Pashra dragged her by her cloak behind one of her fallen arachnid behemoths. She was too surprised by his impudence to resist.
“Are you hurt?” he yelled. His voice was oddly muted, as if her head was covered in a layer of webs.
She shook her head, and her ears began to ring.
The final genasi defenders were barricaded against the mine face that contained the mother lode. The genasi couldn’t retreat-they could only fight. And fight they did, with the strength and cunning of those with no other options.
She, the oni, and her force had dashed against them and broken like waves on the shore. Which hardly seemed fair, given how easily everything else had gone. Genasi on the surface hadn’t expected claim jumpers, probably because an attack had never happened before. The upper island defenses had fallen immediately a few tendays ago. Since then, she and Pashra had surreptitiously moved several shipments of arambarium back through Airspur and, from there, into the Demonweb for final transfer to Menzoberranzan.
But the defenders down here had held out that entire time, despite being bottled up and unable to call for help. Their numbers were depleted, but they held fast. They knew the moment Chenraya broke them, the mother lode would be lost. They were well-trained, loyal subjects of the Throne of Akanul.
That was about to change; soon, they’d just be corpses.
“Lolth, hear your daughter’s prayer,” she whispered. “Lend me your grace, as I accomplish your will. Blood will be spilled and souls reaped for your glory.” New strength flowed into her as she spoke. The ringing in her ears subsided, the pain in her chest faded, and feeling returned to her fingers and toes.
Chenraya rose and stood next to Pashra. “If you can fight, show me. We don’t have time for this conflict.”
The oni growled, swinging two vicious tusks her way. Would he actually be stupid enough to attack her?
No. Instead, he drew a glamour over himself. A moment later, a genasi male stood where Pashra had been. He was dressed in a close approximation to the uniforms worn by the mine defenders-the armor and sash of an Akanul elite peacemaker.
The genasi said in Pashra’s voice, “I’ll create a distraction on their flank, Chenraya. I trust you’ll take advantage.”
Then he faded into invisibility.
The drow priestess was reluctantly impressed. The ogre magician had his uses. If he could deliver on his promise to distract the defenders, maybe she wouldn’t sacrifice him. At least, not immediately.
Chenraya considered using her most potent charm, or calling on her most powerful prayer. The charm was shaped like a yochlol, a demon servitor of Lolth. The prayer, when spoken, would literally dissolve and disintegrate the flesh of friends and foes alike … but she had only one yochlol bead, and the vile prayer was too potent for her to use more than a few times. Better to hold onto those trump cards until nothing else would serve. Instead she settled on something less catastrophic and invoked a prayer of flame.
A pillar of purple fire crashed down from the ceiling as if it’d bored straight through all the rock between the sky and this buried cavern. She’d called it down on the heads of the defenders, but they’d somehow managed to deflect it to one side. But a few still got caught in the flames and died screaming.
The rest returned fire. Arrows, quarrels, and a few screaming bolts of magic arced toward her. She ducked back down behind the arachnid carcass and waited for Pashra’s distraction.
She didn’t have to wait long. A new scream of outrage and pain echoed across the cavern. Chenraya leaped from cover and dashed forward as the defenders behind the barricades contracted in violent confusion.
The floor of the cavern was strewn with open cavities, forming a crude checkerboard of pits. Chenraya thudded across a plank that bridged a rough-sided mine scar. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw a shape move in the darkness below. She glanced down and caught the faintly illuminated shape of a drake-like figure made of stone rising beneath her. She leaped to one side as it burst up from the pit and tried to bite her head off. Failing, it still struck her hard enough that instead of falling into the pit, she tumbled to a halt several feet past its lip. Face down in the dirt for the second time in almost as many heartbeats.
Her attacker was a stone elemental in the shape of a minor dragon, glimmering with arambarium stains. A genasi defender rode on its back, controlling it. Unlike the obsidian entity she’d subverted beneath Airspur, this one was already fully activated-and she was its target.
A stone claw descended on her but she rolled to one side, then back the other way as the other claw raked at her. The genasi rider, an earthsoul, of course, was crowing in victory.
Chenraya broke the yochlol charm’s leather thong with a jerk and threw the yellowish item one way as she scrambled the other.
A flash of mustard-colored light bloomed. Chenraya kept rolling until she was several feet from the drake, which suddenly had more immediate problems to deal with than her.
Then she was up again, her heels to another pit, readying another prayer of purple fire.
Consternation was visible in the earthsoul rider’s face as his elemental faced down a creature of Abyssal phlegm, with spastic tentacles and roving eyes in an amorphous yellow body. It was the yochlol she’d summoned, a gift from Lolth sent to protect her.
The yochlol spoke, its voice a shockingly seductive contralto, more beautiful than any normal drow woman’s. “The Spider Queen watches you, Chenraya. You’re so pretty. I wish I could stay. I’d dearly love to get to know you better.”
“I … I am honored, handmaiden,” Chenraya replied.
“Of course you are, little one.” The yochlol laughed. Unlike its speaking voice, the demon’s mirth was nightmarish. Chenraya avoided cringing by clenching her teeth as hard as she could.
Then the stone drake pounced on the yochlol. The yellow body splattered beneath the granite bulk like a popped fruit. Strands of yellow ichor spewed up as tentacles and coiled around the drake.
The elemental beast shuddered as the yochlol’s arms tightened. The earthsoul leaped clear, even as drake and yochlol glimmered like a heat mirage.
The yochlol said, “You and I will meet again, Chenraya Xorlorrin. You’ve incurred a debt.” Then demon and elemental seemed to flatten, losing dimension, until the intertwined image folded away and was gone. Lolth’s handmaiden had returned to the Abyss and brought an elemental drake morsel back with it.
Chenraya wasted a moment wondering if the demon handmaiden had lied. Or had some kind of debt really been incurred? That was the problem dealing with demons-one moment they followed instructions as they should, but the next, they were feasting on your entrails. Demons just didn’t follow rules of any sort. Just like their mistress, Lolth herself …
The priestess clamped off that potentially blasphemous line of thought. Instead she focused on the brown- hued genasi thrown from his stone saddle. He was already casting some kind of spell. Which meant he was one of the war wizard defenders. A geomancer, probably, summoning another rocky beast to inflict on her.
But he was cut off from the rest of the genasi, who by the sound of it were having trouble dealing with the disguised oni’s “treachery.”
Chenraya pointed at the geomancer and loosed a venom bolt. The ray caught the man full in the face. He gagged, shook with palsy as the poison coursed through his blood, but tried to finish his spell nonetheless. It was a close call. She readied herself.
However, the genasi slumped to the cavern floor, blackened and shriveled, before he could choke out the final phrase.
She murmured a prayer for his soul. If she was lucky, she’d just consigned his spirit to Lolth’s tender mercies instead of wherever it should normally have gone. The little things were what sometimes made life worth living.
The priestess turned her attention back to the genasi barricade. None of the defenders were paying attention to her. They’d all hunkered down, watching each other with wary eyes, wondering which one among them had suddenly gone crazy and started killing his compatriots.
Chenraya decided to take advantage of the confusion and risk drawing attention to herself. She whispered a short prayer of amplification. Then she bellowed at the top of her lungs, “Descend, my army-join me, my harem! Find me, slothful mercenaries of Bregan D’aerthe! Why’ve you left your mistress alone so long?”
Her voice bounced back and forth across the great chamber, blasted down the side tunnels, and rose like an explosive plume up the access shafts to the surface. The defenders clamped hands over their ears to block out the
