Web of Defeat

by Lionel Fenn

  An hour later they reached the slope.

  And "slope," Gideon thought in a losing struggle against dismay, was clearly a term of convenience, since the mountain didn't begin gradually at all; one moment the ground was flat, and the next it tilted up at a forty-five-degree angle. The double summit was too high for them to see now, though they noted with a few qualms the faint drizzle of fine ash that fell from the clouds of smoke staining the sky, an ash the cupped leaves of the trees behind them prevented from reaching the ground. They were, as far as he could tell, clear of any flows, and for that small favor he offered a silent prayer.

  Gideon stopped at the last pithiron tree before the slope and watched the ashfall gloomily, suspecting that even though they might be able to make their way upward in spite of it, they would sooner or later succumb to breathing it in, and there was no way he could think of to avoid it.

  A flash of red and orange from the far peak shook the ground mightily and set the trees to booming.

  "No dragons," Abber said.

  "Score one for us," he muttered.

  Another explosion was followed almost immediately by a third, a fourth, until the eruptions became almost continuous. Gideon grabbed the pithiron's trunk to keep his balance and thought it a wonder the huge trees were able to stand all the battering. But when he turned to ask Grahne, he held his peace—her eternal and infernal optimism was being severely tested, and it wasn't clear yet whether it was going to pass.

  The eruptions subsided, and the fall of ash lightened.

  They waited for several minutes, finally exchanged pleased glances, and stepped away from the tree.

  "No, lava," Abber said. "Should I score that one, too?"

  Gideon chuckled and nodded, too relieved to explain about figures of speech drawn from the world of sports; instead, he jumped back to the pithiron's safe umbrella as the volcano found its second wind.

  They huddled, holding each other against the increasing violence of the tremors, every so often ducking around the other side when a pack of boulders thundered down the slope and caromed off the trunks.

  In his fight to keep hysteria at a reasonable level, it occurred to Gideon that an enterprising man could make a fortune if he could learn how to tune the damned trees; attending a symphony would be precarious, but it would also be something one could tell to one's grandchildren. If he lived long enough to have them.

  The atonal booming continued, grew louder. Pinkpods fell by the hundreds and smashed open on impact. The multi-legged pulp things attacked the boulders, reduced them to glossy pebbles, and drilled themselves into the ground.

  "I don't... I don't think we can get up there, hero," Horrn said at last.

  Gideon, who in the collective hug was being crushed under the shadow of Grahne's bosom, nodded reluctant agreement. It had been exceedingly foolish, and a little on the blind side, to think he could rescue his sister and the blacksmith under such conditions, and unless the eruptions either stopped or slowed drastically, he would have to force himself to make an extraordinarily unpleasant decision.

  "We could try to dodge them," Harghe's niece suggested after another boulder tried to flatten their tree.

  "You might be able to," he said, pulling away from her embrace with a deep inhalation. "But we're too small. We'll get squashed."

  "Bones could help, couldn't he?"

  "Bones could get squashed worse than any of us."

  They looked at the grey man, who looked back and smiled the smile of a man who knew he was being talked about, didn't know what they were saying, and hoped it just wasn't so bad that he would have to ask what it was so he could feel miserable.

  "You're right," she whispered.

  "I know."

  "That's because you were thinking again."

  And the eruptions suddenly stopped.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  "Gideon?" Grahne whispered.

  "Hush," he said.

  "All right."

  They waited beneath the pithiron for quite a long while, until they were sure the volcano wasn't playing geological possum, or gearing itself up for the big one, the big one to end all big ones that would blow its stack halfway to Rayn and demolish everything, and everyone, at its base.

  The forest was silent.

  The bellowing subsided to a rumbling.

  Even the wind blew the ash in another direction.

  "Gideon?" Horrn whispered.

  "Hush," he said.

  And they waited a while longer.

  Silence, as vast as the rugged peaks that soared over them toward the unseen, revealed faint rustlings in the trees as the ashes began sifting out of the leaves, and even fainter sporadic hissing as steam escaped from its boiling pockets beneath the surface of both slope and land.

  "Gideon?" Abber said.

  "What?"

  The grey man frowned. "Aren't you going to shut me up?"

  "Do you have something to say?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Then shut up."

  Abber smiled, pleased that he was still part of the group.

  Count to ten, Gideon thought; then, taking what he hoped would not be his last decent breath, he stepped timorously into the open, his bat swinging nervously at his side; Horrn stepped out from behind him, his sword held close to his chest; Abber stepped out from behind Horrn and tapped his staff against the ground; and Grahne, who believed this was part of some unknown heroic ritual which she ought not to disrupt, dropped to her knees, and then stepped out from behind Abber, her weapons ringing softly against each other as her hips swayed.

  They examined Hykrol Peak as if their lives depended upon the results of their observations.

  "What do you think?" Gideon asked at last.

  "Well, it may really start up again when we start climbing," Horrn said as he peered anxiously upward. "Of course, maybe it won't. I don't think so, though I don't have any reason for thinking so."

  Did King Arthur have this trouble? he thought; did Lancelot? Did the Lone Ranger?

  "We could wait another hour," the grey man suggested. "If nothing happens after that, we could go. Up, I mean. Up there, I mean."

  "Maybe it only stops for an hour," Horrn said.

  "In that case, we can go now and get an hour's head start, then find someplace to hide until the next break."

  "What if there's no place to hide?"

  "The hell with it, let's go," Gideon said, and began walking.

  "Wait a second, I thought from the prevailing attitude that we were going to discuss this," Abber protested as he scrambled up behind him. "Which is to say, there appears to be an abrupt lack of, uh, democracy, which has hithertofore ruled this band of, uh, somewhat recalcitrant but nevertheless noble characters in search of a duck."

  Grahne, whose long muscular legs took the steep angle in stride, quickly came abreast of them and with deft stabs of her dagger pointed out the best ways to utilize the ancient lava ridges, uneven flats, and rilles so as to prevent more falling and unnecessary injury than was absolutely necessary. Gideon didn't say a word; at this point he didn't mind abdicating the leader's position to the obviously more competent woman; originally, he was going to head straight up and the hell with the torpedoes, a plan that would have gotten them in serious trouble, he realized when he glanced up and saw a flock of huge black birds soaring just under the umbrella of the smoke-cloud.

  "Dragons," Horrn said quietly when he saw the direction of Gideon's gaze.

  "Yeah." And he pressed closer to an overhang of lava in order not to be seen.

  "Big ones."

  "I noticed."

  "Lots of them."

  "I wasn't counting."

  Horrn wrinkled his nose and frowned. "That's hard. They keep moving around so much."

  Gideon smiled gamely and told him not to worry; numbers meant little when there were enough of the things to squash and fry them several times over.

  "Maybe," the thief said, "we should have brought Harghe."

  "He ha
d other things to do."

  "So did I," the young man said, "but you saved my life and I have an obligation."

  Gideon winked. "You saved mine, remember? I'd say that makes us even."

  "Well, damn."

  "Hey, you two, don't worry," Grahne called back. "They don't eat meat, remember?"

  He remembered indeed and had only a few reasons to doubt her; but he also remembered far too vividly for his own peace of mind Thong's foul-tempered pet and the thorough mess it had made of the jungle during his and Abber's flight.

  And keeping that memory in mind, he followed the others quickly down into a dry wash studded with sharp-edged boulders and loose rocks, climbed back to the surface when they reached a large pit from which plumes of sulphurous smoke curled into the air, and found himself looking at a landscape that could have been shipped directly from the moon.

  Jesus, he thought.

  It was grey, utterly barren, and strewn with volcanic debris that released steam in hissing gouts, crumbled at a touch, glowed dark red, and scorched the air that surrounded it. There were meandering cracks in the earth ranging from a mere inch or two to yards across, sometimes continuing all the way down to the forest, most of the time joining with others of their kind to form ragged bowls whose bottoms were pools of boiling black water that here and there resembled tar pits, or Tuesday's Friday night stew.

  There was no vegetation of any sort.

  There was no sign of any life but their own.

  The stench too was nearly overpowering, and they found themselves breathing heavily through their mouths, palms and bits of cloth pressed over them to keep their gagging to a minimum.

  The crust was thick, and in many places as smooth as a grey metal mirror; these curious areas they skirted without question, to avoid both what could be a disastrous slide all the way back to the trees now below them and the flitting shadows of the dragons, which in the seamless surfaces seemed to be darting about below rather than above them.

  It was unnerving. It was uncanny. And when a dragon broke through the mirror and swept into the sky, it only showed him how wrong a man could be when he didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

  Luckily, they weren't seen.

  Luckily, Abber's beard had already been crammed into his mouth to smother his penchant for screaming.

  And when the volcano's grumbling became little more than a sullen, surf-like background noise, there was silence—only the wind that howled discordantly around the twin peaks, only the ragged gasps of their breathing as the heat increased and their climb grew more laborious, only the scrape of their boots on the surface and the occasional yelp when the crust proved too thin to hold someone's weight.

  "Where are we going?" Gideon asked when they took a short break in the lee of a boulder much bigger than his house back in New Jersey.

  Grahne paused, took a deep breath, brushed her hair from her eyes, and pointed upward.

  "Yes," he said, "but where? Exactly?"

  "There's a cave," she said in a low voice. "When I was a little girl, Uncle Harghe used to take me there for fun. I'm sure it hasn't changed, it's so neat you ought to see it!"

  "I will," he said.

  "Oh, wow," she said. "Anyway, it's where all the slope-dragons go when they've come back from hunting. They leave their catches there."

  Oh, god, he thought.

  "Nothing to get upset about," she said soothingly as she tousled his hair. "We'll just go up and get them out. Now, isn't that easy?"

  "But what about the dragons?" Horrn asked.

  "The dragons? Those things?" She scoffed. "You certainly do know how to take the fun out of things, little man."

  "I guess so, I don't know, but what about the dragons? Do we have to fight them or what?"

  Gideon gazed up the slope as the giant's niece tried to explain to the thief that the dragons, no matter how mean they looked, wouldn't hurt you if you didn't hurt them. When Horrn demanded to know how she knew that and what about Gideon's troubles, she only laughed and patted his shoulder. It was, she said, nothing for him to worry about; if any of them were in a bad mood, she'd see to it no one would get hurt.

  After all, she was Harghe Shande's only remaining family, and if anything happened to her, those rotten dragons would have to answer to the wrath of the giant.

  Horrn was dubious.

  Abber was grabbed when he started back down.

  Gideon ignored them because he had finally spotted where the mountain's angle swung more sharply upward, to virtually the perpendicular, and in the resulting wall faced by a broad ledge he had also spotted the cave.

  And the dozen or so dragons waiting outside.

  Interesting, he thought; not a lot of laughs, but very interesting.

  The creatures seemed to be making an awful lot of noise, and spent a fair amount of time butting heads, slapping wings, and letting loose with bright spiralling red fireballs that vanished like comets into the cloud cover above. He would have felt a little better if they had been fighting among themselves, because then he might be able to take advantage of the confusion and sneak inside to where he was sure Tuesday was being held but he couldn't help thinking they were only preparing themselves for some kind of party, working themselves up to a feeding frenzy the object of which he did not want to consider as long as hope had not been terminally crushed.

  "Aren't they cute in their ugly little way?"

  He jumped and almost used the bat now slick with his hand's perspiration. He hadn't noticed Grahne sneak up on him, and hadn't thought it possible. But he told her bluntly and without regard for her feelings that he did not think a bunch of repulsive reptiles acting like that were the least bit cute. If anything, they were terrifying.

  "Well, it could be that, too," she said seriously, "but if you're going to think like that in a place like this, you'll never get anywhere."

  "So I have to think positive, huh?"

  She hugged him impulsively. "Right! Oh, Gideon, you don't know what that means to me!"

  "Well, I'll tell you one thing."

  She hugged him again.

  "I'm positive we're in deep trouble."

  Her arms fell away and she groaned. "Oh... Gideon!"

  "Well, we are!" he said.

  She looked toward the cave, watched the dragons in their cavorting, and shook her head. "They don't even seem to care that we're here."

  "They don't know we're here yet."

  "Well, they won't care when they do."

  "Grahne," he said. Stopped. Started again. "Grahne, I'm not talking about them."

  "Well, there aren't any other dragons around here, are there?"

  "Not except for that one," and he pointed up, into the sky, toward the monstrous black creature that had been circling them lazily and was now swinging higher for what was obviously the start of a power drive to supper.

  "Gideon," she whispered as she fumbled for her weapons.

  "Don't tell me," he said as he signaled to the others.

  "That's not a real dragon."

  "I know," he said. "It's a Wamchu."

  "But I thought they were women!"

  "They are," he said, "but they ain't no ladies."

  Then Jimm spotted the monster, shrieked, and before anyone could stop him, began scrambling up the slope. Right toward the dragons who finally looked down and saw them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Well, Gideon thought, this is one for the books.

  The way he saw it, he could do one of several things, none of which would lead to anything but disaster and a fair amount of pain: he could chase after Horrn and drag him back to the rock; he could let Horrn go and stay with Grahne to fight the monster, which was getting too close already; he could chase after Abber, who was already warming up his staff for a run down to the trees; he could send Grahne after one of them and let the other one fend for himself while he fought the monster; or he could do what he was already doing, which took matters out of his hands, which was stepping back with bat
in hand and heart in mouth and watching the black creature dive toward him.

  Him.

  Not Horrn, who was exciting to distraction the dragons by the cave by running in circles because he couldn't make up his mind which way to go.

  Him.

  Not Grahne, who was trying to decide which weapon to use and so had them all in her hands, juggling them expertly and mumbling to herself.

  Him, for god's sake.

  And certainly not Abber, who had tripped over a rock and knocked himself senseless.

  Him.

  But it's always the way, isn't it, he thought; you try to do your best, and all you get is the bat and the critter.

  As it plummeted toward him, he was finally able to ascertain that it was, in fact, a dragon, though one of such immense size that the tips of its leathery wings threatened to brush against the side of the mountain. When it was close enough they did, and in the process scattered its smaller compatriots, who had gathered by the cave's mouth to fight over who would take care of the thief first.

  Gideon, once he realized there was no place to hide, didn't think he had a chance.

  He knew he didn't have a chance when one great eye opened and showed him a vast ocean of blue just before it winked.

  Chou-Li, Chou-Li, Chou-Li, he thought; how could you do this to me?

  The air turned abruptly frigid, the smooth lava turned to smoother ice, and his breath fogged so thickly he was barely able to see for the split second it took the plummeting dragon-form to stretch out its stubby legs and reach for his upraised arm. He dropped instantly beneath the grasp, rolled toward the boulder, and sprang to his feet as the monster swept past with an unnerving cackle that told him he had only escaped because the wife of the Wamchu was enjoying herself.

  Grahne was still juggling and muttering to herself.

  Horrn was gaping at the body of a dragon that had rolled to his feet still gasping its last flame.

  Abber was apparently snoring.

  And the dragon-form soared over the forest, raised its rudder, and made a superb figure eight at the bottom of which was Gideon, who had been so entranced by the repulsive beauty of the maneuver that he was almost caught.