Run!

The voice had become a clamor. Aliara needed no convincing. She turned and ran without a second thought.

Behind her, she heard Luneth laugh. It was a wild sound, a mad sound. Anybody who could laugh like that had bidden farewell to their sanity.

Aliara tried not to think about it. She focused on the path. It was hard to see, hard to make out, and she had nothing like Luneth's sense of direction. She wasn't sure she could make it back to the warren. That didn't matter, though. That was a problem she'd deal with later. What mattered right now was getting away.

She sprinted as fast as she dared in the darkness, lungs burning, arms pumping at her sides. From somewhere behind her she could hear scuttling. She kept one eye on the path, but the other was roving, seeking out side tunnels. She'd never be faster than Luneth, she knew that, but she was much smaller. If she could find a little cave or gap that the drider couldn't pass through, she'd have a refuge.

A forest of stalagmites reared up in front of her. She dared not slow down, but vaulted over them, spinning wildly to avoid being impaled. She planted one hand palm-down on a flat-topped stone pillar and launched herself into a forward flip that barely cleared the forest of spikes.

Up ahead she caught a glimpse of a dark spot in the wall. She let her eyes flicker towards it for a microsecond, long enough to confirm her suspicions: a tunnel mouth, a small one, about waist-height. There was no way of knowing where it led, and if it was a shallow dead end, she was just delaying her fate, but maybe...

There was a sound like cloth tearing and pain exploded in her leg. It went out from under her and she stumbled. For a half-second, it seemed as though she might regain her balance, but then the ground was rushing up to meet her and she could only throw her arms out to protect her face. Her forward momentum carried her over and she heard her wrist break with a loud pop as she landed on it. Pain flared there, too, and on the side of her head. She slid for a couple of feet along the rocky ground. Sharp pebbles tore at her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched her arms tighter around her head. Finally she fetched up against a rocky pillar with a bone-jarring impact and lay still.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. For a moment, it was all she could hear. She groaned and rolled over onto her back. Her wrist throbbed, but the pain in her leg was a constant stab, like a branding iron pressed against her flesh. She opened her eyes and let out a low, fearful moan.

An arrow impaled her through the calf. It was bone-white, with a barbed head, but it had passed all the way through the meat of her leg without hitting the bone. Somehow it had also missed her artery, and only a thin trickle of blood leaked around the edges of the shaft. She thought about reaching down to snap it and pull it out, but the moment her fingers brushed it a wave of agony tore through her and left her lightheaded. She cradled her shattered wrist to herself and pressed her back up against a stalagmite.

As her heartbeat slowed and the rush of blood faded from her hearing, she could just make out a faint scuttle. She looked up in time to see Luneth appear from behind a thick stone pillar. The drider was clutching her bonewood bow in one hand. Her expression was haughty, arrogant even, and she smiled faintly as she caught Aliara's eye. Her greenish-tinged skin glowed faintly from within, and tiny flowers bloomed in her hair.

"Please..." Aliara whimpered, drawing away from her. Luneth reached back to hang her bow next to her quiver, then bent down over Aliara.

"Do not beg," she said. Her voice had regained its placid calm. "It is unseemly." She inspected the arrow, then nodded in evident satisfaction. She moved like lightning: by the time Aliara realized what was happening, she had seized the protruding head of the arrow and snapped it off, then yanked the shaft out of Aliara's leg. The half-elf screamed in agony. A roil of nausea rippled her stomach and she **** down her gorge. Blood oozed out of the wound in her leg. Luneth let the broken halves of the arrow clatter to the ground and reached down to her abdomen. She wound a flat strand of silk the width of Aliara's arm around the hole in her calf, over and again, applying even pressure on both sides. The pain was so bad Aliara thought she might pass out, but she mustered every inch of her resolve not to give Luneth the satisfaction. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the drider tied off the bandage and stepped back to admire her work.

"Luneth," Aliara groaned, gritting her teeth to keep from screaming again, "why? What do you think you're doing?"

Luneth ignored her. She reached for Aliara, and the half-elf tried to bat her away, but Luneth's strength was irresistible. She easily pushed away Aliara's hand, and when the half-elf persisted, Luneth grabbed her broken wrist and squeezed.

Not hard. She didn't have to squeeze hard. The bones ground together painfully and Aliara let out a shriek. She bit her lip to keep from screaming again, and Luneth let her arm fall. Aliara offered no more resistance after that.

Luneth's fingers eventually found what they were looking for: Aliara's knife, sheathed at her belt. The drider drew it from its sheath and examined it, turning it this way and that. She gave Aliara an approving nod, from one professional to another, and then set to work.

Aliara winced as the blade descended, but it did not break her skin. Instead, Luneth sliced along the insides of Aliara's sleeves. The tip of the blade barely grazed her shoulder as it passed along behind her. She had been wearing tough leather, but the combination of sharp knife and drider strength parted it like cobweb. Luneth moved deftly, as though well-practiced. Aliara couldn't shake the mental image of an elven hunter expertly skinning a slain deer. Her vest fell apart and the blade went to work on the cotton tunic beneath.

Aliara had been down this road before. Luneth's voice echoed in her head. Fertility. A picture began to form, and Aliara shivered. "Please," she said again, her voice thin and quiet. "You can't... what will the Matron do?"

"The Matron will not know." Luneth finished a last cut, and Aliara's tunic shredded off her. Beneath it she was naked. She held up her arms in a futile effort to cover her modesty. It was cold in the cave, and gooseprickles were already breaking out on her exposed flesh. Luneth ignored her attempts to cover herself and moved to her trousers.

"If you're going to kill me, just kill me," Aliara said. "I'm not afraid to die." It wasn't true anymore, not really, but she would not give this monster the satisfaction of begging any more than she already had. Oh, Tey, I'm so sorry, she thought. I wanted to come back to you, I really did. The thought of Teysa's pain was somehow more upsetting than her own impending ****.

"I'm not going to kill you," Luneth answered. She paused in her work and met Aliara's gaze. "You will by the first. My first broodmother. You should be honored."

"How are you going to keep that from the Matron, hm?" Aliara asked. She's talking to me, at least. That's good. Maybe she's not all the way gone yet. "When I show up with my belly swollen, I think she'll have some questions."

"We are not going back," Luneth said. "There are other warrens. Or perhaps I will start my own. The Matron is weak. Look at her spawn, that soft-headed child. And look at what happened to the warren. Many of my sisters are dead. The rest will die when that drow returns. There is nothing for us there." She grabbed Aliara under the chin with one hand and tilted her face up to look her in the eye. "I am saving your life. You should be grateful."

"Oh, yes, of course," Aliara snapped. Her fear was starting to transmute into anger. "You know, if you were getting unbearably horny, you could have just said something. I'm sure one of the other driders would have been willing to jerk you off if it would make you act a little less crazy all the time. How would that even work, anyways? I guess that's one of the downsides to turning into a spider monster, you lose your pu-"

Crack! Luneth's hand snapped across Aliara's cheek like a striking viper. It stung, but Aliara spat and looked up defiantly. "I'll never bear you a brood, you psycho cunt. Kill me or let me go. I'm not use to you. You don't even have an ovipositor, do you?" She grinned. "You're like ants, right? You're just a drone playing at being Queen--"

Crack-crack! This time, the blows landed on both cheeks, so quick that Aliara barely felt them as separate impacts. They knocked the wind out of her and she felt tears pricking at her eyes. She **** them back. "Poor little ant," she spat. "No wonder your fellow elves drove you out. They could sense what kind of person you are, even if they didn't have the good sense to kill you."

This time, Luneth didn't slap her. She just grabbed Aliara's bandaged leg and squeezed. The half-elf let out a long, rattling moan. She finally lapsed into silence.

Luneth tugged the last few scraps of cloth off of Aliara's body and surveyed her handiwork. The half-elf had been wearing a number of knives under her clothes, which the drider had found and disposed of one by one. She lay there, naked, on the cave floor, feeling dreadfully exposed. Luneth grabbed her uninjured leg and tugged at it, pulling her down onto her back. Aliara thought about scrambling back, but she knew she was wasting her time. She was feeling lightheaded from the pain, and her good wrist was broken and useless. She couldn't stop Luneth. She didn't even think she had the strength left to make it difficult for her.

The drider took a few steps closer until she was on top of Aliara. She looked down with an expression of intense concentration on her face. She closed her eyes and waggled her body back and forth, and then...

Nothing.

Aliara giggled. She couldn't help it. "What's wrong?" she asked in a singsong voice. "Can't perform? Don't worry, it happens to every drider sooner or later."

Luneth did not respond, but there was a distinct uptick in the speed of her movements. She was chanting, too, murmuring something beneath her breath. The green glow suffusing her body brightened and pulsed like a heartbeat. Aliara caught a whiff of peat, a rich, earthy smell that she hadn't smelled in a long time. Finally, Luneth swung her abdomen forward, and a crevice opened down its center. Something pushed its way out: a tube made of leathery flesh, bulbous in shape, like several beads strung together. It was distinctly smaller than the Matron's, but still large enough to make Aliara gulp-- at least as big around as her bicep. The texture of it, now that she was looking closely, seemed rather less like skin and more like bark, and it dripped a fluorescent green goo that glowed like Luneth's skin.

Aliara swallowed hard. She briefly regretted her taunting. Luneth stopped moving and looked down in surprise, as though even she hadn't expected this to work. She leaned forward and grabbed Aliara's elbows with her hands, pinning them against the floor just hard enough to hurt. Aliara tried to push her legs together, but two of Luneth's spindly spider legs interposed themselves, wrenching Aliara's thighs apart and exposing her quim. She writhed, but the drider had her pinned tightly, and there was little she could do. Luneth settled down towards her, her abdomen descending slowly, the ovipositor jutting forth like a ship's prow and oozing green fluid. Where a drop of it hit Aliara's belly, she went numb.

The ovipositor paused between Aliara's legs. Luneth seemed to have some trouble maneuvering it, and made little micro-adjustments back and forth to line it up properly. "Last chance not to do this," Aliara said. "Luneth, think about what you're doing. Please, we can go back, and nobody needs to know about--"

"Silence," Luneth hissed at her, and thrust forward.

She had nothing like the Matron's poise, nothing like her technique. She simply bulled her way into Aliara's body with all the subtlety and precision of a rampaging bear. Aliara's pussy lips parted before her, thrust aside by the bulbous tip of the ovipositor. It punched into her insides like a fist, barreling past her defenses, instantly filling up her tight channel. With it came a flood of the numbing green goo. Aliara felt it gush forth inside her, a sudden rush of cold that made her shiver. The cold feeling faded rapidly, to be replaced by a warm, tingling numbness.

She looked down. Luneth had buried perhaps a third of her ovipositor inside her, and seemed uncertain of how to proceed. Aliara could see a thumb-sized bulge tenting her lower belly as the ovipositor pulled her skin taut around itself. It wasn't as large as the Matron's, but it was large enough, and she felt a familiar and disconcerting bloated sensation. Luneth pulled back slightly, and Aliara stifled a moan. The rough, barky texture of the ovipositor rubbed against her as the drider moved. It seemed perfectly designed to find her most sensitive places, to rub up against her inner walls slightly differently with each shift of her body. She turned over slightly, and the balance of pressure shifted, causing a new constellation of pleasure points to light up inside her brain. This wasn't at all like with the Matron. This ovipositor was large enough to fill her up, but not large enough for the stretching sensation to become distracting. Luneth pulled out until only the rounded tip of her ovipositor remained, gently nestled between Aliara's taut-stretched lips, then slowly began to slide forward again.

Aliara kept struggling, pushing against Luneth's hands with all her might, but it was fruitless. She might as well have been trying to tunnel through the stone with her bare hands. She arched her back and pushed off the ground, hoping to somehow wriggle free, but the drider merely shifted her legs around and shoved Aliara's thighs even farther apart. She felt her tendons creaking under the pressure and yelped in pain. Her cry seemed to encourage Luneth, who leaned forward and buried another three inches of ovipositor in Aliara's pussy.

The drider was clearly enjoying herself, at least. Her expressionless facade had melted away, and her delicate features were twisted in an expression of ecstasy. Her eyelids fluttered, her nostrils flared, and her mouth contorted into a panting grimace. The noise that came out of her sounded like nothing living Aliara had ever heard before: a long, low, keening whistle, like a tea kettle about to boil. She withdrew her ovipositor most of the way and thrust it forward again. This time, its blunt tip impacted deep inside Aliara, sending a jolt of pain through her body. She grunted and gritted her teeth. She would not give this monster the satisfaction.

The Matron had been an expert, Aliara could see that now. She thought back to that first, dreadful time: blinded, disoriented, bruised all over, the oppressive weight of the massive drider pressing down onto her from above. The Matron had been gentle, though, had cupped Aliara's cheek with one hand, had brushed her tears away with her thumb, had sung to her in her strange, singsong language. She had at least tried.

Luneth was making no such effort. Her whole body shivered with the effort of her thrusts, her breasts swaying back and forth a foot above Aliara's face. Each thrust hammered home deep into Aliara's body, battering her already-bruised cunt and stretching her lips wider and wider. Whatever enchantment the Matron had wrought to strengthen Aliara's body was clearly holding: otherwise, she would surely have ruptured by now from the **** of Luneth's ****. Still, it was all she could do to keep from screaming.

The drider could clearly see that, too, and she grinned wickedly. Her teeth were needle-sharp, and with them on display, her face barely looked humanoid. With her doll-like black eyes and broad, predator's grin, she looked like a shark, a savage carnivore with a sadistic streak.

"Scream for me, little halfbreed!" she hissed, and thrust again. The Matron's technique was smooth, subtle; she knew just how to move to unlock the innermost parts of Aliara's body, to insinuate herself so she could lay her eggs. Luneth had none of her skill. She seemed intent on just using brute ****.

"SCREAM!" She withdrew almost entirely and hilted herself. A fist-sized bulge tented Aliara's lower belly, and she did scream. She couldn't help it. It tore itself out of her throat, red and raw. Luneth shuddered with delight and slammed again in the same place.

"AHHHHHHH!" Aliara howled, forgetting her determination to hide her pain, forgetting everything except the monstrous weight of the drider above her and the unspeakable violation happening deep inside her. She screamed again and again, until her voice gave out and her screams came out as broken whimpers. Her whole body shook with every impact, her limbs jiggling like a ragdoll's.

"AHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! GRRRAAAHHHH!" She couldn't help it. Her lower body was starting to go numb, at least, and she could feel a familiar stretching sensation. At last, Luneth's latest thrust buried itself deeper than any had before. Aliara could tell without looking down that it had penetrated her innermost sanctum. She lay there, twitching slightly, Luneth's unnatural prong spearing into her womb. Mercifully, the drider had stopped moving.

In fact, she had frozen entirely. Aliara risked a look up at her. Luneth's eyes were closed and she looked confused. Something gurgled loudly, sounding like it came from the direction of the drider's abdomen. She frowned and shifted position, as if trying to dislodge a stubborn morsel of food. There was another gurgle, another spurt of fluid that Aliara felt deep inside herself, and the base of the ovipositor began to bulge.

The half-elf braced herself, knowing what had to come next. The egg made its way down to tube in fits and starts. Luneth evidently had not mastered this aspect of the procedure, either. Aliara watched in silent, mounting dread as the bulge drew closer and closer to her body. All too soon, she felt the pressure between her thighs growing. It quickly mounted, going from irritating to painful to frightening. Did I really do this twice before? she asked herself. How? I'm going to burst! I'll die! She tried to push her legs together, to squeeze her vaginal muscles to drive out the invader, but Luneth merely redoubled her pressure. Aliara felt lightheaded. She was aware, in a distant, clinical way, of the sensation of her muscles shifting. The pain had gone now, leaving only a numb tingle, but her awareness of what was happening to her was perfect. Her helplessness was complete. This was what she had always feared, had always promised herself she would never allow to happen again. She was defeated, enslaved, and utterly at Luneth's mercy.

The egg slid inside her and began to make its way up her channel. The sensation was familiar, but there were some things Aliara would never adjust to. Alongside the pain and humiliation there was something else, a sort of queasy pleasure that left her feeling violated and nauseous. Her own body was betraying her. She knew it was just a survival mechanism, a way for her mind to process the overwhelming sensations, and probably a side-effect of the Matron's potent magic. She didn't care. It was loathsome. The egg burrowed up inside her, pausing only briefly at her womb. Her body had surrendered all resistance, at this point, and it slid into her after only the barest hesitation. She felt it plunk free and settle inside her. She closed her eyes, unwilling to watch the second egg begin its march down the tube.

Luneth laid four eggs total-- perhaps her magic had been imperfect, or perhaps she merely lacked the Matron's skill at coaxing them forth. When she finished, her ovipositor released another torrent of slime to cushion her spawn, bloating Aliara's belly still further. The half-elf had lapsed into a semi-conscious state, but jolted awake as she felt the ovipositor withdraw. There was a slight pinch as it slid out of her womb, and another as it caught briefly at her bruised, gaping pussy. As it pulled free, already softening and sagging, a trickle of fluid gushed out after it and dripped down Aliara's thighs. Luneth pulled her body back, releasing the half-elf's arms. She seemed slightly dazed, staring down at Aliara's gravid stomach as though disbelieving that she had filled it.

Aliara cradled her broken wrist and tried to gather her thoughts. She was still in shock, and the aches in her wrist and leg had been joined by a painful throb between her legs. She didn't remember hurting this much after being bred by the Matron, though perhaps time had just dulled that memory. Something cool and smooth grabbed her ankle, and she looked down in time to see Luneth beginning to wrap her in silk.

"W-what are you going to do now?" she asked. She hadn't expected a response, but Luneth looked up at her. Once again, the drider's face was a serene mask, revealing nothing.

"You will be the first of many. You will give me daughters, and we will claim land and slaves. Someday, perhaps, we will return to the warren and conquer it. Now be silent, or I will gag you."

Aliara recoiled and looked away. She had no desire to watch herself mummified. Despair gripped her heart. She thought of El'keth, young and fragile and determined not to repeat the sins of her mother. Then she thought of a warren under the control of Luneth... driders who hunted and killed and **** not because they had to, but because they enjoyed it. Evil. This is evil, if I allow it to happen. But what could she do?

Her gaze fell on her torn clothes. Luneth had discarded them a foot or two away. A couple of Aliara's knives glinted amidst the scraps of fabric, tantalizingly close. But what was the point? Luneth was too big to kill with a single thrust, and she'd just disarm Aliara and punish her more severely. Aliara squinted. There was something else there, hidden among the torn pieces of what had once been her belt pouch...

She extended her arm slowly, casually, trying to make it look like she was just stretching her muscles. She needn't have worried. Luneth was paying all of her attention to her weaving. She was nearly to Aliara's knees. It was now or never.

The half-elf took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and moved. Her fingers closed around the hilt of a blade and she whipped her arm around. She was sure she could hit Luneth in the eye with a thrown dagger, even from a prone position. Her arms snapped forward--

--and stopped, frozen in midair. Luneth was so fast. One moment she'd been spinning silk, the next she had grabbed Aliara's good wrist and twisted it painfully until the knife fell from nerveless fingers. She grinned triumphantly. "There is some fight in you after all, prey," she said. "But why do you struggle? You know you cannot win." She twisted further, and Aliara felt her bones creaking. She gritted her teeth.

"Neither can you," she spat, and brought her _other _hand around. The bones in her broken wrist ground against each other painfully, and she let the scream out, no longer caring. She had no dexterity in that hand and barely any grip strength. It didn't matter. Her open palm struck the back of Luneth's hand and the vial she had scooped up shattered.

"Wha-" Luneth managed, and pulled her hand back with a yowl. Already the skin was blackening and crisping like paper in a fire. Lines of blackness traced their way up her arm, a spidery map of her veins. The drider screamed, a horrible sound, and fell over onto her side. She began to thrash, her eight legs kicking madly at the air. Black foam frothed up between her lips and spilled out onto the ground. More of it leaked from her nostrils, ears and tear ducts, and she let out a last, rattling cry. Then her movements slowed to a halt, except for the occasional jerk of a limb.

Aliara let herself fall back. She turned her palm around and regarded it. She hadn't been able to be careful, and broken glass shards had nicked her in a couple of places. She could already see her skin turning black, could feel the tendrils of cold racing up her arm. She closed her eyes and smiled.

I'm sorry, Tey. But you were right about me. I got to be a hero for once. Too bad you'll never know about it. Her heartbeat filled her ears, and she could feel it slowing with each beat: tha-thump... thump... thu...

Her last thought was of Teysa.