Lisa Smedman - Storm of the Dead

Echoing their head priestess's laughter, the Crones hoisted Cavatina and Karas into the air. Twice, they nearly dropped Cavatina. She was awash in her own blood, her body almost too slippery to hold. With the last of her strength, Cavatina fought to lift her head, to face her doom bravely. There was no use commending her soul to Eilistraee; in another moment it would all be over. As the Crones bore her to the crumbling lip of stone surrounding the voidstone sphere, Cavatina uttered one final, whispered prayer.

"Eilistraee. Don't let it end like this. Please."

"Now!" the spirit cried.

The Crones swung Cavatina backward, preparing to toss her toward the voidstone sphere. But half of them collapsed, going from undeath to death in a blink. Those who remained-the living-struggled to hold Cavatina aloft, but weren't strong enough. They dropped her and stumbled away, as if they'd given up on killing her.

A skull smashed down into the stone a couple of paces away from Cavatina. Then another. She twisted around and spotted Karas, also lying on the ground. Skulls tumbled from the ceiling above, smashing to pieces all around him.

With the last of her flagging strength, Cavatina forced herself off the ground, one arm raised above her head to fend off the falling skulls. Something had just happened-but what? She looked wearily around, blinking the blood from her eyes.

The spirit was gone.

The Crones milled about, not paying the slightest attention to Cavatina and Karas. A moment earlier, they had been purposeful and grim, but they grew confused confused. They stared at each other, at the corpses of the undead Crones who had fallen, at the silver rings on their own fingers, perplexed looks on their faces. One of them-a Crone who had been holding Cavatina aloft just moments ago-glanced down at Cavatina with a frown, as if trying to remember who she was.

Cavatina struggled to her feet. The possibility occurred to her that whatever had just happened might be the work of Qilue. Had the Crescent Blade claimed a second deity? Was that why the high priestess hadn't answered her summons a short time ago-because she'd been preparing to slay…

She paused, uncertain. What was the name of that goddess again?

Cavatina glanced around at the milling, gray-robed females. She remembered what they called themselves- Crones-and that they served a goddess of death. But try as she might, Cavatina couldn't remember that goddess's name.

A skull slammed into Cavatina's shoulder, nearly knocking her to the ground. She staggered to her holy symbol and fell to her knees beside it. One hand pressing against the miniature sword, she prayed.

"Eilistraee," she said through thickened lips. "Heal me."

Eilistraee's grace flowed into Cavatina. Her wounds closed. She was not as strong as she might be, but at least she could stand. She dragged Karas into the lee of a nearby wall, out of the rain of skulls. Then she swung around to face the voidstone.

The sphere still hung above the ruined temple, but it was no longer expanding. The skulls that struck it vanished, instantly obliterated. The undead legions inside the sphere shouted and pounded against its walls, but could not escape. All the while, the Crones milled about between the fallen undead like club-stunned rothe. Shuffling. Uncertain. A handful of those that still lived were down, knocked to the ground by the rain of falling skulls. For several moments more, the ghastly rain continued. When it at last ended, a dirgelike moan filled the air. The Crones, mourning.

The crowd had thinned enough so that Cavatina could see the bodies of the fallen Protectors and the wizards Daffir and Gilkriz. Leliana lay among them, too, her singing sword beside her.

Cavatina walked to it and picked it up.

As she raised it, the weapon sang out a strident peal. To Eilistraee. To victory.

"Qilue!" she called.

A moment later, the high priestesses's mind touched hers. Cavatina! Where are you?

Swiftly, Cavatina described what had just happened. "Lady Qilue, was it your doing?"

No. I wasn't the one who killed… her.

Cavatina noted the hesitation in Qilue's mental voice. "What happened, then?"

I can't answer that. But now is the moment to strike. We need to deal with the surviving Crones-swiftly-before the effect is undone.

Cavatina glanced around at the milling Crones. Their faces, no longer contorted with the madness of their faith, looked lost, tired, and sad. One of them touched Cavatina's arm and looked pleadingly into her eyes, as if seeking an answer to a question she didn't know how to ask.

Cavatina shrugged her off. "Should we offer them redemption?" she asked Qilue. "There may be some who-"

Qilue'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.

Karas 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 Qilue 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 Qilue," 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.