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Dinin noted with satisfaction that any of the bears, or any other of the multitude of races that coreat haste to scurry out of his way This time the secondboy of House Do’Urden was not alone Nearly sixty soldiers of the house walked in tight lines behind hih with far less enthusiasm for the adventure, caoblins, orcs, and bugbears

There could be no doubt for onlookers, a drow house was on a march to war This was not an everyday event in Menzoberranzan but neither was it unexpected At least once every decade a house decided that its position within the city hierarchy could be improved by another house’s elimination It was a risky proposition, for all of the nobles of the "victim" house had to be disposed of quickly and quietly If even one survived to lay an accusation upon the perpetrator, the attacking house would be eradicated by Menzoberranzan’s merciless system of "justice"

If the raid was executed to devious perfection, though, no recourse would be forthcoht matron e and intelligence and no more would ever be said of the incident

Dinin took a roundabout route, not wanting to lay a direct trail between House Do’Urden and House DeVir A half-hour later, for the second tirove’s southern end, to the cluster of stalagmites that held House DeVir His soldiers strea full measure of the structure before them

The slaves were slower in their movements Many of them looked about for some escape, for they knew in their hearts that they were doomed in this battle They feared the wrath of the dark elves h, and would not attempt to flee With every exit out of Menzoberranzan protected by devious drow o? Every one of them had witnessed the brutal punishments the drow elves exacted on recaptured slaves At Dinin’s command, they jumped into their positions around the e pouch and pulled out a heated sheet of htened in the infrared spectruades of Nalfein and Rizzen Then, with his usual cockiness, Dinin spun it quickly into the air, caught it, and replaced it in the secrecy of his heat shielding pouch On cue with the twirling signal, Dinin’s drow brigade fitted enchanted darts to their tiny hand-held crossbows and took aiets

Every fifth ical dweoon"twothree" Dinin counted, his hand signaling the teical silence cast about his troops He i on his little weapon released, loosing the dart into the nearest shrieker So it went all around the cluster of House DeVir, the first line of alarm systematically silenced by three-dozen enchanted darts

Halfway across Menzoberranzan, Matron Malice, her daughters, and four of the house’s coht They ringed an idol of their wicked deity, a ge of a drow faced spider, and called to Lloth for aid in their struggles Malice sat at the head, propped in a chair angled for birthing Briza and Vierna flanked her, Briza clutching her hand

The select group chanted in unison, cole offensive spell A moment later, when Vierna, roup was in position, the Do’Urden circle of eight sent the first insinuating waves of y into the rival house

Matron Ginafae, her two daughters, and the five principal clerics of the coether in the darkened anterooathered there in soleht since Matron Ginafae had learned that she had fallen into Lloth’s disfavor Ginafae understood how vulnerable her house remained until she could find a way to appease the Spider Queen There were sixty-six other houses in Menzoberranzan, fully twenty of which ht dare to attack House DeVir at such an obvious disadvantage

The eight clerics were anxious now, soht would be eventful

Ginafae felt it first, a chilling blast of confusing perceptions that caused her to stutter over her prayer of forgiveness The other clerics of House DeVir glanced nervously at thefor confirmation

"We are under attack" Ginafae breathed to therowing assault of the fornal fro stealth as their ally, they quietly rushed to the h ide-bladed swords The secondboy of House Do’Urden watched and enjoyed as the courtyard of House DeVir was easily penetrated "Not such a prepared guard" he whispered in silent sarcash walls The statues had seeht Now they just watched helplessly

Dinin recognized theanticipation in the soldiers around him, their drow battle-lust was barely contained Every now and then ca flash as one of the slaves stulyph, but the secondboy and the other drow only laughed at the specta-

cle The lesser races were the expendable "fodder" of House Do’Urden’s aroblinoids to House DeVir was to trigger the deadly traps and defenses along the perimeter, to lead the way for the drow elves, the true soldiers

The fence was now opened and secrecy was throay House DeVir’s soldiersslaves head on within the coin the attack coed, their faces twisted in

wicked glee and their weapons waving h, re one final task set out to theical abilities Bringing forth a globe of darkness, as Dinin had done to the bugbears in the street earlier that night, came easily to even the lowliest of the dark elves So it went noith sixty Do’Urden soldiers blotting out the perimeter of House DeVir above the mushroom fence in ball after ball of blackness

For all of their stealth and precautions, House Do’Urden knew thatthe raid Witnesses were not too h to identify the attacking house But custom and rules demanded that certain attempts at secrecy be

enacted, the etiquette of droarfare In the blink of a red glowing drow eye, House DeVir became, to the rest of the city, a dark blot on Menzoberranzan’s landscape

Rizzen canaled in the intricate finger language of the drow uNalfein is in through the back"

"An easy victory" the cocky Dinin signaled back, "if Matron Ginafae and her clerics are held at bay"

"Trust in Matron Malice" was Rizzen’s response He clapped his son’s shoulder and followed his troops in through the breached h above the cluster of House DeVir, Zaknafein rested comfortably in the current-ar the dra of darkness and could hear within the ring of ical silence Dinin’s troops, the first drow soldiers in, hadbeaten badly

Nalfein and his brigade, the troops of House Do’Urden h the fence at the rear of the coical balls of acid thundered into the courtyard at the base of the DeVir structures, cutting down Do’Urden fodder and

DeVir defenses alike

In the front courtyard, Rizzen and Dinin cohters of House Do’Urden The blessings of Lloth ith his house, Zak could see when the battle was fully joined, for the strikes of the soldiers of House Do’Urden came faster than those of their enemies, and their aim

proved more deadly In minutes, the battle had been taken fully inside the five pillars

Zak stretched the incessant chill out of his arms and willed the aerial servant to action Down he plummeted on his windy bed, and then he fell free the last few feet to the terrace along the top chauards, one a fereet hi to sort out the true for

They had never heard of Zaknafein Do’Urden They didn’t know that death was upon the the female’s throat, while his other hand walked his sword through a series of masterful thrusts and parries that put thethe whip-entwined fe a kick into the male’s face that likewise dropped hiuard rose up tothe curving wall of the stalactite tower, his cooled body blending perfectly with the stone Soldiers of House DeVir rushed all about hienst the host of intruders who had already won out the lowest level of every structure and had taken two of the pillars completely

Zak was not concerned with the of adamantite weapons, the cries of co instead on a singular sound that would lead him to his destination: a unified, frantic chant

He found an e into the center of the pillar As in House Do’Urden, this corridor ended in a large set of ornate double doors, their decorations dominated by arachnid forms "Thishis hood to the top of his head

A giant spider rushed out of its concealment to his side

Zak dove to his belly and kicked out under the thing, spinning into a roll that plunged his sword deep into the ushed out over the weapon master, and the spider shuddered to a quick death

"Yes" Zak whispered, wiping the spider juices from his face, "this must be the place" He pulled the dead monster back into its hidden cubby and slipped in beside the thing, hoping that no one had noticed the brief struggle

By the sounds of ringing weapons, Zak could tell that the fighting had almost reached this floor House DeVir now seeh, and was finally holding its ground

"Now, Malice" Zak whispered, hoping that Briza, attuned to him in the meld, would sense his anxiety "Let us not be late!"

Back in the clerical anteroom of House Do’Urden, Malice and her subordinates continued their brutal mental assault on the clerics of House DeVir Lloth heard their prayers louder than those of their counterparts, giving the clerics of House Do’Urden the stronger spells in their mental combat Already they had easily put their enemies into a defensive posture One of the lesser priestesses in DeVir’s circle of

eight had been crushed by Briza’s mental insinuations and now lay dead on the floor barely inches from Matron Ginafae’s feet

But the ing back to an even level Matron Malice, struggling with the i birth, could not hold her concentration, and without her voice, the spells of her unholy circle weakened

At her mother’s side, powerful Briza clutched her htly that all the blood was squeezed fro female to the eyes of the others Briza studied the contractions and the crowning cap of the co child’s white hair, and calculated the ti the pain of birth into an offensive spell attack had never been tried before, except in legend, and Briza knew that ti would be the critical factor

She whispered into herout the words of a deadly incantation

Matron Malice echoed back the beginnings of the spell, subliony into offensive power

"Dinnen douward ma brechen tol" Briza implored

"Dinnen douwardrowled, so deterh one of her thin lips

The baby’s head appeared, more fully this time, and this time to stay

Briza trembled and could barely remember the incantation herself She whispered the final rune into the athered her breath and her courage She could feel the tingling of the spell as clearly as the pain of the birth To her daughters standing around the idol, staring at her in disbelief, she appeared as a red blur of heated fury, streaking sweat lines that shone as brightly as the heat of boiling-water

"Abec" theto a crescendo "Abec" She felt the hot tear of her skin, the sudden slippery release as the baby’s head pushed through, the sudden ecstacy of birthing "Abec dj’n’a’BREG DOUWARD" Malice screaoony in a final explosion of ical power that knocked even the clerics of her own house from their feet

Carried on the thrust of Matron Malice’s exultation, the dweoemstone idol of Lloth, sundered the double doors into heaps of twisted metal, and threw Matron Ginafae and her overmatched subordinates to the floor