Condemnation (18 page)

Valas blinked and signed, You think so?

“It’s what I would do,” Ryld answered. “The question is, how to make sure of it.”

He glanced around the street. As always, any gray dwarf in sight was staring at the two dark elves with undisguised hostility.

Investigating your suspicion makes us exactly the sort of fellows the crown prince’s soldiers will be looking for, Valas signed. The wiry scout frowned, thinking. What would you need to see to confirm your fear?

A supply train, Ryld answered at once. Wagons, pack lizards, that sort of thing. You wouldn’t gather that together unless you meant to march, and it would take several days to do it. You’d need a lot of space.

Agreed, Valas answered.

Valas thought, frowning as he tugged absently at the odd charms and tokens he carried on his clothing.

Feel like taking a chance? the scout signed.

Ryld glanced around the street. Thummud had pretty much told them outright that things wouldn’t change for several more days at a minimum, and that was not going to please Quenthel. If Gracklstugh meant to attack Menzoberranzan, he wanted to know about it before the duergar army marched. They would want to find a way to send a warning back home. The duergar were no slave rabble to be crushed at the leisure of the great Houses. The army of the City of Blades would be large, strong, disciplined, and well armed for an assault on the drow, and Ryld didn’t like the thought of what an army of that sort might do to his home city.

Let’s go, he replied.

Valas nodded and set off at once. Instead of heading back to the lakeside district and the Cold Foundry, he turned deeper, toward the heart of the cavern. They weaved through the foul-smelling streets and dark alleyways for a fair distance, passing through business districts where duergar artisans and merchants kept their shops in cramped buildings of field-stone. The hour was growing late, and traffic along the dwarf city’s streets seemed to be diminishing. The two dark elves finally reached a street that ran along the edge of a deep cleft or chasm bisecting the city’s higher, more inaccessible districts from its ramshackle lakeside neighborhoods. Numerous bridges of stone spanned the gap, leading to narrow streets that continued on the far side. A squad of vigilant duergar soldiers stood watch at the foot of each, barring passage across the chasm.

The scout drew Ryld into the shadow of an alleyway and nodded toward the rift and its bridges.

Laduguer’s Furrow, he signed. Also known as the Cleft. Everything on the west side is strictly off limits to foreigners. There are a couple of large side caverns on the far side that might serve as good marshalling grounds, and they’d be secure from any casual observation.

Ryld studied the Bregan D’aerthe scout thoughtfully, wondering how he knew so much about a part of the city that was supposedly off limits.

I take it you’ve been there before? Ryld asked.

I’ve passed through Gracklstugh a couple of times.

I wonder if there’s anyplace Valas hasn’t been, Ryld thought. He shifted in the shadows to get a better look at the guarded bridges. He was a fair hand at staying out of sight when he needed to, but he didn’t like the possibilities offered by the narrow, railless spans. There was no cover at all once one set foot on any of the bridges.

How do we cross? he asked.

Valas finished his knots and stepped close, setting his right foot in one bottom loop and crooking his right arm through the topmost.

“Stay close to this stalagmite as you ascend,” he said. “We’ll want the cover.”

Ryld nodded and reached up absently to touch the insignia pinned to his breast. It identified him as a Master of Melee-Magthere, and like the clasps and brooches of many noble Houses, it was enchanted with the power of levitation. Valas didn’t doubt that Ryld had fought long and hard to win the right to wear it.

As he’d hoped, the enchantment proved strong enough to support both Ryld’s weight and the Bregan D’aerthe’s. Effortlessly they glided up into the smoke and gloom of Gracklstugh’s upper reaches, until the fumes obscured the streets below. From the top of the great cavern, the floor seemed shrouded in haze and smoke, glaring firelight making bright circles of glowing red mist in a hundred spots around them.

“This is better than I thought,” Valas said. “The smoke and fumes give us some concealment.”

“And they make my eyes water,” Ryld said. He reached the ceiling and found that the cavern roof was rough and pitted. “Which way?”

“To your right. Yes, that’s it.”

Valas indicated the northern wall of the city with a jerk of his chin, keeping his foot and arm secure in the rope stirrups he’d fashioned. Carefully, Ryld turned to face the ceiling more evenly, and he pulled himself along hand over hand as if he were climbing a vertical wall of rock. The scout shifted to secure his grip, and kept his own eyes down at the cavern floor below, directing the weapons master in his progress.

“One gray dwarf wizard with a spell of cancellation would certainly ruin our day,” Ryld remarked. “Aren’t you a little nervous in that arrangement?”

“I’ve always had a good head for heights, but let’s not talk about it anymore.”

Ryld chuckled.

For days, the journey had been simply uneventful and dreary. The tactical challenge of spying in the heart of the duergar city, though, fully engaged them both.

“Head more to your left,” Valas said, interrupting his own thoughts. “There’s a bit of a ledge on the cavern wall that should run the way we want to go.”

Ryld complied, and the two of them carefully leveled off and descended along the sloping roof of the cavern until they found the place where it dropped more or less straight down and became the wall. There, an old weathered seam circled the cavern like the eaves of an old tavern. The weapons master looked at it dubiously, but as they drew close Valas disentangled himself and leaped lightly down to crouch in the space like a skinny spider.

Ryld followed, somewhat more awkwardly. He could manage it, barely, but he was lucky to have the magic of his insignia to fall back on if his footing or grip failed him.

Valas moved confidently forward, following the seam as it descended sharply and disappeared around a sharp bend overlooking a side cavern.

Ryld scrambled down after him, cursing silently as his foot dislodged some loose rock and sent it clattering down the clifflike wall. The forges and hammers of Gracklstugh covered the sound fairly well, though, and they were still above Laduguer’s Furrow. The rock skittered into the abyss and vanished.

Valas glanced back from his perch at the bend.

Carefully, he signed. Come up here and see this.

Ryld worked his way up beside the scout, finally stretching out on his belly to stay on the ledge. The seam ran down to a side cave and turned in sharply. From their vantage a hundred feet or more above the floor, they could see a good-sized cavern, perhaps three or four hundred yards long and about half that wide. The walls were hewn into barracks rooms, enough to house quite a large number of soldiers, but the floor of the place was level and open, a good drilling ground for bodies of troops.

From end to end, it was crowded with wagons and pack lizards. Hundreds of duergar swarmed over the scene, securing great panniers to the ugly reptiles, loading wagons, and preparing siege engines for travel. The noxious reek of the city’s smelters didn’t suffice to mask the heavy smell of animal dung in the large chamber, and the lizards’ hisses and rasping croaks filled the air.

Valas began counting wagons and pack beasts, trying to estimate the size of the force that might be on the march. After a few minutes, he finally tore his eyes away.

Somewhere between two and three thousand? Ryld said.

The scout frowned and replied, I think somewhat more, maybe four thousand all together, but there may be more trains gathering in other caverns nearby.

Is there any reason to think they’re not bound for Menzoberranzan? Ryld asked.

We’re not their only enemies. Still, I don’t like the timing.

“I don’t believe in coincidences, either,” Ryld whispered. He carefully began to worm his way back from the edge, taking great pains to dislodge no more rocks. “I would suggest checking the other caves for more soldiers, but I think we’ve seen more than the duergar would want already, and I don’t feel like pressing my luck. We’d best get back and report this to the others.”

EIGHT

“We should just leave,” growled Jeggred. His white fur was streaked with red wine, and hot grease from a roast of rothe meat stained his muzzle. The draegloth didn’t take well to long waits, and two days of confining himself to the Cold Foundry had been hard for him. “We could be out of the city before they knew we’d gone.”

“I fear it wouldn’t be as simple as you make it sound,” Ryld said. He knelt by his pack, stuffing sacks with the least perishable items from the buffet. He dropped the sacks into a yawning black circle beside him—a magical hole that could be picked up and carried as if it was nothing but a piece of dark cloth. It could hold hundreds of pounds of gear and supplies, but weighed nothing at all. “You may not have noticed, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who marked the spies watching this inn. We wouldn’t make a quarter mile before we were swarmed under duergar soldiers.”

“So?” the draegloth demanded. “I fear no dwarf!”

“Duergar aren’t goblins or gnolls, too stupid to use their numbers well, too clumsy and crude to stand a chance in a one-on-one duel. I’ve met duergar swordsmen nearly as good as I am. I have no doubt that a number of such formidable fellows would be banded together against us, and the duergar count skilled wizards and clerics among their ranks, too.”

“We should have known better than to march into a duergar city,” Halisstra said. “What a miserable piece of timing.”

She hurried to don her armor, a suit of highly enchanted chain mail that carried the arms of House Melarn on its breast. She wondered if the best strategy would be to simply wait a few more days and allow the gray dwarves to relax their vigilant stance. On the other hand, if they delayed too long, there was always the chance that the merchant she’d charmed to part with Danifae’s new arms would recover his wits and report the incident to the authorities. Had they simply murdered the merchants … but no, if they’d been caught at that, they would already have paid with their lives.

She tugged at the long hem of the mail hauberk and wriggled to settle it better on her shoulders.

“Master Argith, how long will it take the duergar army to march?” Halisstra asked.

“Soon,” Ryld said. “They can’t keep that many pack lizards in harness for long. The question is how long after the army sallies before they allow travel to resume. If we wait them out, we might be delayed for days.”

“Delayed—or disposed of,” Danifae warned.

“We will set out at once,” Quenthel said, putting a halt to the debate.

The Mistress of the Academy dressed for battle, her face set in a black scowl, her whips writhing in agitation.

“That begs the question that was raised a moment ago—which way do we go?” asked Ryld.

The weapons master finished with his supplies and picked up the hole, rolling it tightly and slipping it into his pack.

“I can retrace our steps back to Mantol-Derith,” Pharaun offered, “but it will be difficult to move forward from here. I don’t know the way to the Labyrinth, so any stroll we took on the Plane of Shadow would doubtless lead us to a strange and cheerless end. There are too many of you for me to teleport us all together, so unless someone feels like answering to the gray dwarves for the rest of the company’s sudden departure, I suppose that’s out as well.”

“What about a spell to conceal our identities?” Ryld asked.

“Regrettably,” the wizard replied, “gray dwarves are notoriously resistant to illusions of any kind.”

Halisstra added, “If only one saw through a disguise and saw a party of dark elves. …”

“Better to simply render us all invisible,” the Master of Sorcere said. “Yes, that would be the most expedient solution to this little conundrum. It quite reminds me of a time when—”

“Enough.” Quenthel shifted in her seat and asked Valas, “Do we need to set out for the Labyrinth from here, or could you find a way around Gracklstugh if we retraced our steps a bit?”

“It will take several more days to circle the city,” the scout answered, “but I could guide you past Gracklstugh’s borders.”

“Fine,” Quenthel said. “We will head back for the docks and make use of Coalhewer’s boat. It’s the most direct route out of the city from here, and unless I miss my guess, the lakeside will be less heavily guarded than the tunnels. Is everybody armed?” She looked around quickly. No one requested more time to prepare, so the Baenre priestess nodded with a small gesture of approval and turned to Pharaun. “What must we do for your spell to succeed?”

“Join hands and stay close to me,” Pharaun said, “or wander off if you like, in which case you will find yourself inconveniently visible. I will not be held responsible for any difficulties that ensue.”

Fully armed and armored, packs shouldered, all but Valas joined hands and waited. The Master of Sorcere, standing in their center, hissed out a sibilant string of arcane words and wove his hands in mystic passes. They all vanished from view. Halisstra could feel Danifae’s hand on her left shoulder, and she clasped Ryld’s cuirass with her own right hand, but as far as her eyes could tell, only the scout was in the room.

“Are you ready, Master Hune?” Pharaun asked, unseen.

Valas offered a small nod. He was dressed in what passed for his own finery, a simple vest of chain mail over a good shirt of spider silk and dark breeches, his piwafwi thrown over one shoulder in a rakish fashion. Odd badges and tokens pinned here and there to his clothing, the defenses and charms of half a dozen races, completed his ensemble.

“I’ll dawdle in the courtyard a moment. Make sure you’re all out swiftly; it will look less suspicious if I don’t stand around for long. I’ll join you at Coalhewer’s boat in ten minutes.”

“You’ll be tailed,” Ryld said.