Aliisza's sending had hit Kaanyr Vhok like a lightning bolt. The words still bounced around his head.

Lolth welcomes home the dead. She lives.

Then nothing more. Kaanyr had expected Aliisza to return to him, but she had not, nor had she communicated with him since. He found her behavior surprising.

For a moment he had convinced himself that the alu-fiend was lying about Lolth's return, but he knew he was deceiving himself. He had heard no falsehood in her mental voice, and he knew her well enough that he would have been aware had she been telling a lie. She could have been mistaken, so he would confirm her missive, but in his core he knew it to be true. Soon, he and his men would be facing not only Menzoberranzan's soldiers and wizards, but also its priestesses of

Lolth. Lots of them.

He had warned Nimor already of Lolth's return, though the drow had not so much as acknowledged the sending.

The ungrateful ass, Kaanyr thought.

According to Kaanyr's spies, Nimor had fled the battle with the Archmage of

Menzoberranzan, leaving the lichdrow Dyrr to face the Baenre wizard alone. Details were few,

but it appeared that the Baenre wizard had at last prevailed. Apparently, the city's bazaar had been leveled and many Menzoberranyr destroyed or petrified.

At least the lichdrow had done something worthwhile, Kaanyr thought.

Kaanyr evaluated his situation. First, the lichdrow was destroyed and House Agrach Dyrr was closed up and under siege. Second, Nimor Imphraezl had fled. Third, and most importantly, the

Spider Queen lived and her priestesses could again cast spells.

The evaluation allowed only one conclusion, and the conclusion settled over him like a shroud.

He had lost the battle for Menzoberranzan.

The realization sat heavily on him. He'd had to turn it around again and again in his mind before he came to accept it.

Sitting on a luxuriously upholstered divan in the magical tent that served as his headquarters,

he held a goblet of brandy to his lips and drank. He barely tasted it, though he ordinarily savored its sweetness. He sighed, set the goblet on a nearby table, and sagged back into the cushions of the divan.

He had been so tantalizingly close to victory. So close!

His Scourged Legion had fought well and hard in the tunnels along Menzoberranzan's southeastern border, and in the Donigarten, amidst the dung-fed forests of fungi. He had lost five score of his tanarukks but killed half again that many drow, along with several score of their fighting spiders and a drider or two. For a time, it had appeared that his tanarukks would force their way through the drow lines, penetrate all the way to the great mansions perched on

Qu'ellarz'orl, and lay siege to House Baenre itself.

But then he had received Aliisza's sending.

He could not win the battle; he knew that. All that was left was to ensure that he did not lose his hide, and that would require quick action. He had no doubt that the drow and their priestesses were planning counterattacks even then.

Fortunately, Kaanyr Vhok had a plan. He would use Horgar and the duergar to cover the retreat of his Scoured Legion. The stinking, incompetent little waddlers had done nothing in the battle for the city other than hide behind siege walls and lob their stonefire bombs at Tier Breche.

If the duergar forces actually had gained and held even a single defended tunnel, Kaanyr would be shocked.

At least now they will serve a purpose, thought the cambion. They will die so that I will live.

He took up his goblet and offered a mock toast.

My gratitude, Horgar, you little vermin, he thought. May you find an ugly death, since you were so ugly in life.

He drained the glass and smiled. Only then did his mind turn again to Aliisza.

Did her silence mean that she was leaving him?

He snorted derisively and shrugged. He did not care if the alu-fiend left him-their relationship had been one of convenience-but he would miss her physical gifts. He did wonder at her motives,

though. Could she be in love with this drow mage she had spoken of? He dismissed the possibility and settled on a more likely solution: her fascination with the Master of Sorcere had grown into infatuation. She often fancied weak things, the same way a human woman might a pet.

She would be back eventually, he figured. She had left him before, even for decades at a time.

But always she came back to him. Randomness was in her nature; structure in his. She was drawn to him, though, so she would not be away long. She simply wanted a new plaything for a time. Vhok did not begrudge her that.

He smiled and wished the Master of Sorcere well. Aliisza could be exhausting.

Of course, the mage must have had something of substance to him, since it appeared that he and his ragtag bunch had managed to wake up Lolth. Kaanyr had thought their quest a fool's errand until it had actually worked.

He sighed, stood, strapped on his rune-inscribed blade, and called out of the tent, "Rorgak! Attend me."

In moments, his tusked, towering, red-scaled lieutenant parted the curtains and entered the tent. Blood still streaked Rorgak's plate armor. He wore a collection of drow thumbs on a thin chain of hooks around his thick neck. Kaanyr counted six.

"Lord?" Rorgak asked.

Kaanyr gestured Rorgak close and said in Orcish, "Lolth has returned. Soon the spells of her priestesses will strengthen the city's defenses."

Rorgak's black eyes went wide. Despite his brutish looks, he was reasonably intelligent. He understood the implication of the words. He asked, "Lord, then what do we-"

Kaanyr silenced him with an upraised hand and a soft hiss. "We are removing our headquarters back to Hellgate Keep," he said. He could not quite bring himself to call the withdrawal a retreat. "Inform the officers. Make it appear to the drow as though it is a tactical withdrawal to consolidate forces for a counterattack."

Rorgak nodded and asked, "And the duergar?" His tone suggested that he already surmised the answer.

Kaanyr validated his guess by answering, "Kill the hundred or so intermixed with our forces,

but be certain to allow no word of it to travel back to Horgar and the main body of his forces. Let them continue with their attack on Tier Breche."

"Horgar and the dwarflings will be slaughtered when the priestesses of Arach-Tinilith join their spells to the forces defending the Academy," Rorgak said.

Kaanyr nodded, smiled, and said, "But that final battle will occupy the drow long enough for the legion to move far from Menzoberranzan. Go. Time is short."

Rorgak thumped the breastplate of his plate armor, spun on his heel, and hurried from the tent.

For an instant, Kaanyr wished that Aliisza stood near him. He could have used some comforting.

It took Pharaun a moment to realize what was ensnared in the web.

One of the souls, a drow soul.

Presumably, the other wriggling forms were more trapped drow souls. They must have ventured too low, or the web's creator might have been able to snatch them from the sky. And perhaps the same creature could snatch Pharaun himself from the sky just as easily.

Pharaun didn't like the mental image that last idea evoked.

He cleared his head and scanned the outcropping for the spider or spiderlike creature that had spun the web but saw nothing other than the doomed spirits.

Still, something had affected his mind. .

The trapped soul near him, perhaps sensing his presence, struggled against the web and freed more of its face. It was a drow male. Opening his mouth in a soundless wail, the soul pinioned

Pharaun with his terrified eyes. He wriggled more and set the entire web atop the tor to vibrating.

As though agitated by the movement, the other cocooned souls too wriggled more. All to no avail. The webs held them fast.