Charon's claw

THE SPELLSPINNER

It is not the dwarf homeland, Jearth’s fingers flashed to Ravel Xorlarrin. The forward scouts of the expedition, a tenday and a half out of Menzoberranzan, had come upon a vast cavern, its walls tiered and worked. First word back along the lines had been promising that this might be a lower barracks or undercity of some sorts, something with which Jearth apparently did not agree.

You know definitively?

Jearth nodded, then nodded again to indicate the approach of Tiago Baenre on Byok, his famed lizard mount. “These are orc dwellings,” he said aloud, including Tiago into the conversation. “The place is filthy with them, and with bugbears.”

“Then we are likely nearer the surface than we believed,” Ravel reasoned, and he cast a quick look to acknowledge Tiago’s arrival before turning back to directly address Jearth. “We should send scouts-perhaps your friend here-along any ascending tunnels we find to see if we might break free of the caverns.”

The reference to Tiago Baenre, a noble of the First House of Menzoberranzan and very likely soon to be named the weapons master of that most important drow family, as a scout drew a thin grin from Tiago. It was sourced, Ravel knew, less in amusement than in the young Baenre’s desire to let him know that the comment had been appropriately marked and would be appropriately remembered.

The proud Ravel wanted to retort, but the sensible Ravel suppressed that foolish urge.

“We have scouts suited to the mission,” the wiser and older Jearth replied, “already seeking such boulevards.”

When Ravel started to respond, Jearth flashed him a warning stare.

Ravel hated this, hated having a Baenre along. For, like many of his family, he hated House Baenre above all. The Xorlarrins rarely admitted that, of course, usually reserving their public venom for Barrison Del’Armgo, the Second House of Menzoberranzan, and indeed, Matron Mother Zeerith’s most vociferous fights at the Council of Eight usually involved the matron of Barrison Del’Armgo. For who would dare openly speak against Quenthel Baenre?

And this young Baenre was very much cut of that one’s cloth, Ravel knew. He watched Tiago closely as the young warrior gracefully dismounted, straightening his perfect clothing and silvery chain armor before he was even fully clear of the beast. His short-cut white hair was perfectly and stylishly coifed, as everything about his appearance-the bone structure of his slender face, the set and sparkle of his eyes, even the whisper of a thin white mustache, something very uncommon among the drow-showed that Baenre perfection. It was rumored that much of House Baenre’s magical energies of late had been preempted for superficial reasons, to create beauty among the House’s inner circle, but if such magical intervention had been the case with Tiago, it had happened long ago, at the time of his birth. For this one had always seemed to have “the right side of the mushroom in his face,” as the old drow saying about luck went.

Tiago came up in a casual, easy posture, fully in control in his own mind, Ravel assumed. His hands rested easily on the hilts of the twin swords sheathed at his hips-no doubt among the most fabulous weapons in all of Menzoberranzan. The spellspinner would have loved to cast a dweomer then to determine the no-doubt abundance of magical items and implements carried by this privileged noble, and he made a note to secretly enact such a spell next time he saw Tiago coming.

He pulled his gaze from the handsome young warrior and turned back to Jearth. “Can we circumvent the chamber?”

As Jearth began to answer yes, Tiago interrupted with a resounding “no,” and both Xorlarrins turned to regard him with surprise.

“Why would we?” Tiago asked.

“True enough,” Jearth interjected before Ravel could speak. “No doubt the orcs and bugbears will cower before our march and would not dare try to hinder us.”

“And why would we let them do that?” Tiago asked.

Ravel looked from one to the other, crinkling his face in disapproval and incredulity that they would dare have such a discussion around him, as if he was not even there.

“It is true,” Jearth insisted, the weapons master obviously catching the growing and dangerous ire of the spellspinner.

“We should demand a tithing of fodder for our inconvenience of even having to ask,” Ravel replied.

“No,” Tiago again unexpectedly interrupted, and again, both Xorlarrins looked at him in surprise.

“It is past time for a fight,” the young Baenre explained.

“We have had fights,” Jearth reminded.

“With a pack of displacer beasts and a few random creatures,” Tiago explained. “Nothing against an entrenched enemy, the likes of which we will surely find when we do at last come upon this place called Gauntlgrym. This is a great opportunity for us to witness the coordination of our various factions. Let our warriors see the power of Ravel and his spellspinners.”

Ravel narrowed his eyes just a bit at that remark, wondering if what Tiago really meant was that he personally wanted to see how formidable an enemy Ravel might truly prove to be.

“Let us all, warrior and spellspinner alike, witness the tactics, power, and boundaries of these damned driders we have towed along,” Tiago finished.

Ravel continued to stare hard at him, while Jearth gave an agreeing nod, apparently easily swayed by the young warrior’s argument. Or was it that Jearth was easily swayed by any argument put forth by a Baenre? Ravel wondered.

“We need such a fight, spellspinner,” Tiago said directly to Ravel, and the deference in his tone caught the Xorlarrin off guard a bit. “It will bolster morale and hone our tactics. Besides,” he added with an irresistible and mischievous grin, “it will be fun.”

Despite his reservations, suspicions, and general distaste for the Baenre noble, Ravel found himself believing in Tiago’s sincerity. So surprising was that to him that the spellspinner briefly wondered if one of Tiago’s magical items had secretly cast a dweomer upon him to enamor him of the young warrior.

“Well enough,” Ravel heard himself saying, to his surprise. “Coordinate it.”

Tiago flashed him a shining smile and motioned for Jearth to follow, then turned to his mount.

“I will lead the first assault,” Ravel demanded, his tone changing abruptly. “I and my spellspinners will cast the first stones.”

Tiago bowed respectfully and mounted Byok, then waited as Jearth retrieved his own lizard mount. In the few moments he had alone with Tiago, Ravel found that their discussion was not quite at its end.

Free yourself of your envy, Xorlarrin son, Tiago’s fingers flashed at him.

Ravel looked at him suspiciously, then answered, I know not what you mean, presumptuous Baenre son.

Don’t you? came the response, but it was flashed with an expression of honest curiosity and not consternation, minimizing the accusation.

Tiago’s fingers flashed emphatically, and quickly, since Jearth was even then climbing into the saddle, and soon to return. When our elders speak of the promising young males of Menzoberranzan, two names are most often mentioned, are they not? Tiago Baenre and Ravel Xorlarrin. Promising young students, respective leaders of their academies. Perhaps we are doomed to be rivals, bitter and ultimately fatal to one.

His grin as he signaled this showed which of them Tiago expected that to be.

Or stronger, perhaps, would we both become, if we found common gain here. If you uncover this Gauntlgrym and tame the beast of the place, House Xorlarrin will flee Menzoberranzan. We all know this, he added against Ravel’s widening eyes. Do you believe the designs of Zeerith a secret to Matron Mother Quenthel?

His reference to Ravel’s matron without use of her title, coupled with his own reference to House Baenre’s matron mother, raised Ravel’s doubts and his anger, but he suppressed both as he focused on this surprising young warrior’s hints and designs.

Perhaps Baenre, Barrison Del’Armgo, and the other five of the eight ruling Houses will see this as treachery, and will summarily obliterate Xorlarrin and all associated with her. You might be wise to foster relationships with some in Bregan D’aerthe to facilitate your escape in that instance, he added flippantly, for so intricate was the drow sign language that it allowed for such inflection.

Or perhaps not, and in that instance, Ravel Xorlarrin would do well to have a friend within the noble ranks of House Baenre, Tiago finished, as Jearth came riding up.

“Come, my friend,” Tiago said to Jearth, teasing Ravel with the wording as he turned and started away.

Ravel watched the young man go and even whispered “well-played” under his breath. For indeed, Tiago’s presentation had been believable. The young Baenre hadn’t begun to indicate that he would be anything other than an enemy if House Baenre and the others decided to come after House Xorlarrin. After all, though his reference to the mercenary band of Bregan D’aerthe was more than a bit intriguing, Tiago was a Baenre. Bregan D’aerthe worked for, above all others, House Baenre.

Was there a hint, then, that should war befall House Xorlarrin, Tiago might stand as Ravel’s only chance of escape?

The spellspinner couldn’t be sure.

Well played, indeed.

Ravel and his fellow spellspinners could hear the murmurs beyond the wall of blackness that separated them from the main area of the immense underground chamber. Not darkness like the near absence of light so typical in the Underdark, but overlapping magical globes, visually impenetrable and absolutely void of light.

The noble spellspinners of House Xorlarrin had enacted these globes, this visual wall, just inside one of the chamber’s more nondescript entrances. Another wizard had created a floating eye and directed it up above the wall of blackness, so he could function as lookout.

In went the goblin fodder, disciplined because to veer astray was to die, and to utter a sound, any sound, was to die. The ugly little creatures lined up shoulder to shoulder, forming a semicircle within the room, a living shield, while the drow spellspinners silently moved into the clear area behind them and began their work.

Nineteen sets of Xorlarrin hands lifted up high, fingers wiggling, wizards slowly turning and quietly chanting. This ritual had been Ravel’s greatest achievement, a particularly Xorlarrin manner of combining the powers of multiple spellspinners. From those reaching, wiggling fingers came filaments of light, reaching out to fellow wizards precisely positioned, equidistant to others within their particular ring, with four in the innermost, six in the middle, and eight in the outer. In the very center of the formation stood Ravel, his hands upraised and holding a sphere almost as large as his head.

The filaments crossed with near-perfect angles, reaching out and about, drow to drow, like the spokes of a wheel, and when this skeletal structure was completed, those casters in the innermost ring turned their attention to Ravel and sent anchoring beams to the strange sphere, which caught their ends and held them taut.

The eighteen went fast to their weaving, running filaments across those anchoring spokes. White drow hair tingled and rose up in the growing energy of the creation. Ravel breathed deeply, inhaling the power he felt mounting in his anchor sphere, glorious reams of energy tickling his fingers and palms, and seeping into his bare forearms so that his muscles tightened and stood rigid. He gritted his teeth and stubbornly held on. This was the moment that distinguished him from the other promising spellspinners, Ravel knew. He accepted the mounting energy into his body and soul. He merged with this, becoming one, adapting rather than battling, like an elf walking lightly over a new fallen snow, while a less nimble, less graceful human might plod through it.

For Ravel instinctively understood the nature of magic. He was both receptacle and anchor, and as the web completed, the energy mounted even more swiftly and powerfully.

But Ravel was ready for it. He heard his lessers scrambling around, glimpsed drow fingers flashing furiously, relaying commands and preparations.

He was not distracted. Slowly Ravel began to wind his hands around, and the magical web responded by beginning a slow and steady spin, the bright strands becoming indistinct as they left glowing trails behind their movement.

Ravel heard commotion beyond the wall of summoned blackness, as he had expected. Quiet as goblinkin might be, they sounded quite clumsy and raucous to the dark elves.

The globes of darkness began to dissipate, and the wider cavern reappeared to the noble spellspinner, beyond the semicircle of goblin fodder, and beyond that line, barely fifty paces away, stood ranks of orcs interspersed with taller, hulking bugbears.

Several raised voices in protest at the sight of the goblins, with the drow still mostly obscured, but with that glowing, spinning web up high above the goblin line and in clear sight. Despite his discomfort and needed concentration, Ravel managed a smile at the stupefied reactions he noted among the humanoids.

Only for a moment, though, for then the spellspinner threw all of his energy and his concentration into the rotating web. He turned with it, a complete circuit, then another and a third, and as he came around, Ravel pulled back his left arm and threw forth his right, launching forth the web in a lazy spin. It floated out past the goblins, continuing its rotation, and without the anchor that was Ravel, the magical energies contained within it began to escape the spidery structure.

The web reached forth, floating, rotating, lines of white lightning shooting down to split the stone beneath it. Orcs and bugbears, eyes widened in shock, scrambled and tangled, falling all over each other to get out of the way.

The web rolled over them. A lightning blast hit an orc full force and the creature burst into flames, screaming and flailing among its scrambling kin. The whole cavern reverberated in the thunderous reports, one after another, drowning out the screams of the terrified orcs and bugbears.

The drow spellspinners moved aside of the cavern entrance in an orderly fashion, while the goblins scrambled frantically, and less effectively-so clumsily, indeed, that as the next wave of attackers entered, several of the unfortunate goblins got trampled under clacking appendages.

Ravel held his ground, not even looking back with concern, confident that the melee battalion, Yerrininae and his warrior driders, would not dare even brush him.

And they didn’t. With great agility considering their ungainly forms, the driders charged past the noble spellspinner, chitin clattering against the stone. Any stumbling goblin fodder were less fortunate, the driders taking great pleasure in stomping them down as they charged out into the cavern.

To a surface-dwelling human general, this group might have seemed akin to the heavy cavalry he would employ to dissolve the integrity of his enemy’s front line defense, and given the confusion already caused by the dissipating lightning web, the driders proved incredibly effective in this role. With their bulk and multitude of hard-shelled legs cracking against the stone, the stampede alone might have sent the whole of the opposing force running, but adding in the sheer ferocity of the cursed drow creations, and armed with tridents and long spears of exquisite drow craftsmanship, the cavern’s front-line defense was quickly and easily overwhelmed and scattered.

So terrified of the horrid driders, some of the orcs and bugbears retreated straightaway, inadvertently running back under the still floating energy web, running right into the midst of the continuing lightning barrage.

Ravel heard himself laughing aloud as one bugbear flew backward from the jolt of such a bolt, which split the stone floor right before it. The flailing creature never touched back down, for powerful Yerrininae thrust forth his great trident and caught it in mid-flight, skewering it cleanly and easily holding the threehundred-pound creature aloft with but one muscled arm.

Using that trophy as his banner, the drider leader rallied his forces around him and charged in deeper, breaking ranks perfectly to circumvent the lightning web, and coming together once more on the other side, in perfect, tumultuous formation.

Ravel lifted his hands so his companions could clearly view them. Find your place in the fight, he instructed the spellspinners.

And what is Ravel’s place? a drow hand-signaled back.

“Wherever he deems,” the spellspinner answered aloud, for he wanted Tiago Baenre to hear the imperiousness in his voice.

Astride his lizard, Byok, Tiago merely grinned at that response and tipped his shortbrimmed top hat to the spellspinner. Off the young Baenre rode beside Jearth and a host of mounted warriors, veering sharply to the side to go far off to the right of the thundering web. Let the brutish and ever-angry driders and the lesser fighters entangle themselves in that confusing maelstrom while the more skilled warriors strategically conquered the flanks. Shallow caves lined the side wall, with clear indications that these were barracks, some quite high above the floor, and with ladders defensively raised.

Drow mounts could quite readily climb walls. The lack of ladders offered little defense.

“It was an impressive web of power,” Ravel’s sister Saribel said, walking up beside him along with the other two Xorlarrin nobles, Berellip and Brack’thal, the latter looking quite miserable about it all.

“It took too long to effectively create and launch,” the always-stern Berellip disagreed. “Had our enemies not been stupid thugs, they would have fallen over us before we could begin to defend.”

“You deny its power?” Saribel asked skeptically.

“I deny its efficacy against any serious enemy,” Berellip quickly replied, and she added a scowl at Ravel for good measure, one that stung the young spellspinner more deeply because of the added spectacle of a grinning Brack’thal staring at him over Berellip’s shoulder.

“The region of devastation cannot be so easily dismissed, sister,” Saribel insisted.

“So much of arcane magic is useless show,” Berellip interrupted. “Because it is not divinely inspired.”

“Of course, sister,” Saribel agreed, for what priestess of Lolth would not accede before such a truth as that? She bowed gracefully before Berellip and followed the older Xorlarrin priestess away.

“They will find more to kill,” Brack’thal decided, moving into the void beside Ravel. “Your favored ploy did little actual damage, after all. I count no more than five dead from it, and one to the spear of Yerrininae and not the lightning net.”

Ravel slowly turned to regard Brack’thal, and he stared unblinkingly at the elder Xorlarrin’s smile until it at last faded.

“If ever you doubt the effectiveness or power of my creations, do speak up, brother,” Ravel said. “I will gladly demonstrate more closely.”

Brack’thal laughed at the threat.

He could do that, Ravel understood, because Saribel and Berellip were nearby.

That wouldn’t always be the case.

For Ravel, coordinating the battle in the cavern quickly became more a matter of preventing Yerrininae and his drider battalion from slaughtering needed slaves than organizing any combat tactics. The four components of his strike force- spellspinner, drider, drow warrior, and goblin shock troops-hit the orc cavern so hard and so furiously that no semblance of organized defense ever materialized against them.

The young spellspinner found this quite disappointing. He had wanted to test out his battle theories and had concocted some elaborate magic-melee coordination for wiping away stubborn defenses. Besides, any clever victories he might win against opponents who proved themselves worthy would only serve to impress his miserable sisters, and even more delicious, to frighten his broken father-brother.

As the final bugbears and orcs were being rounded up for the continuing march, these creatures to serve alongside the goblins as battle fodder, Berellip took the moment to quip that the fight had hardly been worth the energy. She did so publicly, and loudly, and many eyes, including those of Yerrininae, focused on Ravel, whom she was clearly diminishing.

“And not a single drow or drider lost,” Ravel countered, looking to Yerrininae as he spoke.

“To mere orcs?” Berellip countered with a laugh, as if the thought of losing a drow to such a lesser creature was unthinkable.

Her open levity attracted more drow around them, and Berellip played to them loudly.

“To a combined force larger than our own,” the young spellspinner retorted, and he didn’t back down a bit, judging that the respect of his forces might be wavering a bit-and surely that seemed to be Berellip’s intent.

Ravel looked at his older sister directly, matching her intense stare. Then he spun away with a laugh, taking center stage, commanding center stage.

“Mere orcs?” he asked, addressing all around him now. “A most relative term, would you not agree? They are ‘mere’ only when measured against a superior force, and we are that, to both the orcs and the clever bugbears who ruled this cavern. And not simply superior, for if that, then surely we would have suffered losses, which we did not! They were overwhelmed from the start, because of preparation, dear sister. In a search of history, too many are quick to dismiss losers as inept, rather than attribute the crushing victory to the brilliance of the victors.”

“Do tell,” Berellip said with a fair amount of sarcasm apparent in her tone.

“Our easy victory here began with the selection of the force,” Ravel insisted. “We have found balance, magic to sword, finesse to sheer power.” He wanted to add, but didn’t need to-and didn’t think it wise, given Berellip’s apparent challenge to his authority-that he, of course, had been the one to select the expeditionary force.

Still, Ravel couldn’t resist a bit of self-aggrandizing as he added, “Our enemies were broken before the fight even began. When at Sorcere, I envisioned such a usage of the lightning web, and had hoped that such an opportunity as we found this day would arise.”

“Back to that?” Berellip asked, narrowing her eyes and tightening her jaw. “A few meager orcs killed for such an expense of power?”

“A few killed and hundreds sent in flight, horrified,” Ravel replied. “Is not the threat of Lolth’s vengeance as effective a weapon for the priestesses as the actual manifestation of the Spider Queen?”

Ravel could hardly believe the words as they left his mouth! To invoke the Spider Queen in an argument with a priestess of Lolth!

For a moment, Ravel, like everyone around him, held his breath, staring unblinkingly at Berellip with an expectation that she would lash out at him, with her hand, her snake-headed whip, or even some of her devastating divine spells.

She wanted to do just that, he could clearly see on her tightened face. Berellip would take great pleasure in torturing him for all to see.

But the moment passed, and Berellip made no move, and only then did Ravel truly appreciate how important this expedition must be to Matron Mother Zeerith. He had pushed past all boundaries of protocol and would not be punished-not then, at least.

Mark your words carefully, young spellspinner, Berellip signed to him, her hands in close so that few other than Ravel could read the threat. The priestess turned on her heel and walked away, Saribel in her wake.

She wouldn’t even chastise him openly before his minions.

Hardly believing his luck, or that it would hold, Ravel turned to the gathered drow and waved them off to their duties. He noticed Jearth as he did, the weapons master staring at him incredulously. And more than Jearth, Ravel noted Tiago Baenre, whose expression revealed the brash young Baenre’s intrigue, and even a bit of amusement.

Ravel had no answers for any of that, for he was no less incredulous than the two warriors. “We will make our encampment here in this cavern,” he ordered, and started away.

Jearth caught up to him soon after.

“This area is quite open and vulnerable,” the weapons master explained.

“No enemies will come upon us,” Ravel insisted.

“You cannot know that. And if enemies do find us, smaller areas favor our smaller numbers.”

“Set the camp.”

“Or face Lolth’s vengeance?” Jearth remarked with a sly grin, and he was one of the few drow alive who could so tease young Ravel.

The spellspinner merely shook his head and held his hands up helplessly in reply, as if to say that he, too, could not believe that he had so challenged Berellip, and on the foundation of her very existence.

Tiago Baenre came to Ravel a short while later, to inform him that they had identified the bugbear king of the cave and had him waiting for an audience with his conquerors.

“Does he wish to negotiate?” Ravel asked sarcastically.

“To continue breathing, I would assume.”

The Xorlarrin spellspinner stepped back and took a long look at the Baenre warrior. They were about the same age, he knew, and had been in their respective academies in overlapping years. They were rivals out of simple circumstance, as two of the most promising young drow males in Menzoberranzan.

Or were they?

Tiago moved to the front of the shallow cave and pointed out the abode across the cavern where the bugbear king was being held. “There is more that I would ask of you for my allegiance,” Tiago warned, and turned back to face Ravel.

The spellspinner looked at the warrior suspiciously.

“I travel with you to represent my family,” Tiago explained. “To report back to Matron Quenthel, favorably or unfavorably, on the progress of House Xorlarrin.”

Ravel nodded. They had been through all of this before.

“And I go for personal gain, and in more ways than reputation,” Tiago explained.

As Ravel narrowed his eyes, Tiago balked. “Pretend not that you expected more of me,” he said sternly. “Perhaps some devotion to the greater good, or the glory of Lady Lolth, or some other such nonsense. Do not assign me such motives, for such a limited view of me would surely wound me, my friend, and never would I presume that Ravel would act outside the benefit of… Ravel.”

Ravel had to nod his agreement of that assessment. What drow, after all, had ever achieved greatness without first seeking and demanding it? “Do tell,” he prompted.

Tiago reached into a pocket in his piwafwi and produced a thin silver scroll tube. He held it up so that Ravel could clearly see the etching of a hammer, a bolt of lightning energy, and a pair of crossed swords, along with the name Gol’fanin.

Ravel’s own decorated dagger, more a focus item than a weapon, bore that same signature, as did the weapons of many of the nobles of the ruling drow Houses.

Given their destination, given the rumors of the magic powering the ancient forge, there was no need for Tiago to elaborate further.

“I will meet you beside the prisoner,” Tiago said, and started away for the prison of the bugbear king.

But Ravel called him back. “Go with me,” he said, and he took care with his tone to make it more of an offer than an order.

Tiago nodded.

Ravel took his time in crossing the large cavern. He wondered if he and Tiago Baenre might have much to discuss regarding the bugbear lord, the continuing expedition, and perhaps even beyond that. He reminded himself that this was a Baenre, after all, and so he knew he’d need to sweeten every subject with tinguin lal’o shrome’cak, or the promise of a fungal pie, as the drow saying went, in reference to a particular delicacy which could induce the most marvelous of daydreams. Tiago hadn’t asked about this second bargain he had just revealed, but rather had stated it as a matter of fact, not to be argued or denied.

So it would be in the presence of a Baenre, Ravel realized, and the more he might do to keep Tiago beside him, the better. It didn’t take the spellspinner long to determine which fungal pie might be given at this time and in this place.

Tutugnik, the bugbear king, offered little to impress Ravel as anything other than ordinary. He was larger than most bugbears, particularly those clans which lived so deep in the Underdark, and even sitting strapped to a stone chair, he could look Ravel in the eye. Perhaps he was considered handsome for his race; to Ravel they all looked the same, other than the occasional garish scar, with their flat faces, bloodshot eyes, and broken yellow and brown teeth, all sharpened and crooked. Like all bugbears, Tutugnik’s hair was greasy and dirty, matted in no particular style.

Nor was he impressive intellectually, answering Ravel’s pointed demand that Tutugnik and all his minions would now serve the drow, with an uninspired, “Tutugnik is leader.”

Perhaps he meant that he wished to continue to serve as leader of the slave force. Perhaps, but Ravel didn’t care to find out.

He convened an audience with the whole of the cavern, drow and drider, orc and bugbear. Standing on a high and well-lit ledge beside Jearth and Tutugnik, Ravel ordered the bugbear lord brought out to stand on the other side of his weapons master. Tiago Baenre accompanied the brutish creature.

“You are conquered,” Ravel yelled out simply to the orcs and bugbears, his volume magnified by a simple dweomer so that his voice boomed off every stone in the cavern. “You will fight for me, or you will die, and if you fight well, perhaps I will allow you to fight for me again.” He nodded and started to turn away, as if there was really nothing more to be said, but then he paused and looked to the bugbear king.

“Leader?” Ravel asked loudly, pointing to Tutugnik, who puffed out his massive chest with pride.

Among the gathered orcs and bugbears, the response was muted, with the captives looking to one another for hints about how they should react. Gradually that direction led them to a tentative few affirmative stomps of heavy feet, even a huzzah or two.

All of which evaporated in the blink of an eye as Ravel glanced at Tiago. The young Baenre leaped and spun, drawing one of his swords too quickly for anyone to realize it, including Tutugnik, who had barely begun to glance the leaping Baenre’s way before that sword sliced under Tutugnik’s chin, front to back.

The bugbear’s expression never even changed as his head tumbled free of his neck, so swift was the blow.

“Some of them cheered,” Ravel said to Tiago and Jearth.

The warriors smiled and nodded, and started down from the ledge.

Among the prisoners, the game was quite simple: any who told of another who had cheered Tutugnik would be pressed into service. Those pointed to as Tutugnik loyalists were dragged aside and tortured to death, in full view.

“Am I to be beaten, or murdered?” Ravel asked when he answered his sister’s summons to a large cave that she had taken as her own.

Berellip’s many goblin slaves had already cleared the place of bugbear debris and feces, scrubbing it dutifully. The drow priestess had not traveled light, with many pack lizards devoted entirely to her comforts. Though the expedition would remain in the caverns only for a couple of days, as scouts moved around the region to determine their exact position and plot the most likely trails to this sought-after dwarf homeland, Berellip’s well-trained goblins had turned the cave into a room fitting for a drow noble House. Tapestries covered nearly every wall, and plush pillows and blankets adorned every rock or ledge that could serve as bed or chair.

Saribel lounged on one such stone, far to the side of her sister, but watching Ravel quite intently. Beyond the three Xorlarrins and a handful of meaningless goblin slaves, the cave was empty.

“You ask lightheartedly, as if either would not be a distinct possibility, or quite legal, even fitting,” Berellip replied.

“Because I wish to know which path you would take,” Ravel pressed. “If the former…” He shrugged. “But if the latter, then I suppose that I would be wise to defend myself.”

“You miss the third possibility,” Berellip said, her tone suddenly cold, “to join with Yerrininae.”

Ravel laughed, but even though he was quite confident that Berellip was merely taunting him. The thought of becoming a drider was truly too awful for any honest levity.

“Or the fourth,” he said suddenly.

Berellip looked at him curiously, then glanced over at her sister, who shook her head and shrugged, obviously at a loss.

“Do tell.”

“You could accept that all of my actions, even those seeming disrespectful of your superior station-”

“Seeming?”

“They were disrespectful, I accept,” Ravel conceded, and he bowed deeply and slowly, exaggerating the movement. “But they were done with no disrespect intended, and for the benefit of House Xorlarrin.”

“Sit down,” Berellip commanded, and Ravel turned for the nearest cushioned stone chair.

“On the floor,” Berellip clarified.

Ravel looked at her with incredulity, but wiped it from his face almost immediately and plopped down to the floor as quickly as he could manage.

“For the benefit of House Xorlarrin?” the priestess asked.

Ravel took a deep breath and lifted his hand to tap the side of his head, trying to phrase his explanation precisely and carefully. But Berellip stole his thunder.

“For the benefit of Tiago Baenre, you mean,” she remarked.

Ravel had to take another deep breath-and pointedly remind himself that these sisters of his were priestesses of Lolth, and surely loved her more than they cared for him. They had attended Arach-Tinilith, the greatest of the Menzoberranzan academies, and Berellip, in particular, had excelled in that brutal environment. Ravel had to take care in dealing with these two. He fancied himself smarter than almost any drow, perhaps excepting Gromph Baenre, but in a moment like this, he understood that arrogance to be more a matter of determined attitude than a true belief.

“If for Tiago Baenre, then surely for House Xorlarrin,” he answered. “That one might prove important to us.”

“Which is why I will bed him this very night,” Berellip replied.

“And I tomorrow,” Saribel quickly added.

Ravel looked from one to the other, and truly was not surprised. “Tiago is intrigued with our House.”

“He is an upstart male who does not like his place in life,” Berellip explained.

“And so House Xorlarrin interests him,” said Ravel. “For it, above any others, expects achievement from its males, and rewards such achievement with respect.”

“This is an advantage of House Xorlarrin throughout Menzoberranzan,” Berellip agreed. “For in Xorlarrin alone are males allowed some true measure of respect.”

“Then you understand my disrespect,” Ravel said, or started to, for somewhere between the first word and the fifth, a snake-headed whip appeared in Berellip’s hand. She lashed out at him, the three heads of her weapon snapping forth, fangs bared, tearing the flesh of his face.

He threw himself backward and to the floor, but Berellip pursued and struck him again and again. His main robes were enchanted, of course, and offered him some protection, but those wicked snakes found their way around it, tearing his shirt and skin alike.

He felt the agonizing poison coursing through his veins almost, even as new eruptions of fire from fresh bites assailed him.

Saribel was there then, her own whip in hand, adding two more serpent heads to the vicious beating. It went on and on, Ravel’s senses stolen by the sheer agony of it. At last they stopped striking him, but still he writhed, poison assaulting his nerves and muscles, forcing him into spasms of sheer agony.

Sometime later, a bloody Ravel dared to sit up again, to find Berellip sitting comfortably in her chair, with Saribel off to the side as if nothing had happened.

“So ends our advantage with Tiago Baenre,” the mage managed to gasp.

Berellip smiled and nodded to a nearby goblin, who rushed over with an armful of clothes-clothing to exactly match the now-tattered nonmagical garments.

“The end of this chamber is silenced, and you will look the same. Tiago will know nothing of this,” Berellip assured him. “Dress!”

Ravel grunted repeatedly as he struggled to his feet, his joints still aflame from the wicked whip poison.

“Dear sister,” Berellip teased as Ravel slipped out of his blood-soaked and ripped robes, “we are but a tenday from Menzoberranzan, and have only four more sets of replacement clothing for our dear brother. Whatever shall we do?”

Ravel’s hateful stare might have carried some threat with it had he not been so wobbly, even falling back over to the ground at one point.