Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [41]
“Spawn of Lolth!” he shouted. “Exiles from Eryndlyn, from Ched Nasad, from Menzoberranzan, by Selvetarm’s will, you are to be outcasts no longer! There is a place for you in the ranks of the Selvetargtlin, if you would take it!”
From above him came a rustling and the hiss of whispered speech. One of the driders sprang out of a tunnel and descended toward Dhairn, head-down, on a strand of web. The drider was male, his long, uncombed hair hanging from his scalp like scraps of cobweb. His face was pinched and thin, his eyes narrowed in what looked like a permanent wince. A curved fang protruded from each of his cheeks, its hollow point oozing venom. He turned slowly on the strand of webbing, twisting his head so that he could keep Dhairn in sight. “You serve Lolth’s champion?”
Dhairn’s sword swept out, severing the strand. The drider hovered in mid-air a moment too long before falling to the ground, confirming Dhairn’s suspicion. The dangling drider had been an illusion. Dhairn followed through with his swing, spinning around to slice through seemingly empty air behind him. His blade bit into something solid. A drider’s head flew in one direction, while the suddenly visible body crumpled. Dark blood rushed from the severed neck like wine from a ruptured wineskin. The drider had a glove on one hand that glowed with an intense magical aura. The puddle of blood in which that hand had landed sizzled, disintegrating into nothing.
Dhairn looked up at the remaining driders as his sword drank in the blood that coated its blade. Eyes blinked. Several of the driders drew back into their tunnels. The one Dhairn had just slain had probably been their wizard. A pity, that. His talents would have been useful.
“We are all Lolth’s champions,” Dhairn told the driders, “drow and drider alike.”
“That’s not what her priestesses say.” The voice was female, probably their leader. Dhairn glanced from hole to hole, trying to spot her.
“We are the damned,” she continued. “We failed Lolth and were marked for our weakness. This is Lolth’s punishment.”
Dhairn spotted her. The female had reared up on her spider legs and held her arms wide. She might have been beautiful once. Her ears were delicately pointed, her eyes slanted to match. Her upper body was shapely above a slender waist. Even the venomous fangs that protruded from her cheeks did little to spoil her appearance, but life as an exile had left her no pride. Her hair was tangled, and her body fouled with the stinking drippings of the corpses the driders loved to eat. Her dark skin was streaked with smudges of rock dust.
“Has it never occurred to you,” Dhairn asked, “to wonder why Lolth should have altered your bodies into a semblance of the holiest of creatures? Do you honestly conceive of your half-spider forms as a punishment? No, I say it again. You are her champions, as much as Selvetarm is.”
He stood, waiting, letting the driders consider what he’d just told them.
Their leader frowned down at him and said, “Lolth’s priestesses—”
“Lied to you,” Dhairn said in a cold voice, “as Lolth herself orders them to. It is all part of the Spider Queen’s plan. Your exile has made you stronger, more cunning. By preying upon the drow, you cull from our ranks the weak, the incapable. You make our race stronger.” He paused to let that sink in. “If you had truly fallen from the goddess’s favor, then why did she grant you such power? You have been stripped of your House insignia, but you can still levitate. You are no longer drow, but you can still cloak yourselves in darkness and reveal hidden enemies by limning them in magical light. You have powers that Lolth bestows only upon the most favored of her drow children, the ability to recognize your enemies by their auras and to magically spy on them from a safe distance while you