Poisoned Blade

by Kate Elliott

  “Hurry! We need to get his spark into the spider before it’s too late.”

  Cestas croaks out words. “Give me the honor of serving even after death.”

  Blood smears his lips.

  I can’t move.

  Sergeant Oras looms in front of me. “Assist me!”

  I grab the young soldier’s ankles and with Oras haul him over to the priest. Cestas groans. I feel his life leaching away through my fingers.

  “Blessed be the gods that I can serve as a soldier even after…” His hand gropes at air, and Sergeant Oras grasps his fingers tightly.

  “You will serve the army with honor, Cestas.”

  I look away, shuddering, so I don’t see when the priest casts the netting over the dying soldier, cracks the breastbone, and cuts out his heart. The brilliance of Cestas’s spark turns the netting into a light so bright I see Oras’s blood-streaked face and a linen cloth tied around his neck glimmering with moist blood. I see the spiders in their stalls, and hear the clamor of battle outside and a distant trumpet. I see the empty hollows of the priest’s eyes.

  Oras says, “We have to break free and save these spiders. Jessamy, hide in one of the empty stalls. Stay out of sight and pray they don’t find you.”

  Where are Amaya, Tana, Mis, and Dusty? If I think about it I’ll start screaming so I channel all my fury and raw grief into my stance as I face down Oras.

  “I am General Esladas’s daughter. This is my fight too.”

  I run to Cestas’s spider. My father’s spider.

  I always wanted to please my father more than anything except for running the Fives. Back in Saryenia when he showed us girls how to harness into a spider, Maraya was interested only in the details of the spider’s construction, Amaya wove spider masks out of netting and silver ribbons, and Bettany fought with him until he stopped asking her to try. But I practiced over and over so I could show him how well I had learned. So he would be proud of me.

  Tip up the carapace.

  Step into the seat, fix the straps, and pull down the leather shield that protects my front. Slide feet and hands through brass rings that allow the scout to control the eight legs with all four limbs.

  The buzz of the spider’s spark courses through me, as uncomfortable as if I have fallen into a nest of wasps whose bodies pulsate against mine. When I put pressure on my palm, the splinter hurts so badly I gasp in a choked burst.

  I lift my right knee and the spider unfolds forward onto its four bracing legs.

  Sergeant Oras slings a heavy pouch onto hooks bolted to the inside of the carapace. “Go.”

  If I were a real scout I’d be wearing a helmet but there’s no time for that. The movements come awkwardly as my spider stomps out of the stall. I slam twice into the walls as I angle myself under the roof. An object slams into the top of my carapace. A javelin skitters over and falls past my face. With my right hand I guide the spider’s right fore blade in a punch straight up to the trapdoor.

  An impact shudders through the spider’s metal frame. A man screams, although I can’t see him. With pincers and claws to brace on walls and clutch the roof, I clamber out with so much speed that I almost hurtle over the outer wall, teetering on its edge as arrows slam one two three into my carapace. The sun blasts my eyes. Dust swirls in the wake of the riders closing in on the fort.

  The distance from the top of the wall to the ground outside is only the height of three men but it seems like an impossibly long drop. Yet I have spun tricks at this height more times than I can count. I will do this.

  I hook two metal legs on a battlement and lever myself over, then drop the rest of the way, hitting with a thud that throbs through me like I’ve been shaken by a giant’s hand. I stagger four steps one way, two back, before steadying myself on six legs as I swivel around to scan for threats.

  A spider slams into the ground beside me, absorbing the impact into bent legs.

  “Move!” shouts Sergeant Oras and then he is moving west away from the wall.

  I stride after, using six legs to walk, holding my fore blade and fore pincer ready even though I have no experience fighting in a spider. I shrug my carapace back so instead of being tilted to look down at the ground I’m upright, looking forward into the wild desert landscape. A third spider moves up alongside me: the one brought to life by Cestas’s spark, the priest working the levers with the skill of an experienced soldier. A crow sits on his shoulder.

  By tapping my shoulder to the left I swing the carapace around just enough to glance behind.

  The sea-phoenix banner of Efea still flies atop the citadel tower as enemy riders approach the outer wall. Bettany runs out from the Fives court to meet them with Agalar and his retinue behind her. I don’t see Mis or Dusty or Tana.

  Oh gods. Oh gods.

  Another group of soldiers races out from the fort, waving the hawk banner of the kingdom of East Saro. They must be the ones who attacked up through the wheelhouse from below. When Agalar greets them like long-lost friends I’m sure the pair of soldiers at the front—one fair and one dark—are the two men he spoke to in the desert ruins.

  When Bettany reaches the riders, she gestures in my direction.

  Horsemen start in pursuit.

  My steps falter. I wrench my spider to a halt.

  Bettany has betrayed Efea. She’s betrayed Father and Mother and everything they gave us girls. She’s betrayed her sisters.

  She’s betrayed me.

  “Face forward, Spider!” shouts Sergeant Oras. “Follow me. Move!”

  The enemy riders are cutting the distance between us. Two crows flap past me, the last creatures capable of fleeing the attack. Too choked to speak, I slam around and stamp after Oras and the priest.

  19

  Oras leads us straight to the edge of the Bone Escarpment and clambers over without slowing down. The cliff isn’t sheer but it’s terrifyingly steep, and I spot anchor bolts and carved-out ledges that create a path for spiders. Oras descends with the speed of a man who has practiced many times on this slope. The priest goes after him. They’ll leave me behind if I can’t keep up, sacrificing one spider to save two.

  I have to think of this as just another obstacle. I fix the route they’re taking into my mind as I go over the brink. At once I begin sliding.

  I slam my fore blade into the rock to try to halt myself, grab at a passing bolt with a hooking claw too late to secure myself, and in a rush I realize I’ve lost control and all I can do is keep my legs moving so I don’t crash as I race headlong down the precipitous incline. I almost sideswipe the priest, and Sergeant Oras scuttles out of my way as my legs hammer too fast for me to register the shocks through my body.

  The steep slope tapers, I skid on rubble, turn all the way around without tumbling, and stagger like a drunk onto level ground, where I jolt to a halt. My breath comes in bursts, like my chest is about to blow outward. I taste blood; I’ve bitten my tongue but I don’t know when I did it. I begin to laugh, and lift an arm to wipe my running nose. Blood spots my elbow.

  Oras stumps up next to me.

  “Good Goat!” He too is laughing with what Father would have called battlefield humor. “I thought for sure you’d break your neck. I guess you’re well named, Spider.”

  He keeps moving. The priest passes without a word of encouragement although one of the crows alights on the shoulder of my fore-blade leg and examines me with the bright interest of a curious bird. Yet in its shiny gaze I sense the disapproval of the priest, as if his is the intelligence seeing out of its eyes.

  The crow flies away.

  I clump after them, still shaking, still exhilarated, and yet sickened by fear for my friends and nauseated by the thought of Bettany. Back at the tombs she was trying to pull information out of me about the gold. I see that now. Meanwhile the others—even Amaya—may all be dead. It’s like the tomb all over again: people I care for marched into a living death while I stand outside.

  The desert landscape is a rippling wasteland of bone
-dry gulches, and little ridges and hills. If I weren’t following Oras I would be lost in a heartbeat. When I swivel around to look behind I see the escarpment running east and west but I can’t see either the upper or lower fort from this angle. Faintly I hear a trumpet’s call, but I can’t tell what direction it comes from.

  I keep walking on and on and on through the appalling heat. Sweat beads on my forehead and evaporates as quickly. My mouth is coated with grit, the splinter blazes like fire in my flesh, and my tongue stings. The spark that powers the spider hums in my bones. Odd flashes of sound throb in and out of my head: a man’s soft voice saying, Give me the honor of serving even after death.

  Vision swims. I rock to a halt, awkwardly turn an entire circle, and realize I am standing in a barren gully and I am alone.

  A crow calls, and I see it shifting impatiently from foot to foot where the gully makes a bend. I stump over there and as I come around I almost slam into Sergeant Oras, who has turned back.

  “Spider! You’re falling behind.”

  The heat is obliterating with the sun striking right onto my face.

  “Hey!” He studies my face. “Why haven’t you wrapped your face to keep out the dust? Did you drink anything?”

  My voice sounds like dry rags turned stiff. “What… where…?”

  “Curse it.” He reaches past me, unhooks the leather pouch he gave me, squirts warm water into my mouth until I’ve swallowed several times. Afterward he makes me eat two dates. Their sweetness bursts like color in my mouth. “A quarter turn allows you to grab the water with your left hand. Don’t take frequent sips. Take longer deeper drinks, and never go too long without water or the desert will suck you dry and you’ll die. There are dates, salted fish, dried figs, and raisins in the pouch. Do you understand?”

  I’m already starting to feel better. “Yes.”

  He digs into the pouch and pulls out a finely woven indigo scarf. “Wrap this tightly to cover all of your head except your eyes. Your crossbow and bolts are hooked here on the other side but don’t use them unless you have training. I’ve got a spare short sword in my kit you can have in case we get into a hand-to-hand fight. Can you manage that?”

  “I know how to shoot a crossbow and hold a sword. But I’ve never actually fought.”

  “That’ll have to do. Now get down and I’ll show you how to rig the canvas over the carapace to keep the sun from cooking you.”

  We shake out two lengths of cloth and Oras shows me the clever way wooden rods and rope string an inner black cloth beneath an outer white cloth to make an awning over the spider’s brass carapace.

  “What happened with Cestas?”

  His grim expression makes me wish I hadn’t spoken. “When we sign on we swear an oath to fight as spider scouts while living and to give our last spark in death to keep fighting.”

  The priest stumps over, his head and face completely covered by a scarf, all except the eye sockets, a sight so disturbing I look away.

  “Sergeant! We must hasten. There’s a double patrol of spider scouts advancing toward Canyon Fort from the southeast.”

  “Our scouts?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Are they approaching along the road from Port Selene?”

  “No, Sergeant, they are coming out of the east, through the desert.”

  I break in. “I’ll bet they’re coming from the Eastern Reach, from the Royal Army. Maybe General Esladas sent them. How can you see them from here?”

  One of the crows hops, and I realize what a stupid question it is as the priest addresses the sergeant, ignoring me as if I hadn’t spoken. “They are flying the sea-phoenix of Efea.”

  “It could be a mask to hide the enemy,” says Oras.

  “The enemy has no spiders. Only we priests in Efea know this magic. My concern is that this patrol will walk straight into the enemy at Canyon Fort and be ambushed as we were ambushed if we don’t warn them.”

  “We’ll hurry to catch them,” agrees Oras. “Jessamy, if you get separated from us, do your best to find the road and make your way to the coast and Port Selene.”

  “It isn’t fitting for women to act as soldiers,” says the priest to Oras.

  “She saved a spider, Your Holiness.”

  “The spider will have to be purified before a man can safely inhabit it again.”

  Oras glances away but not before I catch him rolling his eyes.

  My mouth twitches, but instead of insulting a holy priest I snag a strip of salted fish from the provisions pouch and let it soften in my mouth to dissolve the words I’d like to say.

  We emerge from the gully into a broad valley. The beat of legs striking the ground creates a soothing rhythm, and after a while I begin to rely on what I hear and how my own body moves with the flow of the spider legs rather than watching the legs before I move them.

  Ahead a raised line cuts across the plain. We have reached the road that leads from Akheres Oasis to Port Selene. The Bone Escarpment rises to the north, now far enough behind us that I can see the ragged outline of the craggy ridge but not the walls of Crags Fort. Instead of turning south onto the road, toward the sea, the priest leads us across it. If he is seeing through the eyes of his crows, I’m impressed with his coordination. A crow swoops past and speeds away east. We stride across a rocky landscape of conical hills and sandy hollows whose wind-rippled surfaces we avoid.

  Spiders are not built for speed. They are built for toughness and agility, like me.

  Once my father must have spent days and nights on patrol out in this wasteland, and yet in all my life I never remember hearing him complain. The scarf shielding my nose and mouth makes breathing easier but my eyes burn and my palm throbs and my feet feel hot and swollen and my friends are dead or worse, but I will say nothing. I will do my duty, as he would have done.

  A whistled alert grabs my attention. Exhaustion sloughs off me as a spike of excitement drives through my flesh. I swivel around until I see puffs of dust off to the north, in the direction of the escarpment, the telltale sign of large creatures on the move. The chance to save someone from the fate dropped on Amaya, Mis, Dusty, and Tana gives me purpose and energy.

  We stride up a long, gentle slope and come around a weirdly twisted pillar of rock. Below us, in a bowl of a valley, what looks like the final act of a tragedy is playing out.

  Spiders circle in with the inexorable patience of vultures as ten bloodied, battered soldiers flying the hawk banner of East Saro’s army make a barrier of foundered horses. They kneel behind the poor beasts, whose flanks heave with exhaustion. The men look little better than their dying horses but Father always said men can fight long beyond the point when they should give way.

  From the spider ranks, crossbow bolts flash through the air. Most tear into the flesh of the poor horses, who scream in agony, a sound that burns my ears. One bolt topples a soldier, sunk into an eye. The rest of the bolts kick up dust as they skitter away over the ground.

  In answer an arrow sings out from amid the cornered men, but it thunks pointlessly against a carapace as the scouts turn their brass backs. Javelins and arrows cannot pierce a spider’s metal body, merely dent it. The spiders settle into a waiting stance, encircling the enemy position. The canvas that shields them is tattered and ripped but still effective to give a little relief from the sun, which the riders do not have. The heat will destroy the enemy’s exhausted ranks while the spider scouts loose arrows at their leisure onto the trapped men.

  A spider detaches from the main group and clumps up to investigate our arrival. Oras signals to me to stay put while he moves forward to meet his counterpart, an equally grizzled veteran. As they exchange information, a burst of movement catches my eye from below.

  The last enemy soldiers leap over the downed horses to rush at the spiders with swords and spears. My heart seizes. I can’t look but I have to, because I know what is coming and I can’t bear to see it, and yet I must witness. There is more honor in being struck down by a blade than in being
struck down by the uncaring sun.

  The spider scouts wield their cruel bladed legs with such precision it is beautiful. A downward cut splits open the head of a helmet-less soldier. A sweep takes off the leg of another. A pincer crushes the torso of a struggling man.

  One by one the enemy dies, and in silence their blood pools on the ground as the sun soaks it up.

  I am become hollow, empty of feeling.

  When Oras signals that we should follow him down to meet up with the others, I obey with no thought, only movement, a puppet on strings. My eyes take in the way the spiders are severing the head of each corpse to make sure every man is thoroughly, utterly, irreversibly dead.

  Three scouts settle their spiders into resting stance and drop out of their harnesses to walk over to inspect the downed horses. They are dressed in the loose black clothing typical of desert troops, heads and faces concealed by indigo scarves like the one I’m wearing. One wears the short cape of a captain’s uniform.

  I blink sand from my tired eyes as I stare at the back of the captain.

  I know that walk, those shoulders.

  Just as the three men reach the horses, a man rises up from where he’s been hidden between two horses. Like Cestas before him, he’s not yet quite dead from a bolt in the eye. He throws himself at the captain, and his weight sweeps the other man off his feet. Together they hit the ground with a smack that echoes against the hills, the captain caught beneath the enemy and thus absorbing the worst of the shock.

  Maybe I scream in anguish as I race toward them. The pound of my spider legs jolts through me but I am too late.…

  One of the on-foot scouts grabs the enemy and flings him off just as the other scout raises a javelin and stabs it down to where the enemy was lying atop the captain, but the enemy isn’t there anymore, only the captain’s unprotected back.

  I flash out my spider’s bladed foreleg without any thought, just reaction, and catch the javelin an eyeblink before it drives into the back of the prone captain. My fore blade sweeps the javelin away, rips it out of the hand of the soldier, and I freeze the leg out there as my hands fumble at the harness and shove open the shield.