Ascendancy of the Last - Lisa Smedman [6]
"Take him!"
On her eighth and final thrust, the blade plunged to the hilt. She yanked it free, releasing a hot spray of blood. She jerked his head to the side, letting blood splash the mural. Then she forced the weakly squirming sacrifice down into the depression in the floor. The wild elf died then, and blood stopped pulsing from the wound. T'lar lifted him by the ankles and waited as he bled out. The bowl-shaped depression filled with blood. She cast the corpse aside and kissed the blood-slick dagger a second time, tasting his blood. Then she watched as the purple-limned spider resumed its descent.
It plunged into the bowl of blood. Faerie fire rippled upon the surface of the bright red pool, turning it the color of an old bruise. Then the blood drained away. The depression in the floor was as it had been before the sacrifice: empty and waiting.
T'lar heard the sound of stone grating on stone, coming from the direction of the mural. She whirled, dagger still in hand. Lolth's abdomen was sinking into the wall. Abruptly it fell away, crashing to the floor of whatever chamber lay beyond this one and sending up a cloud of stale dust. For several moments, there was silence. Then T'lar heard a scrabbling sound. She braced herself, preparing for whatever the goddess was about to hurl at her. Lolth was fond of testing her supplicants-and failure usually meant death.
A voice, as dry as ancient leather, creaked out of the opening a female voice, pitched too low for T'lar to make out most of the words. One came through clearly, however: the name of the goddess. Lolth.
"Spider Queen!" T'lar cried exultantly. "I am your willing servant."
Something moved in the space beyond the mural, something large and dark, forcing itself into the hole T'lar's sacrifice had opened. It squeezed through headfirst, then halted, its shoulders too broad to pass. A bestial face, more demon than drow, stared out at T'lar and snarled. Blood trickled out of the opening and puddled at the base of the wall. The opening suddenly widened, then contracted, forcing the demonic creature through. It landed on the ground, gasping.
The demon-drow was twice as large as T'lar was tall, and female, with eight spider legs protruding from her chest. Her hair was a matted tangle that looked like old spider silk. Under each of her eyes was a hairy bulge, from which a fang-tipped jaw curved, the points meeting above the mouth. The jaws gnashed as she lay on the floor, moaning.
T'lar was certain the demon-drow was Lolth's, though she'd never seen anything like her. "What are you?" she asked. "One of Lolth's handmaidens?"
The demon-drow looked up. "Lolth's handmaiden?" she croaked. The word wrenched itself from her mouth. Her wild cackle filled the hollow temple and sent a thrill down T'lar's spine. The laugh was chaos itself, uncontrolled and as dangerous as a rock fall.
Then the demon-drow began to sing.
The song was harsh, as if the creature's throat was tight and parched. Yet the notes filled the temple with magic that plucked at the spiderwebs and made them vibrate like the strings of a lyre. T'lar could feel it within her own body: a thrumming surge of power. The demon-drow had been withered and gaunt when she fell out of the hole in the wall, but she rose to her feet plumped and visibly stronger. When her song ended, she stood solid and strong. She stared down at T'lar.
"What month is it? What year?"
T'lar met the demon-drow's gaze unflinchingly. Lolth hated weakness, and so did the demons that served her. "The month of Ches, in the Year of the Cauldron-1378, by the reckoning of the World Above."
The demon-drow shook her head. "Five months." She stared down at her hands and arms, then abruptly clenched her fists. "Who are you?"
T'lar bowed. "T'lar Mizz'rynturl of the Velkyn Velve, assassin of the Temple of the Black Mother."
The demon-drow looked down at her, an expression of open amusement on her face. "Assassin?" she said.