• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Selvetarm!” she screamed.

Blades erupted from the aranea’s hands, legs, face, and scalp—even her clothing. Hundreds of them, slender and deadly. Still screaming Selvetarm’s name, she flung herself at Cavatina.

It was a suicidal move. Cavatina thrust her moonblade at the aranea’s chest. Any other sword might have been turned or at least slowed by the chain mail lining of the cleric’s blood-red robe, but the moonblade was a thing of pure magic, like the blade barrier Cavatina had summoned earlier. It slid through the chain mail like a hot knife through soft wax, and Cavatina’s hand and arm were wet with blood. Even though the thrust was to the heart, the aranea had enough fight left in her to slam her arms together, driving the spike-thin blades in through the holes in Cavatina’s chain mail. Cavatina gasped in agony as they pierced her sides.

The aranea sagged against Cavatina but still did not die. Hot purple blood sprayed Cavatina’s chest and face as the Selvetargtlin, her eyes rolling wildly, twisted her left arm, trying to bring her gauntlet blade to bear. The blade only managed to graze Cavatina’s right cheek, but the wound throbbed as if boiling oil had been poured into it. A foul smell rose from the cut, and Cavatina could feel herself weakening with each pulse of her heart. The periapt around her neck absorbed the initial injury—the cut itself—but there was something more.

The aranea had used magic to envenom her.

Furious, she thrust the aranea away from her, screaming out as the blades tore free of her flesh. The moonblade in Cavatina’s hand flared silver-white as the aranea’s blood sloughed off it.

Selvetarm’s priestess fell to the ground and lay there, blood bubbling from her lips. “You’re too late,” she said in a voice choked with blood and insane laughter. “It’s already done.”

A bloody hand trembled toward the holy symbol that hung at the aranea’s neck. Cavatina, in agony from her many wounds and with blood running down her sides in rivulets, realized that the Selvetargtlin was trying to cast one last spell. She slashed down with her moonblade at the aranea’s wrist, severing its hand. Blood rushed from the stump like water from a broken pipe. The aranea trembled then lay still.

Cavatina had just started to turn away when the body exploded, pelting her with a rain of bloody flesh and slivers of bone. She ducked then glanced at the spot where the aranea had fallen. All that lay there was a blood-soaked robe, empty and loose on the cavern floor. The largest piece of the body was the size of a fingernail.

There was no time to contemplate what had just happened. Blood loss had made Cavatina weak, and her legs felt ready to collapse at any moment. Calling upon her goddess, she sang a healing spell. Eilistraee’s moonlight illuminated her body, knitting flesh and replenishing the blood she’d lost. The shallow cut on Cavatina’s cheek, however, remained. It would close in time, but for a while the Selvetargtlin’s dark magic would deny it the benefits of magical healing.

There was no time to worry about that, though. Cavatina hurried around the column, looking for Thaleste.

The novice lay face-down on the cavern floor, buried under a thick tangle of spiderweb. Tearing the sticky mass away, Cavatina saw a bloody puncture in the back of Cavatina’s neck: a bite. The aranea’s venom wasn’t usually fatal—it typically sapped the strength, rather than killing outright—but in some instances it could kill. Dropping to her knees, Cavatina laid her palm across the wound and sang a prayer of healing. Under her touch, the wound closed. A second prayer drove the remaining toxins from the novice’s body.

Groaning, Thaleste sat up. Cavatina placed a hand on her shoulder, steadying her. It was only then that she noticed the novice’s sword lying beside her. Its tip was blooded, but just barely—whatever wound the weapon had inflicted had been slight indeed.

Thaleste touched the back of her neck with a shaking hand then stared at her fingers, obviously surprised to see no blood. She was still inexperienced enough to be astonished