by Rosie Scott
“How many tunnels lead to this split?” Jakan questioned, one bronze finger pointing to the walls of the cavern surrounding us. There were multiple holes in the walls here, as if this was an intersection of dozens of paths.
“Only two for the Alderi,” Nyx replied, her eyes skimming over the rest. She jerked a thumb to the far side of the cavern. “And both are over there.”
Jakan frowned. “Then what are these?”
Azazel was already walking a few feet ahead, ignoring the rest of us for the moment. I watched him carefully, because I trusted him more than anyone else when it came to his senses. When the archer was standing alone in the front of the army, he lifted up a palm. Small red spots of energy floated above it, at various intervals. He slowly spun in a circle, scanning the area for life. As he moved, more spots of energy appeared above his palm. Red spots were everywhere.
Azazel dispelled the alteration magic and pulled the bow from his back. “We are surrounded. Prepare for battle.”
My heart thudded in my chest. “Surrounded by what?”
“Don't know. Can't see its form very well with the magic, only that something is there.” Azazel pulled an arrow from the quiver at his hip. “This is a hunting ground.” He flicked his eyes over to Calder and the other shapeshifters. “If you're going to transform, do it quickly. The noise will draw them.”
Calder and the others began to pull clothes off in a frenzy, leaving them in clumpy piles along the stone. When bone began to crack and pop with their transformations, the echoes of it rang dangerously loud against the cavern walls, traveling along the floors and ceilings to spread the sounds to every tunnel. The thousands of recruits behind us began to unsheathe weapons and prepare spells from the magic Cerin and I had taught them. Nearby, Anto started strapping on his arm blades, and Jakan fastened his crossbow to his left arm.
Azazel held his bow and ammo with one hand, before repeating the detect life spell in the other. Immediately, blobs of red energy appeared, much larger than they'd been just moments ago. The archer dropped the spell, promptly loading his arrow and pointing the bow at one of the northern tunnels. The ammo flew a split second later, flying into the darkness of the hole. A grating screech echoed off the rocky walls as the arrow hit its target before I could see what it was.
The shapeshifters were still transforming. Cerin and I hurried to give them shields, because they were vulnerable. Then, they arrived.
A grating screech accompanied the first. Two spindly legs stretched out of the tunnel just beside us, about giving me a heart attack as I caught glimpse of them in my peripheral vision. They were long, shiny, and solid black, and grasped the rock around the tunnel opening from their lowest segments, pulling the rest of the body along with it. Blue light from a large mushroom nearby shone off of a moist surface high between the two legs, in six different places. Next, more legs emerged as it pulled a thick, round body the size of the tunnel itself out behind it. Eight legs, six eyes. Two glistening fangs dripped with a sticky substance between two pedipalps which appeared greedy for something to grab.
The spiders ranged in size, though the largest stood twice as tall as our soldiers. They filed out of the tunnels around us, trapping our army within the tight embrace of their cavern.
“Ugh, I'm so tired of insects!” Cerin muttered, building up death energy in a palm.
Legs clicked across the ground as the closest spider immediately headed for Calder. He was still convulsing on the stone, vulnerable save for my shield. I'd never seen spiders this large, but I wasn't dumb. I was sure even the largest among them acted much the same as the smallest. Perhaps the spiders went for the beastmen because many were close to the ground, easy targets for building a cocoon.
“Oh, no you fucking don't!” Nyx exclaimed, shooting a ball of coral-pink energy at the arachnid. The spider stopped for a moment, appearing contemplative, before it walked straight over the transforming beastmen, the points of its legs somehow finding only the rock between their bodies. It hissed toward the others, though it was quickly surrounded.
One of our eight-legged foes clattered over to our soldiers, screaming as the man cut through an armored leg with a sword, leaving the open wound draining blue blood over the rocky floor below. The spider shook in place for a moment, before it violently sprayed a mixture of goo and web out over the soldier and a few others behind him. The screaming began immediately. Weapons were dropped, and the sound of acidity on skin crackled through the air as the men's flesh began to dissolve while it was still on their bodies. Then, the screaming stopped at once, and the soldiers fell to the ground, paralyzed.
An ear-shattering roar shook the ground beneath my feet as Vallen's transformation was complete. The bear bolted straight into the spider, knocking it off its elongated legs and onto its side, where he proceeded to decapitate it between two strong jowls.
Decapitating the spiders killed them instantly, but they were so large that it was hard to get the chance. Azazel's arrows were deadly as they were fired through eyes to the brains of the creatures, collapsing thick bodies in piles of legs. Once Calder transformed, he leaped through the air at one of the spider's heads, ripping and tearing to separate it from the body. Other than the beastmen, the rest of the soldiers focused on chopping off legs to get the insects to fall low enough to puncture their brains.
Between shielding soldiers and friends, I decided to use ice shards. Rock projectiles might have worked from this distance, but the ice was sharper and easier to penetrate with. I shot one of the shards at the spider Anto was spinning into, and the ice lodged itself through its head in a splash of blue blood which rained down over the orc's shield like precipitation. Somewhere to my left, an intimidating crackling gave away the fact that Cerin was leeching.
The soldiers Cerin and I had taught were also using their magics. Some of them paralyzed the insects with alteration, or charmed them with illusion. Others used the elements. Many leeched with death magic, and some of them used fire, its heat causing the spiders to explode from within, splattering cavern walls with splashes of blue.
“Gaaah!” Cerin's scream rang sharply off of cold stone, and I spun to make sure he was all right. I found the necromancer in the midst of a leeching frenzy, wielding his scythe with both hands as he twirled in a circle between two arachnids, the blade of his weapon cracking through multiple thin legs of the foes in sprays of blood. He stood straight after his circle, switching to using the weapon one-handed as he leeched with the other, intent on keeping his high. Scythe swept through spider parts as if they were made of butter, leaving the stone floor around my lover scattered with broken limbs. One of his dying foes spit venom at him, but the goo hit his shield, sliding slowly down the magical barrier in streaks of white.
One of the spiders near Cerin dropped dead from his leeching, before the necromancer turned his attention to the other, slashing through both front legs with one solid swipe. The arachnid fell forward, at the mercy of its missing limbs, allowing Cerin to slice the scythe sideways into its head, hooking the point of the weapon just behind its eyes. As it squealed for mercy, the necromancer used the strength of his high to rip the blade further into its head, tearing the exoskeleton around its face completely off. It clattered to the cavern floor a moment later as the arachnid collapsed, blue blood pouring from between its pedipalps. Excess energy still coursed through my lover's veins, and he rushed toward more foes, his scythe dripping with fluids.
A rush of attraction flowed through me at Cerin's skill. Gods, how I loved that man.
I directed necromantic energy to the cavern floor, and the black coils sunk deep into the exoskeletons of the arachnids, splicing their bodies back together with black magic. I then directed emerald green energy to a spider in the midst of trembling as it prepared to spit venom over a group of soldiers, paralyzing it just long enough for them to finish it off.
The last spider fell minutes later, with Calder still clinging to its abdomen as it crashed to the floor, relieved of its head. Th
e arachnid corpses scurried back to me with in a clattering of sharp steps, though I dispelled them a moment later, rendering the cavern quiet.
Then, the beastmen morphed back into their normal forms, as Azazel double-checked to be sure we had sufficiently cleaned them out. The archer spun in a slow circle, but no red energy developed above his palm.
He glanced up to me after dispelling the magic. “Forgive my ignorance of necromancy,” he began, before throwing a hand toward the spider corpses. “But when you raise the dead, does it require energy just to make them rise, or does it continue to use energy to keep them animated?”
“It takes immense energy to make corpses rise. The more corpses, the more energy,” I explained. “It takes a tiny stream of energy to keep them active. Why?”
Azazel's eyes returned to the corpses. “Perhaps we could bring the creatures with us.”
I looked to Cerin, who appeared intrigued by the idea. “We stop to camp every night as it is,” he said to me. His silver eyes were still glistening with excess energy from his high. “Take them with us, dispel them at camp. Rinse and repeat until we're in Quellden.” Cerin looked to Nyx. “How far are we from the city now?”
“Half a moon, give or take,” she replied.
Cerin shrugged as he turned back to me. “I don't see why not.”
I nodded. “Oxygen is the only thing we need to preserve down here, and the dead don't breathe it. Good idea, Azazel.”
The archer's eyes softened in mine, thankful for the compliment.
“Speaking of Quellden,” Calder's pained voice sounded from behind me. He was in the midst of dressing, his hands stained with spider blood from ripping into the foes as his blood-kin. “We are at the split. We need to figure out how best to separate the army.”
His words brought up memories of our planning during the trip. We had planned to divide the army into two branches, having one unit finish the trek to Quellden via the northernmost tunnel, while the other unit would travel southeast. One entrance opened up at the north point of the city, just beneath the exit to the Seran Peaks on the surface. Because it was in a narrower part of the city, there would be fewer places for the assassins to come from to surround us. At the same time, because it was so close to a surface exit, it was also cluttered with assassin's guilds.
The tunnel leading southeast opened up in the middle of Quellden's western wall. Nyx had informed us it was less populated there, because it opened up to the farthest reaches of the city, where there were homes and apartments for the poorer of its populace. At the same time, however, it was surrounded on all sides by open, vertical buildings, all of which were bound to be heavily populated.
All we had to do was decide the best tactic for each branch of our army to take, and plan for how to meet up at the center of the city. Our hope was that by infiltrating Quellden's royal district, which sat cluttered within the branches and splits of multiple underground rivers flowing through the entirety of the city, we could kill Queen Achlys and her favorite heirs. If we succeeded in taking out the royal family, the city would be without its leader, and would perhaps admit defeat without our army having to worry about rampaging through the rest of it. The fewer people we had to contend with, the better. Nyx had hope the plan would work, because she told us so many of the women of the underground were intensely jealous of the heirs and their lives of luxury. Perhaps the hatred of their well-off sisters would open their minds to accepting the change in leadership and rules.
Calder walked up to me, and I wasted no time in giving him the spell I knew he wanted. “Many of your soldiers know illusion, Cal,” I reminded him.
“Yeah,” he admitted, with a small charming smile. “But I prefer asking you.”
I shook my head in amusement. Calder could be oddly sentimental when he wanted to be. “All right. Splitting of the army,” I murmured, thinking. I turned to Vallen. “Vallen, go through our men. I want the necromancers separated from the rest. Healers, too. All other material elemental mages separated from the army, together.”
The bear-kin asked for clarification. “Including shapeshifters?”
“No. They should be counted separately,” I replied.
Vallen nodded. “Will do,” he replied, turning to our men to begin doing as I asked.
“We need people in both groups who can free slaves,” I said to the others, before listing skills as I put up one finger of my hand at a time. “Lock-picking, illusion magic, charisma. People who can work behind the scenes in both groups to add to our numbers as quickly as possible.”
“If you want charisma, I'm your gal,” Nyx mused.
“Well, of course you are, but I need more than you,” I teased her. Looking to Jakan, I said, “You did a great job convincing slaves to join us in Thanati. I'm sure you did it again in Hazarmaveth.” I glanced toward Nyx again. “But you two will have to be separated. And bring a lot of soldiers with you, perhaps those who worked with you last time.”
The two looked at each other. “That's good for me,” Nyx finally replied.
“Nyx is over-rated, anyway,” Jakan said. When Nyx reached over to punch his arm, he snorted in laughter.
“I will be with Jakan?” Anto questioned, hopeful.
“I don't see why not. Each group needs warriors. As long as you guys let each other do what you do best.”
The lovers agreed.
“What of the shapeshifters?” Calder asked.
“I think the majority of them should go with the southeastern group,” I replied. “The city streets are wider there. The northern areas of the city won't allow them much maneuverability.”
“Kai! Kai!” Jayce bounded up to me. “Before you decide on that, I think that me and the other water lovers should go with the northern group. The rivers in Quellden flow from just outside that tunnel and down through the center of the city, right? We can follow the rivers to the royal district and cause chaos along the way.”
I remembered seeing that from the map Ricco had supplied us with. “That's a fantastic idea, Jayce.” The crocodile-kin beamed with pride. “You know which beastmen have water-based blood-kin. Separate those from the others.”
“Okey dokey,” she piped up, before hurrying to do just that.
“I can do both,” Calder reminded me. “And if we're separating the beastmen, both sides need to have a leader.”
“Both sides need a leader regardless, Cal,” I told him. “They need direction.” I glanced to Azazel. “That means you and I need to be in separate groups.”
Azazel frowned. “I'd prefer to be with you.”
That revelation flattered me. “I loved working with you Azazel, but part of the reason for that was because you can strategize as well as I can.”
“Yes, but we both are partial to different strategies,” the archer replied. “You are brash. I am cautious. You need someone to watch you.”
Nyx snorted a laugh from beside the archer, to which he looked confused. “Hell, now you sound like Cerin.”
Cerin raised a hand to call attention to himself. “As long as I'm with Kai, Azazel, she'll be fine.”
“Yes, but you are both necromancers. We need necromancers at both attack points,” the archer argued.
I pointed over to where Vallen was still separating the mages into groups. “And we will have necromancers at both points, Azazel. We have hundreds.” After Azazel did not reply, I added, “I think you, Calder, and Nyx should all be together in the north with Jayce and the water beastmen. You've worked well together before. Nyx knows that part of the city, because it's where she's from.”
“Uggh, I was hoping we could be together, bud,” Nyx commented. “It'll be the first time I invite you over to my house.”
I chuckled at the unexpected humor. “I never invited you to mine,” I reminded her. “You just bashed your way in.”
Nyx shrugged with a smile. “I fail to see the difference. It's what we'll be doing here.”
“We'll meet up together at the center,” I promised her. �
�As for the southeastern tunnel, I think it should be me, Cerin, Jakan, Anto, Vallen, and the land and air beastmen. I know the map, I know the strategies. I can find the royal district myself.” Scanning over my group of friends, I asked, “Any questions? Concerns?”
Azazel's eyes flicked over to Calder, and he wrinkled his nose, but said nothing.
Calder's gravelly voice met my ear. “Separate the groups of mages and recruits in half, then?” He questioned.
“Elemental mages, yes. Give me half of every mage group. Recruits? I'm thinking we should split it slightly in my favor. I will be surrounded by open streets, you will not. There will be more slaves to free in the service district, so you will also gain more recruits.”
“I guess I'll give you that, love,” he teased.
The plans were set, and our army was ready. We took a few hours more to ensure our groups were built correctly, with everyone in their places. The day was young yet, so we planned to separate and start the remaining trek to Quellden. We weren't expecting to get there until mid-Red Moon. My heart ached when I thought of how long that meant I would be separated from the people I cared about. We wouldn't see Nyx, Calder, Azazel, or Jayce for at least half of a season, and in the meantime, I would be unable to aid any of them.
We were in the midst of saying our goodbyes, and Calder pulled me close to him, unwilling to let me go so easily.
“Where were we a year ago, love?” He asked me, his voice beside my ear.
I thought back, connecting the date to the same just the year before. “We were in Killick, preparing to board the Galleon Stallion.” I paused, before I added teasingly, “Love.”
Calder chuckled, pulling back from our hug, though he held me at arm's length. “I wish I could have known then just how important you would become to me. Perhaps we could have spent more time together even before your fickle golden-eyed friends got involved.”
“Don't speak like you will die,” I warned him, unwilling to entertain the idea.
“It is possible, love,” he said softly, frowning. “I worry about my abilities as a leader. I will be without you for some time, you know.”