Seeker of Secrets

by Deck Davis

  There was another crash, and the sound of wood splintering. They heard feet on the roof now, so many that it was impossible to tell how many stalkers were climbing over it.

  “I’ve never seen this,” said Joshua. “I studied them when I learned zoology, and trust me; you don’t want to get close to them. I was careful, and I still ended up with a scar.”

  “Do they bite?”

  “Yep, and their venom paralyses you. We can’t let them get in.”

  Sadler waved his cleaver. “Don’t worry; I don’t plan on letting them smash up my tavern.”

  There were more creaks, more scratches. The sound came from all around them. The spiders were trying to get in to the tavern, that was clear. Joshua just couldn’t believe it; this went against their nature.

  “Okay,” he said. “They’re going to get in if we stand around.”

  “Then I’ll take the fight outside,” said Keate, holding his hefty sword aloft.

  The wickerman held out his wooden hands and showed them a purple ball of mist. “I take it they’re not resistant to arcane magic?”

  “And a blade?” said his friend, the scarred middle-aged man.

  Hmm. Maybe the runto players had chosen to play as a healer, arcane mage and a rogue because they were those things. That was going to help.

  “They’re flesh and blood,” said Joshua. “But they’re fast as hell and they can jump. If you go outside they’re just going to leap off the roof, and there’ll be too many to fight at once. One bite and that’s it; you won’t be able to move.”

  “I never backed down from a fight from a fear of getting bitten. Who’s got armor?” said Keate.

  “There’s a couple of old leather breastplates and a few pairs of gloves in the store room,” said Sadler. “In the lost and found box. Nobody has claimed ‘em yet.”

  “And the venom won’t affect me,” said the Wickerman. “Being made out of wood has certain perks. I can face them.”

  Joshua assessed their makeshift force. Only he, Keate, and the scarred runto player had armor, and the Wickerman was resistant to venom and poisons. Could this work? Loneeyes were fast and mean, but their bodies were soft. A dagger would be enough to cut through their flesh, never mind Keate’s sword.

  But one important point stood; it sounded like there were lots of the insects, and that they were everywhere. On the outside walls, on the roof…

  No. There were too many unknowns, too many unseen places for them to leap from. There had to be another way of fighting them without risking having the stalkers jump down from above. The danger of one bite was too much.

  Joshua looked around and let his perception skill feed back everything he saw. First, there was the liquor bottles behind Sadler’s bar.

  “Fire,” he said. “That’ll keep them out.”

  “Fire? No way!” said the Wickerman, backing off.

  “You’re not burning my place down,” said Sadler.

  “Not inside. If we can get outside and spread a ring of fire, that might ward them away. We can use the goblin firespit – that stuff’s flammable, right?”

  Stone chipped away from the east wall now and scattered over a nearby table. A draught blew in from a newly-made hole in the wall, and then a long, spindly leg appeared through it.

  “They’re getting in,” said Keate, and he ran over to it and swiped it clean off, spraying blue blood over the tavern walls.

  “They’re getting through the stone,” said the scarred man. “What cheap crap is your place made of?”

  “My tavern has stood for eighty years. It ain’t the materials that’s the problem.”

  “It’s their teeth,” said Joshua. “They’re hard as hell. Leave it too long, and they’re going to get in.”

  “So, fire will drive them away, but the second we step outside they’re gonna to rain down on us with teeth tougher than brick,” said Keate. “This is our choice, then. Stand and wait for them to get in, or we take our chances and fight.”

  Joshua looked around again. He saw the bar, the liquor bottles, the tables, the stone floor…

  An idea hit him, the pieces of it forming in his mind and knitted together by his perception.

  “Sadler,” he said. “You have a cellar, right?”

  “It’s where my barrels are.”

  “Is there a way out through there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Damn. Okay, well at least there isn’t a way in through there either.”

  “They might go away if we’re quiet,” said the elf girl.

  A second hole burst in the wall, followed by a third. A spray of dust and stone rained down on the tables, and more hairy legs pushed through. Keate slashed them, taking a spray of blood to his face.

  “Is their blood venomous?” he said, wiping his face.

  “No; their venom comes from their pouches. Listen, these things won’t give up; it’s in their name- loneeye stalkers. They don’t just defend themselves, they see the job through. When a predator disturbs them, they go to the end.”

  “But what the bloody hell did we do to them?” said Sadler.

  “Not a damn idea. Like I said, they shouldn’t even be around here.”

  “Then we fight,” said Keate. “One on one, five on one, a hundred on one, I don’t care.”

  Keate’s words gave flame to another idea in Joshua’s mind, and this was a much better one.

  “One on one,” he said. “We can draw them in on their own and kill them as they come.”

  “Let them in?”

  Joshua nodded. “Turn over all the tables and put them on either side of the door so it’s like a pathway. Block up half of the doorway so they can’t all come in at once, and then kill them one by one as they appear.”

  “They’re gonna find their way in anyhow,” said Sadler. “Look at my walls!”

  “It’s still gonna take them time to create big enough holes in the stone and to get through the roof. Their brains aren’t as developed as ours; if we open the door and give them an easier way in, they’ll take that rather than doing it the hard way.”

  “And supposing they just leap over the tables?”

  “We put a row of upturned tables on either side of the door with the table surfaces forming two walls, and then put more tables on top to create a roof. It’ll be like a little passageway. Then we cover the part of the doorway where the tables don’t reach. To get inside, they’ll have to crawl through the little tunnel we make.”

  “I’ve got some old wood in the cellar. And some nails somewhere…”

  “We don’t have time for that,” said Keate.

  The wickerman clacked over to them. “I’ll cast a small arcane shield over part of the doorway. That’ll stop them.”

  “Why didn’t you say you could do that?” said Keate. “Just cast one of those arcane protective bubbles I’ve seen your lot make.”

  “I’m only level 1; a little shield is the best you’ll get from me.”

  “Let’s get to it,”” said Joshua. “Me, Keate, Sadler and you, dagger guy, will wait at the end of the tunnel of tables and kill whatever comes through.”

  “What about us?” said a man.

  He was standing with the other bar patrons, the more normal folks who probably had classes like farmer, shopkeeper or accountant and were just here for a few quiet drinks.

  “Just stay there, out of the way. You’ll be safe.”

  The man nodded.

  Joshua faced everyone now, and he began to feel a little uncomfortable that all their gazes were on him. “Everyone ready?”

  The nods and words of assent said that they were, and Joshua was glad – and a little surprised – that they’d listened to him. As plans went it wasn’t the greatest, but it beat waiting for the stalkers to get through the walls and roof or rushing outside to face them.

  Even so, in making the plan and getting them to commit to it, the responsibility fell on him. If this went wrong, if someone got hurt or even died, it’d be on him.

&
nbsp; The weight felt too heavy at first. But then came the sudden realization; when he opened the heroes’ guild, it would be like this every single day. He’d be sending heroes out to quests and he damned well better pick the right hero for the right quest.

  He shook his doubts away. Or, rather, he cast them aside briefly.

  Keate put his hand on Joshua’s shoulder and gave a smile and a nod, and Joshua wasn’t sure what it meant.

  “Let’s get to it,” he said. “Set up the tables and then when we’re ready, we’ll open the door.”

  Just as Joshua went to grab a table, Keate slapped his breastplate so hard that he staggered back. “What the hell?”

  Keate nodded at him, and when Joshua looked down he saw a rectangular thin sheet of bone sticking to the leather. There were three dashes etched on it.

  Mark of speed received

  You are 2% quicker in combat

  “Thanks!”

  “I know it’ll only boost you by a couple of percent but trust me; in a fight, it can make all the difference. When you get chance, grab yourself more of these marks. They’ll fade over time because the etchings are what give the marks the power and they fade from the bone, but you can wear as many marks as you want, and the effects stack. Just a little secret for you, hero to hero.”

  “Hero to hero?”

  “Come on. Give me a hand with this table.”

  For the next few minutes the sound of the loneeye stalkers scratching and biting through walls and burrowing through the roof was met by the noise of tables being dragged across the stone floor. Everyone pitched in except the wickerman, who said he couldn’t put so much stress on his wooden joints.

  By the time their makeshift tunnel was ready and the wickerman cast an arcane shield covering three quarters of the doorway, there were more holes in the wall, and Keate was covered in blue blood.

  “It’s now or never,” said Joshua. “Everyone ready?”

  He looked into their faces and saw that some of them were ready, some of the patrons were scared, and others, heroes like Keate who were used to danger, wore a look on their faces that said this was just another normal day for them.

  As for Joshua, well, his pulse was going so fast he felt like his blood was going to burst from his veins. Even so, he gripped his eclipse dagger in his hand and he tapped his breastplate for luck.

  “Open the doors,” he said.

  Sadler gripped the handle and he turned it and opened the door, and a draught blew in and then made a curious echoing sound as it blew through their little tunnels of tables.

  He couldn’t see much through the doorway, since the opening to the table tunnel blocked the lower part of it and the Wickerman’s arcane shield was thick haze of mist that he could barely see through. There was no sign that anything was happening, and for some reason this made him even more nervous.

  “They’re not coming,” said Sadler.

  Keate banged on the table nearest to him and hollered, “Come on, you one-eyed little bastards!

  But the scratching sounds on the walls stopped. Joshua heard feet pattering from outside, and he heard them walk over the roof and then fade away.

  Then, he heard something scuttling through the tunnel of tables. The stalkers had found the way in that they’d created.

  They crawled through the makeshift tunnel one by one, their eight legs clacking over the stone floor. The first one met with Sadler’s cleaver, the metal almost heaving its body in two and leaving it a bloodied, hairy, writhing mess on the tavern floor. The second stalker greeted death at the edge of Keate’s sword, the blow strong and swift and with no mercy.

  The patters of the stalkers’ feet concentrated by the front door now and Joshua used his perception to tune into the sounds. He couldn’t say how many there were but it could have been ten, twenty, maybe more. The arcane shield and the narrow tunnel forced them into the tavern one at a time, and their arachnid brains didn’t present the insects with another route.

  Joshua had been right; their minds would always latch on to the easiest solution, and the open door seemed to present that to them. Never mind the line of cleavers and blades awaiting them at the end.

  Skill Gained: Strategic Thinking

  [The art of perceiving what is around you and using that information to formulate a plan to overcome obstacles.]

  Class: unassigned. You do not possess a class of which this is a requirement.

  There was no time to reflect on his new skill, because the insects were coming.

  Three stalkers died, then four, five, six. The tension in the tavern began to unwind, and even the elven serving girl relaxed a little.

  Joshua, Keate, Sadler, and the scarred man took turns in slashing the insects as they came through. Sadler was an ex-warlock and a tavern owner but it was evident he had some kind of fighting class as a secondary, while the scarred man was swift and deadly-accurate with his blades. Keate, old as he was, swung his sword like a force of nature, each blow more powerful than the last.

  The elven girl took it upon herself to drag each stalker corpse away, and Joshua was surprised with her; it seemed that she was getting bolder by the minute.

  It was on the eleventh stalker entry that the plan weakened. It was Joshua’s turn to strike this one, and he leaned beside the table tunnel and he listened to the patters as the stalker edged nearer to him.

  And then it stopped.

  It was quiet. In fact, all of the remaining stalkers had fallen silent.

  And then a stray thought cast fresh horrors in his mind. He turned to Keate.

  “Roebuck and the stable girl are outside!”

  Sadler turned to the elven servant girl. “Chloe’s outside?”

  “She is always is until it gets dark. You know that. I check on her every ten minutes.”

  Joshua turned to the Sadler. “Is there another way out?”

  He nodded. “Through the kitchen.”

  As Joshua gripped his dagger and went toward the kitchen, Keate grabbed his arm. “You open that door, and you give them another way in.”

  “So what? There’s a girl out there. And my horse, too.”

  “You can buy a horse for two silver in Ardglass!”

  “And the girl? Can she be replaced? Where are her parents, anyway?”

  “They live in a cottage down the lane,” said Sadler. “They’re struggling with gold, and I took her on as a favor to them. Huh. Some favor that turned out to be.”

  “I’m going,” said Joshua.

  “You need to think practically,” said Keate. “I’ve seen too many heroes die trying to-”

  “I’m not a hero,” said Joshua.

  He left them now because he felt sure of himself; he knew that a lot of the stalkers were dead, and if a few more were outside, then he’d risk facing them rather than just leave the stable girl alone.

  There was a chorus of shouts behind him, and then a loud crashing sound. Joshua turned around to see the wickerman stumbling back with a loneeye attached to him, its eight limbs wrapped around his wooden body.

  Craft little bastard, thought Joshua. It must have been waiting for us to drop our guard. Maybe they’re cleverer than I thought.

  “Hold still!” said Keate. “It can’t poison you, remember? You’re made of wood for God’s sake. Sadler, keep an eye on the tunnel.”

  Despite the fact that the creature’s venom couldn’t hurt him, the wickerman slapped at it, and his wooden eyes widened in alarm as it crawled over him, positioning the giant eye on its body against his face.

  The wickerman stumbled back, away from Keate and to the back of the tavern.

  His satyr friend screamed out and lunged for him but she was too late; the wickerman stumbled back two more steps and then fell backward into the roaring fire.

  His satyr and scarred-face friends shouted as one. The brightly-dressed bard, silent in his fear until now, pulled the wickerman from the fire. The stalker leapt away from him and tore across the walls of the tavern as a hairy, black ball
of flames, while Keate and Sadler tried to slash it.

  Joshua sprinted through the kitchen and toward the back door. He opened it and emerged into the stable area outside.

  For a second, he saw nothing and he heard nothing, and panic gripped him.

  But then he spotted Roebuck in his stable. He was whinnying, but there were no loneeyes with him.

  Where was the girl?

  Joshua tightened his grip around his eclipse dagger and he felt his heart thump faster than ever before as he frantically looked for her.

  Then he saw her. Not all of her, but her legs, on the ground, with her body hidden behind a bale of hay.

  Gods, no.

  He sprinted over and then rounded the hale bale until he saw her…

  …where she was asleep.

  Not paralyzed, not in danger, but asleep.

  He let himself breath a long sigh of relief, and he let the pounding in his ears ease until his pulse felt almost normal, even if his arms and legs ached from the adrenaline that had washed through him. The stable girl had fallen asleep on the job, and the loneeyes hadn’t found her.

  He kneeled by her and gently shook her awake. “Come on,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, mister, I must have fallen asleep.”

  “You never should have been left on your own. Come with me.”

  He was torn between taking her inside, where there might be more danger, or leaving her here. But despite how stalker-free the stables seemed, there was no telling if one was watching them, ready to leap down and sink its paralyzing teeth into them. He couldn’t leave her here.

  “Roebuck, come on, pal.”

  As he held Roebuck’s reins in one hand and held the girl’s hand in his other, he realized something.

  The tavern was quiet now, and the people inside were moving around. The stalkers must have died.

  But there was something else, too. He remembered what Beula had told him about strange creatures around Ardglass, and the secret that had written into his store of secrets. Loneeye stalkers weren’t from around this part of Fortuna, so what was going on?

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Chloe!” said the serving girl and ran to the stable girl and kneeled in front of her and hugged her.