Andzrel was a tall, slender fellow who wore armor of blacked mithral plate and a dark cloak. His tabard proudly displayed the emblem of House Baenre, and his eyes held iron discipline, an expression of directness and purpose that was unusual in a drow of high birth, whether male or female.
The commanders broke up and strode from the tent, heading back to their detachments. Nimor allowed them to pass by. As he moved up to speak with the Baenre weapons master, the assassin muttered a spell.
“Master Baenre,” Nimor asked, covering the last syllables of the enchantment.
“Yes,” the weapons master said, blinking at Nimor. “I . . . uh . . .”
Nimor smiled, seeing the effect the enchantment had on the drow, and knowing that for quite some time, Andzrel Baenre and he would be very close friends.
“You are familiar to me, but I do not believe I know you,” said Andzrel. “You wear the arms of Agrach Dyrr.”
“I am Zhayemd Dyrr, and I command my House’s company,” Nimor replied. “Do you have any idea when the priestesses will deign to join us, or at least allow us to start on our way?”
“I believe the matron mothers are still deciding which of them will lead the expedition,” Andzrel replied, seemingly recovered. “None of them trusts any of the others enough to voluntarily leave the city now, but they all think it’s clear that someone had better be put in charge of the males.”
Nimor laughed at that.
“You have a talent for plain speaking, sir.” Nimor glanced around at the other captains and officers in the pavilion and added, “I assume you’ve tallied which Houses are here, and how many troops—and of what type—each has brought? The priestesses will want to know that, and it will be helpful for us all to have an idea of who’s marching next to whom.”
He could think of other uses for the information, of course, but there was no need to mention that, was there?
“Of course,” Andzrel replied. He pointed at a table in the outer portion of the tent, where several Baenre officers studied maps and reports. “I’ll need you to give those fellows the strength of your complement, the number of infantry and cavalry, and some information on your supply train, as well. After which I would like to ask you some questions about the route of our march and the place we expect to meet the duergar army. I understand you’re familiar with the region, as well as the composition and tactics of the duergar force.”
Nimor straightened his cuirass and nodded earnestly.
“Certainly,” he said. “I know them well.”
Halisstra was roused from her dreams by the sound of her cell door opening. She glanced up, wondering if perhaps the time had come when the surface folk would simply put her to the blade.
“I have no more to say to your lord,” she said, though the thought crossed her mind that selling out her comrades was preferable to death by torture, especially if she could gain her freedom in the exchange.
“Fine,” a woman’s voice replied. “I hope then that you will consent to speak with me.”
A slender figure slipped through the open door, which was closed and locked behind her. Veiled in a long, dark cloak, the visitor paused to study Halisstra then she reached up with hands as black as coal and slipped back her hood to reveal a face of gleaming ebony, and eyes as red as blood.
“I am Seyll Auzkovyn,” the drow said, “and I have come to give you my lady’s message: ‘A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow.’ ”
“A priestess of Eilistraee,” Halisstra murmured. She had heard of the cult before, of course. The Spider Queen held nothing but scorn for the weak, idealistic faith of the Dark Maiden, whose worshipers dreamed of redemption and acceptance in the World Above. “Well, I did come in peace, and I do seem to have found my rightful place in this tidy little cell. I expect wonderful flowers bloom just beyond the bars of my window, and I am more than a little thankful that the thrice-cursed sun shines no deeper into my prison.” She laughed bitterly. “Somehow the holy message of your silly little dancing goddess rings a little false today. Now go away, and let me get back to the important business of preparing myself for the inevitable tortures that await me when the so-called lord of this fetid dungheap of a village loses his patience with my intransigent ways.”
“You sound like me, when I first heard Eilistraee’s message,” Seyll replied. She moved closer and sat on the floor beside Halisstra. “Like yourself, I was a priestess of the Spider Queen who found herself a captive of the surface folk. Though I’ve lived here for several years now, I still find the light of the sun overly harsh.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, apostate,” snarled Halisstra. “I’m nothing like you.”
“You might be surprised,” Seyll continued calmly, her placid demeanor unchanged.
“Have the Spider Queen’s punishments ever struck you as needless or wasteful? Have you ever failed to nurture a friendship because you feared betrayal? Have you ever, perhaps, watched a child of your own body, your own heart, destroyed because she failed at a senseless test, only to tell yourself that she was too weak to live? Did you ever wonder if there was a point to the deliberate and calculated cruelty that poisons our entire race?”
“Of course there’s a point,” Halisstra replied. “We’re surrounded on all sides by vicious enemies. If we didn’t take steps to hone our people to their finest edge, we would become slaves—no, worse yet, we would become rothe.”
“And have Lolth’s judgments in fact made you stronger?”
“Of course.”
“Prove it, then. Offer an example.” Seyll watched her, then leaned forward and said, “You remember countless tests and battles, naturally, but you can’t prove that you were made stronger by them. You don’t know what might have happened if you hadn’t been subjected to those tortures.”
“Simple semantics. Naturally I can’t prove that things are other than they are.”
Halisstra glared at the heretic, profoundly annoyed. She would have found the conversation irritating and irrelevant under the best of circumstances, but with her hands and feet chained together, slumped against the cold, hard wall of a stone cell with a painful shaft of sunlight slanting in, it was positively infuriating. Still, she had very little to occupy her mind otherwise, and there was a small chance that a display of enthusiasm for Seyll’s faith might win her a parole of sorts. Lolth was completely intolerant of apostates, but to feign acceptance of another faith in order to win the freedom to betray the trust of one’s captors . . . that was the sort of cleverness the Spider Queen admired. The trick, of course, was not to appear too eager, yet just uncertain enough that Seyll and her friends might come to hope for a true change in Halisstra’s heart.
“You are annoying me,” she said to Seyll. “Leave me alone.”
“As you wish,” Seyll said. She stood gracefully, and offered Halisstra a smile.
“Consider what I’ve said, and ask yourself if there might be some truth to it. If your faith in Lolth is as strong as you think, surely it can withstand a little examination. May Eilistraee bless you and warm your heart.”
She pulled her hood back over her head, and silently withdrew. Halisstra turned her own face away so Seyll couldn’t see the cruel smile that twisted her features.
Rear guard, mused Ryld, seems to be the spot Quenthel saves for the person she deems least useful at the moment.
He paused to listen to the forest around him, seeking for any sound that might indicate an approaching enemy. He heard nothing but the steady patter of cold rain. Pharaun’s fire-spiders had managed to set a smoky blaze in the woods behind them, but the rain had likely prevented the fires from burning too much of the forest. The weapons master glanced up into the sky, allowing the cold drops to splash on his face and noting the sullen silver glow behind the clouds.