Storm of the Dead - Lisa Smedman [127]
Cavatina shrugged her off. "Should we offer them redemption?" she asked Qiluй. "There may be some who-"
Qiluй's mental voice lashed out like a whip. No. Kill them.
"But-"
Eilistraee demands their deaths. They cannot be redeemed. Kill them.
Cavatina lifted her weapon. That had been an order. And a Darksong Knight did as her high priestess commanded. Cavatina told herself that the Crones had sown the seeds of their own destruction by choosing to worship… whatever evil goddess had just been slain. Cavatina was merely the scythe that fulfilled that grim harvest.
Lips pressed together in a grim line, she swung her weapon. Right, left, cutting down Crones. Easy as reaping wheat.
The remaining Crones didn't even put up a fight. Sword blow by sword blow, they fell.
* * * * *
Cavatina led fully three dozen priestesses-reinforcements from the Promenade-in song. They stood in a wide circle around the shattered ruin that had been Kiaransalee's temple, swords pointed at the voidstone. As they sang, healing energy flowed up their blades and across the space between their metal and the sphere. Brighter even than a full moon, the raw positive energy spun the voidstone around, grinding it down like a pebble in a stream.
Eight Nightshadows worked with the priestesses. They were less skilled in summoning the healing energies of the Prime Material Plane, but they had a role nonetheless. Their chant-whispered from behind their masks-would ensure that after the voidstone had been destroyed, any link with the Negative Energy Plane would be sealed.
Elsewhere on the island, other Protectors chased down the few undead that had survived Kiaransalee's fall. As for those priestesses and Nightshadows who had fallen in the earlier battles, their bodies were even then being carried back to the Moondeep Sea. They would be returned to the Promenade and resurrected, Eilistraee willing. So too would Daffir and Gilkriz, if possible. If not, their bodies would be returned to Sshamath for burial. The same would hold true for Mazeer, once her body was found.
Kвras was healed. He stood to Cavatina's immediate right. It no longer galled her to see a Nightshadow participating in one of Eilistraee's sacred rituals. Since her redemption, that anger had dissipated. She understood, then, how a Nightshadow might feel after carrying out an assassination: exactly as Cavatina had felt after Qiluй ordered her to kill the remaining Crones.
The voidstone shrank to the size of a boulder, a melon, a fist, a pea. Then, with a boom that was swallowed the instant it sounded, it disappeared. The priestesses lowered their swords and fell silent, and the Nightshadows dropped their hands.
"Lady Qiluй," Cavatina called. "It is done. The voidstone is destroyed. But…" She glanced down at her feet and saw that the stone still glowed as brightly as before. "But the Faerzress hasn't diminished."
I can see that.
"It's reached the Promenade?"
It has.
"Lady, should we try to-?"
Nothing more can be done. Return to the Promenade.
And that was it. The entirety of the high priestess's message. No praise for what Cavatina and her expedition had accomplished, no further comment. Just that curt order.
"Is something wrong?" Kвras asked.
Cavatina realized she was letting her worry show. "I don't know. Lady Qiluй didn't seem…" She closed her mouth, declining to say more. Kвras had proven himself, but confiding her fears to him didn't feel appropriate, even though he shared her command. "We're done here. We're to return to the Promenade-promptly. Qiluй probably has another mission for us."
"The Masked Lady's will be done," Kвras murmured. His eyes, however, didn't match his tone. There was a gleam to them that made Cavatina wary.
He started to turn away, but Cavatina planted herself in his path. "What is it, Kвras?" she demanded. "What are you thinking?"
He hesitated. Then shrugged. "Only that Lady Qiluй is growing more like a Nightshadow each day. She's playing her sava pieces very close to her chest.