The Last Satyr: The Two Paths Part 2
Drider

The boy's elf lantern played over the cave floor to reveal a dead woman with a fallen spider’s body. Of white hair, her red eyes stared open and lifeless upwards... Yet this was not Leradien. She had the dark skin of a drow and her spider's body a soft brown and not big enough.

There was a steady sizzling sound coming from her throat. It was her black blood dripping down and then bubbling and boiling like acid on the stone floor. Her throat had been slit from one end to the other but not by fang or claw. Something else had made the cut.

The boy held his light up to replace the source of the panting. It was Ronthiel, still holding his knife, the blade already dissolving and ruined by the black demon blood on it.

“You killed her?” he gasped, eyes wide.

Ronthiel nodded, casting aside the now useless knife in disgust.

“You didn’t have to kill her,” Leradien’s accusing voice spoke up. “I could have handled her. I might have even been able to save her!”

“Save her from what?” the elf defiantly scoffed. “From her own insanity? You heard her talk. There was no reasoning with her!”

“I feel sorry for her,” Leradien said in obvious remorse. “She did not choose to become this thing she so desperately despised. I only wish I could have helped her.”

The light elf openly disbelieved her, turning to the boy. “Do you know what the only difference between these two driders is?” he asked him. “This dead drider hated being what she is. Leradien likes it. Which one is scarier, Master Satyr?”

“Back to poisoning the boy against me, are you?” snapped Leradien. “And here I thought we were fighting on the same side? And how did you know it was her throat you cut and not mine? Not that it matters to you, but it does to me, as you couldn’t see in the dark.”

“I got up close enough to know which of you was the smaller. Then I jumped on her back and felt around the front of her for the boy’s arrow in her, just to be sure it wasn’t you. When I found it, I cut her throat.”

The boy noticed his arrow sticking out of her under his light. Her inky blood frothed around that wound also, dissolving his shaft and ruining the arrow the same as Ronthiel’s knife. Seeing that reminded him to ask, “How did your arrows miss her?”

“They didn’t,” the elf replied. “She deflected them with her forelegs. Being a drow, her reactions are just as fast as mine. She deflected my arrows away from herself as fast as I could string them. But yours added one more to the mix—Well—let’s just say the result was a untimely for her.”

“Would my arrow have eventually killed her?”

“Hardly!” said Ronthiel, his eyes looking at her beneath his rich, red hair. “A drider’s body dissolves the arrow with its own blood so that the wound can heal over clean. It still will. Watch! Your arrow will be dissolved in another few minutes and the wound completely healed. The same goes for where I cut her throat.”

“Will she come back to life?”

“No. She’s dead. What is dead cannot be made undead. Her spider demon will forever try to revive her but it can’t be done.”

“I hate to interrupt your lecture on how to kill me,” Leradien spoke up. “But we need to go. Those nearby can see the elf light the boy holds for miles. They will know only surface dwellers need light. It will attract unwanted visitors.”

“Oh!” The boy realized and struck it sharply to a rock to put it out.

“I shall carry you both to a place of hiding,” Leradien told them in the ensuing dark. “We shall have to move fast. I suggest you both hang on tight.”

Leradien made a dash for the city, taking the two boys with her. Her purpose was twofold; first, to get as far away as possible from where their elf light was last seen and, second, to replace a place to hide them where no one would replace them. The former was easy, for she was very fast. Yet not the latter, for while the cave was high and wide, there were no side tunnels. She eventually had to stop, realizing she was running out of time.

“Get down,” she whispered. “Hide! Keep your Gray Elf cloaks on. Make no movement or noise.”

“What about you?” the boy asked.

“I’ll go on ahead to distract them. No one will suspect a drider in a drider cave, but elves and satyrs are another story. Watch out from above.”

Then she sped off and left them alone in the dark.

"Oh, splendid,” Ronthiel remarked with heavy sarcasm, “I’ve always dreamed of taking a scenic route through a cavern of eternal night while blind as a bat. Just add a few more spiders the size of horses, and we’ll be right at home!"

“It’s so dark in here we can’t even replace a place to hide!” The boy searchingly peered about.

“Leradien wouldn’t just leave us out in the open. Use your spear to feel around.”

The boy probed it about. “We’re on the side of a cleft. There’s a rock wall here and an overhanging ledge above us.”

“She told us to watch out from above,” said the elf. “She must want us to stay under the ledge.”

The boy probed further. “There’s a bit of a hole here we might fit into.”

“I’m for that.”

They both got in it, craning their necks upward. The boy and the elf did not know what to expect. Then, suddenly, they both stiffened and listened. From the direction of the city, they heard a long wailing cry. High, thin, and cruel it was. The very sound of it made them shiver. As they strained their ears to listen, they heard a noise like approaching wind blowing in the distance. It swept over them like a whispering ghost, carrying with it a sense of foreboding and dread.

And then they saw it. By the light of the distant city, a black shadow passed overhead, a vast shape, winged and ominous.

They waited until it flew well past them before the boy asked. “What was that?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t think I want to know, either.”

“Shall we look for Leradien?”

“No. We’d never replace her. She’ll have to replace us. Besides, that thing will come back.”

“How can you tell?”

“Anything that leaves a city looking for us has to return to the city again to report what it found. Eventually, it’s going to turn around and fly by again.”

So they did not move. They waited and waited until, with a great rush, the same wind came upon them again. Blowing over their heads, it swooped down over them. A sudden deadly cry sounded, causing them to duck their heads. And then the winged horror wheeled and returned. This time passing over them again as if it had spotted them. The boy’s breath caught in his throat as he watched the vast shadow pass overhead, its ominous presence giving him chills. But, finally, with a great flap of its ghastly wings, it wheeled towards the city and was gone.

After a wait, a pair of red eyes approached them from over the rocks.

“You are hard to spot,” said Leradien. “Those cloaks serve you well!”

“Leradien!” gasped the boy. “What was that thing?”

“A dire bat and its rider. Normally, they see everything. I thought nothing could hide you from them, not even the rocks. But your cloaks did.”

“You left us all alone knowing that?”

“It wouldn’t have done any good for me to be caught with you. And, this way, I could always come back and rescue you from it. A dire bat on the ground is no match for me.”

Ronthiel went to open his mouth in obvious disagreement, but the boy kicked him with a hoof to silence him.

“Ouch!” the elf complained. “Why’d you do that for?”

“Because I knew what you were going to say!”

“Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t,” the elf replied.

“Oh! Hush up! Both of you,” said Leradien. “We have a drow city to reach.”

After a bit of a walk, the boys were surprised to see how much closer the great. dimly lit city had drawn. The air now grew harsh and cold. They could see the grim black towers on the city walls. The drow maintained enough torchlight within to make it seem bright as day to them, but, to the boys, the total sum of it was little more than a quarter moon. Yet it was enough to make the place visible, even from a distance.

Crawling along beneath the outer walls of the city, they searched for an entrance that wasn’t guarded. When that proved hopeless, they eventually laid low–especially after another one of those dire bat riders flew overhead. Every entrance was guarded and the more hopeless their situation became, the more restless Leradien became.

The boy suggested they sleep on it. Exhausted, he gave a yawn and fell asleep. Ronthiel wanted to but, instead, he watched Leradien for he could see she was engaged in some sort of inner turmoil.

“Thinking of your promise?” he asked her.

Her eyes flashed at him with anger.

“I’ve kept it!” she snapped back.

“You promised to help him get in, but you didn’t promise to help get him killed,” Ronthiel deduced. “You know what’s inside those walls! And once he goes in, you’re afraid he’ll never come back out. You feel you’re taking him straight to Lolth—straight to his doom.”

“Of course, I think that!” she replied. “The question is; why are you so stupid that you don’t?”

“The boy has not asked me what I think. I can only follow my vow.”

“I’m the one who saved you from that displacer beast! Your vows should be to me and not him!” she retorted. “Instead of disagreeing, we should agree to talk him out of going in there! We owe it to him!”

“He’s a nice boy,” said Ronthiel. “But do you really love him that much?”

“I don’t want him hurt.”

“Neither of us does,” agreed the elf. “But I’m not shaking over it like a leaf as you are. You want to break your promise. You want to capture him and take him away for yourself.”

“I gave my word. He trusts me to keep it. I always have.”

“He trusts you to keep it, but do you trust yourself to keep it?”

“I am half-drow. What are promises to a drow?” she confided in hopelessness. “I’m surprised I’ve kept it this long!”

“You’re also a Light Elf,” answered Ronthiel. “I don’t think you are a drow at all. You only pretend to be one. I suspect you have a Light Elf’s nature and you stand rejected by your fellow Light Elves and you cannot stand that loneliness, so you pretend to be a drow and not care.”

She looked at him with her ruby-red eyes.

“You want me to be a nice, good Light Elf and not capture him for myself, right? You want me to ignore that I am half-drow?” her eyes flickered towards the walls of the hated city. “That is not so easily done. I should take him for myself and kill you now if I had any sense!”

“But is a satyr what you really want when you shall outlive him so easily? Can he really satisfy you?”

“For a while,” she said slowly, glancing towards the boy. “At least, for then I shall not go insane.”

“Or maybe you still will.”

Her eyes shifted back to him in objection. “You think I’d hurt him?”

“Not yet,” said the elf. “But can you guarantee you won’t? So which will it be? Will you grab him and take him for yourself or help him now in his mission?”

“I still do not know.”

“In that case, I cannot sleep.”

“No. I suppose you won’t,” she said, observing him steadily. “So we are at an impasse?”

“No,” he said, taking her hand and gently squeezing it. “We are at an understanding.”

She looked at him strangely, wondering what he meant. He met her gaze, replaceing it different somehow. The eyes of a drow, though beautiful, are normally full of malice. They gazed at him like polished, blood-red rubies, probing his meaning. Yet it wasn’t evil that filled them but fear, desperation, and loneliness. She was no drow, not even a half-drow.

He remembered how she pitied that other drider and now he pitied her and in exactly the same way.

“On second thought,” he said with a relaxed smile. “I take that back. I have changed my mind. If you really planned evil for the boy, you would not have told me of your indecision. I think I shall sleep most restfully, knowing that you shall be awake and looking out for all of us.”

And he meant it too. He took off his pack and placed it between two of her long hind legs and up against her thorax and then, putting his back to her, rested his head against the soft leather pack.

“I am no elf’s pillow!” she warned sharply.

But he was already asleep.

Meanwhile, on their own path on the main drow highway, it was not very far before Amien, Marroh, and young Joe found a messenger tunnel off to the side. It looked to be long and narrow, exactly as Leradien said it would be. To follow it, it was paved with the same softly glittering gems, called glow stones, as on the army's highway. It should work for their quest of replaceing Graybeard. Yet it was also barely wide enough for one person to walk through.

For long hours they progressed only to replace the messenger tunnel rejoined the main tunnel and they were once again exposed to being seen.

They proceeded carefully down the main tunnel, fearing discovery but eventually found another messenger tunnel to exit off the main highway, thankful to escape unseen.

For another long time they made good progress only to once more stumble back out onto the main highway.

“These messenger tunnels are designed to let the enemy discover us,” Amien deduced. “By constantly bringing us back to the main highway, they think they will see us traveling to the next messenger tunnel.”

“Then we must hurry,” said Joe. “And hope we meet none.”

"Good luck with that," warned Marroh, sensing danger ahead, his axe held firm and ready. "For I agree with Amien. These messenger tunnels will take us to them, sure as certain!"