Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(95)

“A spirited boy,” Zak remarked. “Surely he will return soon.”

“Spirited,” Malice echoed, and her tone did not put the description in a positive light.

“He will return,” Zak said again. “There’s no need for our alarm, for such extreme measures,” He glared at Briza, though he knew well that the matron mother had called him to audience to do more than tell him of Drizzt’s departure.

“The secondboy disobeyed the matron mother,” Briza snarled, a rehearsed interruption.

“Spirited,” Zak said again, trying not to chuckle. “A minor indiscretion.”

“How often he seems to have those,” Malice commented. “Like another spirited male of House Do’Urden.”

Zak bowed again, taking her words as a compliment. Malice already had his punishment decided, if she meant to punish him at all. His actions now, at this trial-if that’s what it was-would be of little consequence.

“The boy has displeased the Spider Queen!” Malice growled, openly enraged and tired of Zak’s sarcasm. “Even you were not foolish enough to do that!”

A dark cloud passed across Zak’s face. This meeting was indeed serious; Drizzt’s life could be at stake.

“But you know of his crime,” Malice continued, easing back again. She liked that she had Zak concerned and on the defensive. She had found his vulnerable spot. It was her turn to tease.

“Leaving the house?” Zak protested. “A minor error in judgment. Lloth would not be concerned with such a trifle issue.”

“Do not feign ignorance, Zaknafein. You know that the elven child lives!” Zak lost his breath in a sharp gasp. Malice knew! Damn it all, Lloth knew!

“We are about to go to war,” Malice continued calmly, “we are not in Lloth’s favor, and we must correct the situation.” She eyed Zak directly. “You are aware of our ways and know that we must do this.”

Zak nodded, trapped. Anything he did now to disagree would only make matters worse for Drizzt-if matters could be worse for Drizzt.

“The secondboy must be punished,” Briza said. Another rehearsed interruption, Zak knew. He wondered how many times Briza and Malice had practiced this encounter.

“Am I to punish him, then?” Zak asked. “I’ll not whip the boy; that is not my place.”

“His punishment is none of your concern,” Malice said.

“Then why disturb my slumber?” Zak asked, trying to detach himself from Drizzt’s predicament, more for Drizzt’s sake than his own.

“I thought that you would wish to know,” Malice replied. “You and Drizzt became so close this day in the gym. Father and son.”

She saw! Zak realized. Malice, and probably that wretched Briza, had watched the whole encounter! Zak’s head drooped as he came to know that he had unwittingly played a part in Drizzt’s predicament.

“An elven child lives,” Malice began slowly, rolling out each word in dramatic clarity, “and a young drow must die.”

“No!” The word came out of Zak before he realized he was speaking. He tried to find some escape. “Drizzt was young. He did not understand...”

“He knew exactly what he was doing!” Malice screamed back at him. “He does not regret his actions! He is so like you, Zaknafein! Too like you.”

“Then he can learn,” Zak reasoned. “I have not been a burden to you, Mali-Matron Malice. You have profited by my presence. Drizzt is no less skilled than I; he can be valuable to us.”

“Dangerous to us,” Matron Malice corrected. “You and he standing together? The thought does not please me.”

“His death will aid House Hun’ett,” Zak warned, grabbing at anything he could find to defeat the matron’s intent.

“The Spider Queen demands his death,” Malice replied sternly. “She must be appeased if Daermon N’a’shezbaernon is to have any hope in its struggles against House Hun’ett.”

“I beg you, do not kill the boy.”

“Sympathy?” Malice mused. “It does not become a drow warrior, Zaknafein. Have you lost your fighting will?”

“I am old, Malice.”

“Matron Malice!” Briza protested, but Zak put a look on her so cold that she lowered her snake whip before she had even begun to put it to use.

“Older still will I become if Drizzt is put to his death.”

“I do not desire this either,” Malice agreed, but Zak recognized her lie. She didn’t care about Drizzt, or about anything else, beyond gaining the Spider Queen’s favor. “Yet I see no alternative. Drizzt has angered Lloth, and she must be appeased before our war.”

Zak began to understand. This meeting wasn’t about Drizzt at all. “Take me in the boy’s stead,” he said.

Malice’s narrow grin could not hide her feigned surprise. This was what she had desired from the very beginning.

“You are a proven fighter,” the matron argued. “Your value, as you yourself have already admitted, cannot be underestimated. To sacrifice you to the Spider Queen would appease her, but what void will be left in House Do’Urden in the wake of your passing?”

“A void that Drizzt can fill,” Zak replied. He secretly hoped that Drizzt, unlike he, would find some escape from it all, some way around Matron Malice’s evil plots.