Exile: The Legend of Drizzt Read Free Page A

out of the Spider Queen’s favor, apparently could not use their Lolth-given powers to launch the mental assault. If they had, Malice and her daughters, also out of the Spider Queen’s favor, could not have hoped to counter.
    “Why would they dare to attack?” Malice wondered aloud.
    Briza understood her mother’s reasoning. “They are bold indeed,” she said, “to hope that their soldiers alone can eliminate every member of our house.” Everyone in the room, every drow in Menzoberranzan, understood the brutal, absolute punishments exacted upon any house that failed to eradicate another house. Such attacks were not frowned upon, but getting caught at the deed most certainly was.
    Rizzen, the present patron of House Do’Urden, came into the anteroom then, his face grim. “We are outnumbered and out-positioned,” he said. “Our defeat will be swift, I fear.”
    Malice would not accept the news. She struck Rizzen with a blow that knocked the patron halfway across the floor, then she spun on Jarlaxle. “You must summon your band!” Malice cried at the mercenary. “Quickly!”
    “Matron,” Jarlaxle stuttered, obviously at a loss. “Bregan D’aerthe is a secretive group. We do not engage in open warfare.To do so could invoke the wrath of the ruling council!”
    “I will pay you whatever you desire,” the desperate matron mother promised.
    “But the cost—”
    “Whatever you desire!” Malice snarled again. “Such action—” Jarlaxle began.
    Again, Malice did not let him finish his argument. “Save my house, mercenary,” she growled. “Your profits will be great, but I warn you, the cost of your failure will be far greater!”
    Jarlaxle did not appreciate being threatened, especially by a lame matron mother whose entire world was fast crumbling around her. But in the mercenary’s ears the sweet ring of the word “profits” outweighed the threat a thousand times over. After ten straight years of exorbitant rewards in the Do’Urden-Hun’ett conflict, Jarlaxle did not doubt Malice’s willingness or ability to pay as promised, nor did he doubt that this deal would prove even more lucrative than the agreement he had struck with Matron SiNafay Hun’ett earlier that same tenday.
    “As you wish,” he said to Matron Malice with a bow and a sweep of his garish hat. “I will see what I can do.” A wink at Dinin set the elderboy on his heels as he exited the room.
    When the two got out on the balcony overlooking the Do’Urden compound, they saw that the situation was even more desperate than Rizzen had described. The soldiers of House Do’Urden—those still alive—were trapped in and around one of the huge stalagmite mounds anchoring the front gate.
    One of Hun’ett’s flying soldiers dropped onto the balcony at the sight of a Do’Urden noble, but Dinin dispatched the intruder with a single, blurring attack routine.
    “Well done,” Jarlaxle commented, giving Dinin an approving nod. He moved to pat the elderboy Do’Urden on the shoulder, but Dinin slipped out of reach.
    “We have other business,” he pointedly reminded Jarlaxle. “Call your troops, and quickly, else I fear that House Hun’ett will win the day.”
    “Be at ease, my friend Dinin,” Jarlaxle laughed. He pulled a small whistle from around his neck and blew into it. Dinin heard not a sound, for the instrument was magically tuned exclusively for the ears of members of Bregan D’aerthe.
    The elderboy Do’Urden watched in amazement as Jarlaxle calmly puffed out a specific cadence, then he watched in even greater amazement as more than a hundred of House Hun’ett’s soldiers turned against their comrades.
    Bregan D’aerthe owed allegiance only to Bregan D’aerthe.

    “They could not attack us,” Malice said stubbornly, pacing about the chamber. “The Spider Queen would not aid them in their venture.”
    “They are winning without the Spider Queen’s aid,” Rizzen reminded her, prudently ducking into the room’s