Editing The Flight of House Riylnrett

{{Story}}
== The Flight of House Riylnrett ==

This fanfic is the story of [[Sandwich Stoutaxe]]'s real family - of who they were and how she came to be a daughter of the Stoutaxe clan.  It is currently unfinished.


----

Weeks had passed since house Riylnrett had fled the citadel at Oryltlar. The Second House of Oryltlar had been a victim of it's own success, rising from the position of fifth house, the lowest in Oryltlar to second within the lifetime of one Matron Mother. Matron Micarvrae exemplified all the twisted virtues encouraged in all drow women, ruthlessness, cunning, cruelty, mercilessness, ambition. She had guided her house to within sight of seizing power and becoming the first house of Oryltlar. However, it is impossible to gain such power without making many enemies and house Riylnrett had made many enemies indeed. Learning that the entire city was against them, the house fled their citadel into the deep caverns. 

While some of her daughters encouraged Micarvrae to seek another city where House Rilynrett could find sanctuary, she would have none of it. Matron Micarvrae was bound and determined that she would found her own city and would rule it herself. She more than once bragged that her new city would "eclipse Menozberranzan itself."

It was whispered in many circles that the Matron was mad, but none dare challenge her. There had been only one assassination attempt on this trip, and it had ended in failure. When the Matron discovered the culprit was her youngest daughter, she had the lass strung up between two stone pillars and disemboweled while the traveler's watched. From then on, no one dared challenge the Matron. They simply followed her from one cavern to the next as she sought the ideal place to build her new city.

While none dared say it in the presence of the Matron, things were looking bad. The caravan was exhausted, many of the lesser houses were near the breaking point, supplies were all but gone and now the Matron's youngest (formerly middle) daughter was giving birth.

Screams echoed through the vast cavern where the caravan had made camp as Erela pushed again. The young drow woman's features contorted in pain. The house physician kneeled between her open legs. Her sisters, both clerics were there as well, but rather than seeing to their younger sister's needs they stood by the Matron watching impassively. Such was the way of the dark elves.

"Just a few more pushes, my lady. It's almost there." Lady Erela answered with a squeal of pain as she pushed with all her might, with a wet squelching sound the child came free. Lady Erela collapsed back into the mat where she lay, panting. "Llolth smiles upon you, my lady. It's a girl." The physician held up the infant so her mother could examine her. "She's.....beautiful." Lady Erela said weakly. The physician cleaned off the infant before allowing the clerics the honor of tying off and cutting the umbilical chord. He wrapped the infant in fine cloth before handing her off to her mother. Elera beamed at her first born child. It was a girl, clearly the Spider Queen favored her, all her sister's firstborn had been boys. She cooed at the newborn. "She'll make a fine Priestess some day. Won't she, mother?"

"Perhaps." The Matron said as she gestured to her eldest daughter. "Bring the child here." Erela looked reluctant, she knew her sisters would be jealous and would do anything to take this honor away from her. Still, Erela dared not disobey her mother. Micarvrae, accepted the infant and held her up, examining her like a slaughterman might size up a prize winning cow. "She is not deformed or puny...." the Matron said before casting a meaningful glance at Erela. "But supplies are so terribly short. I'm not sure we will be able to keep this one." Erela glanced at her sisters and got only cruel sneers in return. She knew she had to act fast.

"Armsman!" Erela bellowed. The tent flap was pulled back and a tall, handsome drow male entered the tent bowing immediately. "You summoned me, Lady Erela." He said, expectantly. "Go to one of the other tents, find a male child and kill it."

"Yes, Lady Erela." The Armsman replied, without a moment's hesitation he bowed again before leaving the tent. Erela glanced back at her mother, who beamed her approval. Erela was ambitious and ruthless she would go far. A mother's anguished cry in the distance indicated that the Armsman had found his target.

The house broke camp the next cycle.  Still in her weakened condition, Erela was to be carried on a dias by servants.  Her sisters had gone from tent to tent searching for able bodied males from the lesser houses.  Erela’s sisters soon returned with eight males.  They were dirty, unkempt and clearly half starved.  Erela regarded them with a disapproving stare that they dared not meet.

“Surely this is a sick jest.”  She spat.  Her sister sneered back.  “I am sorry, sister, they were the best we could find.  Erela glanced down at the newborn infant suckling at her breast, then glared at the tallest male.  “You!”  She barked, pointing at him.   “If you so much as stumble even once, I will kill the lot of you.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lady.”  Answered another.  Without missing a beat, Erela’s elder sister drew her hand crossbow and shot him in the chest. The male slumped to the ground dead. “She wasn’t talking to you, churl.”  Noting Erela’s angry expression, she flashed a mocking smile.  “I am sorry, sister. I will find another male.”

“ENOUGH!”  The Matron’s voice was as a thunderclap in the cavern.  “We have tarried long enough.  For killing Erela’s slave and delaying us further, you will take his place.”  

Now it was Erela’s turn to sneer.


----

They were miles away, but Tluthral could already hear them.  The stone carried sound better than air and the blind drow boy had spent years perfecting the art of tracking. Through he was blind as a cave crawler, Tluthral could press his ear to the cavern wall and pick up the faintest foot-falls from hundreds of feet away.  It was his saving grace, a skill that had shielded him from the horrible fate that awaited most drow in the commons. 

“They’re coming.”  He said.  The drow mercenaries stopped their merriment and immediately began preparing the ambush.  Tluthral continued “let’s see. Stumbling, groaning, oh yes that’s definitely Micarvrae’s house.”  It seemed the mad, old bitch had left them worse off than he had imagined. “Good work, Tluthral.”  The commander, Tebnet patted the blind boy on the back.  This was a major contract for a mercenary house like Tebnet’s.  It wasn’t every day that they got to kill a Matron Mother and her entire house.  Killing was the only time a drow male got to take the females down a notch.  Tenbnet had to admit, watching some uppity priestess breath her last was pretty damn satisfying .

“To your positions.”  He bellowed.  The plan was simple, Micarvae’s caravan was following an old, disused caravan path through one of the larger caverns.  It looked like this place had been inhabited by the Dhuregar at one point, but the old city was abandoned, the narrow streets and crumbling buildings did, however make the perfect spot for an ambush.  The mercenaries quickly erased all traces of their encampment and made ready.

When Micarvae’s house arrived, they wouldn’t even have time to scream.


----


The caravan came to a halt as the thunderous crash echoed through the streets of the deserted city.  Erela had disliked this choice of routes.  It was not defensible and forced the already exhausted caravan to pick their way through the rubble strewn streets at an even slower pace.

However, the Matron commanded it and none dared challenge her.  Not after what she had done to Elvanquarra.  Quarra was barely an adult when she got too ambitious.  Sometimes in trance, Elara swore she could still hear her little sister’s screams.

“What’s going on?  Why are we stopping?”  Elara demanded angrily from her reclined position on the dias.  Sensing her mother’s anger, the infant began to cry.

The Armsman stepped forward, his obsidian features stained with dirt.  “A thousand apologies, my lady, and old column has fallen and blocked the caravan’s path.  We should have it cleared within the hour.” The Armsman opened his mouth to speak again but before the words could leave his mouth, there was a sound like a rushing wind and he fell forward knocking the dias over and sending lady Elara spinning into the street.  She snarled angrily she turned and pointed, ready to command his death for such an insult when she saw the Armsman lying motionless a single crossbow bolt stuck through his heart.

Before the alarm could even be raised, the ambush was on and the wholesale slaughter began.


This was no battle, the Drow do not fight battles if they can avoid it.  This was a massacre.   The mercenaries fell on their weakened, half-staved adversaries like a wolf on and orphaned fawn.  They killed the easy targets first.  Women, children, the old, the sick, the unarmed, it was best to get such things out of the way before turning their attention to the house guard.  The house guard did not fair much better.  They were exhausted and half-starved.  The priestesses kept the best provisions for themselves, this was the way of things, the males and the commoners had to try and subsist on whatever was left.

Lady Elara forced herself to her feet.  She was still weak from the birthing process, but she refused to falter.  At this moment, the wailing child in her arms was the most important thing in the entire world.  Not out of genuine parental love, but out of a sheer biological imperative that is hard-wired into all living things.  To ensure that the next generation is passed on.

Elara staggered through the confusion.  Already, the air was thick with the scent of blood and the cries of the wounded and the dying.  With her free hand, she drew her ceremonial dagger, the only weapon she had kept.  Nearby, a commoner woman was hurriedly loading whatever meager provisions she could into a crude basket.  Her brat, a boy child by the look of him, was clinging to her leg.  Elara approached them from behind and spun the woman around.  “What…ARGH!”  The commoner’s cry was cut short when Elara plunged the eight bladed dagger into her stomach.  A dark red stain quickly began to spread through the pure white fabric of her dress.  Without hesitating, Elara wrenched the blades free and snatched the basket up off the cavern floor.  Elara left without looking back, behind her, the commoner woman was curled into a fetal position her life’s blood pouring out onto the dusty street.  Her child shook his mother, urging her to get up.  Tears streamed down his ebony features.


Elara soon realized that trying to make her way towards her mother was suicide.  The house guard had formed a tight, but confused know around the Matron and her entourage.  They were in no condition to fight, however and were quickly cut down.  Elara hurriedly removed the contents of the basket, a few pieces of stale lichen bread, and placed her infant inside.  She hid underneath an upturned wagon and waited.  When the sounds of the slaughter began to subside, Elara peered from her hiding spot.   The ground was thick with corpses, the ancient gutters ran with the blood of the slain.  She could see several mercenaries making their way through the dead, delivering the coup de grace to any who still showed some signs of movement.   From her vantage point, Elara scanned the far side of the street. She could see a large open alleyway.  Dark and inviting, it beckoned with the desperate promise of escape just a few dozen feet away.  Alas that it might as well be on the other side of the ocean.

From inside the basket, Elara detected a faint, wailing cry muffled by the rags that she had wrapped around her child.  “Shh-shh-shh.  Quiet, Nedxyra, they will hear us.”  She muttered rocking the basket gently back and forth.  After what seemed like an eternity, Nedxyra began to calm down, and Elara prayed frantically to every god the Drow honored that her infant daughter’s cry had been inaudible over the moaning of the dying.

“I heard it from over here.” The voice was that of a male in his late teens, but it had an air of calm certainty to it.   From her vantage point beneath the carriage, she could see three pairs of legs making their way over towards her hiding spot.  “An infant’s cry, are you certain Tluthral?”   Elara’s blood turned to ice.  She gripped the handle of her dagger so tightly that the ebony flesh of her knuckles seemed to turn white.  


One pair of legs turned and stopped directly in front of her.  “I am certain.”  Elara’s breath caught in her throat.  This was it, they would be found and both she and her child would die.  “Help me lift this cart.”  The boy’s voice said and a slender, ebony hand slid under the wooden rim, ready to overturn the cart and end Elara’s life.  Elara drew in a sharp breath  and lifted the dagger.  These bastard weren’t going to take her child’s life without a fight.

“We’ve got a live one!”   Elara was shaken from her reverie by the sudden commotion.  From her hiding spot, Elara could see the men surrounding her turn and run towards something.  She chanced a peek out from under the cart and saw her sister surrounded by several assailants. She was putting up one hell of a fight, as Elara watched her sister landed a series of blows on the nearest mercenary with her viper whip.  The male slumped to the ground, already choking from the poison, but her triumph was short lived.  Another mercenary shot her in the back with his crossbow.  With a bellow of anger, the priestess turned to attack him, but having a crossbow bolt sticking out of one’s back tends to reduce combat effectiveness. 

There was no time for gloating.  Elara realized something as she watched her sister fighting a losing battle.  There were no soldiers between her and the darkened alley.  This was her chance and she took it.

In a flash, Elara leapt from her hiding spot as the blind boy deftly ducked beneath a crack of the viper-whip and landed a devastating slash across the wounded preistess’ flank.  She sank to the flagstones with a yowl like a wounded beast. 

The feeling of freedom was exhilarating.  A thousand possibilties ran through Elara’s mind as she ran.  She would run with Nedxyra and they would keep running.  They would flee to a place where no-one knew their name and start over.  With her mother’s ruthlessness and intellect, Nedxyra would become Matron of her own house.  Together they would conquer all and create a new house that was pleasing in the Spider Queen’s sight.

Elara’s little flight of fancy was cut short.  As she rounded the corner of an ancient, crumbling house she was stopped cold by the bite of a scimitar’s blade.  


----


The surviving female had been so close, Kelril mused as he witnessed her daring escape from his vantage point in the alley.  The Wolves were not fools; they had placed pickets in all escape routes to make sure than anyone who did make it into the buildings would not get very far.  It was almost tragic how close she really got.  He waited while she ran down the alley, the white spider silk of her dress flowing out behind her.  Then as she rounded his corner, he stuck out his sword and let her impale herself on his blade.  The oldest trick in the book.  

From her clothing, she was clearly a noble and it was a testament to the poor quality of Micarvre’s house that one of her daughters would fall for such a simple trick.  Now she was lying in some dusty alleyway in an abandoned grey dwarf city, bleeding to death.  Oh well, such was the price of weakness.  The noble didn’t seem to realize she was dead, she staggered  and struggled to stay upright, holding a priestesses ceremonial dagger out in front of her.  Blood poured from the rent in her abdomen, but she refused to put down the basket in her left hand.

“G-get out of….mmm-my way.”  She stuttered as she stumbled towards him.  She made a clumsy attempt at an attack with the dagger that Kelril easily sidestepped and delivered a devastating slash from her shoulder to hip that knocked her flat. Even on her back, her life’s blood pouring out, she refused to let go of the basket.  Kelril simply shrugged and snatched the silver, spider-shaped Diadem off her forehead.  He considered searching the basket, but decided against it.  It was probably just meager provisions for an escape that would never happen.  He strolled  down the alley towards his brethren.  Whistling a tune his father had learned on the surface a long time ago.  

Behind him, Lady Elara struggled to stand up.  “No pain…. Must…get up.”  She coughed and brought up a trail of blood.  Her ebony hand was locked around the basket handle.  To her shame, she felt the tears start to flow as the hopelessness of her situation began to set in. “I’m sorry, Nedxyra.”  She sputtered, then breathed her last.

----


“What does the chieftain want with that dried up pile o’ bones anyway?” Grilgan Stoutaxe cursed his luck for being on a long patrol with Dhitn.   Dhitn was a whiner by nature and the other dwarves often joked that he must have some elf in him for how soft he was.  Yet, for some unknown reason the clan Wardens saw fit to send him on a mission to scout the long abandoned city in the deep stone. That place had once been a part of the Stoutaxe clan’s holdings, that was before it had been over-run but the Dhuregar and the chieftain at the time had ordered the tunnels sealed.  It was easy to see why the chieftain wanted the place opened up.  It had once been home to some of the richest gem mines on the continent.

“Would ya stop yer bellyachin before you tell every damn deep orc and cave crawler in the Underdark where we are?”  Grilgan snapped at Dhitin. Before turning back to the winding tunnel before him.   Dhitin remained silent for a full minute before he spoke again, this was a new record.  “What’s up his arse?”  Dhitin said to no-one in particular.  “Well,” the crossbowman Oiri answered, whispering as not to attract Grilgan’s ire.  “You know his sister, Vera?  They just found out she’s barren.  Father Mogrim allowed her husband to re-marry because of it.”

Dhitin chuffed and shook his head.  “Robbed of her gift from Mother Truesilver, tis a sad thing.”

“Tis a sad thing indeed, watch the damned road.”  Oiri replied.

The Dwarves had been travelling for a day and a half through the old tunnels.  They soon left the comfortable depths of their mountain home and entered the roots of the mountain, honeycombed with tunnels to the Underdark.  After another hour’s travel they arrived at the ruined gates of the once-fine city of Hermorarr.  Gods know what the Dhuregar had called it,