Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [90]
“They already have,” the other answered. “They’re surprisingly capable of following orders. Of course, it helps that they think those orders come from Lolth herself.”
Both males laughed.
Jub’s hairs shivered erect. Chitines were four-armed magical creations of the drow. Bred as slaves by wizards centuries ago, they were only three-quarters the height of a male. Abandoned by their creators as unfit, they had escaped, decades ago, to distant reaches of the Underdark, where they lived still. Jub had blundered into one of their web-filled caverns once—luckily for him, just one chitine denned there. He’d killed it but had come away covered in gouges from its hook-lined palms and feet. He’d been lucky to get out alive. The chitines hated the dark elves with an intense, smoldering anger. They attacked all drow on sight—even a half-drow like Jub.
Yet these Selvetargtlin were talking about the chitines as if they were pet lizards.
Lizards that, by the sound of it, were fighting battles for them.
The males were still talking, though in less boisterous voices as their breathing gradually slowed. Wanting to hear more, Jub descended from the ceiling on a thread of silk.
“… glad to hear your chitines fought well,” the Selvetargtlin with the mace was saying. “What was their target?”
“The Moonwood. They killed eight dark dancers.”
Jub jerked to a halt and thought, No wonder Qilué said this job was so important. These guys are attacking Eilistraee’s shrines.
“If our underlings do their job too well, we’ll bleed them gray, instead of just drawing them away with our feints,” the male with the mace said.
“I hope not. I want a few of them still standing when we jump to the temple, at least sixty-six of the bitches—one for each of us to kill.”
Both laughed as they walked toward the door.
“So the chitines didn’t suspect anything?” the Selvetargtlin with the mace asked.
“None.” The other grinned. “I told them the Spider Queen would reward them with …”
The voices faded away as the pair walked out into the street. Jub hung from his thread, slowly spinning in place, waiting for their shouts of alarm. The dead priestess was just outside the door. The two would practically have to step over her on their way outside, but no alarm came. The Selvetargtlin, it seemed, didn’t care that a priestess of Lolth had been killed.
Probably, Jub realized, because they’d killed her.
He wondered if he should follow the pair of clerics, but then figured they’d be walking too quickly for him to keep up. He’d heard enough, anyhow. “Temple,” they’d said. “The temple.” They were planning an attack on the Promenade. Sixty-six of them, it seemed—a curiously exact number.
The Promenade wasn’t far away—only a few leagues, as the worm burrowed—but its magical protections were rock-solid. Jub wondered how the Selvetargtlin were planning on getting inside. Far as he could see, there was no way they’d be able to.
He turned and scrambled back up the strand of web then out onto the roof. It was time to make his report.
He scuttled back to the tunnel, crossing rooftops where he could, but several times he was forced to scurry along the floor. He had an anxious moment when he reached the exit. The sword-foot spider nearly skewered him, its blade-sharp feet clacking down all around him as he made a dash for it—but then he was in the passage once more. He hurried along it, back to the empty cavern.
Once there, he ducked into another of the side passages and shifted back into his half-drow form. Qilué had told him to report any discoveries back to her the moment it was possible to do so. She probably didn’t expect him to get out of there alive with a dracolich flying around. That pricked his pride, but not so much that he wouldn’t do as she’d asked. He owed Qilué. Fourteen years ago, her consort had died while freeing Jub and a bunch of other wretches from a slave ship in Skullport. Instead of blaming the slaves for her consort