by Max Anthony
“We work well as a team, eh?” said Jake, putting words to that which they both already knew. “Onwards and upwards my trusty Skulks-steed!” said the Headcracker.
The noise of ground-level combat had ended quickly, but had still been loud enough to alert a quantity of spider-soldiers who were precariously adhered to the wall of the command building above them. These creatures hissed as Skulks started his own ascent. With the extra weight of his friend and his tucked-away swords clashing against his legs, Skulks had to rely on his Wielding powers much more than usual and it wasn’t long until he was wishing he’d shoved a couple of pies in his pockets before he’d left the Chamber Building.
“Not that I’d get a look-in with this great lummox and his hearty appetite,” he thought to himself. “I’d probably have needed twenty pies before I even got a sniff of one, given that I only peck at my food like a sparrow.”
Skulks had no time for more self-delusion, because he was already fifteen feet off the ground. Below him, a number of spider-soldiers had cottoned on to the interlopers in their midst and they had gathered to wave their swords ineffectually at the Wielders climbing steadily upwards. A few of the spider-soldiers who were in mid-ascent inched their way uncertainly around in order to make an interception. Skulks felt a tugging at his back as Jake leaned out for a better look.
“You’ve picked the wrong side to climb. The nearest window is on the third floor,” he advised Skulks in complete denial of the fact that they were climbing the only wall it had been feasible for them to reach.
“I’ll cut you free if there’s any more of your insolence,” Skulks advised, causing Jake to close his mouth on the next wisecrack he had been about to utter. Instead, he suggested to Skulks that he cling tightly to the wall, because the nearest spider-soldier was about to reach them.
Normally, a fingernail-sized spider scuttles up a wall with nary a pause. These tiny creatures are perfectly designed for this purpose. After all, how else would they be able to scamper into places most people would prefer them not to have scampered, such as washing baskets and bathtubs? Zera Graves’ spider-creatures were somewhat less certain when it came to scaling vertical surfaces. Their much greater weight, combined with nature’s complete disavowal of their existence, resulted in a creature which thought it could climb, but was in fact very much unsuited to the act.
Within moments of coming within reach of Jake’s iron-elongated arms, the first spider-soldier regretted its eagerness to attack. With a thumping headache already developing from the blow it had received, it hurtled twenty feet to the ground, losing three legs as it made contact. Above, its intended prey continued to climb as if nothing untoward had happened.
By the time they were close to the third-floor window, six more spider-soldiers had followed the same path downwards and lay with injuries of varying severity on the cold paving. Far from being fearful, their tormentors had given every appearance of seeking out the spider-soldiers, even taking a small diversion in order to dislodge one from the wall.
“Horrible creatures,” said Jake as the last spider-soldier tumbled past them on its headlong journey towards the ground.
Within grabbing distance of the windowsill, Skulks and Jake looked upwards to see a head and pair of hands pop through the window opening. Hoping that these hands were there to offer assistance, both Wielders felt relief that they had finally reached the culmination of their climb. It was not to be. A mumbling was heard and the arms waved a pattern in the night air. A series of white-hot sparks jumped from the hands, encompassing both Skulks and Jake in a nimbus of highly-charged magic.
“Unnghh!” said Skulks loudly. The hot white sparks stopped immediately.
“Tan? Is that you?” came the voice of Adept Frieda Berry.
“Of course it’s me!” Skulks exclaimed. “Who else were you expecting?”
Frieda Berry did not take the time to explain to Skulks that she had not been forewarned of his visit and was instead expecting a vicious spider-soldier to climb in through the portal she was looking out of. Patiently, she stepped back and allowed Skulks to climb over the sill, with the very heavy man tied to his back.
“How is Captain Honey?” he asked.
Twenty-Two
Captain Honey was physically well, though not in the best of moods. In fact, she was absolutely furious.
“She put something in the soldiers’ fresh water supplies!” she fumed of Zera Graves. “The soldiers changed before my eyes, becoming these awful spider things! These are good men and good women. I know them all by name and now they might as well be dead!”
Skulks looked at her face. The promised black eye from her earlier confrontation with the arm-steed had not materialised. In fact, she looked almost unmarked.
“How come no one in the command building was affected?” he asked. There were eighteen men and women inside, plus an additional two Wielders.
“We draw our fresh water from a different well,” said Honey. “The command building is meant to be the fall-back point in case something happens to the barracks. Something like this.”
There was an elephant in the room and it wasn’t Jake, though he was the first to mention it. “So where is Zera Graves then? And what did she hope to accomplish by killing everyone in the army?”
Captain Honey chose to answer the only part of the question she could answer. “This isn’t the whole army. We’ve got far more reserves and there’re quite a lot of men who aren’t stationed here every day. Our soldiers get to go home and see their families when we’re not at war. There’ll be three hundred men reporting for training first thing in the morning. And I managed to send out a runner to Captain Sluice at the Chamber Building half an hour ago. We’ll get reinforced from the guards stationed there as well.”
Maybe it was the altitude from being four floors up. Or perhaps Skulks just had hidden reserves of wisdom underneath his devil-may-care exterior. Whatever it was, his mouth opened and some words spilled out.
“This must be a diversion,”
Captain Honey and Frieda Berry looked at Skulks. Jake looked at the top of his head.
“The Chamber Building!” Honey said, her face seeming to crumple. “All three of the Chamber Council are still there! And my mother!” Captain Honey looked lost and Skulks could tell she was torn between duty to her soldiers and duty to her mother.
“I will go back there now!” said Skulks with certainty. “And Zera Graves will not find me welcoming if she comes within reach of my boot!”
“I, too, shall return to the Chamber Building!” cried Jake gallantly, though he had little say in the matter.
“Please hurry, Tan!” said Captain Honey. They could all now hear a thumping noise from below as the spider-soldiers crashed a heavy trunk against the front door. “They won’t get through there in a hurry,” she reassured them.
Soon, Skulks found himself climbing back down the outer wall of the command building. There were no spider-soldiers on the wall now and those below had gone elsewhere. Had circumstances been different, Skulks might almost have enjoyed the climb. He did not, for he was worried.
“Has this been the master plan all along?” he asked himself. “To kill the Chamber Council?”
Certainly, King Meugh had attempted to do so in the recent past, but what was happening now seemed much more uncoordinated. With a flash of realisation, Skulks recognized what was happening. “She’s winging it,” he said to himself. He should have seen it earlier. There wasn’t really an underlying plan at all - Zera Graves was simply adapting to circumstance. Skulks knew this because it was how he operated and he could read the signs. He couldn’t have articulated the thoughts himself, but he and Graves were lovers of chaos. Randomness was a joy to them both, bringing excitement and reward. However, while Skulks was random he was not malicious. Without him knowing it, the people of Hardened and particularly the influence of Heathen Spout were gradually making him more appreciative of law and order, though in a very tentative manner. Zera Graves, on t
he other hand was murderous in the extreme.
Lost in thought, he completed the climb, scarcely noticing as Jake bludgeoned two nearby spider-soldiers into a pulp of black ichor and ruptured organs.
“You’d better get a move on, Tan,” said Jake, cutting through Skulks’ reverie. “There’re more of them coming.”
Jake was correct, for an eagle-eyed spider-soldier had alerted a cluster of his fellow spiders. Hissings and skitterings announced their presence and Skulks didn’t wait around to ask if they wanted a quick game of bones. He hot-footed it across the compound with ten of the creatures in pursuit. The rest of the spider-soldiers were focused on their efforts to gain entry to the command building and did not join the chase.
Usually, Skulks would have been able to hightail it away, even from creatures as rapid as these. Tonight, he was less fleet of foot because he was carrying three hundred pounds of additional muscle on his shoulders plus two twenty-pound iron bars. He was reluctant to entertain any delay in his return journey to the Chamber Building and was content to maintain a steady gap between himself and his pursuers.
It was now well past midnight. As Skulks raced down Turncoat Lane, he hardly noticed a door opening onto the street as he passed. Equally, he failed to notice a lady called Inky Goodlife emerge. Inky Goodlife worked shifts, so she was forced to attend the post-midnight session of Arachnids Anonymous, a popular group for those with an excessive fear of spiders. Inky had been making good progress following a recent relapse caused by finding a four-feet demonic spider under her pillow a few weeks ago. All of the night’s good work was undone when ten dead soldiers with spider legs skittered by within moments of her leaving the meeting room. Whimpering as she fled, Inky hurtled to the nearest all-night tavern to drown her sorrows, only to find that the door handle to her chosen establishment had a particularly juicy and stubborn spider sitting on it.
Even if Skulks had been aware of his unwitting part in Inky’s terror, he would not have had the time to feel guilty. He didn’t know it, but the ten spider-soldiers behind him were only a tiny fraction of the problems about to beset him. As the lead spider came within striking distance, Jake twisted his torso around and clubbed at it. Driven by necromantic urges, the spider-soldier had ignored the old adage that the first one into combat is the first to fall. And fall it did, crumpled into a heap with the clear impression of an iron bar across its torso.
“Slow down so I can hit some more of them!” shouted Jake to his reluctant mustang.
With his stomach rumbling wildly as it shouted out for sustenance, Skulks gladly dropped the pace a fraction and was satisfied when he heard more eye-watering thumping sounds, with Jake twisting and turning to cause untold misery to the spider pursuers.
“I’ve got four of the bastards now!” came the call from behind. “Run like the wind, my beauty!”
Skulks gritted his teeth at the abuse he was forced to suffer and continued his canter. There was a small boon for him though, when he managed to snatch a handful of tepid sausages from the tray of a sausage vendor who was distracted by the sights running towards him along the street. Usually sausage vendors moved like lightning when it came to protecting their stock from theft, so Skulks counted himself fortunate that he’d managed to grab his prizes on the run. He was twice fortunate in that Jake had not seen the theft and Skulks was able to get all three sausages down his neck without sharing.
“It’s me doing the work after all,” he said to himself as more splattering sounds behind told him that the spider pack was now down to four.
They reached the edges of the Chamber Building gardens and Skulks pulled up to a sudden stop, drawing his rough short swords from his belt. The first spider-soldier was slow to react and received a sword point in the throat. Momentum carried it onwards and drove the sword blade full-length through its neck. Before its brain had realised it was dead it had just enough time to aim an overhand chop at Jake’s exposed head with its own sword. A metal bar flew up, crashing against the blade and sending it high into the sky. A second metal bar hit the spider on the shoulder, knocking it fifteen feet to one side, carrying Skulks’ sword with it.
Skulks had a spare sword still in his belt and drew it in time to parry several quick halberd thrusts from the remaining opponents. Whatever turned these poor men into spider hybrids also made them little more than mindless beasts. The soldiers they had once been would have attacked carefully, reluctant to give up their lives easily. These spider-creatures gave no value to their lives, with all memories of loved ones expunged from their brains by the vile necromancy of Zera Graves.
Even given their limitations, the spider-soldiers were strong and stubborn. They chopped and they thrust, looking to hurt and kill. Skulks and Jake had known each other for centuries and had fought together countless times, but their unusual arrangement was a great test of their teamwork. Jake had the longer reach, so Skulks tried anticipate his friend’s actions to the detriment of his own sword play. It worked inasmuch as the three remaining spider-soldiers were soon dead, but Jake ended up with a deep cut along one arm and Skulks had taken a nasty thump to the shin when he’d nearly overbalanced and an iron bar had accidentally struck him.
With his Wielder’s power doing its best to heal him, Skulks limped through the gardens towards the front door of the Chamber Building. There would normally have been two or three pairs of guards on patrol, but there were none visible tonight. Captain Honey’s runner had evidently managed to get the message though about the assault on the barracks. Both Jake and Skulks had supreme hearing and as the front door loomed, they heard crashes and bangs from within.
“Balls!” said Skulks, pushing himself to greater speed.
Twenty-Three
Grunting with effort, Skulks ran up the Chamber Building steps. In his concern, he over-exerted his Wielding powers and destroyed both of the main doors, shattering them into pieces as he commanded them open. Looking over Skulks’ shoulder, Jake raised an eyebrow at the destruction wrought and knew that his friend was truly concerned.
In the lobby, there were the signs of one-sided combat. Three guardsmen were visible, their dead bodies crushed and flung to corners of the lobby. Skulks recognized one of them as Crivens, whom he had briefly fought beside in weeks gone by. Several of the clerks’ greeting desks were crushed and splintered as if something massive had trampled over them.
“This doesn’t look good,” said Jake. “Do you think the arms-horse could have done this?”
Skulks looked at the mess. “Possibly,” he said without certainty. There was an enormous rumbling sound from deep within the building. As if something had just punched its way through a solid wall and brought down half of the floor above. “Or possibly not,” Skulks concluded.
Skulks headed to his office. If he’d been asked why he’d headed in that direction, he would have given one of several answers. He might have said that he needed to check if any members of the Chamber Council were in there. He might have also lamely said that he needed to check if Chibbles’ chest of stolen valuables was still present. What he wouldn’t have answered was that there was a tray of eighteen pies on his desk.
There were no members of the Chamber Council in his room and the chest of valuables was where he’d left it. When he exited the room, the tray of six pies was still on the desk.
Wielders needed to eat in order to fuel their powers and an unfed Wielder was at a distinct disadvantage to a Wielder with a belly full of pastry. The trouble was, other people didn’t realise this. When Skulks stuffed his face, those observing tended to think he was being a greedy so-and-so. In truth, he had to eat to stay at peak efficiency. Over the centuries, the stares and sneers of others had pushed Skulks along a path where he subconsciously felt shame for what people thought of as greed, leading him to hide his ravenous appetite behind a wall of mistruth, self-delusion and concealment. This caused conflict within Skulks, who was otherwise possessed of an extraordinary self-confidence and thick skin, leading him to false bravado an
d jocularity when it came to his eating habits.
As energy-giving steak and kidney burned up in his stomach, Skulks left his office with one hand held over his shoulder in order that Jake could also eat. His tunic pockets bulged where pastries were concealed within and he’d definitely need to give it a thorough wash to cleanse the odours from it.
Skulks was very familiar with the layout of the Chamber Building and headed confidently along its labyrinthine corridors until he found Heathen Spout’s office. The door was not in its frame, instead it lay forlornly against a far wall, crushed, as if it had been subject to a tremendous impact. Spout’s room was always protected by two guards when she was present and they lay in the corridor. There was no mistaking that one of them was dead, but the other groaned as he stared up at the ceiling from where he had fallen. Skulks looked at the guard and could see that he didn’t have long left. The man’s eyes focused on Skulks, recognizing his face.
“The basement,” he whispered.
Skulks was torn between trying to help the soldier and continuing his search for Zera Graves. He was saved the trouble when the man passed away before his eyes, the air shuddering out of his lungs as he breathed his last. Cursing, Skulks checked Spout’s room anyway, but of the Councillor there was no sign.
Usually Skulks’ activities were fun and games to him. His flesh might occasionally be scorched by an angry wizard or he might have his boots stolen by a baboon, but it was only ever Skulks himself who had to suffer. Now, he was angry at the sight of what had happened in the Chamber Building and he determined that he would do his utmost to put an end to it. Skulks rarely became truly angry, but on those occasions, he was capable of astoundingly daring feats. Another rumbling sound reached his ears, this time close by.