“Lief, go take a fang,” Dion said.

“Sod off,” came his quick reply.

“Do it.”

Swearing under his breath, the man moved forward, laying down his spear and drawing one of his big knives. He crept almost on all fours, constantly flinching back from the matriarch’s slightest movement. The colossal spider reared up, front four limbs outstretched, fangs displayed, and Lief fell back with a yell.

All the spiders shuddered at it, and for a moment Dion thought that they would attack despite it all, but although they redoubled their agitated, bustling movement they held back.

“Lief, go!” she instructed.

The thief stared up at the matriarch, the great spread fan of her crooked legs. “I can’t… ,” he whispered, edging backward. “I’m sorry. I really can’t.”

“Oh you fool.” Cyrene spat. The warrior-woman strode forward, sword in hand, kicking at Lief to drive him back to Dion’s feet. The matriarch remained motionless, although her offspring were working themselves up into a frenzy.

“If this hits the latrine, it will be when she strikes,” Penthos observed with detached amusement. “I’ll set everything on fire. Doesn’t that sound like a fine plan?”

“It sounds like the plan you usually try for,” Lief got out raggedly.

Cyrene took a wide-legged stance and lined up her blade, swallowing. The eyes of every living thing there were fixed upon her.

She struck, and the great spider recoiled, staggering and weaving on its eight legs. Dion winced, hand to her head, trying to fight away the sound of its scream, which could almost have been human.

One fang was severed from that monstrous visage, and Lief, newly bold, lunged forward and grabbed for the raw and ragged end, holding it high and keeping the hollow tip as far from himself as possible.

The matriarch was limping sideways and backward, waves of its pain washing over Dion.

You have what you wanted. Now go.

“We have part of what we sought,” Dion stated. “We have the fang to strike the blow. But we need the path, the spider’s path by which to approach Darvezian. We need the map so that we can reach him without having to fight our way through his armies, his fortresses, and his traps.”

“It says there’s no map,” the priestess declared.

“It lies. The prophecy’s clear,” Harathes returned. The cretin. Dion was one thing, but how Penthos loathed having to deal with his inferiors, the merely prosaic and human. Except Lief had a sense of humor, so he would be worth keeping perhaps… And there I go drifting off topic again.