"I'm sorry," she murmured as she killed but was not sure what she meant. The words just seemed to fit.

Spider blood splattered her hands, her cloak, her face. "I'm sorry."

Despite her words, she hacked her way through the roiling mass of bodies, legs, mandibles, and ichor toward where she had last seen her fellow priestesses. To her relief, she saw that both Feliane and Uluyara had found their feet and their blades. They dodged nimbly amidst the chaos, slashing and stabbing. They looked as though they were dancing-they leaped, spun, twirled, and tumbled, serving the Lady of the Dance even while they slaughtered. Both sported cuts and bites, and Feliane had a dark puncture on her bare forearm. Still, Halisstra thought them beautiful. Their blades whistled through the air, an answer and a challenge to the strange keening. Halisstra caught Feliane's eye as both cut their way through the never-ending tide of spiders.

"Halisstra!" Feliane called. Cutting, chopping, her round face was splattered with blood and ichor.

Uluyara whirled a circle beside the elf priestess, her blade a blur, and met Halisstra's eyes for a moment.

"Here!" Halisstra answered.

Without stopping, she opened the abdomen of a spider, then another and another. She was fifteen paces from her sisters.

From out of the maelstrom of bodies a brown sword spider leaped high above the fray. Time slowed for Halisstra.

Easily as large as a pack lizard, the creature's eight arms ended in claws that looked like short swords and killed just as effectively. Halisstra's breath caught as the creature reached the apex of its leap. She had seen sword spiders fight in the basement arena of House Melarn, cutting down out-of-favor male warriors with bloody, brutal efficiency.

As the sword spider descended toward Feliane, it clustered its swordlike claws together to form a single impaling blade, pointing downward at the slight elf priestess.

"Above!" Halisstra shouted but could not be sure that Feliane heard her. "Feliane!"

A large spider appeared before Halisstra, and she hacked off two of its legs with the Crescent Blade.

The shadow of the descending sword spider must have blotted out the dim red light of the sun. Feliane looked up, saw it, slipped to the side, and tried to raise her blade defensively. She was a heartbeat too slow.

The sword spider crashed down on her, knocking her blade aside and driving her to the ground, flat on her back. Its clustered legs sheared through her armored shoulder and sank into her flesh. She screamed in pain, and blood spouted. Her sword fell from her hand, skittered away, and was lost under a throng of arachnids.

The sword spider straddled her small form, caging her in its bloody legs. She struggled beneath it, punching with her good arm, kicking, but she was already growing weak from blood loss. The blows crunched into the spider's huge body but seemed to have little effect other than to elicit an angry hiss.

A pack of giant tarantulas drove Uluyara from Feliane's side, and Halisstra lost sight of the High Priestess.

Halisstra shouted again and cut her way toward her sisters, hacking mercilessly at anything in her path.

She left a trail of severed legs and pedipalps in her wake. Fourteen paces, twelve, ten. She killed with every step. Ichor covered her; soaked her. Small arachnids teemed over her exposed skin, her face, and her hair.

She devoured those that got near her mouth and spat the pieces to the ground.

She knew that she would not reach Feliane in time.

The swords of its claws still glistening red with the elf's blood, the sword spider pinned the dying Feliane with three of its legs and raised its forelegs high in a strike that would lay open her chest and pierce her heart.

Uluyara materialized out of the madness to the sword spider's right, blade held high. The High Priestess charged forward, calling on the Dark Maiden, and swung her blade in a crosscut designed to split the sword spider's abdomen from head to spinneret.

But the spider saw her coming. It shifted slightly atop the wounded Feliane, parried Uluyara's blow withone of its claws, and lashed out with another. The blow hit Uluyara squarely in the chest, sent mail links flying, and drove her backward. She stumbled, tripped on the carcass of a large spider behind her, and was instantly swamped with smaller arachnids.

The sword spider returned its attention toward Feliane. The arachnid again raised its forelegs high and drove them into Feliane's chest. They split mail links, broke bones, and drove into the organs and flesh beneath. Feliane's back arched with the agony, and blood pooled around her.

"Feliane!" Halisstra cried and cut down another spider and another.

She was five paces from the elf. Too far.

The elf's eyes were still open but glassy. Blood poured from her chest and dribbled from the corner of her mouth. The sword spider bared fangs as long as knives and sank them into Feliane's flesh. Her head sagged to the side. The spider made as though to pick the elf up and carry her back to its lair.

Halisstra had no time to think, so she did the only thing she could. She forced back the spiders near her with a flurry of vicious slashes, reached back over her head-a difficult maneuver with a shield slung on her arm-and flung the Crescent Blade with both hands at the sword spider.

The blade flew true, point first, and sank halfway to its hilt into the thorax of the huge arachnid. The creature uttered a hiss of agony, and its entire body spasmed. It withdrew blood-slicked fangs and claws from the elf's flesh and started to turn toward Halisstra. The Crescent Blade stuck out of its flesh like a pennon. Another spasm wracked its body, another hiss escaped its fanged mouth, and it collapsed atop Feliane, dead.

Feliane did not move.

Using her shield, Halisstra bashed another spider in its face as it lunged for her. She jerked Seyll's songsword from the scabbard on her back. With its fluted hilt whistling a counter melody to the eerie sound of the wind, she slashed another spider, another, and rushed to Feliane's side.

She kneeled, and blew a sigh of relief when she saw that Feliane was unconscious but alive-barely.

Halisstra had no time to take a longer look. She whirled around and beat back a trio of giant widows, opening a long slash in one. Afterward, she turned, bent, and heaved the sword spider carcass off of the elf.

Unmolested for the moment by any spiders, Halisstra flipped her grip on Seyll's sword and put the hilt to her lips. Placing one hand on Feliane's wounded chest while still trying to keep an eye on the arachnids around her, she blew a single, soothing note. The sound served as a focus for her bae'qeshel healing magic.

The punctures in Feliane's chest closed to pink dots, and her breath came easier, though she did not regain consciousness. Halisstra could not risk another spell amidst the swarming spiders. She took the hilt in her hands as three spiders the size of rats landed on her back. Their fangs could not penetrate her mail, and she pulled them from her as she rose and stabbed each in turn.

Standing over Feliane, she scanned the madness for Uluyara.

The High Priestess fought nearby against a red and black spider as large as a rothe. Already she had severed two of its legs.

"Uluyara!" Halisstra screamed. "Here!"

Uluyara spared her a glance, and nodded. The High Priestess unleashed an overhead cut at the spider, drove it backward a step, turned, and raced for Halisstra. The creature bounded after her with astonishing speed.

Halisstra reversed her grip, put the hilt of the songsword to her lips, and blew a series of dissonant notes.

The bae'qeshel sent a wave of sound over Uluyara's head and blasted the spider with its discordance. The power of the spell flattened the enormous arachnid, opened its exoskeleton, and a host of smaller spiders leaped upon it to feed.

Uluyara wove and danced her way through still more arachnids until she reached Halisstra's side. She looked at Feliane, concern in her eyes.

"She's alive," Halisstra said, breathing heavily, "but we must get out of here now!"

Uluyara smiled fiercely, put a hand to Halisstra's shoulder, and said, "Give me a moment's protection."

Halisstra nodded agreement, and while the high priestess chanted a prayer beside her, Halisstra used Seyll's songsword and shield to slice and smash any arachnids that came near. The violence of the slaughter nauseated her. Spider parts lay everywhere, and blood stained the ground dark.

When Uluyara finished her prayer to the Lady, a ring of silvery blades took shape around them.

Thousands of magical blades, all of them spinning and buzzing, formed a ring ten paces high. Two spiders caught in the wall as it materialized were slashed to gory ribbons.

"The Lady's spells serve us well even in the Demonweb Pits," Uluyara said, her voice and eyes hard.Halisstra nodded, though only then did she realize that it had not occurred to her during the combat to cast one of the spells granted her by Eilistraee. She wondered why but feared the answer too much to consider the question overlong.

Perhaps two dozen spiders remained within Uluyara's ring of blades. Halisstra knew a spell that would finish them, but an unexpected reluctance caused her to hesitate.

"We should go," she said.

"First, these," Uluyara answered, stepping forward. "Eilistraee has put them in our hands. We must finish them."

Uluyara brandished her weapon, but Halisstra caught her arm and stopped her advance. She eyed the hairy wolf spiders prowling within the circle of blades.

"I'll do it," she said.

Uluyara hesitated but finally nodded and said, "You bear the Crescent Blade."

With effort, Halisstra pushed through her reluctance, put her fingertips to the symbol of Eilistraee on her chest, and prayed. She had a terrifying moment when the words momentarily escaped her, but she recalled them presently and her voice grew in strength. When she finished the incantation, an invisible, circular wave of power went forth from her. It hit all of the spiders and drove them, scrabbling and hissing, backward into the wall of blades. All two dozen of them vanished in a spray of legs and slashed flesh.

Halisstra felt sick and elated all at once.

She turned to find Uluyara looking at her, head cocked. The high priestess seemed to want to say something but instead gave Halisstra a nod of approval and kneeled beside Feliane. She took the elf's face in her hands and whispered healing words. After a few moments, Feliane's remaining wounds closed completely, color returned to her face, and her eyes fluttered open. Uluyara helped her to her feet and held her steady.

"The Lady watches her faithful," Uluyara said to the elf, and Feliane nodded.

The slight elf warrior-priestess eyed the carcass of the sword spider. She looked thanks at Halisstra.

Halisstra gave her an absent half smile but found her gaze reaching out, beyond the wall of blades.

There, the slaughter went on unabated. Spiders bit, clawed, tore, and devoured one another in a nonstop orgy of violence. From time to time, one ventured or was carried by the combat into Uluyara's wall of blades, where it vanished in a spray of gore.

In a way that made her sick to admit, Halisstra found the slaughter somehow rational. The strong would devour the weak and become stronger still.

She knew that she was looking upon the pith of Lolth's doctrine made flesh, a metaphor for the Spider Queen's entire creed.

"This has to end sometime," she said. "We should hole up until it does."

Feliane, recovering her blade from the ground, asked, "Where will we go?"

"There," Halisstra replied, and nodded at the spire of stone looming over them. Few spiders prowled its sheer, strangely angled heights. They would be able to hold their ground atop it until the madness came to its bloody end. "We'll fly."

Seeing agreement in the eyes of Uluyara and Feliane, she again touched the medallion affixed to the chest of her mail and whispered a prayer to Eilistraee.

"Halisstra," Uluyara interrupted, her voice low and urgent. "The Crescent Blade."

The words to the prayer died on Halisstra's lips, and she felt her cheeks burn. She had left Eilistraee's blade in the carcass of the sword spider.

She had forgotten it.

"Of course," she said, in a poor attempt to cover her neglect.

Without meeting Uluyara's or Feliane's eyes, she sheathed Seyll's songsword in the scabbard over her back, walked over to the dead sword spider, and withdrew the Crescent Blade. She cleaned it on the spider's carcass before putting it back in the scabbard at her waist.

When she turned, she saw the doubt in Uluyara's eyes and the embarrassment in Feliane's. She chose to ignore them both.

"You're wounded," Uluyara said, and pointed at the seeping wounds in Halisstra's legs and the holes in her arm.

Halisstra had forgotten them too. She was certain she had been poisoned by the bites. The magical ring she wore allowed her to sense as much, and yet she showed no ill effects. She didn't want to acknowledge why that might be.

"It's nothing," she said and began her spell anew.

When she completed the prayer, her body and gear and those of her fellow priestesses metamorphosedinto an insubstantial gray vapor. She could still see, though her field of vision seemed to swell, contract, and roll. She could somehow still feel her body, or at least a body, though it felt thin and stretched, not unlike her soul.

The gusting wind tugged at her but she resisted its pull and willed herself into the air. Feliane and Uluyara, both appearing as vaguely humanoid clouds of vapor beside her, followed after.

Free of her flesh for at least a few moments, Halisstra felt free of her doubt, of her inner struggle. She felt unburdened by the world, as light as one of Lolth's souls streaming through the sky high above. She wished she could feel that way forever.

Flying up the sheer, rocky side of the black, twisted outcropping, she looked for a likely place to wait out the slaughter. She was pleased to see no webs anywhere on the spire-though other tors had many-and the gusting wind seemed to keep the spiders from reaching its heights.

At its top, the spire looked as though it had been sheared off by a keen blade, forming a round, featureless plateau twenty paces in diameter. The wind would whip at them there, but they would be sheltered from the violence below.

Halisstra alit on the plateau, waited for Feliane and Uluyara to follow, and dispelled the magic. As one, the three priestesses regained their normal forms. Halisstra's doubt returned with her flesh. The gusting wind nearly lifted her from her feet.

"We'll need shelter," Halisstra said above the wind.

Even there, the keening webs called to her. Yor'thae, they whispered.

In the distance, she could see ominous clouds forming over a distant mountain range and moving rapidly in their direction-a storm was coming.

"Gather here," Uluyara said, pulling Halisstra and Feliane into a circle.

Wrapped in the arms of her fellow priestesses, Halisstra felt a sense of sisterhood that reassured her, at least for the moment.

"We will form a sanctuary together," Uluyara said above the wind. "A place of safety in the midst of this obscenity."

Feliane and Halisstra nodded, though Halisstra did not understand exactly what she meant.

Uluyara stepped back from their circle, removed her silver medallion from under her mail, and spoke a prayer to Eilistraee. The wind swallowed her words, but when she was done, she joined her hands, pointed them at the stone of the tor as through they were a knife, and parted them.

The stone answered her gesture. Her magic turned the rock malleable, and she shaped it as though it were clay in her hands. Moving with precision, she used the spell to raise two walls from the flatness of the plateau. They met at a right angle and shielded them from the wind. She stepped forward and shaped them more carefully with her touch, smoothing them as best she could with her palms.

"Now you," Uluyara said to Feliane.

The elf smiled, nodded, and mirrored Uluyara's casting. She raised a third wall, and a fourth, leaving a narrow archway in the middle of one to serve as the doorway.

"And you," Feliane said to Halisstra.

Halisstra spoke the prayer that allowed her to shape stone to her will. When she finished, her hands felt charged, as though they were attached to the earth. She moved them gently, as if she was a potter, thinning the walls and drawing the excess up into a flat roof to form a crude, boxlike shelter.

She felt pleasure in working so closely with her fellow priestesses. They were creating. When priestesses of Lolth worked together, it was always to destroy, though Halisstra knew that sometimes- sometimes-destruction too brought pleasure.

When she finished her work, she and her fellow priestesses shared a smile. The wind whipped their hair into halos.

Inspired, Halisstra unsheathed the Crescent Blade and with its tip etched Eilistraee's symbol into the still-malleable stone above the open doorway.

"A temple to the Lady in the heart of Lolth's domain," Uluyara said, her voice defiant above the howling wind. "Well done, Halisstra Melarn."

Halisstra saw that the doubt that previously had clouded the expressions of her sisters was gone. Under their accepting gazes, the doubt in her own soul shrank until it was little more than a tiny seed in the center of her being, barely noticed.