“Matron Malice would not question your death,” Briza whispered harshly. “Her sons have ever been trouble to her!”

Dinin looked past his hulking captor to the common soldiers of the patrol.

“Witnesses?” Briza laughed, guessing his thoughts. “Do you really believe they will speak against a high priestess for the sake of a mere male?” Briza’s eyes narrowed and she moved her face right up to Dinin’s. “A mere male corpse?” She cackled once again and released Dinin suddenly, and he dropped to his knees, struggling to regain a normal rhythm to his breathing.

“Come,” Briza signaled in the silent code to the rest of the patrol. “I sense that my youngest brother is not in this area. We shall return to the city and restock our packs:’

Dinin watched his sister’s back as she made the preparations for their departure. He wanted nothing more than to put his sword between her shoulder blades. Dinin was smarter than to try such a move, though. Briza had been a high priestess of the Spider Queen for more than three centuries and was now in the favor of Lloth, even if Matron Malice and the rest of House Do’Urden was not. Even if her evil goddess had not been looking over her, Briza was a formidable foe, skilled in spells and with that cruel whip always ready at her side.

“My sister,” Dinin called after her as she started away. Briza spun on him, surprised that he would dare to speak aloud to her.

“Accept my apologies,” Dinin said. He motioned for the other soldiers to keep moving, then returned to using the hand code, so that the commoners would not know his further conversation with Briza.

“I am not pleased by the addition of SiNafay Hun’ett to the family,” Dinin explained.

Briza’s lips curled up in one of her typically ambiguous smiles; Dinin couldn’t be sure if she was agreeing with him or mocking him. “You think yourself wise enough to question the decisions of Matron Malice?” her fingers asked.

“No!” Dinin signaled back emphatically. “Matron Malice does as she must, and always for the welfare of House Do’Urden. But I do not trust the displaced Hun’ett. SiNafay watched her house smashed into bits of heated rock by the judgment of the ruling council. All of her treasured children were slain; and most of her commoners as well. Can she truly be loyal to House Do’Urden after such a loss?”

“Foolish male,” Briza signaled in reply. “Priestesses understand that loyalty is owed only to Lloth. SiNafay’s house is no more, thus SiNafay is no more. She is Shi’nayne Do’Urden now, and by the order of the Spider Queen, she will fully accept all of the responsibilities that accompany the name.”

“I do not trust her,” Dinin reiterated. “Nor am I pleased to see my sisters, the true Do’Urdens, moved down the hierarchy to make room for her. Shi’nayne should have been placed beneath Maya, or housed among the commoners.”

Briza snarled at him, though she wholeheartedly agreed.

“Shi’nayne’s rank in the family is of no concern to you. House Do’Urden is stronger for the addition of another high priestess. That is all a male need care about!”

Dinin nodded his acceptance of her logic and wisely sheathed his sword before beginning to rise from his knees. Briza likewise replaced the snake-whip on her belt but continued to watch her volatile brother out of the corner of her eye.

Dinin would be more careful around Briza now. He knew that his survival depended on his ability to walk beside his sister, for Malice would continue to send Briza out on these hunting patrols beside him. Briza was the strongest of the Do’Urden daughters, with the best chance of finding and capturing Drizzt. And Dinin, having been a patrol leader for the city for more than a decade, was the most familiar of anyone in the house with the tunnels beyond Menzoberranzan.

Dinin shrugged at his rotten luck and followed his sister back down the tunnels to the city. A short respite, no more than a day, and they would be back on the march again, back on the prowl for their elusive and dangerous brother, whom Dinin truly had no desire to find.

Guenhwyvar’s head turned abruptly and the great panther froze perfectly still, one paw cocked and ready to move.

“You heard it, too,” Drizzt whispered, moving tightly to the panther’s side. “Come, my friend. Let us see what new enemy has entered our domain.”

They sped off together, equally silent, down corridors they knew so very well. Drizzt stopped suddenly, and Guenhwyvar did likewise, at the echo of a scuffle. It was made by a boot, Drizzt knew, and not by some natural monster of the Underdark. Drizzt pointed up to a broken pile of rubble overlooking a wide and many-tiered cavern on its other side. Guenhwyvar led him there, where they could find a better vantage point. The drow patrol came into view only a few moments later, a group of seven, though they were too far away for Drizzt to make out any particulars. Drizzt was amazed that he had heard them so easily, for he remembered those days when he had taken the point position on such patrols. How alone he had felt then, up at the lead of more than a dozen dark elves, for they made not a whisper with their practiced movements and they kept to the shadows so well that even Drizzt’s keen eyes could not begin to locate them.

And yet, this hunter that Drizzt had become, this primal, instinctive self, had found this group easily.

Briza stopped suddenly and closed her eyes, concentrating on the emanations of her spell of location.

“What is it?” Dinin’s fingers asked her when she looked back to him. Her startled and obviously excited expression revealed much.

“Drizzt?” Dinin breathed aloud, hardly able to believe.

“Silence!” Briza’s hands cried out at him. She glanced around to survey her surroundings, then signaled to the patrol to follow her to the shadows of the wall in the immense, and exposed, cavern.

Briza nodded her confirmation to Dinin then, confident that their mission would at last be completed.

“Can you be sure it is Drizzt?” Dinin’s fingers asked. In his excitement, he could barely keep the movements precise enough to convey his thoughts. “Perhaps some scavenger―”

“We know that our brother lives,” Briza motioned quickly.

“Matron Malice would no longer be out of Lloth’s favor if it were otherwise. And if Drizzt lives, then we can assume that he possesses the item.”

The sudden evasive movement of the patrol caught Drizzt by surprise. The group could not possibly have seen him under the cover of the jutting rocks, and he held faith in the silence of his footfalls, and of Guenhwyvar’s. Yet Drizzt felt certain that it was he the patrol was hiding from. Something felt out of place in this whole encounter. Dark elves were rare this far from Menzoberranzan. Perhaps it was no more than the paranoia necessary to survive in the wilds of the Underdark, Drizzt told himself. Still, he suspected that more than chance had brought this group to his domain.

“Go, Guenhwyvar,” he whispered to the cat. “View our guests and return to me.” The panther sped away through the shadows circumventing the large cavern. Drizzt sank low into the rubble, listened, and waited.

Guenhwyvar returned to him only a minute later, though it seemed an eternity to Drizzt.

“Did you know them?” Drizzt asked. The cat scratched a paw across the stone.

“Of our old patrol?” Drizzt wondered aloud. “The fighters you and I walked beside?”

Guenhwyvar seemed uncertain and made no definite movements.

“A Hun’ett then,” Drizzt said, thinking he had solved the riddle. House Hun’ett had at last come looking for him to repay him for the deaths of Alton and Masoj, the two Hun’ett wizards who had died trying to kill Drizzt. Or perhaps the Hun’etts had come in search of Guenhwyvar, the magical item that Masoj once had possessed.

When Drizzt took a moment from his pondering to study Guenhwyvar’s reaction, he realized that his assumptions were wrong. The panther had backed away from him a step and seemed agitated by his stream of suppositions.