Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles

by J. D. Lakey

  “Do not doubt yourself, Little Mother,” Sigrid said, the fire of his faith burning in his voice. “I do not.”

  “I envy you the bliss of your ignorance,” she said, looking away. Making Sigrid her shieldman had not been her intent. “The avalanche is rolling down the mountain. It is too early to tell if what I did has killed us or saved us,” she said, squinting down the fence line towards the pale horizon. “What are those two doing?”

  Chapter Six

  A pair of riderless bennelk stood in the distance, their riders afoot, heads bent, looking at something on the ground. Sigrid put his heels to his mount’s side and urged Star into motion. Cloud Eye did not need any more prompting than that. She surged forward, following close on her sister’s tail.

  Erin looked up at their approach. She had the leads of both Kite Wing and Red Leaf in her hand, holding them in place. Connor did not wait for them to approach. He mounted the tall drift that had buried the hedgerow that grew along this section of fence and stared off into the distance, studying something. Erin caught at Star’s halter as Sigrid brought his animal to a halt in front of her.

  “Got tracks of cattle going over the fence. Hours old,” she said to her Alpha.

  “I don’t see anything. They might be down in a shallow draw,” Connor yelled from atop his vantage point.

  “How many? Can you tell?” Sigrid asked.

  “Dozen. Probably more,” Erin guessed. Connor strode down the snow bank and leapt with a great bound onto Kite Wing’s shoulder, using the loops on the saddle to pull himself the rest of the way up. Erin released Kite Wing and concentrated on keeping Star still. Sigrid kicked his feet out of the stirrups and then levered himself up until he had his feet planted in the saddle. With the grace of an acrobat, he unfolded his long lanky body and stood upright, craning his neck to study the track on the other side of the drift. The pasture looked flat but they all knew from experience that it was as wrinkled as an oldma’s cheek. You could hide an entire herd of the short, red haired cattle in the deceptively shallow gullies that veined the landscape. He shook his head and dropped back onto the saddle.

  “I can’t see anything,” he said, glancing up at the western sky. A sliver of the sun rested above the horizon. The light would fade fast. He dropped back into the saddle. “Let’s check the first couple of draws, like Connor suggested.”

  Erin stamped her feet and pounded her free arm against her side in a vain attempt to generate muscle warmth. “Let’s go back. I’m cold and the light is going,” she said through chattering teeth.

  “They might be just over the next rise,” Sigrid ventured. “I do not want to come back out here tomorrow with a storm threatening.”

  Erin sent a worried look up towards the Spine as Sigrid bent over and extended his hand. Sigrid’s Ear leapt up and caught it, Sigrid jerking her upward. The tall girl threw one leg up as if she meant to mount behind Sigrid. Instead, she planted a foot against Star’s saddle skirt and used the foothold to thrust herself off into the air. Twisting as she flipped, landing on the back of Red Leaf without having to use the mounting loops. It was a neat trick. Cheobawn smiled in admiration.

  Sigrid led the way, setting Star at the tall snowbank first. The hedge proved their undoing. As his mount clambered up the hump of frozen snow, one of Star’s forelegs broke through the crust. Star tried to recover by shifting her weight to her other foreleg but the brittle packsnow collapsed further. It was only their forward momentum that saved rider and mount from becoming mired belly deep in the sharp branches of the hedge.. Star spread her broad hind feet upon the hard crust on the leading edge of the hedge and leapt forward. The snowbank collapsed under the force of her landing and continued to crumble with each step. It was a mad scramble but bennelk and rider finally found solid ground on the opposite side. Star’s sides were heaving and she was bleeding from a dozen scratches and abrasions up and down her legs. The bennelk stamped the snow out of the furry feathers around her claws and shook the snow out of her beard, rumbling grumpily. Sigrid patted her neck, trying to sooth her.

  “Are you alright?” Erin called, her voice tight with worry.

  Sigrid laughed ruefully. “Looks like we need to find another way across the fence.”

  “This day is just getting better and better,” Connor said acidly. Cheobawn glanced sharply at her packmate, wishing him into silence. This was neither the time nor the place for another battle of words between the two Packs.

  “I don’t like this,” Erin said. “Let’s go home.”

  “I am already stuck on this side. I might as well go check for cattle,” Sigrid called. “You guys ride down the fenceline until you get to the next snow bridge. I’ll just go check the first draw and then come right back.” He turned Star with his knees and set her into a long-legged lope along the beaten down trail made by the lost cattle.

  “There is a crossing back the way we came. Let’s go in that direction,” Connor suggested.

  “There is bound to be one ahead, closer to home,” Cheobawn said, peering in that direction.

  “It’s the gods-cursed hedge that is the problem. It runs for half a click on this section of the fence,” Connor said. “The next snow bank is not going to be any more stable.”

  “Sigrid is going to come looking for us in the other direction,” Cheobawn said as she cast a worried look towards Ramhorn’s Alpha. She was starting to think Connor was right. The day had become a cascade of bad decisions and unfortunate consequences. It suddenly seemed important that Sigrid come back.

  A soft sound caught Cheobawn’s attention. She turned her head, looking for its source. Erin was staring wide eyed at Sigrid’s retreating back, looking pale and sick. “No, no, no,” the Ear said.

  The hairs on the back of Cheobawn’s neck stood on end. She whipped around and screamed Sigrid’s name as she set Cloud Eye at the fractured snow bank. Her mount tried to follow Star but her massive weight sunk her up to her belly in the snow-drowned hedge.

  Sigrid glanced over his shoulder, confused by her yells. Behind her, Erin started screaming something over and over again. It sounded like run. Sigrid slowed Star and turned her in a wide circle. Too late, too slow, the ambient whispered in Cheobawn’s ear.

  Cloud Eye tried to fight free of her cold prison but lost her footing in the tangle of fence, hedge, and snow and overbalanced. Cheobawn kicked her toes free of the stirrups and leapt clear as the huge animal rolled out from underneath her.

  Cheobawn’s boots found unbroken ice crust on the edge of the bank. She ran. Somehow her bladed stick had come free in her hands. She slid her palms up its hilt in preparation for an assault as she skirted the softer, broken parts of the drift and reached its apex. Star was running full out, now, Sigrid bent low over her neck. Connor yelled at her but she could not hear what he said over the incoherent screams coming out of Erin.

  Their worst fears took form. Something raced across the snow in the fading light, a smudge of shadow, improbably fast, impossibly big, chasing Sigrid and Star. Cheobawn tumbled down the other side of the drift and rolled to her feet. Sigrid glanced once over his shoulder and then turned to urge Star on. His bladed stick was in his hands now.

  “Jump,” Cheobawn bellowed as she raced to meet him. “Jump clear.”

  Star was fast but the thing was faster. The shadow launched itself into the air. It was an impossible distance for something that big. Sigrid, whether he had heard her or whether his instincts were guiding him, was already kicking himself clear of the stirrups when Star tumbled head over heels from the impact, the shadow hanging from her throat. Cheobawn ran after them, the cold air burning like fire in her lungs, vaguely aware that someone behind her was screaming for her to stop. Star squealed in pain but the sound cut off in mid breath, as Sigrid was spun high into the air before falling back to earth with a sickening thud.

  Fortune was on their side. The impact had knocked Sigrid well clear of the carnage.

  Cheobawn ran up and took a stance between the predator and
Sigrid, glancing down at him as she tried to catch her breath around the pain in her lungs.

  Sigrid’s eyes were open but he looked stunned. The ice had shredded the skin on his cheek, blood soaking his face mask. That was all she saw before she looked back towards the sounds of death. An enormous smokey-gray cat had Star’s throat in its jaws. Star kicked, struggling as she suffocated and died. Cheobawn backed away until her boot found Sigrid’s body.

  “Get up,” Cheobawn said softly, kicking Sigrid in the thigh. Sigrid groaned, rolled over and began to crawl. She eased slowly backwards, following his progress out of the corner of her eye.

  “Get up, Sigrid,” she begged. “By all that is holy, get on your feet.”

  Sigrid found his bladed stick. Planting the end in the ground, he pulled himself to his feet, swaying like a tree in a storm. Connor was there suddenly, holding him up on the other side and dragging him backwards. Cheobawn followed, never taking her eyes from the big cat.

  Erin was still screaming and so were the bennelk. Cheobawn wished fervently that they would stop, as the cat did not seem to like the noise very much. It lifted its nose and yowled angrily at them, which seemed to give the bennelk pause. An uneasy silence descended on the animals.

  Sigrid shook himself free of Connor, managed a passable defensive hold on his stick, and began moving a little faster. The cat returned to its meal with an intensity that proclaimed its hunger.

  “Cheobawn, get behind me,” Connor snapped, his voice strained and harsh.

  “We stick together, Connor. Keep him on his feet. I will guard your back,” she said firmly. “Keep your blades up and think fierce thoughts. Sigrid, can you climb on a bennelk?” Erin, goddess be praised, had finally stopped screaming.

  “Yeah, I think so,” he wheezed.

  “More importantly, can you run?” Connor asked.

  “No running. Slow and easy. No sudden motions,” Cheobawn said, knowing intuitively that she was right. She turned her mind towards the cat and tested the ambient.

  “What is that thing?” Connor asked softly.

  “A smoke leopard, I think,” Sigrid groaned. He tried to cough, but his breath caught in his throat. He continued talking, but his voice was thin and full of pain. “They hunt the highest elevations of the Waste.”

  “What is it doing here?” Connor muttered.

  “I don’t know. I have never heard of them coming this far south,” Sigrid said.

  They reached the hedgerow. Connor began pulling Sigrid up the more stable verge of the drift. A grunt and a curse from Connor warned of more misfortune. She risked a glance over her shoulder. The fractured crust had broken under Sigrid’s weight. One leg had sunk up to mid thigh. Connor heaved at his arm, trying to break him free. Sigrid’s groan of pain was almost a sob. The cat looked up, its muzzle scarlet, sniffing the air as it took a step towards them and then another.

  Cheobawn froze; her eyes locked with a pair of green eyes the color of the first shoots of spring while she listened to Connor as he got Sigrid back on his feet and moving once more. The cat’s fur was long and dense, the color of winter storm clouds with a mottling of white and black to break up its shape, a perfect camouflage for hunting snowfields in the low light of dusk or the perpetual night of the northern ice fields. Sigrid would not have seen it until he was on top of it and even then it would have looked like stone and shadow until it moved. Its beauty was undeniable but its power in the ambient was something else entirely. She puzzled over its presence in her mind. It was a curious thing, the way it flitted in and out of the ambient, one moment there, hungry and desperate, the next moment, nothing. It would have to be an adept to surprise a bennelk, of course. Her admiration surprised her, warring as it did with the terror and grief at the loss of Star. She lifted her lip and snarled at it, daring it to test her fanged stick as she took one careful step backwards. The cat, content in knowing they were not going to contest him for ownership of the kill, yawned an enormous yawn that showed every tooth in its head before turning back to its meal. Released from its thrall, Cheobawn turned and scrambled over the fenceline as fast as she could go.

  Connor had gotten Sigrid over the top and was guiding him carefully down the other side. Cheobawn slowed to help them but, spotting the remaining bennelk, changed her mind. Erin had dismounted and now stood with all three lead ropes in her fists, trying desperately to keep the animals from clambering over the drift to save their sister. Cheobawn leaped down the face of the snowbank, tossed her stick aside, and grabbed at Cloud Eye’s lead.

  Stand, sisters, she insisted. Star is gone. We cannot save her.

  Slashing tusks and claws filled the ambient of the bennelk. Kill it, was the communal thought. Cheobawn threw out her other hand and grabbed Kite Wing’s lead as she half reared. Neither she nor Erin let go and between the weight of the two of them, they managed to hold the bennelk in check.

  I have no tusks, Cheobawn reasoned, and Sigrid is hurt and must go home. She put all her longing into the last word.

  Star cannot go home, Kite Wing grumbled, settling.

  Star will stay and guard our retreat, Cheobawn said. Settle, Mother. Sigrid cannot mount you if you stand.

  Kite Wing hissed angrily but settled onto her knees all the same. The other two tried to pull away from Erin, alarmed at their sister’s vulnerable stance.

  “Let them go. They will guard us,” Cheobawn instructed Erin. “Go get Sigrid.”

  Erin hesitated for only a moment before she nodded and let go, leaping out from under the nervous hooves.

  Kite Wing settled until her belly touched the snow as Erin and Connor brought the Alpha close to her side. Sigrid could not reach above his head with one arm. Something was broken or torn there. Between Erin and Connor, they managed to shove him up onto the saddle.

  Sigrid clung to the saddle horn, his head pressed to the bennelk’s mane, his eyes momentarily closed. Cheobawn tugged his good hand free and pressed his bladed stick into it.

  “Sigrid,” she insisted. The tall Alpha opened his eyes, his fingers convulsing instinctively around his weapon.

  “I'm fine,” he said though it was obvious he was not fine at all.

  Scrambling up behind him, Connor grabbed the reins from Erin as she passed them around Sigrid's body. The Alpha Ear gazed at Sigrid, perhaps doubting that he could make it back to the dome.

  “Erin. We have to move,” Cheobawn said. Erin gave her one agonized glance and then turned and leaped up onto Red Leaf, gaining the saddle in the next moment.

  When she thought they could move without triggering one more calamity, Cheobawn released the bennelk with a thought and Kite Wing rose hastily. Sigrid did not make a sound even though she could tell the jarring hurt him badly. Broken ribs would cause that kind of pain. If that were so, they could not jounce him around too much for fear of shifting bones around vital organs.

  Sigrid caught her watching him. He smiled It was a ghastly smile but it told her what she needed toknow. Scooping up her weapon, she slapped it into the saddle clips on Cloud Eye’s saddle and climbed up the bennelk’s side. Cloud Eye was moving even before Cheobawn reached her shoulder.

  Home, Cheobawn thought as she threw her leg over the saddle and slipped her toes into the stirrups.

  Herd then home, Cloud Eye corrected her as she followed Kite Wing, who, - knowing a thing or two about carrying fragile humans - set a pace that slowly built in speed until they were striding smoothly away, heading south and west towards Orchard Trail and the promise of safety in numbers.

  Cheobawn tried to listen to the smoke leopard but Cloud Eye found it unsettling to have a predator’s thoughts riding upon her back. Cheobawn thought it very unobliging of her but Cloud Eye could not be persuaded otherwise. They would have to trust Erin’s psi to give them any warning they might need.

  The pace was brutal for Cloud Eye, who had already raced across more than half a click of pasture. After fifteen minutes of the long-legged lope, Cheobawn’s mount began to wheeze ominously. Cheo
bawn let her lag behind the others. Kite Wing slowed to match Cloud Eye’s pace.

  Erin looked back the way they had come, a little wild-eyed with fear but she slowed her mount to match the others all the same. Cheobawn took that as a good sign and slowed Cloud Eye to a long-legged walk. The others settled in next to her, matching her pace.

  “Do you think that thing ate the cattle, too?” Erin asked, looking ill. Was her ambient still full of the grisly carnage behind them, Cheobawn wondered?

  “It was too hungry,” Cheobawn said. “Maybe it was stalking them when it spotted Sigrid and thought Star a better meal.”

  “Two Ears,” fumed Connor as he settled Kite Wing next to Cloud Eye and glared at her and Erin. “Two Ears could not keep us from walking into its trap. What kind of Luck is that?”

  Erin hissed in shock, not as used to being called Bad Luck as Cheobawn was.

  “Connor,” Sigrid said, a warning in his voice despite his pain.

  “Erin said no. Quite a lot, as I recall. It was the rest of us who refused to hear her warning,” Cheobawn said calmly, giving Connor a pointed glare that he might mind his tongue.

  “Sorry about that, Erin,” Sigrid said, his voice full of regret. Erin cast him a quick look, her eyes full of pain. Ramhorn Pack’s quarters would be an interesting place this evening, Cheobawn thought. She did not envy Sigrid’s job of setting things right with his Alpha Ear.

  “What about you?” Connor asked, glaring at her. “Running straight at that thing like it was nothing but a fawn. Have you no sense of self-preservation?”

  “We are all alive,” Cheobawn said pointedly. “Can’t you be glad about that?”

  “I know how far you see, Ch’che,” Connor said heatedly. “You would have never let us come out here if you had even bothered checking the ambient for one second.”

  “Connor, you need to show more respect for …” Sigrid protested.