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"Did you please the goddess?" Matron Malice asked, her question as much a threat as an inquiry At her side, the other females of House Do’Urden, Briza, Vierna, and Maya, looked on ile droas slain" Dinin replied, his voice thick with the sweetness of drow evil "We cut the of the elven slaughter brought back the lust of the moment "Bit them and ripped them!"
"What of you?" the matron mother interrupted, more concerned with the consequences to her own faeneral success
"Five" Dinin answered proudly "I killed five, all of them females!"
The matron’s saze on Drizzt "And hi to be pleased with the answer Malice did not doubt her youngest son’s proeapons, but she had come to suspect that Drizzt had too much of Zaknafein’s emotional makeup to ever be an attribute in such situations
Dinin’s smile confused her He walked over to Drizzt and draped an arot only one kill" Dinin began, "but it was a ferowled
From the shadows off to the side, Zaknafein listened in dismay He wanted to shut out the elderboy Do’Urden’s darip Of all the evils Zak had ever encountered in Menzoberranzan, this surely had to be theDrizzt had killed a child
"But the way he did it!" Dinin exclaimed "He hacked her apart; sent all of Lloth’s fury slicing into her twitching body! The Spider Queen must have treasured that kill above all the others"
"Only one" Matron Malice said again, her scowl hardly softening
"He would have had two" Dinin continued "Shar Nadal of House Maevret stole one from his blade-another female"
"Then Lloth will look with favor on House Maevret" Briza reasoned
"No" Dinin replied "Drizzt punished Shar Nadal for his actions The son of House Maevret would not respond to the challenge"
The hts He wished that Shar Nadal had coethrough Drizzt
"Well done, my children" Malice beamed, now satisfied that both of them had acted properly in the raid "The Spider Queen will look upon House Do’Urden with favor for this event She will guide us to victory over this unknown house that seeks to destroy us"
Zaknafein left the audience hall with his eyes down and one hand nervously rubbing his sword’s hilt Zak reht bomb, when he had Drizzt defenseless and beaten He could have spared the young innocent from his horrid fate He could have killed Drizzt then and there, mercifully, and released him from the inevitable circu corridor and turned back to watch the cha Zak a single, accusatory look and pointedly turning away down a side passage
The gaze cut through the weapon master "So it has coest warrior of House Do’Urden, so full of the hate that embodies our race, has learned to despise ain of that ym, that fateful second when Drizzt’s life teetered on the edge of a poised sword It indeed would have been aof the young droarrior’s gaze still cut-ting so keenly into his heart, Zak couldn’t decide whether the deed would have been more merciful to Drizzt or to himself
"Leave us" Matron SiNafay cohted by a candle’s glow Alton gawked at the request; it was, after all, his personal room! Alton pru-dently reminded himself that SiNafay was the matron mother of the family, the absolute ruler of House Hun’ett With a feard bows and apologies for his hesitation, he backed out of the room
Masoj watched his mother cautiously as she waited for Al-ton to itated tone, Masoj un-derstood the significance of her visit Had he done soer his mother? Or, more likely, had Alton? When SiNafay spun back on hiitation was really excite-ment
"House Do’Urden has erred!" she snarled "It has lost the Spider Queen’s favor!"
"How?" Masoj replied He knew that Dinin and Drizzt had returned from a successful raid, an assault that all of the city was talking about in tones of high praise
"I do not know the details" Matron SiNafay replied, find-ing a measure of calmness in her voice "One of the to displease Lloth This was told to me by a handmaiden of the Spider Queen It must be true!"
"Matron Malice ork quickly to correct the situation" Masoj reasoned "How long do we have?"
"Lloth’s displeasure will not be revealed to Matron Mal-ice" SiNafay replied "Not soon The Spider Queen knows all She knows that we plan to attack House Do’Urden, and only an unfortunate accident will inform Matron Malice of her desperate situation before her house is crushed!
"We must move quickly" Matron SiNafay went on "Within ten cycles of Narbondei, the first strike in soon after, before House Do’Urden can link its loss to our wrongdoing"
"What is to be their sudden loss?" Masoj prouessed the answer
His mother’s words were like sweet music to his ears
"Drizzt Do’Urden" she purred, "the favored son Kill hiers behind his head, considering the command
"You will not fail me" SiNafay warned
"I will not" Masoj assured her "Drizzt, though young, is al-ready a powerful foe His brother, a forthere, is never far frolea "May I kill the brother, too?"
"Be cautious, et Concentrate your efforts toward his death
" As you co low SiNafay liked the way her young son heeded to her de-sires without question She started out of the room, confi-dent in Masoj’s ability to perforets in the way" she said, turning back to throw Masoj a gift for his obedience, "you may kill hierness for the second task
"You will not fail ain, this time in an open threat that stole so sails "Drizzt Do’Urdenthoughts of Dinin out of hisafter his one He already kneanted to do it He only had to hope that the opportunity would come soon
The awful memory of the surface raid followed Drizzt, haunted him, as he wandered the halls of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon He had rushed from the audience cham-ber as soon as Matron Malice had dismissed him, and had slipped away fro only to be alone
The iirl’s eyes as she knelt over her murdered mother’s corpse; the elven wohar Nadal ripped the life from her body The sur-face elves were there in Drizzt’s thoughts; he could not dis miss them They walked beside Drizzt as he wandered, as real as they had been when Drizzt’s raiding group had de scended upon their joyful song
Drizzt wondered if he would ever be alone again Eyes down, consumed by his empty sense of loss, Drizzt c did not mark the path before him He jumped back, startled, when he turned a corner and bu Zaknafein
"You are ho none of the tuh his rih his rage with Zaknafein was no less intense Now that Drizzt had witnessed the wrath of drow elves firsthand, Zak’s re-puted deeds rang out to Drizzt as even oes back out at Narbondel’s first light