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.”