As if on cue, they heard several loud taps behind them. Then they heard clicking and several hisses as a spider, its body the size of a wild boar, stepped into the light, the hardened, pointed exoskeleton at the end of each leg clacking against the stone floor. Its body was as black as midnight, its eight legs longer than spears with bristling, long spines along their whole length. Two large, bulbous, black eyes sat atop the ártocothe’s head accompanied by three smaller eyes on either side. Four feelers, dripping with green saliva sat underneath its eyes, each tipped with a single claw. The same spittle drooled from the two large fangs underneath the ártocothe’s feelers.
The ártocothe reared up on its back four legs. Beldar and Bofim both jabbed with their spears, but it was as if the spider knew what they were going to do. Beldar’s spear shattered as one of the forelimbs came down on the shaft. Bofim’s spear tip struck black flesh before it broke in two, and a yellowish-greenish fluid flowed from the wound, but the ártocothe seemed not to notice. Then, as they tightened up around the injured Nafer, Erik heard a deep hiss and smelled the wretched scent of decaying flesh behind them.
He spun around as another ártocothe attacked, jabbing at him with one of its forelimbs. He barely dodged the attack, grabbing Bryon’s shoulder and turning him around. The arachnid struck out with one of its forelimbs again, Erik twisting and turning as he sought to evade the attacks. One leg struck the ground so hard in front of Bryon, and such was the power that the exoskeleton claw at the end of it sent shards of rock up into his face. He swung out hard, his elvish blade glaring a bright purple as it struck the hardened exterior and then sliced through the leg. Yellow fluid spilled from the wound, and the ártocothe had to catch itself, off-balance for a moment.
It hissed deeply as it reared up and tucked its abdomen underneath its body, its spinnerets twitching, and spewed silk at Bryon. He instinctively held out his sword, and as the web struck the blade, it caught fire and burned away, pieces of the webbing floating gently to the ground. The spider hissed again and spewed more silk at Bryon. A stray strand struck Erik on the cheek, and where the webbing struck his skin, it burned and stung.
The ártocothe behind them shot webbing out as well, at Bofim and Beldar. Both dwarves avoided the silk, but it struck the injured Nafer square in the chest, so hard the dwarf fell backward. Another thread of silk wrapped around Bofim’s legs, and he too crashed to the ground. Turk rushed in front of both Nafer and Bofim, blocking strikes from the ártocothe’s forelimbs as it tried to skewer to the two fallen dwarves with its exoskeleton claws.
The spider to their front rushed in towards Bryon, ignoring the elvish sword for a moment. Bryon brought his blade down on the spider’s head, slicing it open, but the force with which the ártocothe hit Bryon, like a battering ram, threw him to the ground. Clearly badly hurt, the spider crawled over the top of Bryon and reared up. With fangs bared and dripping with poison, it came down hard. Erik lashed out with Ilken’s Blade as Bryon rolled to his side, the spider’s fangs slipping off the ground. Erik’s blade struck deep into the side of the ártocothe’s abdomen. Yellow fluid erupted from the wound, and with the damage to its head, that was enough, and the spider jerked sideways before it curled its legs over on top of itself as it died.
Erik turned to face the other ártocothe as it jammed one of its forelimbs into Bryon’s chest. His mail shirt stopped the claw from penetrating flesh, but he still cried out in pain as the spider spat poison at him, some of it striking him in the face and neck. He cried out again and, where the poison struck him, his skin turned a bright red. Erik stepped over Bryon, who had dropped his sword and covered his face with both hands. As the spider tried to rush Erik, as it had done with Bryon, he lifted his dagger up. The creature seemed to shy away from the light and tried spitting poison at him as well.
The spider reared up, and Erik batted its feelers and forelimbs away with his sword. When the spider came back onto all eight legs, Erik jammed his dagger into one of its big, black, bulbous eyes. The eye sizzled and then popped. The ártocothe reeled and ran backward, hissing and screaming and rocking from side to side. Erik took his opportunity and rushed in. When the spider tried regaining its feet, Erik jammed his sword into the other eye, driving his blade all the way to the crossguard. The spider spun web frantically, covering the ground underneath it, and Erik felt his feet stick to the floor, but it wasn’t enough to hold him.
He retrieved his sword and then jammed in unison with both his dagger and his sword into two smaller eyes, each strike causing yellow fluid to splash against his face. He tasted some, and it made him want to wretch. Eventually, the ártocothe stumbled backward. It seemed the spider had lost its will to fight, but it still stood there, challenging Erik. He saw a space between the ártocothe’s feelers, keyed in on that spot, and jabbed forward. His blade struck that small space, and the spider collapsed to the ground, rolled to its back, and curled its legs like the other one.
Erik helped his cousin stand up, but as soon as he got to his feet, Bryon collapsed again, clutching his chest. Something had happened to irritate an old wound, a wound that almost killed him; the poison from a young dragonling in Orvencrest.
“It’s my old wound,” Bryon said through clenched teeth. “I don’t know what happened, but it burns. I’ll be fine. Go help the dwarves.”
Erik hurried over to them and tried cutting the webbing with his sword, but the silk simply stuck to the Dwarf’s Iron, so he used his dagger, and the webbing burned away. Bofim rubbed his shins and groaned in pain even though he wore greaves and boots. Nafer looked groggy and couldn’t even sit up on his own.
“By the Creator, you dwarves are heavy,” Erik said, helping Nafer up as Bofim kicked one of the dead creatures. “And I’m glad those two are dead,” Erik added.
“There will be more,” Turk said, facing Erik, “be ready.”
Bofim helped Nafer along while Turk helped Bryon, but they only took a few steps before their torches and magic light illuminated a scene that caused the dwarves to groan and Erik’s stomach to twist.
“By the Creator,” Erik muttered.
A cavern wall stood in their way, as wide as the light would reveal and as tall as the darkness. White webbing covered the whole wall, holding thousands of cocoons, the horrifying prisons of any number of different creatures. It was a haphazard web, much like the black spiders Erik would find under wood piles back home, not the symmetrical and beautiful creations that a garden spider would build in between two rose bush branches. The spider silk was thicker in some areas and in others, where it wasn’t as thick, he saw holes, perhaps where the ártocothe would sleep or wait for unsuspecting victims.
Erik saw movement along the strands of web and realized they were the ártocothe’s young. There must have been thousands of them.
“This is the stuff of nightmares,” Bryon said through labored breaths.
Erik remembered what Bryon’s elvish sword had done to webbing, and he picked it up and touched it to the web on the wall. The silk flared up where the sword touched, igniting the web around it as well. The white spiderlings scurried everywhere as Erik cut a hole in the web big enough for them to pass through. The webbing was like dried tinder, catching fire quickly and lighting up the whole of the cavern. Husks and cocoons hung from the high roof, and the wall in front of them extended all the way to the top.
“If that thing could bring a horse or an elk in here, we can’t be that far from finding the way out. This is our chance,” Erik said turning to Turk. Both Bryon and Nafer couldn’t walk. The spider poison, present in its silk, had infected them and they could barely maintain consciousness. “I’ll carry Bryon. Beldar, you carry Nafer.”
Erik carried his cousin through the hole, emerging on the other side, again into darkness. They had lost all but one of their torches and, the waning brightness of Erik’s dagger told him that its energy was faltering and, just as before when he had used the dagger and its extraordinary magic, it would need time to regenerate. But, even i
n the faintness of the light, he could see they stood on a ledge giving way to a wide chasm. A long and wide land bridge connected the ledge on which they stood to the other side. They crossed the bridge as quickly as they dared, and after a while, they finally stopped, hoping they’d seen the last of the ártocothes.
“Do we have more torches?” Erik asked.
“I have two, in my haversack,” Turk replied.
They lit them and sat, letting Nafer and Bryon sleep.
“We need to help them,” Turk said, “and soon, or they will die.”
“Do you have medicine,” Erik asked, “or the power to help them?”
Turk was always the self-proclaimed healer of their party. At first, Erik thought it was simply because he knew how to mix herbs and medicines and different liquid concoctions to stem headaches and stop bleeding and take away pain. But as they escaped Orvencrest, Erik learned that Turk was more than a simple doctor or alchemist, he had the gift of healing, even without potions and creams. He called it a gift from the Creator. Others called it magic. Whatever it was, it had saved Bryon’s life once before, among others.
“Not in this place,” Turk replied, “and not against this poison. I need to forage if we ever get out of here. I need charcoal and the oil from the witch’s brush. If I find lavender, that will help as well, and pine needle oil. I will give them something to stem their pain, but if I try to help them now, it will completely drain me, and then we will have three incapacitated adventurers.”
They lit the other two torches Turk had and rested, the dwarf giving Bryon and Nafer some sweet wine and another tincture on their lips that he said would remove their pain and slow the poison’s progress through their bodies.
“An be good,” Turk said, sitting back against his haversack, “and we will be free of this hell soon.”
17
Erik stared into the darkness. Bryon stirred, sweating and feverish, and Nafer didn’t look much better. Bofim complained about his legs hurting where the webbing had struck him.
“We need to leave,” Turk said, “and soon.”
“Bryon and Nafer,” Erik said.
“We’ll just have to carry them,” Turk replied, and Erik nodded his agreement, thinking again of the old man in Eldmanor.
I am a fool. He has led me astray, and my friends are going to pay for it. And they are here.
He could smell them, hear the shuffling of their feet, and sense them. As Erik thought about the dead that haunted his dreams, he wondered if, the next time he closed his eyes, a dead ártocothe would meet him there. His dreams didn’t usually scare him, but then he remembered the last nightmare he had back in his own home, and the giant shadow burning his home and his family. Surely, the Shadow could use spiders and tunnel crawlers in his dreams, but it was something more than the Shadow. He thought of the Shadow Children, this place—so cold and, yet, at moments he felt heat like a billow. It could be the realm of the Shadow. It could be something else. Some other evil minion. A demon perhaps, if what Nafer had told him about spiritual and cosmic battles was true.
He felt them closing in as gooseflesh rose on his arms.
“With only three torches, what of the fairies’ gift?” asked Turk, breaking into Erik’s reverie.
The moon fairies—chaotic, ancient, primal, beautiful. As Erik, along with his mercenary companions and a coalition of dwarves from Thorakest, camped in an old forest of the Southern Mountains, evil had crowded in on them. Much like now, the dead surrounded them. All hope seemed lost. Doubt was darker than the night, or a mountain cavern, and then moon fairies appeared, chasing the darkness and evil away. The fairies had given Erik a bag of dust. Just a single speck of the dust was like a beacon and chased their enemies away.
Erik nodded, digging into his haversack and retrieving a simple, brown bag. He opened it, and the contents glowed, splashing white light across his face. He smiled, but then heard tapping and a subtle rattling, followed by hissing and more tapping. He felt heat on the back of his neck and heard laughter, although it wasn’t the laughter of the dead. It was something different, deeper, and more evil.
“Your death has arrived,” a dark voice said.
Erik grabbed a handful of the fairy dust and threw it into the air. The specks floated in the air, casting white light throughout the cavern. Erik saw shadows running away, fluttering in an unseen wind like black sheets caught in a springtime breeze. Even the fairy light didn’t fully illuminate the cavern, but, in combination with the light from his circlet, Erik saw something move in the distance and could make out yet another giant spider about to attack. Then he saw something else. It looked like water moving, flowing through the mountain, all white and blue and silver, and then he realized it was something uncoiling.
“Is that a …” Erik began to say but couldn’t finish as a monstrous snake completely uncoiled itself.
It lifted half of its body up, its head poised and its white eyes unblinking before it hissed and then struck, the movement so quick it was only a blur. Thinking one of his companions was gone, Erik turned his head in the direction of the snake’s attack and saw it snatching the ártocothe up, opening its mouth, and swallowing the spider whole. It then turned towards Erik and the others, its massive forked tongue flicking in and out of its mouth.
“Move quietly,” Turk said, “but move quickly.”
Erik hoisted Bryon up on his shoulders while Beldar lifted Nafer, and Turk helped Bofim along as he limped. The giant snake didn’t seem too interested in them, and Erik didn’t know if it was because of the fairy dust that still floated in the air or if they simply were too unimpressive to bother with, but whatever the reason, he was glad.
“Giant spiders and then giant snakes,” Erik huffed as they hiked through the mountain, the fairy dust creating enough light to dispel the choking darkness of the cavern.
“A nadre,” Turk replied. “They are extremely rare. You could understand that they control massive territories, and they are solitary creatures, coming together only to mate. They can be found in deep forests, in the ocean, and, of course, in deep mountain caverns. That was a very large one. It must be very old.”
“It didn’t seem too interested in us,” Erik said.
“We are far too small for it to worry about us,” Turk said. “I am sure it ate the ártocothe because it was more of a threat than anything else.”
“Thank the Creator for that,” Erik said.
“Indeed,” Turk added.
They continued onwards, and now it seemed as if the fairy dust was leading them somewhere. After a while, both Bryon and Nafer had awoken and, even though the ártocothe’s poison still affected them, they were able to walk on their own. Then, as the dust seemed to dissipate and fall away, Erik saw a distant light. He walked faster.
“Do you see it?” he asked.
“Aye,” Turk said. Erik could sense the elation in the dwarf’s voice.
The opening was large enough for a man to pass through but was frozen over, a thick layer of ice separating the mountain cavern from the outside world. They could hear the wind howling through several cracks in the icy door and, putting a gloved hand to the ice, Erik could feel the biting cold.
“It’s a blizzard out there,” Erik said.
“I don’t care what’s out there,” Bryon said, “let’s just get the hell out of this mountain.”
Erik looked to Turk and nodded. The dwarf gripped his axe tightly and swung at the ice. After three hard smacks, it began to crack. Several more and the ice chipped away. After a dozen strikes, the ice covering the opening shattered and wind gushed into the cavern, howling, drowning out their cheers, and bringing with it an instant chill that caused Erik to shiver. Hail and snow covered the ground at Erik’s feet.
“Well?” Erik said with a shrug of his shoulders. “From a dark and poisonous hell to a cold and white one.”
“Just go,” Bryon said, his voice fading as his eyelids hung half-closed.
The snow was knee-high, and the winds an
d snow beat against Erik’s face stinging him like angry bees. The mountainside curved away to what Erik presumed was the north, and the ground slowly sloped downward to the south. The trees of the forest, for which Erik was glad, were large, red-barked pines, tall and strong, their tops disappearing into the clouds. They grew away from one another, allowing snow mounds to build in between them.
It was past noon, as the sky darkened a bit, the sun barely a glimmering orb mostly hidden behind the thick, gray clouds.
“Where do we camp?” Beldar asked.
Erik looked around and then looked back at the opening to the mountain cavern.
“No,” Turk said, looking at the dark opening as well. “I am sorry, Erik, but I am not going back in there.”
“I agree,” Bryon said as his consciousness waned again.
“Then we walk until we can’t walk anymore, and then we sleep,” Erik said.
Erik shivered and looked up at the night sky. It was void of stars or the moon, but a pallid, faint light still spread out over the plain. The ground was covered in snow, but here and there, a blade of knee-high grass managed to escape. Erik had been here at night before, but then the stars twinkled overhead with magical brilliance. The place was usually warm and pleasant, but now it was cold and unwelcoming.
His hill was still there. He could see the weeping willow, its branches extra droopy under the weight of snow. The man was there as well. Erik could see him even though he was several hundred paces away. He walked towards the hill, the snow crunching under his boots, when the ground shook, and the sound of thunder rolled over him.
Erik turned to see a distant range of black mountains. From time to time, they were there. They were the realm of the Shadow. He knew that much, and when they were present in his dreams, the dead were strong.
Black clouds normally hung above the mountain range that existed in his nightmares, but they weren’t there this time. Still, thunder rolled, and Erik saw a flash of purple lightning brighten the sky; it took on the shape of a spider’s web, cracking the blackness like a shattered mirror.
Dragon Sword: Demon's Fire Book 1 Page 14
