The sound of dozens of sharp, scampering legs joined the shrieks and screams from the tunnels.
“It’s a better chance than’sending your own into Tohrepur,” Uthalion answered, sensing a kindred warrior in the aranea, a leader pushed to the boundaries of strategy, and understanding the occasional necessity of such sacrifices. “If you kill us the Choir will only get stronger, push harder, take more of your people…”
“And if I let you go to them?”
“Then there is a chance!” Uthalion shouted and lowered his sword. “More than you’ll have with us dead.”
“Go to her… to the Lady!” Arasteht cooed, his voice growing stronger despite his apparent weakness, his tentacles reaching through the webbing for the genasi. The power in his words stole everyone’s attention, cajoling blades to be set aside, calming rising tempers, and obscuring the frantic struggles of spiders in the tunnels. Uthalion tried to fight back, paralyzed in the effort as Arasteht tore through a section of web. “Go to the song… to the shore… to the bloom and the”
A roar of rage overtook the malformed aranea’s powerful voice as a blur of movement charged past Uthalion. A flash of steel freed the man’s limbs, left him staggering, his heart pounding as he looked up to see Brindani’s sword buried in the throat of the monstrous singer.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
11 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) The Lash, Akanul
K. eening voices clashed with metallic clangs, drawing ever closer as Brindani twisted his blade through Arasteht’s flesh, growling savagely as tentacles wrapped around his arms and legs in a tightening embrace of death. The singer’s gurgling death rattle incited its battling servants, the Flock, to greater ferocity; their shrieks increased as they frantically fought to reach the bone-patterned chamber. Uthalion caught the shocked gaze of Chevat, his lips set in a thin line. He waited for the aranea’s decision, though Ghaelya spoke first.
“They can die,” the genasi said coldly to Chevat as Brindani fell away from Arasteht’s body, sweet-smelling blood dripping from his blade. “That’s two we’ve slain in as many days, and they have my sister, my twin. I do not intend to stop killing them, or anything else that gets in my way, until I have her back.”
Chevat hesitated for only a moment, sparing one last glance at the dead body of Arasteht before turning to the back of the chamber, a fleetness in his step as he called over his shoulder.
“Come!”
Uthalion waved the others on, keeping a careful watch on the dark tunnels of the northern wall, convincing himself for a moment that he would stand strong if the white spiders broke through, that he would make the necessary sacrifice for his companions. There was some truth in the he, enough that he knew it was what he should do, but not enough to make him abandon fear for his own familynot enough to banish that part of him that still longed for the beguiling song out of the south.
He turned and ran just as the others disappeared into the shimmering shadows of a southern tunnel, the shrieks and scratching claws sounding dangerously close on their heels. Chevat’s voice echoed loudly from the lead, the language unknown to Uthalion, though the tone was as familiar as his own battle-tested sword. The aranea barked orders as they twisted and turned through narrow tunnels and crawl spaces, creating a shadowy flurry of activity in their wake.
Uthalion spied dark cloaks and jade eyes. Heavy-bodied spiders scrambled along the walls and crouched among the glowing roots overhead. Humanoid forms dived out of side passages, their bodies shifting with alarming speed. They landed more gracefully on eight legs than Uthalion mused he might have managed on two. They hissed as he passed, glaring before moving on, clearly not pleased with the newcomers’ presence, but loyally gathering to defend their warrens.
The light flashed and flickered constantly as the sounds of battle faded farther and farther behind them. The tunnels slowly widened into ones less ornate than the web-lined artworks of the araneas entrance tunnels and more easily traversed by those unused to such shifting terrain. At length they came to a massive chamber scattered with thin shafts of glimmering light. An incline at the far end led to a loosely circular line of illumination, much like the trapdoor Chevat had led them through. It was a welcome sight for Uthalion’s impatience to be free of the spiders’ kingdom.
They rested at the base of a narrow tunnel leading out, listening to the passing of the Lightning Tide and waiting for Chevat’s word that it was safe to leave. Uthalion kept a sharp eye on the aranea, half-expecting any moment for the spiders’ leader to change his mind and seek to slay Ghaelyait was, after all, a decision Uthalion would have considered had he been in the same position.
“What used to live there, in the Temple?” Ghaelya asked Chevat, breaking the silence. “Did your people ever discover?”
The aranea shook his head thoughtfully.
“Whatever it was, men died trying to possess it,” he said after a time. “The walls were decorated with their bones, their drowned bodies used for trifles, the abandoned artwork of a fickle creature that thought little of mortal lives or desires.”
Chevat’s words turned over and over in Uthalion’s mind, stirring an old memory that he couldn’t quite grasp. When he was young, his grandfather would tell him stories of fantastic beasts, of dragons and evil elves. Though no one story came to mind, he recalled having a long-standing fear of water before learning to swim years later. He looked to Ghaelya, remembering her voice echoing up to him from the bottom of the vine-tree lined pit.
Something in the water.
Uthalion blinked, turning away from the genasi and the flickering ring of light just beyond her at the tunnel’s edge, suddenly unsure of which he had been truly focused on. With some effort he calmed his racing, muddled thoughts, though he was anxious to keep moving rather than sit and wait in the dark.
“Almost there,” he said under his breath, repeating the phrase for the strange sense of calm it brought him.
“I must admit,” Chevat said sternly, “I do not know if I have chosen wisely in this”
“Not all sacrifices involve blood,” Vaasurri replied.
“It’s always blood,” Brindani muttered as he cleaned his sword, not bothering to look up. “One way or another, always.”
The chamber’s dim light grew darker, and the thin ring at the tunnel’s end disappeared as if shadowed from the outside. Chevat crawled closer, listening and raising his head to sniff the air, nodding and gesturing for Ghaelya to approach.
“You must run to the southern foothills. They are not far,” he said quickly, his eyes darting to them alL “Climb until you are well beyond the lower level of blackened rocks, and the Tide shall not catch you. Tohrepur lies half a day’s journey from the topjust follow the cliffs.”
“Thank you, Chevat,” Ghaelya said.
“No,” the aranea replied. “I might have killed you myself. And by helping you, I daresay I may have done just that.”
The genasi merely nodded and crawled toward the trapdoor, followed by Vaasurri and Brindani. As Uthalion took the first handhold, Chevat placed a long-fingered hand on his arm.
“Those affected by the song do not return from Tohrepur as they once were,” the aranea said solemnly. “Do you hear the song, human?”
“No,” he answered, the lie slipping out before he could stop it, denying that his motives were anything but honor- qKIa VintirrVi lia urI\nI1avarl if thoir njprfi trillv \iia mnHvps nt all. Chevat slipped a leather pouch into his hand and closed his fingers around it tightly before letting go.
“Be swift,” the aranea said. “And if I happen to find you no longer yourself in the days to come, I shall slay you quickly.”
Before Uthalion could think of how to reply to such a statement, the aranea had dashed into the shadows, his legs lengthening and splitting behind him into the long, sharp-footed legs of a spider. Wind caressed Uthalion’s face, and he turned to the pale light outside, scrambling up the tunnel and out onto the stiff, warm grass of the Lash.