Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(24)

“Back to that?” Berellip asked, narrowing her eyes and tightening her jaw. “A few meager orcs killed for such an expense of power?”

“A few killed and hundreds sent in flight, horrified,” Ravel replied. “Is not the threat of Lolth’s vengeance as effective a weapon for the priestesses as the actual manifestation of the Spider Queen?”

Ravel could hardly believe the words as they left his mouth! To invoke the Spider Queen in an argument with a priestess of Lolth!

For a moment, Ravel, like everyone around him, held his breath, staring unblinkingly at Berellip with an expectation that she would lash out at him, with her hand, her snake-headed whip, or even some of her devastating divine spells.

She wanted to do just that, he could clearly see on her tightened face. Berellip would take great pleasure in torturing him for all to see.

But the moment passed, and Berellip made no move, and only then did Ravel truly appreciate how important this expedition must be to Matron Mother Zeerith. He had pushed past all boundaries of protocol and would not be punished—not then, at least.

Mark your words carefully, young spellspinner, Berellip signed to him, her hands in close so that few other than Ravel could read the threat. The priestess turned on her heel and walked away, Saribel in her wake.

She wouldn’t even chastise him openly before his minions.

Hardly believing his luck, or that it would hold, Ravel turned to the gathered drow and waved them off to their duties. He noticed Jearth as he did, the weapons master staring at him incredulously. And more than Jearth, Ravel noted Tiago Baenre, whose expression revealed the brash young Baenre’s intrigue, and even a bit of amusement.

Ravel had no answers for any of that, for he was no less incredulous than the two warriors. “We will make our encampment here in this cavern,” he ordered, and started away.

Jearth caught up to him soon after.

“This area is quite open and vulnerable,” the weapons master explained.

“No enemies will come upon us,” Ravel insisted.

“You cannot know that. And if enemies do find us, smaller areas favor our smaller numbers.”

“Set the camp.”

“Or face Lolth’s vengeance?” Jearth remarked with a sly grin, and he was one of the few drow alive who could so tease young Ravel.

The spellspinner merely shook his head and held his hands up helplessly in reply, as if to say that he, too, could not believe that he had so challenged Berellip, and on the foundation of her very existence.

Tiago Baenre came to Ravel a short while later, to inform him that they had identified the bugbear king of the cave and had him waiting for an audience with his conquerors.

“Does he wish to negotiate?” Ravel asked sarcastically.

“To continue breathing, I would assume.”

The Xorlarrin spellspinner stepped back and took a long look at the Baenre warrior. They were about the same age, he knew, and had been in their respective academies in overlapping years. They were rivals out of simple circumstance, as two of the most promising young drow males in Menzoberranzan.

Or were they?

Tiago moved to the front of the shallow cave and pointed out the abode across the cavern where the bugbear king was being held. “There is more that I would ask of you for my allegiance,” Tiago warned, and turned back to face Ravel.

The spellspinner looked at the warrior suspiciously.

“I travel with you to represent my family,” Tiago explained. “To report back to Matron Quenthel, favorably or unfavorably, on the progress of House Xorlarrin.”

Ravel nodded. They had been through all of this before.

“And I go for personal gain, and in more ways than reputation,” Tiago explained.

As Ravel narrowed his eyes, Tiago balked. “Pretend not that you expected more of me,” he said sternly. “Perhaps some devotion to the greater good, or the glory of Lady Lolth, or some other such nonsense. Do not assign me such motives, for such a limited view of me would surely wound me, my friend, and never would I presume that Ravel would act outside the benefit of . . . Ravel.”

Ravel had to nod his agreement of that assessment. What drow, after all, had ever achieved greatness without first seeking and demanding it? “Do tell,” he prompted.

Tiago reached into a pocket in his piwafwi and produced a thin silver scroll tube. He held it up so that Ravel could clearly see the etching of a hammer, a bolt of lightning energy, and a pair of crossed swords, along with the name Gol’fanin.

Ravel’s own decorated dagger, more a focus item than a weapon, bore that same signature, as did the weapons of many of the nobles of the ruling drow Houses.

Given their destination, given the rumors of the magic powering the ancient forge, there was no need for Tiago to elaborate further.

“I will meet you beside the prisoner,” Tiago said, and started away for the prison of the bugbear king.

But Ravel called him back. “Go with me,” he said, and he took care with his tone to make it more of an offer than an order.

Tiago nodded.

Ravel took his time in crossing the large cavern. He wondered if he and Tiago Baenre might have much to discuss regarding the bugbear lord, the continuing expedition, and perhaps even beyond that. He reminded himself that this was a Baenre, after all, and so he knew he’d need to sweeten every subject with tinguin lal’o shrome’cak, or the promise of a fungal pie, as the drow saying went, in reference to a particular delicacy which could induce the most marvelous of daydreams. Tiago hadn’t asked about this second bargain he had just revealed, but rather had stated it as a matter of fact, not to be argued or denied.