Brack’thal laughed at the threat.

He could do that, Ravel understood, because Saribel and Berellip were nearby.

That wouldn’t always be the case.

For Ravel, coordinating the battle in the cavern quickly became more a matter of preventing Yerrininae and his drider battalion from slaughtering needed slaves than organizing any combat tactics. The four components of his strike force— spellspinner, drider, drow warrior, and goblin shock troops—hit the orc cavern so hard and so furiously that no semblance of organized defense ever materialized against them.

The young spellspinner found this quite disappointing. He had wanted to test out his battle theories and had concocted some elaborate magic-melee coordination for wiping away stubborn defenses. Besides, any clever victories he might win against opponents who proved themselves worthy would only serve to impress his miserable sisters, and even more delicious, to frighten his broken father-brother.

As the final bugbears and orcs were being rounded up for the continuing march, these creatures to serve alongside the goblins as battle fodder, Berellip took the moment to quip that the fight had hardly been worth the energy. She did so publicly, and loudly, and many eyes, including those of Yerrininae, focused on Ravel, whom she was clearly diminishing.

“And not a single drow or drider lost,” Ravel countered, looking to Yerrininae as he spoke.

“To mere orcs?” Berellip countered with a laugh, as if the thought of losing a drow to such a lesser creature was unthinkable.

Her open levity attracted more drow around them, and Berellip played to them loudly.

“To a combined force larger than our own,” the young spellspinner retorted, and he didn’t back down a bit, judging that the respect of his forces might be wavering a bit—and surely that seemed to be Berellip’s intent.

Ravel looked at his older sister directly, matching her intense stare. Then he spun away with a laugh, taking center stage, commanding center stage.

“Mere orcs?” he asked, addressing all around him now. “A most relative term, would you not agree? They are ‘mere’ only when measured against a superior force, and we are that, to both the orcs and the clever bugbears who ruled this cavern. And not simply superior, for if that, then surely we would have suffered losses, which we did not! They were overwhelmed from the start, because of preparation, dear sister. In a search of history, too many are quick to dismiss losers as inept, rather than attribute the crushing victory to the brilliance of the victors.”

“Do tell,” Berellip said with a fair amount of sarcasm apparent in her tone.

“Our easy victory here began with the selection of the force,” Ravel insisted. “We have found balance, magic to sword, finesse to sheer power.” He wanted to add, but didn’t need to—and didn’t think it wise, given Berellip’s apparent challenge to his authority—that he, of course, had been the one to select the expeditionary force.

Still, Ravel couldn’t resist a bit of self-aggrandizing as he added, “Our enemies were broken before the fight even began. When at Sorcere, I envisioned such a usage of the lightning web, and had hoped that such an opportunity as we found this day would arise.”

“Back to that?” Berellip asked, narrowing her eyes and tightening her jaw. “A few meager orcs killed for such an expense of power?”

“A few killed and hundreds sent in flight, horrified,” Ravel replied. “Is not the threat of Lolth’s vengeance as effective a weapon for the priestesses as the actual manifestation of the Spider Queen?”

Ravel could hardly believe the words as they left his mouth! To invoke the Spider Queen in an argument with a priestess of Lolth!

For a moment, Ravel, like everyone around him, held his breath, staring unblinkingly at Berellip with an expectation that she would lash out at him, with her hand, her snake-headed whip, or even some of her devastating divine spells.

She wanted to do just that, he could clearly see on her tightened face. Berellip would take great pleasure in torturing him for all to see.

But the moment passed, and Berellip made no move, and only then did Ravel truly appreciate how important this expedition must be to Matron Mother Zeerith. He had pushed past all boundaries of protocol and would not be punished—not then, at least.

Mark your words carefully, young spellspinner, Berellip signed to him, her hands in close so that few other than Ravel could read the threat. The priestess turned on her heel and walked away, Saribel in her wake.

She wouldn’t even chastise him openly before his minions.

Hardly believing his luck, or that it would hold, Ravel turned to the gathered drow and waved them off to their duties. He noticed Jearth as he did, the weapons master staring at him incredulously. And more than Jearth, Ravel noted Tiago Baenre, whose expression revealed the brash young Baenre’s intrigue, and even a bit of amusement.

Ravel had no answers for any of that, for he was no less incredulous than the two warriors. “We will make our encampment here in this cavern,” he ordered, and started away.

Jearth caught up to him soon after.

“This area is quite open and vulnerable,” the weapons master explained.

“No enemies will come upon us,” Ravel insisted.

“You cannot know that. And if enemies do find us, smaller areas favor our smaller numbers.”

“Set the camp.”

“Or face Lolth’s vengeance?” Jearth remarked with a sly grin, and he was one of the few drow alive who could so tease young Ravel.

The spellspinner merely shook his head and held his hands up helplessly in reply, as if to say that he, too, could not believe that he had so challenged Berellip, and on the foundation of her very existence.

Tiago Baenre came to Ravel a short while later, to inform him that they had identified the bugbear king of the cave and had him waiting for an audience with his conquerors.

“Does he wish to negotiate?” Ravel asked sarcastically.

“To continue breathing, I would assume.”

The Xorlarrin spellspinner stepped back and took a long look at the Baenre warrior. They were about the same age, he knew, and had been in their respective academies in overlapping years. They were rivals out of simple circumstance, as two of the most promising young drow males in Menzoberranzan.

Or were they?

Tiago moved to the front of the shallow cave and pointed out the abode across the cavern where the bugbear king was being held. “There is more that I would ask of you for my allegiance,” Tiago warned, and turned back to face Ravel.

The spellspinner looked at the warrior suspiciously.

“I travel with you to represent my family,” Tiago explained. “To report back to Matron Quenthel, favorably or unfavorably, on the progress of House Xorlarrin.”

Ravel nodded. They had been through all of this before.

“And I go for personal gain, and in more ways than reputation,” Tiago explained.

As Ravel narrowed his eyes, Tiago balked. “Pretend not that you expected more of me,” he said sternly. “Perhaps some devotion to the greater good, or the glory of Lady Lolth, or some other such nonsense. Do not assign me such motives, for such a limited view of me would surely wound me, my friend, and never would I presume that Ravel would act outside the benefit of . . . Ravel.”

Ravel had to nod his agreement of that assessment. What drow, after all, had ever achieved greatness without first seeking and demanding it? “Do tell,” he prompted.

Tiago reached into a pocket in his piwafwi and produced a thin silver scroll tube. He held it up so that Ravel could clearly see the etching of a hammer, a bolt of lightning energy, and a pair of crossed swords, along with the name Gol’fanin.

Ravel’s own decorated dagger, more a focus item than a weapon, bore that same signature, as did the weapons of many of the nobles of the ruling drow Houses.

Given their destination, given the rumors of the magic powering the ancient forge, there was no need for Tiago to elaborate further.

“I will meet you beside the prisoner,” Tiago said, and started away for the prison of the bugbear king.

But Ravel called him back. “Go with me,” he said, and he took care with his tone to make it more of an offer than an order.

Tiago nodded.

Ravel took his time in crossing the large cavern. He wondered if he and Tiago Baenre might have much to discuss regarding the bugbear lord, the continuing expedition, and perhaps even beyond that. He reminded himself that this was a Baenre, after all, and so he knew he’d need to sweeten every subject with tinguin lal’o shrome’cak, or the promise of a fungal pie, as the drow saying went, in reference to a particular delicacy which could induce the most marvelous of daydreams. Tiago hadn’t asked about this second bargain he had just revealed, but rather had stated it as a matter of fact, not to be argued or denied.

So it would be in the presence of a Baenre, Ravel realized, and the more he might do to keep Tiago beside him, the better. It didn’t take the spellspinner long to determine which fungal pie might be given at this time and in this place.

Tutugnik, the bugbear king, offered little to impress Ravel as anything other than ordinary. He was larger than most bugbears, particularly those clans which lived so deep in the Underdark, and even sitting strapped to a stone chair, he could look Ravel in the eye. Perhaps he was considered handsome for his race; to Ravel they all looked the same, other than the occasional garish scar, with their flat faces, bloodshot eyes, and broken yellow and brown teeth, all sharpened and crooked. Like all bugbears, Tutugnik’s hair was greasy and dirty, matted in no particular style.

Nor was he impressive intellectually, answering Ravel’s pointed demand that Tutugnik and all his minions would now serve the drow, with an uninspired, “Tutugnik is leader.”

Perhaps he meant that he wished to continue to serve as leader of the slave force. Perhaps, but Ravel didn’t care to find out.

He convened an audience with the whole of the cavern, drow and drider, orc and bugbear. Standing on a high and well-lit ledge beside Jearth and Tutugnik, Ravel ordered the bugbear lord brought out to stand on the other side of his weapons master. Tiago Baenre accompanied the brutish creature.

“You are conquered,” Ravel yelled out simply to the orcs and bugbears, his volume magnified by a simple dweomer so that his voice boomed off every stone in the cavern. “You will fight for me, or you will die, and if you fight well, perhaps I will allow you to fight for me again.” He nodded and started to turn away, as if there was really nothing more to be said, but then he paused and looked to the bugbear king.

“Leader?” Ravel asked loudly, pointing to Tutugnik, who puffed out his massive chest with pride.

Among the gathered orcs and bugbears, the response was muted, with the captives looking to one another for hints about how they should react. Gradually that direction led them to a tentative few affirmative stomps of heavy feet, even a huzzah or two.

All of which evaporated in the blink of an eye as Ravel glanced at Tiago. The young Baenre leaped and spun, drawing one of his swords too quickly for anyone to realize it, including Tutugnik, who had barely begun to glance the leaping Baenre’s way before that sword sliced under Tutugnik’s chin, front to back.