Venom and Song

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  A sea urchin . . . in a tree? Tommy thought. With eerie quickness, it moved, coming into full view—an adolescent Warspider about the size of a basketball. Motionless on the railing it sat, glassy black eyes staring in all directions at once.

  “SPIDER!” Tommy yelled, at last free of the sleepy trance. He tumbled across his fletroll, grabbed and strung his bow, and then loosed an arrow into the cluster of dark eyes.

  Screee! The creature tumbled backward over the rail. Two more took its place. All at once, shadows skittered across the tarps on the three other sides. Forelegs appeared in the cracks. Something clattered above.

  “We are found out!” Mr. Spero yelled. “Guardmaster, to arms!”

  A great spider leaped just as Grimwarden wheeled around. His axe flashed and split the spider from fangs to spinneret. The pieces of its ruined carcass fell on either side of him. But more spiders sprang up to confront him.

  Meanwhile, Goldarrow flicked out her rychesword and impaled a gray arachnid that had just appeared over the solid railing. Grimacing, she used her free hand to push the ruined creature off her blade. She watched it tumble over the edge and plummet. Then she gasped. “Grimwarden, there are Gwar, more than a hundred rallying at the base of the tree! Some are climbing!”

  The Guardmaster finished bludgeoning one of the larger spiders. “Goldarrow”—he shouted, wiping gelatinous green muck from his face and beard—“you and Mr. Wallace, take the Seven. Hit the chute!”

  “Right!” she called back, already moving.

  Near the trunk, Tommy spent his last arrow felling yet another spider, but there seemed no end of the creatures. Two raced along the flet floor toward his feet, but Jimmy was there in a flash. He leaped on top of one, crushing it with his full body weight. The other snapped its fangs and lunged for Tommy, but it didn’t get far. Jimmy had grabbed one of the creature’s back legs and now held it fast. Tommy had a hard time getting his short sword out of his scabbard, but at last managed to pull it free. Then, just as Jimmy lost hold of the spider’s leg, Tommy plunged the blade into the creature’s eyes. The sword stuck deep and wrenched from Tommy’s hands. The spider thrashed about until flipping over in the corner, its dead legs curling inward.

  “Come on!” Goldarrow yelled. “Follow me!”

  Jimmy ran on, but Tommy spun on his heels, searching. He spied Kat, ran to her, and pulled her along.

  Keeping more spiders at bay, Mumthers stood on the trapdoor, the strong latch broken loose. At the same time, she swung a long-handled cast-iron skillet and dueled a slightly larger spider with striped fangs. The creature lunged, but each time, Mumthers gave it a clanging blow that sent it reeling backward. Finally, it caught the skillet in its fangs and began to pull. Mumthers fell forward, off the trapdoor. Up it popped and immediately a spider began to climb in. Still engaged in a tug-of-war with the other spider, Mumthers didn’t see the one coming up behind her. “Let go, you wee beastie!” she yelled. “Or I’ll make a soup of ya!”

  The skillet came free suddenly. Mumthers raised the heavy pan over her head and brought it down like an axe, crushing the spider’s head. Then, hearing a loud crunch from behind, Mumthers jumped and spun around. She found Jett standing on the trapdoor with a half-smashed spider beneath it. “Oh, that’s a good lad,” said Mumthers. “I owe you a pie.”

  “Jett, come ON!” Goldarrow yelled from across the flet.

  “I’m not leaving yet!” Jett yelled back.

  “Jett, what are you doing?” demanded Grimwarden.

  “There are too many spiders,” said the young lord. “You need me to stay and fight.”

  Grimwarden thrust the bludgeon end of his axe into the face of a charging spider and yelled, “What I NEED is for you to get out of this tree! We will take care of the spiders! Now, go!”

  Jett hesitated another moment and then ran past Grimwarden, Brynn, and Mr. Spero.

  Johnny had Autumn pinned behind him against the trunk. He held his hands up, and licks of flame appeared in his palms.

  “NO!” shouted Goldarrow. “Johnny, you can’t use fire here. It could trap us and kill us all. LORDS, this way! Wallace, take the rear guard!” Her blond hair whipped as she rounded the bend and led the lords up the corridor on the narrow side of the trunk.

  Mr. Wallace did as he was commanded and pushed the lords to follow Goldarrow. Tommy, Jimmy, Kat, Kiri Lee, Autumn, Johnny, and Jett—they all went by. At least one of them should have died, Mr. Wallace thought. He charged after them.

  On the other side of the tree, Tommy and Jimmy raced across the flet and burst through a tarped doorway out onto an uncovered deck area. “Whoaaaa!” Tommy slid to a stop at the edge of the flet, clinging to a vertical post, feet dangling over open air. Jimmy saw Tommy nearly go over the edge and grabbed his shirt just in time. Tommy stood mumbling, looking down at the seemingly endless fall from their high perch into the forest depths below.

  The others crashed through the door, immediately bumping into the back of the person who preceded them as the line halted. They found Tommy clinging to a railing post, panting. “OH—huff, huff— MY—huff, huff—GOSH!” gasped Tommy. “I almost died!”

  “We’re trapped,” said Kat. “We can’t get down.”

  “It’s not over yet,” said Goldarrow, rushing past the gawking lords.

  Mr. Wallace came around the bend last. Sword drawn, he turned to intercept anything that might have been following them.

  “This is our way out,” said Goldarrow. She cast a quick concerned glance at Tommy and then reached up into the air above her head. She grabbed something no one could see, gave a great tug, and then released. Puffs of shimmering powder appeared directly overhead and continued like a wave along a cord that sloped from the top of the flet’s roof far into the forest.

  “Look at that,” said Johnny.

  “Did you just make that cable . . . appear?” asked Jett.

  “Elves are not sorcerers,” she replied. “We coat it with crystamine to keep it hidden. I’ll explain later.”

  “Are we going to do what I think we’re going to do?” asked Autumn.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” muttered Tommy.

  Screee! More Warspiders. “Let’s get moving,” said Goldarrow.

  “What about the others?” asked Kiri Lee.

  “They are fighting so that we can escape,” said Goldarrow.

  “But will they get away?” asked Autumn.

  “They had better,” said Goldarrow, her last glimpse of Grimwarden flashing in her mind. She knelt by a large chest, fumbled with a key, then flipped the chest open. From within she drew several bundles and began tossing them to the lords. “Unwrap them,” she commanded. “They are harnesses.”

  Screee!

  Goldarrow hurriedly took one of the bundles, unlatched a metal clasp, and unwound several loops of material. She hooked loops around her arms beneath the shoulders and one around her waist. “Do as I have done—EXACTLY as I have done. Quickly!”

  Tommy was at it in a heartbeat. He unwrapped his harness, put it on, and turned around in front of Goldarrow several times until he was absolutely certain he had it on correctly.

  “I will go first,” said Goldarrow. “Follow my lead.”

  “Um, Sentinel Goldarrow,” said Johnny, “we have to follow your lead, don’t we? We’re all on the same wire, right?”

  She looked at him affectionately. “Yes, of course, my lad. But there may be places ahead where tree limbs or clefts of rock poke out. We may need to swing ourselves one way or the other, so it is best that I face them first. Each of you keep your eyes riveted to the one in front of you. Do as they do!”

  “Uh, I’m not sure I want to do this,” said Tommy.

  “Tommy,” Goldarrow said, “you have no choice.” She looked to Jett and said, “Only if you have to.”

  Jett nodded.

  “What?” Tommy asked, but he got no answer.

  “You’ll be fine, Tommy!” said Goldarrow. She grabbed the chute line, pulled it
down, and attached the metal clasp. “Count to ten after I’m gone and leave the platform.” With that, the Sentinel leaped off the platform and sped away down the chute line.

  Tommy clicked his hook onto the cord and gave it a hard yank. It seemed like it would hold. He stepped to the edge and made the mistake of looking down. A twisting vertigo of dark limbs and green foliage rose up to meet him and he stepped back.

  “Tommy, you need to go,” said Jett. “Goldarrow’s going to get too far ahead.”

  “I know,” said Tommy. “But I’m—hey, whoa, stop!”

  But Jett pushed Tommy off the flet as easily as a father might push his toddler on a swing.

  “WAAAAaaaaaaaa!” And Tommy was gone.

  Jimmy went next. Then Kiri Lee, Johnny, and Autumn.

  “C’mon, Kat!” said Jett. “Ladies first.”

  “No, you go. If there are any Gwar down there, beat them up for me!”

  Jett laughed. “You got it.” He secured his hook to the line and teetered a minute on the edge, staring hard at the tree trunk behind them.

  “What?” Kat asked, but the sudden clamor made any answer impossible.

  SCREEE!

  Three larger Warspiders, four to six feet in diameter, came around the bend. Mr. Wallace killed two, but the other got by him and lunged forward.

  Kat slashed it with her short sword, but it leaped . . . right onto Jett. Grappling with the spider, its massive curling fangs inches from his face, Jett fell backward off the flet. His harness cinched tightly around him as he and the spider were whisked away.

  “JETT!” Kat screamed, but there was nothing she could do.

  “AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa—Mmph!” A fat paw of foliage smacked Tommy across the face, filling his open mouth with bitter-tasting leaves. He spat them out, shut his mouth tight, and strained against the wind in his eyes to see Goldarrow racing ahead. Full branches whooshed by above and below. Forest sounds—frogs, insects, birds, wind—all melded together in an undulating rush of sound. There was a curious high ringing, too. Tommy realized the creepy tone came from the friction of the hook on the chute line as he blasted through the treetops. It was like being shot through a green tunnel, and Tommy constantly ducked or raised his feet, trying to avoid another blow.

  There she is! He saw her, just a shadow among shadows up ahead. His eyes were watering profusely. He tried to call out to her, but it felt like a powerful, invisible hand had grabbed his words and thrown them hundreds of miles behind him. What is she doing? Blinking constantly, he watched the Sentinel start to swing out sideways. Oh no.

  Piercing the green in the distance, great gray fangs of stone rose up among the trees on either side. Some were fat and mountainous with gaping caves and ruinous jagged ridges. Others were narrower like monstrous stalagmites. It occurred to Tommy that they looked like the jaws of some colossal undersea beast . . . and he was heading straight for them.

  Mr. Wallace joined Kat at the edge of the flet. “The spider went with Jett!” she cried out. “Do something.”

  “I cannot. I have no bow,” he replied.

  SCREEE!

  More spiders were coming. A lot more.

  Kat raced to the chute line and clicked the latch. “Get your line, Mr. Wallace, hurry!”

  Mr. Wallace ran to the chest, looked into it, and then stood up. “It’s empty,” he said. “Go on without me.”

  “No . . . I can’t leave you,” she said, pulling at the leather straps.

  “You must,” he replied, trying desperately not to think of what he had in mind—lest she read his mind.

  “No,” said Kat. “I won’t. This harness, it’s made of leather . . . or something. It’s very strong. It can hold us both.”

  SCREEE!

  “Come on!” she demanded, working at the harness.

  There came the sounds of spiders again, closer now, and then the voice of one very angry Elven commander. “LORDS, GET THEE GONE!” Grimwarden shouted.

  Mr. Wallace and Kat had tried several methods to get into the harness but found the only way was for them both to put their legs through the straps. But they immediately realized that their upper bodies had no support from the harness. They’d have to cling to the strap that descended from the attached hook.

  “Ready?” Mr. Wallace asked.

  Kat nodded. She glanced back over her shoulder at the Sentinel. He smiled back, and they stepped off the platform.

  Screee! All fangs and mandibles, the Warspider gnashed at Jett and, with all eight legs, clung to his body with astounding strength.

  “Get off me!” Jett yelled. “You nasty . . . uhg . . . thing!” He used his powerful upper body and arm strength to push against the critical joints of the spider’s midsection, all the while kicking at the creature’s segmented legs, but it would not let go. Tangled with each other and swaying violently, they sped down the chute line. The pair crashed through tree limbs, the wood slapping their bodies with enough force to break an average man’s back.

  “Ah! Grrr . . . ah!” Jett grunted. The Warspider still would not let go. He tried a different tactic: pushing with both his legs at the spider’s underside, but that met with far worse results. The creature raised its abdomen and its twitching spinnerets and sprayed tendrils of gray web on Jett’s legs. He soon found his legs webbed together as if bound with steel cords.

  Wriggling and twisting at the waist, Jett could only use his abdominal muscles to distance himself from the underside of the spider. All at once, the creature began contracting its legs. Jett felt himself being pressed inexorably toward the spider’s gaping jaws. If it pierced him with those fangs . . . He had to kill the spider. He had to do it now.

  Flexing his triceps and chest muscles, Jett pressed the creature just far enough away. With reflexes faster than man or Elf, Jett released the spider’s torso and grabbed its fangs, one in each hand. Screee! The beast’s eight legs crushed Jett up against it, but Jett did not let go of the fangs. Instead, he began to pull them outward.

  The spider shrieked and fought, slamming its forelegs against Jett’s back. Jett just pulled even harder. Its fangs were strong, rooted deep in its maw just beneath a cluster of black eyes. But without the threat of venom, the fangs were no match for Jett’s lordly power. Wider and wider he pulled them, the spider beginning to flail, its grip loosening. Jett didn’t stop. He pulled as if he was using the posthole digger in the backyard in North Carolina. He could feel the internal membranes begin to snap. He growled, a deep roar turning into a violent yell. Two horrific cracks and the fangs ripped free, spattering Jett with something dark and hot. He flipped the spikes around, and then jammed them back into the spider’s face, venom filling its head. In a trembling seizure, the spider let go and fell away.

  “See ya, Spidey!” Jett yelled, exultant. But he felt something pull sharply at his legs. Oh no. The web.

  The spider had wrapped up Jett’s legs and was swinging like an enormous anchor beneath him. Jett screamed. The pain was immense. And then Jett saw it: a rocky cleft jutting into the path of the chute line.

  Rocketing down the chute line, Tommy felt his insides quaking as he narrowly missed the first protruding stony ridge. He kept his eyes glued to Goldarrow to try to mimic her movements. She rocked to the left. Tommy did likewise. She swung back to the right to miss an outstretched limb. Tommy followed suit. It wasn’t that hard actually . . . just a matter of twisting your hips until a little momentum got you swinging back and forth. The trick was controlling the sway so that he wouldn’t swing the wrong way at the wrong time. If I miss, I’ll be smashed on the side of a cliff like a bug on a windshield, Tommy thought just as— WHACK!—something slammed into Tommy’s feet and he was spinning out of control. He felt the harness tighten on his legs and chest as he spun ’round and ’round. Speeding down the chute line, being squeezed by the harness, and rotating too fast to see, Tommy yelled for help. All he heard in reply was the roar of forest sounds and wind.

  Exposed rocky ridges were coming up fast. It looked to J
ett like there were some big trees reaching out into his path as well. The dead Warspider must weigh three hundred pounds, thought Jett. The first cliff came up fast. Too fast.

  Jett could do nothing. He closed his eyes, feeling a heavy difference in the wind as if the air pressure had suddenly changed. He started to rotate a little, but twenty seconds later he opened his eyes to realize he’d missed the rock face.

  But there were more ahead. Jett knew he would be at the mercy of anything in his path as long as the spider’s corpse was attached. But maybe . . . if he could just get his legs close enough to one of the branches or a sharp edge of stone, maybe it would saw through the webs and free his legs. Or maybe it would tear my legs clean off, thought Jett despondently. I heal fast, but not that fast.

  There was no time. Up ahead . . . stone and limb. Jett cringed, barely missing a branch and swaying to the right. Too far. He was heading for the rock face. The spider struck the stone first, slamming into the rock with a loud crunch. The recoil from the blow kept Jett from being dashed as well. He looked down at the Warspider . . . or what was left of it. It weighed less without four of its legs. Now Jett could flex his abdominals enough to bring his webbed legs up, causing the spider to swing. Jett grinned.

  Another rock ahead, this time on the left. He timed it perfectly, leveraging his lower body so that the tethered Warspider swung forward like a pendulum. The spider crashed into the ridge of stone, splitting the creature’s bulbous abdomen and tearing two more legs free from the rest of its body. The impact spun Jett around, and he had to whip his lower body the opposite direction to slow the spin.

  Some legs, the thorax, and a half-ruined head were all that remained of the Warspider. Jett could now move his body with ease, controlling his sway such that he could avoid the branches and rocks at will. Soon he had careened the spider-corpse into so many obstacles of wood and stone that all that was left was a pumpkin-sized hunk of spider goo.