'Oh, and Varra…' She turned, eyes wide. Riven leered at her.
'Please let Hov know that I have company.' She nodded again and ran off.
Riven glanced at Verdrinal and didn't bother to hide his derision. Hov, a brick wall of a warrior with a two- handed broadsword and a mean temper, headed Verdrinal's houseguards.
'Afraid?' he asked Verdrinal.
'Merely cautious, Riven, as always.'
Cautious or not, Riven knew that he could put Hov down one-on-one, but the big bastard probably would bring along additional men. That could create problems.
Stay sharp, he reminded himself. Though Verdrinal was incompetent, he was also reasonably cunning, and he resorted to bloodletting almost as readily as Riven. He'd turn the house guard loose if Riven pushed him too hard.
Taking a deep breath, Riven struggled to quell the anger that had brought him here. Killing one of Verdrinal's house guards had helped.
Verdrinal strolled into the study off the foyer and lit an oil lamp. Plush chairs and expensive rugs covered the floors. Beautiful, Riven acknowledged, but decadent and useless, like Verdrinal himself. Bookshelves towered from floor to ceiling, filled with leather bound tomes and ribbon-tied scrolls. Riven doubted Verdrinal had read many of them. He collected books just as he collected women-pretty tilings to decorate his home and impress visitors.
Verdrinal pulled forth a decanter of liquor from a cherrywood hutch and poured himself a glass. 'Drink?' he asked Riven.
'No.'
Verdrinal shrugged and sauntered back to where Riven stood in the study's doorway. Neither man sat. Verdrinal eyed him over the rim of his glass.
'What is it you want, Riven? What time is it? Second hour? By Cyric, it'll be dawn in five hours.' As if to make his point, he staged a theatrical yawn.
Riven forced down the urge to punch Verdrinal in his open mouth. No doubt Hov and his men were already watching from some secret room nearby.
'What I want is an explanation. And since Malix has gone underground, that leaves only you.' Malix, Riven's handler and the highest-ranking Zhentarim agent in Selgaunt, had vanished soon after Riven had sabotaged the Righteous Man's summoning of the dread. 'You know anything?'
Whirling the liquor around in his glass, Verdrinal regarded Riven shrewdly. His green eyes reminded Riven of a viper's.
'Malix has returned to headquarters to personally report recent events to Lord Chembryl. In the meantime, he's left me in charge.'
Riven stiffened. 'You!'
'Me.'
'Temporarily, no doubt.'
'Temporarily,' Verdrinal said, conceding with a nod. He quickly added in an arrogant tone, 'But until then, I'm your superior.'
At that, Riven's anger boiled over. He no longer cared about the Zhentarim hierarchy or whether Hov and the guards were watching. He stepped close to Verdrinal and hissed into his face, 'Well then, you arrogant little bastard, if you're the one in charge, then you can explain to me what in the dark is going on! I've lost six operators to this demon. Six.' And every one of them sucked dry as a prune. Malix said the dread would kill the Righteous Man and then leave. Leave!' He clenched a fist before Verdrinal's handsome face and barely restrained the impulse to beat the man to pulp. 'Godsdamned mages never know what they're talking about!' -
Verdrinal endured the tirade without expression, even the insult and fist in his face. He waited to be sure Riven had finished, then replied in the tone of voice used to explain something to an angry child. 'Things have changed, Riven.'
Riven stared at him, amazed that Verdrinal could say something so obvious, and so stupid. 'Really.'
Verdrinal winced at the sarcasm, took a sip from his
'The dread has somehow managed to remain on our plane. Malix is not sure how. He is sure that it has summoned lesser minions,' here he smiled, 'and is now doing what demons do.'
Riven found Verdrinal's self-satisfied tone infuriating. The man was speaking casually about demons, as though they prowled Selgaunt every other tenday! He forced down his anger only.because he needed information. 'So what are we going to do about it? I can't keep losing men to this thing.'
Verdrinal gazed at him condescendingly. 'Manx's orders are to do nothing about it.'
'Nothing! Did his brain turn to dung? It's killing my men. Our men. Good operators.'
'True, but it is also killing the heads of certain noble families and a multitude of rival leaders. It appears to have taken the Righteous Man's enemies as its own.' He smiled and waved his hand, a weak gesture. 'Dent you see? It's doing our work for us. Well let it purge the underworld and only then move against it. That's why Malix went to see Lord Chembryl personally, to determine when to take the next step.'
Riven had to admit the logic of the course. A few dead low-level Zhentarim operaiaves were copper pennies to the gold fivestars of dead patriarchs and rival guudmasters. Malix had been hoping merely to eliminate the Night Knives with the dread, but the creature was doing far better than expected; it was single-handedly securing Selgaunt's entire underworld for the Zhentarim.
'How do we know we can get rid of it?'
Verdrinal ignored the question. 'It attacked Storm-weather earlier tonight.' He grinned smugly, took a sip of his drink, and said nothing more. Verdrinal knew Riven's hate for Erevis Cale. He wanted him to ask for details.
Riven could not help himself. 'And?'
'And at least twenty guests present for one of Tha-malon's balls were slaughtered.' Casually, he took another sip from his glass. 'Did you know that I was invited to that ball?'
Riven ground his teeth together. You should've attended, he thought, but didn't say. 'Cale?'
'Lives. Apparently drove the dread off himself, though the Uskevren daughter was gravely hurt. Quite a man, this Erevis Gale. Quite a man, indeed.'
Riven realized that he had been clenching his fists. He released them and said, 'IH take that drink now.'
'You know where it is.'
Riven walked to the cabinet and surveyed the many bottles Verdrinal kept there. Able to read only with difficulty, he could not tell the vintage of any of the wines, but he'd be damned before he let Verdrinal know of his illiteracy. He grabbed a bottle at random and poured himself a glass. 'Hell be looking for a cause,' he said, and gulped the wine in a single drink. 'Cale, I mean.'
Verdrinal nodded. 'I hope so. If all goes well, hell find his cause. That'll solve another of our problems, won't it?'
Riven nodded stiffly and poured himself another glass of wine. He gulped it down too.
A month earlier, Cale and that little halfling rat Jak Fleet had ruineoVRiven's otherwise perfect plan to kidnap the youngest Uskevren whelp, Talbot. In the process, they had marked Riven with a scar on his back that had yet to heal fully. More importantly, the failed operation had dealt a harsh blow to Riven's aspirations for rising within the Network.
Now I find myself answering to a decadent dolt, he thought.
Since then, the Zhentarim had been keeping a close eye on Cale. They would have done the same with the halfling, but Jak Fleet had vanished into the underworld. Riven had known ever since that Gale's death was simply a matter of time, but he had hoped to kill the bald overgrown butler himself. A man like Verdrinal would not understand that
Still angry, he walked back to face the nobleman and jabbed a finger into his chest.
'What about my men? I can't afford to lose any more.
Verdrinal backed up a step and placed a finger to his lips in affected surprise. 'Dark! You've just reminded me of something. Oh my! Oh, this won't make you happy.'
Riven's stare bored holes into him.
Verdrinal feigned dismay, bat Riven saw the mirth in his eyes as he spoke. 'Before Malix left, he told me
'PaulS. Kemp to tell you to have your men go underground. To avoid the dread. That way-'
Riven smacked the drink out of his hands and gripped hi(tm) by his fish-white throat. 'You dog!' He slammed
