even think of continuing the fight.
Berg'inyon motioned to a nearby female. 'Rest your sword against it,' he bade her.
The female drew her blade and laid it across one of the thick strands. She looked to Berg'inyon and around to all the others, then easily lifted the blade from the fence.
Another drow farther down the line dared to place his hand on the web. Those around him looked at him incredulously, thinking him dangerously daring, but he had no trouble removing himself from the metal.
Panic rushed through Berg'inyon. The fence, it was said, had been a gift from Lloth herself in millennia past. If it was no longer functioning, it might well mean that House Baenre had fallen out of the Spider Queen's favor. It might well mean that Lloth had dropped House
Baenre's defense to allow for a conspiracy of lower houses.
'To your posts, all of you!' the young Baenre shouted, and the gathered dark elves, sharing Berg'inyon's reasoning and his fears, did not have to be told twice.
Berg'inyon headed for the compound's great central mound to find his mother. He crossed paths with the drow he had just been fighting, and the commoner's eyes widened in sudden fear. Normally Berg'inyon, honorable only by the low standards of dark elves, would have snapped his sword out and through the drow, ending the conflict. Caught up in the excitement of the fence's failure, the commoner was off his guard. He knew it, too, and he expected to be killed.
'To your post,' Berg'inyon said to him, for if the young Baenre's suspicions proved correct, that a conspiracy had been launched against House Baenre and Lloth had deserted them, he would need every one of the House's twenty-five hundred soldiers.
*****
King Bruenor Battlehammer had spent the morning in the upper chapel of Mithril Hall, trying to sort out the new hierarchy of priests within the complex. His dear friend Cobble had been the reigning priest, a dwarf of powerful magic and deep wisdom.
That wisdom hadn't gotten poor Cobble out of the way of a nasty drow spell, though, and the cleric had been squashed by a falling wall of iron.
There were more than a dozen remaining acolytes in Mithril Hall. They formed two lines, one on each side of Bruenor's audience chair. Each priest was anxious to impress his (or, in the case of Stumpet Rakingclaw, her) king.
Bruenor nodded to the dwarf at the head of the line to his left. As he did, he lifted a mug of mead, the holy water this particular priest had concocted. Bruenor sipped, then drained the surprisingly refreshing mead in a single swallow as the cleric stepped forward.
'A burst of light in honor of King Bruenor!' the would-be head priest cried, and he waved his arms and began a chanting prayer to Moradin, the Soulforger, god of the dwarves.
'Clean and fresh, and just the slightest twinge of bitterness,' Bruenor remarked, running a finger along the rim of the emptied
mug and then sucking on it, that he might savor the last drop. The scribe directly behind the throne noted every word. 'A hearty bouquet, properly curling nose hairs,' Bruenor added. 'Seven.»
The eleven other clerics groaned. Seven on a scale of ten was the highest grade Bruenor had given any of the five samples of holy water he had already taste-tested.
If Jerbollah, the dwarf now in a frenzy of spellcasting, could perform as well with magic, he would be difficult to beat for the coveted position.
'And the light shall be,' Jerbollah cried, the climax of his spell, 'red!'
There came a tremendous popping noise, as if a hundred dwarves had just yanked their fingers from puckered mouths. And then… nothing.
'Red!' Jerbollah cried in delight.
'What?' demanded Bruenor, who, like those dwarves beside him, saw nothing different about the lighting in the chapel.
'Red!' Jerbollah said again, and when he turned about, Bruenor and the others understood. Jerbollah's face was glowing a bright red—literally, the confused cleric was seeing the world through a rose-colored veil.
Frustrated Bruenor dropped his head into his palm and groaned.
'Makes a good batch o' holy water, though,' one of the dwarves nearby remarked, to a chorus of snickers.
Poor Jerbollah, who thought his spell had worked brilliantly, did not understand what was so funny.
Stumpet Rakingclaw leaped forward, seizing the moment. She handed her mug of holy water to Bruenor and rushed out before the throne.
'I had planned something different,' she explained quickly, as Bruenor sipped, then swallowed the mead (and the dwarf king's face brightened once more as he declared this batch a nine). 'But a cleric of Moradin, of Clanggedon, who knows battle best of all, must be ready to improvise!'
'Do tell us, O Strumpet!' one of the other dwarves roared, and even Bruenor cracked a smile as the laughter exploded about him.
Stumpet, who was used to the nickname and wore it like a badge of honor, took no offense. 'Jerbollah called for red,' she
explained, 'so red it shall be!'
'It already is red,' insisted Jerbollah, who earned a slap on the head from the dwarf behind him for his foolishness.
The fiery young Stumpet ruffled her short red beard and went into a series of movements so exaggerated that it seemed as if she had fallen into convulsions.
'Move it, Strumpet,' a dwarf near the throne whispered, to renewed laughter.
Bruenor held up the mug and tapped it with his finger. 'Nine,' he reminded the wise-cracking dwarf. Stumpet was in the clear lead; if she pulled off this spell where Jerbollah had failed, she would be almost impossible to beat, which would make her the wise-cracking dwarf's boss.
The dwarf behind the humbled jokester slapped him on the back of the head.
'Red!' Stumpet cried with all her might.
Nothing happened.
A few snickers came from the line, but in truth, the gathered dwarves were more curious than amused. Stumpet was a powerful spellcaster and should have been able to throw some light, whatever color, into the room. The feeling began to wash over them all (except Jerbollah, who insisted that his spell had worked perfectly), that something might be wrong here.
Stumpet turned back to the throne, confused and embarrassed. She started to say something, to apologize, when a tremendous explosion rocked the ground so violently that she and half the other dwarves in the room were knocked from their feet.
Stumpet rolled and turned, looking back to the empty area of the chapel. A ball of blue sparks appeared from nowhere, hovered in the air, then shot straight for a very surprised Bruenor. The dwarf king ducked and thrust his arm up to block, and the mug that held Stumpet's batch of holy water shattered, sheared off at the handle. A blue storm of raging sparks burst from the impact, sending dwarves scurrying for cover.
More sparking bursts ignited across the room, glowing balls zipping this way and that, thunderlike booms shaking the floor and walls.
'What in the Nine Hells did ye do?' the dwarf king, a little curled-up ball on his great chair, screamed at poor Stumpet.
The female dwarf tried to respond, tried to disclaim responsibil-
ity for this unexpected turn, but a small tube appeared in midair, generally pointed her way, and fired multicolored balls that sent Stumpet scrambling away.
It went on for several long, frightening minutes, dwarves diving every which way, sparks seeming to follow them wherever they hid, burning their backsides and singeing their beards. Then it was over, as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the chapel perfectly quiet and smelling of sulphur.
Gradually Bruenor straightened in his chair and tried to regain some of his lost dignity.
'What in the Nine Hells did ye do?' he demanded again, to which poor Stumpet merely shrugged. A couple of dwarves managed a slight laugh at that.
