F O U R (24 page)

sawlike  teeth on the  edge. Next came  an  arm  terminating in a  studded bulb like

the head of a mace. Poised to beat her  skull in, that one was no use either. She

sidestepped the blow, the vipers tore  into the  limb, and  the  living  darkness snatched it back.

A sim

toward herple tentacle, with no blades or  bludgeons sprouting from  its end, snaked .  It seemed as if it was going  to try to grab and restrain her weapon

arm.  She pretended she didn't notice.

The strand of shadow dipped to the floor, hooked around Quenthel'sand jerked her good leg out from  under her               ankle,

.

surprise, and she fell hard on her back, banging her head and shooting pain The change of target caught her by through her wounded limbs.

It took her an instant to shake of

fiend's other limbs poised to slash af the shock. When she did, she sensed the nd pound. She was almost out of time to

recite the trigger phrase.

She rattled ofBut not quite.f the three words, and power  seethed and tingled inside her flesh.

She discharged it into the living darkness, an easy task since the demon was

holding onto her.  She held her breath,  waiting to see  what  would happen.  ble.

The mLike allowing her adversary to seize her,  this too was a part of the gamagic she had just unleashed would weaken a dark elf or pretty much any

other mortal being to the point of death. However

nature, the demon—or whatever it was—might sim,  depending on its precise ply shrug it off. It might

even  feed  on  the  blast  of  force  and  grow  stronger  than  before.

The ploy worked. The fiend was susceptible, at least to some  degree. Sheknew it when the entity'

s  limbs flailed and thrashed in spasms, the one on her

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War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

ankle releasing her to twist and flop about. The ambient darkness blinked out of existence for a second as the creature's grip on its surr

One instant of vision was all Quenthel needed to moundings wavered.ark where her enemy'sragged core was floating. She scrambled up, charged it, and found th

at she was

hobbling, every other stride triggering a j olt  of pain. She didn't  let  the discomfort slow her down.

The creature of darkness was recovering.  TwShe ducked one and lashed the other      o tendrils squirmed at Quenthel.

,  which flinched back.

After two more steps, she judged, hoped, that she'd limped within strikin

distance of the entity's formless heart.                 gsatisfaction when she felt the vipers'  fangs rip som She swung the whip, and shouted in

ething more resistant than

empty air.

She struck as hard and as fast as sh

snakes warned her of tendrils looping around behind here could, grunting with every stroke. Her ,  and she ignored thethreat. If she left off attacking the center of the darkness, she mi

another chance.                        ght not get

The darkness obscuring the room  started rapidly oscillating between presence and absence. Quenthel'

s  motions looked oddly jerky in the disjointed moments

of vision.

Tentacles grabbed and dragged her backward. She shouted in rage and

frustration. As if responding to her cry,  the arms  dissolved, dumping her backon the floor

.

imQuenthel raised her head and ppedim             eered about. There was no longer any ent to sight. The murderous darkness was gone. Her last blow must

have been mortal. It had just taken  the creature another second or two to

succumb.

"It's dead!" hissed Hsiv. "What now, Mistress?"

"First

.  .  .  I

'm  going  to  sit  ... and  tend  my  wounds, then we're going to look . .

. for my  sentry," panted Quenthel, attenuating her rapport with the  vipers. In too

deep and prolonged a commdirection or the other     union, shades  of identity could bleed in one

.  "If she's lucky,  she's already dead

"

.

She wished she were as undaunted as she was trying to sound, but it appearedtha

t  demonic  assassins were  going to keep  coming for her.  She'd hoped that the

appearance of the spider demon might be an isolated inci-dent. She'that if any more such fiends did appear              d thought

Plainly              , the renewed wards would keep them out. ,  she'd been too optimistic.At least Arach-Tinilith was the seat of  her power

.  There, she could deploy a

small army of retainers and a hoard of magical devices in her own defense, butthose resources hadn't helped her against the darkness, and sh

e  couldn't  help

wondering how many hostile vissurvive.           itations a priestess in her condition could hope to

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War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

Richard Lee Byers

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War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

C  h   a  p  t  e  r

E  I  G  H  T

Greyanna's  henchmen came floating down around her.  Two were warriors, one a wizard, and the third was another priestess. All wore the half masks of trueseeing, giving them  the deceptively foolish look of actors in a pantomime.Pharaun tried to levitate, but the net rapier  into  existence.  The  steel  ring vanishewas too heavy.  He willed his animate d  from  his finger,  and thesword m                            long, slimaterialized outside the net. The blade started slicing at the thick ropes,but to little effect. A rapier was a thrusting weapon and not suited to sawing.

Tensing his muscles against the remorseless pressureturned the floating sword around to threaten his f   of the tightening web, he ellow representatives of HouseMizzrym

.

Greyanna laughed. "Is that one little bodkin supposed to hold us all at bay?""Possibly not," said Pharaun, straining to  work his fingers closer to one of hispockets. "That's why I instructed it to kill you first."

His sister m
"Did you, now?"
otioned her warriors forward.  Twin brothers possessed of the sameslung over their backs in preference to the mslightly yellowish hair and deeply cleft chin, they carried pale bone longbows ore common crossbows.Greyanna herself remained on her mount  and produced a scroll from  within her piwafwi. Thanks to his remaining ring, Pharaun could see from  the complex corona of magical force shining around the rolled parchment that it contained, among others, a spell to disrupt the other  fellow's mause it to render the dancing rapier inert long enough for her mgic. Perhaps she intended to inions to break or immobilize it.

The wretched ropes were digging into the wizard's flesh like knives. He would hardly have been surprised if they drew  blood. They were certainly cutting off his circulation and numbing his  extremities. Trembling with  effingers another inch.                   fort, he shifted his

"My companion is Ryld Argith," he said, "a Master of Melee-Magthere. He's

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