The Spider

by Leo Carew

  Silence, but for the crackling of the flames.

  A few of the audience exchanged glances. Most just continued to frown at Roper, waiting for him to finish. “I will tell you why,” Roper continued, a little anger spiking his words. “And by the end, you may see whether you agree that this is the only sane option left to us. We are about to begin a task that should have started centuries ago. We have come here with nearly our full strength and number a mere sixty thousand. Legion after legion has been struck from existence as we lose the men to fill them. Our kingdom is dying. Even when we’re last on the field, it is still a tiny victory for the Sutherner. We have lost another fragment of our population, while their soldiers will be replenished in a year. That must be stopped now, while we still have the strength for it. And the only way to do that, with total finality, is to subdue this country.” He glared about the circle. “Do any of you deny this?” Whether shocked or captivated, the council made no reply. It was clear that not everyone agreed, but the force of Roper’s will was undeniable.

  “So our advance will be that of the locust,” Roper continued, the personable charm he so often displayed suddenly hidden as he stalked the fireside wearing the mask of the Black Lord. “We move to Lincylene and we demand their surrender. If they agree, we take their weapons, their metal and their food, and we move on. If they defy us, we will consume them. We must preserve every soldier possible and we will sow terror and momentum, which will do the fighting before we have even arrived.

  “It may be that at first the Sutherners will refuse to surrender, and many will die. So be it. What happens to them will persuade others to surrender. The death and the casualties on both sides will be at the start of this conflict. And afterwards, when they are so utterly horrified by what it means to fight the legions that they cannot bear the thought; when they have understood what resistance means; when enough men have died, and they at last realise the price of freedom is more than they can afford; this country will succumb to us.”

  The flames crackled, flickering in the eyes of the assembly. Roper suspected they thought he was half-mad, but he did not care. Every eye he met dropped to the floor, until he found the dawn-blue gaze of the Chief Historian.

  “You deceived us, Lord Roper,” she said, staring at him levelly. “Why did you say nothing of this before?”

  “Because I would have been stopped,” said Roper. There seemed a void in the circle of onlookers: a black absence like a missing tooth that Roper dared not look straight at. It was the space occupied by Jokul, the Master of the Kryptea. “People would have flapped and raised problems and been conservative. A hundred different objections would have been put forward by a hundred different factions, and inertia would have defeated us with far greater certainty than the Sutherners. But the objections are insignificant, because if we do not accomplish this task, we shall fade away. Someday soon, perhaps a century or two from now, the Hindrunn will stand empty. Ivy will choke the forest roads, and the bears and wolves will wonder where the third great predator who shared their lands has gone. You here: you are the distilled few of action who stand in the way of that future.” He looked from one legate to the next. “Is this not the very reason for our existence? To preserve our future generations? Is this not what you live for? What greater purpose could you possibly serve?”

  The legates were with him, Roper could see it in their faces.

  “This task is greater than we are, Lord Roper,” said the old historian. “Never before has Suthdal been subjugated. Not since the Sutherners arrived here.”

  “My lady,” said Roper, walking slowly towards her. “Has anyone tried? We have raided and pillaged and sometimes occupied a city or two, but has this ever been attempted before?”

  “Never.”

  “We do not like to be away from home,” said Roper, softly. He raised a hand at the vacant landscape around them. “We come south for a few months, are sick to our guts and decide what an appalling place this is, and how much better is our own homeland. But without our quest here, the north too shall succumb to agriculture. And if it takes a thousand years, we will make Suthdal into a new homeland. Thank the Almighty that you have lived to take up this mantle: the greatest responsibility of all. Never will an Anakim live a life so meaningful as those of us touched by this fire. Every name present will crackle through the ages in words of lightning, because you were here. Sturla Karson. Randolph Reykdalson. Meino Finnbiorson. Arslan Veeson.” Roper pointed at each of the legates in turn. “We cannot fail, and whether you knew it or not, you have been walking down this road your entire life. We have come too far to turn back now.”

  There was a strange momentum in the air. Some of the faces around the fire were appalled, but also oddly compelled, as though they could not believe they were on Roper’s side.

  But then Jokul’s voice gusted into the circle, standing Roper’s hair on end. “What madness is this?” he said coldly. The Master of the Kryptea was small, pale and stinging-nettle lean; so unsubstantial that he might have floated here on the breeze from the west. “You go too far, Lord Roper. You have abused your power. You cannot expect the Kryptea to stand by while you subject the entire kingdom to a deception of this scale.”

  Roper was mustering a reply, when another furious voice cut in for him. “And what will you do, Master Jokul?” It was Gray, on his feet, glaring at Jokul. “Summon your band of cowards and assassinate my lord? Because I assure you, you would not survive that.” Roper put a hand on Gray’s shoulder to calm him, but was surprised by the low growl of agreement that ran around the circle. As he was pushed back into a seat, Gray raised a hand to point at Jokul. “Watch your back, Master. You are not the only man with killers at your command. If anything happens to Lord Roper, the Sacred Guard will make an extremely slow end of you.” That threw the fireside into silence. It was accepted that if the Master of the Kryptea thought the Black Lord had stepped out of line, he had the right to exercise vengeance. But there was an old and fierce rivalry between Sacred Guard and Kryptea, dating from the formation of the latter. And Gray, who was clearly backed by the legates, had brought it into the open for the first time.

  “Defiance against the Kryptea is punishable by death,” Jokul observed.

  “Are you going to kill all of us?” asked Pryce dismissively. “Just you and your handful of mad assassins left?”

  “Yes, shut up, Jokul,” snapped Tekoa. And Jokul, yielding to the grim faces directed at him from around the fireside, did shut up.

  Roper looked around at his council. “Last month, three of us about this fire undertook a secret mission to Unhierea, to recruit the giants there to our cause. They are with me for this great task. Are you? Will you follow me, once again?”

  Keturah, Gray, Pryce and Tekoa got to their feet at once, as Roper had known they would. Keturah stood with one hand on her hip, as the other three drew their swords and tossed them down in a pile. “We are with you, lord,” said Gray, eyes still on Jokul.

  From the rest of the circle came silence. Several of them glanced at the four standing figures, eyebrows raised.

  Then Randolph, an old ally of Uvoren’s, got to his feet. He drew his sword and tossed it onto the pile. “I am with you in this task, Lord Roper.”

  Half a dozen others got to their feet just after. “I, and the Ulpha,” declared another.

  “The Greyhazel are with you.”

  “And the Fair Islanders.”

  In a ripple starting from the legates outwards, the audience rose unevenly. The Chief Historian was late onto her feet, glaring at Roper. “For good or for bad,” she said, “history will remember you, Lord Roper.”

  Soon, it was only Jokul left seated. Roper did not care. He looked around the circle, aware more than ever of the responsibility on his shoulders, but strangely furious too. Nothing would turn him aside from this. Not the Kryptea, not politics, not the Sutherners and no amount of effort, regardless of how insurmountable it became. “Tomorrow, we march for Lincylene. Now you know why.�
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  16

  Lincylene

  When the council was dismissed, Jokul disappeared into the evening without another word. As Roper lay down next to Keturah that night, he half expected never to wake again. Perhaps the support of the Sacred Guard and the legates had persuaded Jokul that it was not time to act, for Roper awoke to a humid day of low cloud.

  They marched on, through this land that was so strange to Roper. Crossing it felt like a garden stroll. Everything was gentle and curved. The hills resembled the thatched Suthern roofs: smooth mounds unbroken by rock or peak. The landscape stood naked, free from mountain or forest. It permitted a bland and constant breeze to wear across it and made Roper feel exposed. Freed from the need to strive for the canopy above, the trees grew broad and low, studding the hills like giant mushrooms. They looked lonely to Roper. A tree should no more stand alone than should a man, and yet everywhere they were stranded above the ranks of crops that had been too immature for Garrett to bother destroying. Being able to see this waiting harvest was worst of all. Uniform plants, bred into slavery, already bowing beneath their grotesque burden of giant unripe seeds. The Sutherners adored to use iron—that temporary, rotting metal—and rust blossomed everywhere. There were many crows, but few other birds. Few deer and no predators that he had seen. No beavers, which meant the rivers were narrow, ordered affairs, flowing with none of the joy or eccentricities of those beyond the Abus. This land looked exhausted to Roper. Stripped, whipped and subjugated.

  On the road to Lincylene, Roper and Tekoa made use of the time by reporting the details of their expedition to Unhierea to the Chief Historian. Roper walked like his legionaries with a pack on his back, while the other two rode next to him on coursers.

  “They are a failing people,” Roper said, resisting the urge to add “like us.” “Much of their existence is parasitic, and relies on the Sutherners. They no longer make stone tools: they rely on stealing metal ones from Suthdal. Their apple trees, which seem to be their primary harvest, are choked by mistletoe.”

  “I daresay they could expend a bit more effort if they had to,” Tekoa put in. “The only thing they really seem to cultivate is spare time. They should perhaps groom each other a little less and spend more time tending their apple trees.”

  “The grooming seemed important for bonding,” Roper observed.

  “They have no need of further bonding,” declared Tekoa. “They already adore one another as a pig loves filth. They simply roll around together given half a chance.”

  “Apart from that flush,” said Roper, voicing what had captured him above all about the Unhieru.

  The Chief Historian glanced at him, expressionless. “The what?”

  “When we were staying with them, we saw one male steal from another. The bigger male seemed to completely lose control. He flushed a deep red and killed the thief with his bare hands. He wasn’t sane again for a long while after. Gogmagoc called it the other-mind.”

  “There are stories of the other-mind,” said the Chief Historian, with a tiny measure of interest. “A subconscious warrior-state which overtakes the maned males. There is a chant which suggests that once they have flushed, they do not remember any of their actions until they are back to normal.”

  “That is what really worries me about fighting next to them,” said Roper. “Whether once we have brought them to the boil, we will be able to take them off. Their intelligence too,” he added, glancing at Tekoa. “Did you get that sense?”

  Tekoa nodded.

  “I believe these may be the most intelligent people I have yet encountered,” Roper went on. “That bow Gogmagoc had. It was glorious. What holds them back from producing a great society is not lack of ability, but lack of desire. They are also the most content people I have seen. They have all the capabilities, but no drive.”

  “A people of intelligence, power and instability,” said the Historian, raising an eyebrow. “Can you control them, Lord Roper?” Roper and Tekoa looked at one another.

  “I do not know,” Roper admitted.

  “How did you secure their help?” asked the Historian.

  “We offered them weapons and armour,” said Roper. “And Gogmagoc set us two challenges. But when we won them, he had no interest in honouring the alliance. He was only really persuaded when he discovered we would be fighting together against the man who killed his son. Garrett Eoten-Draefend. He seemed very defensive of his kin, and I think he wants revenge.”

  Even the Chief Historian seemed uneasy at that. “From everything I have heard about those people, the thought of them with metal weapons and armour is… formidable. How many do they number?”

  “Twelve thousand will come,” said Roper. It had taken a long time to convert the Unhieru number-system, which seemed to be based on pairs, to something the Anakim could understand.

  “And if it came to it,” asked the Historian after a time, “if we had to, do you think the legions could defeat that force?”

  Roper and Tekoa looked at one another once more. “I do,” said Roper, at last. “I believe the last people standing on the field would be Anakim. But there would not be many of us.”

  They found a river, and stopped to collect water. Roper had already bent down and unstoppered his water-skin before Tekoa placed a hand on his shoulder. “Smell it?”

  Roper could, now that he tried. There was a rancid waft on the breeze. Tekoa nodded upriver and Roper saw, bobbing in the flow, the bloated corpse of a cow. It must have been tethered to the riverbed somehow, for it was not flowing downstream. Roper straightened up, re-stoppering his water-skin and swearing softly. “How has he done this?”

  “When you say he…” Tekoa began.

  “I mean Bellamus,” Roper finished. They knew the Eoten-Draefend was involved in the evacuations and that he worked with the spymaster. Bellamus had to be behind this.

  “But they can’t contaminate every water source,” said Tekoa. “They’d destroy their own population. They must know where we’re going, and poison the water in front of us. So how do we stop them?”

  The Chief Historian had already begun to ride on, but turned to bark a single word back at them. “Jokul.”

  Roper and Tekoa exchanged a glance. “Please, no,” said Roper. He had still heard nothing from the Master of the Kryptea since Gray had snarled at him by the fire, and did not wish to initiate a confrontation.

  But the Historian was right. The next morning, Roper summoned Jokul, who arrived at his hearth like a cold draught. Roper stood to greet him, the two exchanging a straight-armed handshake as both men attempted to keep their distance.

  “Master,” said Roper. “Are you well?”

  “Of course,” said Jokul in his thin, dry voice, neither looking well nor sounding it. He was dressed in a thick, black cloak, which he clutched irritably to his chest. “What can I do for you, Lord Roper?”

  Roper gestured to the small fire crackling beside him. “You can sit and talk, if it please you.” Jokul sighed fastidiously and clattered to the ground like a bundle of dropped kindling. Roper ignored the sigh. “Tea, Master?”

  Jokul twitched his head. “That would be welcome.”

  Roper wrapped his cloak around his hand and pulled a pot of scalding water from the fire, pouring it over a sprig of pine needles already laid in two birch-bark cups. He passed one to Jokul and sat with him, both bewitched by the fire. “We have had our differences, Master,” Roper began. “And our objectives have not always aligned.”

  Jokul raised a thin eyebrow. “They should have done,” he said.

  “I have done what I had to,” said Roper. “Do we not now have the stability your organisation so adores?”

  “Stability is a generous term when you cannot restrain your own officers, and you yourself seek allies we cannot control, and take drastic decisions without reference to any of the other senior offices in the kingdom.”

  “I will accept that criticism as soon as you can provide me with any other means by which I could have
achieved this.” Roper ploughed on before Jokul could reply. “We are now committed to this campaign and must set aside our differences to make it as successful as we can. And so far we have encountered just one obstacle.”

  “Bellamus of Safinim,” said Jokul, dryly.

  “You know of his involvement?”

  “It has become very apparent,” said Jokul. “We know he has informants embedded within our force. That was less of a problem when the Sutherners invaded last year, but in familiar lands he has far more opportunity to impede our progress.”

  Roper thought about that. It was as Gray had warned him, many weeks before. The Sutherners were finding ways to fight them. “So it is him contaminating the water supply?”

  “We suspect so,” said Jokul. “But stopping him is difficult, I admit. The Sutherners have writing, which is a great advantage in this quiet war. And the Kryptea are an order of assassins, primarily, not spies. We have certainly tried to turn Sutherners to our side, but they mostly think us so vile and alien that it is hard to interact with them.

  “Things have also become more difficult recently. There appears to be a faction working against the kingdom called the Ellengaest. I find it increasingly unlikely that it is a single person: more likely a group of them. But whoever he, she or they are, they have considerable resources at their disposal.” Jokul suddenly flashed a narrow glance at Roper, as though suspicious he was revealing too much. “In any case,” he went on delicately, “it comes down to this. Bellamus has many informants, and we have none.”

  Roper knew that gaest was the Saxon word for demon, and he had an idea that ellen might convey power in some way. It was interesting that this traitor had chosen a Saxon name. “So we find out who the informants are,” said Roper. “Who or what Ellengaest is and put a stop to it.”