“Another few miles, and we should be clear of this place,” Korven said.
He sounded more hopeful than certain. “The brush is getting thinner.
We must be approaching the outer edges of the forest.”
Sylvanna came trotting up behind them. “Aedan, look at the trees,” she said tensely.
He looked and at first he didn’t see anything.
Then he saw movement on the tree trunks that they passed. Spiders.
Hundreds of them. Some were small, but some were fist-sized, and some still larger, like small melons. They were crawling up the tree trunks all around them, making them seem to writhe.
Some were already in the lower branches and were dropping down on web strands, one after another after another. The sunlight filtering through the upper branches glistened off the web strands, hundreds of them, thousands, coming down on either side of their route.
“What in Haelyn’s name?” said Korven.
Hundreds of thousands of spiders were all around them now, spinning a vast curtain of webs.
“It’s the Spider,” Sylvanna said grimly. “He’s controlling them.”
No one living had ever seen the Spider and survived to tell the tale.
One of the most dangerous and hideous awnsheghlien, it was said he was once a goblin king named Tai-Qazar, who had led the goblin forces fighting for Azrai at the Battle of Mount Deismaar. What little was known of him came from ancient writings preserved in the library at the College of Sorcerers in Anuire, set down by those who had encountered him hundreds of years ago, while he had still retained some shreds of sanity.
Imbued with the god essence of the dark lord, TalQazar had united several tribes of gnolls and goblins under his leadership and founded his domain within the forest north of Diemed, which came to be known as the Spiderfell. The god essence of Azrai had brought about a horrible mutation in his body, which had progressed the more he used his powers, which in turn gave him an appetite for bloodtheft unmatched by any other awnshegh, with the possible exception of the Gorgon. The upper portion of his body was said to be humanoid in appearance, but so grotesquely changed that he bore almost no resemblance to his original form. His lower half was the bloated body of a huge arachnid, with eight legs and a bulging abdomen. He never ventured from his nest deep within the Spiderfell, but he knew everything that went on within his forested domain through the eyes of the hundreds of species of poisonous arachnids that lived within the Spiderfell.
And to feed his insane appetite for bloodtheft, the gnolls and goblins he controlled brought victims to him.
The woods on both sides of the army were quickly becoming shrouded with a huge network of filmy webs as the horde of spiders clambered over the strands they were spinning. It was a frightening and repellent sight.
None of the spiders were attacking any of the troops. They seemed intent upon their spinning, building up layer upon layer of gossamer webs on both sides of the army’s route.
“They’re trying to trap us!” Aedan said as understanding suddenly dawned.
“With spiderwebs?” said Korven. “Ridiculous! We can break right through them.”
“Any man who tries will become covered with the insects,” Aedan said.
“Enough bites, and he will become paralyzed, and then the Spider’s minions can drag him off to their awnsheghlien lord.” He pointed ahead of them, where the network of webs was growing steadily thicker as they advanced.
“Look there. They are creating a corridor for us. See how it turns?
They are trying to lead us back into the Spiderfell!”
“We shall burn our way through,” said Michael, speaking for the first time since they had left the Shadow World. “Pass the order for torches to be lit.”
“There are no more torches, Sire,” Korven said.
“We used the last of them back in the Shadow World.”
“Gylvain!” Michael said, looking around for the elven mage. “Where is Gylvain?”
“I have not seen him since we left the Shadow World,” Korven replied.
“You don’t suppose we left him back there?”
“No, Gylvain came through the portal,” Aedan said. “But I have not seen him since. Sylvanna?”
She shook her head. The webs around them were almost as thick as cloth now, carpeted with spiders.
The procession stopped as Futhark came running back to them with several of the halfling scouts.
‘The tunnel of webs bends around sharply up ahead,” he reported,
“circling back the way we came. We cannot go on, or it will take us back into the Spiderfell. Do you wish me to create a portal back into the Shadow World, Your Highness?”
Michael’s face was grim. “And if we encounter the undead once more?
Besides, by now, the fire we started must have spread considerably, and it will take a long time for it to burn itself out. Still, we may have no choice….”
The wind picked up suddenly, and the sky overhead grew darker. They looked up and saw the morning light fading rapidly.
“It looks as if a storm is moving in,” said Korven.
“No,” Sylvanna replied, as the wind increased, “it’s my brother! It’s Gylvain!”
Thunder crashed as clouds moved in a thick, black bank above them and lightning lanced the sky. The wind continued to grow stronger, shrieking through the treetops; thunder crashed repeatedly like cannon, echoing throughout the forest all around them, and it began to hail.
At first, the hailstones pattered softly through the treetops, but then they fell harder and faster, like stones fired from slings, sheeting down and ripping through the spiderwebs, smashing the arachni ds to the ground.
“Forward!” Michael shouted, and the army raised a mighty cheer as they moved ahead. But their exuberance was cut short when another cry was raised, at first blending with their cheers, then riding over them as the troops stopped to listen. The new sound was a mixture of doglike howls and screaming voices. While hail fell like grapeshot, these new attackers came running through the trees, screaming and brandishing their weapons.
The weary troops unsheathed their blades and surged forward to fight the gnolls and goblins of the Spider. They had been waiting in ambush for them, waiting for them to try breaking through the webs so that they could move in and finish off the ones the spiders didn’t get. The hail Gylvain had conjured had ruined their plans, so they had charged.
Aedan only remembered raising his sword and bringing it down again, over and over and over, slashing all around him as the goblins and the gnolls descended on them. Weary from the battles that they had already fought, the troops rose to the occasion; their survival had depended on it. They had cut their way through the attackers, but it had been impossible to maintain any kind of ranks or formation in such overgrown terrain, The army broke up into small groups that fought their way through the forest and reformed several miles away on the plains of Diemed, but though they had made camp and posted pickets, waiting for three days to allow the troops to rest and the stragglers to catch up, there were many who never made it out of the Spiderfell.
As Aedan walked down the dark and narrow streets of the artists’
quarter, the buildings on either side of him reminded him of the web tunnel, dark with countless crawling spiders, and he felt sweat break out on his forehead and start trickling down his back. His breathing grew faster and more shallow as he walked, his eyes wide and staring straight ahead of him. The people who passed him in the streets saw the haunted, wild look upon his face and gave him a wide berth. He could not banish the visions from his mind. Over and over, he saw images of the battle in the Spiderfell, men and goblins hacking away at each other, the wolfish gnolls howling and snarling, their foam-flecked jaws snapping as they fought with the soldiers of Anuire, who had called upon their last reserves to cut their way clear.
He kept seeing the undead staggering toward him through the mists of the Shadow World, the flames leaping up, the shifting fi
gure of the Cold Rider watching from the ridge. He heard the screams of the wounded and the dying, and they sounded so real that he had to cover his ears, but that didn’t help. The screams and images were in his mind, and he couldn’t drive them away.
He lurched against a wall, his hands up to his head, and doubled over, gasping. He struck his head against the wall several times, and the pain helped distract him from the visions. He straightened up, breathing hard, and looked around. He had taken a wrong turn somewhere.
The tavern he was heading for was one street over. Shaking his head to clear it, he breathed deeply several times, then headed down an alleyway to get to the next street.
Halfway down the alley, three figures detached themselves from the shadows and blocked his way “There’s a toll to be paid for going through this alley, friend,” one of them said. “Let’s see how much coin you’ve got in your purse.”
28?
Aedan saw the glint of a dagger. Alleymen. Oh, gods, not now, he thought, exasperated. “Get out of my way,” he said, hoarsely. ‘I don’t have time for this.”
“Well, aren’t we high and mighty?” the leader of the trio said unpleasantly. “I think we may have to take you down a peg or two, milord.”
As they came toward him, Aedan saw that all three had long daggers in their hands. And the leader wore a sword and a vest of chain mail over his tunic. A former soldier, Aedan thought, one who had left the army and turned to crime. After what he had just seen the army go through, the thought filled him with cold fury. How many of them had laid down their lives or returned home cripples so that the likes of this one could prey upon the people of city they’d protected?
“Get out of my way, you filthy scum,” he said.
“Kill him,” said the former soldier.
As the men came at him, something in Aedan snapped. He screamed hoarsely and drew his blade, launching himself at them like an enraged berserker.
With a powerful, two-handed blow, he struck the closest one so hard that he split him from the shoulder clear down to the middle of his chest.
The man screamed and fell as Aedan yanked his blade free, but by then, the second one was on him. Aedan twisted around, deflecting the dagger lunge with his blade, then bringing his sword hilt up sharply to strike the alleyman in the face. Blood spurted as the man’s nose broke and he cried out; then Aedan ran him through. Only the former soldier remained, and as Aedan made for him, he drew his own blade and took a fighting stance, his cocky attitude completely gone, replaced by a deadly serious expression. He managed to parry Aedan’s first stroke, but Aedan kept at him, screaming all the while, as the man fought desperately to keep Aedan’s blade at bay, never having a chance to go on the offensive.
Aedan backed him toward the wall of the alley.
They locked blades, the alleyman with his back against the wall. As they strained against each other, Aedan dimly felt a blow to his shoulder. He raised his knee sharply into the alleyman’s groin, and as the man grunted and the breath whooshed out of him, Aedan bore down on his opponent’s sword and slammed his forehead into the alleyman’s face.
Blood spurted from a broken nose as the man slumped against the wall.
Aedan disarmed him easily, then threw down his own sword and started pummeling him with his fists. The nearly senseless alleyman started to slide down the wall. Aedan seized him by the throat with his left hand, holding him up, and repeatedly smashed his right fist into the man’s face, turning it into a mask of blood. Over and over, he pounded him until he felt someone grasp his shoulder from behind.
Turning quickly, he swung a hard right at the cloaked figure that came up behind him, dimly registering that the alleymen had worn no cloaks.
The figure ducked beneath his punch and drove a hard jab into his stomach, directly into the solar plexus.
He doubled over as the wind whistled out of him, and the figure caught him, supporting him.
“Aedan! Aedan, it’s me! Sylvanna!”
The familiar voice broke through his berserker rage. “Sylvanna?” he said, weakly, as he fought to catch his breath.
She eased him down to his knees, then left him to check on the alleyman he had been battering. She bent over him, then straightened. “This one’s dead,” she said curtly. She quickly checked the other two, but their condition was obvious. She came back to Aedan, who was just beginning to get his breath back. “What’s wrong? You didn’t have enough fighting? You had to go wandering through the alleys in the middle of the night, looking for more trouble?”
“What … what are you doing here?” he asked.
“Lady Ariel sent me,” said Sylvanna.
“Ariel?”
“She was worried about you. She thought you might have gone to the Green Basilisk, so she asked me to see if you were all right. I was just passing by the alley on my way there when I heard the commotion.
Doesn’t seem as if you needed any help, though.
Was that you screaming like a wounded bear?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Oh, Great Mother, you’re wounded,” she said.
Aedan glanced down and saw a knife sticking out of his shoulder. He remembered, vaguely, feeling a blow and realized the alleyman had stuck him. “Pull it out,” he said.
She grasped the knife firmly by the hilt and pulled straight back. It came out with some difficulty. It had struck bone and stuck there. As she pulled it out, the blood began to flow. Aedan winced with pain, then closed his eyes and concentrated, calling upon his blood abilities of healing and regeneration. After a few seconds, the blood flow stopped and he felt the wound starting to close. Moments later, it had healed completely, leaving behind only a mild redness of the skin.
He opened his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling slightly dizzy.
The fight, together with the healing, had taken a lot out of him.
“Wish I could do that,” said Sylvanna, pulling back his tunic to check on the healed wound. “It’s a handy trick.”
“Help me up, please,” he said.
She assisted him to his feet, putting his arm around her shoulder so he could lean on her for support. “Are you all right?”
“I will be, shortly,” he replied, breathing heavily.
“By the gods, I need a drink. I need a lot of drinks.
“Come on,” she said, helping him out of the alley.
“Show me where this tavern is I’ve heard so much about.”
After a few moments, he was able to walk without her assistance.
“What came over you back there?” she asked.
“I’ve never seen you like that before. It was like Michael’s divine wrath.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have that blood ability. I don’t know what came over me. Pure rage, I guess.” He told her about the visions he had started having on his way through the artists’ quarter, and how he had become confused and taken a wrong turn somewhere, gone down the alley to reach the right street, and encountered the three thugs.
“That last one was a former soldier,” he said. “He wore the style of chain mail we use in the army I don’t know, perhaps he bought it somewhere, but I doubt it. He had the look of a soldier about him. I thought of all the men we’d lost, fighting for the empire while that bastard remained home, preying on the citizens, and I just went mad.”
“A delayed reaction,” she said. “It happens sometimes, after a long period of combat. It’s difficult to leave all that behind.”
He nodded. “I know. I just can’t stop thinking about it,” he said.
“And if it weighs on me so much, I can only wonder what Michael must be going through right now.”
“At least he’s safe back at the palace, and not wandering the streets at night, looking for another war.”
Aedan snorted. “I fear you’ve been among us humans too long,” he said.
“You’re developing a sense of humor. I sometimes think I’ve lost mine.
We
ll, this is it.”
He pointed to the entrance of the tavern, marked by a wooden sign above the door with a green basilisk painted on it. They went inside.
Aedan had not been to this place for a long time, ever since he’d assumed his duties as lord high chamberlain. He had stopped going because he did not think it fitting for the emperor’s first minister to frequent taverns and drink with the lower classes.
But in the years since he’d first assumed his post, especially after so much time spent in the field with the troops, he’d lost that old rigidity of opinions.
Still, he had not returned. This place had seemed like a part of his past best left behind. Even then, as Lord Tieran’s son, he had never really been accepted as one of the crowd. As lord high chamberlain, he thought he’d only make the other patrons feel awkward and uncomfortable.
Tonight, however, he simply didn’t care. Even the lord high chamberlain was entitled to a drink or two or ten, especially after the nightmare he had just survived.
The place hadn’t changed at all. He even saw a few familiar faces, though they were older now, of course. It was still the same dark, windowless rectangular room with stone walls on which the shadows danced in the flickering of candles and oil lamps. Still the same rough-hewn wooden tables and benches with rushes on the floor, the same long wooden bar stained with rings of countless goblets.
Bards still sang their songs upon the tiny stage while girls passed the hat for them … and the Fatalists were still holding court.
“Well, well, look what the wind blew in.”
He recognized Vaesil at once, even though the years had not been kind to him. Or perhaps more accurately, Aedan thought, the drink had not.
He had put on weight, and his once flowing, lustrous hair now hung limp and oily on his shoulders. His angular features and high cheekbones, which had once given him a dashing predatory look, had a rounded softness now, and his eyes had the glazed and red-rimmed look of a dissipated drinker.
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