engulfed the ultroloth's head, and extended twenty paces into the sky.
From the battlefield below, a cry of shock went up from the yugoloths.
Within the sphere, the explosion turned back upon itself time and again. Pharaun did not doubt that the ultroloth had been shielded against fire and heat, but no wards could protect against the firestorm in the globe. The heat devoured the yugoloth wizard's body, charred his head and shoulders into blackened cinders.
When the fire abated a moment later, a curled and blackened husk lay halfway in, halfway out of the sphere. Nothing more remained of the ultroloth.
Pharaun would have smiled if only he could move.
Chapter Twenty-one
Halisstra twisted Seyll's sword in Danifae's arched back, and the former battle-captive gasped with pain. Halisstra took satisfaction in each of Danifae's bubbling, labored breaths. Behind
Danifae, Quenthel Baenre looked on with surprise. Halisstra ignored her. She had eyes only for her battle- captive. The high priestess was irrelevant.
Danifae's morningstar fell from her hand.
'Mistress. . Melarn,' she said, her voice soft.
Halisstra decided that she wanted to look Danifae in the face before she died. She released her grip on Seyll's sword and allowed her former battle-captive to turn around.
One third of Seyll's blade jutted like a bloody pennon from the side of Danifae's chest.
Danifae's beautiful gray eyes stared out of an incongruously gentle expression. She looked upon
Halisstra and smiled a mouthful of blood-stained teeth.
'Do not call me Mistress ever again,' Halisstra said.
Danifae's full lips twisted with pain. She raised a hand as though to touch Halisstra's face. The effort caused her to wince.
'Halisstra,' she said, each word divided by a pained breath. 'I'm. . sorry.'
It took a moment for Halisstra to understand the words. When she did, tears welled in her eyes; she could not stop them. In a rush, she thought of all that she and Danifae had shared, the secrets, the ambitions. They had been through so much together, had come to know each other so well through the Binding. She surprised herself by regretting what it all had finally come to.
'Sorry?' Halisstra said, and her voice broke. 'Sorry? It never should have come to this!'
Danifae nodded. Blood seeped around the blade sticking out of her body. Halisstra had missed her heart.
'I know,' Danifae said, still holding out her hand.
Despite herself, Halisstra started to raise her own hand but stopped.
'I missed you, Mistress,' Danifae said.
Halisstra blinked away tears and finally took Danifae's hand.
'I missed you t-'
As quick as an adder, Danifae grabbed Halisstra with her other arm and yanked her close,
impaling her on the point of her own blade.
Halisstra gasped as the steel penetrated first her mail then her flesh. She felt the point scrape against her ribs and exit her back. Warm blood soaked her piwafwi.
She should have known. She should have known.
Her eyes looked over Danifae's shoulder to Quenthel.
The Baenre priestess smiled, gloating, whip in hand.
Danifae wrapped her arms around Halisstra and squeezed her tight. Pain knifed through
Halisstra.
'I am sorry for nothing,' Danifae hissed in her ear.
Halisstra fought through the pain and returned Danifae's embrace, just as hard.
Both of them gasped with agony.
Their bodies were melded, joined by steel. Their blood flowed as one. A Binding of a different sort once again united them.
Halisstra rested her head on Danifae's shoulder, a strangely soft gesture.
'I hate you,' she whispered.
Danifae reached up and stroked Halisstra's hair, something she had done countless nights before.
'I know,' Danifae answered.
Halisstra loved her too, despite it all.
'I know,' Danifae said again, and her embrace softened.
Halisstra could bear no more. With a grunt, she pushed Danifae away, screaming as the blade exited her flesh. The effort knocked them off balance, and both sprawled to the ground, Danifae still stuck through with steel. They both sat on Lolth's ground, bleeding and gasping.
Quenthel Baenre eyed them both.
'Here is where it ends,' she said, and advanced on Danifae. The whips of her serpent glared.
A hiss and sizzling sound turned Halisstra's head, turned Quenthel's head, turned the heads of the whip vipers.
Nycaloths appeared around them, teleporting in from the battlefield below. One, three, eight,
a dozen-the smallest of them towered over even Quenthel. Their muscles rippled under their scaled skin. Each bore a rune-inscribed axe. Their muzzles twisted into snarls.
Desperation contorted Quenthel's face. She looked at the nycaloths, at Danifae, at Halisstra.
Halisstra could see the indecision in her eyes. It resolved into an expression of utter hate.
'It is not you,' the Baenre priestess said to Danifae, her voice shrill.
She ignored the danger of the nycaloths and raised the whip high for a killing strike when high atop the grotesque heap of Lolth's city the double doors to the Spider Queen's tabernacle flew open. Rays of violet light poured from the temple doors.
For Halisstra, time seemed to stop. Motion ceased. Every being within sight of Lolth's city-
yugoloths, drow, demons, and draegloth-stayed their hands. All eyes turned toward the unending web, toward the Spider Queen's city.
A ripple ran through the arachnid host gathered at the far edge of the plains, an anticipatory shuffling. The sound of their motion reminded Halisstra of the downpour of rain she had heard while in the World Above.
Her heart hammered; her breath came fast. She clutched the broken Crescent Blade in her fist so tightly she feared her skin would split. She barely felt her wound. Danifae lay a few paces from her, facing the city, eyes wide, breathing shallow, her cloak soaked with blood. A
whispered prayer of healing, a powerful one, leaked from the battle-captive's lips. Seyll's sword slid from her flesh, and the wound closed. Halisstra echoed the prayer and closed her own wound.
Quenthel didn't notice either of them. She stood and stared back at Lolth's city, frozen, her whip still held high for a strike.
Souls hung sizzling in the air over the Plains of Soulfire, writhing in agony, bleeding weakness from their eternal forms.
A sudden breeze picked up, blowing outward from the tabernacle. It turned to a gust, to a screaming gale, and in its scream Lolth's voice spoke, the sound that of multiple voices, the seven voices of Halisstra's vision: 'Yor'thae.'
Around them, the nycaloths shared a look. Halisstra saw the fear in their eyes, the uncertainty.
Without warning, they blinked out, teleporting back from whence they came. The retreat spread rapidly to the rest of the surviving army, and they too fled. The klurichir, its flesh torn and one of its pincers severed, nevertheless gathered another mouthful of mezzoloths and blinked out himself. The swarm of spiders dissipated, and the creatures made their way back to their mountain dens. The undead mezzoloths animated by the ultroloth fell to the ground, as inert as the soil.
