Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(35)

“House Teken’duis has angered the Spider Queen!” Matron Baenre proclaimed in a voice amplified by magical spells.

“Only because they failed,” Zak whispered to Drizzt. Briza cast both males an angry glare. Matron Baenre bade three young drow, two females and a male, to her side.

“These are all that remain of House Freth,” she explained. “Can you tell us, orphans of House Freth,” she asked of them, “who it was that attacked your home?”

“House Teken’duis!” they shouted together.

“Rehearsed.” Zak commented.

Briza turned around again. “Silence!” she whispered harshly.

Zak slapped Drizzt on the back of the head. “Yes,” he agreed. “Do be quiet!”

Drizzt started to protest, but Briza had already turned away and Zak’s smile was too wide to argue against.

“Then it is the will of the ruling council,” Matron Baenre was saying, “that House Teken’duis suffer the consequences of their actions!”

“What of the orphans of House Freth?” came a call from the crowd.

Matron Baenre stroked the head of the oldest female, a cleric recently finished in her studies at the Academy. “Nobles they were born, and nobles they remain,” Baenre said. “House Baenre accepts them into its protection; they bear the name of Baenre now.”

Disgruntled whispers filtered through the gathering. Three young nobles, two of them female, was quite a prize. Any house in the city gladly would have taken them in. “Baenre,” Briza whispered to Malice. “Just what the first house needs, more clerics!”

“Sixteen high priestesses is not enough, it seems,” Malice answered.

“And no doubt, Baenre will take any surviving soldiers of House Freth,” Briza reasoned.

Malice was not so certain. Matron Baenre was walking a thin line by taking even the surviving nobles. If House Baenre got too powerful, Lloth surely would take exception.

In situations such as this, where a house had been almost eradicated, surviving common soldiers were normally pooled out to bidding houses. Malice would have to watch for such an auction. Soldiers did not come cheaply, but at this time, Malice would welcome the opportunity to add to her forces, particularly if there were any magic-users to be had.

Matron Baenre addressed the guilty house. “House Teken’duis!” she called. “You have broken our laws and have been rightfully caught. Fight if you will, but know that you have brought this doom upon yourself,” With a wave of her hand, she set the Academy, the dispatcher of justice, into motion.

Great braziers had been placed in eight positions around House Teken’duis , attended by mistresses of Arach-Tinilith and the highest- ranking clerical students. Flames roared to life and shot into the air as the high priestesses opened gates to the lower planes. Drizzt watched closely, mesmerized, and hoping to catch a glimpse of either Dinin or Vierna.

Denizens of the lower planes, huge, many-armed monsters, slime covered and spitting fire, stepped through the flames. Even the nearest high priestesses backed away from the grotesque horde. The creatures gladly accepted such servitude. When the signal from Matron Baenre came, they eagerly descended upon House Teken’duis.

Glyphs and wards exploded at every corner of the house’s feeble gate, but these were mere inconveniences to the summoned creatures.

The wizards and students of Sorcere then went into action, slamming at the top of House Teken’duis with conjured lightning bolts, balls of acid, and fireballs. Students and masters of Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters, rushed about with heavy crossbows, firing into windows where the doomed family might try to escape.

The horde of monsters bashed through the doors. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. Zak looked at Drizzt, and a frown replaced the master’s smile. Caught up in the excitement-and it certainly was exciting-Drizzt bore an expression of awe.

The first screams of the doomed family rolled out from the house, screams so terrible and agonized that they stole any macabre pleasure that Drizzt might have been experiencing. He grabbed Zak’s shoulder, s pinning the weapon master to him, begging for an explanation. One of the sons of House Teken’duis, fleeing a ten armed giant monster, stepped out onto the balcony of a high window. A dozen crossbow quarrels struck him simultaneously, and before he even fell dead, three separate lightning bolts alternately lifted him from the balcony, then dropped him back onto it.

Scorched and mutilated, the drow corpse started to tumble from its high perch, but the grotesque monster reached out a huge, clawed hand from the window and pulled it back in to devour it.

“Drow justice,” Zak said coldly. He didn’t offer Drizzt any consolation; he wanted the brutality of this moment to stick in the young drow’s mind for the rest of his life.

The siege went on for more than an hour, and when it was finished, when the denizens of the lower planes were dismissed through the braziers’ gates and the students and instructors of the Academy started their march back to Tier Breche, House Teken’duis was no more than a glowing lump of lifeless, molten stone.

Drizzt watched it all, horrified, but too afraid of the consequences to run away. He did not notice the artistry of Menzoberranzan on the return trip to House Do’Urden.





Chapter 10

The Stain of Blood


“Zaknafein is out of the house?” Malice asked.