Lan surprised himself by going to the prostrate spider and kicking him hard in the spot where a human' s ribs would be.
" On your feet. All eight of them. I' ve nursemaided you this far, and I' ll be dragged naked through all the Lower Places if I' m going to give up on you now. No fatalistic spider is going to keep me from my reward."
" Go to my web," said Krek, " and tell them I grant you your prize. Now, leave me be. My death is imminent. I feel it."
A shuddering sigh wracked the spider' s body. Lan was torn by indecision. He could run and save himself. That was the only sensible thing to do. His life had to be worth more than any stack of gold coins, no matter how high. But something rooted him to the spot. He couldn' t leave Krek to the fate decreed by the soldiers.
More than simple oath backed his resolve. The arrogance of the soldiers and what others of their kind had done back on his home world goaded him.
Grabbing a convenient hairy leg, he began tugging. The spider' s bulkiness surprised him. He' d thought it mostly illusion caused by the eight long legs. For the first time, he realized how massive the creature was.
" Move, you lovelorn pile of legs. Come along or I' ll have to try to hold them off here. That' s a damned messy way of dying, too, since I' ll be outnumbered dozens to one."
" You would do such a thing for me? Oh, well, maybe I should prolong my dreary life a while longer if it means so much to you."
They stumbled along the dark passageway until they burst into the secluded valley, the harsh glare of the overcast causing Lan to squint. Krek hesitated, spreading his legs wide and digging into the soft dirt. Though he lacked a sense of taste or smell, his tactile senses were vastly more refined than those of a human. They had to be, in order to feel the lightest of twitches in a monstrous web.
" They come," was all Krek said.
" So be it. Let' s move before they can close in on us. The only chance I see is that they' ll have to leave their mounts outside the cave. On foot, an armored soldier will be slower than we are."
The words cheered Lan more than Krek. The spider plunged into a fit of depression, and nothing Lan said brought back the bright sunlight of cheerfulness. They hurried along in stoic silence, legs straining to cover as much land as possible with each stride.
When they came to the cul- de- sac, Lan felt his own cheeriness drain. The sheer walls of the canyon rose to a height that would require a half- day' s climb. The only escape was back down the valley in the direction of the pursuing soldiers.
Lan looked at Krek. The spider collapsed into a heap of hairy legs.
" I knew such a thing would happen," he lamented. " My life is fated. Never will I know the loving caresses of my Klawn- rik' wiktorn- kyt. Her mating web will fall to sticky strands and never will our joys be as one. Never!"
Lan had to admit things looked as bleak as his friend predicted. His hand strayed to the dagger at his side. A pitiful weapon against a trained soldier. If only they were in a forest, that dagger would be more effective than a dozen great swords. What he lacked in armament, he made up for in stealth and cunning.
Whether that cunning would aid him now, so far away from a forest, was a question begging for a quick answer.
" Stay well clear, Krek. I' ll try to divert them away from you. If I succeed, we' ll both be on our way soon." He hoped he sounded confident. The way his stomach churned and knotted as hard as a hangman' s noose put the lie to any real feeling of impending success.
" As you say, Lan Martak. It is all hopeless. If only I could move my limbs. The weakness assaults me in waves. I drown in it." A shudder shook his body and made the hair on his long legs bristle. " Such a worthless death mine will be."
" All deaths, when they come too soon, are worthless," Lan told Krek. Then he slithered, snakelike, atop a massive boulder overlooking the path they' d just traversed. Glinting in the distance were soldiers swinging swords. They had shed their heavy armor, but this was only a slight additional factor in Lan' s favor. Their swords had the reach his dagger lacked.
Lan' s nervousness evaporated when the soldiers neared. The hunt always affected him this way. Adrenaline pumped fiercely into his arteries. He came alive, flowing with the invisible force that guided him in the kill.
He was not invincible; he still bled if cut. But he became something more than before. Now he called on all his wit and ability and abandoned himself to the inevitable.
As the first soldier drew abreast of his perch, Lan leaped. His hurtling weight smashed the man to the ground. A quick slash sent a fountain of crimson life spurting from the neck. Lan stood, the fallen soldier' s sword pressing heavily into his hand.
" There! Attack! Fifty crowns to the man slaying him!" echoed the voice of a hidden commander.
Lan savagely slashed the legs out from under the next man presenting himself at the notch in the rock. But swarming over the still- struggling body came another and another and still another.
Lan faced three experienced swordsmen. No novice with the sword, he knew he could never match these grisled veterans if the fight wore on too long.
" Die, lover of animals," snarled the one closest to him.
Lan was almost duped into turning to face the man mouthing the curse. The soldier at the opposite end of the line lunged, barely missing his target in Lan' s gut. Lan' s dagger drew a red line of agony along the man' s ribs, not fatal but enough to remove him temporarily from the fracas. Lan barely leaped back in time as the two remaining swordsmen weaved a net of steel death around him. His mind settled to the deadly fighting. He couldn' t penetrate their singing blades, but he could still run and dodge.
Rolling to his right, Lan put one of the men between himself and the other. He lunged. His blade was deflected by a sharp parry but still found a meaty shoulder.
As he cursed in pain, the soldier continued fighting. Lan felt the sharp sting of his own skin being scored by a razor- sharp edge. Ducking, he barely kept a second thrust from lopping off an ear.
" Krek!" he called. " Help me. I need you!"
The expression on the soldier' s face told Lan that Krek had come. The spider need do nothing save loom large and menacing. The flush of abject fear turned to agony as Lan buried his sword into the man' s sternum.
Unable to pull the blade free as the corpse sank to the ground, Lan attacked the other man with his dagger. One swift toss and the steel spike found an exposed throat. The bubbling noise and the sight of pink froth gushing from the pierced windpipe were not pleasant. Still, better the soldier dying than Lan.
" You will die, scum! More men come. You will bow to the power of our Saviour, Waldron of Ravensroost!"
Lan saw the guard commander standing, legs widespread, atop a boulder, cape fluttering in the blood- warm wind. The black rage masking the man' s face would vanish only when he witnessed death- the death of Lan and Krek.
" We made it past the first wave," Lan panted. " But I can' t keep fighting them off forever. They' ll wear me down soon." He hoped Krek didn' t notice how his hands shook. His mouth had turned dry, and his breath came in ragged gusts. Fighting for the sake of fighting as sport invigorated him; killing sapped him of strength.
" I will never see my mating web or the lovely Klawn again. Never! And all because of those humans. A chance encounter and they hunt me like a rabbit! Me! Webmaster of the Egrii!"
Lan stood back, amazed, by the spider' s sudden vicious frontal attack on the soldiers. The charging arachnid killed a full score before the battered survivors fled in confusion. Dripping gore from his hairy legs, Krek ambled back to the stunned Lan.
" That taught them respect. Imagine their impudence!" The spider seemed unaware of the monumental transformation in his attitude. One moment, he cowered docile and willing to die. The next, he was a fighting terror even highly trained men with steel weapons couldn' t contain.
" What brought all that on?" Lan inclined his head toward the bloody carnage.
" I have no idea. It simply seemed the thing to
do." Krek considered the problem for a moment, then said, " You humans come apart easily."
" I agree, I agree!" Lan babbled. " But we' ve still got to get out of this trap. He' s got more men than the two of us will ever be able to kill."
" Speak for yourself," declared Krek. " I, mere human, am a Webmaster!"
" Krek," pleaded Lan, worrying about the sudden surge of overconfidence. " Listen to me. They' ll bring in crossbows and shoot us at their leisure. They can call up hundreds of men. They: they might even set fire to us." He watched as the horror of flames assailed the spider. As much as he hated doing it, he had to play on each and every weakness to prevent the spider from pursuing a course that was as suicidal as simple surrender.
" We can' t attack. We' ve got to escape. Do you understand? Our lives will be forfeit if we continue fighting them on their terms."
The spider strutted about, flexing mighty sinews in his legs. He leaped from one side of their sandy arena to the other, almost faster than Lan could follow.
" I must bow to your superior knowledge of humans. After all, you are one."
" It' s going to be difficult, but we must creep by their sentries and get out of this valley."
" They will catch us. I am too large to creep."
" Until we can climb those canyon walls, that' s our only hope."
Krek looked up as if for the first time. " That is all we have to do, climb these puny stone walls? Every day in the depths of the Egrii Mountains, I swing from pinnacles higher than this."
Lan watched in amazement as a sticky strand of web material jetted from a nozzle just under Krek' s beak. In the span of a frenzied heartbeat, the spider had a long cable stretching into the hazy distance, fastened firmly for climbing.
" Why didn' t you tell me, Krek? We could have avoided the soldiers altogether!"
The spider gave his equivalent of a shrug. His entire body quaked as he said, " I never thought of it. I assumed you knew of this insignificant talent of mine. After all, spiders do possess the ability to spin webs." It was a matter closed.
" Hurry, then. I hear the commander goading his troops into action again." Lan watched the spider deftly scale the wall of stone, legs seldom touching the smooth rock for more than an instant. The man envied his friend' s agility, but as Krek had commented, he was a spider and to the web born.
" Kill! Kill them! They escape! A hundred crowns to the man who slays them."
Lan turned, his back pressed against the cold stone, and saw a full dozen armored men advancing. Bravely, he confronted them with his sword held en garde and his dagger ready for a quick, eviscerating stroke.
He knew, however, it would be he who died.
Closing with the foremost, he executed a deft stop thrust. The recoil of his sword off the man' s armor wrenched the blade from his grasp. He managed to drive the point of his dagger into the soldier' s armpit as the man foolishly watched Lan' s sword go spinning through the air. With blood seeping over his hand, Lan gathered his strength and heaved the dead soldier back at his comrades. Lan had to laugh at the incongruous sight. Men fell like skittle pins. In the confusion, he grabbed a fallen sword.
Even the best couldn' t have stood for long under the onslaught of armed and armored might. First Lan' s sword, then his dagger flew like a silver bird. He stood weaponless in the face of stark hatred.
As a dozen sharp sword points pricked his body, a cold voice commanded, " Stay! He is mine. The spider- thing has escaped, but this scum is mine!"
The commander strode into Lan' s field of vision. Clad in a grey cape held in front by a crimson frog, he presented an imposing figure, but it was the great sword, clutched as if it were a matchstick, that held Lan' s undivided attention. The man swung the massive blade with reckless ease. Each hypnotic pass through the air came a fraction closer to Lan' s head. Involuntarily, Lan ducked as he felt hot air and hotter steel rush by his ear.
" Coward!" roared the commander, his men supporting his case with angry curses.
Lan looked into the man' s eyes and saw only madness. Nothing but death would appease him. What manner of man was this soldier' s sworn liege lord that he allowed maniacs to represent him?
" I know nothing of your plans or your ruler or:" Lan flinched from the nearness of the swinging great sword. The arc blurred silver and edged toward his eyes with every stroke. Just as the huge blade rose for a last, killing stroke, Lan shrieked- and found himself dangling upside down far above the heads of the surprised soldiers.
Twisting, Lan saw the infuriated commander below him. The ponderous great sword smashed into the cliff face, sending electric blue sparks shooting high.
" Kill them! Kill, kill, KILL!" the man screamed in an inhumanly shrill voice.
Lan' s stomach turned over as he bounced repeatedly off the cliff face. But inexorably he jerked higher and higher. At the top of the precipice, he dared open his eyes again. Standing there as unconcerned as only a spider can be was Krek, a coil of web- stuff at his feet.
" Krek! But how?"
" I cast my snaring web. I have not lost a bit of my skill," the giant spider said smugly. " Again I prove my worthiness to be Webmaster."
" Why didn' t you get me out of there sooner? That madman damned near split my head with that demon sword of his."
" I thought you intended scaling the cliff on my climbing strand. After all, I could. When I realized you were incapable of a simple feat that any feebleminded hatchling could perform, I aided you with a bit of stick- web."
Lan wanted to argue and rail against the spider' s logic. He found himself too weak. His insides tumbled, and his morning meal threatened to choke him. Soon, his nerves calmed enough, he asked, " How far is it to the cenotaph off this thrice- damned world?"
" Another day' s travel. And I shall be reunited with my mate!" chortled Krek. " Ah, how we shall rejoice. Such a web she will spin for me, her betrothed."
Lan shut out the rest of the spider' s fulsome praise for his mate. He simply rejoiced in his own continued life.
CHAPTER SIX
" How much longer, Krek? My legs are killing me." Lan valiantly worked his way up the steep incline amid sharp rocks that contrived to slip under his boots. His hands were scraped raw, and his knees carried the marks of too many painful encounters with the mountainside. The only cheery prospect lay in the fact that the soldiers pursuing them wouldn' t have been able to scale the walls of the canyon, now almost two days in the past. Lan doubted if their commander' s anger could whip them to do the impossible.
" Not far. I twitch with the nearness of the Road. The cemetery rests atop this mound of dirt."
Lan cast a furtive glance over his shoulder. If he did take a tumble, he would be airborne for long minutes before striking the ground far below. Luckily, the clouds covering this world hid the worst of a fall from his eyes.
" Let' s hurry. I' m tiring again, and my leg hurts."
" You always complain of your leg. Humans are so weak," the spider observed as he agilely leaped from boulder to boulder. " Spiders are obviously superior creatures. We have a sufficient number of legs to support us."
Lan had learned not to argue with Krek over trivialities. The spider' s world view differed so much from his at times that he wondered at the fate casting them together. The man had to work harder to keep up with the spider as the pair climbed higher up on the lone mountain. Whatever the spider' s philosophies, he proved extraordinarily adept at scaling rock. Lan' s brief excursions into the el- Liot Mountains on his home world had been minor jaunts compared with the climbing he' d done this past day. Yet, as he' d grown more and more weary, Krek' s strength had burgeoned. Gone was all trace of the pliant, woeful beast he' d met in the midst of the boggy lands. Krek had found his element in the craggy reaches of rock. Lan envied him his climbing ability; with every aching, sore muscle he envied him.
Finally, the mountain leveled and a mesa sprawled with small rock spires shooting up across it. Lan stood for a moment, panting. An ineffable fe
eling took control of him, and he knew this to be the cemetery they sought. Under each stony monument rested a corpse. Under all, save one, the one they needed to escape this festering, slimy world.
" Come, friend Lan Martak, we must hurry. The time is at hand for the Road to open to us."
" So soon? On my world, it is only at midnight."
Krek made an odd up and down motion, his eight legs never leaving the rock.
" It is the same here. Midnight approaches, you silly human. Why do you think I am so nervous?"
Lan blinked. He hadn' t realized the spider was in the least nervous. His actions hadn' t seemed out of line with those the man had come to expect. Still, the spider' s innate sense of time on this oddly clocked world had proven accurate in the past. There existed little to dispute it now.
" Which tomb is it we want?"
" That one," said Krek, one leg quivering in the direction of a solitary grave marker. " The cenotaph of:" and only a clacking noise mixed with a sound similar to frying bacon came from his mouth. Lan knew better than to ask the spider to repeat the name. It didn' t matter; all that counted was their hasty departure from this world and their arrival on Krek' s web world.
" Oh, Lan Martak, with the goal so near, I find myself quivering and weak once again. I fail to lift such a puny stone." The spider' s claws scooped out stony ground on either side of a huge slab of limestone, but no matter how the creature struggled, the slab refused to yield up the cenotaph below. Lan immediately added his strength to that of his companion and went tumbling into a heap as the stone sheet grated to one side.
" So weak am I. Who can blame me? The promise of adorable Klawnrik' wiktorn- kyt makes me woozy." Krek sat down in a hairy pile and simply shook. Again Lan felt an electric tension in the air, similar to that he' d felt in the tomb of Lee- Y- ett back on his home world. Powerful magics danced in the air around him. The time for transport to another world neared, too near to argue with Krek over trivial matters. Lan kicked the spider into the yawning pit and, as a thunderclap sounded, dived after him.
Cenotaph Road sr-1 Page 8