Condemnation (47 page)

Of course, the matron mothers hadn’t left their outer demesnes completely undefended. Nimor glanced down at the green shards of one of the city’s infamous jade spiders, huge magical automatons of stone that guarded the city’s approaches. The wreckage of the one at his feet still smoked with acrid black fumes from the stonefire bombs that had destroyed it a few hours before. They were clever and deadly devices, but without cadres of magic-wielding priestesses to hurl all sorts of awful dooms and blights on invaders, the jade spiders were not sufficient to the task of halting the two approaching armies.

How much longer until Menzoberranzan’s great castles lie shattered like this device? Nimor mused.

The Anointed Blade was interrupted in his reflections by the tramp of dwarven boots and the angry scrape of iron on stone. The armored diligence of Crown Prince Horgar Steelshadow approached, escorted by a double file of the duergar lord’s Stone Guards. Nimor winced at the resounding clangor of the duergar soldiers.

One would think they’d get their fill of hammer blows and noise back in their city, he thought.

He brushed off his tunic and went down to meet his ally.

“Well met, Crown Prince Horgar. I am pleased that you honored my request for a parley.”

The duergar lord threw open the armored door in the side of his iron wagon, and stepped down to the cavern floor. Marshal Borwald followed a step behind, his scarred face hidden by a great iron helm.

“I have been looking for you, Nimor Imphraezl,” Horgar replied. “You vanished after guiding our vanguard to this maze of tunnels. What business did you have elsewhere that was more pressing than our assault on Menzoberranzan, I wonder?”

Victory had transformed the crown prince’s dour pessimism into a kind of ferocious hunger for more victories, and Horgar’s lairds echoed their ruler’s attitude. Where before the sight of the assassin brought black scowls and dark mutterings, the lairds of Gracklstugh had come to acknowledge his presence with gruff nods and open envy of his successes.

“Why, Crown Prince, my business concerned the upcoming assault,” Nimor said with a laugh. He kicked aside one of the jade shards from the ruined construct. “Once I’d shown your men how to disable these things it seemed to me that your army had matters well in hand, so I took the liberty of reporting to my superiors, and spying out how matters stand in the city.”

The duergar prince frowned, his brows knitting in thought.

“You felt free to gamble with the tanarukk army,” said Horgar. “They might have turned on us as easily as upon the Menzoberranyr, you know.”

“Under normal circumstances, perhaps, but there is opportunity in the air. I can smell it, Kaanyr Vhok can smell it, and I think you can, too. We stand at a fulcrum on which many great events might be made to turn.”

“Empty platitudes, Nimor,” the gray dwarf growled.

He folded his thick arms and stared into the darkness, waiting. After a short time, a scuffling and snorting drifted through the darkness, followed by quick and heavy steps.

Bearing an iron palanquin the size of a small coach on their hairy shoulders, a score of tanarukks loped into the cavern, bestial eyes aglow with red hate, axes and maces gripped in their powerful fists. The gray dwarves and the orc-demons glared at each other, nervously muttering and fingering their weapons.

The door to the palanquin creaked open, and Kaanyr Vhok slowly straightened out of the chair. The half-demon warlord was resplendent in his armor of crimson and gold, and his fine-scaled skin and strong features bespoke presence and charisma in a way that Horgar’s duergar churlishness and suspicious manner could never match. The alu-fiend Aliisza followed sinuously, stretching her wings as she emerged. Finally, Zammzt climbed out of the warlord’s coach.

“Well, I have come,” Kaanyr said in his powerful voice. He studied the assembled gray dwarves, and regarded Nimor as well. “We have driven the dark elves back to their city in disarray. Now how do we finish the job? And, more importantly, how shall we divide the spoils?”

“Divide the spoils?” Horgar rasped. “I think not. You will not help yourself to part of my prize after my army shouldered the brunt of the hard work in defeating the drow at the Pillars of Woe. You will be paid fairly for your assistance, but do not presume to claim a share of my victory.”

Kaanyr’s handsome brow creased in an angry frown.

“I am not a beggar crying out for your largesse, dwarf,” the cambion said. “Without my army’s approach, you would still be fighting your way toward Menzoberranzan, one step at a time.”

Horgar started to compose an angry retort, but Nimor quickly stepped between the gray dwarf and the half-demon and raised his arms.

“My lords!” he cried. “The only way the Menzoberranyr can defeat you is if the two of you turn on each other. If you cooperate, if you combine your efforts intelligently, the city will fall.”

“Indeed,” said Zammzt. The plain-faced assassin stood by Vhok’s palanquin, shrouded in his dark cloak. “There is little point in dividing the spoils of a city that you have yet to capture. There is even less point in allowing the effort of dividing the spoils to prevent the city’s fall in the first place.”

“That may be true,” Kaanyr said, folding his powerful arms across his broad chest, “but I will not be forgotten when the city is plundered. You brought me here, assassins.”

“You brought me here, as well,” Horgar rumbled, “and you brought the Agrach Dyrr. I suspect that your secret House will be hard-pressed to honor your promises to all three of your allies. Which of us do you mean to betray, I wonder?”

For the first time, Nimor found himself wondering if perhaps he had arrayed too many enemies against Menzoberranzan all at once. That was the nature of diplomacy in the Underdark, after all. No alliance outlived its usefulness, not even by a heartbeat.

To his surprise, he was rescued by Aliisza.

The alu-fiend draped herself at Kaanyr’s side and said, “He will not honor his promises to either of you, as long as the city stands. How can he? We will all go home empty-handed if you cannot come to an agreement.”

Nimor inclined his head in gratitude, making a very conscious effort not to allow his eyes to linger on Aliisza for too long when she stood next to Kaanyr Vhok. Somehow he doubted that she’d shared with her master the exact details of her visit to Gracklstugh, and he didn’t want to give the half-demon any reason to become curious.

“Lady Aliisza’s wisdom is as great as her beauty,” he said. “For the sake of avoiding argument, I propose this: To Horgar, five-tenths of Menzoberranzan’s wealth, populace, and territory; to Kaanyr Vhok, three-tenths; and for my own House, two-tenths, out of which I will come to terms with the Agrach Dyrr. All subject to final negotiation and adjustment when Menzoberranzan is ours, of course.”

“My army outnumbers the cambion’s by better than two to one, so why does he gain a share better than half of my own?” Horgar said.

“Because he is here,” Nimor said. “Take your army and go home if you like, Horgar, but look around you before you depart. We stand at the Lustrum, the mithral mines of House Xorlarrin. Menzoberranzan controls dozens of treasures such as this, and its castles and vaults are filled with the wealth of five thousand years. If you do not fight, your share will be nothing.”

That was the other reason Nimor had chosen the Lustrum as the place to hold his parley. It served as a tantalizing reminder of the true prize that waited.

Horgar’s eyes darkened, but the duergar prince turned aside to study the chasm and the gaping adits nearby. Marshal Borwald leaned close and whispered something to the crown prince, and the other lairds muttered among themselves. After a moment, Horgar shifted his thick hands to his belt and cleared his throat.

“All right, then. Subject to final negotiation, we agree. So how do you intend to reduce the city?”

“You will crush Menzoberranzan between your two armies,” Nimor said. “Given your victory at the Pillars of Woe, the Lolthites are committed to awaiting your assault in the city proper, but thanks to this maze of passages surrounding the city, they can’t know where you’ll make your attack. That means the Menzoberranyr will have to maintain a strong force in waiting somewhere near the city’s center to respond to whatever point is threatened. The Scoured Legion will provide that threat, and when we force the Lolthites to commit to battle, the army of Gracklstugh will commence its attack and break into the city.”

“It’s not a bad plan,” Kaanyr Vhok observed. “However, it is exactly what the Menzoberranyr must expect us to try, given the situation. They’ll be very careful in committing their strength to any one threat.”

“Aye,” Horgar said. “How will you draw them out, now that you’ve taught them caution at the Pillars of Woe?”

Nimor smiled. It didn’t escape him that Horgar and Kaanyr were examining the tactical problem of defeating Menzoberranzan, instead of quarreling over what they expected to gain from their efforts.

“My brothers and I expect to help in that regard,” he said. “We’re not numerous but we’re well-placed, and, my lords, you have forgotten House Agrach Dyrr.”

Horgar and Kaanyr exchanged a nod, even a smile.

Prepare well, Menzoberranzan, Nimor thought. I’m coming.

“I never imagined so many demons in my life,” Ryld grunted. He leaned on Splitter, watching as a huge, bat-winged, bloated form spiraled feebly down into the darkness, vainly trying to fly with its wings savaged by blows of the weapons master’s greatsword. He straightened and wiped the back of one hand across his brow. “It’s getting hotter, too. I hope we’re close to whatever we’re looking for.”

Halisstra and the rest of the company stood nearby, swaying with nausea or trembling with fatigue as the environment and their exertions warranted. For what seemed like hours, they’d continued to fight their way down strand after strand. Sometimes they descended for miles past strands that were empty or held nothing but corpses, but more and more frequently they encountered demons that were alive and hungry. Most of the infernal creatures threw themselves headlong into battle as if all reason had deserted them, but a few retained enough of their intelligence to employ their formidable magical abilities against the interlopers.

With fang, claw, sting, and unholy sorcery the denizens of the Demonweb Pits scoured and scored the drow company. It didn’t help that Quenthel had commanded Pharaun to hoard his spells carefully so that the company met each new demonic threat with steel, not the wizard’s magic.

“Save your breath, Master Argith,” Quenthel said. She slowly straightened from her own fighting crouch, her whip splattered with the gore of a dozen demons. “We must press on.”

The company hadn’t gone more than another forty yards before their strand shuddered, and an enormous taloned hand appeared from beneath. Clawing its way around from the unseen bottom side of the web, a massive, bison-headed demon with foul, coarse fur sprouting from its shoulders and back hauled itself to the top of the strand and bellowed a vast challenge.

“A goristro!” Pharaun cried. “What in all the hells is that doing here?”

“Some pet of Lolth’s that’s gotten loose, I don’t doubt,” Tzirik replied.

The Vhaeraunite priest began to chant a spell, while the others leaped into action. Before the monster could clamber to its feet, Valas feathered it with at least three arrows, the black shafts sprouting from its shoulders and thick neck like pins in a cushion. The goristro snorted in pain and anger, and reached out one hulking hand to pick up the corpse of a small spider-demon nearby. It flung the corpse at Valas, catching the scout as he fished in his quiver for more arrows. The impact staggered Valas, who stumbled and slipped down the side of the strand, cursing in several languages.

Ryld ran forward with Splitter held high, Quenthel at his side, while Halisstra and Danifae carefully tried to circle the beast to one side as best they could on the narrow strand, hoping to surround it on all sides.

Tzirik finished his spell and shouted out a deep, rolling word of power, creating a great whirling disk of spinning razors across the goristro’s torso. Blades bit and blood flew, but still the monster came on undeterred.

“What will it take to stop this thing?” Halisstra called. “Does it have any weaknesses?”

“It’s stupid,” Pharaun replied. “Barely sentient, really. Don’t meet it blow for blow.”

The wizard gestured and struck the monster with a gleaming green ray of energy that chewed into the goristro’s chest, while Tzirik moved in behind Ryld and Quenthel to help them against the monster. The weapons master and the high priestess leaped and slashed at the creature’s belly and torso, while dodging the ponderous blows of its enormous fists. One glancing blow spun Quenthel to her hands and knees, but she managed to scramble out of the way before the creature could finish her off.

“Noooot stuuuupiiiid!” roared the goristro.

It lifted one hoofed foot and stamped it down on the strand with such astonishing power that the whole miles-long cable thrummed like something alive. The shock wave threw all of the drow into the air, yet the goristro had failed to anticipate the consequences of its mighty stomp, for the shock threw it into the air as well. The monstrous demon landed awkwardly on its side and slid off the strand, catching itself by one arm dug into the upper surface. It scrambled and kicked, its struggles shaking the strand even more.

Quenthel picked herself up from the trembling surface, and weaved her way past the brute’s arm to look down at its face. With a deliberate motion, she flicked her snake-headed whip at one of its beady eyes and destroyed the organ in a sickening burst of gore. The goristro howled in agony and recoiled, losing its grip on the strand and tumbling down into the abyss. Its bellows of rage continued for a long time, diminishing as it fell away from them. She didn’t bother to watch it fall. Instead she turned to the rest of the company.

“Get up,” she snarled. “We’re wasting time.”

Halisstra picked herself up from the web and glanced around. Valas scrambled back into view from his precarious position on the side of the strand. Danifae climbed to her feet as well. They followed after Quenthel as the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith set off again at once, moving at an impatient lope as she bounded down the strand. Halisstra was too tired to keep up the pace for long, but she had even less energy for an argument with the single-minded priestess, and so she merely set her jaw and endured.