Yes, he can scout

Aliara considered her options.

The depth of her rage surprised her. She wanted nothing more than to sink her fingers into Lord Lockh’s throat, to feel his blood bubble up around her nails, to watch the light in his eyes go out an inch at a time. She’d never wanted anything so much. Rage bubbled and frothed inside her, just below the surface. Even in her years of slavery she’d never felt so pure a hatred, never wanted anything as badly as she wanted this.

And yet that very hatred gave her pause. Aliara’s life had not been very long, but it had been very hard, and every lesson had been bought with pain. Chief among those lessons was this: the more you wanted something, the more careful you had to be about going after it. **** craving drove harder than any whip, but desperation also made people sloppy, and sloppiness got you killed.

She bit back on her first instincts and instead tried to be as dispassionate as she could. She was **** to give Do’von Sinope any credit, but the woman undoubtedly knew her business. If she said she wouldn’t go forward with an **** attempt under these circumstances, there must me something to her doubts; when did the drow ever scruple away from sticking a knife between someone’s ribs?

“I suppose you raise a good point, Lady Do’von,” Aliara said. “Wouldn’t do to go in blind.” She crossed her arms and stared at the woman. “I’m curious, though, do you value your son’s life so cheaply? You tell me in one breath that going to the City alone is a suicide mission, and in the next you offer him up to take the trip himself.”

“Suicide for you, my dear,” Lady Do’von said with a smile. Her thin lips peeled back, revealing a mouthful of teeth stained black as ink. “Suicide for most. For a Sinope… perhaps not. Ruvvel is skilled in the art of stealth. And he doesn’t need to get all the way to Lockh’s bedchamber, either. Just a peek at the surrounding defenses will tell us much, and we can formulate a plan based on that. Perhaps further scouting will be in order.”

“Thissssss caution ssssmellsssssss like cowardice, drow,” the Matron hissed. “While hyour child creepsssss in the dark, we grow weaker, and our foe gatherssssss hissss ssssstrength. Do hyou hope to wassssste our time?” There was a note of warning in her voice, a buried string of tension. Her hand inched imperceptibly towards her hip, where she wore a long-bladed dagger with a silvered edge.

Lady Do’von raised her hands, palms out, and took a half-step backwards. “Merely prudence, milady,” she said. “Merely prudence. I did not get to be this old by rushing into things. And I am here as a surety against betrayal. My daughters are still in the City, and I must assume they are dead. With Ruvvel, our House will continue. Without me, it ends.”

The Matron did not speak, but some of the tension ran out of her all the same. “Very well,” she said. “I look forward to ssssseeing hyour vaunted Houssssssse in action.”

Her expression made it clear the meeting was over. Aliara withdrew with Lil’esh and the Sinope drow to plan. Lil’esh had a sour, brooding look on her face, and as soon as they reached the relative privacy of her chambers she vented her spleen.

“How dare she,” she fumed. “To accuse you of treachery after everything you’ve lost!”

“But my dear, I am treacherous!” Lady Do’von threw her head back and laughed aloud at Lil’esh’s dismayed expression. “Not in our current circumstances, of course. Desperation makes us all honest. But generally, I wouldn’t trust a Sinope drow unless I could see both of her hands. And even then, I’d feel better if they were manacled.” She shrugged. “It’s the cost of doing business in the City. Honor is fine, for them as want it. I prefer survival.”

“Still, she ought to respect the risk you’re taking,” Lil’esh groused. “Your son’s life! Ruvvel, are you sure you want to do this?”

Ruvvel, tall and cadaverous, stared at her without blinking. His eyes were deep-set and so very dark. Aliara could not see a hint of iris. He nodded once.

“Ruvvel will go where I send him,” his mother said. “He lives to serve the House of Sinope. And he wants **** as badly as you do, don’t you, Ruvvel?”

“Yes,” he said. His voice was low and breathy. “Lockh must perish.”

“See? We all want the same thing.” Lady Do’von smiled. “I have a short list of items Ruvvel will need for his mission.”

“I’ll show you what we have,” Aliara said. “Let’s get this done with. The Matron was right enough about the need for speed. Who knows what Lockh is planning?”

Aliara led Ruvvel through the warren towards the armory. His presence unnerved her. He was stealthy, fair enough—even knowing he was there, Aliara lost track of him once or twice, only for him to appear from an unexpected direction. She began to feel a bit better about her decision to take Lady Do’von up on her offer. If anyone could approach the City unseen, this man could do it.

He equipped himself in silence, selecting items from the racks after silent and careful deliberation. Some of them were obvious: coal-dust, chalk, silver wire, a set of lockpicks. Others Aliara didn’t understand. He took a single metal gauntlet and a fine gold tiara, both far too small for him. Each item he wrapped in black velvet and placed inside his travel sack.

Aliara and Lil’esh saw him as far as the exit. They passed through the cavern where they’d clashed with Lockh’s army, and Aliara shivered. The bodies were long gone, but the taint of evil remained in this place, a cold scent that lingered on her nostrils and festered on her tongue.

The cave mouth that led towards the city yawned open, stalactite fangs dangling from the gloom. Aliara hovered on the threshold, Lil’esh a half-step behind her. Ruvvel turned to face them both.

“A week,” he said. “After that, if I am not back, I am not coming back.”

“What should we tell your mother?” Lil’esh asked. “If you… if you don’t come back.”

Ruvvel shrugged. “Nothing. She already knows.” He pulled his hood up over his face and, without waiting for an answer, vanished in the darkness.

The two women stood there a moment longer and stared into the gloom. “Mother Below protect him,” Lil’esh said, make a sign with her hands that Aliara didn’t recognize.

“Odd fellow,” Aliara replied. “Cold. I know you drow don’t go in much for warm families, but the way his mother treats him unnerves me. Like he’s a, a set of lockpicks or something. A tool.”

“The Sinope are unusually cold-blooded, yes,” Lil’esh said, a slight sniff in her voice telling Aliara that her “warm families” comment had been noted. “But they’re efficient.”

“Now what?” Aliara asked. “For us, I mean. What do we do?”

“We work,” Lil’esh said. “It’s as I said earlier. This place can be a home to my people, but it will take a lot of work. Will you help us?”

Aliara shrugged. “Why not? Got to keep busy, after all.”

And so she did. The work was endless, thankless, and tedious, but it had two distinct advantages: it left her too tired to dwell on her own problems, and it kept her out of Teysa’s way. She brought water up from a deep well in jars and carried those jars to the drow’s dwelling place. She scraped lichen from the rocks, mashed it into paste, and boiled it in an iron cauldron for soup. She worked at times with the drow, clearing loose stones from the cavern floors, and at other times with driders, directing their weaving. Little by little, they transformed the caves into something resembling a home. It was not comfortable, not even compared to Aliara’s own apartment, but at least it was something.

Gauzy curtains of web, thick to the point of opacity, subdivided the space into rooms with a semblance of privacy. The drider stone-shapers cleared away most the stalagmites but left a few standing columns to support the ceiling and anchor hammocks. Elsewhere they dug channels for water and carved niches in the wall, into which Aliara placed glass jars filled with glowing insects.

Not all of the work was physical. Aliara helped where she could with the wounded drow, changing dressings and the like, but many of their wounds were invisible. They’d fled from the only home they’d ever known, and many of them still thought of the driders as goddess-cursed predators. They looked to Aliara for reassurance, and though she had little enough to give, she tried for their sake.

“No, they won’t eat you,” she patiently explained. “Not even your children. No, they don’t turn drow into driders.” Not anymore, at least, she thought. She didn’t have a problem with this lie—the truth would be too complicated, at least for the current fragile moment. “They worship Lolth, too. You have a lot in common.”

She had meant that part to sound reassuring, but in her head, it took on a less charitable character. It’s fair, though, she told herself. Both groups used me as they saw fit.

So why am I helping them?

She couldn’t think of a good answer to that question, so she pushed it to the back of her mind. It was what Teysa would have wanted, she told herself. She’d already started slipping, referring to Teysa in the past tense, and she hated herself for it. But she could not bring herself to talk to Teysa, either, and the other woman had not sought her out, perhaps sensing that she needed space. The tension slowly built in Aliara’s head, and only throwing herself into her work let her drown it out for a time.

That ended a week after Ruvvel Sinope’s departure. The warren had seen neither hide nor hair of him, and Aliara was ready to write him off, though Lil’esh insisted that they give him the full week as promised. The driders had begun girding for war. They were not being subtle about it—Aliara saw them scuttling through the tunnels at all hours, carrying weapons and armor sized and shaped for drider bodies. The Matron had not brought Aliara into her confidence, but she thought she could guess what she intended.

On the seventh day, as Aliara was helping Rakkec dig a new well in one of the expanded dwelling caves, an alarm went up among the driders. They hissed at each other in their own language, and though Aliara could not understand the words, the tone was clear enough. She laid down her pick and ran through the warren, pushing past startled drow. “What’s happening?” she demanded as a drider passed by. “What’s going on?”

It was Jez’ria. She looked down at Aliara and nodded in recognition.

“An attack, they say,” she replied. “More of the shadow creaturez.” She extended a hand, and Aliara wordlessly took it. Jez’ria pulled her onto her back in one swift motion and set off. Aliara had to cling on with both hands. It was a strange sensation, not at all like riding a horse, yet she soon found the rhythm of the drider’s eight legs and let Jez’ria carry her onward.

They arrived in the same cavern from which Ruvvel had departed a week before. A dozen driders were already there, half of them wearing armor and carrying spears. They clustered in a knot around a shape on the ground. Aliara slid off Jez’ria’s back and padded forward, slipping between the press of driders to see what they had found.

It was a drow. He lay dead on the floor, blood pooling beneath him, his armor punctured in multiple places. The two drider guards nearest him carried leaf-bladed spears, their tips smeared with blood.

The dead man wore dark iron armor of baroque design. Baroque and familiar. Spikes adorned his vambraces and pauldrons, and the top half of his helm was a twisted crown. If the armor wasn’t enough of a clue, though, he bore Lord Lockh’s hammer-and-anvil sigil on a banner strapped to his back. Dots of fresh blood discolored the anvil like splotches of rust.

“How many?” Aliara asked. “How many more?”

One of the drider guards spat something in their language. Jez’ria translated.

“Just the one, she sayz.”

“Just one? A scout?” Aliara didn’t believe it for a second. This was the vanguard of a second attack, that was almost certain, and they had mere minutes to prepare.

“Look, he vaz carrying something,” Jez’ria said, pointing. Nestled under the drow’s corpse was an iron box about a foot on each side. Aliara squatted down next to him and tugged it out from underneath him, not without effort. Jez’ria leaned in over her and effortlessly hefted the box in her hands. All around her, the driders broke out into crosstalk. Aliara could not understand a word of it, but they sounded as agitated as she felt.

“An envoy?” she asked aloud. “Is this tribute? Or some kind of weapon?”

“Put it down.” The Matron’s voice cut through the hubbub, silencing her servants. Aliara turned and bowed her head. The Matron wore her full panoply of war, a high-crested helmet and an oil-dark breastplate inset with gems and mother-of-pearl.

“There are no more invadersssss,” she said. She sounded certain. “But hyou shall check the perimeter cavessssss anyway. Tel’rith, Vik’ri.” Two of the drider guards nodded and scuttled away, their spears held high.

“And thisssss box,” the Matron said, turning to Jez’ria. “Set it down. It may be unssssafe.”

Jez’ria nodded and laid the box on the ground. Aliara peered at it, intrigued. The top was hinged at one end. The box itself was made of black, raw-looking iron, its faces engraved with scenes of **** by fire.

The top flipped open. In the silence of the cave, the noise it made was shocking. Aliara’s hand was at her dagger before her conscious mind processed the sound. Before she could draw it, though, something in the box moved.

The object inside was wrapped in a piece of dark cloth with ragged edges. Stains discolored the wrapping. Aliara’s nose crinkled at a sudden smell of blood. The thing in the box shook twice, then rolled over. The cloth spilled from its front, revealing Ruvvel Sinope’s face.

His neck had been raggedly severed, the flesh at the stump torn and clotted. His teeth were stained with blood. His eyes were solid white, though, and they rolled in his head. Aliara could see them moving.

“You… are… dead…” the head said, in a voice that was not Ruvvel’s. Black smoke began to dribble out of his nostrils and escape from the corners of his mouth. It pooled in the bottom of the box.

“All… of… you… dead…” The head smiled, a grin so terrible it made Aliara’s flesh crawl. “You… and… your… whore… goddess… your… Cunt… Who… Lives… Below… dead… all… dead…”

There might have been more, but the Matron sprang forward with a cry of rage. She hammered one fist into the box, pulverizing the head and sending blood and fragments of bone flying in all directions. When she withdrew her hand, bits of bone and brain clung to her knuckles. She stared at her hand almost casually and shook her knuckles to clean them.

“Disssspossssse of it,” she said, as though nothing had just happened. “Aliara, with me.”