering Andzrel's answer.

"Very well," she said. "I want to see just how quickly we can reach the spot you have in mind. Extend the march by two hours a day. If we reach the Pillars of Woe in three days, we should have time to rest before battle is joined. I want our fastest forces to make a dash for the Pillars, just in case. There is no reason we couldn't have a couple of hundred scouts at the top of that gorge in a day and a half. Now, if you will excuse us, I wish to discuss with my sister priestesses the best use of our talents in the upcoming conflict."

Andzrel offered a shallow bow, and withdrew from the room. Nimor fell in beside the Baenre weapons master as they left the black pavilion, flanked by a handful of other officers. The tent stood in a large, round tunnel crowded with soldiers and pack lizards, banner after banner of various Houses stretching out of sight up and down the pa.s.sage.

"Zhayemd," said Andzrel, "I want you to a.s.sume command of our vanguard, as Matron Mother Del'Armgo suggests. Take your Agrach Dyrr cavalry and make speed tomorrow and the next day. Our lack of information about the duergar army makes me nervous. I'll have some of the other riders join you, so that you'll have a strong company to hold the pa.s.s if worse comes to worst."

"I must consult with our high priestess," Nimor said, though he had no intention of doing any such thing. The weapons master, still under Nimor's powerful and lasting enchantment, would trust him anyway. "I believe she will support the suggestion, though."

"Good," Andzrel said as they reached the Baenre camp. He clapped Nimor on the shoulder. "If you find the duergar somewhere they're not supposed to be, report back at once. I want no foolishness out of you. You are the eyes of our army."

Nimor smiled and said, "Do not worry, Master Andzrel. I intend to leave nothing to chance."

Jezz the Lame crouched awkwardly in the shadow of a ruined wall, gazing across a small square at a large, round tower a stone's throw away.

"There," he said. "The beholder's tower. There's a flight of stairs leading up to the door, which we have previously found to be unlocked but guarded by deadly magical traps. You'll see several small windows in the upper levels, perhaps large enough for a small drow to slip through. We haven't tried those, though."

Ryld, who crouched just behind the Jaelre, leaned out to take a look for himself. The tower was much as Jezz had described it, surrounded by the sprawling ruins of Myth Drannor. After using Pharaun's magic to speed their travel to the old elven capital and resting a few hours to prepare, the company had spent most of the night fighting their way through the ruins.

Myth Drannor was little more than a great wreckage of white stone overgrown with trees and vines, but once it had been something more. The old surface elf city might not have been as large as Menzoberranzan or as infernally grand as Ched Nasad, but it possessed an elegance and beauty that equaled, if not exceeded, the best examples of drow architecture.

Ryld cast a careful glance to the rooftops.

"No sign of devils," he said. "Perhaps we've slain enough that they've decided not to trouble us anymore."

"Unlikely," Jezz said with a snort. "They've drawn back to organize another attack, and await the arrival of more powerful fiends before trying us again."

"In that event, we should take advantage of the respite to do what we came to do," Quenthel said. She too moved up to study the tower. I see nothing that encourages me to change our plan. Pharaun, cast your spell."

"As you wish, dear Quenthel," the wizard began, "though I must say that I do not entirely agree with the stratagem of"

Angry glares from every other member of the company silenced Pharaun before he finished his protest. He sighed and fluttered his hand.

"Oh, very well."

The wizard straightened and carefully spoke the words of his spell, the potent syllables ringing with magical power. An intangible wave seemed to roll over Ryld and the others. In its wake, Ryld felt strength and quickness drain from his limbs, and Splitter seemed to grow heavier in his hand, its gleaming blade suddenly dulled. Ryld was no wizard, but like any accomplished drow he had over the years armed himself with various magical devices and enchantments to increase his speed, his strength, the toughness of his armor, the deadliness of his weapons. Pharaun's spell temporarily abolished all magic in the vicinity, leaving Ryld without the benefit of a single enchantment, and the other drow were similarly affected. The strangest effect of all was the sudden inertness of Quenthel's fearsome whip. One moment the snakes hissed and writhed of their own accord, alert and vicious, and in the next they dangled like dead things from the weapons haft.

"Stay close to me, if you wish to stay within the spell's effect," Pharaun said.

He licked his lips nervously. Within the zone of antimagic he'd just created, he could cast no spells, and his own formidable array of enchanted devices and protections were inert, too. The wizard readied his hand crossbow, and loosened his dagger in its sheath.

"I feel like I'm going up against a dragon with a dinner knife," he muttered.

Ryld clapped him on the shoulder and stood. He sheathed Splitter and drew his own crossbow.

"Yes, but your spell pulls the dragon's fangs," he said.

"Get moving," Quenthel said.

She looked more than a little uncomfortable herself. Evidently she didn't care for the unmoving silence of her weapon. Without waiting, she loped across the courtyard and bounded up the steps leading to the tower's door. The others followed, blinking in the light of the approaching dawn. Ryld made a point of keeping watch on the ruined streets and walls behind the party, watching for the return of any of Myth Drannor's monstrous denizens. The last thing they needed was a band of blood-maddened devils to descend on them while they'd suppressed their own magic.

At the door of the tower, Quenthel stepped aside for Jeggred. The hulking draegloth moved up and wrenched the door open, bounding inside. Masonry cracked and clattered to the stone steps. Quenthel followed hard on his heels, then Danifae and Valas. Ryld looked around one last time, and noticed Jezz hanging back.

"You're not coming?" he asked the Jaelre.

"I intend to observe only," Jezz replied. "Defeating the beholder is your task, not mine. If you survive, I'll join you in a few minutes."

Ryld scowled, but ducked inside. They were in a foyer of some kind, illuminated by slanting rays of dim light from holes in the ancient masonry. At the far end of the room, a second door stood. Once the foyer might have been a grand and impressive hall, but the tiles of the floor were cracked and split by deep green mold, and the proud banners and arrases that hung on the walls were little more than tattered rags. Pharaun stood close by, examining an intricate symbol clearly etched on one block of the floor. The whole emblem was a little larger than his hand, with a great complexity of curving lines and characters.

"A symbol of discord," the wizard observed. "If we were not protected by the antimagic field, it would have caused us to fall on each other with murderous fury . . . but we hardly need a symbol for that, do we?"

"The next room?" Ryld asked.

Jeggred was already by the door. The draegloth opened it and quickly bounded through, followed by the others, into a round chamber not unlike the bottom of a well. Several of the floors above had long since collapsed, burying the ground floor in rubble and wreckage, with great wooden beams protruding from the mess. Heaps of masonry taller than a drow impeded movement.

Ryld stared into the empty s.p.a.ce above, searching for any sign of the monster that was supposed to lurk there. The others did as well, but all was still.

"I see no beholder," Jeggred said.

Ryld was about to reply when something above them responded in a horrible, croaking voice, "Of course not, fools. I do not wish to be seen!"

An instant later the creature lashed out at them. From somewhere nigh overhead, near the top of the ruined tower, several brilliant rays of magical energythe deadly beams each of the monster's eyes could fire in order to wound, paralyze, charm, or even disintegrate its foeslanced downward at the drow, followed by a great blue bolt of lightning conjured by the unseen monster. Ryld could not see the magic's source.

The rays and crackling bolt of electricity abruptly winked out just over the drow's heads, negated by Pharaun's zone of null magic. The creature tried again, bringing different rays to bear and incanting some horrible spell in its deep, droning voice, but those were no more successful.

Ryld aimed his crossbow up the shaft and guessed at the spot from which the rays had stabbed down at them, loosing his bolt with practiced skill. A squeal of pain overhead told him that he'd guessed his target well. Valas, Danifae, and Pharaun fired too, while Jeggred s.n.a.t.c.hed up a good-sized brick in one fighting claw and hurled it up into the darkness with surprising swiftness. Not all of their barrage struck home, of course. Even if it had been visible, a beholder's thick chitinous hide could deflect many attacks, and scoring a square hit on the creature when it was garbed in invisibility was more than a little difficult. Still, a couple of quarrels struck home.

The beholder mage obviously comprehended the nature of the company's defense very quickly on its own. Instead of striking directly at the dark elves, it turned its deadly gaze on the wreckage of the upper floors. With one eye ray it burned through the base of a heavy wooden beam projecting from the tower's stone wall, and with another it seized the timber in a telekinetic grip and flung it down at Valas, who was plying his short-bow to great effect. The scout threw himself aside just in time to avoid being crushed beneath the ma.s.sive timber, but lost his balance and fell amid the rubble. Dust and the cracking of stone filled the air. The beholder instantly went to work on another wooden beam. In the meantime the creature changed its droning incantation and began another spell.

"We need to climb higher," Quenthel said. "The creature is above Pharaun's spell."

"Do you propose that I should jump?" Pharaun asked. He ducked a head-sized chunk of masonry clattering down from above, and took aim with his crossbow again. "The antimagic that protects us also prevents us from flying or levitating up to get at"

"For Lolth's sake," Ryld exclaimed. Sign!

Valas slipped and scrambled over to one side, seeking a better vantage. The scout drew his shortbow carefully, and loosed another arrow. The beholder above let out a horrible screech. The eye rays winked out, and debris stopped falling from overhead.

The beholder retreated back above the next intact floor, Valas signed. We'll have to go up and get it.

Ryld studied the interior walls of the ruined towers carefully. Perhaps four of the lower floors were missing, leaving at least two or three intact above the ceiling of the highest floor they could see. At a guess, it was at least a sixty-foot climb, and the masonry was old and damaged. A skilled climber could make good use of the wreckage of the beams that formerly supported the lower floors, but it was nothing he cared to try.

I don't like the climb, he replied.

Nor do I, Danifae added. The creature knows we're protected by anti-magic. Will it expect us to abandon the spell in order to get to it?

"Possibly," said Pharaun. At a sharp look from Ryld he signed, One wonders if perhaps we should have studied this situation at greater length before agreeing to the task the Jaelre set us.

Pharaun, like the others, moved carefully across the floor of the chamber, peering upward.

The wizard craned back his head and called, "Ho! Beholder! As we are at something of an impa.s.se, will you consent to parlay?"

Quenthel fumed.

"You speak for us, wizard?" she growled.

From the heights of the tower overhead the deep, rasping voice came again.

"Parlay? On what account? You have invaded my home, impudent fools."

"Pharaun" Quenthel started.

"You have a book we want," the wizard replied, ignoring the high priestess. "I guess it's called the Geildirion of Cimbar. Give it to us, and We'll trouble you no more."

The beholder fell silent, evidently considering the offer. Quenthel stared daggers at the wizard, but like the others, she listened for the beholder's reply.

"The book is extremely valuable," the creature replied finally. "I will not yield it up because some whelp of a dark elf demands it of me. Retreat, and I will consent to spare your lives."

Quenthel snorted and said, "As if we expected anything different." She made a small wave of her hand to call the others' attention to her, and signed, On the count of three, Pharaun will dismiss his spell. Danifae and Ryldyou will follow me up the shaft. Pharaun, when we reach the halfway point, you will then teleport yourself and Jeggred to the floor above and take the monster unawares while it focuses its attention on defending the shaft. Valas, you remain here and cover our ascent with your bow. Come up as quickly as you can once we reach the top. The Baenre did not wait to entertain any refinements to her plan, beginning her countdown at once.

One, two. . . three!

Pharaun made a curt gesture and dismissed his spell of antimagic. Ryld felt the arcane power of his belt, his gauntlets, and his sword flood back into his limbs. He drew Splitter and ascended into the shaft, using the levitation charm with which his Melee-Magthere insignia was imbued. With luck, the sword's ability to disrupt enchantments would shield him from the worst of what the beholder mage could send their way.

Quenthel and Danifae rose alongside him, three black, graceful forms sliding smoothly up into the darkness. Pharaun moved up beside Jeggred and watched their progress, one hand on the draegloth's white-furred shoulder.

The ceiling of the shaft featured a circular opening at one side, cluttered somewhat by the remnants of the old stairwell that once climbed the tower. Ryld peered at the opening, expecting incandescent death at any moment.

The beholder mage did not disappoint him.

A brilliant green ray flashed into existence, lancing toward Ryld. He parried it with Splitter, and felt a tingle in the hilt as the greatsword destroyed the insidious ray. Beside him, Danifae yelped and swerved aside from another tremendous bolt of lightning that arced out to sear all three dark elves, leaving the odor of charred wood and ozone in the air.

Arrows hissed up from underneath, whistling past the weapons master as Valas fired at the unseen foe. Ryld snarled in defiance and willed himself upward with more haste. Another spell struck Quenthelsome kind of dispelling magic that snuffed out her levitation. She flailed her arms and plummeted to the floor below. Ryld reached out to catch her, but the Baenre was simply not close enough. She struck the floor at the bottom of the shaft after a fall of close to forty feet. Quenthel crashed into the rubble like a falling meteor, and vanished in dust and wreckage.

"Keep going!" shouted Danifae. "We're almost at the top!"

The beholder mage must have reached the same conclusion. A moment later, a barrier of solid ice appeared, walling off the top of the shaft and trapping the drow beneath it.

"d.a.m.n!" swore Ryld.

Danifae glowered at the barrier and said, "Maybe we can"

At that moment, Jezz the Lame appeared on the floor of the chamber. He wheeled and hurled a spell back through the doorway, then slammed the door shut.

"Whatever it is you're doing, finish it," the Jaelre called. "The devils have returned in force!"

Ryld looked up at the sheet of ice covering the top of the shaft, then down again at the rubble-strewn floor. Quenthel lay half-buried in the shattered masonry, unmoving. Spells rumbled above the ice, sure signs that Pharaun and Jeggred had found their foe, but the creature's barrier had effectively cut the company in half. Abandoning the effort to get at the beholder mage might give the monster the chance to destroy the company in detail, but Quenthel was dead or injured below.

"Up," Ryld decided. "Going back is no good. Valas, Jezz, aid Quenthel!"

He came up beneath the gleaming white ceiling and struck at the icy wall with Splitter, using the sword's ability to rend enchantments. Razor-sharp shards of ice flew from the spot he struck, but the sword failed to undo the beholder's magic. Ryld cursed and tried again, with no more success.

Below them, the door to the tower boomed with a heavy blow. Valas quickly shouldered his bow and scuttled over the heaps of masonry and rubble filling the bottom of the shaft, heading toward the spot where Quenthel had fallen.

Jezz the Lame growled something and worked a spell, clogging the tower's foyer with a ma.s.s of sticky webbing. He mouthed the words of another spell and arrowed up into the air, leaving Valas and Quenthel on the floor of the shaft.

"Forget the priestess," he called to Valas. "Come, if you want to live!"

The scout grimaced in frustration.

"I can't climb and carry her!" he snapped as a second blow at the door splintered wood and bent iron.

The ancient door would not withstand another blow. Valas glanced up the shaft and down at Quenthel, and reached down and unfastened her House Baenre brooch from her shoulder. Her snake-headed whip stirred in agitation, and Yngoth actually struck at the scout, but Valas scrambled back and fixed the brooch to his tunic.

"I'm trying to save your mistress," he barked at the whip.

The scout moved close and grasped Quenthel under the arms, using the power of her own brooch to levitate away from the floor.