Logan came to a halt again. An angry curse died in this throat as he realized this time it wasn’t a log he’d tripped over. Ulma came up short and lowered her torch.
“Fortuna preserve me,” Logan murmured. The light picked out a body, one of Abelard’s men-at-arms. He was slumped face-down amidst the undergrowth. Ulma crouched beside him and rolled him onto his back.
The man was glassy-eyed and white-faced. His coif had been torn and shattered, leaving part of his throat exposed. The skin there had been marred by what looked like a bite mark, oozing a clear liquid. Even as he watched, Logan noticed the skin around the wound beginning to darken. The sight brought back a sudden surge of memories, none of them welcome. He suppressed them – it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
“He’s still breathing,” Ulma said. She didn’t get any further. A sudden crash made them both jump and scramble for their weapons.
The figure was on Ulma before Logan could fumble his sword free from his cloak, almost bearing the dwarf to the ground. She threw him off and brandished her torch, barking something in the grating Dunwarri tongue. Logan relaxed fractionally, panting, as he realized a second man-at-arms had run into them.
“They’re coming,” the man gasped, flinching back from the torch’s flame. “Hundreds of them!”
“Who’s coming,” Ulma snapped, gesturing down to the prone form of the other man-at-arms. “Who did this to him?”
“I’ve got to get out,” the man shouted, staggering, eyes wild. “I’ve got to get out!”
He set off again, pushing past Logan and almost overturning Ulma for a second time.
“Wait, you damned coward,” Logan shouted after him, but it was useless. The man’s mind was clearly gone. He looked helplessly at Ulma. Despite her stony expression, he could see the fear in her eyes. That didn’t make him feel any better. He thought he was about to be sick. He knew he was panicking, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
“We should probably go in the direction he’s going,” he said. “Or at the very least, away from whatever he’s running from.”
“We could be going deeper into the forest,” Ulma pointed out.
“We should never have come here.”
“It’s a bit late to be saying something intelligent now,” Ulma snapped back. “What about this man-at-arms here? Are you going to just leave him?”
“Absolutely,” Logan said. A further clatter from the direction the second man-at-arms had come running made him jump. The forest rustled, trees squeaking and groaning. Something was definitely coming, something that Logan’s gut told him exuded far more malevolence and power than another fleeing man-at-arms.
He looked at Ulma, his body frozen with tension, unable to keep the fear from his expression.
“Run,” she said simply.
They followed in the wake of the fleeing man-at-arms. Logan tried to keep up alongside Ulma, cursing again and again as he stumbled. His cloak snagged on something and almost choked him. He grabbed at it and hauled, desperate with fear, ripping the expensive Lorimar-made garment.
The rustling and the creaking grew louder, filling the forest around them. Logan didn’t dare glance back. His breathing was labored, and it felt as though his heart was going to split his chest in half. He could barely see, sweat stinging his eyes, branches and low boughs lashing at him like assailants. He fell, got up, fell again, making a terrified, primal moaning noise. Where was Ulma’s light? Where was she?
The flames returned. He got up, only to run into something solid and musky. A hand snatched the torn half of his cloak, snagging him and arresting another fall.
“Slow down, little rogue,” Durik said.
“Oh gods,” Logan groaned, almost breaking down in tears. “Durik, Durik they’re right behind–”
The pathfinder shushed him with a finger to the lips. He froze. Ulma, beside them with her torch, did the same.
Logan could hear… nothing. The rushing sound that had been shaking through the forest behind them was gone. The wind moaned softly through the dark canopy above, the branches rattling as though mocking him.
“There was something coming,” he whispered to Durik, trying to control his breathing. The big orc was gray and still in the torchlight, like an ancient statue abandoned in the wood.
“No,” he murmured back to Logan, still gripping on to him. “Something is already here.”
“Where did you go?” Ulma demanded fiercely. “We came looking for you!”
“I don’t know,” Durik said, eyes on the surrounding trees.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Ulma snapped.
“I woke up here a few minutes ago,” Durik said, a rare hint of anger flaring in his voice. “I have no memory of coming here.”
He glanced briefly back at Logan.
“Can you stand?”
Logan managed to nod. Durik released him and unlaced his spear from over his shoulder.
“You were running the wrong way,” the orc said. “I think. Tracker’s instincts.”
“What does this look like to you?” Ulma asked. She was holding her torch up to illuminate a strange, sticky white substance that was clinging to the upper branches of the trees all around them.
Logan began to shake uncontrollably. He knew exactly what it looked like. He’d seen it in Sudanya, and it had almost paralyzed him with fear then. It had done the same in a thousand nightmares since. Something darted through the thick, silken mass, multi-limbed and wickedly fast.
“Oh no,” Logan moaned hoarsely. “No, no, no!”
“Can you run?” Durik asked, clutching the side of his head and forcing him not to look up any higher.
“Yes,” he whimpered.
“Then run,” Durik said. “I’ll hold them up.”
Logan stood rooted to the spot, too terrified to move. Then, at last, some ingrained instinct kicked in.
He ran.
• • •
The previous flight through the trees had been nothing compared to this. Logan ran as he had never run before, too fast for his own thoughts to catch up. He burst through thickets and undergrowth, snarling and panting like a wild animal, his clothing ripped and torn in half a dozen places. He was vaguely aware Ulma was still with him, if only thanks to the wavering torchlight that lit up the web-infested branches all around him. All else was darkness. He felt sick, he felt blind, he felt half mad with fear. And when he finally tripped for the last time, he didn’t have the breath to scream.
This time it wasn’t a log. It was a furred, eight-limbed monstrosity the size of a hound that now reared up over him with mandibles that glistened in the torchlight.
Now he had the breath to scream.
Ulma lunged back through the undergrowth to him as he grappled with the chittering nightmare.
“Dol barag,” she roared in her native tongue, and thrust the head of her torch into the drooling maw and eye clusters that constituted the thing’s face. It unleashed an inhuman shriek and recoiled from the burning wound, sparks flying as it flailed. Logan threw it off him with frenzied strength.
“For the love of the ancestors get up, manling,” Ulma shouted at Logan, brandishing the torch in the direction of the hissing monster. It had scuttled back to the edge the darkness but stayed there, clacking its mandibles.
“I can’t,” Logan moaned, rising onto one knee before slumping back down again. When it had tripped him the creature had torn his breeches and slashed his thigh with its jaws. By Ulma’s torchlight he could see the same clear liquid that had been oozing from the fallen man-at-arms’s throat dribbling from the shallow cut.
“It’s going numb,” he said. “I can’t move it!”
“Maiden Ancestor grant me strength,” Ulma growled and handed him the torch. “Hold this!”
Once he had it in his grip, she put her hands under hi
s arms and began to haul him along the forest floor, grunting with the strain.
“Just kill me,” Logan begged, unable to process his thoughts rationally any more. He just wanted it all to be over. “Kill me and leave me.”
“Shut up,” Ulma hissed between gritted teeth. “And keep the torch raised. There’s a clearing just beyond these trees.”
Logan forced himself to keep the torch up, its light wavering in his grip. There were things all around them now – scuttling, crawling things whose fragmented eyes glittered in the darkness.
“Kellos light my way,” Logan moaned in terror as Ulma hauled on him, oblivious to the scrapes and scratches he was suffering. “Grant me your guiding light!”
“Not helping,” the dwarf hissed, then cried out as she fell backwards over something, releasing Logan. He half rolled and dropped the torch.
“No,” he shouted, fumbling for it before it went out. He managed to snatch the haft, waving it left and right, those hellish, inhuman eyes bearing down on them from all sides.
“It’s going out,” he shouted to Ulma. “The flame is going out!”
“Hold it still,” the dwarf ordered, giving up on trying to drag Logan. They’d almost made it to the center of a small clearing, the ground underfoot thick with leaves and mulch. Ulma fished in her smock and drew out two vials, pouring the contents of one into the other. She worked with a speed and nimbleness clearly born of experience in dire situations, shaking the vial now holding both liquids before emptying it over the torch head.
“It’s going out,” Logan repeated in fresh panic as the flames hissed and died. “You’ve doused it!”
Ulma didn’t bother to respond. A second later the flames flared again, though this time the light they emitted was far brighter – white and blinding. Logan was forced to avert his eyes. A chilling shriek went up from all around them as the vile things that had been crowding in on the clearing drew back from the fierce illumination.
“Phosphernum,” Ulma said proudly, lowering her goggles over her eyes as she surveyed the blazing brilliance of the torch. “Or star-fire. That should keep them back.”
“But for how long?” Logan asked, squinting down at his leg in the hard, white light. Thank all the gods, the numbness hadn’t reached to his crotch, but he still couldn’t feel anything lower. He groaned and slumped back as Ulma took the torch off him.
There was a crash of snapping branches and an ugly squeal. Ulma drew her mallet with her free hand just before another great arachnid came hurtling from the darkness. It was followed immediately by Durik. He had run it through with his spear, and it was twitching and spasming, its legs writhing hideously. It was far larger than the one that had brought down Logan, almost big as a fully grown man, with pincers like shortswords and limbs as thick as a human’s thigh. It shrieked as Durik planted it on the ground and twisted his spear, before bringing his boot down on its skull. There was an ugly crunch, and it finally went still, its limbs sticking stiffly upwards. Durik hauled his spear free, steaming ichor staining the leaves beneath the monstrosity.
“Arachyura,” the orc said, looking at Logan and Ulma. He was panting, and his body was crisscrossed with lacerations, but he didn’t appear to have been stuck with any of the creatures’ venom. In a lifetime of being relieved to see the orc, Logan couldn’t ever remember being more so.
“This can’t be happening,” Logan moaned, sitting up once more. “There are no arachyura in Blind Muir! I checked with the loremasters in Greyhaven! I would never have come here if I’d known there were going to be giant damned spiders!”
“Now is not the time for panic.” Durik joined them in the center of the small clearing. A low chirring was building in the darkness around them, Ulma’s star-fire reflecting from hundreds of black eyes and sticky mandibles.
“Just kill me now,” Logan wailed again.
“Did you see any of the other men-at-arms?” Ulma asked Durik, ignoring Logan.
“Yes,” Durik replied. “One was entangled in a web. I tried to free him, but could not.” Logan moaned again.
“What about Abelard?”
“I saw no sign of him.”
“What in ancestor’s name were any of you thinking, wandering in here at the dead of night?” Ulma demanded.
“I don’t believe we did it of our own free will,” Durik said. “Some fell sorcery lured us here.”
“It’s just like Sudanya,” Logan said, starting to shiver. “I promised after that I would get over my fear of spiders!”
“Well, now would be an ideal time,” Ulma said humorlessly. “Can you use your leg yet?”
Logan gripped his thigh and shook his head. “It won’t move!”
“I don’t have enough ingredients on hand to make any more phosphernum,” Ulma said to Durik. “We should at least try to move, while we still have this light.”
“But in which direction?” Durik pointed out. “Even if we could manage the rogue between us, we could walk into a web or nest. I cannot tell the way out of here. Some unspeakable darkness has snared my senses.”
“So the master plan is to wait here to die?” Logan demanded, looking at Ulma’s torch. The intensity of its illumination had decreased, the flames now little more than a white flicker around its burned-out head.
“Draw your sword, little rogue,” Durik said, standing over Logan, spear at the ready. “And prepare to conquer your fears.”
Logan whimpered and managed to free his weapon from the tattered remnants of his cloak, its jeweled handle gleaming in the last of the star-fire. Ulma planted her back against Durik’s and started to recite a Dunwarri oath. She tossed the torch to the ground, the last of its chemical glare flaring. The chittering from the surrounding forest rose as it did so.
It endured for a moment more, then flickered.
“Gods be with us,” Logan said.
The light went out.
Chapter Twelve
Captain Kloin smiled indulgently across the candlelit table and bit deeper into his chicken wing. Opposite him Matron Mildred returned the expression shyly, cheeks a little ruddy. They were sitting alone in the main servants’ quarter, long after the rest of the castle’s attendants had retired to their beds.
“Tell me more of Highmont, sir,” Mildred said, her eyes holding Kloin’s. “Tell me what else has changed since I left.”
Kloin shrugged and swallowed before wiping poultry grease from his lips with the back of his hand. Finally, everything was beginning to go his way. The bitch Damhán had locked herself up for the night with her new book and, best of all, the three idiots she’d hired had been banished to Blind Muir Forest. He doubted he’d see any of them again. Damhán sending the seneschal with them was an unexpected bonus – now he was master of Fallowhearth in all but name. It had all worked out perfectly, and he was intent on enjoying the victor’s spoils.
“You said you moved north with your mother twenty years ago?” he asked Mildred, doing his best to feign interest in the matron’s story.
“Yes, captain,” she said enthusiastically. “I have missed Highmont so! I’ve been meaning to travel back for many years, but duty and circumstance have always prevented me.”
“Call me Darrien,” Kloin said, before letting out a low belch. “No need for formalities here, Mildred! And in all truth, I wasn’t long born when you left Highmont. I couldn’t tell you much about how it’s changed since you were there last. It has certainly expanded in the last few years though. There is even a sorcerers’ guild beneath the castle rock now, twinned with the one in Last Haven.”
“I suppose Fallowhearth must seem very small and uninteresting in comparison,” Mildred said, sounding embarrassed. Kloin laughed.
“Oh, it has a few charming aspects. In fact, one is sitting across from me right now.”
“Oh Darrien, you are too kind by half,” Mildred said a little shrilly. Kloin shrug
ged.
A noise drifted in through the arrow slit in the chamber walls, what sounded like an angry shout. The servants’ rooms looked out over the courtyard contained within the curtain wall. Kloin frowned slightly, looking towards the slit.
“Do the young rocs still roost atop the great keep?” Mildred asked, clearly oblivious to the shout from outside. “I used to love watching them when I was a child. My mother always scolded me, though. She said if I wasn’t by her side they’d snatch me up and eat me whole!”
“I have seen many up close, even touched one,” Kloin lied. “They are magnificent creatures.”
Mildred gazed at him wide-eyed, her own platter untouched. Kloin smiled nonchalantly and bit into his wing again.
A hammering at the chamber door made them both jump. Kloin swiveled in his seat, glaring. He was glad he’d locked the door before sitting down.
“Not now, damn it,” he snapped irritably. He heard the scrape of mail as whoever it was withdrew.
“I don’t want to keep you from your duties,” Mildred said anxiously. Kloin scoffed, banishing his scowl with another smile.
“It is the deadwatches, my dear. What could possibly demand my attention at this time of night?”
The door rattled again. Kloin snarled and stood up so fast he almost knocked his chair back.
“What in the name of the gods –” he demanded, unlocking the door and throwing it open “– do you want?”
The man-at-arms he’d left in charge of the night watch, Grubin, came to attention.
“Sorry captain,” he said. “But Lady Damhán’s horse is missing from the stables and…” he trailed off.
“What, man?” Kloin growled. “Hurry up!”
“We think there’s an intruder loose inside the keep.”
• • •
The arachyura came for them.
Durik met them with a roar. His eyesight wasn’t as good as Ulma’s in the dark, but it was still keener than any human’s, good enough to see the first great spider rear before him with its pincers gaping. He rammed his spear into its maw and up through its skull, stinking ichor arcing through the clearing.
The Doom of Fallowhearth Page 13