Extinction

"Matron Mother," he said, never once lifting his eyes. "I failed to recognize the threat. My life is yours,"

Closing his eyes, he raised his head, baring his exposed neck.

Triel laughed.

The noise startled Vrellin. Uncertain, he looked up?but not quite into Triel's eyes. Vrellin was a male who knew his place.

"Matron Mother, do you mock me?" he asked in a strained voice. "Is my life worth so little you deem it not worth taking?"

Triel spread her fingers and brushed them across the lieutenant's head?a touch as light as a spiderweb.

"For what you have done, lieutenant, the goddess will reward you?in this life, or the next."

As she spoke, she wondered if that was true. Then something caught her eye in the distance, on the opposite side of the great cavern: streaks of dull red light, arcing up into the air and down again. They seemed to be coming from the rear of the Tier Breche cavern, from somewhere between and behind Sorcere and Arach-Tinilith.

She swore softly as she realized their point of origin?the tunnel that gave access to Tier Breche from outside Menzoberranzan?and what the source of the light must have been: pots of magical fire, capable of burning even stone, like those that had destroyed Ched Nasad.

Stonefire bombs.

Menzoberranzan was under attack on a second front. And, judging by the pinpoints of fire blossoming on the buildings in the distant cavern, the stonefire bombs were being used to good effect against Menzoberranzan's three most cherished institutions: Sorcere, Melee-Magthere?and Arach-Tinilith, the most holy of the temples to Lolth.

Tearing her eyes away, Triel glanced down at the base of the Qu'ellarz'orl plateau. The drow had finally beaten the tanarukks back into the tunnels. All that was visible of the conflict were a few scattered corpses.

"Abyss take them," Triel swore under her breath. "It was just a feint."

Aliisza lounged on one of the plush carpets that had been thrown down on the floor of the cavern and sipped her glass of lacefungus wine. Kaanyr had been pacing back and forth across the cavern that served as his quarters in the field. He paused next to his "throne"?an enormous chair that had been lashed together from the bones of his enemies, a hideous piece of furniture he'd insisted on carrying with him on campaign. Snarling, he kicked over the enormous brazier that stood next to it.

"Abyss take Nimor!" he shouted, his skin blazing with radiant heat. "He promised the drow would be in disarray, unable to mount a coherent defense. Now my army sits stalled and impotent, while the duergar claim all the glory."

Glowing red coals scattered across the rugs, which began smoldering. Aliisza picked up one of the coals and juggled it back and forth across her palm. Its heat tickled her skin.

"So why not march your troops north and join the duergar attack?" she suggested, her black wings framing the question with a shrug.

"And give the drow an opportunity to attack us from the rear, and in territory they know well?" Vhok shook his head and added, "Your grasp of tactics?or lack thereof?astounds me. Sometimes I wonder just whose side you're on, Aliisza."

Setting her glass aside, Aliisza rose to her feet. She stood on tiptoe and locked her hands behind Kaanyr Vhok's head. Drawing his mouth down to hers, she kissed him.

"I'm on your side, darling Kaanyr," she murmured.

The half-demon broke off the kiss.

"This Nimor begins to annoy me," he grumbled. "He promised us the spoils of the noble Houses?an empty promise. Even without Lolth, Menzoberranzan is proving to be, as Horgar so aptly noted, a tough stone to crack. And if Lolth suddenly returns. ."

He paused, lost in thought as he stared at one of the small fires that had erupted in the carpet at his feet.

"That group of drow you were spying on, back in Ched Nasad. ." he said.

Aliisza was busy nuzzling the cambion's coal-hot neck.

"Mmm?" she purred.

"What were they doing?"

Aliisza pouted but asked, "Does it matter?"

"It might," Vhok said. "Which is why I have another little job for you. I want you to find them?and, more importantly, learn what they're up to. If I'm right, we may need to rethink our alliance."

Aliisza cocked her head and smiled?not at the treachery Kaanyr Vhok was hinting at, but at the thought of seeing Pharaun again.

He certainty was delicious.

Chapter Fourteen