The judicator snarled. The lines of glowing white that criss-crossed his skin in a web pattern flared as he cast the depleted rod to one side.

Iljrene, meanwhile, sagged away from the cleric who had just stabbed her. The other two closed in, swords raised to deliver killing blows. Qilue turned away from the judicator to hurl silver fire at them. The roaring, swirling cone of silver-white caught all three clerics, sending them reeling with robes and hair smoking. One immediately collapsed, dead. The battle-mistress, too, was caught by the edge of the blast, but it simply spun her around like a wind-blown leaf, leaving her unharmed.

Gasping her thanks, Iljrene slapped a hand over her wound and croaked out a prayer, healing herself.

Dealing with the other three clerics had given the judicator time to close with Qilue. His enormous two-handed sword swept down, and she barely had time to raise her own weapon to parry it. The singing sword wailed in a minor key as the judicator's weapon crashed against it, smashing it to one side. The judicator followed with a hilt-punch that sent Qilue staggering back. Her face burned where the spider-shaped guard of the judicator's weapon had struck.

She danced back, hurling herself out of range of his next blow. There was no time to cast a spell, no time to worry about Iljrene, who had plunged back into battle with the other two clerics, her sword singing furiously as she swung, parried, and swung. The judicator pressed Qilue with a flurry of blows, his eyes with their spider-shaped pupils glaring at her.

"Tonight," he announced in a funereal voice, "you all die, and Eilistraee with you."

Qilue fought back grimly, wondering if the Selvetargtlin were in league with Malvag. The fact that their attack had come on the night the Nightshadows planned to work their magic wasn't lost on her. Selvetarm was, after all, Vhaeraun's bastard child.

The judicator's sword whistled uncomfortably close to Qilue's face, reminding her of more immediate concerns. She returned with a slash that glanced off the judicator's breastplate, scoring a groove in the adamantine across the holy symbol that was embossed there. Her opponent paid the blow no heed. Unlike the other two clerics, who kept shouting their god's name, the judicator fought in silence, and not only with that massive sword. As his blade met Qilue's and they strained against each other, face to face, his mouth parted, revealing fangs. He bit her hand then whirled away, the blood-clotted end of his braid smacking her in the face for good measure.

Qilue, thanks to Mystra, was immune to poison. At her whisper, the punctures in her hand healed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Iljrene cut the legs out from under one of the Selvetargtlin she fought, then sweep her sword around, bloody and still singing, in an upward arc that caught the other just above the ear, slicing off the top of his head.

Qilue whispered a prayer of thanks. The seal held, the six lesser Selvetargtlin were down-only the judicator remained. He was outnumbered two to one, but the rod, she saw, was no longer disrupted. Its round head had reformed, a black blot against the floor where it lay. Thankfully, it was at least half a dozen paces from the statue.

She pressed home her attack, driving the judicator before her until his back was against the statue. Iljrene angled in from his left, her own sword singing a deadly counterpoint. Letting the battle-mistress take the initiative, Qilue stepped back, intending to cast a spell, but the judicator was unbelievably quick. His weapon flashed up, then down, catching Iljrene at the point where shoulder and neck met. It cleaved through her tiny body in an instant, cutting her torso in half from neck to hip. Blood rushed from the two halves as the pieces fell and sprayed into the judicator's face, momentarily blinding him.

Qilue screamed and hurled spellfire at him, hoping to kill him before he blinked the blood clear, but though the silver-white blaze made the judicator reel back, he remained on his feet. As the two halves of Iljrene's body crumbled in on themselves, reduced in an instant to a boiling mass of black spiders, he touched the point of his sword to it. The mass bulged upward, questing for the blade, then sizzled, dissolving into it. He held it there, his spider-pupiled eyes stared at Qilue. A challenge.

Furious, she hurled herself at him, knocking his sword away from the heap of tiny spiders. The sight of Iljrene, her steadfast companion and battle-mistress, reduced to a profane mass of spiders, rattled her badly. She swung wildly at the judicator, fury boiling out of her in waves of silver fire.

It was her undoing. The judicator's sword swept down, slicing off her right arm at the elbow. Qilue reeled back, nearly fainting from the pain. Her singing sword clattered to the floor with a wail, then fell mute. Qilue stumbled over a loose chunk of stone and nearly fell. Her left hand tightly clasped the stump of her right arm, and blood sprayed through clenched fingers.

"Eilistraee!" she gasped. "Heal me."

She felt flesh knit together under her fingertips, saw the spray of blood stop as the arm began to regenerate.

The judicator, however, gave her no quarter. He rushed Qilue, his terrible sword raised for a killing blow, and Qilue had nothing to parry it with. She could escape with just a word, but that would mean abandoning the Pit and its seal, and the rod was once again fully active.

"Mystra!" Qilue cried, desperately calling forth spellfire.

The judicator's sword swept down, even as moon-white fire blazed through the cavern.

Selvetarm loomed above Cavatina. Another dollop of acid dripped from his mace and landed with a bubbling hiss on the stone next to her, splattering and burning her skin. The god's mouth was enormous-wide as a doorway. Hot, foul-smelling breath washed over her as his fangs clamped hold of her torso. She gasped as she was lifted from the ground, the spiderwebs that had accumulated on her body hanging from her like limp hair. Dangling upside down from Selvetarm's fangs-which had yet to puncture her breastplate and deliver a final, poisoned bite-she saw the blur that was the traitor Halisstra sway through her field of view.

Halisstra waved one of her twisted, elongated arms. Behind her, a black dot that was the iron fortress of Lolth thundered toward them on its eight metal legs, its feet clashing like gongs against the ground.

Halisstra shouted something. Garbled words, to Cavatina's ears, which still rang from the unholy word Selvetarm had used to fell her. Cavatina could see more clearly. That flash of silver was the Crescent Blade, being waved overhead by a triumphant Halisstra, a creature that had only pretended to be seeking redemption, a demonic thing of Lolth.

Halisstra shouted something. It sounded like the word "slay."

Cavatina nearly laughed. Selvetarm needed no urging. In another moment his fangs would clamp down on her, and poison would be driven into her paralyzed body.

Selvetarm's fangs continued to squeeze Cavatina's chest, preventing her from drawing breath. Strangely, they had yet to pierce her armor. A miracle, that-but not exactly the one she'd pleaded with her goddess for. Even magically enhanced armor would only hold back the fangs of a demigod for so long.

Halisstra waved the sword over her head, still shouting-but at the same time looking nervously over her shoulder at the approaching fortress.

"Slay it!"

Selvetarm shifted his grip, still trying to bear down on Cavatina with his fangs. He'd yet to raise his head fully; Cavatina swung back and forth, just over Halisstra's head.

Cavatina realized what Halisstra was shouting. Not "slay," but "take." She held the sword by its point, blood dripping from her hand where she gripped the blade, offering the hilt to Cavatina.