Sacrifice of the Widow: The Lady Penitent, Book I (30 page)

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:

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.