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The creature twisted in mid-leap, faster almost than the eye could follow. The sword struck it, but only a glancing blow against what felt like solid stone. The blow levered Cavatina in one direction, the creature in another. As they sailed away from each other to either side of the magical darkness, Cavatina got her first good look at the thing.

The creature was enormous, just as the House Jaelre male who had survived its attack had said, probably twice Cavatina’s height. It looked like a powerfully muscled drow female, but with a hairy bulge emerging from each cheek, just under the eye, and eight legs the diameter of broomsticks jutting from its ribs. It was unclothed, with matted white hair whose ends seemed to stick to its shoulders and back.

“Quarthz’ress!” Cavatina shouted.

The iron flask began to glow. Bright silver light lanced across the magical darkness, striking the creature, but instead of impaling it and drawing it into the flask, the magical beam ricocheted off its glossy black skin like a ray of light glancing off a mirror.

That was it then. The creature was definitely not demonic. The flask would have trapped it if it was, or—and this a more disturbing thought—it was some form of demon that was immune to the flask’s magic.

The creature landed on a tree trunk at the edge of the clearing. It sprang back at Cavatina, arms held wide as if inviting attack. Cavatina summoned a curtain of whirling blades around herself, but the creature paid them no heed. It sailed through them, laughing maniacally as they struck its body. Most glanced off with sounds like metal hitting stone, but a few slashed deep furrows in the creature’s flesh. Then the creature was through the barrier, dripping blood—still very much alive.

It caught Cavatina by the leg and shouted something in harsh, grating words that she didn’t recognize, spinning itself past her like a partner in a macabre dance. Cavatina felt a wrench, deep inside her body, as if an invisible hand had reached inside and squeezed her vitals. Intense pain nearly made her black out. Then red light flashed under her chain mail shirt, and the sensation was gone. She felt something as gritty as coarse crumbs of salt against her chest—the red periapt, crumbling, its magic overwhelmed.

She felt a tug on her foot—the creature, yanking off one of her boots. Then the creature sailed out through the barrier of blades, which once again slashed brutally into its body.

Cavatina fell.

The murky water did little to cushion her landing. She crashed down onto the submerged stone platform, scraping the skin of her knees and arms. She scrambled upright, the singing sword still in hand, and braced herself as best she could on the slippery stone. It felt as though she were standing on a thick layer of slime.

The creature crashed into a tree. Dropping Cavatina’s boot, it clung to the branches and stared malevolently down at her. The blade barrier had wounded it, carving deep gouges in its stone-hard hide. Blood flowed down its body and dripped from its bare feet into the swamp below.

“Had enough?” Cavatina taunted, her sword held ready.

The creature held out a hand that had been sliced by the blades. Two fingers dangled from it by flaps of skin, dribbling blood. “Why do you hurt me?” it asked in a mournful voice. “I am one of you.”

“You’re no drow,” Cavatina shot back, “and if you once were, you aren’t any longer.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Cavatina saw a mound of rotting vegetation begin to rise from the swamp: another of the monstrosities she’d spotted earlier. Invoking Eilistraee’s name, she hurled a blast of bitter cold at the spot where it lurked, instantly freezing the water around it and holding it in place. A second blast she directed at the plant-creature itself. The water inside its body, frozen, expanding with a force sufficient to split it apart.

All the while, a portion of Cavatina’s attention remained focused on the creature she’d been hunting. Its wounds were regenerating