Sacrifice of the Widow

CHAPTER TEN

Dhairn stared down at the head Daurgothoth had tossed on the cavern floor. The grisly trophy was deeply pitted with acid, but enough of it remained to show that the intruder had been a half-breed-drow tainted with orc, by the look of the oversized incisors.

"You and I had an agreement," the great black wyrm hissed.

Only its head and neck were visible. Its body was still submerged in the pool that filled one end of the cavern. Foul-smelling water dripped from its emaciated flesh into the water below. A moment before, the pool had been clear, but it had grown murky and stank like rotting garbage. The Selvetargtlin would have to expend magic on purifying it before they could drink from it again.

The dracolich's withered tail swept back and forth through the foul water in obvious agitation. "You agreed that your priests would use only certain parts of the city, and not disturb me."

"He's not one of ours," Dhairn told the dracolich. "He must have been a treasure hunter from the World Above."

Bone scratched against rock as the dracolich flexed its claws against the rocky edge of the pool. "He was climbing up from below. He could only have come from a spot near this cavern."

Dhairn stiffened. "You're certain?"

Leathery muscles creaked as the dracolich nodded. Its skin was dark as soot, its wrinkled eyes like enormous wrinkled balls. "Yes," it hissed. Its acid-tinged breath reeked enough to make Dhairn's eyes water.

Dhairn scowled at the remains of the half-orc head in frustration. The jaw hung by a thread of muscle and the tongue was an acid-eaten stub. The lips were burned away, exposing the teeth. There wasn't enough left of the head to get any intelligible answers out of the corpse. The dracolich had acted rashly. Dhairn would have liked to have learned whether the intruder was alone.

He poked the head with the tip of his sword, rolling it over. "Did the intruder say or do anything before he died? Anything that would lead you to believe he was of a particular faith?"

"He couldn't speak. He'd polymorphed himself into a spider."

Dhairn inhaled sharply. "Lolth." He whispered the name under his breath, the word sharp as a curse.

That didn't bode well. The priestesses of Eryndlyn must have sent out another spy. When that one also failed to return, they would retaliate, but if all went well, the exiled Selvetargtlin that Dhairn led would have a permanent home soon enough, and a powerful new ally once the seals on the Pit were removed.

"Your presence here is drawing unwanted attention," the dracolich observed.

"I agree." Dhairn lifted his sword and rested the heavy blade on his shoulder. "But our forces are ready to strike. I'll send a summons to our knights. As soon as they've loosed their respective companies and assembled here, we'll mount our attack."

The dracolich's eyes glinted. "And my payment for providing the gems and the magic to attune them?"

Dhairn met the undead dracolich's eye with a level stare. "The secrets to the creation of the chitines," he promised, an irresistible lure for Daurgothoth, who had been trying for centuries to magically breed his own unique race of servitors, "and a one-sixth share of all the plunder we wrest from Undermountain over the next six hundred years."

The dracolich gave Dhairn a baleful look. "See to it that you deliver on your promises."

Dhairn bowed, the blade of his sword balanced on his shoulder. "By the strength of Selvetarm's sword arm, we shall."

Cavatina followed Halisstra through the woods. The shrine at Lake Sember was only two days behind them, but they had come to a region of Cormanthor that few trod. The elm and birch trees gradually thinned, giving way to towering black oaks with trunks as twisted as a wizard's tower. Thorn trees grew thickly between them, their long, sharp spines tearing at Cavatina's cloak. Halisstra shouldered her way through the undergrowth, the thorns snapping like glass against her tough skin.

Cavatina's breath fogged in the chill air. So late in the year, the days were short and frost sparkled on the ground from sunrise to sunset, but under the twisted oaks, the ground was bare, black and soft, as if something had melted it from below. Instead of the clean tang of impending snow, Cavatina smelled a sickly-sweet odor, like rotting flesh. As the ground began to descend sharply, she realized where Halisstra was leading her.

"The Darkwatch," she breathed.

Her mother had told stories of the place. Millennia ago, in an age before Myth Drannor was founded, the surface elves had imprisoned an ancient evil there-according to some, the god Moander. The taint lingered still. To venture into the Darkwatch was to court madness, a madness that unleashed unspeakable violence, the kind that would set sister against sister. Cavatina could feel it nibbling at her awareness even then. She hacked at a thorny branch, barely containing the urge to slash and slash until the tree was a splintered ruin.

Halisstra grinned back over her shoulder. "Scared?"

Cavatina gritted her teeth. "I'm a Darksong Knight. We don't scare that easily."

Halisstra nodded.

Cavatina wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her sleeve. She didn't trust Halisstra, despite what Qilue had said. Just before Cavatina had set out, the high priestess had told her of the prophecy she'd received three years before about the Melarn. One from that House would aid Eilistraee-but another would betray her. As was foretold, two Melarn had shown up at a time of great need: Halisstra and one of her brothers. Which one would betray the goddess was still an open question, but if it was Halisstra, Cavatina would be ready for it. Forewarned was forearmed.

She'd attributed her uneasiness at first to that warning, but she soon realized its cause must have been the Darkwatch itself. Why did the valley unnerve her so? She had slain yochlol in the deepest regions of the Lightdrinker, a chasm whose magic had prevented her from seeing farther than the tip of her outstretched sword, and she'd once battled a chaos beast on the lip of Throrgar, where shrieking winds had nearly torn her from the cliff's edge, but there was something about the Darkwatch-something that ate its way into her resolution like dry rot into wood.

A dry branch cracked behind her. Cavatina whirled, singing sword at the ready.

A dog stood watching her-a hunting hound. It was thin, ribs standing out sharply against its sides. One flank was matted with dried blood. The hound must have been injured by whatever game animal it had been tracking. It whined softly, eyes pleading.

Cavatina hesitated then decided it posed no threat. The animal was in need of healing, something Eilistraee could provide.

Halisstra had halted at the same time as Cavatina. She loomed over the Darksong Knight, her spider legs twitching. "Kill it," she hissed.

The dog let out a low groan.

"No," Cavatina said. Halisstra was obviously spooking the dog. "By Eilistraee's mercy, I'll heal-"

The dog launched itself at Cavatina. Teeth snapped at her outstretched hand with a fury that made her gasp. She yanked her hand back and backed away, singing a prayer that should have soothed the beast, but instead of calming, the dog only became more savage in its attacks. Cavatina batted it away with the flat of her sword, but still it came at her, snarling.

Behind her, Cavatina heard Halisstra laughing, high and shrill. The sound worried at something in Cavatina-something brittle as a dried twig. Her restraint snapped, and she found herself returning the dog's fury blow for blow, slashing at it again and again with her sword. Rather than singing in a sweet voice, the magical weapon keened. Blood splattered her arm and face, and soon she found herself on her knees, the sword in both hands, hacking at the fallen dog with furious swings that slammed her blade deep into the ground. Screaming with rage, she pounded the ruined body again, and again, and again…

A distant corner of her mind saw what she was doing and was sickened. The dog was a mutilated mess of splintered bone and pulverized, bloody flesh. With a wrench that she felt through her entire body, she at last halted her attack. Panting, trembling, she climbed to her feet.

Halisstra moved closer, sniffing at the bloody corpse. A low chuckle burst from her misshapen mouth. "Eilistraee's mercy…" she muttered.

"Get away from it!" Cavatina shouted. "And shut up. Shut… up!" She flailed with her sword. A harsh note pealed from it.

Halisstra scampered back.

Cavatina closed her eyes and whispered a fierce prayer: "Eilistraee, help me. Protect me from this madness." A moment later, the last vestiges of the rage ebbed. She opened her eyes again and took a deep, steadying breath-and winced, as the stench of blood filled her lungs. She turned her back on what she'd just done and spoke to Halisstra. "How much farther to the portal?"

Halisstra cocked her head, as if listening to something Cavatina couldn't hear. "Not far," She pointed at a rocky outcrop farther down in the canyon. A stunted black oak grew on top of it. "It's under that tree."

Cavatina grimly nodded. "Let's go."

They walked some distance farther, descending into the valley filled with stunted trees whose limbs seemed to claw at the sky above. As they drew closer to the outcrop, Cavatina could see that it was a jumble of square-cut masonry, the edges of the blocks worn down by the elements. Tufts of blade-stiff grass grew from crevices in the rock, and the tree atop the pile had a trunk so contorted it might have been twisted by a giant's hand. Several large roots spread down over the pile of stones below like black fingers. As Cavatina walked around the rocks, she counted eight such roots-a number she was certain was no coincidence.

Halisstra clambered up onto the pile, which stood about twice Cavatina's height. The bottom of the trunk was slightly raised, as if poised on its roots like a hunting spider about to spring. There was enough clearance between trunk and stones for even the monstrous Halisstra to have crawled through on hands and knees without touching the tree above.

"In here," she said, hunkering down beside it and gesturing at the space beneath the tree.

Cavatina climbed warily up to where Halisstra waited. If it was indeed a portal to Lolth's domain, Cavatina would have it sealed once the expedition was over. For the time being, she cast a spell that would allow others of her faith to find it. If she didn't return from her quest, someone else could deal with it later.

She heard a faint, high-pitched sound like the wind whistling through taut-strung wire. It was an eerie wail, one that made Cavatina's skin crawl. "The songspider?" she asked.

Halisstra nodded. "She must have repaired her web."

Cavatina squatted beside Halisstra and peered between the roots. She could see faint lines of violet against the darkness-brief shimmers of hair-thin light that were there one moment, gone the next.

"Silence it," she ordered.

Halisstra ducked her head-the best nod she could manage, with those thickly corded neck muscles-and reached into the hollow under the tree. Her fingers plucked at the strands of violet light. As she worked, a low, rasping sound came from her throat: a song. When it was done, Halisstra pulled her hands back. Her long, dark fingers were sticky with violet threads. The sound that had been coming from inside the hollow had stopped.

"It's done," she said. "The way is clear."

"Good," Cavatina said. "You first."

Halisstra bowed her head. "Mistress."

The look she gave Cavatina made it clear she understood that the Darksong Knight didn't fully trust her. She turned and scrabbled her way into the space beneath the tree and stood, the upper half of her body vanishing from sight. One foot stepped up, then the other-and she was gone.

Cavatina took a deep breath. She had fought demons on the doorsteps of the Abyss as they emerged from portals, but she had never traveled to the outer planes herself. She fairly tingled with the thrill of it, even though it was not truly a hunt but a recovery mission. She cast a spell that would allow her to resist the negative energies of the Demonweb Pits then followed, singing sword in hand. As her body penetrated the spot occupied on the Prime Material Plane by the tree, the smell of moldy sap filled her nostrils. An instant later, her head forced its way through strands of web, snapping them with vibrations she could feel but could not hear. A thin film of stickiness covered her hair, shoulders, and clothes-strands of the songspider web. She climbed up, as Halisstra had done-and suddenly was standing somewhere else.

The first thing she did was search for the spider whose web they had just broken, but it was nowhere to be seen. A divination spell revealed nothing.

"Where's the songspider?" she asked.

Halisstra shrugged. "Gone." She pointed at something that lay a few paces away that looked like a bundle of old sticks. "I think her children ate her."

Cavatina nodded as she recognized the dried husk as the remains of a spider. She'd expected a living foe. The passage had been easy. Too easy.

She looked around. The Demonweb Pits looked nothing like she'd expected. She'd always envisioned them as a vast cavern filled with steel-strong webs, upon which Lolth's iron fortress crept like a spider. Instead the portal had delivered them to a blasted plain of barren, purple-gray rock, under a sky that was utterly black, save for a cluster of eight blood red stars that glared down like the eyes of a watchful spider. Hanging down from the sky on strands of web-so far overhead that they appeared little more than dots-were off-white balls. Every now and then, one of them burst, releasing the ghostly gray form of a drow-a soul, freshly dead. The souls were caught by the wind, which blew steadily in one direction, toward a distant line of cliffs.

The plain was as uneven as a pox-scarred face, cratered with depressions and gouged with deep chasms. Everywhere Cavatina looked, there were webs. They drifted on the wind and snagged on her clothes and hair. Feeling something tickle her bare knee, she glanced down. The ground was covered in tiny red spiders, each no larger than a grain of rice. They swarmed up onto her boots. She whispered a prayer. Under its compulsion, the tiny spiders leaped from her boots and scurried away into cracks in the rock.

"Where is the temple?" she asked in a low voice. The cluster of red "stars" overhead made her wary of raising her voice.

Halisstra pointed at a spot, perhaps a league away, where dozens of what looked like flat-topped spires of stone protruded from the ground. "On top of one of those."

Cavatina squinted at the distant objects. "What are they?"

"The petrified legs of giant spiders."

Cavatina frowned. "That's what you built Eilistraee's temple on top of?"

Halisstra gave a lopsided grin. "It offered the best vantage point, easier to defend than anywhere else." She gestured with a misshapen hand. "Come."

Halisstra scuttled away across the wasteland toward the spires. The Darksong Knight activated the magic of her boots then followed, not wanting to let Halisstra get out of sight. Cavatina levitated and descended, levitated and descended, in a series of long, graceful strides. Each time a boot touched ground, it slipped slightly as it squished the tiny spiders that swarmed there. Certain that Lolth would react to this defilement of her domain any instant, Cavatina kept a watchful eye for whatever the Spider Queen would hurl at her, but there were no attacks. No spiders descended from the skies, no darkfire boiled up from the ground below, no madness-inducing peals of laughter echoed across the landscape. It was as if the domain itself held its breath, waiting to see what Halisstra and Cavatina would do.

It was certainly the Demonweb Pits, but one vital element was missing: Lolth's fortress. Said to be shaped like an enormous iron spider, it should have been ceaselessly patrolling her realm, yet Cavatina could neither see nor hear it. Was the Demonweb Pits so vast that Lolth's fortress was beyond the horizon? It was a question Cavatina could not answer. She knew only one thing. Wherever Lolth's fortress might be, she was glad it wasn't on top of them.

As she descended from yet another floating leap, her eyes were drawn to a web-choked crevice in the ground where something stirred. This gave her the warning she needed to spring to the side as a cluster of spider-things burst from the crevice and swarmed toward her. She recognized them at once: chwidenchas, creatures made from the magically altered bodies of drow who had displeased Lolth. Each of the four creatures was the size of a small horse, composed entirely of bristly black legs tipped with claws as sharp as daggers. Additional barbs lined the inside of each leg, turning it into the equivalent of a saw blade. Once a chwidencha landed on its chosen prey, those barbs would hook fast in a grapple. The only way to avoid being crushed when the creature squeezed was by tearing free-something that would carve jagged wounds into the victim's flesh.

Cavatina had escaped the chwidenchas by levitating, but Halisstra wasn't so fortunate. Attracted by the vibrations of her footfalls, the spider-things veered toward her. Halisstra whirled and blasted one of them with a web, suffocating it under a thick coating of sticky silk, but then the other three were on her. Legs rose and fell, the claws stabbing down. Most skittered harmlessly off Halisstra's stone-tough skin, but a few of the jabs sank home. In an instant, Halisstra's body was coated in blood.

Halisstra stood and fought them. If it was a ploy on her part to gain Cavatina's sympathy, it was a dangerous one.

Cavatina landed, stamping her feet to draw the chwidenchas' attention. Two of them broke off their attack on Halisstra and scurried toward her. Cavatina sprang into the air, lifting her hunting horn up to her lips. She blew a strident note straight down at them. As the waves of sound struck the chwidenchas, they halted and curled into tight balls. A moment later, they sprang open again. Cavatina hesitated then blew the horn a second time. Once again, the two spider-things shuddered to a halt then opened more slowly. Visibly staggering, they scuttled around in circles, at least half of their legs dragging uselessly behind them.

Even in their weakened state, fighting the chwidenchas with a sword would be futile. The fist-sized "heads" of the spider-things were buried deep at the center of the creature. The legs would have to be hacked off, one by one, in order to do the creature any real damage, and the legs could regenerate.

Still floating above the wounded spider-things, Cavatina pressed her lips to the horn a third time, knowing that she might be inviting disaster. The magical horn was meant to be blown only once each day. Unleashing its energies more than that could trigger an explosion that could knock her senseless at the very least or snap her neck at worst, but Cavatina had not been invited into the ranks of the Darksong Knights by being unwilling to take chances. Anyone who fought demons for a living had to be bold.

She blew-and a third wave of sound shuddered through the chwidenchas, pulverizing them. They collapsed, twitched once or twice, and died.

Halisstra, meanwhile, was still battling the chwidencha that had attacked her. She knocked it away with a sweep of one powerfully muscled arm, but as soon as it stopped rolling it sprang at her again. It landed on her back, knocking her to the ground. Its legs sawed against her body, scrabbling for a hold.

Halisstra was not so easily beaten. She rose, wrenching the creature over her head to the front of her body-a move that tore deep gouges in her shoulders. She sank her fangs into one of the chwidencha's legs. The chwidencha tried to push itself free, but Halisstra's own spider legs held it fast, crushing it against her chest. She bit it again and again, working her way in toward its center, where the legs joined-and at last a deep shudder ran through the chwidencha and its legs fell limp.

Cavatina drifted to the ground beside Halisstra. "Bravely done."

Halisstra, eyes gleaming, hurled the lifeless chwidencha aside.

Cavatina moved closer, her hand raised. "Those wounds. Shall I try to heal-"

"No." Halisstra's voice was harsh as she flinched away. "Lolth's pact will heal me."

Cavatina lowered her hand. She walked to the chwidencha that was bound by the web and levered it onto its back with her sword, exposing the throbbing ball of flesh that was the thing's head. She skewered it with the point of her sword. The weapon sang in a joyful tone as the chwidencha died.

"Hard to believe these were once drow," Cavatina said as she pulled her sword free.

Halisstra's head came up.

"Created by Lolth, just as you were." Cavatina moved to the second chwidencha, levered it over, and thrust again, ensuring that it was dead. "Each leg was a person who angered Lolth in some way. They were transformed by fell magic and bound together to create a creature that knows only pain and hatred." She moved to the third, flipped it, and drove her sword home. "We do them a favor by killing them. Among the legs might be some whose 'crime' against the Spider Queen was to contemplate the worship of some other deity, perhaps even Eilistraee. Some of the souls we free may go on to dance with the goddess in her domain." She turned to face Halisstra. "Which proves that there's always hope, no matter how grim things seem."

Halisstra either missed the point or deliberately ignored it. "You've hunted chwidencha before."

Cavatina nodded. "Among other things." She nodded at Halisstra's wounds. Already they were closing over. "Are you able to continue?"

"Yes."

They continued toward the spires of rock and soon were among them. Cavatina could see that they were, indeed, petrified legs, most of them snapped clean and flat at the second joint, their clawed tips fused with the stone of the ground below. Each was as big around as a house. She tried to imagine the spiders whose legs they once had been, and shuddered. Such creatures could only have been spawned in the Abyss.

Most of the spires of rock were thick with spiderwebs that fluttered like torn flags from the bristles protruding from their sides. One spire, however, was clear of webs. Nearly two hundred paces tall, it was twisted in a way that reminded Cavatina of the tree that had served as the portal. Halisstra stopped in front of it and patted the black stone.

"This one," she said, craning her neck up. "The temple's on top."

"Show me."

Halisstra climbed, her bare hands and feet sticking to the rock like those of a spider. Cavatina sprang into the air, levitating beside her. As she neared the top, she saw a structure perched on top of the flat expanse of stone. It was a simple box of a building little bigger than a shed: four square walls, a roof, and a single arched doorway in which fluttered a tattered blanket that served as an improvised door. The walls were deeply pitted, as if from acid, but one section of stone above the arch was untouched. On it was a crude carving of a sword atop a circle that represented the full moon-Eilistraee's symbol. Seeing it, Cavatina felt a comforting warmth. That much of Halisstra's story, at least, had been true. Together with Feliane and Uluyara she had raised a temple to Eilistraee, shaping it by magic out of stone-in the heart of the Demonweb Pits.

Cavatina landed in front of the building and sang a song of praise. As she finished the divination spell, the symbol on the building began to glow. The temple was still consecrated-though dark streaks of evil were worming their way into its stone walls.

Halisstra had not yet clambered onto the top of the spire. She hung at its edge, wincing and turning her head away from the building, as if it pained her to look at it.

Cavatina gestured at the temple. "The Crescent Blade is inside?"

Halisstra nodded. Her matted hair, stuck to her shoulders, did not move. "On the floor."

Cavatina moved to the entrance and used her sword to move the fluttering blanket aside. She could see something that glinted inside the temple against the back wall-a sword with a curved blade. The blanket fell, and the wind caught it, blowing it to the back of the room. It landed on the curved sword, covering it.

Cavatina glanced up, making sure nothing was lurking on the inside ceiling, then back at where Halisstra clung to the top of the spire, only her head and shoulders visible above the edge. The fangs that protruded from Halisstra's cheeks were twitching. Her eyes were wide with anticipation and her drow mouth hung open slightly, panting. Her whispered hiss came to Cavatina on the wind: "Yes."

One eye still on Halisstra, Cavatina eased into the room. The temple was small, barely four paces across. Its interior had an odd feeling about it, sacred and calm, yet balanced on the edge of turmoil. Cavatina felt as though she were walking across a pane of clearstone waiting for it to crack.

She flicked away the blanket with the tip of her sword and stared down at the weapon that lay on the floor. Words had been inlaid in silver along its curved blade. They were in the language of the drow and thus easily read. A portion of one word was missing, at a spot where the upper and lower halves of the blade had been fused back together. The silver in that spot had melted away. The script read:

Be your heart filled with light and your cause be true, I shall n- fail you.

A divination spell showed that the sword still held its magic. Cavatina stared down at it in awe.

"The Crescent Blade," she whispered.

Forged centuries ago from "moon metal," it had a blade so keen it could cut through stone or even metal. It was a weapon said to be capable of severing the neck of any creature-even a god.

Cavatina sheathed her singing sword and reached down for the Crescent Blade. As her hand closed around the leather-wrapped hilt, she felt a rush of power surge up her arm. Holding the weapon in both hands, she spun like a sword dancer, savoring the perfect balance of the blade. With it, she would be the penultimate hunter. Her foes would fall like wheat before a scythe. "Eilistraee!" she cried. Still spinning, she threw back her head and laughed.

A loud hissing sound brought her to her senses. Halting abruptly, she peered outside the temple and saw splatters of rain hitting the stone. Where they landed, the stone began to bubble. Foul-smelling steam rose and pock marks formed.

Acidic rain.

Halisstra stared up at the sky, rain streaming down her face and soaking her matted hair. If the acid stung her bare skin, she showed no sign. "A storm is coming," she said. She glanced down. "We need shelter."

Cavatina gestured at the temple. "Eilistraee will shield us."

Halisstra shook her head. "Not me." She glanced down again then sprang away from the edge of the cliff, out into space.

Cavatina rushed to the exit, but the acidic rain blowing in through the open doorway drove her back. She sang a prayer of protection and forced her way against the wind to the edge of the spire of rock. She stared down but saw no sign of her guide.

"Halisstra!" she called, but her voice was snatched away by the rising wind.

Acidic rain bounced away from her skin, hair and clothes without touching them, repelled by her spell. Its magic would protect her-but only for a time. She needed to get back under shelter herself, but as she turned back toward the temple, she heard a sharp crack. A large split appeared in its front wall, beside the arch. Rain streamed off the roof in rivulets, eroding the crack further. Even as Cavatina watched, it widened. Then, with a terrific groaning sound, the structure gave way. The roof fell in, and the walls crumbled. Soon all that remained was a shapeless blob, atop which rested a single, jagged chunk of solid stone, bearing Eilistraee's symbol.

The temple was no more. It had stood only as long as it needed to, by the grace of Eilistraee. With the Crescent Blade recovered, Cavatina was on her own.

She ran to the edge of the cliff and leaped, letting her boots carry her gently downward. As she descended, she contacted Halisstra with a spell. When the storm is over, meet me at the portal, she sent.

Halisstra's reply came a moment later. A thin, drawn-out wail. I can't! Lolth calls.

Cavatina repeated her spell. I can help you resist her. Tell me where you are.

She felt Halisstra's mind brush hers, but there was no reply, just a low, half-mad gurgle of laughter.

Something came hurtling up at her from the base of the spire: two creatures that glowed with a faint, greenish-yellow light, legs trailing behind them. Cavatina recognized them in an instant. They were myrlochar-"soul spiders"-deadly foes capable of stealing a victim's life essence and adding it to their own, and they could levitate just as skillfully as Cavatina could.

She halted in mid-descent and hurled a spell down at them. Two brilliant white shafts of Eilistraee's holy moonlight flashed down, each striking one of the myrlochars and instantly charring it to a flaming husk. They tumbled, legs snapping off as they fell, and landed with twin thuds on the ground below.

Cavatina almost laughed. Was that the best Lolth could send against her? She renewed the spell that prevented the acidic rain from harming her and landed beside the still-smoking husks of the soul spiders.

As if in answer to her silent challenge, the weather changed. The rain stopped and small, hard balls of stone began to fall from the sky. As they tapped off Cavatina's metal armor, she saw that they were tiny spiders. She tried to grind one underfoot, but it was like a pebble under the sole of her boot. She realized they must be petrified, like the spire of rock behind her.

More petrified spiders fell, larger ones. Soon they were the size of grapes, then eggs. They pelted down in a bruising hail. Cavatina sang a prayer, creating a shield-shaped disk of energy above her head. Most of the spider-hail bounced off it, careening away to either side, but some of the missiles came through and struck her head and shoulders.

Just ahead was a wide crack in another of the spires of rock-a natural cavern. Cavatina ran into it, escaping the hail. She skidded to a halt as she saw that the cavern was already occupied. A drow female, bloody and bruised, lay against one wall. When she stirred, Cavatina recognized her as Uluyara, one of the priestesses who had accompanied Halisstra into the Demonweb Pits. She was alive, but just barely.

"Behind… you!" Uluyara croaked, staring past Cavatina at something outside in the storm.

Cavatina was half-turning when the singing sword blasted away the veil the false drow had used to cloud her mind. She whirled, the Crescent Blade still in her hand, and found herself facing a yochlol instead of Uluyara. The demon had assumed its natural form, a shapeless heap of reeking flesh, and it towered above her. A single red eye glared out at her from the center of eight writhing tentacles. The limbs lashed forward, at least half of them scoring hits on Cavatina's arms, shoulders, and chest.

They inflicted only minor wounds, but their tugs threw Cavatina off balance. She lashed out with the Crescent Blade and managed to strike one of the tentacles, cutting clean through it. The severed appendage struck a wall and flopped to the ground, leaking gore.

The yochlol screeched, and all was in darkness. Cavatina countered it with a prayer that would enable her to see again and slashed with the Crescent Blade, trying to find her foe, but her blade swept through empty space. The yochlol had either recognized her as a Darksong Knight and teleported away or…

As Cavatina's spell pierced the magical darkness, she saw a roiling cloud of yellowish vapor. The yochlol had assumed gaseous form. The stench punched into Cavatina's stomach like a greasy fist. Fighting the urge to double over and vomit, she sang a healing word. The nausea passed, but the demon changed form again, assuming the shape of a large spider. It leaped toward her, fangs distended to bite.

Cavatina met it in mid-leap with an overhand swing. The yochlol had no neck to sever-in spider form its head and thorax were fused-but the Crescent Blade did its job. The blade struck the creature at the midpoint of its cluster of eyes, slicing cleanly through cephalothorax and abdomen, cutting each in two. Hot, stinking ooze splattered Cavatina from forehead to feet as the two halves of the body sailed past on either side, landing behind her.

She blinked and spat the foul taste out of her mouth. Demon blood dribbled down the blade onto her hand and dripped onto the floor. "That's some sword," she said softly, hefting the Crescent Blade appreciatively.

Who are you?

Cavatina blinked. Was that a voice she'd just heard? Another yochlol, announcing its presence? She whirled in place, the Crescent Blade ready in her hand. The spell that had allowed her to see through the yochlol's magical darkness was still in effect and showed nothing out of the ordinary. She was alone in the cavern.

Alone with the Crescent Blade.

You're not the one.

Cavatina stared at the weapon. "Is…" She paused, feeling foolish. "Is that you talking, sword?" She'd heard of weapons with an intelligence of their own but had never owned one.

The sword-if indeed it was the sword that had spoken- made no reply.

Cavatina heard something stirring deeper in the cavern and suspected it was another yochlol. The place might well have been home to an entire brood of demons. Though she'd like nothing better than to slay them, one by one, Qilue's orders had been strict. Cavatina was to recover the Crescent Blade from the Demonweb Pits and return with it promptly, not linger in Lolth's domain, where it might be damaged or lost. There would be demons aplenty to kill, another day.

Cavatina glanced outside. The hail of spiders had stopped. She stepped out of the cavern, still holding the Crescent Blade. The singing sword would have been a better weapon to be carrying if she encountered more yochlol, but practicality took precedence. The Crescent Blade was too curved to fit in her scabbard. She had to carry it.

She headed back toward the portal, once again using her magical boots to cross the ground in long, graceful leaps. As she did, she peered between the spires of rock, trying to see where Halisstra had gone. She also attempted to send a message to Halisstra, but the sending met with silence. Perhaps Halisstra had already used the portal to return to the Prime Material Plane. Once she was through it, a sending wouldn't necessarily reach her.

Even if Halisstra hadn't reached the portal yet, Cavatina was certain the former priestess could take care of herself. Halisstra had survived, by her own account, for two years in Lolth's domain. She was as adapted to survive there as any demon-her immunity to the acidic rain had proved that.

As Cavatina passed the last of the spires, she saw something in the distance that sent a chill through her: a spider so enormous that she could make out the details of it, even from so far away. Its body was crowned with a drow head, and it reared back on six of its eight legs. The two front legs held weapons that glinted a dull red in the ruddy starlight, a straight steel sword and a thicker knob-headed mace.

By his weapons alone, Cavatina would have recognized him. It was Selvetarm himself, champion of Lolth, and no mere avatar-not at home in the Demonweb Pits-but the demigod himself.

Cavatina whispered a fervent prayer as she drifted to the ground. Her heart pounding furiously, she stood, utterly motionless, as Selvetarm turned. It took all of her willpower not to cringe as the demigod's gaze swept over her. Would Eilistraee hide her from sight? Could she, from a demigod in his own domain? Selvetarm had the power to see the invisible-and would immediately spot Cavatina if he so much as suspected anyone was there. She only started breathing again when the head turned away once more.

Her relief at not being spotted drained away as she realized where Selvetarm was standing almost exactly on the spot where the portal was, and he wasn't moving.

Cavatina had been feeling certain she could defeat anything Lolth could toss at her, but suddenly things had become complicated. To escape the Demonweb Pits, she was going to have to fight her way past a demigod.

You can do it.

Cavatina blinked. Had that been the sword talking-or her own pride?

Her grip tightened on the Crescent Blade. She could do it. The weapon in her hands had been forged for exactly that purpose, to kill deities.

Yes, the sword whispered.

Cavatina smiled grimly and thought, what a hunt this is going to be!

If she succeeded in killing Selvetarm, her name would be praised forevermore from the Promenade to the smallest shrine.

And a demigod's head would be her trophy.