Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles

by J. D. Lakey

  “I kept Dancer, I mean Herd Mother …” Vinara corrected herself. It was hard to change a lifetime of habit. Over a year had passed since Cheobawn discovered Sybille’s mount was sentient and she had a truename and a title of rank, as Mother of her herd. “I kept her in her stall until last. Go keep her calm until Sybille comes to collect her. The last thing I need is for this lot to get nervous.”

  Cheobawn nodded, spun on her heel, and started wending her way through the forest of legs, both human and animal. Connor moved to follow her but Vinara called him back to give him duties of a sort more suited for his skills. Cheobawn did not mind. If Herd Mother felt disturbed, she would not welcome Connor’s presence.

  A bennelk squealed in irritation as Cheobawn passed. Gann, its wrangler, swore loudly as he dodged a kick from Cloud Eye’s hind leg. Cheobawn reached up above her head and ran her cold fingers through the thick ruff on the young bennelk’s belly, wishing her patience. Gann was new at his job, picked just this fall to fill an empty apprentice position. Cloud Eye said something that involved a bennelk tail smashing a cloud of stinging bugs. Cheobawn imagined a baby bennelk with Gann’s face and ran on. This amused Cloud Eye immensely. Her nearly subsonic thrumming filled the yard and was taken up by those animals closest to her - the bennelk version of laughter. She wondered if Gann knew enough about his job to know his charges found him amusing. Probably not. She would never tell him. That kind of information went down better coming from another wrangler.

  She ran into the dimly-lit barn and was halfway down the long, dark aisle between the stalls before she remembered to stop and clear her mind. Cheobawn closed her eyes and built an illusion; she was slick as glass; she was transparent as smoke, she was infinite as the sky, she was an unquenchable fire. Compared to this, all her worries faded into insignificance.

  At long last, whispered Herd Mother into her mind, you have come to help me battle the ice demons. The thought was fierce and full of teeth and claws. Cheobawn’s eyes snapped open as a shudder of dread passed down her spine.

  I have not, she said. I just want to go get the herds and bring them back to the long houses.

  Herd Mother snorted in amusement. Pretending that we dance upon the flowers of the spring meadows while walking the stone mountain paths does not make the rocks softer.

  “I, uh. …. What? Are you still talking about ice demons or did you just change the subject?” Cheobawn asked out loud, utterly confused. Was Herd Mother annoyed with her for avoiding her company for so long? “We are not going nearly so far as the stone mountains. The herds are just beyond the orchards, grazing in the hayfields.”

  You can try to avoid the leopard waiting over the trail by backing away but you end up backing into something far worse, surprised and unprepared, Herd Mother insisted, her voice sliding softly through Cheobawn’s mind like bubbles in a mud pot, rising image by image until they formed a string of thoughts.

  “Or I might circle around him and avoid him altogether,” Cheobawn said, not exactly sure what they were arguing about. Reason and logic sometimes did not fit well together inside a bennelk’s skull.

  All circles lead back to the place of beginning, Herd Mother said, her amusement heavy on the ambient.

  Cheobawn laughed out loud, shook the bennelk out of her head, and found herself standing at the stall door with no memory of having finished her walk down the aisle. “Let it go! We are not hunting ice demons. Please stop lecturing me,” she said as she opened the door. “I get enough of that from Connor, thank … oh.” Cheobawn froze in embarrassment.

  Herd Mother was saddled already. Druda, Vinara’s alpha wrangler stood at her head rubbing the boney plates on her forehead. Cheobawn could feel her cheeks grow hot under Druda’s curious gaze.

  “My apologies. I did not realize you were there, Father,” Cheobawn said. “Vinara sent me.”

  You might have told me you had company, she thought, extremely annoyed. Vinara thought you were upset but here you are, letting a male nibble behind your ears.

  We wait. Waiting is what we do until it is time to do otherwise, the old bennelk said serenely.

  “It is good to see you, Little Mother,” Druda said gently. “It has been too long since you came to visit us. I think Dancer misses you.”

  Cheobawn smiled and reached out a hand to pat the velvet on Herd Mother’s questing prehensile lip.

  “It is kind of you to say so,” she said.

  You are an old fraud, pretending to be proddy. Do you upset Vinara just to get attention? Cheobawn asked.

  You were not here, Herd Mother thought, as if this were any sort of explanation. I have felt you coming for days, so I went happily under the saddle.

  I only thought to come this morning. Perhaps you have me confused with some other human fawn.

  Herd Mother laughed, the subsonic sound pressing at the air in the close confines of the stall. Druda, infected by the sound, laughed as well. Cheobawn cocked her head and stared at him. It was not the first time she ever wondered about the male psi abilities. Druda grew nervous under her silent inspection.

  “Sorry, Little Mother,” Druda said, swallowing his laughter. “I don’t know why but that sound always makes me laugh.”

  Your attempt at hiding has confused only you. The rest of us can see you just fine, the Mother of her mind informed her. An image bubbled up in her mind of a fawn with its head hidden in a bush and only its backside still visible, tail wiggling madly with suppressed delight. It reminded her of playing hide-and-seek with the three-year-old kids. Cheobawn almost laughed but she caught herself just in time. She had no time to play this game.

  “Stop that,” she said, stamping her foot in irritation. “Stop trying to change the subject. We are just going to find the herds. That is all. The ice demons are not my problem.”

  “What did she say?” Druda asked. Druda, unlike the rest of the village who operated under a burden of intractable skepticism, accepted without question that Cheobawn could talk to his charges.

  “Herd Mother,” Cheobawn said, casting an acid glare at the bennelk, “feels the need to share her wisdom, most of it unhelpful to the situation at hand.”

  “Ah,” Druda said, as he hid a smile against the bennelk’s nose and patted Herd Mother’s neck, “One should not try to teach an oldma the difference between bloodstones and acorns.”

  Cheobawn glared at him crossly. It was just this kind of indecipherable oldma wisdom she did not need to hear. Was he siding with Herd Mother? She opened her mouth to defend her bruised honor.

  “What do you mean by ice demons?” Sybille asked. Cheobawn hiccuped in surprise and spun around. How long had her nestmate been standing there?

  “It is nothing. I … Herd … it is Dancer’s word for grimstorms.”

  The skeptical sneer on Sybille’s face made it obvious that she did not believe a word of Cheobawn’s explanation. Herd Mother made a rude noise but otherwise remained silent while Cheobawn clamped her teeth together to keep them from chattering as she shivered under Sybille’s cold stare. The silence grew as the air frosted with Sybille’s displeasure. The Mother’s eyes did not leave Cheobawn’s face as she extended a gloved hand towards the wrangler. Druda placed the reins in her palm and left the stall, sliding silently around Cheobawn, the look on his face attesting to the fact that he wanted no part of the conflict that existed between the Coven’s Third Mother and the little Black Bead.

  The moment would not end. It seemed to stretch on and on, in the space between one breath and the next. Cheobawn struggled under its weight. Like all the Mothers in the Coven, Sybille was frighteningly ruthless and deadly in her kindness. Though Cheobawn had never seen her kill with the knives on her belt, she did not doubt for a moment that Sybille would use them if she thought it would solve her problem. Cheobawn never wanted to be that kind of problem.

  Sybille broke the spell with a jerk of her chin.

  “Vinara is holding a mount for you. Move it. You waste my time standing about having imaginary conv
ersations with animals.”

  Cheobawn, her knees suddenly weak, did not rise to the bait though the words were hurtful to both her and Herd Mother. Instead, she pushed the stall door wide and stepped away.

  “Cheobawn,” Sybille said, stopping her with just the word. Cheobawn turned and looked back at her nestmother. “The survival of the domes and your own survival are not the same thing. Do me a favor and remember that,” Sybille said softly.

  Cheobawn, too terrified to dissect the meaning of that threat, simply turned and fled, the weight of Sybille’s displeasure chasing at her heels.

  Chapter Four

  The muster’s chaos had turned into a well-ordered ranking by the time she got back to the stable yard. The bennelk stood in pairs, forming a double line that curled around the limits of the yard. Each animal had a wrangler holding onto its lead, keeping them stationary and calm. Cheobawn jogged up the line looking for Connor. Under all the cold weather gear it was hard to tell Father from Mother. She settled on looking for the smallest rider besides herself. Gann resolved her dilemma by waving at her from the middle of the troop. His charge, Cloud Eye, was still riderless. Connor sat atop his own mount next to Cloud Eye. He had a surly look on his face; he was not happy about something, either mount or placement in the line.

  Cheobawn grimaced. She had problems of her own. She was not too pleased with getting Cloud Eye. The young bennelk was a novice to this kind of formation and would need a little schooling. Perhaps that was why she had been placed well to the rear of the line- where any possible chaos caused by her inexperience would not set the rest of the column off but far enough from the last riders to not offer a convenient target to any predator, however remote that possibility might be.

  Cheobawn scrambled to don riding gloves, mittens, and a woolsey face mask and neck scarf. Gann moved to her side to help her mount while she buckled her riding helmet on. The wrangler shoved her fur hat on her head, tossed her up into the saddle, and adjusted the stirrups around her boots, fumbling at the buckles in his haste while she checked the quick release snaps around her bladed stick under her right knee. She had mounted just in time. Vinara rode down the line for one last inspection, checking everyone’s status before leading them out the yard gates. Cheobawn looked up as the head drover stopped next to her.

  “I thought about not letting this one ride with us,” Vinara said, studying Cloud Eye’s form, “but we need the manpower and she needs the experience. I am trusting that you can keep her in line today. As always, I am grateful for your help.”

  Cheobawn flushed, not exactly sure how to respond to the unaccustomed compliment with so many eyes watching. Sybille surged by on Herd Mother, intent on claiming her position at the head of the column. Vinara’s mount spun about on her hind feet and leapt after her. By the time Cheobawn opened her mouth to thank the Head Drover, she was gone.

  Connor sniggered softly as he leaned across the gap between them. “You are such a dufus sometimes. Would it have been so hard to say Yes, Mother, thank you, Mother?”

  Cheobawn ignored his jibe as she patted Cloud Eye’s shoulder.

  Herd Mother says I must do as you say, the bennelk said as she danced nervously sideways on the tips of her claws. Cheobawn nudged her with a knee to remind her where she needed to be.

  You will be alright. Kite Wing knows where to go. Kite Wing was Connor’s mount. She was a sister to Herd Mother and being neither excitable nor hard headed, she was a perfect mount for an inexperienced rider. Vinara used her to train all the new foals. The five-year-old Red Claw was next in line in front of Cheobawn, being ridden by Soral, Sigrid's Second Ear. Meshel sat next to her on another sleek three-year-old whose name she had forgotten.

  Just keep your nose on Red Claw’s tail while we are on the trail, Cheobawn told Cloud Eye.

  The column began to move out the gate. As Soral kicked Red Claw into motion, she glanced over her shoulder with an acid stare, leaned out of her saddle with a practiced grace, and said something in Meshel’s ear. Cheobawn did not hear most of what the older girl said but Soral made sure the sound of the last word carried to her ears. It sounded suspiciously like babysitting.

  Connor snarled and forgot what he was about. Luckily Kite Wing did not need instruction. She surged forward to follow Meshel’s mount, very nearly unseating him. Cloud Eye hissed and reached out to take a nip out of Red Claw’s tail. Cheobawn pounded her fist into the animal’s shoulder, distracting her for a moment before kicking her into motion. It took a few strides to catch up and get back into position, the bennelk behind her grumbling loudly.

  Naughty, Cloud Eye. No biting the other sisters, Cheobawn said, adding a forbiddingly stern tang to the emotions of their exchange as she settled her mount into place.

  You wanted to bite, Cloud Eye said, I heard you.

  Yes, but I showed restraint. I did not even bare my teeth at her though she deserved it, Cheobawn said, sending a cold stare at Soral’s back.

  Next time, Connor’s finger sign said, let her bite. Just aim higher.

  Careful, Cheobawn signed with a quick shake of her head. Do not rile the animals. But the sign for animal included a modifier that meant young Mother, an obvious reference to Soral. Connor laughed, perhaps a little too loudly. It wasn’t that funny. Meshel flicked him an annoyed glare.

  Connor rolled his eyes in her direction. Cheobawn buried her face in her mittens to keep from laughing. Older kids were always so deadly serious.

  The column turned left just out of the gates and followed the well-trampled road around the base of the dome. Vinara walked the mounts for a handful of minutes, letting the animals work the kinks out and warm their muscles before she kicked her bennelk into a ground-eating lope, Herd Mother and Sybille close to her side. As Herd Mother’s trumpet of joy echoed down the line, Cheobawn smiled. It had been a long, hard winter. Herd Mother was not the only one glad to be out and running.

  Here in the lee of the dome, the wind-driven snow collected in great drifts that, in some spots, towered high over their heads. By accident or design, the same forces that built the drifts also kept the verge of the dome clear. Vinara led the herd into this sheltered canyon and kicked her mount into a gallop over the dry ground. The column sorted itself out and followed single file behind her. The sandy ground was kept free of snow and ice by the heat from the dome, held close inside this small pocket of air, insulated from the more bitter temperatures out in the open fields.

  It was a landscape that encouraged imagination. Ice giants walked this fairytale land carrying their clubs made of stone on their shoulders, covering the trees in the forest with hoar frost with every breath. If you wished it, the steaming breath of bennelk might become the fiery breath of dragons, this fortress of ice, their eyrie. Cheobawn leaned low over Cloud Eye’s shoulders as she followed Connor into the tunnel and let the ambient of the world seep into her mind for the first time in ages.

  It was such a strange thing, she mused. At night, when she was alone in her room in Mora’s house, the ambient seemed overwhelmingly big; one could listen too hard, filling your brain full of the thoughts of things that were stranger than human, immense things, sentient things, whose motivations were darkly primordial. Yet surrounded by the herd, she became buoyed up by the delight they took in the everyday acts of living. She felt brave in their midst. Perhaps it was just that she was less alone.

  Winter ambient was normally a sleepy ambient. The short, cold days under leaden skies slowed everything down. Even the humans under the dome moved at a slower, gentler pace. Winter was the time of quiet industry for the tribes.

  The tedious tasks, the crafts that took days to finish, these were saved for the forced confinement in the long winters days under the dome. The bins of wool, linen, and silk, the skeins dyed with bark, roots, flower petals, and insect carapaces were woven into cloth, the cloth turned into clothes, wall hangings, rugs, and blankets. The small mountains of long needles, reeds, and grasses gathered over the summer were turned into baskets, mats,
and wide-brimmed sun bonnets. The sheds full of dried lumber were put to carving knife, plane, and lathe as the craftsmen filled the season’s requests for musical instruments, furniture, weapons, or artwork.

  The furnaces and the kilns roared nonstop, melting the sands into glass and the ores into metals with the excess heat vented through the dome to keep the winter gardens in bloom and the pools in the bathhouse hot.

  Epic poems were written and polished in front of the captive audiences at evening meals in the Common Room. Musical plays and dramas were performed and the best were chosen to be part of the entertainment for the first spring Trade Fair.

  Training continued but the jousting matches and combat tournaments were replaced with quieter games that encouraged strategy, organization, and precision.

  The patrols went out but only as far as the last warded circle. Cheobawn thought it was more of a formality than a security measure. There was nothing to guard against, really, with all the domestic animals inside the wards; but the bennelk needed reminding that their lot in life was not merely standing about in the stable yard with nothing to do but grow fat on summer hay.

  Life inside the dome mirrored that on the outside. The bhotta and all its lizard cousins detested the snow. They would sleep until spring, their minds filled with the memories of hot summer days and fat, crunchy prey. The stinging spiders, like all the arachnid species, had sealed their silk-lined burrows at the first hint of cold, putting themselves into cryogenic suspension, their minds a liquid placeholder in the ambient as were the minds of the buzzers and the croakers who had buried themselves in the mud of the bogs.