Malice cast her daughter a threatening glare but didn’t have time to continue the argument. The normal method of attack by a drow house would involve the rush of soldiers combined with a mental barrage by the house’s highest-ranking clerics. Malice, though, felt no mental attack, which told her beyond any doubt that it was indeed House Hun’ett that had come to her gates. The clerics of Hun’ett, out of the Spider Queen’s favor, apparently could not use their Lloth-given powers to launch the mental assault. If they had, Malice and her daughters, also out of the Spider Queen’s favor, could not have hoped to counter.

“Why would they dare to attack?” Malice wondered aloud.

Briza understood her mother’s reasoning. “They are bold indeed,” she said, “to hope that their soldiers alone can eliminate every member of our house.” Everyone in the room, every drow in Menzoberranzan, understood the brutal, absolute punishments exacted upon any house that failed to eradicate another house. Such attacks were not frowned upon, but getting caught at the deed most certainly was.

Rizzen, the present patron of House Do’Urden, came into the anteroom then, his face grim. “We are outnumbered and outpositioned,” he said. “Our defeat will be swift, I fear.”

Malice would not accept the news. She struck Rizzen with a blow that knocked the patron halfway across the floor, then she spun on Jarlaxle. “You must summon your band!”

Malice cried at the mercenary. “Quickly!”

“Matron,” Jarlaxle stuttered, obviously at a loss. “Bregan D’aerthe is a secretive group. We do not engage in open warfare. To do so could invoke the wrath of the ruling council.”

“I will pay you whatever you desire,” the desperate matron mother promised.

“But the cost―”

“Whatever you desire!” Malice snarled again.

“Such action―” Jarlaxle began.

Again, Malice did not let him finish his argument. “Save my house, mercenary,” she growled. “Your profits will be great, but, I warn you, the cost of your failure will be far greater!”