his chest, and he fought for each breath, bloody spittle streaking his gray lips. The wizard scowled, then looked up at Quenthel.
"Do something," he said. "We need him."
Quenthel folded her arms with a cold frown and said, "Unfortunately, Lolth does not choose to grant me spells of healing at the moment, and I have already expended almost all of the healing magic I brought on our journey. There is little I can do for him."
Halisstra narrowed her eyes, thinking. Again, she didn't like the thought of what she was about to do, but there was a benefit to reveal-ing her secret. If she proved herself useful, the Menzoberranyr would be hesitant to discard her.
Besides, she thought, they likely already know.
"Move aside," she said quietly. "I can help him."
Quenthel and Pharaun looked up suspiciously.
"How?" Quenthel demanded. "Do you mean to say that Lolth has not withdrawn her favor from you?"
"No," Halisstra replied. She knelt by Ryld and examined him. She would have to move quickly. If he died, he would be beyond her assis-tance. "Lolth has denied me spells, just as she has Quenthel, and presum-ably every other priestess of our race. I have some ability to heal by a different means, though."
With that, she began to sing. Her song was a strange keening threnody, something dark and eerie that tugged at the drow admiration for beauty, ambition, and black deeds skillfully done. Halisstra molded the shape of her voice and the ancient words of the song, summoning the magic ofher lament as she set her hand on the quarrel and drew it from the wound.
Ryld started, his eyes wide and staring, and blood spurted over Halis-stra's hands - but the wound closed into a puckered scar, and the weapons master coughed himself awake.
"What happened?" he groaned.
"What happened, indeed?" Quenthel replied. She eyed Halisstra sus-piciously. "Was that what I thought it was?"
Halisstra nodded and stood, wiping blood from her hands.
"It is a tradition in my House that those females who are suited for it may study the arts of the bae'qeshel, the dark minstrels. As you can see, there is powerin song, something that few of our kind care to study. I have been trained in the minstrel's lore."
Ryld sat up, looking down at his breastplate and the bloody quarrel lying in the dust. He looked up at Halisstra.
"You healed me?" he asked.
Halisstra offered her hand and pulled him to his feet.
"As your friend Pharaun observed, we need you too much to allow you to inconvenience us with your death."
Ryld met her eyes, obviously considering some reply. Gratitude was not an emotion many drow bothered to act upon. The weapons master perhaps wondered what Halisstra might choose to do with his. She spared him any more serious reflections by turning her attention to Pharaun, and handing the iron wand back to him.
"Here," she said. "You dropped this."
Pharaun inclined his head and replied, "I admit I wassurprised to see you wield it, but I heard you sing in Ched Nasad. Shame on me for not addingtwo and two."
"Let me see your arm," Halisstra said.
She sang the song of healing again, and repaired Pharaun's injury.
She would have examined the others and aided them if she could, but Quenthel interrupted her.
"No one else is dying," the high priestess said. "We must move now or our enemies will surely descend on us again. Valas, you lead the way. Head toward the outer walls so that we may make for the open desert if we decide to flee."
"Very well, Mistress Baenre," the scout acquiesced. "It will be as you say."
Chapter THREE
Kaanyr Vhok, the half-demon prince known as the Sceptered One, stood on a high balcony over the old dwarven foundry and watched his armor-ers at work. The great smelter had once been the heart of the fallen realm of Ammarindar. The cavern was immense, and its roof rested upon dozens of towering pillars carved into the shapes of dragons, glowing red with angry firelight and the lurid radiance of molten metal. The clanging of hammers and roar of kilns at work filled the air. Dozens of hulking tanarukks, bestial fiends bred from orcs and demons, toiled on the foundry floor. They might have lacked the skill and enchantments of the dwarves who once worked there, but Kaanyr Vhok's soldiers possessed a cunning instinct for the making of deadly weapons infused with dark lore.
Kaanyr himself fit the infernal scene well. Tall and powerful, he had the stature of a strong-thewed human warrior and the strength of a