“Well?” Berellip prompted.
“So be it,” the defeated mage replied, lowering his gaze.
Ravel was to his side in an eye-blink, grabbing him under the shoulder and hoisting him to his feet. “You are a noble of House Xorlarrin,” the young spellspinner quietly said.
Brack’thal stared at him hatefully.
“Go back to the tunnels with your pet,” Ravel ordered. “Continue your important work.”
The mage was more than happy to comply, and he hustled away, and as Berellip and Ravel swept the room with their stares, drow and goblins and bugbears fell all over each other to get back to their tasks.
“Follow,” Berellip demanded of the two males beside her. She led them into the chambers she had taken as her own, and closed the door behind them as they entered, before grabbing Ravel by the arm and spinning him around.
“I have had enough of your subterfuge,” she said.
“I am drow,” he replied with a grin.
Berellip didn’t blink.
“This is ended,” Ravel told her. “And know that I am as weary of looking over my shoulder for you as you are for me.” He turned for the door and Berellip shifted to block his egress.
Now Ravel didn’t blink, and after a few heartbeats, Berellip let him leave.
“He is always full of surprises, that one,” Tiago remarked.
“And you support him.”
“Matron Zeerith supports him,” Tiago corrected. “And Matron Mother Quenthel does so, out of respect for your mother.” When Berellip didn’t immediately reply, Tiago added, “This is ended, and know that I am the weariest of all.”
He stepped past Berellip for the door.
“Mercy,” Berellip said with a disgusted chortle. “He granted Brack’thal mercy, and mercy undeserved.”
“Do not think him weak,” was all that Tiago bothered to reply as he left the room. He glanced back as he stepped through the door. “All of this intrigue has excited me,” he informed her. “I will return to you in short order.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You’re a priestess of Lolth,” Tiago said with a bow. “If you refuse, I will leave.”
“And if I do not refuse, you will be indebted to me,” Berellip said, and Tiago could see the traps being set behind her glowing red eyes. He thought about it for just a moment, then nodded, and with a knowing smile bowed again and was gone.
For indeed, Tiago understood the task Berellip had in mind. Ravel had shown uncharacteristic mercy. Now that she knew of her younger sister’s treachery, Berellip would not.
The Baenre noble caught up to Ravel just beyond the forge area, the young spellspinner sitting by a small table lifting a glass of Slow Spout, a Duergan brew so named because after it swirled around inside the imbiber for some time, it inevitably put the fool on his hands and knees, “spouting” it back up. The thick and bitter ale was more commonly shared among the goblins and kobolds of Menzoberranzan than among the drow, whose tastes and sensibilities were more usually attuned to the finer liqueurs, like Feywine or brandy.
There was no doubt that Slow Spout could accomplish the task, though, if that task was to dull the senses.
“A strange choice of celebratory drink,” Tiago remarked, holding his hand out to refuse Ravel’s offer of a cup. So as not to be rude, the young Baenre drew a small flask from under his coat, unscrewed the top, and took a small swig.
“Why did I let him live?” Ravel asked before Tiago could.
“That is the question most formed by drow fingers at this time, yes,” Tiago replied.
Ravel looked aside, his expression very somber and very sober, despite the libations.
Tiago caught the significance of that look and suppressed the burning urge to prompt the spellspinner as his own curiosity began to bubble.
“Brack’thal’s claims,” Ravel said, shaking his head.
“What of them?”
Ravel looked his Baenre friend directly in the eye. “He was not wrong.”
Tiago tried hard not to reveal his shock, but still he fell back a step.
“I feel it,” Ravel explained.
Tiago shook his head, too emphatically, perhaps. “There is some trick at play here with Brack’thal, some secret item or one old spell returned. His work with the elementals…”
“Impressive work,” Ravel said.
“And you’re fooled by it.”
Ravel took another gulp of Slow Spout. “Let us hope that is the case,” the spellspinner said, and he sounded less than convinced.
A COMPANION'S TRUST
Herzgo Alegni stepped through the shadow gate, arriving in a small chamber built into a stalactite hanging above a vast underground cavern. It had been only two days since the disastrous fight in the forest, but the tiefling warlord was feeling much better. He had used Draygo Quick’s failure to force the withered old warlock into redoubling the efforts to heal him, and to give him more reinforcements.
Herzgo Alegni knew they couldn’t fail again. Not now. Not here. Too much was at stake, and this time, failure would mean the end of his coveted sword and the end of his reputation.
Effron was already in the portal chamber, staring out a small window beside the chamber’s one exit, an open door leading to a landing and a circular stair that ran around the rock mound.
Alegni walked up beside the twisted warlock and pushed him aside. Effron stuck his face into the window opening and tried to hide his surprise.
There before Alegni, across a dark underground pool, loomed the front wall of the ancient dwarven complex of Gauntlgrym, like the facade of a surface fortress, but tucked into the back of the cavern, the castle wall coming up right near to the ceiling. There were parapets up there, Alegni could see; that wall, this whole cavern, including the stalactite in which he stood, had been prepared for defense of the complex.
“Directly below,” Effron said, and Alegni leaned out and looked down, to see another landing just below his position, an ancient war engine set upon it.
“Ballista?” he asked, not quite sure of what he was viewing. It looked like a great mounted crossbow, a ballista, except that it was covered on top with a large fanlike box. A pair of Shadovar moved around down there, working on the contraption.
“An unusual design,” Effron explained. “They are set all around the cavern. Balogoth the historian called them volley guns.”
Alegni looked back from Effron to the ballista, and held up his hand as Effron started to explain what he had meant by that title. For there was no need-the name alone described the purpose of that fanlike box all too well.
“Will it throw?” he called down to the Shadovar on the ledge below.
The pair looked up and fell back a step at the unexpected sight of their warlord.
“Will it throw?” Alegni demanded again when neither answered.
“We do not know, my Lord Alegni,” one replied. “We have replaced the bowstring, but the arms are so ancient, they likely have little tension left in them.”
“Attempt it.”
The two looked at each other, then scrambled to a crate lying nearby-one they had brought from the Shadowfell-and began pulling forth long arrows. One by one, they loaded the fanlike box, sliding the bolts in from behind. Then one shade grabbed the huge crank and slowly pulled back the string.
The throw arms creaked in protest.
