Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  “It’s useless,” Spinneretta said, legs lashing about to feed the furnace in her heart. “Like Heinokk before you, you’ll never use magic again.”

  His face twisted in shock, and then fury. “What have you done? What have you done to my power?” Rage rippled off his body. He sank into a loaded crouch and flew at her, a battlecry screeching through the cave.

  Spinneretta’s overcharged nervous system beheld in slow motion as the Helixweaver approached, raised one massive fist overhead, and slammed it down toward her. She didn’t shirk away from the attack this time. She did not dodge. She just threw her appendages out to meet the blow head on.

  Plated legs pierced flesh. The chitin struts and filaments buried in his muscles and bones cracked, splintered. Nemo’s jaw went slack. His whole body tensed. Spinneretta’s spider legs stabbed deeper and then flexed. The tactile release of crushing his arm brought a sadistic grin to her lips, and Nemo’s cries of unexpected agony very nearly brought her over the edge. Blood splattered into the air. The scent permeated her, repulsed her, sickened her, thrilled her, aroused her.

  Nemo collapsed to his knees, his free arm and pseudo-arachnid appendages gravitating toward his destroyed limb. Spinneretta wrapped her fingers in the yellow sleeve of the King’s robe, lifted one foot, and threw it straight into the bridge of Nemo’s nose. A wet crack split the sound of his screams. The incredible force of the blow sent him tumbling across the ground and out of the robe. He struck the wall, shoulder first, in nothing more than the stained long-leather garments of the Websworn. Stunned from the impact, Nemo groped at the limp remnants of his arm and howled in agony. And when he glared up at her, their gazes met. And then his pupil sparkled with terror.

  With a flourish of fabric, Spinneretta pulled the tattered saffron robe around her shoulders, slipping her arms into the overlarge sleeves. Her spider legs fumbled around the back, and then found the opened slits from which the King’s own appendages had once extended. It was comfortable, familiar. It had been waiting for her. She drew the hood up over her head and watched as Nemo’s jaw dropped, tongue twitching between the rotting walls of his mouth. Lips quivering as she tried to hold back the murderous rage within her, she growled a single word. “Usurper.”

  Horror dawned upon Nemo’s face, rupturing his mask of arrogance. “No, you are . . . You can’t be—!”

  “Bow,” Spinneretta said. “Accept your fate. Pretender to the throne of the spider kingdom. Reborn of Heinokk.”

  Nemo just shook his head as tremors attacked his frame. “Urn . . . Urn-ma Nayor? P-please, forgive me!”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. The scent of blood was overpowering. Her skin prickled with a euphoric shiver. “Prostrate yourself, heretic. So your life may be extinguished with dignity.”

  His mouth spread wider, and a shrill howl splintered the frail quiet of the chamber. He turned and, nearly tripping over his own feet, sprinted down the entrance tunnel.

  As his form vanished into the curving tunnel, Spinneretta grinned. From the Helixweaver’s back, a scarred mist-sign stared out, mangled, burned, ruined by chitin. She was about to give chase and sate her lust for blood and vengeance for all he’d done, but a note of logic rang through her mind. Standing at the crossroads of who she had once been and who she now was, between the past and the future, she had to decide which was more important: to bathe in the blood of the reborn of Heinokk for another cycle, or to fulfill the fated purpose of her birth.

  She swallowed hard. Mark. She had to save Mark. And if she was going to stop the Cheshire Man from releasing Raxxinoth, she had no time to finish off Nemo.

  Though she hated the thought of letting the Helixweaver escape, she had no choice. Turning to the wall, her spider legs flexed and went to work, carving her sign into an unblemished section of wall. The vertical slash tore through the symbol, and as soon as it was completed she pressed the palm of her hand into the center, her heart pounding. She felt the seething energy flow through her limbs, coursing through her veins, bringing the air alive with the mistforce.

  She closed her eyes, extending her focus to the world on the Web, where the counterspell barrier had deflected her attempts at entry. Sure enough, she could feel it flowing, tessellations rolling and shifting in her mind. The anti-magic that flowed through her sparked and roiled, and she poured the entirety of her mind’s force into the sigil. Wild tongues of psychic mist reflected off the walls as she directed her attack at Mark’s sealing spell. For a few moments, she felt only the cracking and snapping of that barrier as her power dispersed and rebounded.

  But the Wine expanded outward, licking across the boundary of her influence. A rumble reverberated through her mind and soul. The door of the Instinct rattled in its frame as the Yellow King’s power seeped through the cracks. She bit her lip. The Instinct blotted out her restraint and dissolved her ill-needed self-control. Nayor, she thought, body trembling. If some part of you still exists in me, if any fragment of your mind remains, then release yourself to me. Help me. Relinquish your strength, your power. As the successor to your soul, as the Chosen of Raxxinoth, I command you—give me what’s mine!

  The other voice in her mind gave a final inarticulate howl. Her entire body shook with an autonomous spasm. Her mind and thoughts flooded with that familiar force. The claws of negative energy grew stronger, crystallizing as metaphysical extensions of her body.

  Breath coarse, blood flowing over her lip, she stood with shaking hands and limbs. It obeyed—the power obeyed! Not the trickle of mist that damned Kaj, but a hundred-year storm of it. Her birthright, the Wine of Raxxinoth, the bane of occultists and wizards—with each thought, the field flowed, tracing the contours of the barrier. Then, the Wine exploded in a last glorious flash of power that burst from her entire body and penetrated the sigil. The barrier cracked, and a sharp pain behind her left eye brought her back to the present. Pulse still thundering, she focused on the gap in the spell and drew out the rite of the Web portal.

  At her command, yellow light foamed from the sigil. A joyous laugh almost brought her to her knees. At last, the mist flowed and twisted, expanding and devouring the surface of the wall. The gray mists swirled there, cold arms spiraling out in wispy trails.

  Her whole body tingled at the wet kiss of the fog. Her breath, still ragged and hungry, was filled with foul-tasting chemical moisture. It was the taste of destiny. Hold on, Mark, she thought. I’m coming! With that, she leapt into the portal once again.

  Sprinting down the hall, Nemo’s screams echoed in all directions. As it became clear the girl was not following him, the terror pounding through his veins gradually gave way to a manic hunger. It was hatred, not only for the girl, but for himself. How could he have made such a grievous miscalculation? This was nothing if not fate heavy-handedly striking him across the face for his hubris. What value was there in being the Chosen of two gods if he couldn’t even kill a little girl? If there was a bright side, however, it was that he was alive. His screams subsided. He began to cluck, laughter spilling out, an anesthesia that erased the pain of his demolished arm. The girl had let him live. She’d had her chance to kill him, and she’d blown it. And he’d make sure it was a fatal mistake.

  Though his magic had been sealed, he would not allow the enemy of Raxxinoth and the Malefice to defeat him. He had time. He had time to kill her siblings. He had time to drink their blood—the blood of the King—and restore his power. When he’d bathed in the blood of his gods’ enemies and reignited his magic, he’d be ready to face her. She wouldn’t take him by surprise this time, and now that he knew her secret the throne was his for the taking. At last, he’d have the honor of killing the King. Choking on his own breath, pain tearing constellations through his lungs, he kept sprinting down the hall leading back to the main connecting chamber.

  “Bring me their blood!” he screeched ahead to whatever Websworn yet remained to hear him. “Bring me their blood! As your king, I command it! Long live the Yellow Dawn! Long live the Yellow Dawn!”
>
  Chapter 49

  No Comets Seen

  Each step Chelsea took ripped at the stitch in her side. The nigh-endless tunnel stretched on and on, and Arthr’s weight on her shoulders tilted her spine and made running difficult. Nerve pain ran up and down her back, but she just kept putting one foot ahead of the other, following Annika’s trudging steps ahead. As the woman barked words like hurry and the fuck up, it was all Chelsea could do to keep from breaking down in tears. “It’s going to be alright,” she muttered, half to Arthr and half to herself. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

  They were getting close, and though the sounds of the cultists closing in behind grew louder and louder, so too did the air in the tunnel grow lighter and cooler. Freedom was only a short distance further on.

  Up ahead, Chelsea’s eyes were drawn toward a smear of pale blue on the wall. Annika gave a sharp yelp. “There!” she shouted. “Sunlight!”

  With a renewed purpose, Chelsea hastened her steps toward that glimmering spot. The weight on her shoulders ceased to burden her. The pain no longer mattered. They were going to make it, and Amanda and Arthr would be okay. They’d get the treatment they needed, and then—

  They rounded the last corner, and hope died in her chest. Ahead was the passage leading to daylight. Though the diffuse glow of morning’s first light shone in at them, the black outline of a heavy gate crisscrossed it. And before that gate stood the silhouette of a man with a raised spear.

  “Oh, fuck!” Annika yelled.

  As Chelsea and Kara skidded to a stop, nearly sending Arthr spilling onto the ground, the gatekeeper lunged forward, yelling incomprehensible slurs of demonic origin. The flintknapped spearhead flashed toward Annika. The detective pivoted on her heel. Amanda stumbled, a living counterweight to Annika’s evasive maneuver. The point ripped a shallow gash in Annika’s forearm. With a pained groan, her cut arm went to her ankle. The detective tore the knife from her ankle-strap again and sent it across the Websworn’s face in a single fluid motion.

  The guard’s spear rattled against the ground. Still trapped under Amanda’s weight, Annika took a clumsy step forward and tackled the Websworn to the floor. She pressed the blade of her knife to his throat, struggling to keep herself up. “The gate,” she said with a hoarse breath. “Open the gate. Or I’ll kill you.”

  Chelsea slumped to her knees, unable to remain upright on the incline leading to the exit. Arthr’s body, still strung between her and Kara, nearly dragged her down. “The gate,” she muttered. “You can open it. Right?”

  The Websworn looked up at Annika. The slash across the bridge of his nose and forehead leaked into his eyes. He must not have felt any pain, for he just kept staring with his soulless irises and broad smile. “You will die,” the Websworn said.

  Annika pushed herself upward and drove her elbow into the man-thing’s chest. He doubled over, coughing a helpless spasm. She reasserted her grip over his throat and pressed the blade into his skin. “I’m not fucking around here! Open the gate!”

  A dry horror started in Chelsea’s chest. “Annika? Amanda? You can get it open. You can open it, right?” The cool civil twilight beyond the solid stone lattice invited her beyond. They’d survived so much, endured so much hardship, made it so far. They couldn’t be stopped now by some damn rock gate. They just couldn’t.

  With a mad grin, the Websworn just laughed. “You will die,” he said again. “A-hai, Urn-ma Nemo. A-hai, a-hai.”

  Annika bellowed a furious howl. She flipped her knife into a reverse grip and drove it into the gatekeeper’s throat. A gush of blood erupted as the blade pierced the flesh cavity within. Screaming in a desperate rage, Annika withdrew the knife and stabbed the twitching creature again and again, ignoring Chelsea’s horrified shrieks. Blood covered the front of her blouse, and splatters found their way across her cheeks. A red pool expanded on the cavern floor. When the gatekeeper ceased his choking, Annika buried the knife up to the hilt in his throat again and slammed her fists into the ground. “Goddammit!”

  Before Chelsea could voice her disquiet, Annika shed Amanda from her shoulders and stomped forward to where the stone gate stood set into the cavern’s walls. She threw her gaze between the four mechanical gears on either side of it. “No Vant’therax. No Mark. Just our fucking luck. Okay, okay, calm down, we can do this.” She took a couple shallow breaths, sidling over to one of the mechanisms. “Two, twenty-one.” Her hand took hold of teeth of the gear. Her whole body tensed, strained, and the gear began to turn. Low crunching sounds from inside the wall rattled through the cavern.

  “Annie,” Kara said, out of breath. “What are you doing?”

  Chelsea counted twenty-one clicks as Annika moved the gear.

  Annika let out a loud gasp. “Okay, next is three, twelve. Four, thirty-one. Seven, forty-two. Six . . . ” As she came to the second mechanism, she stopped in her tracks. “Six . . . Oh, fucking no. Fuck, no, fuck that shit! Six, what? Six what!? Okay, wait, we can figure this out. It’s just a fucking math puzzle. Four is to thirty-one as six is to . . . is to . . . ” She sank to her knees before the heavy gate. “Damn you, Mark. Why couldn’t you just finish explaining it to me?”

  A moment later, the detective was on her feet again, trying to pry the gate open using raw strength. “There has to be a way to open this. There’s gotta be.” She threw her shoulder into the thick grating. It gave not even a shudder in reply. With a desperate howl, she again slammed her shoulder into it. At last, she collapsed to her knees once more and expelled a feeble sigh. “Welp, that’s it,” she said. “We’re fucked.”

  Chelsea crept up toward where Annika sat. A violent tremor shook her shoulder as her hand came to rest on the shaft of the spear the gatekeeper had dropped. “H-hey. There’s gotta be another way, right? R-right?”

  Annika shook her head. “If you don’t know, then I don’t either. The last fork was just after that damn rope climb, and this is the only way out I know.” She laughed a black sound. “Was the way out, anyway.”

  Chelsea gawked at her. Her fingernails began to cut into the wood of the spear. “Y-you’re not . . . giving up . . . are you?” Even the exhausted Kara seemed to shudder as she suggested it.

  Annika rolled over onto her side. “We had a good run, kids. But in the end, it wasn’t enough.”

  “B-but, you can’t just . . . Y-you have a gun. How many bullets do you have left?”

  “How many?” She scoffed and pulled her Ruger from her holster. She thumbed the hammer back and put the barrel to her temple. “Let’s just say I feel pretty good about these odds, honey.” As she said it, an idea sparked to life in Annika’s eye. She thumbed open the chamber to her revolver to check it, and then she thrust her hand into her pocket. She drew out a small handful of bronze cartridges and began to chamber the rounds.

  Shoulders trembling, Chelsea flopped to one side. Arthr spilled off her with an inert groan. “You have some more? Oh, thank God.”

  “I have three bullets left. That’s not enough for the cult.” She clicked the cylinder closed. Her expression grew darker. “But it’s enough for you.”

  Chelsea felt the blood run out of her face. “What?”

  “Three bullets. Enough for you, Amanda, and Kara. You three can take the easy way out.”

  Kara slunk up beside them, barely able to keep herself upright. The whole left side of her shirt was stained rusty red. “You’re suggesting we kill ourselves?” The Leng cat just behind croaked a weak noise of protest.

  Annika showed her a chilling nod. “Whatever it is these Websworn are going to do to us, it’s going to be a lot worse than a bullet to the brain. You saw what that thing did to Arthr. And I have a feeling that’s going to be goddamn civil compared to what we’ll be getting.”

  “But we can fight,” Kara gasped, her broken appendage shaking at her shoulder. “We can . . . ”

  The woman’s sad eyes betrayed no doubt. “We can’t fight anymore, Kara. There’s too many of them. Easy way or hard way,” she
said, “this is the end.”

  Chelsea’s heart pounded. The terror creeping up from the depths of her stomach eroded her mental stability. “Oh, God,” she said, barely able to vocalize the sounds. She whipped her head back and forth, taking in the desperation around her. Arthr, his back drenched with blood, lay prone on the ground beside her. Amanda squirmed where she’d fallen from Annika’s shoulder. Kara was doubled over, panting, her face a pained grimace. And Cinnamon—whatever it was—looked like it was losing the battle with exhaustion.

  She stared at where Amanda lay. Her best friend’s breaths were damp and shallow. Fear and despair mixed into a volatile concoction. How was any of this fair? After all they’d gone through, was it their fate to die here in this cave alone and forgotten? The sound of Amanda wheezing brought her to the brink of tears. Chelsea had been in shock back at the Warren home when those coated men had held them at gunpoint. She’d been reduced to a puddle of jelly. If Amanda hadn’t been there, she’d have been killed that day. Amanda had always been the strong one, even in the face of death. She was fierce, unbreakable. Seeing her on her side, struggling even to breathe, gutted Chelsea. It hammered home the reality of their situation. The finality.

  Footsteps drummed along the ground. A low chant drew near. Words of the cult, words of reverence to the devil in the yellow robe. If even Annika had surrendered to despair, then what hope was there? Though Kara looked as though she would still fight, her quivering muscles betrayed her exhaustion and pain. Chelsea swallowed hard. That meant she herself was the only one who could save them. And if she couldn’t do anything but melt into a pool of cowardice and cry, then what good was she? If she couldn’t do anything at all to help Amanda now, then what kind of a friend was she?

  Tears washing the light from her eyes, Chelsea crawled forward past Annika. Fighting through the revulsion, she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the knife still standing in the Websworn’s esophagus and ripped it loose with a nauseating thunk.