• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

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, Qilué’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.