Tanis the Shadow Years

by Barbara Siegel

  “Then you will go with me when the battle is over?” Tanis asked.

  She still hesitated. Then—“Yes.” Decision was suddenly clear on her delicate features.

  “Then I will accompany you to the barricades,” he insisted. “I will fight alongside you and make sure—as best I can—that no harm befalls you. But whether the battle is won or lost, when it is over, I will take you with me.”

  “I will make sure—as best I can—that no harm befalls you, either,” she said, flashing a sudden warm grin.

  Fog hugged the shore, but most of the village basked in brilliant early-morning sunshine. Stone-fronted shops appeared deserted on each side. Tanis and Brandella hurriedly stepped down the empty streets, marking the sounds of battle from up ahead.

  “It has begun,” she said grimly.

  They ran to the barricades, only to find the elven defenders panicking along the eastern wall. Hundreds shouted at Kishpa from every direction, begging him to do something before it was too late.

  Clearly something terrible was happening. Tanis and Brandella climbed the ramparts, clambering their way toward Kishpa, who stood in plain view atop the barricade. When they reached the top, they saw what was driving the elves into a state of abject fear.

  “By the gods!” Tanis exclaimed.

  The human army had swelled to immense proportions, gaining reinforcements that easily numbered more than five thousand and perhaps as many as ten thousand.

  “Where did they all come from?” Brandella wondered, squinting against the sun.

  The enemy troops were virtually uncountable, charging toward Ankatavaka like an endless sea of humanity. Their numbers stretched in every direction, entering the open meadows on all three sides of the village. And they kept streaming out of the woods.

  The elves didn’t have enough arrows to kill this many humans, even if they hit their mark with every one let loose. The odds, they all realized, had become impossible. They were about to be overrun by an army that outnumbered them at least thirty to one.

  Yet Tanis was surprised to find Kishpa, a figure in red robes boldly silhouetted against the eastern sky, calmly surveying the oncoming human horde. Tanis looked around for Scowarr and Mertwig, surprised that they were nowhere in sight.

  Kishpa, having given Tanis a suspicious stare when the half-elf showed up with Brandella, finally answered his lover’s question. “They came,” he said matter-of-factly, “from a spell, and that’s how they shall perish.”

  “Are we imagining them?” asked Tanis.

  Kishpa straightened his red robes, fluttering in the morning breezes. “No, it’s a duplication spell,” he explained. “Most of them are phantom reflections of a much smaller number of real soldiers.”

  “See there,” Kishpa said, and indicated a young, blond human carrying a distinctive quiver tooled in blue and yellow. “Now look there, wading across the stream. And there.” Tanis and Brandella followed his pointing finger. A blond warrior carried the same quiver across a creek; not 30 yards from that soldier, a duplicate warrior hurried past a tree.

  Kishpa looked pleased with himself, his relaxed smile contrasting. “They might have fooled me,” he admitted, “but they overdid it, duplicating far too many soldiers. It made me suspicious, and so I looked more closely. That’s when I noticed that too many of them are dressed exactly the same, are holding their bows in the same way, and are running in perfect step with each other. That’s when I knew.

  “The spell, by the way, is rudimentary,” he added, “but I’ve never seen it done on such a grand scale. There must be at least a half-dozen magic-users in the human camp. If this spell is any indication of their power, none of them are terribly advanced, but, combined, they can come up with very powerful magic.”

  “Are you strong enough to stop them?” Brandella asked worriedly, putting her arm around the mage. Her brown eyes gazed warmly into his blue ones; Tanis looked away.

  “I don’t know,” the mage replied candidly. “I need to husband my magic, so I must counterattack with a spell that is relatively simple.”

  “I hope you have something in mind,” Tanis said irritably, “because, reflections or not, they’re getting awfully close.”

  “If either Scowarr or Mertwig does his job, then we just might—ah, just in time!” the mage exclaimed, pointing down to just inside the village gate. Little Shoulders skidded to a halt below, holding a small metal box in his hands.

  “Open the gate!” Kishpa ordered.

  “No!” cried a chorus of elven defenders. The ones who didn’t reply looked fearfully at the dissenters but did not move.

  “Do as I say!” the mage commanded angrily.

  No one moved.

  Tanis, Kishpa, and Brandella looked into a sea of recalcitrant, almond-eyed faces. With an oath, Tanis jumped down off the barricade and raced across the cobblestones to the gate. He reached for the pulley rope and was about to yank down on it when, just above him on the battlement, a fearful elf with a knife tried to cut the rope. Instead, Brandella sent an arrow flying through the elf’s sleeve, pinning it to the battlement wall.

  Tanis hauled on the pulley rope; then, as the gate swung open, the half-elf bowed to the weaver up above. She inclined her head and winked.

  Once the gate was open, the mage shouted to Scowarr, “Open your box and empty it onto the ground just outside. Then get back in. And you, Tanis, close the gate!”

  Scowarr and Tanis did as they were told.

  The human horde was fast closing in, covering the open field between the woods and the village. The sound of their charge was deafening, but Kishpa concentrated on his spell, repeating the same strange words over and over again.

  Nothing seemed to be happening—until a terrified cry howled from the front lines of the human army.

  19

  A Spell Upon You

  There were more screams from the humans as Tanis scrambled back to the top of the barricade.

  The half-elf recoiled from the scene below. A giant spider, with scabrous, long legs and an eager mandible, was turning the humans in its path into masses of slashed and bleeding flesh. The human reflections of those who were killed or injured took on the same bloody countenance as the originals, so scores seemed to fall in agony. The creature killed silently, but the din of the victims was deafening. Brandella turned from the sight with a horrified cry; many of the elves reacted in the same way.

  It wasn’t long before the very sight of the hideous creature sent the real soldiers into a headlong retreat, their duplicates instantly following. Those humans who were farther away, however, nocked their arrows and sent them flying in the direction of the gigantic spider.

  A rain of wildly aimed arrows filled the air, and, perhaps fearing that they might kill the creature, Kishpa continued jabbering away in a long-forgotten tongue, murmuring sounds that Tanis suspected only Raistlin would have known and understood.

  Kishpa, with what Tanis realized was a fine sense of justice, used the same duplication spell as had his human counterparts. As the mage’s words became more intense, the screams from below grew to a soul-shattering extreme as the humans suddenly found themselves facing a growing army of giant spiders.

  Spiders will avoid a fight unless they feel threatened and sense that they have no choice. With the barricades behind them, they had only one direction in which they could easily go. And from that direction came painful arrows and thousands of swarming humans.

  With the spiders constantly churning their scaly legs in a field of men, it became virtually impossible to tell which of the spiders was the original and which were the magic duplicates. Slaying the right spider might have ended the humans’ ordeal, but they had to fight all of them at the same time. Arrows from the elven barricades made the trial that more hellish for the soldiers.

  The human army, both real and unreal, fled as one. They turned like ships on a stormy sea, twisting in one wave and then tacking as if with the wind. Feasting on human blood, the real spider followed afte
r them, hungry for more. And the rest of the duplicate monsters followed in a macabre dance of dozens of thin, long, sharp-edged legs that skittered across the open meadow like so many nightmares. The humans were routed.

  The elves on the barricades cried with joy at their deliverance. The chant of “Kishpa!” went up among them, echoing into the morning sky.

  For his own part, the mage stood slumped against Brandella’s shoulder, exhausted. Supporting her lover, the weaver sent Tanis a look that seemed to say, “See? I told you he would need me,” and Tanis nodded shortly. A handful of grateful villagers rushed up to their mage and carried him down on their shoulders, Brandella following. The rest of the elves danced on the barricades, showing little of their notorious elven reserve.

  “We must have a feast!” cried Canpho, the healer, rushing around the main square on his stubby legs.

  “Yes, a feast!” echoed the elves, rushing down from the battlements.

  “We must send for the women to come home to us!” shouted Canpho. “We have been saved by great magic!”

  The cheering thundered, and Kishpa, his face etched with weariness, nonetheless glowed in their praise. No wonder, Tanis thought, that the mage would remember this moment in all its detail years later.

  “Come, we will build bonfires on the beach!” declared Canpho. “Let everyone find whatever food they can spare. We will share our meager stores in victory.”

  The barricades emptied, and the elves of the village carried Kishpa along in a daze of happiness.

  Scowarr stayed behind with Tanis. The slender human had switched back into yesterday’s rags—minus the bandages—no doubt to preserve his new finery.

  “Why aren’t you going with them?” the half-elf asked.

  “Yesterday I was their hero,” he complained, sulking.

  Tanis smiled at his all-too-human friend. “Elves are not as fickle as humans, Scowarr. They won’t forget what you did. But right now Kishpa deserves his praise. Don’t be jealous of him.”

  “Who said I was jealous?” Little Shoulders demanded defiantly.

  Tanis didn’t answer. A strange, loud scratching had captured his attention. It seemed to be coming from somewhere behind him. He looked over his shoulder and staggered back in horror at the sight. A long, thin, bloody spider’s leg was looping over the barricade wall!

  “I’m not jealous at all,” Scowarr went on petulantly. “I’m surprised you would actually think—”

  Tanis reached out and grabbed Little Shoulders by the collar and spun him around.

  Scowarr paled as he watched another leg appear. “It’s not possible,” said the human in tremulous disbelief.

  Another leg came over the wall. Then another. The barricade shifted under the weight, groaning as if in anticipation of the horror to come, as the spider pressed down on its forward legs. The grotesque body of the creature suddenly came into view, its back legs swinging forward, as it steadied itself on the top of the battlement.

  A moment later, long, bloodsoaked, razor-sharp spider legs began appearing all along the barricade walls. On every side, the legs appeared, clawing, reaching, climbing. Up they came, the duplicate spiders following their master, a vision of death that moved inexorably down the barricades.

  “I feel like a fly,” Scowarr mumbled.

  “You’ll taste like one, too,” Tanis answered.

  “Now he makes jokes.”

  The half-elf drew his enchanted sword, the blade glowing red. Scowarr began to follow suit, pulling his own broadsword from its scabbard. “No,” said Tanis, stopping the human before the sword was free of its sheath. “Go for help. I have my eye on the real spider, and if I can keep it at bay, the duplicates will not go forward.”

  “You can’t fight it alone,” Scowarr insisted.

  Tanis was moved, even as he prepared to fight. “You have broad shoulders, my friend,” he said. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. But you can help me best by doing as I ask. Get Kishpa now. The spider will not wait while we debate.”

  Still Scowarr wavered. “I don’t know if I should go.”

  Tanis swung around, putting the tip of his blade at Scowarr’s throat. “Now do you know?”

  Scowarr blinked. “Uh … yes.”

  “Then go!”

  The human did as Tanis ordered, scampering as fast as his legs would carry him in the direction in which the villagers had gone.

  The massive spider, touched by magic, sensed the presence of Kishpa’s magic in the glowing red metal of Tanis’s sword; this was danger. The spider rubbed its horrific legs, and a screeching, scratching sound pierced the air. It was a call, Tanis realized, to its duplicates to form a protective circle around it. They rushed toward their master in a flurry of skittering legs.

  Tanis, trying desperately not to lose sight of the only real spider in this army of gigantic grotesques, charged among them, his sword raised and ready.

  Racing into this web of monsters, Tanis’s first thought was that he was committing suicide. The spiders towered over him and he questioned what good even an enchanted sword would do when all he could attack were the creatures’ legs. Still, he hacked at the limb of the first monster that blocked his way. He sliced off a hunk of one leg; the beast sprayed blood, proving that while it was a duplicate, it was no mirage. It could kill and be killed. And what happened to one duplicate happened to all: blood spewed from numerous severed legs.

  Wounded, the creatures flew into a killing rage. Those closest to Tanis tried to slash him with their sharp-edged legs. However, Tanis had a faster, sharper blade. His glowing broadsword, an extension of his arm, was a blur of color, whipping first left, then right, cutting off pieces of spider leg as if he were a mad woodchopper.

  Blood ran in the street like water from a spring mountain thaw. But the runoff was neither cool nor refreshing for Tanis; his battle gear was splatterd with the hot liquid that made the cobblestones slippery underfoot.

  He had to get to higher ground, he thought, as he fought to keep his balance in the streams of flowing blood. As he slashed with every step, the spiders moved fearfully out of his way until he reached the barricades. It was here that the real spider waited, its army of protectors decimated and bleeding. The real spider suffered none of the wounds of the others.

  Tanis rubbed his face to wipe off the blood that had nearly blinded him. The seemingly endless attack of the spiders had eased, many of the creatures hobbling away from him on uneven stumps.

  But from off to his left, a huge spider, massive and untouched, began spinning a web. With a jerky movement of one thin leg, it threw the mass toward the half-elf, who tried unsuccessfully to outrun the sticky substance. The glutinous webbing caught the warrior, who fought uselessly to free himself, beating back the panic that he felt rising in his chest. With two of its forelegs, the spider pulled, knocking Tanis down. The half-elf tumbled off the barricade and fell into the bloody street below, his sword slipping out of his hand and becoming tangled in the spider’s web near his feet.

  The spider drew the thin, white cocoon closer. The half-elf, stunned from the fall and disoriented, rolled over onto his back. The behemoth, seemingly sure of its kill, brought yet another leg to bear in dragging Tanis closer. When Tanis was nearly underneath it, the beast began lowering its massive body, its maw dripping.

  A dark shadow blotted out the sun. A horrible smell made Tanis want to wretch. A scent like rotting meat shocked him out of his state of semi-consciousness.

  Tanis opened his eyes and saw through a hazy white webbing the dripping mandible of the spider.

  He began to lift his hand, but the broadsword was not in his grip. He reached around frantically, trying to find the blade. But it was no use.

  Time had run out for him. With no sword, he could not defend himself. Trapped in the webbing, he watched in silent terror as the spider prepared to devour him.

  20

  Fight to the Death

  The beast screamed. The roar, so close to Tanis, echoed painf
ully. Then the spider suddenly turned away from him, releasing its hold. Struggling against the sticky webbing, Tanis twisted to see what had happened.

  Looking through the spider’s spindly legs, Tanis saw a most unlikely looking savior. It was Mertwig! The old dwarf had come up behind the creature and had crushed the bottom of one of its legs with his battle-axe. And now the monster focused its hate on a new enemy.

  Mertwig cursed himself for a fool. What good could he do except get himself killed along with the half-elf? Yet he had to do something to help the noble soul who had saved his Yeblidod.

  The dwarf had mindlessly dropped the heavy leather bag that he had carried out of the alley, attacking the monster with the hope that he could divert its attention away from Tanis. In this he had been successful. But now who was going to save him from the deadly creature’s wrath?

  Mertwig cursed again, loud and richly profane. There was much battle experience in his aged heart, and Mertwig knew that one did not enter a contest of war with the expectation of getting help from anything except the weapons carried in one’s hands. Those weapons—his axe and a knife with a long, curved blade—were not going to be enough against this hovering monstrosity. Nonetheless, Mertwig stood his ground, spinning his axe in a wide arc over his head. He intended to throw it at the spot where the spider’s legs joined, hoping to strike one of its bulging eyes, blinding it. Perhaps then he would have a chance to pick up the heavy bag and run. It was his only chance.

  The spider appeared to see no threat from the axe whipping in a tight circle around the dwarf’s head. It lunged forward with three legs, its body dipping low. Just then the dwarf let go of his axe. The weapon soared upward, cutting through the air on an angle that took it high over the spider’s head. It struck nothing except the barricade behind the behemoth.

  “Reorx!” Mertwig bellowed, and dove to the ground behind the massive, leather bag.