...and how it didn't go as planned...

Teysa woke up with butterflies in her stomach. The day had arrived. After her talk with the Matron, both had agreed that the broodmothers had to be freed. The drider had merely asked for a few days to inform her subjects of the new order and “quell any disturbances.” Teysa didn’t want to know what the Matron had had to do; the next time they saw each other, the spider-woman looked haggard and tired. “I have sssssspoken to the warren,” she said. “They are not pleassssssed, but they underssssssstand. I… made them underssssssstand.”

She looked into Teysa’s eyes. “It issssssss for the bessssssst. My rule isssssssssss never completely sssssssssecure. Only my ssssssssssstrength keepsssss them in line. But it isssssssss Lolth’ssssssss will we do here.”

Two drider guards accompanied Teysa, Aliara and the Matron into the breeding caves. Teysa had protested that they were unnecessary, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. In front of her people, the Matron’s moment of vulnerability had passed; she held her head high, her hair elegantly wrapped into cones and encircled by delicate silver tracery in the shape of a web. Red dye marked her face, three ovals on each cheek. They were meant to be eyes, Teysa realized. With six carmine eyes, she looked alien and fearsome, her humanity a thin veneer over something darker. Her breasts were likewise wrapped in silver filigree that extended nearly to her navel. She looked every bit as inscrutable as on the first day they had met.

Teysa thought that such a fierce display might be counterproductive, but she knew to pick her battles. The guards were smaller driders, each wearing baroque half-plate and carrying long spears. They were for show, Teysa was sure, but they still made her nervous, and she could only imagine what effect they would have on the newly freed broodmothers.

The first cave they came to was familiar to Teysa. She imagined seeing a ghostly echo of herself, the scared woman she had been. Had she been webbed to the wall there? Or there? Time had robbed the memory of its sharpness, but she felt a twist in her gut, a numb ache. Returning to the site of so much misery was hard, even under these circumstances.

Devto hung on the wall where Teysa had left her. Her belly was flat now, and she was snoozing, her face dangling between her breasts. Beneath her was Oyanna, the dark-skinned girl. Her stomach was tremendously swollen, and she stared silently at the wall, a thin stream of drool trickling out of the corner of her mouth. The others were as Teysa remembered them; the elf woman, Tivya, still muttered and murmured endlessly, and the blonde with the icy stare was cocooned against one wall.

This last one called out as Teysa entered. “Oh, hello, collaborators. We hadn’t seen you in a while. Busy, are you? I know how it is.” She cast her eyes around the room. “We’re fine. Same old same old, you know; we give birth, they **** us full of eggs again. Did you come to pay your respects to Vithany? She died last week. You didn’t know her, did you? Oh, well. I’m sure you were doing something very important at the time.” The Matron passed through the archway, and the blonde fell silent. She seemed to shrink inside her wrapping.

Teysa held out her hand. “Spear,” she commanded. The closest guard looked to the Matron, who nodded. She handed over the weapon, and Teysa turned it around in her hands a couple of times. The blade was wide and flat, with razor-sharp edges. She took aim and slashed down vertically, severing the bond that tied the blonde woman to the wall.

As she began to sag in her cocoon, Teysa stepped forward and caught her with one arm. “What’s going on?” the woman cried, her voice quavering. “Leave me alone!” The woman was surprisingly heavy; Teysa figured that she might be pregnant after all. It was hard to tell under all that silk. “Li, come help me,” she called. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

“W-wait! Please, no! I’m sorry for what I said earlier! Please!” The woman pleaded, her laconic tone vanishing. “Stop! Just… leave me be here! I’m sorry, I’ll be quiet! You’re wasting your time! I’ll never kneel to them! Never!”

Together, they laid the woman down on the ground, and Aliara brandished her daggers. With an archaeologist’s care she slid them through the silk bindings, severing strands and unwrapping them as she went.

Teysa stood up and stepped back, letting Aliara do the work.

“No. I told you I would free you, and I have. From this day forward no woman will ever be bred against her will in this warren again. We’re here to cut you all loose. The Matron has agreed to it.”

All the commotion had awoken Devto. The half-orc blinked the sleep out of her eyes and looked around wildly. “Nyssi! What’s going on?!” Her eyes lighted on Teysa. “You! Whore! Have you come to taunt us again?” She saw the Matron, and blinked in surprise. “Fiend! Demon! Stay away from me!” She tried to keep the fear out of her voice, but Teysa heard the slight waver.

She crossed the room and looked up the half-orc. “Devto, please be calm. I told you I would come to free you, and I have. You are done being bred. No drider will ever use your womb again unless you allow it.”

“Allow it? What madness do you talk? I would never-” Devto’s brow furrowed. “Is this a trick? I swear to you, I will defend myself if I must. You will not find me weak prey.”

“No trick. No trick.” Teysa tried to speak calmly, soothingly. She held her hands out to show that they were empty. “It’s over. I promise you, it’s over. You are free to go if you wish.”

“Liar,” Devto growled, but her eyes were scanning Teysa’s face. The paladin could see the **** hope there. She wants to believe, Teysa thought. I just need to let her. “I promise you,” she repeated. “I promise you. I told you I would come back.”

Behind her, Aliara finished cutting the last strands off of the human woman, Nyssi. She was, indeed pregnant, her stomach a wide pink orb that jiggled as she tried to stand. Aliara offered the woman a hand up, but she swatted it away. Slowly, patiently, she labored to her feet, her legs wobbling beneath her. She clung to a stalagmite for support as she took first one shaky step, then another. Teysa watched her silently. So did Aliara and Devto, and the driders. Step by step, her knees quaking, she crossed the room to Devto. She reached up with one hand and grabbed the half-orc’s foot-- the only part of her she could reach. The two stared into each other’s eyes wordlessly. Teysa watched Devto’s defiant snarl crumple, and looked away. She felt like an intruder.

“Nyssi,” whispered the half-orc in a hoarse and broken voice, “is it true? Is this bitch telling the truth?”

“I don’t know,” Nyssi replied. She squeezed Devto’s foot until her knuckles were white. “But I won’t leave without you. Never in this life.”

They cut Devto down next, and carefully cut the webbing off her hands. Aliara snatched back her dagger before the half-orc could grab it, but she just flexed her fingers open and closed as though she had never seen them before. She took one faltering step and collapsed to one knee. Grunting and straining, the muscles in her neck standing out like cords, she **** herself to her feet. She stood there for a moment, swaying, then sagged against one wall. Nyssi tottered over next to her and put her arm around the half-orc’s waist, helping her stand upright. They gripped each other’s hands like drowning swimmers clutching at driftwood.

Devto gave a wheezing laugh. “You, leave without me? Not likely, unless you roll, you bloated tub of guts.” Nyssi smiled and squeezed back. “I can still outrun you, you lumbering ox. And as soon as I get some feeling back in my legs I’ll prove it.”

The other two came down easily.

Tivya showed no reaction as the tangled strands that bore her weight were cut through. The Matron had to lift her like a baby and set her down on the floor. She curled up into a protective ball around her stomach, muttering all the while. It sounded like an elven dialect, and Teysa wondered what she was saying. Was she praying? Was she begging for release? Or was it just doggerel, broken scraps from a broken mind?

Oyanna, meanwhile, seemed to snap back to herself as soon as Teysa started cutting her bonds. She wept in gratitude as the silk parted. “Oh, thank you, thank you, oh God, oh Peace of Heaven, thank you, I’m so scared!” Her hands unconsciously circled her belly as she spoke. “What happens when they come? Will it hurt? Is there anything you can do to get these things out of me? I don’t want to d- to d-die!”

Teysa held the girl in her arms and let her sob against her shoulder. Aliara came up behind Oyanna and rubbed her back, then wrapped her arms around both of them. “It’s ok, it’s ok, shhhh,” the half-elf said, running her fingers through Oyanna’s hair. “It’s not so bad. I promise. We made it. You will too. You can stay here to give birth. You can do it in comfort.”

In answer, Oyanna burst into a bout of fresh sobs. Nyssi, too, looked up. “So, we have one last parting gift from the spiders, is that it? You’ll ‘allow’ us to stay here until your spawn are out of our bodies?” All of the nastiness and sarcasm had fled her voice. She just sounded tired. Devto absentmindedly rubbed one hand across Nyssi’s belly. “You can come with me, Nyssi. After this filth is purged from you. My clan will take you in. I will vouch for you.”

“Where can I go?” wailed Oyanna. “I was b-b-betrothed! If my intended finds out about this, he’ll never m-m-marry me! What if I can’t have a ch-child anymore? Am I r-r-ruined?!”

Teysa shushed her and rocked back and forth. To tell the truth, she didn’t know if Oyanna could still have a child. She shot the Matron a look, but the drider returned it impassively. It was possible that even she didn’t know. “Shhhh, it’s alright, Oyanna,” whispered Teysa. “You’re not ruined. I’m sure you can have a child, still. This will all seem like a bad dream.” She hoped that was true. What could she do if it wasn’t? It was too late now. Please, do not make me a liar. Oyanna sniffled and pulled back slightly. “It wasn’t though, was it? It’s all real. I can still remember what it f-felt like when…” she looked at the Matron and shivered. “Why are we free? What did you do?”

“I’m curious about that myself,” said Nyssi. “What kind of bargain did you strike? Will we regret it later?”

Aliara turned on her like a striking snake. “She-- we-- you wouldn’t believe what we had to do! She’s gone through horrors you can’t imagine! The least you could do is be a little grateful!”

“Aliaria!” Teysa exclaimed, but inside, she felt an ugly little worm of satisfaction. She did want these women to be grateful. In her head, she would ride in triumphant, and the downtrodden masses would exult in their newfound freedom. In reality, she had one weeping girl, two sullen women, and a catatonic elf. This wasn’t how she had imagined it.

Devto stared dully up at her, her expression neither hopeful nor hateful. “I told you I would not beg, human,” she said. “You have ‘freed’ us, all right. Some of us. Look at Tivya and tell me how free she is. You came too late for Vithany. Too late for many more.”

They went from cave to cave, cutting broodmothers down from the wall and loosing their bonds. Some fell to their knees thanking Teysa. Others were more reserved, even angry. A few, like Tivya, displayed no reaction at all; their minds were too far gone, their bodies warped by too many births. Some wept, some yelled, some were silent, but one by one they were set free. Teysa was surprised at how many broodmothers there had been-- nearly two dozen. She wanted to address them all, and so one by one, they staggered out of the breeding caves that had been their prison for so long and assembled in the audience chamber. Some of the catatonic ones had to be carried, but in the end they all came. Teysa had ensured that a supply of fresh silk robes was available and passed them out as the broodmothers took their seats.

The Matron was present, but she had dismissed her guards. It occurred to Teysa that, besides the guards, she had not seen another drider since they had begun freeing broodmothers. She could feel eyes on her, peering out of the darkness. The Matron seemed to sense them, too; she stood at the mouth of the cave with a posture just a little too tense to be natural. Occasionally she would glance outward along the tunnel. Her expression was, as ever, unreadable, but her eyes glittered like polished obsidian.

“So,” she said, “those of you who are still bearing young will have comfortable apartments made up for you. You will not be bound or moved anywhere you don’t wish to go to.” She surveyed the weary faces, the atrophied limbs and distended bellies of the broodmothers. “You can stay as long as you want to-- as long as you need to. When you depart, you will be given all the provisions you can carry, or if you prefer, escorted to a nearby settlement. The important thing is, you are free. You own yourselves. You owe nothing to the warren or the driders.”

That sent a wave through the crowd. The words came quickly, overlapping each other. “Thank you!” “Freedom!” “Is it a trick?” “Savior!”

“No trick!” Teysa waved her arms above her head. “No trick! This is real. You are free, and there will never be more breeding captives taken.”

A heavyset woman with red-gold hair raised a hand. Her voice was hard and brittle, like ice about to crack. “The driders took me while my family was traveling by caravan. They killed my whole family except for me. My husband, my brother, my children... Where do I go now? I have no one left. No place to go.”

Teysa pursed her lips. “Well, where did you live before? The driders can take you to--”

“I’m not getting near those animals again!” a drow exclaimed. “I’d gut them myself if I had the chance. I don’t understand how you can stand to be around them!” There was a general murmur of agreement. Teysa glanced at the Matron, but she was watching calmly, her expression never changing.

“Yeah!” piped up a dwarf. “They collapsed a tunnel on my husband! I’d like to put my axe through their necks!”

Teysa looked to Aliara for support, but the half-elf shrugged. Stammering, Teysa tried to frame a response. “I know that many of you seek vengeance, but--”

“Vengeance? All I want is justice!” called out the dwarf. Clamoring voices rose up in support of her.

Another broodmother, a short human with dark hair and fine features, turned to face the speaker. “Are you mad? You’ll have them down on us! I just want to get as far away from here as possible!” Her voice was scratchy, on the edge of panic. Her eyes kept sliding towards the Matron keeping silent vigil by the door. “We need to get out of here before they change their minds!”

A slim woman with sea-green hair and webbed fingers spoke up. “Ma’am, my sister was taken with me, and she’s pregnant now.” She gestured at the woman sitting next to her, who waved demurely. “I’m not leaving without her. Can I stay by her side? Can you promise that if I do, none of these driders will try to… have their way with me?”

“Yes!” cried Teysa. “I promise! Those days are over! I am sorry for your loss,” she said, addressing the dwarf, “but I cannot bring back your husband. Nor your family,” she continued, looking at the red-haired woman. Everywhere she looked she saw accusing eyes. They seemed to press in on her from all around. She could feel a pressure mounting behind her temples. “I cannot. I wish I could. I cannot erase the… mistakes of the past. All I can do is try to make the future better. Vengeance is a wheel, and when you strap yourself to it, it always turns around on you again.”

That was a line from Agamor’s Psalms, and one she had always admired. It did not seem to be having the desired effect. “Maybe you can forgive them, but don’t tell me how to feel!” cried one woman. “Who are you to tell us what to do?” asked another. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“I was like you,” Teysa began. “I have been through the same ordeal you have. I was a maiden when I came here,” she had never thought about herself that way, but she supposed it was true, “and the driders... violated me. I know what you have been though. I do! But I choose to look forward. The past only has a hold on you as long as you allow it.”

Nyssi, sitting in the front row, spoke quietly. “Oh, it’s that easy, is it? To you, it’s just the past. To me, it’s a belly full of spiders.” She rubbed her swollen stomach. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful. You did get us down from the wall. But Teysa…how many broods have you borne? One? Two? They let you walk freely. You cooperated with them. Maybe you did what you had to do to survive, but most of us weren’t given that choice.”

Next to her Devto bared her tusks. “Or we chose not to take it,” she growled. “We had a little more self-respect.”

“Please,” said the dark-haired woman, “don’t provoke her!” She sounded on the edge of tears. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to have bothered you. Please don’t let anything else happen to us. I’ll…” she swallowed hard, “I’ll forgive them if I have to. To get out of here. Please, don’t let them put us back up on the wall.”

Teysa felt a lump form in her throat. “No! Nobody is going back up on the wall. No matter what. I told you, that is over.”

“What did you do?” asked the drow. “What deal did you strike? If I am to owe you a debt of thanks, I should like to know what for.”

Teysa groped for the words. “There was… that is, I saw… I spoke to…” Behind her, the Matron spoke for the first time.

“There hassssss been a revelation. From She Who Spinsssssss Below. Teyssssssssa showed ussssssss the weight of our sinssssssssssss. To kidnap hyou wassssssss the act of an animal. The old way musssssssst die, ssssssssso I sssssssssset hyou all free.”

At the sound of the drider’s voice, the dark-haired woman yelped in terror, and the other broodmothers drew closer together. The drow’s expression turned stormy, but she said nothing.

The heavyset woman spoke again. The brittle anger had drained out of her voice, leaving her sounding uncertain. “For such a long time, freedom was all I thought about. Now… I have nowhere to go. I have no money, no possessions. What will become of me out there?” She sighed. “**** won’t bring back my Thaddeus, but it’s all I have left.”

“You could stay,” Teysa said. “I will stay. I choose to, willingly. If the driders need to breed, I will make myself available. They won’t need to kidnap anyone. Nobody will be hurt again.”

“You choose to stay?” The drow’s face twisted in an expression of disgust so visceral that Teysa flinched away. “Why? Do you enjoy the feeling of being stuffed full of eggs? Or are you just happy to get a pat on the head from your masters?”

Teysa’s head was spinning. She rubbed her forehead with one hand and tried to think. “No, I just… I don’t want anybody to have go through what we went through. Ever again. I just want this nightmare to be over.”

Nyssi stood up and crossed hesitantly over to Teysa. She took the paladin’s hand in both of her own. Her fingers were so thin, Teysa noticed, so brittle, but her touch was warm. “I see what you did for us, Teysa,” she said, in a surprisingly gentle voice. “I won’t ever forget it. I won’t. Maybe you can forgive the driders. Maybe that makes you strong. I don’t know. I never claimed to be strong. I can’t forgive them, though. Maybe in time, but… it’s too much, too soon. And I’m tired. I just want to leave here and try to put my life back together.”