know.' The mercenary hid his conniving smile at the sight of Vierna's obvious pleasure. The priestess thought to gain only the confirmation of her brother's whereabouts from the unfortunate goblin tribe, but Jarlaxle had much more in mind. Goblins and dwarves shared a mutual hatred as intense as that between the drow and their surface elf cousins, and any meeting between the groups would ensure a fight. What better opportunity for Jarlaxle to take an accurate measure of the dwarven defenses? And the dwarven weaknesses?
For, while Vierna's desires were focused-all that she wanted was the death of her traitorous brother-Jarlaxle was looking at the wider picture, of how this costly exploration up near the surface, perhaps even onto the surface, might become more profitable.
Vierna rubbed her hands together and turned sharply to face her brother. Jarlaxle nearly laughed aloud at Dinin's feeble attempt to imitate his sister's beaming expression.
Vierna was too obsessed to notice her less-than-enthusiastic brother's obvious slip. 'The goblin fodder understand their options?' she asked the mercenary, but she answered her own question before Jarlaxle could reply. 'Of course, they have no options!'
Jarlaxle felt the sudden need to burst her eager bubble. 'What if the goblins kill Drizzt?' he asked, sounding innocent.
Vierna's face screwed up weirdly and she stammered unsuccessfully at her first attempts at a reply. 'No!' she decided at length. 'We know that more than a thousand dwarves inhabit the complex, perhaps two or three times that number. The goblin tribe will be crushed.'
'But the dwarves and their allies will suffer some casualties,' Jarlaxle reasoned.
'Not Drizzt,' Dinin unexpectedly answered, and there was no compromise in his grim tone, and no argument forthcoming from either of his companions. 'No goblin will kill Drizzt. No goblin weapon could get near his body.'
Vierna's approving smile showed that she did not understand the sincere terror behind Dinin's claims. Dinin alone among the group had faced off in battle against Drizzt.
'The tunnels back to the city are clear?' Vierna asked Jarlaxle, and, on his nod, she swiftly departed, having no more time for banter.
'You wish this to end,' the mercenary remarked to Dinin when they were alone.
'You have not met my brother,' Dinin replied evenly, and his hand instinctively twitched near the hilt of his magnificent drow-made sword, as though the mere mention of Drizzt put him on the defensive. 'Not in combat, at least.'
'Fear, Khal'abbil?' The question went straight to Dinin's sense of honor, sounded more like a taunt. Still, the fighter made no attempt to deny it. 'You should fear your sister as well,' Jarlaxle reasoned, and he meant every word. Dinin donned a disgusted expression.
'The Spider Queen, or one of Lloth's minions, has been talking with that one,' Jarlaxle added, as much to himself as to his shaken companion. At first glance, Vierna's obsession seemed a desperate, dangerous thing, but Jarlaxle had been around the chaos of Menzoberranzan long enough to realize that many other powerful figures, Matron Baenre included, had held similar, seemingly outrageous fantasies.
Nearly every important figure in Menzoberranzan, including members of the ruling council, had come to power through acts that seemed desperate, had squirmed their way through the barbed nets of chaos to find their glory.
Might Vierna be the next to cross that dangerous terrain?
Chapter 2 Together
The River Surbrin flowing in a valley far below him, Drizzt entered the eastern gate of Mithril Hall early that same afternoon. Catti-brie had skipped in some time before him to await the «surprise» of his return. The dwarven guards welcomed the drow ranger as though he were one of their bearded kin. Drizzt could not deny the warmth that flowed through him at their open welcome, though it was not unexpected since Bruenor's people had accepted him as a friend since their days in Icewind Dale.
Drizzt needed no escort in the winding corridors of Mithril Hall, and he wanted none, preferring to be alone with the many emotions and memories that always came over him when he crossed this section of the upper complex. He moved across the new bridge at Garumn's Gorge.
It was a structure of beautiful, arching stone that spanned hundreds of feet across the deep chasm. In this place Drizzt had lost Bruenor forever, or so he had thought, for he had seen the dwarf spiral down into the lightless depths on the back of a flaming dragon.
He couldn't avoid a smile as the memory flowed to completion; it would take more than a dragon to kill mighty Bruenor Battlehammer!
As he neared the end of the long expanse, Drizzt noticed that new guard towers, begun only ten days before, were nearly completed, the industrious dwarves having gone at their work with absolute devotion. Still, every one of the busy dwarven workers looked up to regard the drow's passing and give Drizzt a word of greeting.
Drizzt headed for the main corridors leading out of the immense chamber south of the bridge, the sound of even more hammers leading the way. Just beyond the chamber, past a small anteroom, he came into a wide, high corridor, practically another chamber in itself, where the best craftsmen of Mithril Hall were hard at work, carving into the stone wall the likeness of Bruenor Battlehammer, in its appropriate place beside sculptures of Bruenor's royal ancestors, the seven predecessors of his throne.
'Fine work, eh, drow?' came a call. Drizzt turned to regard a short, round dwarf with a short-clipped yellow beard barely reaching the top of his wide chest.
'Well met, Cobble,' Drizzt greeted the speaker. Bruenor recently had appointed the dwarf Holy Cleric of the Halls, a valued position indeed.
'Fitting?' Cobble asked as he indicated the twenty-foot-high sculpture of Mithril Hall's present king.
'For Bruenor, it should be a hundred feet tall,' Drizzt replied, and the good-hearted Cobble shook with laughter. The continuing roar of it echoed behind Drizzt for many steps as he again headed down the winding corridors.
He soon came to the upper level's hall area, the city above the wondrous Undercity. Catti-brie and Wulfgar roomed in this area, as did Bruenor most of the time, as he prepared for the spring trading season. Most of the other twenty-five hundred dwarves of the clan were far below, in the mines and in the Undercity, but those in this region were the commanders of the house guard and the elite soldiers. Even Drizzt, so welcomed in Bruenor's home, could not go to the king unannounced and unescorted.
A square-shouldered rock of a dwarf with a sour demeanor and a long brown beard that he wore tucked into a wide, jeweled belt, led Drizzt down the final corridor to Bruenor's upper-level audience hall. General Dagna, as he was called, had been a personal attendant of King Harbromme of Citadel Adbar, the mightiest dwarven stronghold in the northland, but the gruff dwarf had come in at the head of Citadel Adbar's forces to help Bruenor reclaim his ancient homeland. With the war won, most of the Adbar dwarves had departed, but Dagna and two thousand others had remained after the cleansing of Mithril Hall, swearing fealty to clan Battlehammer and giving Bruenor a solid force with which to defend the riches of the dwarven stronghold.
Dagna had stayed on with Bruenor to serve as his adviser and military commander. He professed no love for Drizzt, but certainly would not be foolish enough to insult the drow by allowing a lesser attendant to escort Drizzt to see the dwarf king.
'I told ye he'd be back,' Drizzt heard Bruenor grumbling from beyond the open doorway as they approached the audience hall. 'Th' elf'd not be missing such a thing as yer wedding!'
'I see they are expecting me,' Drizzt remarked to Dagna.
'We heared ye was about from the folks o' Settlestone,' the gruff general replied, not looking back to Drizzt as he spoke. 'Figerred ye'd come in any day.'
Drizzt knew that the general-a dwarf among dwarves, as the others said-had little use for him, or for anyone, Wulfgar and Catti-brie included, who was not a dwarf. The dark elf smiled, though, for he was used to such prejudice and knew that Dagna was an important ally for Bruenor.
