Chapter 754: Lolth

The pale strand above the warships tightened.

A patch of smoke moved aside, and Alex saw a white leg against the dark sky. He followed it upward until the clouds broke and the rest of the shape became visible.

Eight legs surrounded a smooth abdomen. White scales covered them, and the head between the foremost legs had the same draconic shape he remembered from Karthos Reach.

Lolth’s moon-sized body hung beyond Proxima’s atmosphere. A warship crossing Alex’s view briefly hid part of one leg, then passed, leaving the immense shape unchanged. Her true body remained far beyond the fighting. Her web had reached the city ahead of her.

Alex felt Mingyue move closer.

"How did she find this place?" she asked through their bond.

"The thing in the yard."

His gaze dropped toward the green smoke. The trace he had felt inside it was much weaker than the presence above them, but he could no longer mistake the resemblance.

Someone had put that flesh here and fed it while Proxima was already in chaos.

Whoever had prepared it had wanted Lolth to come. Alex wondered whether they were still in the city, watching the result.

A point of light appeared below the nearest ship.

It lengthened into a human shape, its feet resting on empty air. The arms and head became clear, followed by a feminine face made from the same light as the rest of the body.

Alex raised his hammer.

"Stay away from the yard," he told Vesa. "She’s here."

"I can see her, King. Dorian is moving the wounded farther back."

The light woman looked toward him.

For a moment, Alex thought she would attack. Her gaze moved from his weapon to Mingyue’s swords, then past them to the formation between the warehouses.

She went down toward it without saying anything.

Thepes moved first.

Blood gathered along his arm and extended into a long blade. He crossed the space beneath the ships, putting himself between the light woman and the yard.

"You think you can take what belongs here?"

The light woman did not slow.

His blade swept through her waist. Light scattered as the lower half of her body separated from the upper.

Thepes turned toward Alex with a sharp smile, but before he could speak, the light gathered again.

The woman raised her hand.

Alex felt the space in front of her tighten. He pulled Mingyue sideways, but she was already moving with him.

Thepes met the attack with his blood blade, but the weapon bent back against his arm. The force struck his chest and hurled him past the place Alex and Mingyue had just left, into the side of a ruined tower.

Stone burst from the upper floors. The remaining wall tilted, then began falling toward the street below.

Alex drove his hammer through the largest slab before it reached the street. Mingyue’s ice caught the broken pieces above the allied soldiers.

The effort pulled them away from the yard.

Lolth’s light body continued downward.

"She didn’t even look at where he would land," Mingyue said.

Alex watched Dorian’s soldiers get clear of the broken tower. One dragged a companion by the back of his armor while another held off a red-eyed attacker trying to follow them.

"Look where she’s going."

Lolth had already turned back toward the organ. The people beneath the falling tower had not been worth a second glance.

At Karthos Reach, they had escaped while she fought the black-armored representative. She hadn’t been fighting for them then, and Alex doubted she cared any more about them now.

The light woman stopped above the service yard.

Green smoke surrounded her legs. The formation brightened, and several red lines rose toward her body.

She lowered her eyes toward the organ.

"My daughter."

Her voice reached Alex clearly despite the fighting around them.

Mingyue tightened her grip on her swords.

Alex looked from the light woman to the red flesh. The swollen organ continued moving inside the barrier. Until now, he had only known that it carried a trace connected to Lolth.

Someone had taken part of her daughter and used it in this formation.

Alex glanced toward his people below. If Lolth treated them as another obstruction around the remains, none of them had room to escape her.

"Vesa, did you hear her?"

"Yes."

"Keep everyone away from whatever she pulls out."

"I’ve already warned the commanders."

A pale thread passed from the light woman’s hand into the barrier.

The red lines wrapped around it. Their glow grew stronger as the thread continued toward the organ, and the flesh rose a short distance from its place over the ground.

The formation rose with it. Lines embedded in the stone pulled taut, lifting broken paving and drawing the barrier closer around the swollen veins.

Alex’s Cognitive Matrix followed the movement. The organ was linked to more than the surface lines. Power still ran up from the yard into it, and the pull had drawn those connections tight rather than separating them.

One of the thick veins stretched. Lolth lowered the thread until the flesh settled again, then sent finer strands along the red lines beneath it.

"Intact," she said.

Alex watched the pale strands spread around the organ. She could break the paving as easily as she had thrown Thepes through the tower, but she had stopped at the first sign of the flesh tearing. Whatever else she took from Proxima, she wanted these remains whole.

Before he could examine more, the Imperial fleet fired.

Three beams converged on the light woman.

The barrier around the yard flashed under the first impact. The second beam struck her raised arm, and the third passed through her chest before hitting the stone behind her.

The warehouse wall burst apart, releasing a rush of green smoke. Alex could no longer see the organ, only the red light pulsing inside the dust.

"Back!" he told Vesa.

"Our people are clear of that street."

The light woman stood where the shots had struck her. Part of her shoulder was gone. Alex could see the ruined building through the opening in her chest.

Pale strands brightened above the yard, and the holes in her body filled with light.

The Imperial vessel nearest her began gathering another shot. Its weapons turned downward, adjusting toward the clearer space left by the destroyed wall.