Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [117]
She pressed home her attack, driving the judicator before her until his back was against the statue. Iljrene angled in from his left, her own sword singing a deadly counterpoint. Letting the battle-mistress take the initiative, Qilué stepped back, intending to cast a spell, but the judicator was unbelievably quick. His weapon flashed up, then down, catching Iljrene at the point where shoulder and neck met. It cleaved through her tiny body in an instant, cutting her torso in half from neck to hip. Blood rushed from the two halves as the pieces fell and sprayed into the judicator’s face, momentarily blinding him.
Qilué screamed and hurled spellfire at him, hoping to kill him before he blinked the blood clear, but though the silver-white blaze made the judicator reel back, he remained on his feet. As the two halves of Iljrene’s body crumbled in on themselves, reduced in an instant to a boiling mass of black spiders, he touched the point of his sword to it. The mass bulged upward, questing for the blade, then sizzled, dissolving into it. He held it there, his spider-pupiled eyes stared at Qilué. A challenge.
Furious, she hurled herself at him, knocking his sword away from the heap of tiny spiders. The sight of Iljrene, her steadfast companion and battle-mistress, reduced to a profane mass of spiders, rattled her badly. She swung wildly at the judicator, fury boiling out of her in waves of silver fire.
It was her undoing. The judicator’s sword swept down, slicing off her right arm at the elbow. Qilué reeled back, nearly fainting from the pain. Her singing sword clattered to the floor with a wail, then fell mute. Qilué stumbled over a loose chunk of stone and nearly fell. Her left hand tightly clasped the stump of her right arm, and blood sprayed through clenched fingers.
“Eilistraee!” she gasped. “Heal me.”
She felt flesh knit together under her fingertips, saw the spray of blood stop as the arm began to regenerate.
The judicator, however, gave her no quarter. He rushed Qilué, his terrible sword raised for a killing blow, and Qilué had nothing to parry it with. She could escape with just a word, but that would mean abandoning the Pit and its seal, and the rod was once again fully active.
“Mystra!” Qilué cried, desperately calling forth spellfire.
The judicator’s sword swept down, even as moon-white fire blazed through the cavern.
Selvetarm loomed above Cavatina. Another dollop of acid dripped from his mace and landed with a bubbling hiss on the stone next to her, splattering and burning her skin. The god’s mouth was enormous—wide as a doorway. Hot, foul-smelling breath washed over her as his fangs clamped hold of her torso. She gasped as she was lifted from the ground, the spiderwebs that had accumulated on her body hanging from her like limp hair. Dangling upside down from Selvetarm’s fangs—which had yet to puncture her breastplate and deliver a final, poisoned bite—she saw the blur that was the traitor Halisstra sway through her field of view.
Halisstra waved one of her twisted, elongated arms. Behind her, a black dot that was the iron fortress of Lolth thundered toward them on its eight metal legs, its feet clashing like gongs against the ground.
Halisstra shouted something. Garbled words, to Cavatina’s ears, which still rang from the unholy word Selvetarm had used to fell her. Cavatina could see more clearly. That flash of silver was the Crescent Blade, being waved overhead by a triumphant Halisstra, a creature that had only pretended to be seeking redemption, a demonic thing of Lolth.
Halisstra shouted something. It sounded like the word “slay.”
Cavatina nearly laughed. Selvetarm needed no urging. In another moment his fangs would clamp down on her, and poison would be driven into her paralyzed body.
Selvetarm