Extinction

Chapter Twenty-five

A chorus of nearly fifty voices filled the air as Eilistraee’s priestesses, seated in a circle around a waist-high, rust-red boulder, gave worship to their goddess through evensong, Halisstra sat among them on one side of the crater that had been formed when a boulder fell from the heavens, centuries gone by. The crater was bowl-shaped and dozens of paces wide, its sides smoothed by a dusting of snow.

The evensong was one of thanksgiving for the forest that sustained them; for the sun that even then was setting behind the trees, filling the sky with rosy pink light; for the moon that would illuminate the darkness, reminding the drow that even at night the goddess still watched her children; and for the ground beneath their feet, which gave up its iron needed to forge the Dark Ladies’ swords.

“Up from the earth, and into the flame,” Halisstra sang, together with the other priestesses, “I temper my heart, in Eilistraee’s name.”

Though the evensong was a joyful one, it had an undercurrent of rage that night. Upon hearing of the death of a member of their faith at the hands of a yochlol, priestesses from all over the forest had gathered to pay tribute to the woman who had fallen. More priestesses were still emerging from the forest to join in the circle. Clad in chain mail and bearing shields they sank down beside the others, sat cross-legged with drawn swords placed across their knees, and joined in the song.

When it was done, Uluyara rose and walked down the slope to the boulder. Placing her left hand on it, she raised the sword she held in her right hand to the heavens, invoking the goddess.

“Eilistraee, hear me,” she cried. “Breena’s death shall be avenged. We shall hunt down the servants of the Spider Queen and put them to the sword! Dark Maiden, give us strength.”

As one, the seated priestesses raised their own swords and shouted, “By song and sword!”

Belatedly, Halisstra joined them, thrusting her own sword at the heavens. She glanced, nervously, at the priestesses on either side of her, worried that they might think her tardiness showed a lack of faith—or that they might cast a critical eye on the blade’s missing tip. But they were caught up in the moment, sighting along their own blades at the sky above.

“Whether they try to run on the surface or hide in Lolth’s dark depths, we shall hunt them down,” Uluyara continued, the fire in her red eyes matching that of the setting sun. “We will have our vengeance upon them and will dance in delight as they fall. Lady of the Dance, give us strength!”

Halisstra was ready.

“By song and sword!” she shouted, thrusting her songsword into the air at the same time the others did.

“We will tear through their web of lies and deceit and destroy all who prevent the dark children from claiming their rightful place in the light,” Uluyara continued. “Lady Silverhair, give us strength!”

“By song and sword!” the priestesses replied.

Then, all at once, they stood, and Halisstra scrambled to join them.

“Lolth will be defeated!” Uluyara cried. The blade of her sword was glowing with a cold, white light. “Eilistraee, give us strength!”

“By song and sword!” the priestesses shouted, raising their swords a fourth and final time. Then, reversing their weapons, they drove them point-first into the ground and shouted, “Lolth must die!”

Halisstra had shouted the first response together with the other priestesses but was taken by surprise when they thrust their swords down, instead of up. A heartbeat behind the others, she thrust Seyll’s songsword into the ground, forcing its blunted tip into the earth.

“Lolth must die!” she shouted—suddenly realizing that her voice was all alone in the abrupt silence.

She glanced up and found that all of them were staring at her—especially Uluyara. The high priestess had driven the point of her own sword not into the earth but into the boulder beside her. For a moment, the boulder reminded Halisstra of a slain spider, the red streaks of rust emulating blood. As Uluyara tossed back her hair, the silver radiance cast by the blade of her sword caught it, making it sparkle like moonlight. She beckoned Halisstra forward.

Deciding after a moment’s hesitation to leave the songsword in the ground where she’d thrust it, Halisstra approached the high priestess. Uluyara reached our for her hand, and when Halisstra gave it to her, she placed it on the hilt of the sword in the stone.

“This one holds a special place in Eilistraee’s heart, though she has but recently renounced the Queen of Spiders,” Uluyara told the others. “May the Lady of the Dance bless her and guide her sword well. Eilistraee give her strength.”

Halisstra, her palm damp with nervous sweat, spoke the ritual response: “By song and sword.”

As she said it, the sword she was holding quivered slightly. Then, seemingly of its own accord, it slid deeper into the stone. Halisstra, still holding its hilt, followed it down, pushing it into the boulder until its hilt struck the stone with a dull clank.

“By song and sword!” the other priestesses cried.

Then, as one, they broke into song, whirling their swords above their heads. A moment later, they were dancing in a circle around the stone.

Halisstra, still gripping the sword tightly, felt Uluyara place a hand on hers.

“Come,” the high priestess said. “Join the dance. When it is done, there is something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Halisstra nodded and allowed herself to be led into the swirl of dancers. On the way she plucked the songsword from the ground and waved it over her head. As she moved gracefully among the other priestesses, sword flashing, she could feel Eilistraee looking down from the heavens. Not just at the dance, but at her, personally. Filled with wonder, Halisstra realized the goddess had something in mind for her, something momentous. Would she be able to rise to the challenge? She who, like the yochlol, had so treacherously betrayed and slain one of Eilistraee’s priestesses?

As she danced, Halisstra could sense another set of eyes, watching her. Not those of a goddess but of a mortal. She searched the trees that fringed the crater, looking for a familiar patch of too-deep shadow, for the tiny flash of white that would mark the eyes that were observing her. At last she found it, high among the branches, and knew that it was the spot where Ryld was levitating.

Seeing him—or rather, seeing the subtle signs that he was there—Halisstra felt a chill course through her blood. Males were forbidden from observing the evensong ritual. Spying on one so emotionally charged was to court disaster. Any moment, one of the priestesses might spot the weapons master and punish his transgression by striking him blind, deaf, and dumb. For all Halisstra knew, Eilistraee herself might punish him, smiting him with the cold fire that had killed the phase spider.

Those grim thoughts filled Halisstra’s mind as she followed the dancing women in their circle, for a few moments losing track of Ryld as her back was turned to him. Then, as she came around to the other side of the circle once more, she snuck a glance at the spot where he was—carefully, so as not to attract attention to him.

Ryld was gone.

Lost in thought as he approached the tiny cabin in which he and Halisstra had been quartered, Ryld didn’t react, at first, to the faint, musky odor that came to his nostrils as the wind shifted. Instead his thoughts were on the dance he’d been spying on and Halisstra’s conversion, heart and soul, to a goddess who would condemn her to forever live in the World Above. Only at the last instant—as a patch of shadow in the bushes to his right suddenly shifted—did he jerk back. By the time he drew Splitter from the sheath on his back, a black wolf had leaped onto the trail in front of him, blocking it. Instead of attacking, however, it cocked its head and gave Ryld a sly grin, tongue lolling from its mouth. A ripple passed through its body, causing the wolf to stagger, and Ryld heard the sound of cracking cartilage as the animal became a dirt-smudged boy.

“If the wind hadn’t shifted, I’d have had you,” Yarno said.

Ryld grinned in acknowledgement and sheathed his sword. Then, hearing female voices in the forest behind him, he frowned down at Yarno.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he told the boy. “If the priestesses find you within their sacred grove...”

The boy’s eyes narrowed, and he asked, “How many have you killed?”

It took Ryld a moment to realize what the boy was asking. The question was one he was often asked by the students at Melee-Magthere—and one he always declined to answer. “The proud spider gets caught in Its own web,” he would quote, reminding them that hidden prowess with weapons was a weapon in and of itself. But Yarno was talking about the priestesses—which reminded Ryld of his promise to the boy.

“They didn’t kill Halisstra,” he told Yarno.

The boy scratched his ear.

“You rescued her?” he asked. “Then why are you still—”

Hearing footsteps approaching on the trail behind him, Ryld tried to shoo the boy away.

“Go,” the weapons master said. “Hurry. If they find you...”

Seeing Yarno tense, Ryld whirled around, drawing Splitter a second time. Relief flooded through him as he saw it was only Halisstra—whichever of the priestesses she’d been talking with must have turned down a different trail. She halted abruptly as she saw Yarno and frowned—and Ryld groaned as he realized what was happening. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the boy shifting back into wolf form—the worst thing Yarno could have done in that moment. If he’d stayed in human form, Ryld might have passed him off as a scattering, but…

“Monster!” Halisstra gasped.

In that same moment, Yarno leaped toward her. Fortunately, Ryld was swifter. Dropping Splitter, he caught the werewolf by his haunches and slammed him to the ground.

“Stop,” Ryld grunted through gritted teeth. Yarno wriggled in his arms, teeth bared in a threatening growl as he struggled to snap at Halisstra. “That’s Mistress Melarn. The one I came to rescue.”

Halisstra, meanwhile, yanked her hunting horn from her belt and raised it to her lips. Still hanging onto the struggling Yarno, Ryld twisted his body like an eel and lashed out with his feet, tripping her.

Halisstra fell, dropping the horn. She scrambled for it.

“Don’t blow it!” Ryld exclaimed.

Halisstra glared at him as she recovered the horn and backed out of range of his feet.

“Are you mad?” she asked as she climbed to her feet. “That’s a shapeshifter.”

Once again, she raised the horn to her lips.

“He won’t hurt you,” Ryld gritted. To prove it, he released Yarno and sprang to his feet. “Go!” he ordered. “Flee!”

Without waiting to see if Yarno obeyed, Ryld whirled toward Halisstra and grabbed her arm, forcing the horn away from her lips.

Yarno stood panting a moment, glancing between Ryld and Halisstra. Then—with one final snarl at the priestess—he leaped away into the bushes.

Halisstra yanked her arm out of Ryld’s grasp and glared at him. Behind the glare was a hint of distrust.

“You knew that boy was a … an animal… thing.”

“Yarno is harmless,” Ryld said, returning Splitter to its sheath.

“He’s a monster. Eilistraee has commanded us to clear this wood of vermin like him.”

Ryld winced.

“He’s a boy,” he sighed. “Just a boy.”

Halisstra shook her head, not understanding.

“Then why do you care if he lives or dies?” she asked.

Ryld opened his mouth, trying to find the words.

“Because he...” the weapons master fumbled, confused himself. “He reminds me of myself at that age.”

“How is that possible? You’re a drow, and he’s…” Halisstra paused, uncertain what to call the boy.

“He’s a ‘werewolf’,” Ryld said, supplying her with the word. “And hunted. And frightened. Just like I was, once.”

For a heartbeat or two, Halisstra stared into his eyes, and Ryld thought she had understood. Then she lifted her horn.

“He may look like a boy, but he’s a monster,” she said firmly.

“And you’re a First Daughter,” Ryld replied, grabbing Halisstra’s hand. “Always one of the hunters—never one of the hunted. You never had to survive in the Stenchstreets.”

Halisstra paused, and Ryld realized she might not know exactly what the Stenchstreets was.

“But you’re a noble drow too,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

“I have no House,” Ryld answered. “I never have.”

He sighed, wondering what he was doing. Was he really choosing to stand against Halisstra—the woman he loved—for the sake of a boy he’d only just met. For a werewolf? What kind of drow was he?

The kind who remembered what it was like to be a small boy and frightened.

Ryld let go of Halisstra’s hand.

“Summon the hunt then, if you must,” he told her. “But know that, if you do, I’m leaving.”

Halisstra’s mouth gaped.

“You’re asking me to choose between you,” she said, “and my sacred duty to the goddess.”

“I’m asking you to choose between what is wrong and what is right.”

“Strange words, coming from the mouth of a drow.” She stared off into the moonlit forest, hefting the horn in her hand. Then, slowly, she lowered it.

Relieved, Ryld took Halisstra’s hand and bowed low over it, brushing the back of it with his lips.

“Thank you,” he said.

Halisstra yanked her hand free—and for a terrible moment Ryld thought he was going to be chastised—but instead Halisstra lifted his chin and kissed him fiercely. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.

Closing his eyes, Ryld felt her lips brush his ear—and heard a whisper so faint he was certain it hadn’t been meant for him.

“Eilistraee, forgive me. I love him.”

Then, taking him by the hand, she led him to the ancient ruin the priestesses had set aside as their shelter.

As soon as they were inside, she kissed him again. Her lips pressed into his with a fierceness uncharacteristic of her. They had kissed before, it was true, but not like that. All she had permitted him, before that night, were brief, almost chaste brushes of his lips against hers. Obedient male that he was, he had not dared ask for more. Bur that kiss... that was the kind of kiss his fantasies had been filled with. Eagerly, he returned it, barely keeping in check the hard, insistent heat that was threatening to overwhelm him.

“I want you,” Halisstra said, breaking away from the kiss just long enough to gasp out the words. “I want to take you. Here. Now.”

At these words, Ryld felt self-control slide completely from his grasp. Breathing rapidly—where had his warrior’s training fled to?—he slid Splitter from his back and tossed the greatsword aside, then rapidly began shucking his armor.

Halisstra was stripping off her own armor and clothing, then she was kissing him again, one hand pressing against the back of his head, the other snaking tight around his waist, making the process of undressing even more difficult. For one panicked moment, Ryld had a vision of himself as a fly, caught in a spider’s web. Halisstra’s arms were tight around him, pulling him closer, her mouth devouring him. Her teeth bit passionately into his neck, then his chest, then the hard muscle of his stomach, and onward.

For several long, dizzy moments Ryld flung his head back and stared sightlessly at the sagging ceiling of the ruin. Dimly he was aware of the rough floor rushing up to meet his back, of a corner of his vambrace digging with blissful pain into his shoulder.

Halisstra was on top of him. For just a moment, her hair seemed streaked with silver as she tossed it back behind her shoulders, and Ryld was reminded of the woman who had appeared to him in the belladonna-induced fever dream. Sparkles of moonlight rushed down and exploded into his mind, obliterating everything else.

Much later, Halisstra touched his shoulder and whispered, “Ryld? Are you in Reverie? I wanted to speak to you about something.”

Ryld opened his eyes. He could tell by Halisstra’s tone that he wasn’t going to like whatever it was she was about to say. She sounded formal and firm, her tone reminiscent of the way a priestesses would address a male. He braced himself, waiting for the whiplike reprimand that must soon come. She must have spotted him earlier, spying on the sacred song and dance, and she was going to chastise him for it.

“I’m going back to the Underdark,” she told him. “I’m going to find Quenthel Baenre and the others and rejoin their quest.”

Startled—but not showing it, in case it was a test—he stared deep into her eyes. Her face, like his own, was perfectly neutral. No, not completely. Something shone in her eyes—something more than reflected starlight. An echo of the passion they’d shared.

“Why?” he asked.

Halisstra visibly relaxed.

“Uluyara has asked me to go back there. Eilistraee’s priestesses need to know if Lolth truly is dead. The information is vital to their cause—and I’m the only one who can obtain it for them.”

Ryld nodded. The warrior part of his mind acknowledged the wisdom of Uluyara’s command. Halisstra would make an excellent spy. Moreover, she was merely a foot soldier in Eilistraee’s order. If Quenthel killed her, she would barely be missed. The traitor priestesses’ war against Lolth would continue with barely a ripple. Deep inside, however, he boiled with anger at Uluyara’s willingness to sacrifice Halisstra.

“I’m not asking you to come with me,” Halisstra said.

Realizing that he had let his anger show—and that Halisstra had misread it—Ryld said what was on his mind.

“One tiny slip, and Quenthel will kill you, as fast as a striking serpent.”

“That’s something I’m willing to risk.”

“I’m not,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to come with you.”

Halisstra touched his cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Later still, when Ryld had indeed slipped into Reverie, Halisstra stared at him. He sat cross-legged, his eyes closed. His hands were crossed on the scabbarded blade of Splitter, but otherwise he looked like a vanquished warrior, his armor strewn about him and his weapons cast aside.

Sighing, Halisstra leaned back against a wall of the ruin and settled into Reverie herself. Her muscles were already loose and relaxed, and so it took but a moment for the familiar wash of memories to claim her.

She drifted with them, observing with detachment as her mind skipped from one to the next, like a stone skipping on water. Memories of the first day of her service in the temple of House Melarn and her instructors caning her palms until they bled after she mispronounced the words of the daily prayer. And of the satisfaction Halisstra had felt the next day, when she was called to lead the prayer—and did so with a precision that earned a brief smile from the priestess who had beaten her. Memories, too, of the footraces she and her sister Jawil had run, as children, along the roads of Ched Nasad—and the terrifying plunge after Jawil had pushed her over the edge in retaliation when Halisstra at last won a race. Only the fact that Halisstra had “borrowed” an aunt’s House insignia—one that provided levitation magic—had saved her. Later, Jawil had said that she’d known about the insignia all along.

Those older, well-visited memories jostled against newer, fresher, somehow cleaner ones. Of the night she had been lifted from the cave and embraced by the priestesses of Eilistraee. Of the fierce joy she’d felt after defeating the phase spider. Her mind even drifted over brand-new memories that were only then being engraved upon her soul.

All of the other males Halisstra had lain with had been eager, yes, but an undercurrent of fear ran just beneath the surface of their lust. Perhaps it was because they knew they were being taken by a priestess of Lolth and feared that Halisstra, like the spiders she held sacred, might casually kill them and cast them aside. When she had first started kissing Ryld, Halisstra had seen a fleeting trace of that fear in him, but then it had disappeared. At some point during their lovemaking, he had surrendered—not to fear, or even to Halisstra, but to something larger. It was not so much that she had taken him. Instead he had given himself.

That realization acquired, Halisstra’s mind drifted on to other recent memories. One of them, harsh and insistent, rose to the fore: Seyll. Or rather, her death at Halisstra’s hands. Strangely, that image was garbled. Halisstra’s memory of Seyll, dying, blood leaking from her side into the stream in which she lay had somehow become confused with that of Seyll in the moment just before she died, when the priestess had turned and was reaching out with both hands, preparing to help Halisstra cross the stream. In that false recollection, Seyll was reaching up toward Halisstra and speaking—whereas in truth, Seyll had actually been lying so still that Halisstra had thought her already dead. And the words were wrong—they were not the words of hope that Seyll had offered after Halisstra had dragged her “body” from the stream and begun stripping it of its weapons and armor. Instead they seemed to be a message, and an urgent one.

Halisstra, still deep in Reverie, leaned forward to hear it.

You will need the sword, Seyll whispered.

Halisstra, her eyes still closed, patted the floor beside her and her fingers came to rest upon the broken-tipped songsword, nested in its scabbard.

“I have it,” she whispered aloud.

In the dream-memory, Seyll shook her head.

Not that one. Blood bubbled from her lips as she spoke. Only with the Crescent Blade can you defeat her.

“Defeat who?” Halisstra asked. “I don’t—”

It was lost on the Cold Field, Seyll interrupted, her voice gurgling as her breathing became ragged. She was close to death, almost unable to speak. The priestess was carrying it... and was slain. The... worm has it now. Halisstra puzzled over that one: was it “worm” Seyll had said—or “wyrm—” She decided it must have been wyrm. Dragons were known to covet treasure—especially magical weapons. And judging by the reverential way in which Seyll had said the words “Crescent Blade,” magical was exactly what the sword was.

Seyll was still speaking—so faintly chat Halisstra could barely hear her.

Find the Crescent Blade... and use it... to defeat her.

“Defeat who?” Halisstra cried.

From beside her came a swift, rustling noise. Her Reverie broken, Halisstra opened her eyes and saw Ryld in a ready crouch, Splitter in hand. He glanced swiftly around the darkened room, then at Halisstra, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

“It was nothing,” she answered. “I was in Reverie. It was just a dream.”

Ryld relaxed and slid the greatsword back into its sheath. His eyes lingered on her, and Halisstra remembered that she was still naked. He did not look respectfully away, as was the custom for a drow male. Instead his eyebrows raised a second time, and a fire danced in his eyes.

Halisstra shook her head.

“Later,” she told him. “I need to speak to Uluyara about something.”

Leaping to her feet, she hurriedly clothed herself, then slipped out into the night.