Shadowdale at-1

by Richard Awlinson

  The girl stared at him. "Care for any stew or not?"

  "Yes, please!" Adon said, any concerns he might have had about Myrmeen Lhal and her lackeys now vanquished by his hunger. As the cleric sat up, though, he felt a sharp tug along the left side of his face and a deep burning sensation. Something warm and wet rolled down his cheek. Odd, Adon thought. It isn't unusually warm this early in the morning. I wonder why I should be sweating so. Then he looked at the girl.

  Gillian's shoulders were drawn up tight, and her knees had ground together as she looked away from Adon.

  "What's wrong?" the cleric said.

  "I'll get the healer," Gillian said and rose to her feet.

  Adon ran his hand across his face. The sweat was even worse. "I'm a healer. I'm a cleric in the service of Sune. Am I feverish?"

  Gillian glanced back at the cleric, then quickly looked away.

  "Please, what's wrong?" Adon said, and reached for the girl. Then he saw that there was blood on his hand. It wasn't sweat he had wiped from his face at all.

  Adon's breathing slowed, and he felt as if a huge weight were pressing down on his chest. His skin grew cold. His head began to swim.

  "Give me your bowl," he said.

  Gillian looked to the others in the camp and called out to one of them. Midnight saw that Adon was awake and jumped to her feet.

  "Give it to me!" Adon cried, and wrenched the bowl from her hands, spilling the contents to the ground. His hands were trembling as he shined the metal bowl with his sleeve, then raised it to his face and looked into the curved mirror.

  "No."

  Gillian was no longer by his side. There were crashing footsteps. Midnight and a cleric wearing the symbol of Tymora stood before Adon.

  "It cannot be," Adon said.

  The cleric of Tymora had been grinning from ear to ear when he approached, thankful that the young Sunite had risen from his sleep with no ill effects. Once he saw the expression on Adon's face, though, his smile quickly faded.

  "Sune, please…," Adon said.

  The muscles in the healer's face tensed. He suddenly understood. "We did what we could," he said somberly.

  Midnight put her hand on Adon's shoulder and looked at Cyric and Kelemvor, who were sitting together across the camp.

  Adon said nothing. He simply stared at his reflection.

  "We are too far from Arabel and the goddess Tymora for healing magic to work," the cleric continued. "There were no potions. We had to rely on the salves and natural medications I could create."

  The rim of the thin metal bowl began to curl in Adon's grip.

  "What's important is that you're alive, and perhaps one of your own faith will be able to help you where we could not."

  The metal twisted.

  "You must let me examine you. You're bleeding again. You've torn the stitches."

  Midnight reached down and took the bowl from Adon's hand. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  The healer bent low, toweling away the blood from Adon's face. The damage was not as bad as he had feared, though, as only a few of the stitches had been torn. As the cleric looked at the scar, he wished they'd been in a city when he found the Sunite. At least he could have made a cleaner job of the stitching with the proper tools.

  Adon's fingers traced the darkening scar, following it from his left eye, down over his cheekbone, and through the center of his cheek. The ragged cut ended at the base of the cleric's jaw.

  Later that morning, as the adventurers broke camp, Cyric got into an argument with Brion, a young thief in Thurbrand's company.

  "Of course I understand what you're saying!" Cyric shouted at the albino. "But how can you deny the evidence of your own senses?"

  "I gazed upon the face of the goddess Tymora herself," Brion said. "That's all the evidence I need. The gods are now visiting the Realms to spread their sacred word first hand."

  "Aye, pay your money and step right up," Cyric said. "Perhaps your goddess will start telling fortunes next."

  "All I'm saying — "

  "Dullard! I heard you the first time," Cyric yelled.

  "Contributions are always necessary — "

  "A necessary evil, you mean." Cyric shook his head and looked away from Brion.

  "It must be terribly lonely not believing in anything but yourself," Brion said. "My belief makes me whole."

  Cyric trembled with rage, then gained control of his emotions. He knew that Brion had not intentionally provoked him, but the dark-haired, lean fighter had been unusually edgy since he woke that morning. Perhaps it was the sadness that hung over the camp because of Adon's wound, but a part of him wanted to charge into the mountains once more and let fate throw any monstrosity it could imagine at him. Even Spiderhaunt Woods felt vaguely tempting, although Cyric knew that the only catharsis he would likely find in that place was death.

  There was a sound in the distance, and the earth beneath the adventurers shuddered. Cyric saw huge crystalline shards sliding from the face of the glass ridges that had positioned themselves across the road to Shadowdale.

  "Merciful Tymora," Brion said as the massive glass boulders shattered and sent rainbows across the land as they reflected the sunlight.

  Then, without warning, a glossy black spear, the size of a small tree, shot out of the earth next to Cyric. The thief was knocked to the ground, but quickly got up and grabbed his horse. All around the plain, similar jagged ebon spears thrust up through the dirt and towered a dozen feet into the morning sky.

  "Time to leave," Kelemvor said to Thurbrand, and the two men ran for their mounts. "It looks like we're going through the woods after all."

  Thurbrand surged through his company, rallying his people and hurrying them toward the woods. Before they could get away, though, two of his men were impaled by the spikes, and three horses were gutted. The only remaining members of the company bolted into the darkness of the Spiderhaunt Woods. Spears continued to shatter the plain, and huge avalanches of glass fell from the mountains to the northeast.

  As she got close to the woods, Midnight discovered that Adon was missing. As she scanned the plain from the edge of the woods, she saw the cleric's riderless mount racing amidst the spears. Midnight charged toward the renegade animal and caught up with it in the center of the plain.

  A figure was moving slowly through the clouds of dirt, approaching the horse.

  "Adon, is that you?" Midnight called.

  The cleric took his time as he mounted the horse and led it away from the deadly plain at a leisurely pace. He reigned the animal in when it tried to bolt, and if he heard Midnight's words or saw her frantic gestures, he ignored them. But when Adon didn't react, even as a spike shot from the ground a few feet away from him, Midnight moved beside the cleric and slapped the hind quarters of his mount with all her strength. The horse galloped toward the woods and relative safety. Adon didn't cry out or even lurch forward as the horse ran. He merely dug his fingers into the horse's mane, his legs into its flank, and hung on.

  Kelemvor waited at the perimeter of the woods. All but a few of Thurbrand's people had vanished within, and the last of the riders joined their allies in the darkened recesses of Spiderhaunt Woods.

  There was no movement from the creatures they had spied the previous night. "Perhaps they sleep by day," Kelemvor said. The sounds of shattering glass and exploding ground had lessened, though the adventurers could still hear an occasional crash as a huge wall of glass slid off the mountains.

  "If the creatures sleep during the day," Midnight said. "We'd best be in Shadowdale by night."

  Kelemvor, Cyric, and the Company of Dawn all mumbled in agreement. Adon silently rode off into the woods.

  Throughout the day, the adventurers rode through the woods, starting at every sound, their swords always at the ready. Adon rode ahead of Kelemvor and Midnight, and Cyric rode with Brion, who had lost his horse to one of the ebon spears. As they got deeper into the forest, the flora grew thick and unmanageable, and soon Thurbrand signaled for every
one to stop and dismount. The horses would have to be lead.

  Adon ignored the signal, and Kelemvor ran to his side. "Have you lost your sight this lime, Adon?" he said. When the cleric ignored him and continued to force his horse to plow through the undergrowth, the fighter slapped him on the arm to get his attention. Adon looked down at Kelemvor, nodded, and got off his horse.

  "There's death in this place," Adon said, no life in his voice. "We've walked into a charnel house."

  "It wouldn't be the first time," Kelemvor said and returned to Midnight.

  Farther ahead, Cyric walked with Brion. Although he had been alternately amused and frustrated by the young thief, Cyric sensed an innocence in him that was refreshing. Surely Brion had not been an adventurer very long, although his proficiency with a dagger rivaled Cyric's.

  After morningfeast, Brion had challenged Cyric to a test of skill with the dagger, and Cyric nearly lost to the albino. After the challenge was over, Cyric and Brion did a trick using six daggers each, which they first gathered from their friends, then tossed at each other with blinding speed. Each knife Cyric threw was deflected by one of Brion's, then each one Brion threw was deflected in midair by one of Cyric's tosses.

  Still, for all his skill with knives, the albino did not reek of blood and madness as so many adventurers did. Even Brion's companions, like the girl who sat with Adon, reveled in the idea of taking a life. Cyric could see it in their eyes.

  Cyric could see, too, that the number of times Brion had willingly shed blood could be counted on a single one of his gloved hands, and that the albino had never taken a man's life without regret.

  As the adventurers walked along, the woods themselves were misleadingly beautiful, at least at the start. The trees were thick and healthy, covered with rich green leaves. Bright sunlight pierced the openings in the ceiling of the forest, and warm shafts of light fell here and there, occasionally caressing the faces of the heroes who navigated through the thick foliage.

  Then, as they moved across a thick bed of gnarly roots, which covered the ground completely in many places, Kelemvor heard twigs snapping in the trees. He turned sharply and motioned to Zelanz and Welch, the mercenaries who brought up the rear, but they hadn't heard the sounds. They looked at Kelemvor and shrugged. Kelemvor saw no hint of movement around the party, so he turned and walked on.

  The noises came again and again, and finally the entire company had been alerted. Weapons were drawn, but no one could spot any signs of the creatures in the trees. In the lead, Thurbrand carefully navigated through a small path in the woods. Bounding a tree, the bald man stopped quite suddenly, his body tensing as he prepared for an attack.

  A man wearing bone-white armor stood before Thurbrand, stuck to a tree by long, ropy strands of webbing. His helmet had been removed, and the bleached white skin of his face was marked with the symbol of Bane, black over his white features. Sword drawn, the assassin stared at Thurbrand, his face frozen in a wild-eyed grimace.

  A few yards away, Thurbrand saw five other men wearing the armor of Bane's elite assassins, stuck to other trees in a large clearing.

  "They're dead," Thurbrand said. "But whatever killed them is close by."

  The adventurers stood still for a moment as Kelemvor and Thurbrand examined a huge web that was strung in the trees around the assassins. The rest of the party, with the exception of Adon, gathered closer together and watched the trees. The Sunite, on the other hand, simply stood by his horse, staring up at the dark canopy of leaves that blotted out the sun.

  As the party stood, listening for something to move in the trees, they noticed that there was no sounds at all coming from the woods. The leaves didn't rustle in the wind. No insects chirped. The woods were completely silent.

  Without a single word, Gillian handed the reigns of her mount to the cleric of Tymora, then took to the trees like a monkey. She made no sound as she rose to the highest branch, then surveyed the woods with her practiced eye. The adventurers waited for five minutes as she leaped from branch to branch, carefully taking in the area from every possible vantage, and finally she signaled all clear.

  The girl motioned for Thurbrand to come close, even before she leaped down to the ground. "Not even the strongest winds could move these branches. This place is dead, frozen in this state." She made a motion with her fingers to indicate an odd texture. "There is a light film covering everything. That's what causes the stillness."

  Thurbrand nodded, and reached out to help her down. She frowned and leaped over and past him, landing in a graceful crouch. But as her feet struck the earth, directly in the center of a tangle of roots that radiated from the spot, there was a harsh, wet sound and the ground gave way just a bit. Before the girl could utter a word of warning, the roots burst from the ground in a shower of displaced earth.

  Eight limbs in all burst up to grab Gillian, all of them tall, spindly, and pitch-black. Each limb had four joints, and they culminated in a razor-sharp tip the size of a large sword. The vast underbelly of the creature that the girl stood upon moved from the earth, pitching her off balance before she could leap from the trap. Then the creature's head burst from the ground, and she saw its blazing red eyes and four jagged pincers.

  The legs of the giant spider collapsed inward, impaling Gillian from eight different directions. Then the spider flipped over, and the woods came alive. All around the travelers, the knotted roots revealed themselves. Another man had been standing on the belly of one of the spiders and met the same fate as the girl.

  Cyric and Brion stood back to back, daggers drawn. One of the spiders attacked Cyric's mount, injecting it with a poison from its mandibles that paralyzed the horse. The spider dropped the animal and waited for the poison to act before it carted the horse off to its web. Cyric cursed as he realized most of his supplies, including his hand axes, were on the horse, but he wasn't about to try and rescue his clothes from the spider that stood guard over his dying mount.

  The spiders were everywhere, and the smallest of them was the size of a large dog. Cyric stared into the eyes of one of the creatures as it advanced. Its legs were a pate green, and its body was black with huge orange blotches on its side. The predatory gaze of the spider brought a smile to Cyric's face as he launched a dagger into one of the creature's unblinking eyes.

  Cyric's blade found its mark and was enveloped in the quivering mass of the spider's eye. The eye collapsed inward, following the blade, but the spider continued to advance.

  "Gods!" Cyric cried, and leaped to a low-hanging branch. The giant spider surged forward, snapping at the air where the thief had stood only moments before. As he climbed higher into the tree, Cyric heard a scream and looked down.

  The wounded spider had pierced Brion's side with one of its legs; the daggers he held were little defense against the horror. The spider lifted a second leg, preparing to run its victim through again. Brion's head fell back as he struggled, and he looked up at Cyric.

  Cyric could see that Brion's lips were moving, begging him for help.

  Cyric hesitated, weighing his options. He knew the man was already dying from the creature's poisons. There was little he could do but die beside him.

  The spider struck with its second leg. Life faded from Brion's eyes as Cyric watched.

  At the other end of the clearing, Midnight watched as three spiders charged. Kelemvor, Zelanz, and Welch stood beside her, and Adon stood motionless behind them, seemingly oblivious to the threat that was barreling down on them.

  Two of the spiders were huge and fat, with black and red bodies and bloated crimson legs. The third was completely black, with sleek sharp legs and a greater agility than the others. The narrow gaps between the trees did little to slow this one, as it pitched at an angle, climbing across the sides of the trees to get at its prey.

  The sleek spider jumped at the heroes, and Kelemvor snapped off three of its limbs with a single swing of his sword. The fighter struck again and cut a channel in the body of the beast, narrowly avoiding its p
incers. Then Kelemvor turned, and the spider was directly over him, rising up on its back legs. He thrust his sword into its exposed underbelly and forced it up and back. The creature slashed at the fighter with a leg, and Kelemvor was knocked off his feet. His sword pulled free as he sailed through the air and crashed into a tree.

  Midnight watched as the remaining pair of spiders advanced on them. Looking down at her dagger, she realized that it was going to be useless against the monsters, so she tried to remember her decastave spell. Midnight grabbed a branch from a nearby tree and recited the incantation. Suddenly a glowing blue-white staff materialized in Midnight's hands. As Midnight attacked the spider, she was startled to find that the staff took on the properties of a scythe. She slashed open the first spider she saw, but the other went for easier prey.

  It pounced on Zelanz and Welch, who fought it side by side. Their sweeping swords dispatched it quickly, but others approached. The drip of a milky white substance was all that alerted them to the spider that had been busy forming a web above them. Zelanz looked up, just in time to see the reddish mass of the spider as it descended upon them.

  At the edge of the clearing, the cleric of Tymora moved forward. He touched the edge of a tree and saw Thurbrand fighting for his life against the spider that killed Gillian. He took another step and came face to face with Bohaim, a young mage from Suzail. He stumbled back to clear the way for Bohaim, but a spider's leg burst through the mage's chest. The man screamed as the spider pulled him up into the air and lowered him toward its hungry mandibles.

  The Company of Dawn is dying, the cleric of Tymora thought. There was a slight crunch behind him. He brought up his mace and turned to face a purple and white spider. One of the spider's legs impaled the cleric with blinding speed. The cleric formed a silent prayer to Tymora, and the world became darkness.

  Not far from where the cleric fell, Thurbrand's sword flashed and the head of the spider that killed Gillian was caved in, spilling its poisons even as the fighter turned away to avoid being soaked. Five more spiders advanced on the bald man. Just ahead of him, the other two living members of the Company of Dawn were fighting for their lives. Thurbrand ran toward the two men, ignoring the pack of spiders closing in behind him.