Chapter 3: Preliminaries
Narbondel's rise found Drizzt and Vierna tangled together, energies almost recuperated from being fully spent in the previous night's activities. Drizzt woke first and slid from the bed, walking towards the adjoining bathroom, but unable to resist a glance back at the swell of Vierna's breasts, only partially hidden by the covers. When he returned from his ablutions she was sitting up in bed, unashamed of her nudity. "So tell me, Drizzt, what did Matron Malice have to say?" Drizzt answered, providing as much detail as possible, yet still Vierna wanted to know more, Malice's tone of voice, her facial expressions, the exact amount to which the matron had reclined in her throne. Eventually, she stopped pressing for more information and spoke. "Interesting," she began, almost hesitant, as though tasting every word before she spoke it, "this raises some very interesting possibilities. Usually these kinds of activities would be assigned to Briza, and rightly so, for she is very dangerous in all the right ways for this kind of work. And Nalfein and Zaknafein are well-positioned with Bregan D'Aerthe for these kinds of dealings as well. So, either Malice is honest that they are too busy to do this work, in which case Briza is more deeply out of Malice's favour than I had thought possible, to be confined to the chapel duties even with the house in danger, and something is going on with the wizards of Sorcere that requires Nalfein's full attention, that must have equal possibility of danger for our house. Or, this is a test for you, Drizzt, to see if you can become the caliber of warrior that House Do'Urden needs, capable of rising to challenges not only of blades, but also of cunning."
"There is one other option," replied Drizzt dourly. "It might be so bad that it needs all three of us."
Vierna gave an involuntary shudder. House Do'Urden had risen too rapidly, and now Vierna could almost feel the blades at her back. She rose from the bed and stepped towards the bathroom. "You will keep me informed," she snapped, "of every word, every action, every task you undertake. I have too many duties at Arach-Tinilith to be able to fully supervise you, but I shall need every scrap of information you can provide if House Do'Urden is to survive the coming earthquake, and to survive without Briza Do'Urden at its head."
Drizzt had almost completed his morning calisthenics by the time Vierna emerged from the bathroom, once again clad in the robes marking her as a high priestess of the Spider Queen. She looked at his still semi-naked body, glistening in sweat, smirked, and swept out the door. Moments later it reopened, and Drizzt looked up to see Maya entering. Breaking off his stretches, he sketched a hasty bow, appropriate for a noble male to give to a noble female. "Bathe, thirdboy," his sister snapped, clearly impatient, "and quickly. We have much to discuss."
After his quick bath, Drizzt was surprised that, instead of leading the way to the chapel or the throne room, Maya only led him next door, to the War Room. On reflection, however, he mused, he shouldn't have been surprised. In Menzoberranzan, subterfuge was an art of war. Upon entering, he was surprised by a small non-drow with bright red eyes rushing to stand behind him, putting Drizzt's entire body between the creature and Maya. It took Drizzt a moment to realize that this was Artemis, his eyes gleaming with the red glow of infravision. "Red eyes," he breathed, surprised.
"Yes," Maya responded sourly. "If he is to be your little iblith protector, he will need to be able to see. Matron Malice had me conduct a powerful ritual to grant him this blessing. You ought to be thankful."
"And how goes his teaching?" Drizzt enquired. He had not seen Artemis at all in the past weeks, as the human boy had been shut up with Maya, apparently undergoing vision rituals, but also supposedly being tutored in all the necessary language and knowledge to be a useful servant and bodyguard to a drow noble. He noted, however, that the human child still wore the jeweled dagger on his belt. Clearly the bodyguard part of his responsibilities were not to be postponed until he was fully grown.
"He learns slowly," snapped Maya, "but perhaps quickly for an inferior race," she conceded grudgingly. "Who can tell? But Zaknafein and Nalfein taught him sufficiently that he can understand most of my words. If he can learn to obey as well as he understands, he may yet be adequate to serve our house. Anyway, his time with me is done, Matron Malice has given me leave to return to my studies," and here she glared at Drizzt, "as soon as you are ready to begin this role. So learn quickly, thirdboy, or I will be most displeased."
It turned out that the war room had copies of all the Do'Urden financial documentation, lists of business holdings, statements of accounts, transactions, and owned assets. The numbers made Drizzt's head spin at first, but under Maya's ungentle tutoring he began to identify patterns in the numbers, and he began to build a mental model of the Do'Urden fiscal situation. Before too long, Maya left him alone with Artemis and the huge pile of ledgers, maps, and missives relating to his mission. Along with these, she handed him a small stack of files, each with a brief profile of a drow elf in service to House Do'Urden, and a rough sketch of the drow elf in question. Drizzt smirked when he saw Zayana in one of the files, which he placed to one side. A couple of other drow elves he had seen in close proximity to Briza and Dinin during their failed coup, and those files found their way into another pile on his far side.
Turning to Artemis, he asked, "can you read?" The boy nodded, cautiously, and Drizzt handed him the first file off the remaining stack. "I'd like you to find this drow in the compound," he instructed the boy kindly, "follow him, and remember what he does and who he speaks to. If anyone questions you, tell them you're on business for the thirdboy, and I will take it as a personal insult if you are disrupted. They'll leave you alone then. And, Artemis, don't let him see you." The boy nodded and scampered off, almost before Drizzt could tell him to return with Narbondel's dusk. Even within the Do'Urden compound, the Menzoberranzan night was no place for a human child. With that, Drizzt sank into the mountains of paper again. "If I were to try to destroy House Do'Urden," the young warrior mumbled to himself, "where would I start?"
Zaknafein prowled the battlements at the border of the Do'Urden compound. Piwafwi drawn tight around his body and hood pulled up around his face, concealing his presence from all but the sharpest eyes, he crept towards one of the guard-towers carved into the stalagmites that created the compound's boundary. Slowly he ghosted one gloved hand to the handle of the whip hanging from his belt, slipping it free with barely a whisper of sound. Soon Zaknafein crept close enough to slip inside the guard-tower, and a mighty crack rang out, booming against the previous backdrop of complete silence. Zaknafein's whip had been the cause of the crack, entangling the drow warrior supposedly standing guard at this post. A sharp tug on the handle of the whip had the guard on his back, and within a moment, Zaknafein held a dagger at the warrior's throat.
"You're dead," the Do'Urden weapon master growled, "and now the enemy can enter our compound without warning. It seems standards really have slipped in my absence. Get to the training ground, full muster in five minutes."
Five minutes later found Zaknafein prowling again, this time in front of five-score warriors of the Do'Urden garrison. Drow elves were not disposed by nature to organization or teamwork, yet the advantages in military applications were undeniable. And drow elves were very naturally disposed to staying alive by whatever means necessary. It had been some time since Zaknafein had personally taken command of the Do'Urden garrison, having been out of the city for ten years, and before that being willing to leave the command in the hands of Dinin and Rizzen as he focused on Drizzt's training. But the true role of a house's Weapon Master was not merely to teach its young warriors the way of the blade, but to be responsible for the defense of the house, and, when necessary, the prosecution of war.
Zaknafein was well aware that his reputation had been diminished by his time out of Menzoberranzan, and even more so by his injury on his return. He could see uncertainty in the eyes of some of the Do'Urden footsoldiers, wondering if Zaknafein Do'Urden's legend was just that, a legend, or if he was truly to be feared, and in the eyes of others, scorn, or arrogance. Only those whom he had already surprised out on the battlements showed due respect in their expressions. "Attention!" he snapped, frowning as the assembled warriors shuffled to a weak resemblance of order. Jarlaxle's Bregan D'Aerthe rogues had had better discipline, not to mention the true discipline of some of the professional armies he had observed on the surface. Drow warriors would never be able to suffer that level of homogeneity. 'Time to make a statement,' he mused internally. Aloud, he said, "Anyone who thinks they are a strong warrior, step forward." Unsurprisingly, most of the warriors did indeed step forward. Zaknafein's keen eyes sought out the faces of those who had not. Either they were indeed weak, or they were smarter than most. And the weak did not survive long in Menzoberranzan. Pointing at the largest of the warriors who had stepped forward, an elf almost six feet in height, with a huge sword strapped to his back, he said, "Come forward. We will duel. If you lose, you can work in the kitchens for a week. And if you win, well, you can be the new Weapon Master of House Do'Urden." If the shocked gasps that had run through the assembled warriors at the insult of expecting a drow warrior to do menial work in the kitchens had been loud, the roar of inrushing breath and quick chatter at Zaknafein's second statement was deafening. Those murmurs rose to full-fledged shouts as the Weapon Master drew a thin strip of silk from a pouch and tied it around his eyes, before sliding twin swords from their scabbards and settling into a ready position.
Zaknafein fought to steady his breathing as his keen ears picked up the whisper of a greatsword sliding from its scabbard. This was a risk worth taking, to be sure, but a risk nonetheless. Hopefully he had picked the correct opponent, reading the large elf with the huge sword as a straightforward brawler without too much by way of cunning. A cunning drow elf, Zaknafein knew, would simply pull out their hand-crossbow and fire a bolt right at their blindfolded opponent. The moment his ears picked up the larger drow's movement, however, all Zaknafein's trepidation sank away, and he lost himself in the currents of the battle. The moment he sensed his opponent begin to swing the heavy greatsword, he dashed forward and sideways, strafing around to his opponent's backhand. Stabbing both swords forward, he met resistance as a hasty backstroke pushed his lighter weapons aside, but before his opponent could capitalize, he was moving again, rolling forward and striking upwards with a quick kick towards his opponent's groin. He had misjudged the distance slightly, and was forced to pivot speedily to place his swords in the way of the heavy greatsword as it whistled towards him, then rolled backwards with the momentum.
Zaknafein's opponent had apparently learned caution, as no steps towards the Weapon Master were forthcoming. This put the blindfolded drow in a disadvantageous position, as the offensive was a much harder tempo to take while blindfolded than the defensive, and offered no opportunities for an opportunistic counter-attack. But Zaknafein was not only skilled, but wily and experienced, and he knew that within moments the fight would be over in his favour.
Two quick strides closed the distance between combatants, and Zaknafein chopped down hard on his opponent's guard with a mighty overhand swing, while striking upwards from below with the other, forcing his opponent to block with his greatsword and then pirouette away, followed quickly by the blindfolded swordmaster. A hasty step caused the unsighted Zaknafein to trip on his own heel, and his opponent took advantage, swinging down at the swordmaster's flailing form, only to discover he had been lured in by a feint. Fully in control of his body, Zaknafein twisted out of the way of the strike, chopped down hard with one sword on top of his opponent's blade to trap it in place, and then, position judged perfectly, reached out to just nick his opponent's flesh, right next to the jugular, with his other sword.
In the hushed silence of his victory, Zaknafein reached up and pulled away his blindfold, before flashing a predatory smile towards the watching warriors. "If anyone has any objection to me continuing my role as House Do'Urden's Weapon Master," he stated drolly, "voice them now." Unsurprisingly, there were no objections. "In that case," Zaknafein continued, "it's time to get started on our new training regime." Somehow, the next smile he gave was even more predatory, and not a few of the assembled warriors flinched involuntarily.
When Artemis finally returned, Drizzt rose from the pile of parchments and walked with the boy towards the mess hall, questioning him on his task of the day. The human replied with short, succinct statements about his target, and Drizzt got the sense that his young bodyguard was more than passingly familiar with skulking on rooftops and breaking into windows. When they returned, Drizzt bypassed the war room and stepped into the Weapons Hall, sweeping the fabric cover from the huge rack of weapons in one corner of the room, much as Zaknafein had done for him over a decade earlier. "The dagger is a good weapon for close quarters," Drizzt said to the wide-eyed boy, "but I think we can make a swordsman out of you. Try them all, see what you like."
Artemis gravitated immediately to a thin shortsword, almost a long dirk for an adult, but at Artemis' size it resembled a slim longsword, the kind a duelist would use as his main-hand weapon. He slipped the shortsword from its sheath and flourished the blade, getting a feel for the weight. Behind the human child, Drizzt smirked, remembering his own initiation to swordplay under Zaknafein's tutelage. Unbuckling the belt that held his scimitars, Drizzt gently placed his trusty weapons down and stepped over to the rack himself, selecting a standard longsword, gripping it in two hands. While Drizzt rarely used anything other than his scimitars, Zaknafein had insisted he become at least conversant with most standard weapons and quite a few non-standard weapons as well.
Once he had taken a few steps away, Drizzt motioned for Artemis to start an attack, and, hesitantly, he did so, swinging at Drizzt's left side, easily blocked by the drow warrior. Artemis stepped away, and then, motioned on by Drizzt, stepped forward again, this time attacking with an overhand strike, once again easily parried. Drizzt rotated his hands and slashed horizontally towards Artemis' off-hand side, and the young human scurried to move his blade into the way of Drizzt's, getting there just in time. A counter-attack came quicker this time, Artemis surprising Drizzt with a near-textbook lunge that the drow elf had to move quickly to block. Seeing that Artemis had overextended himself, Drizzt pressed the advantage, cutting quickly towards his bodyguard's open side, only to meet the resistance of the blade of the jeweled dagger that had appeared in a flash in Artemis' hand. Drizzt grinned, and a quick twist of his sword bound Artemis' weapon and then pulled it out of his hands. "Not bad for a first attempt," Drizzt praised, "I think we can most certainly make a swordsman out of you." Artemis grinned back at Drizzt, and within moments the true lesson was underway.
