Chapter 6: The Poison Devourer

It was now solidly midafternoon. Lilith had been gone for something like six hours. She was going to be beaten every day for a month for this, she thought bitterly, but they were not going to cut her head off. Bruises heal, lashes fade, and someday people would look at the scars on her back and marvel that anyone was stupid enough to bring upon themselves the wrath of Lilith de Magi, the true scion of her most noble and ancient lineage.

Right now, though, she was thanking Thorn for small favors, and cursing every other god for all the disasters large and small they had thrown at her today. Another farmer, Pitney, had told her that he needed a message sent to Duke de Gaban, and invoked Gaban's authority for the task. Since Gaban's authority trumped that of both Lord Osric and Sir Roblis, Lilith had found herself commandeered for the task. She could have mentioned that she was on an errand for the king's own Guard, but then she would have to actually go on that errand and she still had not found a way to deliver the unsealed letter to Warmarshal Saberlin without getting her head cut off. So now she was following the road across the bridge and then north, towards the devourers' nest, where Gaban was running another slave or two through his gauntlet.

The small favor, however, was that Pitney had given her some cloth to bundle up the package he expected to get in return from Gaban. He'd also given her a dire warning about making sure it reached him intact, but that was standard procedure, really. You couldn't expect to get much of anything out of a slave without a threat and a peasant could hardly be expected to know of her noble lineage just by looking. Really, she was starting to get sick of reminding herself that she was a noble.

The important thing was, the cloth could be used to bundle up all the stuff she had been hiding around the Village. She had the pearl, the quill, the message for Saberlin, and the plate she had bought for Sir Roblis. She took a detour (she was already horribly late, another hour wouldn't make a difference) to add her wand to the bundle, and now she almost wished Gaban would send her into the devourers' nest. Used to being well-fed on passing bandits and sacrificed slaves, then they're blindsided by a witch with a powerful desire to take out her frustration on something. It'd be kind of funny, really.

She could see Gaban now. There was some slave on the ground in front of him, and he was yelling at him and occasionally delivered a savage blow. Lilith braced herself for similar treatment. She'd been through worse; it wasn't so bad; someday he'd personally apologize for his mistake etc. etc. She bowed her head as she approached, then knelt and touched her head to the ground when she drew near enough to speak, waiting for permission to do so. Officially speaking, she was supposed to do this with everyone she spoke to, but most people were only irritated by the formality. Gaban had a reputation for demanding proper traditional supplication from his slaves, though.

Lilith's head was yanked to the side by her hair and she suppressed a yelp of pain. Gaban examined her brand. It never stopped getting irritating. “What does the Roblis estate want with me, scum?” Gaban asked.

“Your grace, Farmer Pitney sent me, he said the errand was commanded by your authority,” Lilith said, grateful that she wasn't actually there for the Roblis estate. Gaban made no effort to hide his enmity for the Adelbern supporters.

“Ah, so Pitney's here for what I've promised him,” Gaban said, “you hear that, Hathorn? There's no stalling any longer!”

“Please, your grace,” the slave called Hathorn said, “what have I done to displease you? The devourers will...Well, they shall devour me, your grace!”

Gaban planted another savage kick between Hathorn's ribs. “I didn't ask for your opinion,” he spat on Hathorn's cowering body, “I'll never need the opinion of the likes of you. You're lower than swine. I'm insulted that you would even dare ask.”

Lilith genuinely could not tell if he was truly angry or just terrifying Hathorn for fun, but she knew she wanted to go into that cave. “Please, your grace, you won't require me to go inside with him, will you?” she asked. “Someone will have to deliver a message back to Pitney, right?”

Gaban spat again, Lilith could feel it soaking into her hair. “Want to go in with him, do you?” he asked. So much for reverse psychology. He grabbed her by the hair and forced her to look up at him. Now Lilith was scared; was she going to come all this way to be killed on a whim of the bloodthirsty Duke? She couldn't sneak her way past a steel-plated boot to her skull. The Duke laughed. “Hathorn, have you found a whore to fuck you before you go?” He grinned, “someone with a soft body and softer head who doesn't know there's no room for your...Filthy breeding in that cave? Don't call it devourers' nest for nothing, do they?” Gaban scrutinized Lilith's face, and his expression changed. His grin grew less boisterous, more calculating, less wide, more thin. “Or is it just that you don't have the guts to throw yourself in the river?”

“I...” Lilith started, searching for some explanation that would put her in the damn cave and not out here with a bloodcrazed lunatic who was trained and equipped to slaughter witches by the cartload. “Your grace, if Thorn wants me alive, he'll see me through the nest in one piece, and if he doesn't...If he doesn't, I want it over with, and I'm only sucking up perfectly good food for your horses in the meantime, aren't I? That's what everyone always says.”

Gaban grinned wide again. “Well, then, it's a date,” he said, and dragged Lilith to her feet, giving her a shove towards the cave, then gave Hathorn another kick. “Not going to let your whore go in all by herself, are you?” Gaban asked, “get going, or my axe will do the devourers' job for 'em.”

Hathorn looked to Gaban, then to Lilith walking into the cavern, then to Gaban again, and clambered to his feet, following after her. “We're going to die,” Hathorn said, his voice shaking, “we're going to die here, Thorn don't care for any of us, we're the ones Thorn never cared for. We're going to die.”

“Maybe he never cared for you,” Lilith said, and she could feel the swarm stirring in her again. The cave soon vanished off into darkness. Lilith was reasonably certain the devourers didn't navigate by sight, particularly seeing as how they spent so much time underground. "We should move deeper in," she said, heading into the gloom.

"There's no light in there," Hathorn said, "and...The devourers..."

"I'd rather deal with them than the Duke," Lilith said without stopping. Hathorn glanced back at Gaban, who still peered into the darkness, on the off-chance a devourer emerge at the mouth of the cave to devour the slave who'd earned his ill favor. Ducking his head as though to avoid some unseen blow, Hathorn hurried after Lilith.

"Did you really mean what you said to the Duke?" Hathorn asked, "do you really want to-oh!" He stumbled and fell flat on his face. Lilith sighed while a few of the smaller bugs crawled out from beneath her fingertips, humming towards Hathorn. Lilith wasn't certain how, but they could navigate in the dark. Once her probing feet touched Hathorn's warm flesh, she reached down and grabbed him by the arm to pull him up. "Thank you," Hathorn said, "how can you see in here?"

"Good night eyes, I guess," Lilith said, bending down to feel at what he'd tripped over. Her locusts were drawn to it. A quick investigation revealed why; ribs. Following the spine up she discovered a human skull, most of a complete skeleton, a few bones cracked. "And no. I lied to the Duke. Honestly, I just want to kill something."

"Do you know how big devourers are?" Hathorn asked.

"Yes," Lilith said, finding some cloth leftover on the corpse and stripping it away, "I saw the one on display in King Adelbern's private collection at Rin. Dead, obviously, but same size. About the length of a cow, but much shorter."

"You were in Rin?" Hathorn said.

"I...I don't want to talk about it," Lilith said, wrapping the cloth around a thighbone. That would burn for a little bit, now if only she could find some way to light the damn thing. Maybe she'd be better off just using her swarm to navigate.

"Alright," Hathorn said. "In any case, I'm glad you came with me, whatever happens."

"Save your thanks," Lilith said, shoving the bone torch in her parcel and pulling the thorny wand from it. She wished this thing would glow the way an elementalist's or mesmer's might, but even if she couldn't see a target at least she could fire at it. She let a few of the larger locusts climb out her throat and following their buzzing down the corridor, tracing her toes slowly across the ground to avoid stumbling over anything. Occasionally her feet stumbled into a rock or more bones and she winced, but kept moving. What she wouldn't give for more light. "You probably deserve this anyway."

"What?" Hathorn said, taken aback, "what do you mean?"

"Gaban's a Lunatic noble, you're a slave," Lilith said, "and really, getting back to first principles, you wouldn't be a slave if you didn't deserve this sort of thing. You're the chafe of society."

Hathorn did not respond for a while. "Do you really believe that?" he said, "what does that make you then? Is this some kind of prank?" Lilith opened her mouth and shut it again. "I should've known you were crazy when you thought you could kill a nest of devourers," Hathorn said.

"No, no, listen," Lilith said, while one of her larger locusts buzzed insistently at her from further in the cave. Lilith hesitated. "You're right," she said finally, "legal status doesn't mean anything in this kingdom anymore, and...Obviously I should know that." She sighed. "I'm sorry."

Hathorn didn't respond while Lilith fumbled her way towards the needy locust, which was now buzzing in short bursts to reinforce that it wasn't flapping its wings for its health. Her hands groped in the dark through more bones, into a pack ripped open and mostly emptied, but hidden within was a flint. Lilith smiled. There was some luck at least, now if she could just remember how these things work. "It's alright," Hathorn said finally, "it's not like I'm not used to being insulted by now."

"Were you born into this?" Lilith asked, striking the flint against the torch and hoping the cloth was dry enough to catch. If he was from a slave family, he would've been a slave under the reign of the queen, she realized, and then her apology wouldn't have been worth much.

"No," Hathorn said, "I...My niece was ill, and starving. And the local noble was holding a feast, and I snuck in as one of the servants attending the feast to steal some food for her. I was caught, and they sold me. That was just a few months ago."

"If Adelbern were a competent ruler, he'd keep the peasants fed and happy," Lilith said, still trying to light the torch, "the common people are the foundation of the kingdom. An unruly population is like building a fortress on sand. No bread, no circuses," the torch lit, and illuminated Lilith's smile in its flickering luminescence, "no kingdom." Lilith thrust the torch in front of her, and Hathorn grabbed her hand and yanked it back. "What're you-" Lilith began.

"It's not a lantern," Hathorn said, "stick it out front and you'll blind yourself. Just let your eyes adjust."

Lilith squinted in the dark. The light provided by the torch was pretty pathetic, barely even illuminating Hathorn's face three feet next to her. She couldn't rely on the torchlight alone to navigate, but she worried she didn't have the time to let her eyes adjust. "Thanks," Lilith said. As her eyes adjusted, the darkness slowly receded, revealing three devourers standing about ten feet out, their beady eyes staring motionlessly at them. One of them clicked a pincer together.

Lilith raised a wand in a panic and fired at the devourers, opening her mouth to release the full swarm again. Hathorn panicked and backed away as the locusts raced out to attack the devourers, and the devourers raced out to attack the two of them. They staggered and came to a halt as the plague locusts, now joined by their new bee allies, rushed out and slipped between the chinks in the massive carapace of the devourers, eating them from within. The massive bugs writhed with pain as they died. "Hathorn, come to me," Lilith said, "follow my voice! We need to stick together!"

"Right, coming, where are you?" Hathorn said.

"Still he-" Lilith got out before Hathorn collided with her, sending them both to the ground. Lilith pulled him up with her, hanging on tight to his hand. "Don't let go, and if you do, just hit the dirt and stay there until I give the all clear. If a devourer comes for you...Well, hit it hard and good luck."

"Right," Hathorn said, "you...You're a witch."

"Yeah," Lilith said, but her further explanation was interrupted by a stinger burying itself in her shoulder. She winced with pain and fired her wand blindly in the direction of the attacker, a whiptail devourer that could fling its stingers great distances, and a pained chittering told her that at least one of the blasts had hit. Though the wand's tip did not glow, its volleys did, and from them Lilith could find a target, and she sent her swarm out to devour the enemy again. While the bugs worked, she crouched down, evading another stinger that thudded into the wall behind her.

"Alright, where are you?" Lilith asked, and she and Hathorn played a few more rounds of Marco Polo to find one another.

"Where are the eggs?" Hathorn asked.

"Eggs?" Lilith responded.

"Yes, that's what we're here for. I guess it was before you got here, but Gaban wants the eggs," Hathorn said.

"Right." Lilith closed her eyes. Her swarm wasn't warning her about the devourers the way they had found her the flint, but maybe if she directed them...Find me their eggs Lilith thought, the eggs of the giant bugs. A moment later, the locusts began buzzing on and off again, like if crickets' chirping were menacing instead of cheerfully irritating. Lilith and Hathorn followed it to an actual nest of the nest. "How many does he need?" Lilith asked.

"As many as we can carry," Hathorn said, "he'll want at least two or three."

"Hide one of them," Lilith said, "a devourer's egg might come in handy if a noble wants them so badly. There should be plenty here."

"Oh, yes, plenty," Hathorn said, and Lilith's bugs were buzzing at her again. Hathorn fumbled about, "I've found at least five already, it's amaz-aiee!" he yelped and jumped away as his hand stumbled across a couple of locusts, which nibbled a bit at his skin and then took off. Hathorn cleared his throat and said "yes, as I was saying, quite a few. I guess we stumbled fairly deep into their nest."

"Yeah," Lilith said, kneeling down where her bugs had led her. Her hands graced bone, but it was longer and thinner than any human bone...Crafted, she realized. A staff. Well, except for the phalanges still gripping it, those were natural, but she pried them off and hefted up her prize. "I think my locusts and the devourers think they're both from the same nest for some reason," she said, "the devourers seemed pretty calm that we were just walking around in their nest, and my locusts didn't warn me they were right in front of us." The staff came to life in her hands, a heatless green fire within the eye sockets of the many small skulls adorning its tip. Such small skulls, were they children? Lilith smiled. It would have to be a powerful black magic if it was. "And the locusts have been pretty good at being my eyes in this place so far."

"I think we have what we need," Hathorn said, "but I'm not sure if the Duke will be happy or angry that we've come back with it. He does enjoy his omelets..."

Lilith ignored him and focused on her swarm again. Find me the poison one, she said, find the poison devourer so I can take its stinger to Mhenlo. The locusts dispersed themselves through the cavern, searching for the devourer. Suddenly it occurred to Lilith that if she were to be attacked right now, she'd have to rely on her staff and her fangs alone. And that was when the ground began churning beneath her.

Lilith stepped back in alarm as the massive devourer emerged beneath her, its twin tails flailing towards her. She ducked under them, sent out a jolt from her staff, and the creature hissed in pain, stepping to the side on its chitinous legs and taking another swing at her. Lilith leapt backwards and landed on her back, and the creature raced towards her. She shot it again with her staff, checking its advance, and got to her feet, but another lash from the massive beast and her staff was sent flying from her hands. Her wand she had left on the ground, and she would make little use of her fangs without getting in range of its powerful pincers, pincers that could snap her neck in half in a heartbeat.

She backed away, hoping she could stay away from the thing long enough for her swarm to return to her. It lashed out at her legs, and she was too slow to evade them. The stinger did not puncture her skin, but she was swept off her feet, slamming hard into the ground. The creature advanced on her again, until a rock struck it in the eye and it reared back, chittering with rage. "Come on, over here you big, stupid bug!" Hathorn shouted, tossing another rock, which bounced uselessly off of the thing's carapace. The devourer smacked Lilith across the face with one of its pincers almost as an afterthought, opening up her split lip and sending blood streaming from her nose,  but then made for Hathorn, veritably flying across the ground towards him. By the rapidly dimming light of her new staff, Lilith could see Hathorn panic and flee into the dark, and then heard him yelp in pain and terror as he slammed headlong into a wall.

Lilith dove for one of the twin tails of the beast, grabbing onto it and peeling the chitin back to expose the flesh beneath. Blood seeped out of the wound, and she bit in hungrily, holding tight to the one tail, her feet struggling to keep her balance as the powerful limb pulled her across the ground, while the other flailed about wildly. The free tail stung into her shoulder, and Lilith could feel fire racing through her veins. It would seem she had discovered the poison devourer, then.

The locusts arrived and began to devour the devourer, and Lilith backed away, gasping. She knew how to handle poison by now, and fumbled around for her parcel and the knife inside it. A few of her locusts led her to it, and she opened herself up, but this poison was far more fast acting than that of the bees. She ripped her wrist open and blood poured freely, then, holding the knife in her other hand, ripped open the other as well. She only hoped the poison was leaving her system fast enough as she staggered back to the dying devourer and latched onto it again, drinking more from its body...But the carcass had been ripped open and there was little left inside the pool of blood that sat in its insect body.

"Where are you?" Hathorn shouted, "where...Dammit, I don't even know your name!"

"I'm here," Lilith managed, and Hathorn came to her and knelt beside her; she had collapsed onto the ground.

"Are you alright?" Hathorn said.

"Need blood," Lilith said, "poison's gone...Blood's gone too."

"Here," Hathorn said, offering his wrist, "gods know I can lose plenty and be fine in a week."

Lilith bit into his wrist and drank from him. Her eyes widened. Human blood was far better tasting than that of the unclean skale and devourers. She moaned with satisfaction as the blood raced into her. It was better than anything she had ever tasted before. So this is why necromancer nobles kept blood dolls around. She wondered if slaves tasted worse than commoners like Hathorn. She wondered if nobles would taste even better.

Reluctantly, Lilith pulled herself away from Hathorn's wrist, and her locusts led her back to her stuff. It came to life again. "We should get going, before more come," Lilith said, ripping off the stinger on the devourer.

"Right," Hathorn said, grinning, "I can't believe I made it. I never thought I would. Everyone knows this is how Gaban kills his slaves. Hey," he turned towards her, "I know I don't have much to offer, but if there's ever anything you need, well...I owe you my life."

"You saved me from the poison devourer," Lilith said, putting her parcel back together and wrapping it up in the cloth while carefully instructing her locusts to please keep her informed if something was going to try and eat her in the meantime.

"You didn't have to come in here at all," Hathorn said.

"Well," Lilith said, and suddenly a thought occurred to her. "There's something you could do for me, actually." She started ripping the cloth in half. "I'm supposed to deliver a package, but I have way too much to do as it is. I'm already extremely late and I'm sure there'll be Hell to pay when I get back to the estate. You might save me a few lashes if you can deliver something for me. It needs to be today, before sundown. Preferably immediately."

"I can find the time," Hathorn said, "Gaban's cruel, but he's also careless."

"Right," Lilith said, wrapping the two pieces of cloth into two separate parcels, one for herself, and one for Hathorn. There wasn't enough room for her wand in hers anymore, but she preferred the staff anyway. She'd just slip in and retrieve it after Gaban left. And if Hathorn really did owe Lilith his life...She offered him the smaller parcel. "I need you to get this to warmarshal Armin Saberlin," she said.