by Rina Heisel
With a final pull, Wiley wrenched Tobin free, and the two of them were flung backward against the tunnel wall.
“Whoa.” Wiley was panting, then looked to Tobin. “You took down a hunter spider!”
Tobin nodded, a bit in disbelief himself. Then a moment of panic. “Where’s the spider you were fighting?”
“Oh, I think I drove him nuts. He stumbled out that way.” Wiley jerked his head in the direction of the tunnel opening, and Tobin saw Wiley’s right eye was swollen shut.
“Wiley! Your eye.” Tobin sat up, worry for his friend reenergizing him.
“Yeah.” Wiley wiped a paw over the right side of his face. “That Arakni got one lucky swipe, but that’s it.”
“Can you walk okay?” Tobin asked as they got to their feet.
“I think so, just a little dizzy.” Wiley stood and stretched out his legs, testing for good measure. “Yup, just a little dizzy. And, you know, can’t see the best.”
Tobin glanced down the tunnel at the remaining websacks, the occupants still wriggling, desperate for their freedom. He nodded and swallowed the lump in his throat. “Okay, you need to head back to Hess and Talia. I’ll get the rest of these down.”
Wiley began to shake his head, but soon wobbled on his feet. Tobin steadied him with a paw. “Wiley, seriously. Start heading out. There’s only a few sacks left.”
Wiley winced. “Yeah, okay.” He stepped toward the opening. “Be careful, Tobin.”
“I will.” Tobin turned, stepping over to the remaining sacks. “Did you hear that?” he asked the cricket, snail, and ladybug he let loose. “Wiley just told me to be careful. Strange times indeed!”
Twenty-One
NO MORE INTERRUPTIONS. NO more Arakni or vipers or owls. Just Tobin, alone. He’d worked his way toward the far end of the fallen tree, near the canopy. There’d been hundreds of websacks when they’d started; now he was down to the final captives.
He tugged down a particularly lumpy bundle, and barely ducked the back end of a very feisty wasp as it wriggled free. Tobin leaned back until the wasp completely pulled itself out of the sack and buzzed away.
I just dodged a wasp sting. Before yesterday, dodging a wasp would’ve been all he talked about for weeks. Now he’d need to add an extra season to the year to get through talking about this one horrific place.
As he turned back to free the last few creatures, his rear paw slid into an opening in the floor, right where the wall hit the ground. He jumped back and looked down. A crevice ran the length of a squirrel’s tail, from where he stood right to the end of the log. Though he knew better, Tobin thought maybe the log had just rotted out, but he crouched lower for a look anyway.
Speckles of dirt and wood fibers mixed with the slop that coated the floor. A tingle spread from his cheeks to his feet. This pit was dug intentionally. But why?
Tobin sighed and looked up, though there was no sky to gaze upon and contemplate, only rotting wood. He’d come this far. He needed to know what was down there. No unanswered questions. Tobin drew in a deep breath, then stuck his head down the hole.
Almost pitch-black. So dark Tobin closed his eyes to speed along their adjusting.
When he opened them again, what he saw made his nose go ice cold. As neatly as the websacks were laid out in rows above, Arakni egg sacks were nestled in the dugout below. The perfect circles gave them away. Tobin had seen spider eggs before, but never hundreds of them together like this. And never walnut-sized. Tobin squinted. Maybe it was the tremors of his heart pounding, but it looked like the spheres pulsed. The websacks had been the food for these hatchlings.
Were they ready to hatch? Maybe he was okay with leaving one unanswered question at the rotting log.
Tobin whipped his head out of the dank chamber. His friends needed him, the last row of websacks needed him. He continued pulling. A moth fluttered away. Some beetles he couldn’t identify scuttled off, and the final sack held a vertebrate—a leopard frog no bigger than a grape, still equipped with a tadpole tail.
Food for the Arakni young. Tobin shook his head and sagged against the wall. He watched the remaining creatures escape, each instinctively fleeing toward a crack in the log where a sliver of sun crept through.
Sun. Fresh air. Freedom.
Exhausted and sticking to the wall, Tobin rocked himself until he slumped free. The closeness of the sunbeam was tempting, but he knew that wasn’t his way out. He needed to go farther back down the log tunnel, to where his friends waited. Where Hess stood by, ready to take them away from spiders, owls, and other snakes that lurked outside. So, he walked, one last time through the slop, until he finally saw his exit.
The corners of his mouth twitched. He almost smiled, but was too tired. Only a few steps and he could join his friends and take their pinkling home. He stretched his paws and began his climb. But just then a hot, searing pain shot through his hind leg.
He cried out, his claws digging into the wall. He looked down. Something black speared his leg, right below his hip. He traced the length of the long harpoon. It was a leg. And it was connected to an Arakni.
Tobin could barely catch his breath. Speared. Like a fish skewered on a heron’s beak.
Tobin tried to call, but his dry throat only croaked out a whisper. “Hess,” he tried again, never breaking his gaze from the blood-red eyes watching him.
Its mouth pincers curled, beckoning him closer.
With muscles fueled by panic, Tobin managed to drag himself toward one of the cracks in the wall, but then the Arakni yanked his leg. Tobin screamed as red-hot stinging pain washed over him. His head began to swim and he remembered: the venom! He dug his claws deeper into the soft wall, but it offered little resistance as the Arakni pulled him down. The sunlit opening grew farther from his grasp.
He’d been so close.
Then, from above, a forked tongue flicked inside the log and smacked his forehead, just as the spider yanked—hard. Tobin flew across the tunnel, his breath suddenly crashed from his lungs as the spider slammed him onto the spongy floor. On his back and wheezing, he saw a blurry version of himself fly through the air and land atop the Arakni’s abdomen. But that wasn’t right, he was lying on the ground, he wasn’t fighting the spider, unless—Tobin cleared his eyes and saw the spider twisting around, legs swiping madly . . . at Wiley. With his back legs wrapped around the Arakni’s midsection, Wiley dangled over the spider’s side and furiously chomped at the leg that had speared Tobin. With a crunch, the leg broke free from the spider and fell into the muck. Tobin stared at the lost appendage, which mercifully tugged at him no more—but still weighed him down. If only he could pry himself off the jagged leg spear, he could escape. But his limbs, they felt . . . heavy. He could barely raise a paw. And the floor was so sticky.
An explosion of light blinded him, and Tobin lolled his head sideways to see a black snout crashing through the decayed wood. Ivory teeth snapped at the spider until they found their mark. Hess severed the Arakni’s head and spit it to the floor. The Arakni’s body convulsed as it crumpled to the ground, its appendages still quivering.
Wiley appeared at his side; his face looking perhaps even more swollen than before. Tobin felt sick—he wanted to throw up, wanted some fresh air. But he was a lump of stiff clay; he couldn’t even swipe his tail.
“Hang in there,” said Wiley, “just need to get that stinger out. This will only hurt a second.”
A sting shot through Tobin’s hip as Wiley pulled the Arakni appendage from his leg.
Pain. Like a hundred hornets stinging his leg, as Wiley ripped the barbed leg tip from his hip. He heard a scream; it might have been him. But he could barely open his mouth.
Come to think of it, he could barely breathe.
Tobin felt himself lifted from the ground. Hess. The snake had scooped him into his mouth, tucking him behind the fangs into its warm, fleshy center.
Bright sunlight glared in Tobin’s half-open eyes as Hess brought him out of the log and lowered him on his back
. Wiley scrambled to meet him, looping his paws under his shoulders, gripping him tight.
“What happened to him?” Tobin heard Talia ask, her voice quivering.
“Hang on tight to the pinkling,” was Hess’s only answer. “We have to go. I’ll try and slide us around the battle.”
Tobin felt a tickle on his leg. Talia was sniffing his wound. “We need to get him to a clean puddle,” she said.
Hess slid away from the log. “There will be plenty at the base of the hill. But it’ll be slow moving. I’m going to try and avoid interlopers.”
“Interwhat?” said Wiley.
“Meddlers. Like Swallfyce. Or worse—my mother.”
Since his face happened to be pointing up and he couldn’t move, Tobin looked skyward. Owls flew in and out of his sight line, putting on a fascinating show. They’d swoop and then come up with an Arakni in their claws. They’d scrunch it, sending bits of glop falling to the ground. The sounds of jaw snaps and hisses swirled around Tobin’s head.
Something violet streaked alongside them for a few moments. Another snake. It raised its nose, inspecting Tobin, still held firmly by Wiley. It hissed something he couldn’t understand, and Hess hissed something in reply, before it slithered away.
They rode quietly down the hill. The sounds of screeches and hisses grew more distant. Every now and then Hess would jerk left or right. Wiley and Talia took turns saying things like, “We’ve got you,” and “We’re almost there.”
Almost where? They weren’t almost home. No, there was the matter of a crossing a gorge and a creek.
He felt a tingle in his paw. An icy prickle broke across his face, and Tobin twitched his nose. A shudder of spasms ran down his back.
“Hey,” Wiley called, “I think the venom’s wearing off!”
A torrent of tingles peppered his body like raindrops. Whatever it was, at least it was ebbing away. Tobin closed his eyes, waiting for the tingles and twitches to run their course. He felt no more as he drifted to sleep.
If not for the splashes of water, Tobin could’ve slept longer.
Water? Where was he? “Catfish,” he muttered, his body flinching. A sharp pain in his hind leg helped pop his eyes wide open.
Talia spoke. “No catfish, Tobin. You’re in a puddle.”
He blinked water from his eyes. Sure enough, he lay soaked to the bone, his chin resting at the edge of a puddle. He raised his head and looked over his shoulder. Talia cupped water in her paw and poured it over his wound.
Wiley hop-stepped beside her, the pinkling cradled in one front leg. His cheek still looked like it was overstuffed with seeds, but at least his eye was cracked open. “We all needed a good rinse. Except for this little guy. And we needed to clean out your leg. How’re you feeling?”
Sore. Everywhere. And his leg throbbed. At least he could feel it. “Better, I guess.”
Both Wiley and Talia’s foreheads creased with skeptical looks.
Sitting up on her haunches, Talia tapped a hind leg. “Really? From what I hear, you were harpooned, poisoned, and body slammed.”
“Okay, fine, I’m sore.” Tobin propped himself up on his front legs. “But since I couldn’t even move a while back, I’d say I’m at least a little better.”
“Hmm.” Wiley scratched his chin. “Try walking.”
Talia’s eyes bulged. “Are you sure about that?”
Wiley nodded. “Yeah. We need to know where he stands. Like, really. We need to know if he can stand.”
Tobin pushed up on his three strong legs. He curled his injured leg beneath him. “Ouch” slipped out before he could stop it, and Talia jumped forward.
“No, wait, I can do this.” Gritting his teeth, Tobin hopped with his good hind leg, stepping with his front two. “Well, I can move, anyway.” He step-hopped out of the puddle. “Where’s Hess?”
“Hess is getting us some food.” Talia jerked her head. “There’s a mulberry bush over there. Hess said he won’t venture far from us now, since we’re all washed off and look appetizing again.”
A branch snapped, and a moment later Hess appeared, dragging a berry-laden limb. Tobin’s stomach rumbled.
Hess skidded the buffet of berries before them. “Glad to see you’re up, Tobin. Some energy should do you wonders. I’ve always heard rodents are notoriously fast healers. Now I can see for myself.”
Talia reached out, yanking a plump, plum-colored fruit off the stem. “Hmmm . . . maybe it’d be easier if we made a pile for you.”
Tobin smiled gratefully, needing his three good legs for balancing, not berry picking. He snatched a berry off the ground, his jaws chomping the juicy morsel. He swallowed a bite and could practically feel his body sucking up the nutrients. Food was a great idea.
Food! The urgency of his own thought almost tipped Tobin over. “The Arakni log—the websacks—it was all like a horrible nursery.”
A mulberry dropped from Wiley’s mouth. “Umm, what?”
“Beneath the log”—Tobin shook his head and steadied his voice—“I saw a hole in the floor of the log. So I looked down, and there was a huge, excavated chamber full of Arakni eggs. Row after row. The captives in the websacks were supposed to be food for the hatchling Arakni.”
Hess, Wiley, and Talia stared at him in silence for a moment before Talia finally spoke what they all were thinking. “Do you think the snakes and owls found the eggs?”
Hess looked back up the hill. “I have no idea.”
“Well, either way”—Wiley picked up his dropped mulberry—“there’s not going to be anything for those little buggers to eat if they do hatch.”
“Thank goodness you two freed everyone,” said Talia.
Hess nodded. “Speaking of eating, please eat more, Tobin. And then we need to get moving.”
“Right.” Tobin took another bite of berry and spoke between chomps. “Where are we, anyway?”
Hess turned his head into the breeze, his tongue flicking in and out. “Near the gorge, about ten hare-leaps from Hubbart’s.”
Tobin’s half-full belly pinched with nerves. “Hubbart . . . I hope he’s okay. I hope he’ll forgive us.”
“We can worry about his forgiveness later.” Hess narrowed his eyes. “The battle on the Arakni hilltop will be over soon. The spiders were scattering even as we made our way down the hill.”
Tobin cocked his head. “That’s good, right? The Arakni got knocked down a few pegs in the hunting order. The balance should be better all over the woods.”
“Yes,” said Hess, “that part is very good. But the snakes will be ready to return home. And how, do you suppose, they will proceed?”
Tobin looked at Wiley and Talia. Their grim faces told Tobin they already knew the answer. “They’re going back to Hubbart’s tunnels.”
Hess nodded. “It’s a familiar path, and one they know is safe. Only this time, they’ll be starving.”
Twenty-Two
AFTER A COUPLE OF unsuccessful boosts from Wiley, Tobin gave in. “All right, fine.”
Hess plucked him up by the scruff of his neck and dropped him astride his back. Tobin gripped tight with his front paws, letting his injured leg hang over the side.
Wiley had insisted Tobin ride in front, saying, “If you fall, we might not be able to catch you, but at least we’ll see you slip and won’t leave you in the dust.” It wasn’t the most comforting thought, but Tobin couldn’t argue.
Wiley and Talia sat behind him, taking turns holding the pinkling.
Hess glanced back. “Everyone ready?”
Tobin nodded and Hess slid forward. They whooshed along the edge of the gorge, choosing speed over the safety of traveling under cover. The rocky path was a very straight shot to Hubbart’s.
“We’re getting close,” Hess called back. “And Tobin, if you fall—fall to the left.”
No kidding, Tobin thought as he peeked into the gorge. Far below, a few fleeing Arakni scuttled across the canyon floor. Where would they go? To find a new home? Or eventually retreat back
to their rotten log when this was all over?
“There!” Talia jolted Tobin from his thoughts. Looking over Hess’s head, a familiar grassy knoll rested between the woods and the gorge. Tobin shivered. The entrance to Hubbart’s den seemed a lot different from this view. The granite slab jutting from the ground looked like the stretched-open jaws of a snake.
He turned to Talia and Wiley to see if they saw it, but they were both entranced with the cooing pinkling. Then again, Tobin was the only one who’d been snapped up in snake jaws recently. Maybe they wouldn’t even notice the similarity.
Hess slid to a stop beside the granite slab.
“Hey.” Wiley poked Tobin with his tail. “You need help getting down?”
“No, I can do this.” Gravity will be help enough, he thought. Curling his injured leg beneath him, Tobin slipped headfirst over Hess’s side. His front legs supported his weight, and he planted his good hind leg a moment later. Pain pinched his thigh from the jolt, but the sting didn’t last long.
Hess sniffed around the perimeter of the den and shook his head. “There’s snake scent everywhere—multiple serpents. I can’t begin to imagine how many.”
“Dozens, if ya do care to know, ya rapscallion!”
Tobin’s head snapped up. “Hubbart!”
The woodchuck now sat atop the granite slab, glaring at them with narrowed eyes. “I’ve been watching for you shysters.” The growl in his voice was unmistakable.
Talia clapped her front paws together. “Hubbart, thank goodness you’re safe.”
“Safe?” Hubbart blinked and pointed his nubby paw. “If by safe you mean not digesting in a snake’s belly, then sure! But if you think an entire gaggle of unwelcome reptilians slitherin’ through my den has left my family feeling safe, you are one pitifully mistaken mouse!”
Talia bit her lip before continuing. “We’re so sorry, Hubbart, we didn’t know—”
“Now that’s rich!” Hubbart threw his paws in the air. “Oh, you’re a clever one, all right! Rubbing yer scent all over, saying it would deter predators, not attract them!”