Extinction

"Lolth must die!" she shouted?suddenly realizing that her voice was all alone in the abrupt silence.

She glanced up and found that all of them were staring at her?especially Uluyara. The high priestess had driven the point of her own sword not into the earth but into the boulder beside her. For a moment, the boulder reminded Halisstra of a slain spider, the red streaks of rust emulating blood. As Uluyara tossed back her hair, the silver radiance cast by the blade of her sword caught it, making it sparkle like moonlight. She beckoned Halisstra forward.

Deciding after a moment's hesitation to leave the songsword in the ground where she'd thrust it, Halisstra approached the high priestess. Uluyara reached our for her hand, and when Halisstra gave it to her, she placed it on the hilt of the sword in the stone.

"This one holds a special place in Eilistraee's heart, though she has but recently renounced the Queen of Spiders," Uluyara told the others. "May the Lady of the Dance bless her and guide her sword well. Eilistraee give her strength."

Halisstra, her palm damp with nervous sweat, spoke the ritual response: "By song and sword."

As she said it, the sword she was holding quivered slightly. Then, seemingly of its own accord, it slid deeper into the stone. Halisstra, still holding its hilt, followed it down, pushing it into the boulder until its hilt struck the stone with a dull clank.

"By song and sword!" the other priestesses cried.

Then, as one, they broke into song, whirling their swords above their heads. A moment later, they were dancing in a circle around the stone.

Halisstra, still gripping the sword tightly, felt Uluyara place a hand on hers.

"Come," the high priestess said. "Join the dance. When it is done, there is something I'd like to discuss with you."

Halisstra nodded and allowed herself to be led into the swirl of dancers. On the way she plucked the songsword from the ground and waved it over her head. As she moved gracefully among the other priestesses, sword flashing, she could feel Eilistraee looking down from the heavens. Not just at the dance, but at her, personally. Filled with wonder, Halisstra realized the goddess had something in mind for her, something momentous. Would she be able to rise to the challenge? She who, like the yochlol, had so treacherously betrayed and slain one of Eilistraee's priestesses?

As she danced, Halisstra could sense another set of eyes, watching her. Not those of a goddess but of a mortal. She searched the trees that fringed the crater, looking for a familiar patch of too-deep shadow, for the tiny flash of white that would mark the eyes that were observing her. At last she found it, high among the branches, and knew that it was the spot where Ryld was levitating.

Seeing him?or rather, seeing the subtle signs that he was there?Halisstra felt a chill course through her blood. Males were forbidden from observing the evensong ritual. Spying on one so emotionally charged was to court disaster. Any moment, one of the priestesses might spot the weapons master and punish his transgression by striking him blind, deaf, and dumb. For all Halisstra knew, Eilistraee herself might punish him, smiting him with the cold fire that had killed the phase spider.

Those grim thoughts filled Halisstra's mind as she followed the dancing women in their circle, for a few moments losing track of Ryld as her back was turned to him. Then, as she came around to the other side of the circle once more, she snuck a glance at the spot where he was?carefully, so as not to attract attention to him.

Ryld was gone.

Lost in thought as he approached the tiny cabin in which he and Halisstra had been quartered, Ryld didn't react, at first, to the faint, musky odor that came to his nostrils as the wind shifted. Instead his thoughts were on the dance he'd been spying on and Halisstra's conversion, heart and soul, to a goddess who would condemn her to forever live in the World Above. Only at the last instant?as a patch of shadow in the bushes to his right suddenly shifted?did he jerk back. By the time he drew Splitter from the sheath on his back, a black wolf had leaped onto the trail in front of him, blocking it. Instead of attacking, however, it cocked its head and gave Ryld a sly grin, tongue lolling from its mouth. A ripple passed through its body, causing the wolf to stagger, and Ryld heard the sound of cracking cartilage as the animal became a dirt-smudged boy.

"If the wind hadn't shifted, I'd have had you," Yarno said.

Ryld grinned in acknowledgement and sheathed his sword. Then, hearing female voices in the forest behind him, he frowned down at Yarno.

"You shouldn't be here," he told the boy. "If the priestesses find you within their sacred grove. .»

The boy's eyes narrowed, and he asked, "How many have you killed?"