Visit the armory

The drider armory was one of the first parts of the warren Teysa had seen. It was almost one of the most human. There was something universal about it: there were only so many ways to store and arrange weapons and armor, and the driders’ racks of spears and shelves of armor were oddly reminiscent of the arming halls at the Abbey of St. Petronia. Scaled up, certainly. The drider guards hefted spears that even the doughtiest paladin of Agamor would have struggled to lift. But there were human-scale weapons too, shields and swords and axes, and plenty of humanoid armor.

That part still gave Teysa a twinge of discomfort. The driders had their own forges, but some of the breastplates and helms bore the unmistakable signs of dwarven or drow craftsmanship. What had become of the previous owners? Who had carried this polearm down into the darkness? How had he or she died—quickly, at the fangs and blades of the driders, or slowly, worn out from within by repeated cycles of laying and birthing?

Only one thing was for certain: the original bearers were dead now. Teysa left their weapons where they were and said a quick prayer for the deceased. She moved past them to the main armor racks.

At the Abbey, unused sets of armor had adorned a row of mannequins. The driders had adopted a similar practice, though as ever, they had made efficient use of their surroundings. When the stoneshapers had cleared space for the armory, they had left a dozen thick stalagmites jutting up from the floor of the cave. Patient hands had worked the stone into the shape of a drider’s humanoid torso. The Abbey’s dummies had been paltry things, mere sacks stuffed with hay, but the carven soldiers were as lovely as any statue. The had delicate hands, full breasts, and faces wearing solemn expressions. Each one wore a breastplate, a helm, and a gorget.

All the same, Teysa wondered where her old armor was. She’d awoken without it and had not thought to ask after its fate. She’d spent so much of her life in that armor, it felt strange to be contemplating a new set. Surely it would not fit her anymore, yet she found herself unaccountably sad to be missing it, as though she’d been **** to say goodbye to an old friend.

She paused before one unclaimed set of armor and regarded it. The steel was dull and scuffed, but it was well-forged and solid. It had no pattern or adornment she could see, but it would stop a blade, and that was what mattered. The helm was an enclosed barbute with a Y-shaped visor and a pair of ridges over the temples that gave it a sleek and streamlined aspect. Teysa lifted the helm and turned it over in her hands. It felt as light as a child’s toy, but she wasn’t fooled. She had adjusted by now to her new body’s fearsome strength.

Beneath the helm, the dummy had worn a quilted cap, and Teysa pulled that onto her own head. She tied the strings under her chin and adjusted the fit over her ears. The feeling of her hair crushed under the cap was comfortingly familiar. She’d done this ritual a thousand times, two thousand. She could do it in her sleep.

But not by herself. She hesitated with the breastplate in her hand. Ever since she’d been freed from the breeding cave, Aliara had been her armorer. But Aliara was gone. (For now, she told herself, though she could not entirely banish her fear).

<Hello, sister.>

When speaking Common, Jez’ria’s voice was thick with accent, her sentences full of buzzing fricatives and glottal stops. In the language of the driders, she sounded… soft, feminine, almost shy. When Teysa saw who had spoken to her, she almost laughed out loud.

“Hello, Jez’ria,” she said. She could have answered in the same tongue, but Common felt easier. It felt right. If Jez’ria minded, she gave no sign.

<I see you’ve decided to armor up again. About time.>

“We’re at war, as the Matron just reminded me,” Teysa said. “I think it’s time I did my part.”

<Where is your little friend?> Jez’ria asked. <Your halfblood squire?>

“She’s not my squire,” Teysa protested. “And she’s… not here. She’s gone to kill Lockh.”

Jez’ria arched her eyebrows. <All by herself? Now that is a wyrd worth singing of.>

“Luneth went with her. Hopefully they’ll be back in a few days.” Teysa could see Jez’ria readying a follow-up question and hurriedly changed the subject. “She’s not my squire, but she did help me with my armor. Will you help me now?” She held out the breastplate.

Jez’ria took it and turned it over in her hands. <Armor slows you down,> she said. <It gets in the way. On Mount Thoom, we never wore much armor. Cold will kill you much more quickly than steel.>

“I spent half my life in armor,” Teysa said. Jez’ria’s words were rough, but there was no malice in her, and Teysa found it hard to get angry at her rudeness. “I feel naked without it.”

Jez’ria, who was actually naked, shrugged. <To each her own, I suppose,> she said. <Lift your arms.>

The breastplate fit snugly enough, and a thick doublet kept the steel from chafing against Teysa’s bare skin. Jez’ria helped her into a gorget as well and slid vambraces and gauntlets onto her arms.

Armoring her waist proved more difficult than Teysa was used to. Typically, she’d worn a skirt of tassets and faulds over chausses of mail, often with poleyns to protect her knees and greaves over her calves. This was not possible anymore. She wondered if the driders made barding, like that of a warhorse, to protect their arachnid bodies. The reality was somewhat more prosaic—a flaring skirt of metal plates, like the petals of a flower, hanging down between her forelegs and spreading out to cover the interface between woman and spider.

<You are most **** here, in your woman-body,> Jez’ria explained. <The spider skin will turn away arrows and blades. Not all, but some.>

Teysa’s legs, too, were ****, especially around the joints. The driders had developed a sort of poleyn to cover these, a piece of metal a hand’s span long that wrapped the leg and tied on with leather straps.

The plate was as heavy as any Teysa had ever worn, yet it sat lightly on her torso. She felt no more encumbered than she had in her silken robes. She turned this way and that, marveling at the feeling of the metal against her skin. The doublet helped, but even in the places where her armor lay flat against her skin, it barely chafed at all.

There remained the matter of choosing a weapon. The Abbey of St. Petronia had taught her the basics of sword, spear and mace, yet Teysa had almost always preferred the latter. She was not averse to bloodshed, but the bruising power of the mace had suited her unsubtle approach. Her mace was gone, though—a loss that touched her almost as deeply as Aliara’s. She’d been given that mace upon her ascension to the rank of paladin, and had carried it through thick and thin. She took one of the leaf-bladed spears favored by the Matron’s guards from a rack and tested its heft. It was a well-balanced weapon, its blade sharp enough to draw blood when she pricked her thumb, but something about it felt wrong.

A memory arose: the last time she’d wielded a spear. The Matron had bade her and Aliara fight to the **** to earn a place in the warren. Teysa’s refusal to take Aliara’s life had set so much in motion, a chain of events that had led her inexorably here. And she got what she wanted in the end, Teysa thought. I joined her warren anyways. The irony of it stung her.

Aloud, she said “I haven’t wielded a spear in a long while. Do you fight with one?”

Jez’ria nodded. <Before I Ascended, I was blade-wed. The spear was like an extension of my arm.> She crossed her arms. <Why do you not speak in our tongue? Is it difficult for you?>

Teysa hesitated. She turned the words over in her head, translating them back and forth between Common and the drider speech. It bemused her how fluently she could move from one to the other.

<No,> she finally said. <I am used to Common, that is all. It feels more natural.>

<You are used to having two legs, you mean,> Jez’ria said. Teysa flinched. The other drider’s words cut her deeper than she wanted to admit; Jez’ria put on a savage front, but she was far more insightful and sophisticated than she seemed.

<It is all right,> Jez’ria went on, her tone softening. <Adjustment takes time. It took me quite a while to leave my old life behind. But it was for the best. If you cling to the woman you used to be, it will hurt more as she slips away from you.>

<I can take care of myself,> Teysa snapped back, a bit more harshly than she’d intended. <I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I am at peace, Jez’ria. You don’t have to worry about me.>

<If you say so.> The other drider didn’t sound convinced, but she changed the subject anyways. <You were a soldier, were you not?>

<No, not a soldier,> Teysa replied. <A…>

She hesitated. Her knowledge of the drider language was fluent and instinctive, with the words she needed rising to the front of her mind when she needed them. There were times, however, when she simply drew a blank. There were gaps in her knowledge, and she suspected it was because there were some things for which the driders simply had no words.

“A paladin,” she said in Common. “A holy warrior.”

But was that all a paladin was? She had fought, yes. Ferociously, and without mercy, against the enemies of Agamor and the light. But she had also fed the hungry. Healed the sick with incense and sacred chants. Proselytized Agamor’s word, spreading His light to the most benighted heathens. She had carried letters and performed marriages, mended church roofs and said last rites. She had been, if not a hand of her God, at least a wandering finger.

What was she now? She thought back to her dream and her fingers tightened around the spear shaft. Lolth had assumed that Teysa would come naturally to Her service. The driders were Her creations, after all. Even if Teysa had been inclined to serve, the arrogance in that presumption repelled her. She had been drawn to Agamor because of His message: justice, compassion, a merciful light that sheltered the meek. What did Lolth stand for? What did She have to offer? Teysa was a Godly woman, yet now she stood in the valley between Gods, and it was cold and full of shadows.

Jez’ria was still staring at her, patient and attentive. <We knew of the gods, on Mount Thoom where I grew up,> she said. <We made them offerings, yes. To placate them. To beg their favor. We did not serve them.>

<When I was a… holy warrior… I served an idea,> Teysa said. <Justice. Honor. That sort of thing. These things are Agamor’s domain, and so I fought in His name, but I was not fighting to conquer the world for the Church.>

<I find survival is easier,> Jez’ria. <You always know what you’re fighting for. And you know when you lose.>

Teysa couldn’t argue with that. <What about you, sister?> she asked. Her own mouth surprised her—she’d tried to address Jez’ria as a friend or peer, and “sister” had come out instead. She supposed it was as fair a word as any other, but it still felt strange on her tongue, especially when she remembered the sisters she’d grown up with. <Do you follow Lolth’s teachings?>

Jez’ria shrugged. <She gave us shape,> she said. <She is the strongest. I serve the Matron, and the Matron serves Her. It is as simple as that.>

Perhaps, for her, it was. Teysa could not dismiss her own feelings so lightly. Her relationship with Lolth was at once stronger and more tenuous than her faith in Agamor had ever been. The God of Light had never spoken to her directly, as the Mother of Spiders had… but He had never tricked her, either, or enforced His will on her. His presence had been warm, comforting, and distant, just like the sun itself.

<What will you do now, sister?> Jez’ria asked. Her question brought Teysa back to the present and grounded her. Theology could wait, she reminded herself; she had a threat to face, and whether she fought for Lolth or Agamor or herself alone, her course of action was the same.