Her sword stabbed downward, passing through its head and all the way into its body, spraying me with ichor. Scrabbling to get out from beneath it, I finally emerged into the daylight where a scene of madness and horror greeted me. Spiders the size of ponies were clambering over and under the dragons. The soldier’s who had been spared the initial ambush attacks were backing in around us, forming a desperate circle.
Gram had been the first to react. His unusual training granting him a near instantaneous reaction time. His sword, Thorn, had cut through the cephalothorax and legs of the spider that had tried to grab him, and then he had turned to help some of the others.
Matthew had also responded quickly, if less gracefully, by virtue of his precognitive gift. He struggled a few feet away, his enchanted metal hand holding a spider’s fangs at bay while he anchored and supported himself in place with his power. The arachnid’s forelegs battered him several times, but the claw-like tips weren’t able to pierce his mail. Gram’s sword swept in and bisected the lower half of the creature before Matt had a chance to do anything else.
Everything had happened in a span of less than ten seconds. Penny leapt over me, soaring through the air to land in front of one of our defenders who had just been mauled. She came down in a crouch, driving her sword point first through the spider beneath her feet.
Help the dragons, I told my son mentally. I’ll help the soldiers.
His answer was terse, Got it.
The men had good discipline, and now that their nightmare enemies were visible and in front of them, they were better able to defend themselves. But the four who had been taken underground were beyond their aid, so I focused my efforts there first.
Releasing my power in a surge, I used the earth itself to grapple the spiders that had taken them under. With four men to save and little time, I could no longer afford to be as gentle as I had been when extricating myself. One after another, I ripped the men free and pulled them up, crushing the monsters holding them as I did in a vice of soil.
Almost beneath my awareness, was a constant thrumming noise, and it was then that I noticed Chad Grayson standing beside me. The sound came from his bow, which had been working steadily since the beginning. Unlike his previous trip here, this time he came armed with war arrows from the castle armory, which were tipped with enchanted bodkin points.
His shots were well aimed, and the arrows penetrated deeply, most of them sinking into the spiders until only the fletchings were still visible, but the arachnids were slow to die from such wounds. Slashing cuts from the swords of the soldiers were quicker to have visible effect, though most of them lacked the strength to cut deeply, except for Penny and Gram.
My wife was fury incarnate. Outside the circle of defenders, she went from place to place, cutting away legs, fangs, heads, anything that came with reach.
Gram on the other hand, I had no words for him. In his size and form, he reminded me of Dorian, especially with Thorn in his hands, but his movements were unearthly. Dorian Thornbear had been a knight and a great swordsman, but his son did not fight like a swordsman. At times I could have sworn he had magesight. He used Thorn almost entirely for offense, while his uncanny movements sidestepped every striking claw or leaping body, whether they were in his field of view or not. Thorn’s long blade swept through his enemies, leaving only dismembered pieces in its wake.
Most of Chad’s arrows had been fired at the spiders clinging to the dragons. They were at a serious disadvantage against their smaller opponents. They thrashed and rolled, trying to dislodge their nimble attackers, but without much luck. Matthew was finishing them off by using his power to smash them loose with heavy rocks and small boulders he had ripped from the ground.
“Everyone inside the circle!” I commanded, yelling mainly for Penny and Gram’s benefit. They withdrew, almost reluctantly, into the relative safety of our small defensive line. Once they were in, I shouted my spell, “Grabol ni’targoth, mai cieren, forzen dantos nian!”
The earth was ripped from beneath the spiders harrying the soldiers, creating a ten-foot-deep trench around us in a circle. The newly liberated soil rose on the outside like a massive dirt wave that crashed down over the falling monsters. I put all my anger and fear into it, and the soil slammed down on them like a hammer, crushing and smothering them in darkness. All thirteen remaining spiders were swallowed up by the savage spell.
Silence fell over us, but it lasted only seconds.
Chad Grayson reached down and angrily ripped an arrow from the body of a dead spider within the circle. “As I was fuckin’ sayin’,” he grumbled loudly, “bigger ain’t always better! Not that I needed these cocksuckin’ whoresons to show up an’ prove my damn point!”
After a moment a few of the men began to laugh, though it was more a hysterical tittering born of adrenaline and nerves, than genuine relief.
Of the four I had dragged from underground, three were dead. Daniels was the only one who remained alive, and he was badly injured. His leg was torn and twisted, the bones shattered. I attended to him first, since he was bleeding so badly he would die within minutes otherwise.
I could hear deep moaning rumbles from the dragons while I worked to seal the blood vessels in Daniels’ leg. The skin and muscles had been mangled, and despite my best efforts I had a feeling he might never have use of his leg again.
Three others were injured, and one had been bitten. The bite looked bad, and the man who had suffered it was sweating and crying out in pain. Each beat of his heart caused agony to surge through him. The fangs had passed through his gambeson and punctured his forearm, and the flesh there was already purple and shading toward black.
We removed his mail hauberk and cut away the sleeve before using it to apply a tourniquet to his upper arm. I hoped it would keep the poison from spreading farther, but the man’s eyes were already twitching. I had a bad feeling it was too late already.
Of the dragons, both Layla and Zephyr had suffered several bites apiece. Given their size and powerful constitutions, I didn’t think it would kill them, and anything that didn’t kill them, they could recover from, given time. For now, though, they were both in incredible pain.
All eyes were on me.
This was one of those moments, the sort that had bothered me greatly during my early years as the Count di’ Cameron. My decisions had consequences, people were dead, and some of those that survived would have lifelong injuries. As a young man I had bulled through these moments by necessity, while suffering from my doubts and what-ifs after the dust settled.
Not much had changed, but it was easier. I would still feel guilt later, but not quite as much as I once had. It wasn’t that my doubts had grown smaller, just that I no longer believed in perfect choices. Whatever I did, someone would suffer. And just as then, confidence was more important than perfection.
“Can the dragons fly?” I asked firmly.
“Layla can,” answered Penny.
Matthew nodded. “Zephyr should be able to make the edge of the forest at least. After that, I’m not sure.”
“They’ll return to the reserve force’s position then,” I ordered. “Matt, I want you to ride Grace and take the wounded men with you. Once you reach them, share what has happened here and return.
“Tell Conall to prepare a temporary circle to take the wounded back to the castle. Then have Moira and Cassandra return with you, along with five more men. Captain Draper is to stay with the men, along with Conall and Lynaralla.” I stopped, scanning their faces and looking to see if there were any questions. When I didn’t see any, I finished, “Get moving.”
Once they were on their way, Gram had the remaining soldiers clear the ground of debris, piling it up to create an impromptu barrier around our location. Then he stationed them around it in a broad circle.
Gram approached me then. “Do you think we should position a few lookouts?”
Before I could answer, Chad spoke up, “Do you want to go stand out there? I fer damn sure don’t.”
“He makes a good point. Besides, in the absence of an enemy we understand, like other soldiers, putting our men outside the immediate area only exposes them to risks we can’t anticipate. I’d rather keep them together. My arcane senses should provide us with forewarning should something attempt to sneak up on us,” I told them.
Penny didn’t look happy. “Like it did with the spiders?”
That was something that already bothered me, but I had been thinking about it. “The spiders had some method of lowering their ambient aythar, so they appeared more like inanimate objects rather than living creatures, but when they moved to attack their aythar became brighter.”
“What if something out there can do the same while movin’?” asked Chad.
Shaking my head, I responded, “I don’t think it works that way, but even if something could, the movement alone would be enough for me to see it. These things surprised us because they were still and underground, where we weren’t paying close attention.”
The huntsman nodded and removed his pack, opening it to remove one of his stored bundles of arrows. The quiver at his hip was empty. During our short battle he had managed to put at least one shaft into nearly every spider we faced, and two or three in some of them. “I hope nothin’ else shows up,” he muttered. “Or I’ll be out of arrows.” He finished his preparations by taking another long pull from his flask.
“What bothers me most,” said Chad, “is that those spiders, besides bein’ fuckin’ huge, didn’t act like normal spiders.”
I was busy scanning the area around us with my magesight, but I listened carefully as he spoke. It was Gram who asked the first question, “Lots of spiders hunt. And I’ve seen a trapdoor spider before, they use ambush tactics. Wasn’t this similar?”
“Trapdoor spiders build their trap long before the prey shows up,” said the woodsman. “These fuckin’ bastards dug in here just to get us. They saw our route and planned ahead. Not only that, they worked as a group. I never heard of any spiders that were pack hunters, an’ that scares the shit outta me.”
“We should just burn this place to ashes,” observed Penny. “When the dragons get back, they could do it. Imagine if something like those spiders got loose and started breeding.”
She had a valid point, though I wasn’t sure we could do that without risking a wildfire that would spread far beyond this strange forest. Plus, we didn’t know yet whether there might be survivors from Lancaster here, or from our own first group of explorers.
My thoughts ended there. A flash of aythar in the distance had caught my attention. Holding up my hand, I alerted the others while I focused my magesight in that direction. In the best circumstances, my magesight could see things more than a mile away, but the armor I wore interfered. The enchanted plate blocked aythar as well as mundane threats. The helmet and gloves were specially crafted so that I could make them permeable, allowing me to sense things and use magic while wearing it, but it still wasn’t ideal.
I removed my helmet, earning a frown from my wife, but the look on my face silenced her before she could complain. There. I sensed it again, clearly this time, a pulse of aythar, like a brief beacon. I recognized it as well. “Elaine.”
“She’s alive? You can see her?” asked Penny, a hopeful look on her features.
Nodding, I raised one hand and created a similar pulse, an answer of sorts, to make sure she knew where we were. Elaine would also recognize my aythar, so she would know it was me. “She’s not quite a mile from us, in that direction,” I said, pointing to the east.
Then the trace of aythar vanished, not just Elaine’s signal, but every hint of her. “She’s veiled herself,” I announced. “She’s probably been in hiding for the past few days.”
“We need to get to her,” said Penny.
Chad shrugged. “She’s lasted this long. Best to wait for the dragons to return. It’ll be tough goin’ to try and get through this place without ‘em.”
Walking to the edge of our position, I lifted my staff, holding it horizontally and then crouching so that it was close to the ground. Drawing a deep breath, I pulled in my will, letting my strength build in my chest. Then I exhaled and forced the aythar down the length of the rune channel carved in the wood. A line of red incandescent energy shot forth. Sweeping it from side to side, I cut a path through the thick forest that extended nearly a hundred yards. Two of the giant trees were in that path, and both were now falling.
We had the beginnings of a path now, though it wouldn’t be nearly as easy to walk as the one the dragons had created. My method had cut away everything in our way, but most of it, aside from the largest trees, had simply fallen where it had been, creating a tangle of brush, limbs, and downed saplings.
I raised my staff again and began selectively cutting the worst of the tangle near us, then I turned to the others, “Let’s go.”
Chapter 16
Lady Rose stared out over the battlements from the top of Castle Cameron. She stood alone, for nearly every man at arms within the keep had gone with the Count and Countess on their expedition to Lancaster. Just five guardsmen remained, and those were posted at the gates.
If anyone had been there to observe her, they would surely have been taken by the sight of her. Rose Thornbear was not a tall woman, but her bearing left most with the impression they had met a towering beauty after meeting her. Now in her middling years, the traces of grey in her black hair did nothing to detract from her looks.
In spite of her striking features and petite form she had rarely suffered from being seen as unintelligent, as so many beautiful women were. A single glance from her icy blue eyes left most men in no doubt that they would be quickly outdone should they dare match their wits against hers.
Outwardly she was composed, but internally she was a tangled knot of emotions. She had been here many times before, it was one of the repeating conditions of her life. First my father, then Dorian, now Gram—and Mordecai… Over and over she had been forced to watch the men in her life march off to risk themselves, leaving her to keep vigil. She hated it.
Her father and her husband were both dead, but neither had died while she had been waiting, expecting the worst. Not that that helped.
At times like this she envied Penelope. The Countess had been born a commoner, and though Rose had spent years helping train her friend in the ways of the nobility, the woman had never taken to some of the rules. And now I get to worry about her too, thought Rose wryly.
Rose’s frustration grew until at last she reached up and began pulling at her hair, removing pins and undoing braids until it hung freely down her back, nearly reaching her hips. There was no one to see her anyway. With most of the men, as well as the Count and his family gone, the majority of the castle staff were enjoying the quiet in their quarters.
A stiff breeze picked up her hair and tossed it behind her. It was a rare sensation for her, but she couldn’t enjoy it. I’ll be forever combing out the tangles. Her irritation only increased. She returned to the stairwell and descended, heading for her apartments.
Though the chances were extremely small, she still encountered one of the castle maids in the hall, a young woman named Daphne. The girl’s father had been a shepherd, and her mother had passed away just a year ago. She had two younger brothers, and she sent most of the money she earned working at the castle to her father. Rose knew everyone who worked in Castle Cameron, and she made a point of knowing the details of their lives as well. That held true not only here, but at her residence in Albamarl and within the Hightower keep that guarded the capital city.
Daphne’s mouth gaped when she saw Lady Rose, startled by her wild appearance, but after a brief hesitation she curtseyed. “Milady.”
Rose barely glanced at her, but her mind had already made several connections. Ordinarily she would have asked after the girl’s family, or if she was busy, she would have passed by with only a brief nod. Not today, though. “Relax, Daphne, your secret is safe with me.” Then she resumed walk
ing.
Idiot! Rose reprimanded herself. Why did you say that? Now the poor girl will be stricken with anxiety the rest of the day. She had let her irritation get the best of her. Rose didn’t care in the least that Daphne was heading to a secret assignation with one of the young men who worked in the kitchen. And yet I tormented her.
Most saw her as the perfect example of nobility, but Rose knew better. She was just as flawed as the rest of them. And entirely alone. She had been a widow for too many years. And now I’ve grown petty. For a moment a man’s face flickered through her mind, but as so often happened these days, it wasn’t Dorian’s.
Ruthlessly she pushed the image aside. She was far too disciplined to allow such things to distract her.
The door to her empty apartment loomed in front of her. She entered and passed through the front room before stopping in the main living room. She felt restless and had no appetite for any of her usual pastimes. Often when she felt this way, she would travel to Albamarl. As the Lady Hightower she had no shortage of duties to attend to there. Her title made her responsible for overseeing the protection of the capital city itself.
But today she was trapped. Mordecai had left her in charge of Castle Cameron and if she abandoned it, that would place the burden squarely on his underage daughter, Irene. Peter, the chamberlain, was there to help if any serious need arose, but Rose wasn’t about to leave Irene in that position without a good reason. She might be a Thornbear now, but she had been raised a Hightower, and a Hightower never shirked their duty.
An errant air current blew a stray bit of hair across her cheek. Annoyed, she brushed it back behind her ear. For a brief instant, she froze in place, but she resumed moving again almost immediately, crossing the room to check the hearth. Her eyes surreptitiously examined the room as she did so.
The shutters that covered the lone window in the room were ajar, and the small table beneath it was sitting at an odd angle, no longer even with the wall. The flower vase that sat upon it had been shifted as well.
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