A solid bout

Teysa nodded and retrieved her spear. She shook the numbness out of her fingers and took up a station across the pit from Lur’vess.

<You are not ants,> she began. This time, she wanted to go on the offensive from the start. She came in low, mimicking Lur’vess’s opening from their first bout, peppering the other drider with light jabs. Her instinct was to put her full strength behind each thrust, but she had to temper that impulse. She was too used to fighting with a mace. A mace made a mockery of the strongest armor—rather than try to pierce or evade plate, it simply bludgeoned it inward, using the enemy’s plate against them. A strike at less than full **** was a strike wasted.

That approach would not do with a spear. She had to be more cautious, more controlled. She had to be precise: precise aim, precise ****.

<You are valuable,> she insisted. <All of you! That was Lolth’s message. The Underneath was meant for all her children, drow and drider. You all share in it.>

Lur’vess met Teysa’s precise attack with a piecemeal defense, knocking some blows away, retreating from others. Unlike Teysa, she seemed less willing to trust her armor, and gave ground wherever she could to avoid being scratched.

<I want to,> she said. <I want to share. But I do not know how, and I do not know if I can. Protecting the warren seems natural. I would not know where to begin doing anything else.>

Her caution presented an opening. If she was not willing to risk any blows, then Teysa could tire her out with feints and jabs. <Well,> she asked, <what would you do if the warren was perfectly safe? If you were assured that all threats were gone, and that nothing bad could happen to the Matron or your sisters, no matter what?> She punctuated her words with repeated spear jabs, feather-light. Her spear danced in the dim light, its edge sparkling with each thrust. Lur’vess parried most of them, ducked away from the rest. One scraped across her breastplate with a squeal and she flinched backward, though it had not come close to penetrating.

**** onto the defensive, Lur’vess gave ground rapidly, her eight legs skittering across the sand. By the look on her face, Lur’vess had never considered the possibilities that Teysa was describing. <I…> she began, and trailed off. <I would… ensure that it was truly safe, and that it was not some trick-->

<No,> Teysa shook her head, <no, no trick. If you never had to protect again. If the Matron herself told you to lay down your spear and take off your armor. What would you do?> She held her own spear low, giving her opponent time to recover.

Lur’vess considered this for a long, long time, so long that Teysa feared that she had gone too far. The guard driders, even uncommonly thoughtful ones, were not ready for philosophy. Lur’vess had retreated behind her armor and would not come out again. She circled Teysa, visibly breathing hard, her spear held ready and wary.

Teysa gritted her teeth and drew in a deep breath, preparing to charge. She was already visualizing her pattern of attack when Lur’vess planted her spear butt in the sand and reached up to pull her helmet off. Beneath, her white hair was matted with sweat and plastered to her head. It was sort, much shorter than average for a drider, hanging in a loose bowl cut that framed her slender face. Without her helmet, she looked almost dainty, almost like El’keth.

<I do not know, Tey’sa,> she said. There was more emotion in those five words than Teysa had heard from her thus far. Lur’vess sounded desperately relieved, as though she had just confessed some dreadful secret that she had kept bottled up for far too long. <I do not know, but I want to find out. I want to see what else this world holds.> Her helmet spilled into the sand, forgotten, and rolled over once or twice.

Teysa let her own spear fall into the sand and removed her helmet as well. She held it in the crook of one arm and shook out her hair. <Then you should, Lur’vess,> she said. <Go explore.>

<The Matron…> Lur’vess shook her head. <The Matron will never let us go. I will live and die in this warren.>

<Have you asked her?> One look at Lur’vess’s face answered Teysa’s question.

<I cannot!> Lur’vess gasped. <The disrespect…>

<I will talk to the Matron,> Teysa promised. <Perhaps now is not the time, with the warren under threat. But when Lockh is defeated, you should be free to leave, if that is your wish. She cannot keep you here.>

Lur’vess looked thoughtful. <I have never left the warren, not ever. I was hatched here. I do not know if I can.>

<You can!> Teysa said. <I know it seems scary, but that’s always what leaving home is like.>

<Was it hard for you?> Lur’vess asked. Now that the dam had broken, she seemed positively eager to talk. <When you left the place of your hatching?>

<A little,> Teysa admitted, <but it was exciting, too.>

<I return sometimes to the spiderling caves,> Lur’vess said, in the tone of someone making an embarrassing confession. <I cannot remember what it was like before I Ascended, but sometimes there are… feelings. I sometimes wonder if any of my brood-siblings Ascended. Unlikely, but if they did, I would not recognize them. And if they did not, they are surely long dead.>

Her tone was so melancholy that Teysa’s spirits dropped. The silence yawned between them, a chasm full of feelings that Lur’vess lacked the words to articulate. Teysa felt compelled to fill it. <Have you visited your broodmother?> she asked. <Do you know who she was?>

Lur’vess shook her head. <I do not. And chances are she has died as well, or she was set free by you and your partner.> There was no malice or recrimination in her voice, but Teysa felt a little worm of guilt… which immediately compounded on itself. I do not regret setting the broodmothers free, she reminded herself. It was the right thing to do. They deserved it.

But that wasn’t what was bothering her. There was something else, something deeper, something on the edge of memory.

It came back to her in a rush. My spiderlings, she thought. Lur’vess looked up at her, and Teysa realized she’d spoken aloud. All at once her face felt blank and slack and her heart was hammering.

<I… laid a clutch of spiderlings, once,> she said, and as if speaking the words was an incantation, she found herself back in that dank and dripping cave. The pain was everywhere, all around her like a cloak, but especially fixated on the leaden heat between her thighs. She had grunted and strained until she thought her heart would burst, her fear banished, her captivity forgotten. All that had mattered was the life squirming inside her and yearning to be free. And the Matron, caressed her cheek, singing in that strange tongue…

<I had no children on the outside. I had never even lain with a man.> Teysa could not stop the words from spilling out of her mouth. Why am I telling her all this? she thought, and she could not answer her own question.

<The Matron took me. She **** me. I hated her, for so long. Part of me still does. But I cannot hate her children. I loved them. I named them. I cared for them.>

Lur’vess watched her attentively. There was no judgment in her eyes, no condemnation, none of the gossip’s prurient interest. <Do they yet live?> she asked.

<I don’t know!> Teysa crossed her arms fiercely, pulling them into a tight embrace around herself. <I have no idea! I was their mother, and I cared for them, and then I left them, and I don’t even know if they’re still alive! How long do spiderlings live?>

<Long enough,> Lur’vess replied. <They could still be there, if they did not perish in the battle. So many did.>

The thought had not occurred to Teysa, and it seemed almost unutterably cruel. Had she fought alongside her children without knowing it? Had they been killed, crushed or pierced or burned by magic, with her just meters away?

<Will you go to them?> Lur’vess asked. The question was not leading. She sounded genuinely curious.