Riltana shook her head. “What now?” she whispered. “There’s no way we can fight through that press. I could fly over, but … I don’t fancy being out there all alone.”
Arathane said, “We must stop the drow before she completes the new passage. This is our last chance. I’d guess the next stop for the arambarium relic is either Menzoberranzan or … directly into Lolth’s demonic court itself.”
Demascus didn’t like the sound of that. And he worried Riltana and Arathane were being too loud. If even one of the drow or minion creatures looked up, they’d be seen. Actually, it was rather odd they hadn’t already been noticed …
Arathane saw his puzzled expression. She tapped her forehead, just below the white chalk mark. Oh. The queen’s magic chalk symbol was more potent then he’d realized. “As long as we don’t draw direct attention to ourselves, the enchantment will hold. But we must stop Chenraya from finishing her rite,” said Arathane.
Demascus said, “I can get into that circle and capture Chenraya’s attention before I’m noticed. If the rest of you can keep her lackeys busy for a few moments, I can end her.”
“Just take the staff,” suggested Riltana. “Flash in, grab it without starting a fight, and come back here. Then we all flee like scared children. How’s that sound?”
Not bad, actually. “Fine, that’s what I’ll do,” he said.
Though a part of him growled at the idea of avoiding what would otherwise surely be a spectacular conflict. He pushed that feeling away. They were here to retrieve the mother lode, not assassinate a drow priestess. And if Chenraya and her underlings gave chase, logic suggested that to face them outside the confines of the Demonweb would be better than within this dim cavity where the drow had all the advantages.
“Here goes,” he said, and leaped into the stafflight shadow of a drider.
He had several shadows to pick from on the dais, thanks to the staff’s glaring illumination. Demascus appeared in the dimness behind a male drow soldier who wielded a long-handled glaive.
The sound of Chenraya’s song slowed and dropped in octave as everything around him lapsed into languid action. The song was a basso rumbling, and the drow were caught motionless, open-mouthed, and in mid-blink. The priestess’s eyes were raised to the vaulted web ceiling, an expression of divine transport frozen on her face. Had he wanted, he could have killed two or three of them before the others even realized he was …
No. He’d come for the staff. Demascus slipped between moments and drow shoulders and grabbed the blazing length of transformed arambarium. He knew something was wrong the moment his fingers brushed the tingling metal. He jerked back. Or tried to. His hand remained stubbornly fixed around the buzzing shaft. The muscles in his arm and shoulders twitched, and he lost feeling in his legs. The stafflight pinched out, and time caught up with him like an axe stroke.
“Hello, deva,” said Chenraya, staring straight at him. “Welcome to my parlor. Trembles in the web suggested someone tasty would be along. Though I didn’t expect you; we dropped a mine on you to prevent that.”
“But here I am,” he managed to say through chattering teeth.
“Indeed. With your hand caught in the sweet jar, like a truant child. But I’m glad, because I have a use for you. I’d pegged Pashra to serve as the sacrifice I need to shift the Hand of Arambar back to its true form. Regrettably, he proved quarrelsome once too often. And so I had to deal with him before he learned of his surprise. But the Demon Goddess works in mysterious ways. Because here you are to take his place.”
“If you kill me, I’ll only return and hunt you down. I’m bound on the wheel of reincarnation.”
“No. You’re wrong. When I give your heart to Lolth, it won’t be just this mortal life she’ll strip from you. She’ll take every last future incarnation, too. She’s the Queen of the Demonweb Pits. When a soul is sacrificed to her, she lets no scrap fall between her mandibles.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DEMONWEB
21 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
Screams clawed the air, high and piercing. They emerged from the edge of the surrounding crowd of drow slave-soldiers. Chenraya’s gluttonous gaze shifted from Demascus as she searched for the cause. He didn’t volunteer that the sounds were likely the result of his friends attacking the army’s flank, to provide him a distraction. The momentary lapse of her regard lessened the paralyzing weight that’d settled over his mind.
He uttered a plea for divine radiance, made to the universe at large. In answer, a burning mark scribed the air directly over his head. The mark wasn’t as brilliant as the noonday sun, but it was still damn bright. The drow on the raised dais were creatures of the Underdark and unused to anything brighter than dim cave light. The robed drow and the two warriors turned, Chenraya fell back, and the last warrior threw a forearm over his eyes. If any of them had been vampires, they might have taken fire, too. Sadly, none sizzled, not even a little.
However, the dazzling light erased any shadows close enough for him to work with. He hadn’t thought his ploy all the way through. Worse, his body remained determinedly locked in paralysis to the staff, which itself was planted as solidly as a five-hundred-year-old tree in the forest. And the blades of Exorcessum were tidily sheathed in the scabbards he’d borrowed from Thoster. The red-runed blade was only inches from his left hand, but thanks to the aching rigidity of his muscles, it might as well have been a mile.
“Veil!” he rasped, “Help me!” The scarf uncoiled from his neck in billowing loops. One end wriggled down his arm and wrapped the staff’s headpiece. The other end whipped out like a striking adder. It caught one drow warrior around the neck in a winding grasp. The moment of contact between drow and staff closed, lightning cracked the air. And Demascus’s muscles eased, just as the drow warrior dropped, smoke issuing from eye sockets.
The Veil went limp, steaming and a little blackened at the edges. Demascus fell, too, in a convincing imitation of a rag doll. He hit the web floor with one shoulder and tucked into a flopping roll that moved him a few paces closer to the edge of the dais. He found himself staring up into the face of another drow warrior holding a glaive with a spike on the end.
The drow tried to stab him with the pointy bit.
Demascus jerked out of the way. The spike grazed his armor but failed to pierce flesh. As the warrior raised the glaive for a second try, Demascus pulled his knees up to his chest, then lashed out as if his legs were a released spring. He smashed a boot heel into the warrior’s knee. The joint made a funny popping sound. The drow collapsed, gasping in surprise at his sudden inability to hold his own weight.
And Demascus was up. He was shaking like a drunkard too long deprived of drink, sure, but being on his feet was better than on his back.
The three remaining drow-the last warrior, the fellow in the wizardly robes, and Chenraya-got their bearings. The howling ettercaps and driders kept up their din. Demascus hoped his friends were responsible. At least none of the driders had yet tried to climb the dais to help their mistress, despite that Demascus was in among the drow leaders, killing or disabling them one by one.
One by one … Yes. That was how it was supposed to be. None of this stealing and running. The Sword of the Gods might strike from the shadows, but he never, ever ran from a fight. A cold grin stretched Demascus’s lips.
The imprimatur of his ancient office swept the deva into its joyous, bloodythirsty embrace.
“The Sword has come,” he said, his voice suddenly resonant. His announcement gave all the drow pause. Even Chenraya blanched. His eyes sparked as he considered how he’d exterminate each one in turn. The wonderful thing about his office was that he was allowed to remove everyone who learned of its existence, at his sole discretion. Which was convenient.