Extinction

Then, after making his report to his matron mother, he would see what he could do to put an end to the siege.

Chapter Nineteen

As a dozen priestesses raised horns to their lips to signal the start of the night's hunt, Halisstra felt a thrill rush through her body. Part of it was a shiver. The wind was picking up, and a few flakes of snow had started to fall. Like the others, she wore nothing save for a heavy silver chain around her waist, hung with the silver disk that bore the symbol of Eilistraee.

Tipping her head back, she raised the hunting horn they'd given her to her lips, staring past it at the moon. She drew a deep breath and blew, adding her horn's strident voice to the others. There was an urgent rush of raw sound as each of the horns found its own note, then held it in perfect harmony with the others. The very air shivered and for several heartbeats was still. Then the wind resumed, stirring the tree branches overhead.

As if the goddess had given her a signal, Halisstra suddenly cut short her note at precisely the same moment that the other women did. She lowered her horn and stared expectantly as the leader of the hunt?Uluyara, the drow who had killed the troll the previous night?drew from the ground the sword they had been dancing around a moment before. Holding it straight out in front of her, the high priestess slowly turned in place.

Like Uluyara, Halisstra's only weapon was a sword, Seyll's long sword. Her hand gripped its hilt tightly, covering all but one of the holes. Through that single hole the wind blew, producing a faint, insistent note.

Feliane, who had stayed close to Halisstra throughout the dance, caught her eye.

"Use it well," she said, nodding at the songsword. The moon elf had dyed her skin black, once again, in preparation for the night's hunt. Too small and i

"What do we hunt?" Halisstra whispered.

"Whatever monster Eilistraee causes to cross our path," Feliane answered, an enigmatic smile on her lips.

Uluyara began to spin faster. Her sword flashed in the moonlight as she whirled in tight circles: once, twice, three times. . then she jerked to a halt, her blade quivering.

"This way!" she shouted.

Like a hunting lizard suddenly unleashed, she sprinted into the woods.

A rush of excitement swept through Halisstra as she leaped to follow the high priestess. All of the other priestesses did the same, and just behind her, Halisstra could see Feliane ru

At the top she paused, uncertain which way to go. She could no longer hear the other priestesses in the forest ahead. The only sound was the noise of Feliane scrambling up the slope behind her. Then she heard a horn, coming from a distance and to her right.

"That's Uluyara," Feliane gasped. "She's found it."

Halisstra didn't stop to ask what the high priestess had found. Panting, sweating even though the air was cold, she plunged on into the forest, ru

This must be the «trial» Feliane had spoken of when I was lifted from the cave, Halisstra thought. That's why she's holding herself back, watching my every move.

Determined not to show herself to be wanting, aware that Eilistraee herself might be watching, Halisstra ran on, ignoring the pain that was pinching her side like a centipede's jaws.

At least the moon provided ample light to run by?to Halisstra, accustomed to the Underdark, the forest appeared brilliantly lit. But the trees were thick, the spaces between them filled with low bushes and ferns. Halisstra had long since lost sight of all the priestesses save Feliane. When Uluyara's horn sounded a second time, immediately in front of Halisstra, the closeness of it surprised her. An instant later, Halisstra burst through a tangle of tree branches that felt strangely sticky, into a moonlit clearing.

She spotted Uluyara, hunting horn still raised to pursed lips, but she could see none of the other priestesses. Nor could she hear them. Lowering the horn, Uluyara pointed at the far side of the clearing, then she backed slowly into the woods. Tree branches closed after her like curtains.

Halisstra stared in the direction in which Uluyara had pointed, but she saw only forest.

She turned to where Feliane should have been and began to ask, "What do I. ."

Her voice trailed off as she discovered that Feliane, too, was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing behind Halisstra but tree branches, sighing against one another in the wind. As it blew across the clearing from the direction in which Uluyara had pointed, the breeze carried a familiar, musky smell.

Whirling back to face the clearing, Halisstra raised her sword?and not an instant too soon. In front of her crouched an enormous spider, easily half again as tall as she was. Its body was a mottled gray and black?perfect camouflage in the moonlight-dappled wood. Glossy black eyes reflected the moon as the creature reared up, jaws dripping venom.

For the space of a heartbeat Halisstra stared up at the spider, uncertainty making her sword waver. Years of subservience to Lolth screamed at her to throw her weapon to the ground, to grovel before the holy creature and selflessly offer unto it whatever Lolth would claim.

"A hungry spider must feed," was one of the first things she had been taught after being accepted as a novice at Lolth's temple. "Give yourself to it joyfully, for in the end Lolth will consume us all. Better to suffer the torments of the flesh now than to face the wrath of the goddess later."

Lolth would surely have punished a priestess?especially one who had spurned her as Halisstra had?for so grave a transgression. But Lolth was dead. Or at the very least, not watching.

The moonlight reflected in the spider's eyes reminded Halisstra of one thing more: Eilistraee was watching. Or at the very least, she might have been. Halisstra smiled grimly, suddenly realizing why Uluyara and Feliane had disappeared.

The spider was her trial.

As the spider lunged down at her, Halisstra swung her sword with all her strength. Flashing in the moonlight, the sword described a clean arc, its blade exactly in line with the spider's bulging eyes. But instead of co

Halisstra rolled onto her back, swinging the sword into an upright position as she did, then she thrust upward at the belly of the spider. Just as it had done the first time, it disappeared.