by Jaime Castle
He continued toward the tunnel through which he could best hear the hollering of his companions. If he believed in gods and curses—the thought stopped as soon as he realized he’d just met an apparent goddess who knew his name. In that case, Whitney cursed himself for what he was about to do.
The tunnel led him into a snaking corridor. He slashed at sticky cobwebs with his dagger as he pressed forward blindly. As the corridor narrowed, he felt the egg sacs brushing against his arms. It wasn’t long before he heard the clear sounds of battle, the explicit sound of Sora’s voice, and grunts that could only belong to Torsten.
“I’m coming!” Whitney shouted, earning a mouthful of webs.
Just then, the corridor split into a T and something slammed into Whitney from the side. He felt one of the red blisters pop as his shoulder collided with the hard wall. Hundreds of tiny, little legs drooled all over him.
He swatted them as he whipped back around. A faint, orange glow illuminated the labyrinth of tunnels, revealing eight glittering eyes and venom-coated fangs prepared to drive their needles into him. Whitney brought his dagger up and the steel drove hard against the biting chelicerae. A spider the size of a mule was repositioning itself for another strike, but Whitney got a leg up and kicked. He’d expected the creature’s body to be soft because of all the hair, but his foot felt as if it was planted firmly against hard stone. He pushed against the bulb of its abdomen and slipped. It was slick like oil.
The creature knocked him back, poking and prodding with eight sharp claws. He managed to pull one arm free and drove the point of his dagger into the spot where a leg met the cephalothorax. The spider let out a humanlike cry, and then Whitney realized the sound was coming from his own mouth. One of the spindly legs managed to find a home in his supple flesh, digging into his bicep. He chanced pulling his dagger around and slicing at the leg. It found its mark and chopped it off at one of its forty-eight kneecaps.
Off-balanced, the spider toppled slightly, allowing Whitney to wriggle free enough to swing with his other arm. He used the corpse’s gauntlets like a crude, blunt weapon and whacked the side of the spider’s head. The creature shrieked, its legs shriveling.
Whitney leaped and drove his daggers down in the center of his many eyes.
He stumbled away from the dead monster, arms covered in yellowish goo. “It’s official, I can’t stand spiders.” He shook his hand off, then headed toward the flickering orange glow that could be none other than Sora’s fire.
XXXVI
The Knight
TORSTEN TWISTED his frame just in time to dodge Bliss’s strike. Her many legs—each of them covered in tiny spikes—fell upon him in a flurry.
He parried one leg thrust with the flat of his blade and tried to stab but she batted his claymore aside like he was a child with a stick. He’d fought a giant in the Third Panping War, and even its strength paled in comparison. Slaying a dire wolf was no simple task and Bliss had done it without throwing a punch.
“Uriah, forget him and help me!” Torsten shouted.
Uriah and Sora were busy fending off countless spiders of all sizes intent on devouring Gryff’s desiccated corpse. They’d found a break in Sora’s slowly spreading blaze and funneled through.
“My children will keep them occupied at least until you are dead, Torsten Unger,” Bliss said. “Iam has forsaken all of you. And I, the One Who Remained, shall feast on all men.”
Torsten’s eyes went wild, his shoulders squared, and his nostrils flared. He was smart enough to know she was trying to taunt him into making a mistake, but he didn’t care. He might not have cared about Uriah’s mad quest to destroy her before, but now that he had looked upon her, he knew he was where he belonged. Even if they all died. This abomination. This evil. He couldn’t just stand idly by and let her prevail.
He understood Uriah, even if he could never forgive him.
He planted his right foot and pushed off, driving the sword toward her. She laughed and easily avoided the blade by circling up onto the rocks. She was toying with him, and there was nothing he could do. Bliss snapped her leg toward him. It cracked against his chestplate and sent him reeling, short on breath.
“Come now, knight,” she said. “Where is your god now?”
Behind him, Sora shrieked. He took a second to glance back. She and Uriah were surrounded. She no longer wielded flame, so they stood back to back, slashing with their blades while the thorny legs of spiders tore at their clothes.
In that split second, Bliss pounced, knocking Torsten’s claymore free. He punched, but her carapace was like plate mail. With his other hand, he grabbed one of her legs and held it back.
The only way he was going to make any headway was to attack her human-like upper body, but she had been doing a flawless job of protecting herself. She drew back onto her hind legs and brought her weight down. Torsten rolled, barely escaping her dagger-like appendages and grabbed his sword along the way.
“I do not fight for myself, monster,” he roared as he spun back around to face her. “In the name of the Glass and Holy Iam, today your reign of terror in these woods shall end.” He charged straight through her razor-sharp appendages and shouldered her in the thorax, his brazenness catching her unprepared. It was the first time he’d seen her tripped up.
“Torsten!” The voice came from somewhere near the tunnels and Torsten had never been happier to hear it. Whitney had been a pain in his backside, but they were outnumbered and outmatched. Another set of hands could be the difference between victory and death.
But Whitney, as Torsten should have expected, lost what could possibly have been his only opportunity to surprise Bliss. She had retreated up on top of the cave’s entry, and somehow, he didn’t see her. Instead, Whitney’s gaze fell upon Uriah.
“You son of a shog-eating shrew!” Whitney yelled, charging at Uriah. “She was in there waiting for me!”
Bliss swept her legs down and knocked the dagger from Whitney’s hand. It skidded across the ground toward Torsten.
“How dare you think you could escape!” Bliss roared, anger emanating from her as if it were heat. She stretched down from her vantage and met him face to face.
“Yig!” he yelped as he tripped backward. He scrambled away until he bumped into Torsten’s leg.
“Are you blind!” Torsten lifted Whitney to his feet and shoved his dagger into his gut. Then he pushed him right back down into a crouch as two of Bliss’s arms zipped over their heads.
It was a kill shot.
Whatever Whitney had done to anger her, she wasn’t toying anymore. He had a knack for enraging others, and while missing his opportunity to catch Bliss unawares was the stupidest thing he could do, riling her was a close runner-up.
“Torsten,” Uriah bellowed, “we aren’t going to be able to hold these things back much longer!”
Torsten peered over his shoulder and saw Uriah and Sora still fending off the spiders. They looked exhausted, clothes bloody and tattered.
“Hang in there, Sora!” Whitney called.
“Whit?” she replied. “You’re alive!”
“Yeah, I’m here to save the day.”
Torsten didn’t hear her response if there’d been one. Bliss extended her back end and spouted out a stream of sticky webbing. He scarcely avoided getting hit by it.
“Keep her busy,” Torsten told Whitney.
“Keep her wha—” He dove out of the way of another of Bliss’s legs.
While the goddess was occupied trying to impale Whitney, Torsten decided to change his strategy. He carved a bloody swathe toward Uriah and Sora. He swatted an arachnid the size of a wagon-wheel, then slashed one off Sora’s back.
He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her to the path he’d opened through the beasts. Her breathing was heavily labored.
“We need to take her together,” he said. “Find whatever strength is left in you. Uriah, it’s time to finish what you started.”
Now together, Torsten and Uriah fought their way bac
k to Whitney. They let Sora stay in front, as she was so weak she could barely lift her knife. Ahead, Whitney dropped to the dirt under Bliss’s leg and rolled out of the way of another. As he came to a stop, a third leg crashed toward his head.
Torsten reached him just in time and deflected the blow. He dragged Whitney back as another slashed the dirt between his legs, then lifted him again.
“It’s like fighting someone with eight swords,” Whitney complained.
The four of them now stood side by side, Sora leaning on Whitney like a crutch. Bliss stretched out before them, purple eyes fuming with rage. The patter of her largest children closing in behind them grew louder and louder.
“What now?” Whitney asked.
“We hit her in the heart or the head,” Torsten said.
The Spider Queen rushed once more. Torsten and Whitney both thrust their blades, barely nicking her armored underbelly but both taking hits from her spiny legs. They landed on their backs, hard, but recovered fast to charge back at her. Sora was on her knees, struggling to raise her knife and make another cut so she could help. Out of the corner of his eye, Torsten saw Uriah take her hand and place it aside.
“No. This must end now.” Uriah used her knife to slice both of his palms. Then he dropped to the ground, crossed his legs, closed his eyes, and clasped his bloody hands together.
“What are you doing!” Torsten demanded.
“I didn’t know we could take breaks,” Whitney said, panting hard before he was forced to duck under another massive leg. A second one caught him from the other direction and sent him flying into the wall of the cave.
“Whitney!” Sora rasped and stumbled.
Uriah began muttering under his breath. A swirling cloud of black smoke rose around him and a bright red light glowed as if he himself were a beacon.
“What is this, Uriah?” Torsten questioned.
Uriah didn’t answer, but he began to levitate.
“Uriah!” Torsten shouted.
Bliss’s expression revealed concern for the very first time.
“This will not work,” Bliss spat, venom lacing her words.
“Torsten, ready your blade.” Uriah’s voice was…different. It carried on the air, surrounding them like the cloud, like Bliss’s had.
Torsten lifted his claymore anyway. Bliss was so distracted by Uriah that there would be no better chance. She lashed out at Uriah’s floating body, but the black smoke swirled around her limbs, holding them in place and exposing her human half.
“Strike her, now!”
Torsten bounded forward and slashed, drawing a deep gash along her belly. Half a dozen spiders promptly tore their way through the bloody hole and leaped at him. One bit down on his bare hand.
Whitney came too and rushed to Torsten, hacking at the spiders with his dagger. There were too many. A small fireball raced by, pathetic compared to Sora’s usual magic, but enough to hit several of them at once. They shrieked in pain as they shriveled.
Whitney stomped another while Torsten stood.
“My babies!” Bliss writhed, her spider legs struggling to hold her belly together.
“Again!” Uriah called. “I cannot hold this much longer!”
Torsten lunged, this time plunging the sword all the way through. Her legs battered him, but he stood strong and drove deeper and twisted his blade. Blood poured out, coating his arms and flooding down his torso.
She stopped fighting and pulled him in closer until her gorgeous face was his whole world. Torsten remembered what happened to the dire wolf when she blew on him. He closed his eyes, preparing for her to drag him into death with her when Uriah’s blade joined his in her chest. The former Wearer of White had descended and now stood at his side, flaying her wide. That same black mist swirled around his hands and exuded from his mouth.
Bliss’s scream shook the earth beneath their feet as she lurched. She pushed them away and the blades slid out. Blood gushed from her like a castle fount as her legs fumbled for traction.
“Fools!” she bellowed. “I will slaughter every last one of you. I will devour your children. Even Iam could not destroy—”
Torsten roared and swung his sword with all his might, spinning as he did, and cleaved her neck mid-sentence. Her legs crumpled, and her head teetered before tumbling down along with them. The forest hushed when it came to a stop. Then an ear-piercing cry echoed all around them. The children, mourning the loss of their mother. It was sharp and sudden and gone just as quickly. Then they all scattered into the trees.
“That’s right, you better run!” Whitney hollered.
Torsten looked around. Sora was spent, barely standing. Whitney’s filthy clothes were drenched in blood and he, like Torsten, was covered in bruises.
The only sounds in the darkness were sharp, labored breaths, the crackling of the dying flames at their backs, and the sizzle of black magic surrounding Uriah.
XXXVII
The Thief
“CONGRATULATIONS, OLD FRIEND,” Uriah said. “You have slain even what your god could not. The One Who Remains is no more.”
Whitney stared at Uriah as the black cloud surrounding him dissipated. He stretched his arms and drew a calming breath as if everything was fine. It was then that Whitney realized what had happened and his blood started to boil.
“You used me as bait!” Whitney shouted. He jumped at the old man and pointed his dagger at his throat.
“Put the blade down, Whitney,” Torsten said.
“Why? He used me so we’d have no choice but to fight his monster. Your men didn’t draw her away, did they? This was all to get us to distract her so that you could do... that. Whatever the shog that was.”
The old man merely smiled, wrinkles splaying at the corners of his lips.
“Is that true, Uriah?” Torsten said.
“Of course, it is!” Whitney growled. “Bliss was right there, waiting to drain me.” The thought made him shiver. “Do you know what it’s like down there?”
“I knew something was off,” Sora said softly, still on one knee struggling to catch her breath.
“I ought to make you go down there and lay with the corpses!”
“Whitney, stop!” Torsten bellowed. “Uriah, is it true?”
The old man sighed. “I did what I had to in order to rid this world of great evil. The potential sacrifice of one man does not compare to what we have accomplished here together.”
“I’ll give you sacrifice.” Whitney went to hit him, but Uriah was too smooth. In a flash, he had the thief disarmed and his arm wrenched behind his back.
“Please,” Uriah said. “I do tire of all this arguing.” He shoved Whitney into Torsten.
“I trusted you,” Torsten said, holding the thief back.
“And your trust was not misplaced. Look.” He gestured to all the carnage around them. Bliss’s body plugged the entrance to her lair, legs tossed haphazardly like a marionette on the strings of a puppeteer. The bodies of her children covered so much of the surrounding area that the forest floor could no longer be seen. “We have victory. Who cares what it took to achieve it. Didn’t Liam teach you that in all his bloody conquests?”
“We? That spell, whatever you did. You didn’t need us.”
“Oh, but I did.”
“I’ve never seen magic like it,” Sora added. “Not even from Wetzel.”
“What happened to you?” Torsten asked.
“I called upon the gifts of my goddess,” he said. “You too could be teeming in her power, if only you’d learn the truth about the beings we worship.”
“You were a servant of Iam! You believed in him even more strongly than I.”
“Whatever he did, did save our lives, oh holy one,” Whitney remarked. Torsten glared at him. “What! The guy sent me to die, if anyone should be mad it’s me.”
“Stop being so stubborn, Knight, and listen,” Uriah said. "Nesilia, Iam, together, after all these countless years, we faithful have brought their enemy to her bitter end.”
“Together we have done nothing,” Torsten snapped.
“Do you not remember the song, old friend?”
“Again with songs of fancy and fantasy?” Whitney said.
“Biding her time, her pain like a flood,” he sang.
A torrent of anger, a flowering bud
One for the Lady and one for the Lord
Shall settle it all with power and sword”
“Riddles and nonsense,” Torsten said.
“How do you not feel it?” Uriah said, looking to the sky and closing his eyes. “Their union, deep in your soul like a… like a mounting storm.”
“You guys both sound insane,” Whitney said. Of course, nobody paid him any attention. He was getting used to it.
“Do not make me a party to your heathen worship of the Buried Goddess,” Torsten said. “It was Iam who guided my blade. You may have tricked us into helping you, but we are done now. We will find King Pi’s effigy, and then you will return to Yarrington and answer for your sins.”
“You cannot deny what happened here!” Uriah roared, his calm façade slipping.
It was then that Whitney realized how foolish he was for going after him.
He just called on shadows to kill a goddess, you idiot.
“Why don’t we just let him leave,” Whitney said. “I have the damn doll anyway. We can all go on our merry way.” He removed the doll he’d found in Bliss’s lair from his belt and held it up.
Torsten and Uriah grabbed it at the same time, their hands covered in Bliss’s yellow blood, so much that it soaked the poor doll’s crude face through.
“Hey!” Whitney ripped it back and patted the head before he stored it back underneath his belt. “Didn’t either of you ever learn to share?”
“Where did you find that?” Torsten asked.