Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [107]
Qilué didn’t wait to see the rest. She shifted the scrying’s focus to a frozen pool of water not far from the shrine itself. A moment later, its icy cap exploded upward as a priestess burst out of the shallow pool from below, sword in hand, the first of the reinforcements Qilué had just ordered to the Chondalwood.
Qilué shifted the scrying rapidly from one location to the next, checking the other shrines. From the Moonwood to the Shaar, more than half of Eilistraee’s holdings were under attack. Priestesses, backed up by lay worshipers, fought pitched battles at the Dancing Dell, in the Velarswood, the Gray Forest, the Yuirwood, the Forest of Shadows. Each battle involved creatures of the Underdark not normally found on the surface: driders, fighting with webs, poison, and spells; neogi—creatures that looked like spiders with wormlike necks and tiny heads filled with needle-like teeth—using their magic to dominate those who fought them, turning Eilistraee’s faithful against each other; and chitines, fighting with four weapons at once, one in each spindly hand. Through it all, spellgaunts dashed here and there, gobbling up magic. Their presence alone hinted at the authors of the highly coordinated attacks—the Selvetargtlin, yet none of Selvetarm’s clerics could be seen.
Where were they?
“A dozen priestesses and a score of warriors to the Gray Forest,” Qilué ordered.
Jasmir dutifully repeated the order. She closed her eyes a moment, listening, then relayed the reply. “Iljrene can only send nine priestesses. That’s the last of them, unless you want to start sending the Protectors.”
Qilué shook her head. “Keep the Protectors here,” she ordered. “We’ll need them if the Promenade is attacked.” And that it would be attacked, she was certain. It was too glaring an omission, but when? And from which direction? Two Protectors, each armed with a singing sword, stood guard at every possible entrance, including the portals. Qilué scried each of those pairs of priestesses in turn, but all was quiet.
She frowned. Should she really hold her best fighters back? A singing sword would certainly help tip the balance in any of the battles she’d just observed.
A faint tapping sounded at the room’s only door. Qilué looked up as Jasmir hurried to answer it. Iljrene would have used a sending to contact her, and a lay worshiper had no business here, not now. Before Qilué could caution Jasmir, the priestess opened the door.
A feather zipped inside the room and fell at Qilué’s feet. Its silver spine was bent nearly double and its vanes were split and fouled with spiderwebs and dust, but Qilué recognized it at once as the magical token she’d given Jub. She’d been wondering where the spy had gotten to, and by the looks of the webs sticking to the quill, he’d had some bad luck.
Turning from her font, she bent and picked up the quill. She straightened the spine then touched the nib to the floor. She spoke the command word and watched as the quill slowly and laboriously scratched out its message in glowing silver letters on the dark stone floor.
SELV. CLERICS ATTACKED THE MOON WOOD WITH CHITTENS. BUT IT WAS JUST A FAINT.
Yes, Qilué thought. She’d guessed that already. The attacks took place after the moon had risen, ensuring that the Moonspring could be used to send reinforcements.
THEYR GOING TO ATTACK THE PROMENAD, TOO. 66 OF THEM. NOT SURE WHEN.
She nodded. Just as she’d suspected. But why sixty-six? And why hadn’t the attack come yet?
THEYR IN DOLBLUND, LIKE YOU THOT. I THINK THEY KILT A LOLTH PREESTIS THERE.
Qilué knew who her enemies were. Most likely the exiles, the renegade Selvetargtlin who were tossed out of Eryndlyn for “blaspheming” by worshiping Selvetarm in his own right instead of as a servant of Lolth.
The quill was still scratching out its message. THEYR GOING TO JUMP ON THE TEMPLE, it wrote. Then it fell to the floor.
Qilué stared down at the quill a moment more, as if willing