“Hurry up!” she screamed, beyond the ability to keep calm, beyond feeling anything but the blind need to run. There was sudden light as Glayn wriggled out of the tunnel and she shot forward.
Her hands touched rock at the same time something tightened around her right ankle, and her leg yanked backward hard enough to make the joints scream with pain.
“Help!” She clawed at the stones, but her body slid backward inexorably.
“Jendara!” Glayn grabbed her wrists.
She gasped as her body snapped tight, held fast between her friend and the spider. “It’s got me!”
“Hold on to her, Glayn!” Vorrin pulled out his sword. He slashed at the web that made up the roof of the tunnel, trying to make enough space to reach the line pulling on her ankle.
Glayn’s boots skidded on the floor and Jendara let out an inadvertent shriek.
Then Kran was there, throwing his arms around Glayn’s waist. Jendara tightened her grip on Glayn.
Vorrin swore softly as he chopped at the tough, sticky fibers. “Got it,” he grunted and gave the sword one last swing. Jendara’s ankle came free and she fell forward.
Glayn dragged her to her feet. “Are you all right?”
Fylga let out a volley of barking as the mother spider broke through the wall of the chamber, her tough leg spikes tearing free of the web as if it were wet paper. The wall beside it sagged and buckled, revealing more of the cavern’s true shape. Where she and the others stood, the stone floor ran straight and true, but from that point left, erosion had worn away the stone. A rip between the egg chamber’s wall and the floor revealed what she couldn’t see before: the spiders had spun their web rooms over a hole in the ground. A salt breeze wafted up, carrying with it the sound of waves.
A sea cave. Jendara’s mind spun. That was probably how the spiders had gotten inside the island—they’d simply floated inside, no different than riding the Milady into their own little grotto.
“We can get out down there!”
The others stared at her.
“Don’t you hear the sea?” She point at the rip. “It’s just down there!”
And then the spider mother knocked Jendara off her feet.
19
THE BITTEREST POISON
Jendara slid across the stone floor. A rock gouged into the meat of her chin as she went, and then she saw stars as her head smashed into the ground. She lay still a second, clutching her face. Her chin bled, a lot, but she didn’t think the jaw itself was injured. She got to her feet and nearly toppled over backward as the rock crumbled beneath her feet. Desperate, she lunged forward and caught solid ground.
The spider snapped at Vorrin, venom dripping off its black fangs. He sidestepped the thing, his sword slicing through the air as he moved. The blade sheared through the tip of one of its mouth parts, and the spider reared back, more surprised than hurt.
Jendara looked around herself for something that might do more damage. This spider was huge, bigger than the one they’d faced back in the tunnel. She’d gotten lucky with that one, finding a weak spot in its armored hide. She might not get so lucky with this one.
An idea hit her. This time they weren’t trapped in a tunnel. This time, they were perched on the edge of a crumbling cliff, and if she had to guess, that spider weighed a lot.
“Go for the face again!” she shouted.
Vorrin dropped to the ground as a length of silk shot over his head and came up with his boot dagger in hand. He launched it. The dagger soared through the air and drove into one of the spider’s eyes. The creature took an inadvertent step backward over the edge of the cliff. Its front legs caught the rocky edge, but its great weight was too much for the weathered stone, and the wall crumbled beneath it. A length of silk caught for a second, and then another slab of stone sheared off the side of the cliff.
For a moment, no one moved, afraid the rest of the floor would follow. Then Jendara moved to the rim of the precipice, peering down into the darkness. Down below she thought she saw waves. There was no movement along the walls and no opalescent gleam of spider web, but she was ready for the thing to climb back up at any second.
“I heard a big crunch.”
Jendara had almost forgotten Zuna, but the woman knelt on the floor beside her, gripping the edge tightly as she looked down into open space.
“I think it’s gone,” Zuna added. “We’d see it if it were going to climb back up. The rocks must have crushed it.” Her voice was soft and horribly dry.
“Are you all right?”
Zuna shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She sank back into a seated position, and Jendara could see the effort it had taken Zuna to kneel.
Jendara hunkered beside her. “Your leg is bleeding.”
“It hurts like demons are in it. But at least I can see again.” Zuna rubbed her eyes. “Everything was colors, even sound. Ripples of strange colors like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Vorrin touched Jendara’s shoulder. “We have to get her back to the ship.” He shook his head, his eyes dark and unhappy. “There’s no way to know how much damage the spider’s bite did, or what it’s poison is doing to her.”
Jendara got to her feet. “No one else got bit, right?”
She looked around at the group. Glayn and Kran shook their heads. A few feet away, Korthax knelt beside Fithrax, whispering in his ear. She squeezed Kran’s shoulder as she passed him. Korthax whipped backward as she approached, as if embarrassed to be seen comforting his brother. Fithrax looked bad.
“Fithrax? Would you like some water?” She held out her canteen. Fylga paused to sniff at the three of them and then trotted away, disinterested.
“Here.” Korthax took it. He sprinkled a few drops of water on his brother’s lips. Up close, Jendara could see that Fithrax’s face was wider and more froglike than Korthax’s. He still showed hybrid features—there were a few threads where he might have once sported eyebrows, and his legs were longer than other ulat-kini’s—but he looked more aquatic than his brother. Perhaps that was why the ulat-kini had chosen him as their leader, and not Korthax.
He coughed a wracking cough that sent pink froth spraying out his mouth. Korthax reached into the pouch at his waist. Something shiny slipped from his hand and he drew out a scrap of seaweed, which he wiped Fithrax’s mouth with.
“What was that?” she asked on instinct.
“What?”
“That metal thing you just put in your pouch.”
Korthax withdrew a bit of mother-of-pearl. “Our father’s. I asked—” he broke off. “I do not think he has much time left.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you can make him comfortable.” She left her canteen with him and went back to look over the edge. There was no sign of the giant spider, and no way down to the water below except to lower themselves down by rope. She bit her lip. She had no idea how they were going to get Zuna back to the ship.
Kran waved at her. He tapped his ear and cupped a hand around it, miming listening hard. She paused to listen and heard only her own breath.
“What is it?”
He shook his head. But he kept his head cocked as if he still heard something. Then Jendara stiffened as she heard it, too. A tiny whisper.
“Somebody’s trapped.” She stared at the remaining web rooms. She didn’t want to go into them now that she knew they hung over open space. Spider silk might be tough, but she didn’t want to trust it with her life.
Kran raised an eyebrow and reached for his slate. We don’t weigh a tenth of what that spider did, he wrote, as if reading her mind. He paused, listening again. Then he added: Fylga.
He didn’t need to clarify. Jendara remembered the way the dog had sniffed around so purposefully when they first entered this chamber. Fylga had found something. Or someone.
Her heart climbed in her chest. Maybe the dog had found Sarni.
Jendara ran to nearest web chamber. “Fylga!” she called. “Fylga!”
She stopped in the entryway and covere
d her nose with her hand.
“Don’t come in here, Kran,” she warned, but too late. He was already beside her.
The walls of the chamber were lined with silk-wrapped bundles roughly the shape of small sea creatures. Black goo dripped from one bundle, and a charnel stink came off the foul puddle below. She was standing in the spiders’ larder, and they needed to clean out the pantry.
Jendara caught Kran by the shoulders and steered him out. He spun around to wrap his arms around her, burying his face in her shoulder like he had as a little boy. She couldn’t blame him.
Fylga barked again, and Kran pulled away. His cheeks were dry, his mouth set and hands curled into fists at his side. For a moment, she saw her father in him—her father and herself.
The dog stood in the doorway of the next chamber, her tail held high and ears pricked. If there was a spider inside, Fylga didn’t smell or hear it. Jendara took a step inside, more than a little nervous. With every step, she expected that gigantic mother spider to burst up through the floor and grab her. If there was one thing she’d learned from that crab-thing, it was that she needed to make sure things were dead before she stopped worrying about them.
“Dara?”
The tiny voice came from deep inside the room. Jendara broke into a run. “Sarni?”
“Where am I?”
This room’s walls were unbroken spider web, its lumps even larger and stranger. Kran tugged on her arm, gestured to the room and then the previous one, then made a gesture that meant Same?
“I don’t think so.” She poked at one of the lumpy spots and felt it resist the tip of the stout ash axe handle. She ripped back a hank of silk.
A deep one stared back at her, goggly eyes filmed over and dried. Its mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Jendara ripped at the fabric again, trying to make out its chest. It looked normal, not bloated like the chest of the ulat-kini who had been filled with eggs. Only its arms and legs looked strange, the skin black and cratered like a frostbite victim’s. The deep one stared back at her without sight, its mouth opening and closing, opening and closing.
“Jendara?” Sarni whispered. “Where are you? Where am I?”
Jendara wrenched her eyes away from the deep one. “I’m right here, Sarni.” She squinted hard, and could just make out Sarni’s brown cap of hair above one of the silk-covered lumps. She went immediately to the girl’s side, tearing silk away from her face.
Sarni stared around herself with the same blind, frosted gaze as the deep one. Jendara tugged the sheet of cobweb out of Sarni’s fingers. “I’ve got you,” she murmured. She put her hands under Sarni’s arms and pulled the girl to her feet.
The stench hit her before realization did. Sarni’s misty eyes rolled weakly in her head. Up close, Jendara could see the silken threads pinning the lids open. Fine strands of silk covered her nose, her ears, her mouth. Every surface of her had been meshed over, pulling her skin tight in places.
But not tight enough. Beneath Jendara’s hands, she felt Sarni’s skin sliding away, sinking into the gooey layer beneath the flesh.
“Oh gods,” Jendara whispered. “Kran, get Vorrin.”
The boy ran.
“Dara, I’m sorry.”
“Sshh,” Jendara said, easing the girl toward the doorway. She had to get her out of this place.
“I thought the danger was in the water, but it was on the cavern ceiling all the time. The Milady—” Sarni broke off with a little gasp of pain, and Jendara felt a hot trickle run out over her hands.
“Don’t talk,” she warned the girl.
“I woke up a couple of times. I was like a puppet. My body was moving, but I couldn’t control it.” Sarni began to weep. Her tears beaded up on the silk and then soaked through the fabric, making it sag.
Vorrin met them at the doorway and reached out to take Sarni’s elbow. He stopped when he saw the black goo running down her sides where Jendara’s hands dug into her rotting flesh. “Oh, sweet Desna. What happened?”
Jendara hesitated, not sure if she ought to try to keep Sarni upright or if her grip was doing more harm than good. The girl’s legs buckled beneath her, and Jendara eased her to the ground. Skin and meat sloughed off with trickles of stinking black liquid.
“It sounds like she was some kind of a slave,” she said. “Under the spiders’ control.”
Glayn came to kneel beside the injured girl. “Her whole body looks like Zuna’s wound. The spider’s bite is…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “We’ve got to get Zuna back to the Milady.”
“I know,” Jendara said. She squeezed her eyes shut against tears. “I don’t think Sarni’s going to make it back with us.”
Sarni let out an anguished groan.
“It’s okay,” Jendara murmured. “We’re here.”
Blood welled up in the corners of Sarni’s eyes, and a black rivulet trickled out of her left nostril. “It hurts so bad,” she gasped. She gave a little shriek. “Oh gods!”
Jendara stared down at the girl. Stretched out flat like she was, Sarni’s wounds were apparent: the spider silk had held her together, but only barely. Tarry goo wept out her pores, stinking of rotten flesh, and her skin was cracked and buckled. They’d never get her back to the Milady’s sick room in time to stop whatever vile poison was doing this.
Jendara had promised herself she would take care of Sarni. She had promised she would help the girl find a better life, a good life. And now Sarni lay here dying. “I’m so sorry.”
Sarni’s back arched with pain. “Make it stop!” she screamed. “Please!” Blood bubbled up on her lips. “Please, Dara. Please.”
Jendara reached for her belt knife, tears making her vision blurry. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated.
Vorrin reached out to stop her hand. “Jendara?”
Jendara blinked away the tears. “I promised myself I’d take care of her.”
And then with clear sight she slashed the knife across Sarni’s throat, and everything went silent.
* * *
Glayn put his arm around Jendara’s shoulders. “We should go.”
Jendara nodded. The melting husk that had been Sarni looked crumpled and hollow now. There was nothing left of the girl here. She let Glayn help her up.
She looked around the cavern. Korthax still knelt beside his brother. Kran and Fylga huddled together. Zuna sat propped against a rock. A huge weight settled into the pit of Jendara’s stomach. They had come to find treasure, and it had all gone so wrong. Boruc and Tam, missing; Zuna, hurt; Sarni, dead.
She shook her head, as if she could shake away the feelings of despair that held her fast. “Korthax.” Her voice was nearly a croak. She cleared her throat. “How’s your brother?”
“Not good,” the ulat-kini answered, without looking at her. “I do not think he will last much longer.”
Jendara hunkered down beside the brothers. Fithrax’s breathing made a horrible gurgle in his chest, as if something vital had broken inside him. She searched for words. She ought to reassure the creature, give him some kind of comfort. But she didn’t have it in her to lie right now.
She reached for her canteen. “Are you thirsty?”
Fithrax shook his head, eyes rolling wildly in their sockets. He squeezed them shut, and then reopened them to fix his gaze on Korthax. “Yerka,” he managed to say.
“I’ll find her, don’t worry.”
“No.” Fithrax stopped to cough. He drew a deep, wet-sounding breath. “She brought the black robes. For long time, she … watched us. For them.”
Korthax stiffened. “I don’t understand.”
“They want something,” Fithrax gasped. “Yerka … told me…” He closed his eyes, fighting for air.
Jendara leaned closer. “Korthax, what does he mean?”
“I don’t know.” His eyes narrowed as he spoke. She could see him thinking hard. “He shut Yerka up in the boat. I did not know why. I thought—to protect her? But perhaps he caught her spying for the black robes.”
“Deep ones—their god—” He stiffened, fighting against some deep pain. “Should have listened to you, Brother. Should have used … star scepter as you planned.”
“Fithrax,” Korthax whispered. He murmured something in their harsh language that made the other creature’s features soften.
Then Fithrax burst into a coughing fit, his body doubling up as he fought to breathe. Finally, he coughed up a glob of bloody flesh. He lay back in Korthax’s arms, limp. After a moment, he opened his eyes. “Tomorrow is the night to summon the god. The stars are right.”
Korthax shook his head. “Don’t talk anymore, please.”
Fithrax fought for his next words. “Protect … our people. Do not let the black robes break their word.” He gasped with pain and then went still, his eyes empty.
Korthax lowered his brother to the ground. “Fithrax?”
Jendara reached out toward the fallen ulat-kini, pausing for a second, unwilling to touch his green flesh. Then she put her hand on his arm. It was warm. It didn’t feel remotely like a human arm, but it was still warm. There was no pulse. “He’s dead.”
“Yes.” Korthax got up.
Jendara followed. Her joints were stiff. Her arm hurt, even if she could wiggle her fingers again. Her chin felt as if someone had inflated it and kicked it around like a ball. Her eyes were dry and puffy. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Even her voice sounded tired and worn.
Vorrin helped Zuna to her feet. “And quickly. Zuna’s getting weaker.”
“Kran.” Jendara looked around for the boy, who had followed Fylga away from the group and the spider web chambers. She hadn’t paid much attention to that end of the cavern, where a few sheets of spider web hung like tent walls, obscuring much of the space. She pushed between them to watch her boy.
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