deciding that the two of them standing together were becoming too dangerous. 'And Auro'pol shall go with me.»
Auro'pol didn't dare ask the obvious question, but Baenre saw it clearly anyway from her expression.
'We have business in the outer tunnels,' was all Matron Baenre would offer.
Bladen'Kerst, always angry, but now boiling with rage, turned away from Quenthel and the unwanted images in the scrying pool and looked back to her mother.
Before she could speak, though, a telepathic intrusion came into her mind, and into Quenthel's.
Bladen'Kerst considered the message and the implications and
wisely held her information.
The command group split apart, then, with Zeerith and a contingent of the elite soldiers going east, toward Mithril Hall, and Matron Baenre leading Quenthel, Bladen'Kerst, Methil, half a dozen skilled Baenre female warriors, and the chained Gandalug off to the south, in the direction of the spot indicated by her divining feather.
* * * * *
On another plane, the gray mists and sludge and terrible stench of the Abyss, Errtu watched the proceedings in the glassy mirror Lloth had created on the side of the mushroom opposite his throne.
The great balor was not pleased. Matron Baenre was hunting Drizzt Do'Urden, Errtu knew, and he knew, too, that Baenre would likely find the renegade and easily destroy him.
A thousand curses erupted from the tanar'ri's doglike maw, all aimed at Lloth, who had promised him freedom—freedom that only a living Drizzt Do'Urden could bestow.
To make matters even worse, a few moments later, Matron Baenre was casting yet another spell, opening a planar gate to the Abyss, calling forth a mighty glabrezu to help in her hunting. In his twisted, always suspicious mind, Errtu came to believe that this summoning was enacted only to torment him, to take one of his own kind and use the beast to facilitate the end of the pact. That was the way with tanar'ri, and with all the wretches of the Abyss, Lloth included. These creatures were without trust for others, since they, themselves, could not be trusted by any but a fool. And they were an ultimately selfish lot, every one. In Errtu's eyes, every action revolved around him, because nothing else mattered, and thus, Baenre summoning a glabrezu now was not coincidence, but a dagger jabbed by Lloth into Errtu's black heart.
Errtu was the first to the opening gate. Even if he was not bound to the Abyss by banishment, he could not have gone through, because Baenre, so skilled in this type of summoning, was careful to word the enchantment for a specific tanar'ri only. But Errtu was waiting when the glabrezu appeared through the swirling mists, heading for the opened, flaming portal.
The balor leaped out and lashed out with his whip, catching the glabrezu by the arm. No minor fiend, the glabrezu moved to strike
back, but stopped, seeing that Errtu did not mean to continue the attack.
'It is a deception!' Errtu roared.
The glabrezu, its twelve-foot frame hunched low, great pincers nipping anxiously at the air, paused to listen.
'I was to come forth on the Material Plane,' Errtu went on.
'You are banished,' the glabrezu said matter-of-factly.
'Lloth promised an end!' Errtu retorted, and the glabrezu crouched lower, as if expecting the volatile fiend to leap upon him.
But Errtu calmed quickly. 'An end, that I might return, and bring forth behind me an army of tanar'ri.' Again Errtu paused. He was improvising now, but a plan was beginning to form in his wicked mind.
Baenre's call came again, and it took all the glabrezu's considerable willpower to keep it from leaping through the flaring portal.
'She will allow you only one kill,' Errtu said quickly, seeing the glabrezu's hesitance.
'One is better than none,' the glabrezu answered.
'Even if that one prevents my freedom on the Material Plane?' Errtu asked. 'Even if it prevents me from going forth, and bringing you forth as my general, that we might wreak carnage on the weakling races?'
Baenre called yet again, and this time it was not so difficult for the glabrezu to ignore her.
Errtu held up his great hands, indicating that the glabrezu should wait here a few moments longer, then the balor sped off, into the swirl, to retrieve something a lesser fiend had given him not so long ago, a remnant of the Time of Troubles. He returned shortly with a metal coffer and gently opened it, producing a shining black sapphire. As soon as Errtu held it up, the flames of the magical portal diminished, and almost went out altogether. Errtu was quick to put the thing back in its case.
'When the time is right, reveal this,' the balor instructed, 'my general.»
He tossed the coffer to the glabrezu, unsure, as was the other fiend, of how this would all play out. Errtu's great shoulders ruffled in a shrug then, for there was nothing else he could do. He could prevent this fiend from going to Baenre's aid, but to what end? Baenre hardly needed a glabrezu to deal with Drizzt Do'Urden, a
mere warrior.
The call from the Material Plane came yet again, and this time the glabrezu answered, stepping through the portal to join Matron Baenre's hunting party.
Errtu watched in frustration as the portal closed, another gate lost to the Material Plane, another gate that he could not pass through. Now the balor had done all he could, though he had no way of knowing if it would be enough, and he had so much riding on the outcome. He went back to his mushroom throne then, to watch and wait.
And hope.
******
Bruenor remembered. In the quiet ways of the tunnels, no enemies to be seen, the eighth king of Mithril Hall paused and reflected. Likely the dawn was soon to come on the outside, another crisp, cold day. But would it be the last day of Clan Battlehammer?
Bruenor looked to his four friends as they took a quick meal and a short rest. Not one of them was a dwarf, not one.
And yet, Bruenor Battlehammer could not name any other friends above these four: Drizzt, Catti-brie, Regis, and even Guenhwyvar. For the first time, that truth struck the dwarf king as curious. Dwarves, though not xenophobic, usually stayed to their own kind. Witness General Dagna, who, if given his way, would kick Drizzt out of Mithril Hall and would take Taulmaril away from Catti-brie, to hang the bow once more in the Hall of Dumathoin. Dagna didn't trust anyone who was not a dwarf.
But here they were, Bruenor and his four non-dwarven companions, in perhaps the most critical and dangerous struggle of all for the defense of Mithril Hall.
Surely their friendship warmed the old dwarf king's heart, but reflecting on that now did something else as well.
It made Bruenor think of Wulfgar, the barbarian who had been like his own son, and who would have married Catti-brie and become his son-in-law, the unlikely seven-foot prince of Mithril Hall. Bruenor had never known such grief as that which bowed his strong shoulders after Wulfgar's fall. Though he should live for more than another century, Bruenor had felt close to death in those
weeks of grieving, and had felt as if death would be a welcome thing.
No longer. He missed Wulfgar still—forever would his gray eye mist up at the thought of the noble warrior— but he was the eighth king, the leader of his proud, strong clan. Bruenor's grief had passed the point of resignation and had shifted into the realm of anger. The dark elves were back, the same dark elves who had killed Wulfgar. They were the followers of Lloth, evil Lloth, and now they meant to kill Drizzt and destroy all of Mithril Hall, it seemed.
Bruenor had wetted his axe on drow blood many times during the night, but his rage was far from sated. Indeed, it was mounting, a slow but determined boil. Drizzt had promised they would hunt the head of their enemy, would find the leader, the priestess behind this assault. It was a promise Bruenor needed to see the drow ranger keep.
