Venom and Song

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  “Kiri Lee, watch out!” Autumn cried, but she was certain Kiri Lee hadn’t heard. “Kiri Leeeeeee—” she yelled as Kiri Lee and the spiders behind her faded from Autumn’s sight.

  Back on the flet, Kiri Lee forced herself to stand still as stone. She could hear the spiders behind her, clicking and gnashing. They thought they had her. She was, after all, cut off from the chute line. “Viens si tu oses, imbécile,” she spit out. Come if you dare, imbecile!

  She turned her head just slightly, waiting for their inevitable pounce.

  The spiders leaped.

  So did Kiri Lee. Right off the edge of the flet. The arachnids grasped for her, but their arms never reached her, succumbing to the sudden pull of gravity. “Bon voyage,” Kiri Lee muttered. She watched the two spiders scrabbling at the air and each other as they fell. Sinking slowly, Kiri Lee turned and sprinted on steps of air following the trail of the chute line.

  Back on the flet, Johnny felt throbbing pain from a gash in the back of his lower leg. Though smaller than the ones they’d faced on the Dark Veil, these Warspiders were relentless. Every time Johnny tried to hook himself to the chute line, the spiders took advantage and lunged. He’d been knocked down three times, but he’d recovered quickly each time and, with his sword, made the spiders pay. One he blinded. He’d cut two inches off another spider’s fangs. He’d thrust his blade into the midsection of one that had tried to leap on top of him. It had spattered him with reeking gore, but Johnny tossed the creature off the flet. The only problem was that the spider took Johnny’s sword with it.

  He turned to the chute line and leaped, but failed to bring the hook home. A spider’s foreleg thumped Johnny in the back. For a moment, he teetered on the brink—staring down from the dizzying heights— but then regained his balance. His heart pounding thickly in his throat, Johnny turned to look at the horde of spiders closing in on him. There was no way he could get hooked up to the chute line now. Then he saw Kat, her back against the great tree, a trio of spiders closing in on her. They seemed to be toying with her, swatting at her with their forelegs, thumping her hard in the shoulders and legs. Kat had a sword, but her thrusts and swipes were slow and tired. She looked up at him weakly. She was fading.

  “THAT does it,” said Johnny. He remembered Goldarrow’s warning about using his fire, but he thought, If it comes between fire or dying . . . fire wins.

  The thought no sooner entered his mind than his eyelids began to tingle and his palms itched. He raised his arms and saw the orange glow on the clamoring spiders. “Hands off her,” he muttered, and gouts of liquid fire erupted from his hands and surged into the spiders. It felt different this time, and Johnny immediately saw why . . . saw and felt. A wave of heat washed back over Johnny as the spiders were consumed. His flames burned hotter than ever before and reduced the spiders to smoldering, popping cinders.

  Johnny kicked the charred remains of those spiders aside and walked toward Kat, keeping his focus on the spiders nearest her. The spiders didn’t see Johnny coming, but he couldn’t risk releasing a flare, not with Kat so close. Instead, he walked up to the nearest spider, placed one hand on the creature’s bulbous abdomen, and filled the creature with a molten infusion. The spider shuddered as its innards melted, then fell limp to the ground. Johnny did the same to the others, leaving two more motionless carcasses, each with a smoking wound.

  Kat nearly collapsed into his arms. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Come on, Kat,” he said, walking her toward the edge of the flet. “We’ve got to get you harnessed to the chute line.”

  “No harness,” Kat said.

  “What? You have to wear a harness. . . . You can’t air walk like Kiri Lee.”

  “No, I never got a harness from Goldarrow.”

  “What—? Oh, well, come on!” Johnny led her over to the chest. He had to scorch spiders on either side, and still more clambered around the corner and dropped down from the roof of the flet. Unless they escaped, and soon, he feared they might be overwhelmed. He couldn’t burn down the flet and the tree, not without killing himself and Kat . . . and any of the others, if they lived.

  “Kat, Johnny!” came a voice from behind. Mr. Wallace’s clothes were dark with the blood of a spider he’d impaled on his sword. “Why haven’t you gone?”

  “You—you’re alive!” said Kat. “I thought—”

  “It’ll take more than a spider trampling to keep me down,” Mr. Wallace said with a mock smile. Those reckless spiders had nearly trodden him into transforming. It was all he could do now to keep his mind from his true objective. She might read it. He had to maintain the ruse at all costs. “Let’s get to the chute line,” he said.

  Brynn clutched the Guardmaster’s shoulder and leaned heavily on him. Her left arm hung limp at her side. “The spider’s poison is spreading, I fear,” she said.

  “Don’t you think about that,” he replied. “I’m certain Claris will have for that. Now, come on.”

  Brynn wasn’t fit to fight, but Grimwarden and his trusty siege axe were more than enough to dispatch the enemies they met along the way. They made their way around the left side of the trunk, leaving piles of spider corpses in their wake. Halfway through the enclosed section, Grimwarden smelled smoke. They emerged on the deck area of the flet and found blackened, burning husks of Warspiders strewn in every direction. Fire crawled in patches like living beasts slowly consuming the wood of the flet. “It would seem that young Lord Albriand has been busy.”

  “Grimwarden, there you are,” said Claris, appearing suddenly from the right side of the tree. “I smelled the smoke and feared for your life.”

  “It was right for you to fear,” he replied, “but not on my account.” He stopped.

  “Where’s Sperowynn and Mumthers?” Claris looked behind them. More spiders were closing in.

  “Never mind,” Grimwarden called her attention back. “There’s no time. Brynn has taken a venomous bite. See here, her forearm.” He held up Brynn’s arm. An open wound gaped with black and weeping puss.

  “The poison is moving quickly,” said Claris, hurriedly unclasping a pouch from her belt. “This is gorc root.” She held up a gnarled thumb-sized piece and began to peel thin slices from the side. “Look away, Brynn. This is going to hurt.”

  Brynn closed her eyes, knowing Claris never exaggerated.

  Claris took one slice after the other and pushed them like splinters into the wound. Brynn cried out, but Claris did not stop. They had to go in deep. “Done!” she said.

  “Ellos grant you healing,” said Grimwarden. “We need to go now. If these flames reach the chute line, we’ll be trapped.”

  “Where are the others?” asked Brynn.

  Claris shook her head.

  Grimwarden sniffed the air and turned away. “Brynn, can you stand?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I think so.”

  “Good,” he said. Dodging dead spiders and pockets of fire, he went to the open chest. “These harnesses are no good!” The others looked to him, shock mounting. “Fire has already gotten to them.”

  “Then we need other means,” said Claris. She unfastened her belt, flung it over the chute line, and wound the ends of the leather around her hands. “I trust you can support Brynn?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Grimwarden replied.

  “Then, I will see you at the bottom.” With the graceful and fluid movements of an athlete, Claris leaped off the edge of the flet and began her long journey down the chute line.

  Screee!!

  “More spiders,” muttered Grimwarden. He removed his belt and wrapped one end around his hand, throwing the opposite end over the chute line. “Brynn, how’s that arm?” He bound his other hand, then looked back to her. She looked much weaker than before. “Never mind. Climb on my back.”

  She managed a smile and swung her good arm around the Guardmaster’s neck. “If we survive this”—her voice was faint—“we’ll have quite the tale to tell.”

  Screee! Screee!
Packs of Warspiders streamed around both sides of the tree.

  “That’s a big if,” Grimwarden said. “Hold on tight.”

  Grimwarden leaped off the edge just as the platform behind them filed with Warspiders. A few overeager arachnids leaped after the pair but met nothing but air. Grimwarden and Brynn picked up immense speed, the leather strap smoking over their heads.

  “Grimwarden!” Brynn yelled in his ear. Her arm was slipping. Panic seized Grimwarden’s chest, not an emotion he was easily given to—but with both of his hands bound in leather, undoing either one meant plunging to their deaths . . . and that was if he even could manage to release his hands from the bondage. But he had to try.

  “Hold on, Brynn!”

  “I—I’m slipping!”

  “I said hold on!” He felt utterly helpless. He grabbed the line on the left with his right hand. Then put all of their combined weight on his right arm.

  Brynn’s arm slipped, only her hand clutching Grimwarden’s collar. No! he thought. “Hold on! Please!”

  “Endurance and Victory,” she whispered.

  He pulled his left hand free of the leather just as Brynn’s grip let loose. He reached for her, but his hand met air.

  Grimwarden looked down, Brynn’s screaming face staring up at him. Desperate. Hopeless. He sped away from her, dangling helplessly by one arm, left hand extended toward her.

  BONUS SCENE

  20

  Puddle Jumping

  Authors’ Notes: Did you wonder how Nelly and Regis got through the enemy camp and what happened when they first arrived back on our planet? We wrote many exciting adventures for them in Berinfell and on Earth; one follows below.

  NELLY AND Regis had observed the Vesper Crag portal for hours, watching for a pattern or a lull in the army’s activity when they might sneak past the enemy and through the portal. It had not been easy. The portal itself was at the bottom of a canyon in the largest mountain just south of the main fortress. All the roads and paths in the area had been crawling with Gwar sentries and Drefid overseers, so Nelly and Regis had been forced to scale two-hundred feet of sheer rock to avoid being seen. Still, they had scoped out a near perfect position in a shadowy cleft thirty-feet up from the portal.

  They watched an almost constant stream of Warspiders, soldiers, and supply caravans travel through the largest portal they had ever seen. The minions of the Spider King wore no armor and carried no weaponry save for crates and contraptions made of wood and stone. At last the activity halted. “The last Gwar went through almost an hour ago. It’s now or never, Nelly,” said Regis.

  “Agreed,” said Nelly. “Stash your forged weapons under this brush for our return. They’ll slow us down, and metal won’t go through.”

  Regis removed two long fighting knives from slim leather sheaths on her thighs. “I’m going to miss these,” she said.

  “Well,” said Nelly, “hopefully we’ll find something to replace them over there.”

  “You ever wonder,” said Regis, “what would happen if some of the enemy were coming back through the portal as we were going in?”

  “That is not a comforting thought, Regis.”

  They’d met no one inside the portal, but it spat out the two Elves perilously close to an approaching squad of Gwar soldiers. Disoriented and breathless, Nelly and Regis had just enough wit to throw themselves off the path and into the lush ferns to their right. What they hadn’t counted on was that the ferns were growing on a steep hillside. The two Elves careened down, tumbling over a carpet of dead leaves, mashing ferns, and breaking small shrubs. Regis landed on a half-rotted log that was still hard enough to bludgeon her back like a club. On one revolution, Nelly’s heel smacked into a thick elm tree. Despite the pain, neither Elf cried out.

  They cartwheeled another twenty yards before going airborne and landing in a coursing stream. Regis came up from the water first, flinging sodden cords of black hair out of her face and gasping for air. “Huh-whoa! COLD!” she spluttered.

  Nelly shot up next and bobbed like a cork in the current. “Wuh-where on Earth are we?”

  “The arctic maybe?” Regis suggested.

  The water carried the two Elves swiftly along, and they tried to get their bearings. The stream had been cut into the heart of a tall evergreen forest. Its banks were high and made of a myriad of gray stone shelves. “It’s not going to be easy to get out.” Nelly wheeled her arms to turn the direction the current was sweeping them.

  A few moments of swimming for the shore resulted in little progress, and the stream was picking up speed and flattening out.

  Regis pointed ahead. “Oh no! Look!”

  But it was too late. The two Elves plummeted over the edge of a twelve-foot waterfall. Under they went, churning in the tumult and holding what little breath they could. They popped up moments later, struggling to keep water out of their lungs as they gulped air between blasts of spray. The frigid water moved around them, great humps of slate gray, dark green, and deep blue. Faster and faster they raced along, catching glimpses of an ashen sky between heavy pine branches.

  “Regis!” Nelly thought she saw her friend go underwater. “REGIS!”

  “I-I-I’m okay,” she called back weakly. “Sleepy . . . I feel heavy.”

  Nelly felt it too . . . a surging numbness, a leaden sensation crawling up her limbs. Hypothermia! NO. I will not die here.

  Nelly began to swim. “Kick your legs, Reege!” she spluttered.

  “Try . . . ing . . . to,” she said. “Can’t.” Regis slipped below the surface.

  Due to her stiffening muscles, Nelly’s strokes were uncoordinated and slower than usual. She arrived a moment too late. There was a small whorl in the water amid the swells. Nelly stabbed her arms into the water, driving them as deep as she could, and felt around. It was no good. She’d have to go underwater. Swallowing as much wind as her pained lungs would allow, she dove beneath the surface. The icy water bit into the flesh of her cheeks. A crushing headache exploded to life. She fought for consciousness and flailed in the current. HAIR! Nelly’s hand brushed into a nest of it. She grabbed and tugged with all her might. Deadweight and the current fought back.

  I’ve got you! Both hands on the hair and kicking madly with her feet, she rose. With one final effort, Nelly heaved Regis to the surface. Beneath a soaked mop of black hair, Regis’s skin was blue. “NO, you don’t!” Nelly cried, leaning back to keep as much of Regis out of the water as possible.

  “Ow!” Something hard slammed into the back of Nelly’s head. She actually saw stars for a moment, but realizing what she’d struck, she reached up. Her hand found the massive bough of a fallen tree. With herculean effort, she maneuvered Regis along the tree until she reached the shallow water by the bank. Once up on solid ground, Nelly pounded repeatedly on Regis’s chest. “Come on, Re—”

  “Stop . . . stop hitting me,” Regis gurgled. Her eyes fluttered open. “I was having a terrible dream. It was winter in Allyra . . . the dark winter. Still f-f-feels so cold.”

  “You’re still cold because the cool air has met your wet skin. Come on, into this thicket with you.” Nelly dragged her friend into a clumpy thatch of shrubs beneath a stout gray tree. Shivering herself, she began to bury her friend under dead leaves and branches. “It’s not much,” she said, “but better than nothing.”

  “Smells . . . good,” said Regis dreamily. “A good woodsy smell. Reminds me of Ardfern.”

  “Where?”

  “Ardfern . . . back in Scotland.” She grinned wide and rose up on her elbows. “It was damp, cold, and gray . . . but I loved it there.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll go back one day,” said Nelly, peering through the shrubs. “Now, if we can only figure out where we are. Won’t be easy. It’ll be dark soon. Feels like we’re somewhere north. Not the arctic. Not Alaska or Greenland. It’s not that kind of cold.”

  “Not that kind of—! Feels plenty cold to me.”

  “The water in that stream is very cold,” said Nelly. “B
ut look around. There’s no snow. Some things are still green. This country feels like it’s on the edge of winter, but not in its teeth just yet.”

  Regis sat up and began to stand. “Wait,” said Nelly. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Regis replied. “Much better now. And I know we’ve got to keep moving.”

  Nelly helped her friend up. “That is true. Every minute we linger in this world . . . ,” she paused and the two women exchanged knowing glances. The fate of Allyra was in their hands.

  The two Elves passed in and out of the twilight beneath the trees of the darkling wilderness. Their mad pace kept them warm, and eventually their clothes dried out. They followed the stream and hoped for some sign of civilization. They got a sign, but it wasn’t quite what they’d hoped for. A sonorous horn echoed in the passes of the mountains ahead.

  “Gwar,” muttered Nelly.

  “No doubt,” Regis replied. “And given the numbers who have taken this portal, there may be several legions of the enemy already here.”

  As if on cue, there came the sound of many marching feet.

  “Here,” said Nelly, pointing, “between the fallen trees and this mound. We’d better stay out of sight.”

  Regis joined her and they crouched down just as an army of Gwar soldiers marched over the ridge to their south. And not only Gwar, but Warspiders. More Warspiders than either Elf had ever seen gathered at one place. The force passed right by the hidden Elves, a seemingly never-ending parade. Here and there, strands of white hair shone in the moon’s light. Drefids . . . dozens of them. “The Spider King has emptied Vesper Crag,” whispered Regis.

  “So it seems,” said Nelly. “But given the activity on the Lightning Fields and around his fortress, I think it unlikely that he’s brought all his armies to Earth. No, I think we have just underestimated our enemy once more.”