Starspawn

by Wendy N. Wagner

  Jendara played her lantern’s light over the ground. “There’s a bit of glass here. Whoever was using this as a lamp must have dropped it and left it behind.”

  “Pretty sure it was deep ones,” Zuna said from a few feet ahead. She held out a piece of something pinched between her fingertips, and the trio hurried to see.

  Jendara’s nose crinkled at the rank smell of spoiled fish. “Is that a fin?”

  “I think it’s part of one.” Zuna dropped the bit of flesh and wiped her hand on her pants.

  Kran caught Jendara’s eye. He pointed at the fin and a scuff on the floor, then waved back at the spot where she’d seen the broken glass. Then he pointed down at the ground again and motioned her over. Jendara hunkered down to see more clearly. A faint trace of blood caught her eye.

  “A footprint,” she said. “Not human.”

  Kran nodded. He brought up three fingers, hesitated a moment, then raised a fourth.

  Excitement built in Jendara’s chest. “Three, probably four deep ones. They found Boruc, Tam, and Yerka here in this hallway. Then they fought, and the deep ones won.”

  Kran nodded. He pointed down the hallway.

  “And they continued down the hallway—” She squinted, catching another faint scuff mark on the ground. It was hard to make out a track down here. When they’d first entered these hallways, she’d gotten the sense that someone had cleaned these halls, and that sense had only grown stronger as they’d continued exploring them. Now she knew why. The deep ones were using this hallway as their major thoroughfare, and they didn’t want anyone to track them. “They must have been dragging one of the prisoners in an upright position. Those marks look the toes of someone’s boots being rubbed along the ground.”

  Kran grinned and bobbed his head. She smiled back at him. “Nice work, boy.” She knew he’d been learning a lot about tracking from Yul, but this was amazing work. Most adults she knew couldn’t have read this scene as well as her boy just had.

  Vorrin studied the empty hallway ahead. “So this is the right way.”

  “Yes.” Jendara helped Kran to his feet and watched him take the lead with Fylga. Jendara couldn’t stop beaming.

  The hallway continued, just as clean as ever: no dead and dying creatures to crunch underfoot, no mud or debris to show tracks. It must have taken a big crew a long time to clear out the hallway this much. Jendara bit the inside of her cheek, trying to work out just how big and how long.

  They hadn’t passed any doorways since they left the junction off the first tunnel, but now doors began to appear. The cleaners had concentrated their efforts on the floor, leaving the usual encrustations that sealed shut the doors of the island. Whatever religious item interested the deep ones, it wasn’t tucked away inside this hallway.

  She wondered just what they had found. What could make a place sacred to creatures like that? She wasn’t even sure what gods they might worship.

  Fylga’s bark of warning cut through Jendara’s musings.

  “Kran!” she shouted, pulling out her sword as she broke into a run. She couldn’t see a thing in the darkness beyond the boy, but she knew something was wrong.

  Then she could hear the slap of webbed feet striking stone. As she reached her boy, her lantern caught the green frog-face of an ulat-kini. She shoved her lantern into Kran’s hands and brought up her sword.

  “Get back!” she shouted at him.

  Fylga snarled and sank her teeth into the ulat-kini’s leg. The frogman shrieked, but there were a half-dozen more at his side. Jendara parried the injured creature’s awkward stab with its trident. Where had they come from? She tried to scan for an open doorway, something, but the ulat-kini lunged again. Wounded or not, the damned thing was eager to kill her.

  But he’d overextended himself and exposed his entire side. She drove her blade into his ribs and felt the bones shatter against the force of her blow. His face went suddenly still. Jendara drove her palm into his chest to clear her blade. There were too many of the bastards to risk getting her sword hung up in anyone’s spine.

  Somewhere another ulat-kini shrieked in pain and fear, but Jendara stayed focused on the ones in front of her: two ulat-kini with sturdier tridents than the one she’d just fought. Vorrin was keeping them at bay, but he couldn’t keep up his pace for long. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Kran with his back pressed against the tunnel wall, his seax at hand and a snarling Fylga at his feet. There were no ulat-kini nearby—for the moment, he was safe enough.

  Korthax grabbed her arm. “Wait!”

  She shook him off. She wasn’t going to go easy on these scum just because one of their kind had bought passage on her ship. Jendara charged at the nearest ulat-kini and sent it sprawling.

  “Help!”

  That was Zuna’s voice, sounding strained. Jendara kicked the fallen ulat-kini in the head and felt it go limp. She risked a quick glance around to find Zuna.

  Zuna had managed to disarm her opponent, but now the big ulat-kini had wrapped its hands around her throat. She clawed at the creature’s webbed fingers. If Jendara didn’t do something, Zuna would be dead in seconds.

  “No!” Korthax shouted. “There’s something—”

  And then a cloud of white webbing covered Zuna and her attacker. For one moment, they stood frozen together, and then the netting went taut and the package of Zuna and ulat-kini flew sideways and disappeared into the darkness.

  “Zuna!” Vorrin shouted. He shoved his attacker aside. “Zuna!”

  Another sheet of webbing shot out, just missing Vorrin to land on the floor. The ulat-kini Jendara had stomped groaned and tried to push itself upright. Its hand touched the webbing. The ulat-kini tried to pull away, but the webbing was too sticky.

  The web went taut. With its free hand, the ulat-kini caught Jendara’s leg and held tight. She kicked at its ribs, but the creature didn’t loosen its hold. Her boots began to slide across the floor.

  “You bastard,” she growled. She kicked it again, but then a wet ripping sounded and the web pulled away from the ulat-kini’s palm as its skin gave way. With a screech, the ulat-kini scrambled away, clutching its hand to its chest. One of its kind pulled it to its feet and the pair raced away.

  “Is everyone all right?” Jendara called. Kran ran to her side, patting her shoulder and arm with his free hand. She grabbed his chin and made him look in her eyes. “I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Zuna’s gone,” Vorrin said. He pointed at a dark hole in the wall. “There’s a staircase right here. The ulat-kini must have been coming out of it.”

  “They were running away,” Korthax said, his voice hollow. “They were afraid, and they were running away, and you killed them.” He pointed at three dead ulat-kini lying on the floor. “You did not even talk to them.”

  Jendara tightened her lips to hold back angry words. She’d done what the situation had demanded. She had to protect her family. It was her first duty.

  “The one with your friend,” Korthax managed to say. He trembled as he spoke. “That was my brother, Fithrax.”

  Vorrin stared into the dark stairway. There were no sounds whatsoever. Nothing to encourage them on. “We’ve got to go after them.”

  “Yes,” said Korthax. He pushed past Vorrin and raced into the dark.

  16

  CLEARING COBWEBS

  No one spoke as they made their way down the stairs. The island had so many, many staircases, some narrow, some broad, some long enough to stretch from the top floor down to the lowest tunnel, and others that only connected the bowels of the place to its lower levels. The people who had made this city must have spent most of their lives moving from level to level, from one dark hallway down to the darker. So many stairs, and not a single one was built for someone with a human-sized foot. Jendara glowered at the dark stones beneath her boot. Her legs hurt.

  Fylga pressed against her as they walked. The dog had never expected Jendara to pet it or feed it or do anything beyond open
the door so it could go outside to relieve itself, but now Fylga want to be right next to her. Maybe it was just Kran’s closeness. He always carried himself with independence, but now he, too, walked as closely behind Jendara as physically possible. She could feel his warm breath against her shoulder and smell the odd combination of laundry soap and dog that made up his scent these days.

  If she could have clung to someone, perhaps she would have. But she needed both hands free to carry her axe and her lantern. She’d rather have her sword out—if they came upon whatever shot those webs, she wanted to inflict damage from as far away as possible—but she knew the axe was a better choice in this narrow stairwell.

  “There’s more of the web stuff,” Glayn murmured.

  Vorrin and Glayn gave the web a wide berth as they passed, but Jendara paused to take a closer look. This webbing didn’t look like quite like the white material that had shrouded Zuna. This was a long silky strand with an opalescent gleaming. Jendara had seen it before—stuck to Zuna’s hair. Her stomach sank as she realized she’d seen it before that, even. Back on Sorind. It was the stuff that had trapped Oric and Fylga on the rocks.

  She made sure Kran avoided touching the web and stayed quiet until they reached the landing below. She caught Vorrin’s arm and quickly told him about the shimmering threads. He grew more uncomfortable as she spoke, but didn’t open his mouth until she had finished.

  “On Sorind? You’re sure?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t like this,” he admitted. “That means that whatever is making these webs isn’t limited to this island.” He shook his head. “Do you think something could hitch a ride on the Milady?”

  “That thread is about a thousand times thicker than a regular spider’s web. I’m sure we would have noticed a giant spider.”

  “Vorrin and Jendara? Do you see this?” Glayn held the lantern higher.

  The hallway they had just entered looked very much like the other second-level tunnel they’d explored. It was quiet enough Jendara could hear the faint sound of feet splashing in the distance—probably Korthax, running up ahead of them.

  Everything felt damp down here. When the island had been submerged, this level had certainly been filled with water, and every surface was overgrown with seaweed and crustaceans, now very dead. But the big black box leaning up against the nearest support column was completely clean. It sat in the midst of some broken and dirty spider webs, a structure that reminded Jendara of an abandoned bird’s nest.

  Vorrin rapped his knuckles on the front of it. “What’s this made out of? It’s not metal, that’s for sure.”

  “I don’t care much what it’s made of.” Glayn edged away from the thing. It was nearly as tall as he was. “Look at all that web stuff inside. It’s like it was part of a spider’s nest or something.”

  Recognition struck Jendara. “It does matter what it’s made of.” She squatted down to study the strange black stuff more closely. She ran her palm across it. Not a single scratch marked its surface. “Remember when we first saw the ulat-kini and the black ship? They were unloading those really big black crates.”

  Vorrin nodded. “The crates were full of the pieces they used to build the floating dock.”

  “Right.” Jendara stood back up. “But what if there was something else inside one of them? What if they had a stowaway?”

  “Shipping crates make good places for vermin to hide,” Glayn pointed out. “Plenty of bugs and spiders get hauled around on ships.”

  “But what kind of spider shoots a web big enough to snare two human-sized creatures?” Jendara asked.

  Kran’s chalk tapped on his slate. They all turned to watch him hold up his slate. Are there spiders on Leng?

  Jendara frowned at him. She had no answer for her son.

  Somewhere in the distance, someone screamed.

  * * *

  The hallway sloped downward as they ran, and Jendara’s boots slipped and slid on the damp sludge of rotting seaweed and mud. A faint breeze stirred the fetid air, bringing with it a charnel stink: not the usual pungent stench of fish and crustaceans, but the darker reek of death.

  In the corridor ahead, something gleamed. Jendara slowed, trying to make sense of the dazzle of light. Fylga gave a sudden excited bark and picked up speed, leaping over heaps of broken shells as she went.

  Realization hit Jendara. “Kran! Stop!”

  In mid-jump, Fylga hit the wall of webbing and yelped with fear. Kran tried to stop, but the floor was too slick. Fylga flailed and whimpered.

  Vorrin stumbled and caught himself. “Kran!”

  Jendara and Glayn reached the web. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Kran looked up at her and nodded. He and Fylga were tangled together in the sticky stuff. The dog’s struggling had done nothing to loosen her. Kran was in better shape, because Fylga’s furry body had come between his legs and the web. But his right hand, the one carrying his lantern, had thrust into the gap between two of the thicker strands so that his entire right shoulder and rib cage were stuck fast. He had to hold his neck stiff to keep his head free.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Glayn warned unnecessarily. Everyone was thinking of the ulat-kini who had lost his skin to the powerful stickiness of the web.

  The little gnome moved closer, frowning. “A spider web isn’t sticky all over,” he pointed out. “Otherwise the spider would be trapped like the bugs it catches. Some of its strands are made out of a different kind of thread.”

  Fylga stopped flailing, but her whimpering grew louder. Vorrin reached out to stroke the top of the dog’s head. “Don’t worry, girl. We’ll get you out of this.”

  Jendara stooped so she could make eye contact with Kran. “We’ll have you loose in a second, okay?”

  Kran smiled and waved his free hand in a show of unconcern. Jendara tried to smile at him, but her face didn’t want to work properly. He couldn’t even talk to her, not with his slate caught in the web.

  She had to stop looking at him. “Okay.” She looked up at the web. “Okay,” she repeated. “How do we know which strands are sticky and which aren’t?”

  Glayn stared up at the top of the tunnel, where coarse strands of silk joined with the ceiling. “Those ones, there,” he pointed out. “Those are definitely for structure.”

  “There must be threads like that at the bottom.” Jendara lowered her light.

  “One of them doesn’t actually go down to the tunnel floor,” Vorrin noticed. “It goes off to the side and down the hall. It almost looks like a trip line.” He paused. “Like on a snare.”

  Fylga stopped whimpering and began to growl.

  “Do you hear that?” Glayn whispered.

  A tiny sound, barely audible over Fylga’s growling, came from the darkness beyond the light of Kran’s lantern. A tiny click-clicking, like the tap of some hard point against stone. Jendara raised her lantern so its light shone on the ceiling just beyond the web.

  Four gleaming orbs reflected back at her.

  “Shit!” Jendara almost dropped the lantern.

  The clicking hurried toward them. Jendara pulled her handaxe from her belt and chopped at the thick cord of web on Kran’s right side. For a horrible moment she thought the blade would stick, but with a faint squeak, the fibers parted. She tried to find the next structural thread, but Fylga was struggling again, and the whole web bucked and twisted along with her.

  “Can you calm Fylga down?” she begged Kran. What the hell was the spider doing? Was it just watching them?

  “Watch out!” Glayn yelled.

  Vorrin threw himself sideways just in time to miss the silk-and-rock bolas that launched his way. It hit the wall with a nasty thud.

  This was no ordinary spider. Its body filled the roof of the tunnel, its many legs gripping the walls on either side. And it wasn’t just huge, it was smart enough to make weapons. Jendara chopped at the next strand of the web, watching the creature from the corner of her eye. She could just see Glayn slicing away at th
e strands around Fylga.

  The spider dropped to the ground, and Jendara could see it fully now. Each of its eleven legs was close to twice as long as Jendara was tall, and its bulbous purple belly glistened faintly in the lantern light. Its mandible-like mouth parts opened and shut with a cold snicking sound.

  Fylga snarled at the thing. With a twang, the main structural thread beneath her broke under Glayn’s slashing, and the dog fell free. She rushed at the spider, strands of web trailing out behind her. The spider raised a massive spiky leg and batted her aside as if she were a gnat.

  The dog struggled to get to her feet, but the sticky webbing caught and stuck to the floor. She barked angrily and the spider raised its clawed foreleg above her, poised to strike.

  Kran’s hand moved faster than Jendara could have expected. He’d drawn his belt knife while Jendara worked to cut him loose. The knife flew true, driving into one of the spider’s eyes with a squelch. The spider hissed.

  Glayn squeezed beneath the bottom of the web, the sticky stuff catching his pack for an instant before he pushed through. His short-bladed gladius sliced through the bottom third of the spider’s leg. Blue-green blood sprayed out. The spider reared back on its remaining legs, exposing its mottled black spinneret.

  “Help me,” Jendara called to Vorrin. She nearly had Kran free.

  He grabbed Kran’s shoulder and began pulling at the boy as she chopped at one last strand. Vorrin and Kran tumbled backward. Through the veil of the web, Jendara saw a shimmering as the spider began to play out a length of silk. It chittered at Glayn. His attack on the spider had been brave, but now he’d drawn its ire, and there was no place for him to run if the spider tried to net him.

  An idea hit Jendara.

  “Glayn—the broken leg! Throw it to me!”

  He grabbed the sheared-off spider leg and tossed it through the gap beneath the web. It felt cold and strange in Jendara’s hand, a weirdly smooth substance that reminded her of the material of the black packing crate and the floating docks. No stone or metal or wood had ever felt like this. The hair spikes on the inside edge of the leg bit into her palms as she hefted the thing. It was only about three feet long, but it weighed a tremendous amount.