Queen of the Demonweb Pits Read online

  “No!”

  The faerie ripped at the cobblestones with her bare hands, trying to find her sister. Raving, Tielle tore the rubble apart with spells, smashing and gouging her way down to the dirt below. Panting, she reared up out of the filth, casting wildly from side to side with her face streaming tears.

  “Where is she? Why did you release her? Why? Why?”

  Chain monks fell back in terror. Tielle blew one of them apart with one savage gesture of a finger, her hair flying about her little body as she stamped and screamed in hate.

  A chain monk crouched in the dirt nearby, hooting and moaning as it flapped a calming hand at Tielle. The monster pointed at an opening in one of the stone gutters of the street—an opening that led down into the flooded city sewers. A ferocious stench rose from the hole. Tielle flung herself over to the gutter and peered inside.

  The hole was nothing but a slot a handspan tall, leading to a drop some twenty feet or more into the sewer tunnels down below. The faerie slammed her hand against the stone and roared in rage.

  “Polymorph! Escalla and her mangy friend shape-changed and escaped!”

  Tielle could shapeshift and chase her sister down into the sewers, but the chain monks would be left behind. Tielle needed the chain monks to catch and hold all of Escalla’s little friends. She turned upon her servants and showered them with abuse.

  “Tear up the streets! There must be a way into the sewers somewhere! Find it. Go-go-go!”

  Tielle raged, and the chain monks raced to do her will. Left alone in the street, the faerie snatched up a torn ribbon of black skirt and hurled it to the ground.

  Overhead, the sun suddenly dimmed. Darkness spread over the city, and the air trembled with a distant roar.

  The legions of Lolth had come. The battlements would be stormed, the air would fill with abyssal bats, and Tielle’s prey might be slain by any one of ten thousand monsters. Cursing, Tielle walked back down the streets as lightning cracked high up in the sky.

  * * *

  “Get down!”

  On the battlements, the town guards flung themselves flat as a wave of spells shot upward from the onrushing hordes below. Lightning bolts smashed stone from the battlements and charred soldiers into ash. The Justicar pushed spearmen into cover, then whirled and cut an incoming lightning bolt clean out of the sky. Benelux shrieked, half in pain and half in exultation.

  “Henry!” shouted the Justicar.

  Henry had seen the enemy sorcerer. The boy slapped five bolts into his crossbow’s magazine, took aim, and opened fire. The machine bucked in his hand, the magical bow blurring as it sent five shots hissing into the air. Down below, a drow sorcerer spun and screamed, pierced by three crossbow bolts and smashed to the ground. Henry reloaded, already picking new targets. Jus walked by, Cinders’ tail swirling in his wake and the sword of light gleaming in his hand.

  “Archers, pick your targets! Don’t waste your fire! Kill the officers! Kill anyone who leads!”

  The monsters down below had the same orders. An arrow sped up from below toward the Justicar, and he contemptuously swatted it from the air.

  “Other soldiers, stay down! I want one man in three back at the stairs as a reserve!”

  The Justicar strode the battlements, huge and powerful. His brilliant white sword steamed with blood, and the hell hound cresting his helmet leaked fire and brimstone from its fangs. Soldiers flung themselves into place along the battlements, and the Justicar shoved men to their stations. He caught a new soldier and spun the man around.

  “You! Where are your officers for this section?”

  “Dead!” Another man yelled over his shoulder, ducking a crossbow quarrel from below. “Spider bites! There’s black widow spiders in the barracks! Millions of them!”

  Polk moved backward, tugging a heavy box of crossbow quarrels over to Henry. Jus looked out over the battlements and saw a land turned black with hell.

  No inch of ground showed beneath the onrushing horde. There were tens of thousands of creatures down below—spiders, some the size of wagons, others no bigger than coins. Troglodytes, reptilian and stinking like pus, shambled forward. There were trolls and gargoyles and demonic shapes made from molten bone and spikes. There were creatures half spider and half flayed corpse who fought each other to be first to the city walls, leaping and screaming as they fought through the fields of mud. Giant spiders the size of war elephants strode amongst the rabble, and from armored cabins on their backs, lordly drow directed the attack. Whipping the wave forward, roaring in insensate lust for blood, there were the hideous shapes of tanar’ri demons. Darkness spells turned the world around them into night, while abyssal bats flapped like flayed corpses through the skies.

  Spiders and drow. Jus cursed and flattened himself against the wall of a tower as the arrow storm began.

  Lolth! Benelux seemed stunned. This is her doing! Benelux was shocked when the Justicar seemed undismayed. But we killed her! You defeated her. Good triumphed over evil!

  “Evil begs to differ.” The Justicar made a practice cut with Benelux, the huge sword swirling like a toy in his hand. Jus had a sudden, clear vision of his responsibility for the invasion army down below.

  Lolth. Coldly judging the enemy’s rate of approach, the Justicar walked the battlements as a huge cloud of arrows flew up to smack and clatter from the city walls. Thousands of arrows fell down into the city streets, and the packed mobs living in the alleyways fought frantically to get into the shelter of the houses. Chaos broke out, and still the Justicar watched his enemy, unmoved. He cut another spider strand free, ducking back as a ballista bolt whipped harmlessly past his head.

  “Polk?”

  “Son? What is it, son? I’m busy here!” The badger had found a ballista crew, and was dragging spare ammunition over to them one bolt at a time. “There’s a million of them down there, son. It’s gonna be a last stand! Fight to the finish, backs to the wall, and the last defender dies atop a slaughtered heap of foes! I’ve gotta get ammo up here, then find somewhere to seal our chronicles. They can be a message of hope, son. A guiding light to the brave souls who will carry on the fight once we’re dead and gone!”

  “Polk, stop planning suicide notes and find Escalla! We need sorcery up here right now!” The big man felt the darkness growing over the city, the gloom deepening into pure pitch black. “Torches! I want torches on the wall!”

  Henry wrenched a wounded man back out of the line of fire. He treated the soldier swiftly, tugging the arrow from him and jamming the wound closed with spiderwebs. Pale white with shock, the wounded man kept staring over the battlements.

  “Th-there must be a hundred thousand of them.”

  “Most of them aren’t real.” The Justicar crouched, talking loud enough to be heard by the defenders all around. “Cinders?”

  The hell hound’s red eyes watched the enemy and gave a feral gleam.

  Front wave is illusion. Middle is real. Rear line is illusion.

  “Only the middle wave is real!” the Justicar bellowed to the archers along the wall. “Concentrate fire on the middle ranks! Be careful! There might be a few real ones mixed in with the phantasms!” The Justicar cursed. “That still makes it forty thousand troops down there. She wants this city taken fast.” He yelled after Polk as the badger blundered down the stairs. “Hurry, Polk! We need magic up here now!”

  Henry had his crossbow reloaded, this time with venom on the bolts. He pulled his helmet strap tight and looked back at the Justicar.

  “Here they come.”

  The shock of impact seemed to make the wall shudder to its roots. Countless siege ladders thudded into place. On the walls, soldiers began to rise, until the Justicar shoved them straight back down.

  “Get in cover and close your eyes! It isn’t real!” The big man strode like a god of war, the black hell hound gleaming on his back, a sword made of white energy shimmering in his hand. “Concentrate on dinner! What did you eat last night? How did it feel between your teeth? Ev
ery bite! Concentrate!”

  A soldier scrabbled back from the wall as ringing screams filled the entire world. The Justicar stooped, grabbed the man by his armor, and slammed him back into his post.

  “Where in the abyss are you going?” Huge with anger, Jus shoved his victim back in line. “If you desert your friends, then you’re one of the enemy! I’ll kill you where you stand!”

  Illusory monsters swarmed over the wall. The Justicar strode through the darkness, ripped by insubstantial claws. He passed through the monsters, laying a hand on the armored backs of the soldiers, forcing them to ignore the sorcery. As a real invader finally put a ladder on the wall, he reached over the battlements, snared the screaming goblin, and threw the creature straight down into the cobbled streets below.

  “All right! Up! Now kill—kill them all!”

  The soldiers surged to their feet as new scaling ladders thundered against the battlements. A screaming tide of monsters clawed against the city walls. Huge spiders climbed the stone, while demonic tanar’ri directed their slaves to scale the ladders in droves. Drow sorcerers wove a darkness black as pitch. Jus opened his arms and bellowed one of his own spells, and light spread out to rip into the darkness. In gloom lit with screams, lightning flash, and fire, the city guard met the first wave of attackers to crest their wall.

  Swords crashed against goblin helms and lizard scales. Spiders clawed over the brink, rearing and stabbing fangs into warriors before being hacked to death by halberds. Henry fought in a surge of controlled panic, sheltering, reloading, then whipping over the wall to fire at the drow. Men lifted rocks, furniture, even water troughs ripped from the barracks and shoved them over the battlements to wipe entire ladders clean. Scaling ladders cracked and broke as boulders broke them from above. Falling monsters ploughed into their comrades and spattered in the mud.

  The Justicar hung back with one third of the men, watching this one stretch of wall carefully. The soldiers fought in savage fury, swords and halberds butchering the monsters as they climbed the wall. Archers and crossbowmen fired in fast, professional rhythm. The soldiers had been hardened by decades of constant war, and the enemy was shocked by their sheer ferocity.

  A chunk of wall shook as a spell thudded into it, and a choking cloud of gas made the defenders stagger clear. The Justicar took one look and waded forward, summoning his men.

  “Reserves!” The big man fired off his best, most useful spell, dispelling the magic of the poison fog. “Archers stay here! Halberds with me!”

  They came hissing and clattering over the wall—decaying corpses with black pits for eyes. Twenty men followed the Justicar as he crashed into the monsters. Cinders sheeted fire into the undead monsters, charring half a dozen into blazing, broken puppets. One cadaver fired a pistol crossbow, the dart ricocheting from Jus’ dragon-scale cuirass, then the halberdiers fell onto the undead like a steel wall.

  Heavy polearms shoved and cut. The Justicar roared like a bull, his white sword moving in a blur. The undead exploded the instant Benelux ploughed into them. Made of positive energy, the weapon caused the creatures to catch fire like paper dolls, burning from inside out. The undead screamed and fell, withering to ashes even as Jus kicked off their leader’s skull. He hacked off a pair of arms that clung over the battlements, then heard Henry scream.

  It was a varrangoin—an abyssal bat. Like an obscene, withered corpse the monster loomed over the men on the battlements, its bat wings open to show the spell runes burned into its skin. Its skull face screamed in fury as it landed among the men of the wall. The reserve archers fired, and their arrows rebounded from the monster’s hide. The varrangoin reared in triumph and thundered a cloud of flames over the archers. The men screamed, charred instantly to skeletons. Twenty men gone, and the varrangoin blundered forward through the flames and screeched a cry of triumph.

  The Justicar came at a dead run, Cinders streaming smoke in his wake. The varrangoin blasted out another cloud of flame, and Jus leaped, turning his back to the fire. Burned, in pain and still moving, he burst through the fire cloud with his white sword whipping around in a lethal swing. Benelux smacked into the varrangoin’s skull, hacking into flesh as hard as teak and bone stronger than steel. The monster was wrenched sideways by the huge power of the blow.

  Blinded, the varrangoin struck with its claws, lightning fast, only to have each stroke parried by the Justicar. Jus fell to the ground and spun, hacking for the monsters ankles. He felt his sword bite and was already rising, roaring like a maddened god, his swordpoint lancing upward as the monster fell. The varrangoin collapsed, impaled upon Benelux.

  The Justicar twisted the weapon, wrenching it from side to side to open the wound. Wailing in agony, the varrangoin tried to stagger back. It fell, spewing blood across the battlements. With his hell hound’s teeth gleaming above him, the Justicar poised his sword, gave a yell, and hacked off the monster’s head. Splashed with blood, Benelux shrieked in victory.

  Burned, his armor smoking and his white sword running with blood, the Justicar held up the head of the varrangoin and flung it into the enemy below. Troglodytes and goblins slithered back down their scaling ladders in terror, fleeing the walls. The assault stalled, then surged backward in panic. Huge tanar’ri tried to stem the flood, whipping and slaughtering their fleeing slaves. Henry and the surviving archers fired into the retreat, killing as fast as they could reload.

  The next stretch of the wall hadn’t been so lucky. There was a crash as battlements toppled, and a surge of bestial screams as monsters crested the wall. A tower door led through to the next wall. The Justicar wrenched soldiers from their post and led the charge.

  “Even numbers! Follow me!”

  Jus staggered, hurt and burned. He shoved open the tower door, led the way through the tower, and forced his way out onto the next strip of wall.

  To see absolute and total defeat.

  Here, the defenders had fought illusions while the real attackers planted their ladders and their grappling irons. The city guards lay dead, except for a few who screamed while being savaged for the pleasure of the tanar’ri lords. Troglodytes, giant spiders, and blood-crazed trolls were already spilling like a tidal wave into the streets, and panicked civilians surged away with terror stricken screams.

  Hundreds of monsters were already across the wall. Thousands more flooded the breech in the city defenses. At the head of twenty men, the Justicar could only retreat with his men back to their own patch of wall.

  “Retreat!” The ranger could hear another massed charge thundering toward the city. “Is there a keep? Do you have a rally point?”

  “Yes!” A soldier wiped his face of blood. “The citadel is on the west side of the city!”

  “Rally!” The wall could not be held. There were too many enemy and not enough soldiers. “Rally on the citadel!”

  The enemy might only have attacked the west side of the city. There was a chance the population could flee to the east, if enough soldiers could be found to delay Lolth’s forces. Roaring commands, the Justicar strode through the soldiers, pulling men back from the wall. Henry stayed with him, guarding his back. As a shower of grappling hooks came clattering over the wall, the boy loaded his last five crossbow bolts into his bow.

  “Sir? Do we go?”

  “We go!” Jus hauled the boy up by the scruff of his armor, pulling him back to the stairs. “Polk? Polk!” There was no answer. No sign of Enid or of Escalla. The sounds of demonic roars, screams, and slaughter came from the city streets. “All right! We go east! Run!”

  Jus, Henry, and Cinders sped from the city walls. Behind them, the victors gibbered and screamed as they topped the wall, gleeful now that the real killing could begin.

  Cutting through dark waters, a huge snake swam through the city sewers. Slits of light shone down to make pools of brilliance amidst the murk, but all the rest was stench and filth and gloom. The waters were stagnant and choked with garbage. Wounded and sobbing, the big snake swam, desperately retreating away f
rom the sounds of death and battle up above.

  Enid the snake finally found a ledge of rock lapped by flotsam. She slithered up onto the refuse, croaking with agony, and opened her mouth to drop a smaller snake upon the stone.

  The little snake was burned over half its length. It held a wand and a little staff in a death grip in its tail, the hold so tight that the snake stayed rigid after it hit the floor. Escalla moaned, her snake eyes bright with pain, and then she tried to raise her head. “E-Enid?”

  “I’m here.” Enid lay stiff with pain. “Just need to rest… a little while.”

  Blood trickled from a gutter slit twenty feet overhead. A hand clawed briefly at the slot, then disappeared. The world above rang with screams of the dead and dying, with bestial howls and demonic laughter. Slowly, Escalla lay her head on the stone and fought to breathe.

  “E-Enid? What’s going on up there?”

  “Tanar’ri! There are tanar’ri in the streets. Drow and lizards. Hundreds of them!”

  “Drow?”

  “Drow. With spiders. They’ve overrun the city walls.”

  “Bitch!” Escalla scarcely had the strength to give a proper curse. “It must be Lolth. Tielle… must be working with Lolth.”

  The sound of distant splashing intermingled with hoots and cries. Something blundered through the sewer tunnels, laughing as it came. Escalla heard the sounds and tried to stir, but she was unable to move.

  “C-can we go topside?”

  “We’d be massacred.”

  “I can’t move. S-sorry.” Escalla swallowed. She lay rigid, upside down on the rock. “Can you carry me?”

  “I can carry you.”

  “Swim—east if you can. The… river was east. There’ll be a drain somewhere.”

  Enid looked at the filth lapping Escalla’s injuries. Her own burned, scalded back was covered with sewer slime.