Lisa Smedman - Sacrifice of the Widow

Time to get out of here.

Jub doubled back the way he'd come, climbing the steep walls of the cavern. When he reached its ceiling, his hairs picked up a faint air current emerging from a nearby crack in the rock. The air was flowing into the cavern and was slightly damp. It smelled of melting snow.

The crack was just wide enough for him to squeeze into. It was also a quicker way out-one that didn't lead past all those traps. He scrambled up through it. The climb was a torturous one, and Jub nearly got stuck several times, but the higher he climbed, the better he could smell the wintery scent of the woods above.

The darkness of the shaft was starting to pale to gray when he passed a narrow fissure that opened onto a vast cavern. One glance into it was enough to halt him in his tracks. The floor of the cavern glittered with thousands of gems and coins, strewn about like pebbles on a beach. Half buried in these were statues, books, bejeweled breastplates and helms, silver-chased swords, chalices, and a host of other treasures. It was a sight that Jub had never expected to see in his lifetime-a dragon's horde.

He knew better than to be tempted by it. He turned to go.

Something stirred the hairs on his legs… the flapping of massive wings.

A heartbeat later, an enormous head rose to eye level. A massive, slit-pupiled eye, large as a dinner plate and wrinkled as a prune, stared into the hole.

"Not so fast, little orcling," a whisper-dry voice said.

Terrified, Jub tried to scramble away but found himself suddenly unable to move. His heart beat furiously and his rapid breath sent pulses through his abdomen. He screamed at his body to move, but it wouldn't. Terrified-the dracolich must have seen through his spider disguise and recognized him for what he was-Jub raged at himself. If he'd gone back the way he'd come, instead of trying to take a shortcut, this never would have happened.

The tips of two claws poked into the hole, pinching Jub between them. He gasped as they knifed into his sides. The dracolich plucked him from the hole, and with a harsh whisper, it dispelled the magic of Jub's phylactery, returning Jub to half-drow form. Its breath held the sharp tang of acid.

"I warned you not to trespass up here," the dracolich told him in a voice hoarse as a dying man's. "We had an agreement."

The paralyzation that gripped Jub's body was starting to wear off. "Sorry," he gulped. Hope filled him. The dracolich didn't realize he was a spy-it thought he was one of the Selvetargtlin! "I didn't mean to break it. I thought this was a shortcut to the surface. I didn't know it led to your lair."

As he spoke, Jub desperately tried to activate his phylactery. If he could suddenly turn into a fly, he might be able to buzz away up the shaft and escape. He'd be too tiny for the dracolich to grab. The dracolich, however, seemed to have completely drained the magic from the phylactery.

The undead dracolich hovered, black wings lazily flapping, its massive, wrinkled eyes staring balefully at Jub. "You were warned," it wheezed.

Then it inhaled, filling its lungs. Acid-tinged air seeped out through the chinks between its scales where chest muscle had once been.

Jub steeled himself. This was it. He was going to die. At least he hadn't failed Qilue. Perhaps, when they both met again in Eilistraee's domain, she'd smile at him and thank him. Maybe gently touch his hand and-

The dracolich exhaled. A stream of acid slammed into Jub's chest, instantly searing a hole through flesh, ribs, and lungs, melting his spine. His upper body flopped backward like a broken doll, acid-seared flesh sloughing from it. There was one brief flash of pain so intense it was blinding.

Then came gray oblivion and a soothing song that swelled through him, washing the anguish away.

Dhairn stared down at the head Daurgothoth had tossed on the cavern floor. The grisly trophy was deeply pitted with acid, but enough of it remained to show that the intruder had been a half-breed-drow tainted with orc, by the look of the oversized incisors.

"You and I had an agreement," the great black wyrm hissed.

Only its head and neck were visible. Its body was still submerged in the pool that filled one end of the cavern. Foul-smelling water dripped from its emaciated flesh into the water below. A moment before, the pool had been clear, but it had grown murky and stank like rotting garbage. The Selvetargtlin would have to expend magic on purifying it before they could drink from it again.

The dracolich's withered tail swept back and forth through the foul water in obvious agitation. "You agreed that your priests would use only certain parts of the city, and not disturb me."

"He's not one of ours," Dhairn told the dracolich. "He must have been a treasure hunter from the World Above."

Bone scratched against rock as the dracolich flexed its claws against the rocky edge of the pool. "He was climbing up from below. He could only have come from a spot near this cavern."

Dhairn stiffened. "You're certain?"

Leathery muscles creaked as the dracolich nodded. Its skin was dark as soot, its wrinkled eyes like enormous wrinkled balls. "Yes," it hissed. Its acid-tinged breath reeked enough to make Dhairn's eyes water.

Dhairn scowled at the remains of the half-orc head in frustration. The jaw hung by a thread of muscle and the tongue was an acid-eaten stub. The lips were burned away, exposing the teeth. There wasn't enough left of the head to get any intelligible answers out of the corpse. The dracolich had acted rashly. Dhairn would have liked to have learned whether the intruder was alone.

He poked the head with the tip of his sword, rolling it over. "Did the intruder say or do anything before he died? Anything that would lead you to believe he was of a particular faith?"

"He couldn't speak. He'd polymorphed himself into a spider."

Dhairn inhaled sharply. "Lolth." He whispered the name under his breath, the word sharp as a curse.

That didn't bode well. The priestesses of Eryndlyn must have sent out another spy. When that one also failed to return, they would retaliate, but if all went well, the exiled Selvetargtlin that Dhairn led would have a permanent home soon enough, and a powerful new ally once the seals on the Pit were removed.

"Your presence here is drawing unwanted attention," the dracolich observed.

"I agree." Dhairn lifted his sword and rested the heavy blade on his shoulder. "But our forces are ready to strike. I'll send a summons to our knights. As soon as they've loosed their respective companies and assembled here, we'll mount our attack."

The dracolich's eyes glinted. "And my payment for providing the gems and the magic to attune them?"

Dhairn met the undead dracolich's eye with a level stare. "The secrets to the creation of the chitines," he promised, an irresistible lure for Daurgothoth, who had been trying for centuries to magically breed his own unique race of servitors, "and a one-sixth share of all the plunder we wrest from Undermountain over the next six hundred years."

The dracolich gave Dhairn a baleful look. "See to it that you deliver on your promises."

Dhairn bowed, the blade of his sword balanced on his shoulder. "By the strength of Selvetarm's sword arm, we shall."

Cavatina followed Halisstra through the woods. The shrine at Lake Sember was only two days behind them, but they had come to a region of Cormanthor that few trod. The elm and birch trees gradually thinned, giving way to towering black oaks with trunks as twisted as a wizard's tower. Thorn trees grew thickly between them, their long, sharp spines tearing at Cavatina's cloak. Halisstra shouldered her way through the undergrowth, the thorns snapping like glass against her tough skin.

Cavatina's breath fogged in the chill air. So late in the year, the days were short and frost sparkled on the ground from sunrise to sunset, but under the twisted oaks, the ground was bare, black and soft, as if something had melted it from below. Instead of the clean tang of impending snow, Cavatina smelled a sickly-sweet odor, like rotting flesh. As the ground began to descend sharply, she realized where Halisstra was leading her.