Venom and Song

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  “No you don’t,” said Grimwarden, his hand over his eyes.

  “But Kiri Lee!” Jett exclaimed.

  What Grimwarden said next was spoken as a warrior. “If she is still alive, our men will find her.” He looked to Jett. “And you can heal her. But right now, we wait.”

  “WAIT?!” Tommy was nearly jumping out of his skin. “Our men are dying out there, Kiri Lee is trapped on the inside, and you want us to wait?”

  “Tommy, such emotions are to be expected. But if they rule you, they will destroy you. Whatever planning we have done will be lost, and the enemy has the advantage.”

  “Planning? So far, our plans have gotten people killed! How bad do things have to get before you’ll let us go wreak some havoc?”

  Tommy had not seen enough of war to know just how much worse things could get. The lord’s attention was drawn back to Vesper Crag as the raptors began shrieking. Rising from behind the mountain came a dark cloud, accompanied by a low drone.

  The Spider King stood on the Black Balcony, commanding his forces through his generals, his generals through their runners. So confident was he in his own plan that a menacing red light flashed behind him, ensuring that his enemies knew where he was and that he was in command of all that transpired. Most everything was going according to plan, save for the infernal birds, and he tired of such uncertainties. They could be easily crushed, but it meant releasing his newest creation prematurely. No matter. Winning was winning, even if it wasn’t as methodically as he desired.

  Without ever saying a word, the Spider King lifted two fingers on his right hand. He felt ten pairs of eyes follow the command, and immediately orders were barked behind him. The communication would be swift and efficient. It always was. Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t comply with his procedures were simply executed. It made for a tight chain of command.

  When the air began to stir above and behind him, his heart quickened. He longed to see his new inventions at work. What havoc they will wreak, he thought.

  “What—what is that?” Autumn asked, squinting.

  “I . . . I cannot be certain,” Grimwarden whispered. “If it is of the Spider King’s design, we can only be sure that it is meant for our demise.”

  “Jimmy?” Kat turned to him, tugging on his elbow. “What is it?”

  Jimmy wasn’t staring. In fact, his eyes were shut tight. “It’s, it’s a swarm.”

  “Of what?” Tommy demanded.

  “Warspiders with wings,” Jimmy said, his words shaking with his own disbelief. “No . . . not spiders. Huge eyes, long bodies, claws— they’re dragonflies! Call the raptors back. They’re about to be shredded!”

  Grimwarden jostled Tommy, and the two of them raced across the hill trying to signal the raptor riders, but they were too late.

  Ridden by Gwar soldiers, these Warflies, as the Spider King dubbed them, darted high above Vesper Crag and then dove swiftly at their outnumbered prey.

  As big as the raptors that the flet soldiers rode, the Warflies engaged them in midair, their distinct advantage being they could hover when the raptors could only move forward. The Warflies swooped, dipped, and ducked around the free-flying birds of prey, the Gwar on top swinging long-handled battleaxes and swords especially made for this form of combat. The birds suffered the most, losing legs, wings, dozens knocked senseless. Raptors were tumbling from the sky. Some flet soldiers managed a lucky blow on a Gwar, but in all, the Warflies were simply more maneuverable than the raptors.

  But when one heedless Gwar steered his ride into the path of an oncoming bird, the result was staggering. The raptor ripped into the insect flesh with its talons, squeezing the life out of the creature. At the same time, its beak went to work on the two Gwar clinging to the bug’s back; a few quick pecks and the warriors were headless, one also wrested of his arm. And with a massive beat of its wings, the bird thrust the carcasses away and dove to regain its speed.

  Tommy and the others let up a whoop, rejoicing over the kill. But it was paled by far many more losses. Too many. Grimwarden could sense the group’s mounting frustration. It was not uncommon to see in overeager young warriors; he hoped they would hold to his counsel. It was, after all, out of centuries of doing battle. He took a deep breath, watching the six of them out of the corner of his eye. It was one thing to accept counsel in planning, but quite another in the midst of battle where passions ran high. Hold.

  Kat looked over at him. He’d forgotten she was a thought-reader. But a simple smile and a slight bow of her head put him at ease.

  Thank you, he said.

  “No, . . . thank you, Grimwarden. Sir,” she added out of respect. She smiled at seeing the look of surprise on his face.

  At the base of the fortress’s walls, more and more ladders went up. Flet soldiers made ready their grappling hooks as well, focusing on the gaping hole in the middle of the wall. The iron hooks sailed through the air, striking true numerous times. The flet soldiers made quick work of scaling the wall, and those archers in the turrets did their best to cover the advance from above. Flet soldiers began pouring over the wall.

  The lords thrilled to see such progress being made. And it was only increased as the catapults and cannons delivered their first volley. A round of more than forty projectiles crossed the Lightning Fields and slammed into the upper fortress. More than one tower was demolished, and Tommy hoped it was not one with flet soldiers atop.

  Upon seeing the catapults, the Gwar on the Warflies regrouped and changed their point of attack from the raptors to the projectile weapons. The ground trembled as the deafening hum of the dragonflies whizzed overhead. More than one cannon managed a direct hit, but the sheer mass of overgrown dragonflies was simply too much to manage. But where the raptors had a great deal of destructive power in their talons and beaks, the Warflies had only maneuverability, relying on their riders to do the dirty work.

  Gwar slipped off their mounts and went to work on the heavily defended catapults and cannons. An axe blow to the cannon barrel or a slicing of the catapult tension line rendered the weapon useless. Still the cannons blasted away, trying to pick the Warflies off at point-blank range. The air filled with a haze of smoke and the smell of sulfur.

  But as much progress as the Elves made, the enemy always had an answer.

  Tommy watched the hole in the wall and other elevations teaming with Elves, hundreds of lines with flet soldiers ascending to the ramparts engaging with the enemy. And from where Tommy stood, they were winning. Even though the raptors had been nearly destroyed by the Warflies, they had done their job thinning out the Warspiders and breeching the wall. For a fleeting moment, Tommy dared to hope the Elves might overpower the Spider King’s forces early. But a word from Jimmy changed everything.

  “Spiders,” he said.

  “What?” asked Tommy. “We know about the Warspiders.”

  “Not these,” said Jimmy. “Guardmaster Grimwarden, remember the spiders that hit us in the trees?”

  Grimwarden became alarmed. “You mean the small ones—they nearly overwhelmed us.”

  “The Spider King is about t’ unleash a great, massive lot a’ them.”

  “How many?” Grimwarden demanded.

  “I dunno,” Jimmy replied. “But it looks like millions.”

  Less than a minute later, Tommy yelled, “Look!” A black mass appeared and approached the Elves on the ramparts, like a black fog creeping, it seemed. Tommy had heard Jimmy’s warning. His mind told him what he must be seeing, but he still couldn’t believe it. Like some malignant thing it spread toward the Elves . . . and engulfed them.

  34

  The Phantom Army

  EERIE PURPLE and bright white lightning flashed, striking the foothills of Vesper Crag and flickering in the Guardmaster’s eyes. “How deep are the bowels of Vesper Crag that he can breed such a teeming, murderous brood? Our front lines are failing.”

  “Now?” Tommy asked, speaking over the thunder.

  “Nay, lord,” said the Guardmaster.
“I do not want to reveal our full strength too quickly. You will go in, only if we cannot stem this onslaught any other way.”

  Tommy rushed over to the other lords. “Get ready!” he commanded.

  “No joke,” said Jett, shifting his weight from one foot to the other rapidly. “He’s ready to send us in?” He felt like his coach was keeping him on the sidelines when he knew he could win the game with Jett.

  “Trust Grimwarden,” Kat’s thoughts spoke into his mind. “No one knows battle tactics like he does. No one.”

  I know, Jett thought back. I know in my head, but my gut’s just wrenching.

  “I should run out there,” argued Johnny, “. . . lay down a suppressing wall of fire . . . like Grimwarden showed me back at Whitehall. Then have Autumn race through them with her axes.”

  “Well, that sounds right good,” said Jimmy. “And I can cover yu, let yu know what they’re doin’ ’fore they do it . . . so long as I see it in me head.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Tommy, holding out both arms and pressing his hands downward. “Just wait here for now.” He jogged back to Grimwarden, who was deep in conversation with a field commander.

  “Won’t work, Vanagin,” he was saying. “They’re bludgeoning us with a force of sheer numbers. We’ve got to divide that mass of spiders!”

  “Sir, we’ve tried three times,” said Vanagin. “Since we have no more layadine powder, they crawl over us like we were no more than a mild hill!”

  “You must be a hill with teeth!” growled Grimwarden. “Take a brigade of spearmen. Do not charge the center. Aim for their left third. Have twin squads of axemen follow you and chop their legs out from under them!”

  “Yes, sir!” said Vanagin. He raced to the edge of the hill, leaped upon his black rangesteed, and was gone.

  “Do you think it will work?” asked Tommy.

  “It had better,” muttered Grimwarden. “Are the lords prepared?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, good,” said the Elven military leader. “Now we watch . . . and pray.”

  The mass of spiders had slowed, moving in a slow arc mirroring the shape of the outer walls of the Spider King’s fortress. But they had swept away hundreds of flet soldiers. And even as their speed slowed, they engaged a large force of Elves led by a pair of seasoned Dreadnaughts. Their Vexbane attack seemingly frustrated the first rank of spiders. Warspiders’ jaws snapped at air where once an Elf had stood as the Dreadnaughts leaped from spider to spider. With each landing, they drove a razor-sharp longsword between the Warspider’s torso and braincase, killing the creature instantly. But like a black flood, the Warspiders drove on. Spiders crawled over spiders crawling over spiders. Soon there was no place for the Dreadnaughts to safely land. More and more spiders piled on, and the Elves began to go under.

  “No!” barked Grimwarden. “Not that way.”

  Tommy looked at his commander. “You want to go out there, too, don’t you?”

  Grimwarden turned. Fire burned in his eyes. His clenched jaws flared. “With every fiber of my being,” he said. “Far easier is it to lay one’s own life on the line . . . than to command others to do so.”

  Tommy thought about how terrible a responsibility that would be. Then it hit him: I’m the leader of the lords. I share that responsibility now.

  “Look, there goes Vanagin’s team!”

  “Come on!” Grimwarden shouted. “Cut them in half!”

  At first it seemed the Elves would do exactly that. Vanagin led with spearmen, just as Grimwarden suggested. Their spears parallel to the ground, they charged at the Warspiders, daring them to joust. The mass of clicking, gnashing creatures swerved toward the Elves, inexplicably moving as one sentient organism like a flock of birds. At the last moment, the Elves stopped hard and drove the dull ends of their spears into the ground. As the spiders drew within a few yards, the Elves raised sharp ends of their spears impaling the spiders. Supporting flet soldiers joined the spearmen skewering more spiders. But some spiders managed to climb over the dead and leaped at the spearmen. Axe-wielding soldiers—while not trained as extensively in Vexbane as the Sentinels and Dreadnaughts—possessed their own style of acrobatic combat techniques and vaulted to meet the spiders in the air, cleaving several limbs with each swing. The axemen landed as sure-footed as cats and swiftly swiped at the next in line.

  But the Warspiders were not the mindless arachnids one might daunt with a footstep and crush beneath a heel. They recognized their original rush was no longer effective. Oncoming Warspiders stopped their reckless charge and engaged the Elves while the spiders behind them turned and aimed their spinnerets skyward, spraying at first a fine mist of webbing over the throng of Elves. The mist turned to threads, and threads to streams. Many of the Elves found themselves immobilized. Chopping furiously at the webs with sword and axe, the Elves were easy prey for the next rank of spiders.

  Vanagin’s team had been overrun.

  Grimwarden watched as the spiders united and flowed toward Vesper Crag’s walls where Elves and Gwar battled among the siege engines and catapults. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes. Little help could be counted on from the dwindling number of raptors who streaked in and out of the heavy mantle of clouds while trying to elude the Warflies. We needed that map! Frustrated, Grimwarden quickly considered various strategies.

  “Sir?” Tommy looked to Grimwarden. “Sir, do we go in now?”

  Grimwarden did not answer and he did not look at Tommy. Instead, the Guardmaster opened his eyes and drew his rychesword and ran his fingers over the Words of Ellos inscribed on the blade. It helped him think . . . and pray. I cannot let this continue, Grimwarden continued his internal debate, but to send the lords in so soon? The Spider King knows what the Seven are capable of. His Drefids will be lurking . . . and Wisps, too. Ellos, grant me wisdom. I do not want to fail . . . again. Grimwarden’s face was unbelievably taut. “We can delay no longer,” Grimwarden muttered. “You must lead your te—”

  “LOOK, LOOK!” Jett ran over, smacked Tommy on his shoulder, and nearly knocked him off the hill. “Something’s happening to the Warspiders.” Johnny, Autumn, and the others watched, too.

  The black mass of spiders had been coursing toward the Elven back lines at the walls of Vesper Crag. Just as the flet soldiers were about to find themselves caught between a smothering blanket of spiders and the teeth of the Spider King’s defenses, something started happening to the Warspiders. It looked as if a great chasm had opened up in front of their advance, and the spiders were pouring in.

  “Dear Ellos!” Grimwarden exulted. “Has the Almighty opened the jaws of Allyra to swallow the enemy?”

  “I . . . I don’t think so,” Tommy muttered, and he swayed where he stood.

  “Tommy?” Kat whispered. She was at his side in a heartbeat. “Tommy, what’s wrong?”

  Tommy stared across the field of battle, the sensation disorienting and awkward at first. He felt as if his eyes had detached from his head and flew of their own accord through the carnage, through the battle, and over the flank of the spider throng. Suddenly he could see as if he were standing next to them. “The spiders aren’t falling into anything! There’s no sinkhole opening up or anything like that.”

  “What then?” asked Grimwarden, straining to see.

  “I . . . I’m not sure,” Tommy replied. “It looks like they’re tripping all over each other, running like mad things, and then suddenly they stumble—collapse—as if, as if someone is cutting their legs out from under them—like Vanagin’s team was trying to do!”

  “Travin, you sly fox!” Grimwarden growled. “You’ve set a trap for them.”

  “But I don’t see anyone,” said Tommy. “Travin’s teams are still busy with the Gwar . . . and a fistful of Drefids. What’s going on? Who’s doing th—I can’t—NO WAY!”

  “Tommy, if yu don’t quit that,” Jimmy growled. “What are you seeing? My foresight shows only more and more spiders going down.”

  “It’s the Gnome
s!”

  “AHA! Really?” Autumn laughed with joy. “Really? Do you see Migmar?”

  “No, that’s just it,” said Tommy. “I don’t really see them.”

  “Uh, explain that,” said Jett.

  “Remember?” asked Tommy excitedly. “Remember when Kiri Lee first brought Migmar down out of that tree? He was covered in some kind of camouflage. It made him blend in with everything around him. But I saw a Gnome appear”—his voice grew low—“when a spider killed him, I could see him. I see more Gnomes now.”

  “Whatever it is that makes them invisible,” Kat said, “they must control it mentally.”

  “There must be hundreds of Gnomes out there,” said Johnny. “Even I can see they are doing a number on those spiders.”

  Tommy watched as wave after wave of Warspiders collapsed and tumbled upon each other. Hundreds of Gnomes had to be scurrying beneath the spiders, hacking away at their legs. Tommy laughed. He remembered all too well the ingenious contraptions and devices the Gnomes had created. Who knew what battle gadgets they had?

  But even as he surveyed the battle, he realized that the Gnomes must be running about on top of the spiders as well. Here and there, a Warspider would rear up and claw at its eyes. And then its eyes would burst, one by one, spraying a fine yellow mist into the air.

  “Guys,” said Tommy, “I wish you could see this. It’s a good thing we didn’t try to fight the Gnomes. They are fierce little guys.”

  “Ellos has answered our prayers,” said Kat, surprising herself. “I mean, the Earth didn’t swallow up the Warspiders, but—”

  “The Gnomes did,” said Johnny.

  From the north, a piercing howl rose above the clamor.

  Jett bounded up the hill toward Grimwarden. “You guys hear that?”

  “Near froze my blood,” said Jimmy. “Please tell me the Spider King doesn’ have some kind of mutated giant. . . .” His voice trailed off for a moment. “Oh no.”

  “What?” asked Autumn. They all stared at Jimmy.