Dungeons & Dragons: Exclusive Excerpt from Lolth’s Warrior by R. A. Salvatore
by #AI April 11, 2023 · Automatic
R. A. Salvatore has been writing novels set in Dungeons & Dragons’ the Forgotten Realms for decades. The first book in the lauded fantasy author’s The Legend of Drizzt series dates back to 1990, and stars Drizzt Do’Urden, a dark elf (or drow) ranger who has since gone on many adventures. The latest trilogy in the series is The Way of the Drow, which contains 2021’s Starlight Enclave, last year’s Glacier’s Edge, and the upcoming final installment Lolth’s Warrior, set to publish August 15.
Below, we have an exclusive excerpt from the first chapter of Lolth’s Warrior.
Preorder Lolth’s Warrior (The Way of the Drow, Book 3)
And if want to catch up on the previous books in the trilogy, you can find them here:
- Starlight Enclave (The Way of the Drow, Book 1) – See it at Amazon
- Glacier’s Edge (The Way of the Drow, Book 2) – See it at Amazon
Excerpt from Lolth’s Warrior
Chapter 1: Lines Drawn and Legs Quartered
“I had great hopes for her,” Yvonnel Baenre admitted to Matron Mother Quenthel. The powerful drow was frustrated. She had thought that Kyrnill Melarn—who had once been Matron Kyrnill Kenafin and was not thrilled at the current arrangement that had put her into the family and service of the zealous Zhindia—would be her informant in her designs for defeating Zhindia and her Lolthian minions.
But Kyrnill had steered them wrong by indicating that House Melarn would attack the Baenre’s allied forces at the lake of Donigarten, when instead the Lolthian forces and their demonic allies had swept into and through House Fey-Branche.
“I will kill her,” said Minolin Fey Baenre, who was standing beside Matron Mother Quenthel’s throne.
“Let us not be quick to presume—” Quenthel started, but Minolin Fey’s huff stopped her short.
The outburst was understandable to the other two women. Minolin was the daughter of Matron Byrtyn Fey, after all, who had been taken in the raid on House Fey-Branche, and was now held prisoner in the city’s formidable Second House, Barrison Del’Armgo.
“I have information that Kyrnill’s daughter, the priestess Ash’ala, was not murdered by Matron Zhindia,” Quenthel explained. “She was tortured most horribly in the milk bath of maggots, but she remains alive.”
“What is left of her remains alive,” Minolin Fey remarked sourly.
“Enough to make her mother rethink her espionage?” Quenthel asked.
“None of the Kenafin line within House Melarn is loyal to Zhindia,” said Yvonnel. “But they are rightfully afraid of her, and of the power that supports her. Whatever the case, our informant is lost to us. We are well beyond that stage of the war now anyway. Only two of the most powerful houses are undeclared now—three, if we consider House Hunzrin truly out of the conflict.”
“Four if House Fey-Branche is likewise sidelined,” Minolin Fey said.
Yvonnel nodded, but only for her mother’s sake. She hadn’t even been thinking of House Fey-Branche when she had made her remark. Byrtyn sat on the Ruling Council, for what that was now worth, of course, but that was more a matter of legacy than the current power of house Fey-Branche. And after the successful and brutal raid by Zhindia’s allies, House Fey-Branche was even less significant in any material way.
The symbolism, however, remained critical.
“We will know of House Fey-Branche soon enough,” Quenthel assured them. “The Ruling Council is called and our demands for Matron Byrtyn and the other captured Fey-Branche nobles have been made quite clear to Matron Mez’Barris Armgo and all else who would side with Zhindia.”
“Faen Tlabbar is the only house left undeclared of the noble eight,” Yvonnel said. “Their actions at that Ruling Council will be critical, as will those of First Priestess Sos’Umptu.”
“Sos’Umptu,” Quenthel echoed with disgust. “She will no longer walk on the edge of a knife. My dear sister will fall to the side of Zhindia Melarn or she will step to our side in this fight.”
“She will wish to remain above the battle, to serve her demon god when the blood dries,” said Minolin Fey.
“There is no neutral position,” Quenthel reiterated.
“Oh, but there is,” Yvonnel corrected. “And we will see it often among the houseless drow of the Stenchstreets—and who can blame them? And among the lesser houses, who know that to choose wrong in this war will be their utter demise when, as you said, the blood dries. But for Sos’Umptu, you are right: there is no edge to walk, not now that the knife is blooded.”
“I should have killed Zhindia Melarn when I had the chance those years ago,” Yvonnel remarked.
“The handmaiden stopped you,” Quenthel reminded.
“The handmaiden asked me to stop. Yiccardaria could not have stopped me had I denied her request.” She shook her head. “In that same time, I removed the Curse of Abomination from one of Jarlaxle’s associates, a prelude to the great event you and I created on the surface.”
“What does that tell you?” Quenthel asked.
Yvonnel shook her head, trying to process it all. She had known she could reverse the curse, but it was not something commonly done, of course, even if the one who had been turned into a drider had later been found to be innocent of whatever insult to Lolth had doomed them in the first place. Yet she had known then that she could remove the state of drider from the Bregan D’aerthe scout, and she had done so with handmaidens in the city.
Was it all a tease by Lolth?
“This all occurred before,” Minolin Fey offered then, putting her hand on Yvonnel’s forearm.
“Before?” Quenthel asked.
“Before we knew. Before we came to see the truth. Before we came to understand the great deception that Lolth long ago placed upon our ancestors and the devastating march to this present place in Menzoberranzan. For those of us here in House Baenre now, or siding with House Baenre in this fight, can any hold less blame for following the edicts of Lolth’s handmaidens than Yvonnel? If we are damned by our actions before we came to see the truth, then we are all damned.”
“But we do not believe that,” said Matron Mother Quenthel. “Because if we did, then what reason for this war? Because if we did, then what play was our web to steal the Curse of Abomination from the Blaspheme?
“Because if we did, then what is the point?”
“To any of it,” Yvonnel finished and agreed. “I only wish I have been more prescient in that moment and finished off the zealot Zhindia.”
“You said that already—it’s in the past, and your regrets do us no good now. Besides, Lolth would have found one to replace her,” Quenthel said with a shrug and a sigh.
Yvonnel couldn’t really argue with that.
“At least Zhindia is stupid,” offered Minolin Fey, drawing astonished looks from the other two. Minolin Fey took their surprise as a compliment. She rather liked being underestimated by all around her, ally and foe alike. “Well, she is.”
[no ornament]
He froze when he heard her voice down the natural tunnel from his dungeon door. The part of Dinin that just wanted to get it over with could not stand up to the reality that this might be the moment. For all the dread of waiting for Matron Zhindia to fulfill her promise, the execution of that threat meant that this would be his last day as a living drow.
He began shaking his head, trembling, his eyes darting all about, looking for some escape, though he knew of course that there was none.
Still he searched, forced himself from his paralyzing fear, when he saw the glimmer of light down the uneven and broken tunnel up here in the great cavern’s ceiling above House Melarn.
She was coming.
She was coming for him.
He was going to be a drider again.
No more looking for a way out; Dinin began searching for some way to kill himself. He had held out hope that maybe a reprieve—a rescue—might be coming, but he knew that to be futile now and hoped he had enough agency to go out on his own terms. To end the nightmare before he lived it . . . again. He felt along the walls for the most jagged bit of stone he could find, then backpedaled as far as his small cell would allow.
He bent low, put his arms back behind him, leaned his forehead and face before him. He told himself to go, to rush into the wall. But still, he wasn’t moving!
“Matron Zhindia!” he heard a guard say, not far away.
Dinin sprinted into the wall. He managed to hold his arms back just long enough for his forehead to take the brunt of the impact.
He staggered backward, knees wobbling, blood dripping down over one eye.
But he didn’t fall.
So he ran again, then a third time, then stood right before the jag of stone, beating his head against it.
The world blurred. The dim light became darkness.
The sweet release of death, he thought fleetingly as he fell, fell, and kept falling. He suffered no pain, felt nothing at all except for the sensation of falling.
He heard laughter. He hoped it wasn’t Lolth or one of her handmaidens, hoped that he had somehow escaped the Abyss this time.
Then, so suddenly, he did indeed feel the pain! Burning across his forehead, throbbing in his mind as he returned to consciousness.
He blinked his eyes open to see Matron Zhindia standing over him, laughing at him.
“What fool runs face-first into a wall?” she chided.
Another spell of healing fell over him—not from Zhindia, but from one of the priestesses standing beside her.
“One who knows that the Curse of Abomination is about to befall him,” that priestess answered the matron.
“He wasn’t even strong enough to kill himself,” added a man standing in the back, one Dinin recognized as Nal’dorltyrr Melarn, the house weapon master. Naldorl, as he was called, like his aunt Zhindia had been a Horlbar noble son back in the days before the houses Horlbar and Kenafin had joined to become House Melarn. Dinin knew this one, or had known him long ago, when he had attended the Academy of Melee-Magthere in the same class as Dinin.
Despite his fears at that moment, Dinin managed a scowl at Naldorl. How many times in Melee-Magthere had Dinin bested this one? And that was before Dinin had returned home for even better training under the tutelage of Zaknafein. Yes, this current situation must be an enjoyable moment for that pathetic warrior.
The attempt to bury his fear under rage only lasted until Matron Zhindia began to speak once more.
“Is this true, son of House Do’Urden?” she purred, moving closer to her prisoner. “Did you not think your time as a true servant of Lolth was exhilarating? Do you fear returning to her service now?”
Dinin didn’t answer. He was quite sure that he didn’t have to answer, given the expression he knew to be on his face, given the way he couldn’t stop darting his gaze about, searching for some way out, and given the warm wetness he felt down his leg.
His legs gave out beneath him. He heard the priestess and Naldorl laughing and tried in vain to turn that mockery and embarrassment into the strength to fight back against his weakness.
But he could not. Nothing could be worse than this. No torture, no pain, no loss whether physical or emotional could come near to the dread of what he knew was about to befall him: the exquisite and unending agony of the Curse of Abomination. He could almost feel his legs splitting and then splitting again, his bones breaking and reshaping, and that interminable, ceaseless, and stinging ringing in his ears.
He felt his captors pick him back up and hold him upright, for his legs could not.
“Perhaps I will stay the verdict, Dinin Do’Urden,” Zhindia said, but he didn’t react, because he was certain that this was just her way of trying to make it even worse—which was impossible, for nothing could be worse!
“Sit him down against the wall,” he heard her order, and a moment later, he crashed hard against the stone and heard a groan escape his lips.
A bucket of water was dumped over him, shocking him back to clarity. He shook his head and opened his eyes wide, and a flash of possibility came to him—perhaps he could leap up and attack Zhindia and force them to kill him before the transformation.
That thought flew away as soon as the scene before him registered clearly, for now two others were standing beside the matron. They were beautiful and they were fully naked, a pair of drow women, or so they seemed for just a few eyeblinks until they transformed into their true yochlol forms, like towering half-melted candles of mud.
Handmaidens of Lolth.
The notion staggered Dinin. Why were they here? He was nothing to them.
“In this one instance, perhaps I was wrong,” Zhindia said to him. “You see, that is why we have the guidance of Lolth, here in the form of Eskavidne and Yiccardaria. They have counseled me differently, and so as much as I would enjoy watching you break apart and bloat and become again a drider, that may not be your fate. Not now, at least, and on this promise of mine and of these two beautiful creatures beside me, perhaps not ever.
“It remains up to you, though.
“Are you willing to do a service for the Spider Queen, Dinin Do’Urden? Are you willing to serve Lolth in an important task?”
“Anything. Please.” His voice surprised him, the fear and pleading choking out of him. But he did not regret those words, or the speed in which he spat them out.
Zhindia laughed at him and looked to the yochlols in turn, their bubbling chuckles echoing her own.
“You will enjoy this task, I am sure. You do like revenge?”
He nodded slightly, not sure what to make of any of this.
“Then this is something you are well suited to.” She looked at him intently, then said with venomous conviction, “Your brother did all of this to you and to your house. Is it not time for you to repay him?”
“Drizzt?”
“Of course Drizzt, idiot,” Zhindia snapped. “He is coming here, to Menzoberranzan. This is assured. Who better to deliver Lolth’s message to him than the brother he so terribly wronged?”
“He would not know me, and would not trust me,” Dinin heard himself stupidly admit.
“Then what use are you to me?” Zhindia asked, and to the priestess standing over Dinin, she said, “Priestess Calstraa, the scroll.”
“No,” Dinin begged. “No!”
“Who are you to command me?”
“I—”
“You will make Drizzt trust you?” Zhindia asked, although it sounded as much like an order as a question. “And he will know you. Of course, he will.”
“I know you, weakling,” Naldorl said from the other side of Dinin. “Surely he will, too.”
“I cannot defeat Drizzt,” Dinin told Zhindia, and again, the words were simply too stupid to be spoken aloud.
He was under a magical spell of truth, he realized.
“A boy with a knife can kill a great warrior if he stabs him unexpectedly, perhaps while sleeping. But no, Dinin, Lady Lolth does not want you to kill Drizzt. Why would she? He has brought her great enjoyment through the centuries. No, no, she wants you to wound him, more profoundly than any blade ever could.”
Dinin licked his lips, trying to find the obvious next question and failing.
“Drizzt is married to a human woman, and together, they have brought an abomination of their own into the world,” Zhindia explained. “Kill that abomination. Kill Catti-brie if you find the chance, but only after you murder the one fathered by Drizzt. That alone is your quest. Even one as pathetic as you can find the strength to murder a toddler, yes?
“Then, the worst you can expect is that you will feel the wrath of Drizzt, of Catti-brie, of King Bruenor Battlehammer, of Zaknafein—all of them! They will destroy you if they catch you, of course. But they cannot and will not do to you what I can do—what I surely will do, if you fail. They will kill you, perhaps after some torture, though that is not the way of those particular weaklings. No, they will simply kill you cleanly and swiftly and you will be taken into the arms of Lolth once more, but this time, redeemed.”
Dinin didn’t know how to react or what to do or say.
“We will know if you are lying,” the yochlol to Zhindia’s right said in a gurgling voice.
“Will you do this?” asked the other.
“Or will you be cursed here and now?” Zhindia asked.
“Yes,” Dinin blurted, and it was all pouring out of him now, and it was, of course, very true. Anything, he would do anything, to avoid the Curse of Abomination. He would kill a hundred children, a million children, of any race so condemned. “I will kill the child, and the human woman if I can. I will find a way to kill Drizzt—”
“No!” Zhindia and both handmaidens said together. “Not Drizzt.”
“Drizzt will face Lolth again when you have completed your task,” one of the yochlols explained.
“Okay—I will leave him alone. But how will I find her?” Dinin asked. “The child? Surely he won’t bring her here.”
“With patience,” Zhindia explained. “Perhaps it will take you a year, perhaps ten. It matters not. You will kill the child and Lolth will arrive to inform Drizzt of his loss. And it will be glorious!”
“Glorious” wasn’t the word Dinin would put on such an act, but he would do it.
He would do anything, anything at all, anything and everything, to escape his fate.
[no ornament]
In the southwestern corner of the Qu’ellarz’orl, the raised region of Menzoberranzan where most of the greatest houses were located, sat a set of large ironbound doors, guarded by powerful magic in the arch that surrounded them and by an honor guard contingent from the school of Melee-Magthere.
Whatever bickering or even open fighting going on in the city at any time, it could not pass these doors.
For this was the entrance to the chamber of the Ruling Council, a small natural cavern sparingly adorned and lit by scores of everburning candles. A rather unremarkable altar to Lolth stood at the far end of the chamber, left as it had been in the earliest days of the city’s founding. The room was dominated by a spider-shaped table and eight splendid chairs adorned with jewels. Until recently, the only other piece of furniture within the natural cave was a plain chair reserved for an invited guest, but now a tenth chair had been added—this one as fabulous as those for the eight ruling matrons.
It had been added for the priestess now sitting in it, the First Priestess of the Fane of the Quarvelsharess, also known as the Fane of the Goddess. Like the matrons who would be arriving, she was allowed two bodyguards, and Sos’Umptu’s escorts this day were quite unexpected, quite remarkable, and quite telling. She had been the first to arrive to the council, followed soon after by Matron Mother Quenthel.
Quenthel and her escorting bodyguards, Yvonnel and the House Baenre weapon master Andzrel, said nothing as they entered, although both Quenthel and Yvonnel, recognizing the handmaidens Eskavidne and Yiccardaria flanking Sos’Umptu’s chair, did raise their eyebrows a bit.
The Matron Mother spoke not a word to her sister, nor looked at her with more than a fleeting glance, as she took her seat at the end of the table’s left foreleg, with Yvonnel and Andzrel, who were not permitted to speak in any event, moving to the wall behind her.
The six sat there quietly as the minutes passed.
Quenthel looked at the seat across the spider table’s pedipalps, to the empty chair of Matron Mez’Barris Armgo of the Second House. She had feared that Mez’Barris wouldn’t show up to the meeting, as that would be a statement greater than any the matron might make here. She held out hope that the woman would soon make a grand entrance, an unharmed Matron Byrtyn Fey at her side.
She wiped all expression from her face, stoically watching; despite her desperate hopes, held her breath in hope when the door opened again.
In walked Matron Vadalma Tlabbar of the city’s Fourth House, Faen Tlabbar, long an ally of House Baenre—but now?
Without a word, Vadalma took her assigned seat next to the chair of Mez’Barris.
Quenthel was pleased that Vadalma had come. She glanced at Sos’Umptu, and couldn’t read the look on her sister’s face as Sos’Umptu, too, considered the latest arrival. On the surface and in normal times, Vadalma seemed an obvious ally of Quenthel’s. But these were not normal times. House Faen Tlabbar was among the most devout Lolthian houses in the city, perhaps second only to the insanely cruel Zhindia Melarn and her brood. Those two houses had long been vicious rivals, ever vying for the favor of the Spider Queen. But if the favor of Lolth was firmly on Melarn, would Vadalma be proud enough to reject Lolth’s will?
The door opened again, but it was not Mez’Barris escorting an unharmed Byrtyn Fey—had it been, Quenthel might have dared to hope that the war was nearing an end with the obvious defeat of Zhindia Melarn.
But no, it was Zeerith Xorlarrin Do’Urden, escorted by her two children, Priestess Saribel and the wizard Ravel.
Quenthel thought that strange, for she had never seen Zeerith’s children serving as house bodyguards at the Ruling Council before.
Old Zeerith wasn’t walking, but rather, floating on a magical disc of blue-white light. It drifted up to her chair, at Quenthel’s side, and there her children helped the ancient matron into her proper seat.
She looked frail, Quenthel saw. Battered and very fretful.
“I feared I was late,” Zeerith said to Quenthel, but loud enough for the others at the table to hear.
“You are,” Sos’Umptu replied.
“And yet I’m not the only one. What word on Matron Byrtyn?” Zeerith asked specifically to Quenthel.
“That is why we are here. To learn of her fate most of all, and to see where the alliances have fallen.”
“If I am late to the council, it would seem we have our answer to the latter question,” said Zeerith.
“Do we?” Sos’Umptu interjected.
“Soon,” Quenthel snapped back at her. “Five of the houses are notably absent, and is it really a surprise? The fourth house would be here, and are here in spirit, and certainly we know House Fey-Branche’s position in the matter before us.”
Across the table, Matron Vadalma cleared her throat, surprising the others and turning all eyes her way.
“I came here to listen, not to speak,” Vadalma said. “But it would seem that there is little you wish to say.”
“What do you mean?” Quenthel asked her.
“I want to know why,” Vadalma explained. “You turned against her!”
“Zhindia? You have no love for Zhindi—”
“Of course not Zhindia. Lady Lolth!” Vadalma clarified. “The heresy . . . how could you—you and that child who now stands behind you in the body of a woman—how could you defy our goddess? Yes, Matron Mother, I have no love for Matron Zhindia Melarn, and less still for her closest ally, House Mizzrym and that double-dealing Matron Miz’ri.”
“Long have our houses been allied,” Quenthel reminded.
“And longer have I and my house been loyal to the Spider Queen,” she snapped. “That web you and your—is she your grandniece?—wove to steal the Curse of Abomination from eight hundred driders . . .” She stopped and shook her head in disgust.
“It worked!” Quenthel argued.
“It worked against Lolth, you mean. Blasphemy,” spat Vadalma, and Sos’Umptu gave a mocking little chuckle that had Quenthel turning a scowl her way.
“You say it yourself, then.”
“Say what?” Vadalma asked.
“By whose laws is what we did blasphemy? Lolth’s?” Quenthel said, never taking her withering stare off her devout sister, Sos’Umptu. “In that event, by Lolth’s laws, can the attack on House Fey-Branche go unpunished? Can the abduction of Matron Byrtyn go unpunished?”
“A minor squabble by comparison,” Vadalma replied, incredulous. “What you did has broken a covenant of four millennia!”
“Two millennia,” Quenthel corrected. “And a covenant based on lies and false history.”
“Do you hear yourself? In this chamber! You say these are lies and false history. But can you prove that?”
Before Quenthel could answer, the door opened again, and her heart leaped for a moment with hope.
Matron Byrtyn Fey walked into the room, and that hope dropped along with Quenthel’s heart.
For she didn’t really walk into the room. She skittered.
On eight legs.
Behind Sos’Umptu, the two bodyguards began to laugh, something strictly forbidden and punishable by death—except, of course, these two were demon yochlols, the handmaidens of Lolth.
“You knew of this?” Quenthel accused Sos’Umptu, but she didn’t need her sister to answer any more than by the look on her face to realize that Byrtyn’s fate had caught Sos’Umptu as much by surprise as it had Quenthel and all the others in the room who were not named Eskavidne and Yiccardaria.
“We will kill you, Quenthel Baenre!” the drider shrieked. “You have lost your way. There is no repentance for you and yours, only war.” Eight legs clacking and tapping on the stone floor, Byrtyn the drider spun about and rushed away.
“It is not a fate I wish to suffer,” Zeerith said blandly.
Across the way, Vadalma hopped up and waved to her bodyguards.
“Where does House Faen Tlabbar stand?” Quenthel demanded of her.
“In the shadows,” was Vadalma’s answer. “Watching from afar.”
Vadalma and her escorts rushed out of the room, slowing only because she certainly did not wish to catch up to the drider.
“What have you left?” Sos’Umptu asked Quenthel. “House Fey-Branche is an empty shell. Without House Faen Tlabbar, there is House Baenre and House Do’Urden, that is all. And yet, is this really a surprise to you? Matron Vadalma has been Lolth’s most devout matron for as long as either of us can remember. Did you really think she and hers would simply throw it all aside because of your circus trick on that field up above?”
“A trick that gave me the Blaspheme, sister,” Quenthel growled back.
“And cost you the city, sister. It would appear that House Melarn stands with the Houses Barrison Del’Armgo, Mizzrym, and Vandree.”
“The rogues of the Stenchstreets will fight to escape the corruption of Lolth,” Quenthel countered.
“Will they? They are assailed by demon hordes even now, being reminded that Lolth is watching.”
“Oh, the Spider Queen is indeed,” said Yiccardaria from the wall behind Sos’Umptu, her voice full of eagerness.
“Consider your place well, Matron Zeerith,” Sos’Umptu went on. “Once you led the proud Xorlarrins, now you are reduced to holding the name of the discredited and discarded Do’Urdens. The blasphemy on that field above is unforgiveable for the two priestesses who initiated it. But what of Zeerith?”
“Come, First Priestess of the Fane,” Eskavidne said to Sos’Umptu. “Let us go and retrieve Matron Abomination so we can find her a proper role in Lady Lolth’s grand plan.”
Sos’Umptu rose slowly, her gaze locked with Zeerith’s.
“There must be another way,” Zeerith implored Quenthel, and Yvonnel, who moved up to join them when Sos’Umptu had gone. Saribel and Ravel rushed to their mother’s side and helped her back up onto her floating disc, which started away immediately. “I cannot believe Matron Mez’Barris would do such a thing to Matron Byrtyn Fey,” her voice trailed behind her.
“It wasn’t Mez’Barris,” Quenthel replied to the departing Do’Urdens, but as much to herself as anyone.
“This has the stench of Zhindia Melarn all over it.”
From LOLTH’S WARRIOR by R.A. Salvatore, published by Harper Voyager. Copyright © 2023 by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollinsPublishers. Lolth’s Warrior.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed or on Mastodon @chrislreed.
Author: Chris Reed. [Source Link (*), IGN All]
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