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squirmed, tying itself into knots around the belt that held it. Briza was always the quickest to punish.
    Matron Malice, however, seemed pleased by Dinin’s swagger. The secondboy knew his place well enough by her measure and he followed her commands fearlessly and without question.
    Dinin took comfort in the calmness of his mother’s face, quite the opposite of the shining white-hot faces of his three sisters. “All is ready,” he said to her. “House DeVir huddles within its fence—except for Alton, of course, foolishly attending his studies in Sorcere.”
    “You have met with the Faceless One?” Matron Malice asked.
    “The Academy was quiet this night,” Dinin replied. “Our meeting went off perfectly.”
    “He has agreed to our contract?”
    “Alton DeVir will be dealt with accordingly,” Dinin chuckled. He then remembered the slight alteration he had made in Matron Malice’s plans, delaying Alton’s execution for the sake of his own lust for added cruelty. Dinin’s thought evoked another recollection as well: high priestesses of Lolth had an unnerving talent for reading thoughts.
    “Alton will die this night,” Dinin quickly completed the answer, assuring the others before they could probe him for more definite details.
    “Excellent,” Briza growled. Dinin breathed a little easier.
    “To the meld,” Matron Malice ordered.
    The four drow males moved to kneel before the matron and her daughters: Rizzen to Malice, Zaknafein to Briza, Nalfein to Maya, and Dinin to Vierna. The clerics chanted in unison, placing one hand delicately upon the forehead of their respective soldier, tuning in to his passions.
    “You know your places,” Matron Malice said when the ceremony was completed. She grimaced through the pain of another contraction. “Let our work begin.”

    Less than an hour later, Zaknafein and Briza stood together on the balcony outside the upper entrance to House Do’Urden. Below them, on the cavern floor, the second and third brigades of the family army, Rizzen’s and Nalfein’s, bustled about, fitting on heated leather straps and metal patches—camouflage against a distinctive elven form to heat-seeing drow eyes. Dinin’s group, the initial strike force that included a hundred goblin slaves, had long since departed.
    “We will be known after this night,” Briza said. “None would have suspected that a tenth house would dare to move against one as powerful as DeVir. When the whispers ripple out after this night’s bloody work, even Baenre will take note of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon!” She leaned out over the balcony to watch as the two brigades formed into lines and started out, silently, along separate paths that would bring them through the winding city to the mushroom grove and the five-pillared structure of House DeVir.
    Zaknafein eyed the back of Matron Malice’s eldest daughter, wanting nothing more than to put a dagger into her spine. As always, though, good judgment kept Zak’s practiced hand in its place.
    “Have you the articles?” Briza inquired, showing Zak considerably more respect than she had when Matron Malice sat protectively at her side. Zak was only a male, a commoner allowed to don the family name as his own because he sometimes served Matron Malice in a husbandly manner and had once been the patron of the house. Still, Briza feared to anger him. Zak was the weapons master of House Do’Urden, a tall and muscular male, stronger than most females, and those who had witnessed his fighting wrath considered him among the finest warriors of either sex in all of Menzoberranzan. Besides Briza and her mother, both high priestesses of the Spider Queen, Zaknafein, with his unrivaled swordsmanship, was House Do’Urden’s trump.
    Zak held up the black hood and opened the small pouch on his belt, revealing several tiny ceramic spheres.
    Briza smiled evilly and rubbed her slender hands together. “Matron Ginafae will not be pleased,” she whispered.
    Zak returned the