Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(74)

“I do not know the details,” Matron SiNafay replied, finding a measure of calmness in her voice. “One of them, perhaps one of the sons, did something to displease Lloth. This was told to me by a handmaiden of the Spider Queen. It must be true!”

“Matron Malice will work quickly to correct the situation,” Masoj reasoned. “How long do we have?”

“Lloth’s displeasure will not be revealed to Matron Malice,” 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 Narbondel, the first strike must fall! The full battle will begin soon after, before House Do’Urden can link its loss to our wrongdoing.”

“What is to be their sudden loss?” Masoj prompted, thinking, hoping, he had already guessed the answer. His mother’s words were like sweet music to his ears.

“Drizzt Do’Urden,” she purred, “the favored son. Kill him Masoj rested back and clasped his slender fingers behind his head, considering the command.

“You will not fail me,” SiNafay warned. “I will not,” Masoj assured her. “Drizzt, though young, is already a powerful foe. His brother, a former master of Melee-Magthere, is never far from his side,” He looked up at his matron mother, his eyes gleaming. “May I kill the brother, too?”

“Be cautious, my son,” SiNafay replied. “Drizzt Do’Urden is your target. Concentrate your efforts toward his death.”

“As you command,” Masoj replied, bowing low. SiNafay liked the way her young son heeded to her desires without question. She started out of the room, confident in Masoj’s ability to perform the task.

“If Dinin Do’Urden somehow gets in the way,” she said, turning back to throw Masoj a gift for his obedience, “you may kill him, too.”

Masoj’s expression revealed too much eagerness for the second task.

“You will not fail me!” SiNafay said again, this time in an open threat that stole some of the wind out of Masoj’s filling sails. “Drizzt Do’Urden must die within ten days!”

Masoj forced any distracting thoughts of Dinin out of his mind. “Drizzt must die,” he whispered over and over, long after his mother had gone. He already knew how he wanted 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 rushedrom the audience chamber as soon as Matron Malice had dismissed him, and had slipped away from his brother at the first opportunity, wanting only to be alone.

The images remained: the broken sparkle in the young elven girl’s eyes as she knelt over her murdered mother’s corpse; the elven woman’s horrified expression, twisting in agony as ghar Nadal ripped the life from her body. The surface elves were there in Drizzt’s thoughts; he could not dis. miss them. They walked beside Drizzt as he wandered, as real s they had been when Drizzt’s raiding group had descended 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 bumped into somebody. He stood facing Zaknafein.

“You are home,” the weapon master said absently, his blank face revealing none of the tumultuous emotions swirling through his mind.

Drizzt wondered if he could properly hide his own grimace. “For a day,” he replied, equally nonchalant, though his rage with Zaknafein was no less intense. Now that Drizzt had witnessed the wrath of drow elves firsthand, Zak’s reputed deeds rang out to Drizzt as even more evil. “My patrol group goes back out at Narbondel’s first light.

“So soon?” asked Zak, genuinely surprised.

“We are summoned.” Drizzt replied, starting past. Zak caught him by the arm.

“General patrol?” he asked.

“Focused,” Drizzt replied. “Activity in the eastern tunnels.”

“So the heroes are summoned,” chuckled Zak.

Drizzt did not immediately respond. Was there sarcasm in Zak’s voice? Jealousy, perhaps, that Drizzt and Dinin were allowed to go out to fight, while Zak had to remain within the House Do’Urden’s confines to fulfill his role as the family’s fighting instructor? Was Zak’s hunger for blood so great that he could not accept the duties thrust upon them all?

Zak had trained Drizzt and Dinin, had he not? And hundreds of others; he’d transformed them into living weapons, into murderers.

“How long will you be out?” Zak pressed, more interested in Drizzt’s whereabouts.

Drizzt shrugged. “A week at the longest.”

“And then?”

“Home.”

“That is good,” said Zak. “I will be pleased to see you back within the walls of House Do’Urden.”

Drizzt didn’t believe a word of it.

Zak then slapped him on the shoulder in a sudden, unexpected movement designed to test Drizzt’s reflexes.

More surprised than threatened, Drizzt accepted the pat without response, not sure of his uncle’s intent.