The surface woodland proved to be a strange and disquieting place. As the party moved away from the clearing's edge, the tangled underbrush van-ished, leaving only an endless green hall of round trunks rising to the forest roof above, like the pillars of some dark elven hall somewhere in the Lands Below. Old, fallen logs lay scattered here and there, covered in bright green moss. Some were so large that the company had to detour hundreds of feet around them, or scramble awkwardly over or under. A dusting of snow had filtered to the ground, and cold water dripped steadily from the branches above. Unlike the lifeless desolation of Anauroch, the forest was filled not only with mighty trees and twining brambles, but all manner of small birds and animals. After a dozen heart-stopping starts, Halisstra soon learned to identify a number of discrete birdcalls and animal sounds and relegate them to the realm of the insignificant.
She had at first feared that she would easily lose sight of the company ahead, but away from the crowded foliage by the infrequent clearings, the underbrush consisted of ferns and other green plants rarely more than waist high. As darkness fell over the forest floor, her vision improved, and Halisstra felt more and more comfortable.
The drow marched on through the night, halting a little before day-break to set up camp in an old ruined tower whose broken white stones were covered by moss. Smooth and delicately veined, the place showed re-markable elegance of form, and the lintel of its long-vanished door was carved in a flowering vine design - clearly the work of surface elves. After Pharaun checked the place for lingering spells that could be dangerous to drow, the company made camp to pass the painful bright hours of the day. Quenthel ordered Jeggred and Pharaun to keep watch, and the others en-joyed the shade and safety provided by the partial floors and graceful walls of the ruined tower.
At sundown they ate, broke camp, and set off again, in the same order as before, marching again through the night. They passed the next two days and nights in much the same way, resting while the sun was out and traveling by night. Valas even managed to shoot a small, hoofed animal a little before dawn at the end of their third night of travel, and Halisstra was surprised to find that its meat was light and succulent, better than that of a young rothe.
Toward the end of the day the clouds returned, darker and thicker than before, and as the daylight failed and the dark elves made ready for their fourth march on the surface, a soft snow began to fall, wet and heavy. It was eerily silent, as if the entire forest held its breath to keep from in-truding on the moment. Halisstra watched vigilantly behind the company, taking a dozen steps forward and turning to scan the trail behind them, sometimes walking backward for several minutes at a time, glancing to the front only to be sure of her footing. If Pharaun's divinations were accurate, they should reach the stream at the end of that night or perhaps the next, which meant that House Jaelre and the Vhaeraunite priestwere only a day beyond.
With the objective of their long journey so close at hand, it occurred to Halisstra that she had no reason why the heretic would consider help-ing them. Valas might have been an old acquaintance, but no cleric of the Masked Lord would aid priestesses of Lolth simply out of the goodness of his heart. Some price would have to be met, of that Halisstra was certain. Wealth, perhaps? Quenthel and her comrades carried many valuable gemstones. It was the easiest and most compact way to transport wealth through the wilds of the Underdark. Halisstra had stuffed her own pockets too before fleeing Ched Nasad. She doubted that a powerful Vhaeraunite would be so easily purchased, though.
Coercion might be possible, or they might have to barter some kind of service to win his aid. Danifae was occasionally useful in such arrange-ments. Any drow had at least one enemy in need of a setback.
She realized she'd fallen a bit behind, so she picked up her pace to take up position closer behind the main body of the company. She trotted easily through the darkness, her boots gliding through the snow, until she caught sight of Jeggred's hulking form and the smaller shapes of her com-panions moving ahead of her. Halisstra settled back into her pace, and turned to glance back down the trail.
Someone was there.
From all sides she heard the whisper-quiet sounds of soft feet stealing through the woods, then the sounds were abruptly cut off by a perfect, impenetrable silence that could only be magical.
Halisstra hissed in alarm, but heard nothing. She brought up her crossbow. Directly up the path a lanky male elf with skin as white as the snow darted toward her, armed with a gracefullycurved war axe in one hand and a shorter hand axe in the other. His eyes glittered like green death in the night.
"Watch out!" she cried, trying to warn her companions, but again nothing broke the perfect silence.
Without a moment's hesitation she whirled and fired her crossbow at Jeggred, perhaps fifty yards ahead. She skewed her aim a bit, so instead of taking him between the shoulder blades the quarrel struck quivering into a tree beside the half-demon's head. The draegloth leaped and shouted - or so she guessed, anyway, since she couldn't hear it - but, more impor-tantly, he turned to see what was happening behind him, and spied the surface elves stealing up from behind them.
An instant later, the elf axeman was upon Halisstra, whirling his two matched crescent blades in a deadly pattern of gleaming steel. He was shouting something too, a war cry perhaps. Halisstra gave up her fine crossbow to deflect the first stroke of the long axe,leaped back out of the reach of the shorter one, and hastily drew her mace, slinging her shield from her shoulder. The pale elf leaped forward to engage again, and they circled, trading skillful blows that failed to find their mark.
Halisstra could see more green-armored shapes flitting through the woods toward her, swords and spears glittering in the darkness. She re-doubled her efforts and put the two-axe fighter on the defensive, hoping to batter down his defenses before she was surrounded by foes.
A brilliant, searing light detonated along the trail behind her, filling the darkened forest with the painful glare of daylight. The last thing she saw before the spell blinded her completely was a company of surface elves and human warriors, dashing up to join the fray.
There was only one thing Halisstra could do. Raising her shield to buy a moment's time, she ducked down, grasped a handful of dirt and dried leaves from the ground at her feet, and imbued them with magical dark-ness, making good use of the power shared by all drow. A heavy blow fell on her shield, without a sound, and she quickly scuttled away from the axeman, staying low to the ground and feeling her way along. Some of her enemies would be waiting for her to emerge from the impenetrable blackness - at least, that was what Halisstra would have done in their place. The wisest thing to do was to remain within as long as possible in the hopes that the surface dwellers had no more magic suitable for cancel-ing or dispelling her field of darkness.
As with any drow noble familiar with battle, Halisstra knew to an in-stant how long her own dome of darkness would persist. In her case, she could sustain the magical gloom for almost three hours. If she lay still and quiet for a long time, the surface dwellers might very well think she'd slipped away. At the very least, she was reasonably sure she could outwait the spell of silence that covered the area. Once her hearing returned, she might be able to form a better guess as to what to do next.
Mace in hand, she groped her way to a large tree, leaned against its trunk, and settled down to wait.
Nimor stood patiently in the hall outside the council chamber, studiously allowing his shoulders to slump and his face to sag. He was supposed to be tired, after all. Dressed in the arms of an officer of House Agrach Dyrr, he'd purportedly fought his way free of the battle at Rhazzt's Dilemma in order to carry word of the attack to the matron mothers. Of course, the Agrach Dyrr garrison had already delivered the outpost to the army of Gracklstugh, but the matron mothers didn't know that yet.
Feigning exhaustion, despair, and resolve in the proper quantities was difficult for him, especially when his heart raced with excitement and his body quivered in anticipation. Long-laid plans had found their moment and unfolded slowly toward a terrible fruition. Through his own labors and toils he had altered the course of two great cities. Both moved pon-derously and yet inevitably toward a terrible collision he had imagined months before, and with each hour events gathered speed and required less and less of his guidance. Soon he could allow himself to vanish from the stage once more, his great toils done, and make ready to reap the rewards of his labors.
To divert himself while he awaited the summons to the council in the chamber beyond, Nimor studied the hall with care. One never knew, after all, when a half-remembered doorway or a choice of exits might spell the difference between life and death. The Hall of Petition, as the place was called, formed the entrance to the matron mothers' secretive council cham-ber. The high ladies themselves rarely passed through this room. They had various secret and magical ways to travel from their palaces and castles to their seats within. Instead, the Hall of Petition was the place where all who had business with thecouncil awaited the matrons' pleasure. Naturally, it was nearly empty.
Any drow who needed something simply begged it of one of the matron mothers, and most carefully and respectfully at that. Only those drow commanded to appear before the council waited in the Hall of Petition, and again, anyone whose presence was commanded had probably already made his report to one of the matron mothers beforehand. The hall was most commonly employed as a convenient place for persons of interest to the council to wait until called within to deliver her report, present her re-quest, or more often plead her case and hear judgment.
Sixteen proud male warriors and wizards stood in or around the hall, two from each of the Houses whose matron mothers sat on the council. They were ostensibly designated as a guard for the entire council, but in truth each male spent most of his time carefully watching the males of rival Houses to make sure that no secret attack was afoot that day.
The floor, all of polished black marble with veins of gold, gleamed in the dim light of faerie fire globes set high in the ceiling, and great friezes along the walls showed the story of Menzoberranzan's founding.
Several minor functionaries scurried about the hall, bowing and scrap-ing to all who deserved such obsequiousness, and imperiously disregarding any who did not. Nimor, wearing the arms of a minor officer of House Agrach Dyrr, fell somewhere in between.
To Nimor's great surprise, he was kept waiting only forty minutes before one of the chamberlains approached and gestured toward the door.
"The Council expects your report, Captain," he said.
Nimor followed the official into the council chamber itself, bowing to the high seats of the eight matron mothers. Each was attended by one or two of her daughters, nieces, or favorites. A grand archway to one side of the chamber led off to a set of smaller shrines and halls adjacent to the council, to which the matrons' attendants and secretaries could be dismissed should the matron mothers decide to discuss their business in private.
"Matron Mothers, Captain Zhayemd of House Agrach Dyrr," the chamberlain announced.
Nimor bowed again, and held the pose as he surreptitiously studied the matron mothers.
Triel Baenre sat at the head of the Council, of course. Petite and pretty, she seemed too young for the place of honor, though she was of course hundreds of years in age. Mez'Barris Armgo of House Del'Armgo sat next to her, then came the place where the Matron Mother of House Faen Tlabbar formerly sat. Nimor studiously did not smile, buthe allowed his gaze to linger a moment on a young female who occupied Ghenni's place - Vadalma, the fifth daughter of the House. Either the first four destroyed each other squabbling for their mother's place, he reflected, or young Vadalma was much more accomplished than she looked.
Opposite the new Faen Tlabbar matron sat Yasraena Dyrr, graceful and lissome, well at ease in the chair she had occupied since Auro'pol's demise.
"Ah, I see my captain has arrived," Yasraena said to her peers. "Wel-come, Zhayemd. You have endured much today, but I am afraid I must subject you to one more ordeal before you can be allowed your well-deserved rest. Tell the Council the tidings you brought me earlier."
"As you wish, Honored Matron," Nimor said. He glanced around at the highborn females and affected a trace of nervousness. "Matron Mothers, I have come from the garrison at Rhazzt's Dilemma. We have come under attack from a great force of duergar and their allies, including derro, durzagons, giants, and many slave troops. We do not expect to delay them for more time than it takes the duergar to bring their siege engines into play."
"I know that place," Mez'Barris Armgo said. "It lies three or four days' travel south of the city. Is your news that old? Why did your spellcasters not warn us through magic instead of sending you to report in person?"
"Our wizard was slain in the first assault, Matron Del'Armgo. He had the misfortune to be leading a patrol outside our defenses and apparently fell victim to the approaching duergar. When Mistress Nafyrra Dyrr - the commander of our detachment - realized we had no means to signal a warning, she dispatched me at once to carry a message back to Menzober-ranzan. This all occurred earlier this morning."
"You have only answered one of the questions I posed, Captain," the Matron Mother of House Barrison Del'Armgo observed. "Rhazzt's Dilemma came under attack this morning, but the outpost lies more than thirty miles south of here, a journey of several days."
Nimor affected a trace of hesitation, and glanced deliberately at Yasraena Dyrr as if seeking guidance. The Matron Mother of House Agrach Dyrr simply inclined her head in assent.
"I made use of a somewhat unreliable portal to shorten my journey from several days to a few hours, Matron Del'Armgo," he said. "It lies a mile or two from the outpost and is somewhat difficult to use, as it functions only intermittently. The other side lies in a disused cavern in the Dark Domin-ion. My House has known of it for some time, though we did not trust the portal's magic enough to employ it except in a dire emergency."
"I have no doubt that Barrison Del'Armgo knows of similar portals in and around the city," Yasraena Dyrr observed. "Forgive us if we neglected to mention the existence of this one until today."
"The portal is irrelevant," Triel Baenre said, making a dismissive gesture of her hand. "The captain is here to make his report, and that is sufficient. Tell me what you observed ofthis duergar army."
"I would guess it to number somewhere around three to four thou-sand gray dwarves, plus a number of slave soldiers - mostly orcs and ogres. We noted the banners of eight companies in the attack, and many more held back in reserve. There could be more, of course, or the duergar may have deliberately attempted to deceive us by carrying false banners into battle."
"A raid," muttered Prid'eesoth Tuin of House Tuin'Tarl. "Your outpost is simply being tested, Captain."
Nimor shifted his feet and did his best to look determined, serious, and dutifully subservient.
"Mistress Nafyrra does not believe so, Matron Tuin," Nimor said. "We have fought off duergar raids on numerous occasions, but nothing like the onslaught we encountered this morning. If we are not besieged by the whole army of Gracklstugh, it's certainly close enough."
"How strong is your garrison?" Yasraena Dyrr asked.
"Our garrison numbers almost eighty warriors, and we have an excel-lent defensive position, Honored Matron. We can hold out for several days, but the outpost will fall when the duergar bring up their siege engines, or employ the right sort of magic."
"It should not surprise me to learn that this duergar onslaught is little more than a particularly large and aggressive raid," Vadalma of Faen Tlabbar said. "I am sure Matron Dyrr has reported what her males believe to be the case, but perhaps the matter should be investigated before we react in blind panic. A simple confirmation of the report, at the least. After we have properly assessed the scope of the threat, the Council can deliber-ate over thebest means to address it."
"Under most circumstances, our young sister would be wise to suggest a more thorough assessment of the situation," said Yasraena. She had been well coached. Nimor lowered his gaze to keep his smile from showing. "However, my officers tell me that, if we wish to meet the duergar army out-side the city, the place to do it is at the Pillars of Woe, between here and Rhazzt's Dilemma. A strong army dispatched quickly can hold the pillars against any conceivable assault, but if we delay too long, the duergar will reach it before we do. We would throw away a very significant advantage of position. We should, of course, seek confirmation of the report with all due haste, but while we're investigating, our soldiers should be marching."
"Shouldn't we simply stand on the defensive here, in the city cavern?" asked Mez'Barris Armgo. "We can fortify the approaches easily enough, and the duergar army would have a difficult time surrounding the city in its entirety while the threat of our own intact army remains within."
"If we allow the gray dwarves to infest the city," one of the othermatron mothers said, "we shall surely see illithid, aboleth, and humanoid armies at our doorstep in no time at all. We have many enemies. Look at what happenedto Ched Nasad."
The eight high priestesses exchanged somber looks.
"Clearly, the Council must reach some decisions quickly," Triel Baenre said, breaking her thoughtful silence. "We don't have much time if we wish to meet the duergar outside the city, so I will order half of Baenre's troops to make ready to march. I advise the rest of you to do the same. If we decide to stand on the defensive in the city cavern, we can have our sol-diers stand down, but if we decide to march, we will want to be able to inarch soon."
"I favor a vigorous and aggressive defense of the city," said Yasraena Dyrr. "Hard exertion now may serve to deter further attacks later. I will order half the strength of House Dyrr to make ready at once." She stud-ied the other matrons carefully and added, "Provided, of course, that some other Houses agree to shoulder a share of the risk and assist us. Either we all make the same commitment, or none."
"House Baenre guarantees Agrach Dyrr until the return of the expe-dition," Triel said briskly.
Nimor nodded to himself. He'd expected that the leader of Men-zoberranzan's strongest House would choose to lead by example in this in-stance. Among other things, it deflected any predatory designs of the other Houses into an external activity, where the Baenre could be seen to be taking strong and decisive action to secure the city. Triel was badly in need of such measures.
She looked up at the various guards, advisors, and guests in the coun-cil chamber and said, "The matron mothers must discuss how best to meet this treacherous attack in private. Leave us."
"Captain Zhayemd," Yasraena Dyrr said, "I would like it if you took command of the Agrach Dyrr contingent and began your preparations at once. I know you have fought your way through great peril already today, but you have intimate knowledge of the field of battle, and I have the utmost confidence in you."
"I will serve to the best of my abilities," Nimor said. "With the god-dess's aid, I will scour our city's foes from our territory."
He offered another deep bow to the matron mothers, and quietly withdrew.
The forest sounds abruptly returned, signaling the end of the spell of silence. Wind sighed in the treetops, a small brook ran somewhere nearby, and tiny rustles and scuttling sounds whispered in the darkness as the small creatures of the woods - or larger ones who knew how to be stealthy - moved about nearby. Halisstra listened for a long time, hoping to hear some sort of positive evidence that the surface dwellers had gone or that her comrades battled on somewhere nearby, but no ringing swords or thunderous spells split the night. She heard nothing as convenient as an enemy conversation to help her decide if her foes had left, or were instead crouched silently outside the darkness, waiting for her to emerge. Halisstra could be quite patient when it suited her, and she was not unused to hard-ship and danger, but the sheer nervous tension of stretching out to iden-tify and categorize every tiny sound that came to her ears soon left beads of sweat trickling down her face.
If Quenthel and the others were nearby, I would hear it, she decided. The fight must have carried them far ahead by now.
Her heart pounded at the thought of being lost in the endless woods alone, a reviled enemy to any creature who walked the surface world.
Better to die trying to rejoin the others, Halisstra decided. At least I know where they're going, if I can manage to keep my course.
First, she needed to escape from the darkness that sheltered her. She did not choose to dismiss the magical gloom, deciding to leave it to con-tinue until it failed in an hour or two. There was a small chance that her enemies might be waiting quietly outside for the darkness to fail before moving in. Halisstra groped in her belt pouch and withdrew a slender ivory wand. She felt very carefully to determine if it was the wand she needed, and when she was convinced that she had the right one, she tapped it against her chest and whispered a word.
Though there was no way for her to verify it, sitting on the forest floor in the magical darkness, the wand's magic had made her invisible. She stood as quietly as she could, cringing at every soft rustle or clink of her mail, and began steadily moving away.
Halisstra broke out into the open night much sooner than she expected - it seemed she had been sitting no more than six or seven feet from the edge of the darkness. Confident in her invisibility, she stood up straight and looked around. The forest looked much as it had before, except there was no sign of her companions or the woodsmen and surface elves who had attacked them. The moon was rising, and its brilliant silver light flooded the forest floor. She set off in what she hoped was a westerly direction, moving as quickly and quietly as she could.
She soon came upon the scene of a furious battle, if she read the signs right. Several large, blackened circles in the forest still smoldered. In other places the bodies of perhaps half a dozen surface elves and green-garbed human warriors lay where they'd fallen, most bearing the marks of sword, mace, and talon. Of the drow, there was no sign.
Halisstra tried to remember what she'd seen of the pale elves and their human allies, deciding that there might have been as many as fifteen to twenty of the surface folk.
"Where are your comrades, I wonder?" she asked the fallen warriors before moving on.
Halisstra only managed another half mile through the moonlit forest before she stumbled into the ambush. One moment she was stealing along, quick and confident, eager to catch up to the rest of the company and the familiar perils of their association, the next she was surprised by the appear-ance of a surface elf wizard who simply stepped out of a tree and hurled a spell at her, barking words of arcane might as he gestured withhis hands.
"Quick!" he shouted. "We have her!"
Halisstra's invisibility failed at once, undone by the surface wizard, and from the foliage and tree trunks all around her a dozen of the pale elves and the green-clad humans abruptly appeared, weapons at the ready. They leaped at her, murder in their eyes, filling the forest with their war cries and shouts of exultation.
Recognizing the hopelessness of her plight, Halisstra snarled in pure drow rage and charged to meet the surface warriors, determined not to sell her life cheaply.
The first foe in her path was a hulking human with a bristling black beard, fighting with a pair of short swords. He launched into a spinning attack, stabbing one blade at her eyes to raise her shield and slipping the other low to gut her while her guard was high. Halisstra simply dodged aside and hammered down at his extended left arm with her mace, strik-ing a heavy blow that cracked bone and jarred the blade from his injured hand. The man grunted in pain but kept at her, giving ground grudgingly as he continued to hew and slash with his one remaining sword.
Three more of his comrades moved up to engage Halisstra from all sides, and she was forced on the defensive, batting spear and blade aside with her shield and delivering crushing parries with her magical mace. The forest echoed with the sounds of steel on steel.
"Take her alive if you can," called the wizard. "Lord Dessaer wants to find out who these newcomers are and where they came from."
"Easier said than done," grunted the first swordsman, still holding his ground despite the loss of his off-hand blade. "She does not seem inter-ested in surrendering."
Halisstra growled in frustration and abruptly turned on the elf to her left, slipping inside the point of his spear and rushing him. The fellow backstepped and brought in his weapon as quickly as he could, but she had him.
With a snarl of cold glee she smashed her mace hard at the bridge of his nose. The weapon struck with a deadly crack of thunder and blew apart the skull of her victim, who fell in a nerveless heap.
She paid the price for her aggressive move a moment later when the elf swordsman behind her jammed the point of his weapon into her left shoul-der blade despite her cat-quick effort to twist away from the attack. Steel grated on bone, and Halisstra cried out in pain as the strength fled from her shield arm. A moment later an arrow fired from an archer standing off a bit struck quivering in the back of her right calf, buckling her leg.
"Now we've got her, lads!" called the elf swordsman.
He raised his blade for another stroke, but Halisstra allowed herself to crumple completely to the ground and rolled up under his guard, destroying his left hip with another thundering blow of her mace. The elf screamed and reeled away to collapse thrashing in the snow.
Halisstra tried to regain her feet, but the wizard hammered her with a blinding bolt of lightning. The force of the spell literally picked her up and flung her through the air, depositing her in a small, icy creek nearby. Halis-stra's whole body jerked and ached from the wizard's energy, and she became aware of the distinct, charred scent of her own burned flesh.
She pushed herself up on one arm and responded by hurling abae'qeshelsong at him, a deadly, sharp chord that flayed the bark from the trees and kicked upthe dusting of snow into a stinging storm of white. The elf wizard swore and covered himself with his cloak, shielding his eyes and enduring the deadly song.
Halisstra began another song, but the warriors splashed up to her, and the burly human with the beard silenced her with a hard kick to the jaw that knocked her sprawling again. All went dark for an instant, and when she could see again, no less than four deadly blades were poised over her. The heavy swordsman glared down at her over the point of his sword.
"By all means, continue," he spat. "Our clerics can question your corpse as easily as they can question you."
Halisstra tried to clear her head of the roaring pain and the ringing in her ears. She looked around and saw nothing but death in the eyes of the surface dwellers.
I can feign surrender, she told herself. Quenthel and the others must know I'm missing, and they will make efforts to find me.
"I yield," she said in the human's brutish tongue.
Halisstra allowed her head to fall back against the stream bank and her eyes to close. She felt herself jerked upright, her mail stripped from her, and her hands bound roughly behind her back. The whole time she studiously ignored her captors, keeping her mind sequestered from her situation by focusing on the exhaustive catechisms to Lolth she had been obliged to learn as a novice.
"She must be someone important. Look at this armor. I don't think I've ever seen its equal."
"We've a lyre here, and a couple of wands," muttered the ranger with the broken hand as he pawed through her belongings. "Be careful, lads, she may be a bard. We ought to gag her to be safe."
"Bring me that healing potion, quickly. Fandar is dying."
Halisstra glanced over at the elf swordsman whose hip she had shat-tered. Several of his companions knelt by him in the snow and mud, trying to comfort him as he writhed weakly in agony. Bright blood flecked the snow nearby. She watched the scene absently, her mind a thousand miles distant.
"Cursed drow witch. Thank the gods they don't all fight like that."
The elf wizard appeared in front of her, his handsome face taut and angry.
"Hood her, fellows," he ordered the others. "No sense letting her know where she is."
"Where are you taking me?" Halisstra demanded.
"Our lord has some things he would like to know," the wizard replied. His smile had a distinctly cold and wintry cast to it, and his eyes were as sharp as knives. "In my experience, most drow are so venomous they'd rather choke on their own blood than do anything sensible and useful, and I expect you'll prove no different. Lord Dessaer will ask you a few ques-tions, you'll call him something impolite, and we'll take you out back and gut you like a fish. That's a damned sight better than our captives fare in your hands, after all."
The hood came down over Halisstra's face and was jerked tight around her neck.