It’s okay with me, Tommy thought back. Once we’re discovered, we’ll likely have more company than we’d ever want.
“Jimmy?” Tommy whispered back over his shoulder. “Anything yet?”
“Nothin’ at all,” said Jimmy. “I’m gettin’ no foresight at all right now.”
That news did nothing to cheer Tommy or the others. Sheer walls of dark, reddish-orange stone rose up on either side of them. It was confining . . . smothering. A trade-off, Tommy thought. They had a secret way into the enemy fortress, but if the Spider King had any thought that they might come that way, he could bury them in this tight place. Flickers of lightning flashed in the narrow space of sky above them, coming from somewhere over the Lightning Fields beyond.
“Tommy,” Johnny whispered from behind. “Did you hear what Regis said about the Gwar armies and stuff . . . up in Canada?”
“Yeah,” Tommy replied. “I did, and I don’t much like it.”
“What’s he doing in Canada?” asked Autumn. “More slaves?”
“Nah,” said Jett. “It’s got to be more than that. Sounds like an invasion force to me.”
“I was thinking the same,” said Tommy.
“Well, that’s stupid,” said Jimmy. “We’ve got better weapons . . . guns, missiles. We’ve got nukes.”
“The Spider King is a lot of things,” said Kat. “But he’s not stupid. He knows about Earth weapons.”
At last they emerged from the narrow pass to find three ramps, each leading over a hundred-foot fall to an arched gate at different levels on a massive cylindrical building. “Get back!” Tommy whispered urgently. They fell back against the mountain wall, hidden in shadow. The clash between Elves and Gwar was still far away . . . more than a mile to the front wall, Tommy estimated. But the top two gates here still had Gwar guards posted.
Okay, we’ve got to get over there, thought Tommy to Kat, hoping she’d read his thoughts. But we don’t want to be seen yet.
“Autumn,” Kat thought back. “She could race across, take out the sentries.”
Tommy nodded. She could. But the bottom gate is unguarded. We’ll go that way. “Lords,” he whispered. “Bottom ramp. Stay low.”
Tommy went first, trying to keep the massive stone ramps between him and the guards above. His bow rattled against his overloaded quiver a little as he hit the ramp. Tommy pulled up, but there was no response from the Gwar. One at a time, the others followed. Autumn came last of all, just a blur.
They stood on either side of the arched gate and wondered what they’d find on the other side of the door. “I’m gettin’ something,” said Jimmy. “Ten guards, four at a table, four drinking by a big barrel, two are coming out. They’ll kill you if—”
Tommy didn’t hesitate a moment. “Jett,” he said, “Autumn and Kat.”
Jett Green, former star halfback for the Greenville Raiders, kicked open the door, crushing one Gwar against the inside wall. The other Gwar stood in shock for a half second too long. Jett planted a crushing punch to the bridge of his nose and finished the falling Gwar with a blow of his hammer.
Autumn raced past Jett, axes flying, and dispatched the Gwar at the table before they could stand up. Kat wasn’t as fast as Autumn. No one was. But she was very strong. She threw herself into a slide and kicked the legs out from under one of the Gwar at the barrel, throwing a crushing chop into his throat to finish him. She put her dagger in the eye of another. And by that time, Jett had slammed one of the remaining two Gwar into the wall. Autumn took down the last one. In all, the battle lasted seven seconds.
“Stairs,” said Johnny.
“Good,” said Tommy, rushing over. “Jett, rear guard.”
“Got it.”
It was a steep downward-spiraling staircase, and before long, they found themselves in darkness. “A little light please, Johnny.”
Johnny opened his palm and a lick of fire appeared. Two minutes of descent later, they emerged from the building into a courtyard at the base of the mountains. It was bordered on one side by other stone buildings and somewhat surrounded by dark trees. But the stone of the courtyard and even the limbs of the trees were strewn with carnage.
“Oh, my gosh!” gasped Kat.
Dead raptors and Warflies littered the area. But that was not all. Bodies of Elf and Gwar, badly disfigured or contorted, lay motionless in pools of their own blood. Tommy averted his eyes a moment, fearing for Kiri Lee. Then he steeled himself and said, “Spread out. The fighting is still far ahead, but stay low. Anyone could be watching from any of these towers.”
The search was grim and grueling. The Warflies were huge. Some had scarlet raptors still in their clutches as they crashed to the ground. Tommy recognized some of the other raptor riders among the dead. Come to think of it, Tommy wasn’t sure what happened to Ethon Beleron, either. Aviator casualties were very high. Tommy had been a part of the decision to let Kiri Lee lead the air attack. He wished he hadn’t. The young lords would be far weaker without her, and they would have lost a dear friend.
“Here!” cried Jimmy. “I found her . . . ahhh, NO!”
The lords raced to his side. There between a thick tree trunk and the base of a narrow turret, Kiri Lee lay facedown upon her raptor. The massive creature was dead.
“She’s breathing!” Jett said, his fingers at her neck.
“Turn her over,” said Tommy, “GENTLY, and be careful of her neck.”
“Don’t you think I know?” asked Jett. He lay her on her back and cradled her head in his hands. She groaned softly.
“Kiri Lee,” said Jimmy. “Kiri Lee, it’s Jimmy. We’ve come t’ help yu.”
But Kiri Lee did not respond. Her cheek and forehead were terribly bruised, with gashes and cuts—probably from crashing through the tree’s limbs.
“Look at her stomach,” cried Autumn. Her tunic had come untucked from her breeches in the fall, and they could see beneath the leather armor that Kiri Lee’s skin was an ugly dark blue with patches of purple shot through with fingers of red.
“She’s bleeding internally, I think,” said Johnny. “I saw something like this on a medical show. They pulled a guy out of a car wreck, looked like that.”
“What happened to the guy?” asked Autumn.
Johnny wouldn’t answer.
“Awww, no,” muttered Jimmy. “No, not Kiri Lee.”
“Uh-UHG!” Jett went suddenly rigid. His face became taut, almost stretched.
“Jett!” Tommy yelled.
The muscles rippled in Jett’s bare arms; veins appeared and throbbed. His neck flared and thickened.
“Look!” gasped Kat.
The bruising on Kiri Lee’s forehead and cheeks faded from the ugly dark colors to lighter shades and then was gone. The gashes and cuts clotted and scabbed, and then melted away as the young lords watched.
“You’re healing her,” Johnny blurted out. “But so fast?”
But Jett didn’t respond. He seemed in great pain, leaning back and gritting his teeth, but never letting go of Kiri Lee. The massive patch of discolored skin on her stomach rapidly returned to its normal tone.
“Kiri Lee?” tried Jimmy tentatively. “Kiri Lee?”
Her breathing rate increased. Her chest rose higher as she breathed more deeply, and then she opened her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Huh?” Jimmy frowned. “Jimmy.”
Jett slumped backward, but Tommy was there to keep him from hitting the ground hard.
“Is Jett okay?” asked Kat.
“I think he’s asleep,” said Tommy. “He’s snoring.”
Kiri Lee surprised them all by sitting up. “What are you doing here? Oh no.” She rubbed her head. “I remember, my raptor, my poor raptor.” She brushed her hand through the creature’s feathers and looked up to Jimmy. “Jimmy,” she said. “I was falling . . . seemed like forever”—she turned to Kat—“and I heard you call my name.”
“Well, it was Jett who healed yu,” said Jimmy.
“I was hurt bad?
” she asked.
He nodded.
A black blur swept down from above. There came a howling roar. Thick, grooved, and gnarled, a massive hand of branches closed around Kiri Lee’s waist. She screamed and fought.
In a flash, Tommy put arrows into both of its wide yellow eyes. Autumn went to work with her axes at the Cragon’s base, but another Cragon swept at her.
Rrrrwwwwaah!
Autumn rolled away and raced to safety. More trees around them began to move.
Kat ran to Jett. “Jett, wake up!” she yelled, shaking his shoulders. “Get up! We need to go!”
“What?” he mumbled. “C’mon, Ma . . .”
Then Kat screamed her thought to him: “JETT GREEN, GET UP THIS INSTANT! ”
Jett’s eyes snapped open, and he slowly stood up. “I’m tired,” he said.
“No time!” Then Kat yelled to Tommy, “That building . . . the one with the black flags . . . that’s got to be the stronghold.”
“Got it!” he yelled back. “Go! We’ll catch up!” Kat helped Jett get to cover.
The Cragons closed in, as one still held tight to Kiri Lee. Tommy nocked another arrow and pulled the bowstring back beyond his ear, so far he was afraid the bow might snap. Tommy released it. The arrow disappeared between the creature’s already impaled eyes.
Rrrrww—its breath cut off, the creature released Kiri Lee and then fell backward. Twigs and leaves shot skyward with the impact, the ground shaking underfoot.
“Let’s go!” Tommy yelled to her.
“What?” Kiri Lee exclaimed.
Autumn, Jimmy, and Johnny looked up. “Aren’t we going to stay and fight?” asked Johnny.
“We’re not,” said Tommy. “But you are, Stove Top.”
Tommy motioned for the others to follow, and he led them through a gauntlet of rooty feet and grasping long hands. “Across there,” he said to Autumn, Jimmy, and Kiri Lee. “Kat and Jett are there beneath that arch. I’ll be right there.”
He kept walking but turned back for a moment. “We’ll wait at the first cross tunnel,” Tommy called back, but before he rounded the corner, he glared at his friend. “Burn ’em, Johnny,” he said, “to ashes.”
Johnny Briarman thought of his parents and his aunt on Earth, all they’d been through, and were going through. He thought of Nelly.
There were eleven Cragon trees advancing on Johnny. Eleven hulking beasts against one thirteen-year-old boy. But Johnny faced them. And fire was in his hands.
37
A Stirring Revolt
“I THINK we’re getting closer,” Grimwarden said, raising the torch higher. This narrow tunnel was completely dark. But as the three walked on, a soft red light began to emerge ahead. Along with the stifling heat and the acrid smell, a low pulsing sound resonated in their ears. Goldarrow thought that if she were here for any length of time, the sound would give her a headache. Before long, the tunnel spit them out into a massive cavern, even hotter than the tunnel, and cast in a lurid red light.
“Great Maker of Allyra,” whispered Grimwarden. All three of them held short.
Before them stretched a vast network of paths, rising and falling like the veins of a living organism. Beneath them were countless honeycombed chambers, each pulsating, covered in thin weblike filaments. And tending to the innumerable beds were hundreds and hundreds of people. Maybe even thousands. Some not full grown. And not Elvish.
“Slaves,” gasped Goldarrow. “And many are just children.”
“Humans,” said Charlie. “Jackpot!”
At first the presence of the three warriors went unnoticed. Whatever manner of inhumane conditioning had taken place over the years, the slaves did not even bother looking up, nor did the guards turn from their whipping, nor did the adolescent Warspiders take any notice. The slaves continued hauling crates full of glowing yellow orbs from one bed to another, carrying cages containing dozens of fist-sized spiders on their backs, and rolling barrels of what Grimwarden thought might be food. Spider food.
The slaves were all thin, but the children were particularly emaciated, their skin sallow and hanging. But all of them, adults and children alike, were riddled with long scars from untold whippings and beatings.
“I count ten guards,” said Grimwarden. “Clearly most have been called to battle up top.” He pointed to empty guard towers placed throughout the cavern. “Must be a skeleton crew.”
“And from the looks of them Warspiders, there ain’t no adults to worry about,” said Charlie. “I count twenty-five no bigger than two or three feet in diameter.”
“That is a most unusual dialect,” Grimwarden whispered to Goldarrow.
“He likes it,” Goldarrow explained. “Leave him be.”
“As long as he can fight, I guess.”
“Y’all ready?” asked Charlie.
“Aye,” said Grimwarden. “I’ll take the guards; Elle and Charlie, you have the overgrown arachnids. Try and assemble the slaves back here as quickly as possible. The last thing we want is for them to go running.”
Grimwarden ran to the first honeycombed bay and ducked beside the supporting frame of the walkway that swept overhead. As soon as the first Gwar walked directly above him, Grimwarden pulled him off the walkway with a violent jerk. The Gwar sailed through the air, but before his body even hit the ground, Grimwarden had used the sword in his other hand to sever the guard’s exposed throat.
“Girell?” came a voice above. “You fall asleep?”
The second Gwar was coming to investigate.
Goldarrow crept along the right flank while Charlie moved to the left. With any luck, they could each clear out ten to fifteen spiders and be done with it.
She waited in the shadows of a large-wheeled cart. It hurt to breathe in here. She wondered how any of the slaves had survived. Goldarrow could feel empathy rising in her chest, feeling for the slaves, especially the children. She watched them move around like—what had Tommy once called those things?—zombies. Waking dead. Mindless creatures of the night.
“We will free you,” Goldarrow pledged in a whisper.
Then her thoughts turned to Grimwarden. Where is the sign?
Charlie watched as the second Gwar toppled off the walkway, a spray of broken spider eggs shooting up from under his fall. The remaining eight Gwar turned as one, running toward the scene along the curving ramparts. At the same time, all of the slaves in the enormous cavern started cheering, realizing something foul was happening against their captors; what exactly, Charlie was sure they had no idea. But any pain or suffering for the Gwar was something he was positive the slaves would exult in.
“Now!” Charlie barked across the room to Goldarrow, who emerged from behind the wagon, weapons blazing.
Charlie bounded across ridges of two separate spider beds before thrusting his sword into the thorax of an adolescent Warspider. The arachnid went into a fit, shuddered violently, then dropped dead.
The slaves were dropping their wheelbarrows and starting to clap for Charlie.
Two more Warspiders on Charlie’s left looked up in time to see the thin part of Charlie’s shield flash across their faces. The two spiders collided with one another before they fell dead.
Charlie was about to move on when he noticed something move under the webbed covering to his right.
“Come on, you overgrown ape!” Grimwarden roared as he charged down a narrow pathway. Polearm extended, the Gwar growled as he barreled up toward the Guardmaster. The Gwar lunged—a huge mistake—and Grimwarden ducked beneath the polearm. Then he rose up underneath the Gwar’s chin with a fist, knocking him off his feet. The Gwar flipped head over heels, landing in a nest just below—only to be replaced by more Gwar and Warspiders, and now the enemy was even turning on one another.
“OLIN!” came Elle’s rising voice from somewhere to his right.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” cried Charlie.
“Forget the enemy,” commanded Grimwarden. “Get the slaves out of here!”
W
ith the guards now preoccupied with what could only be described as a spider revolt, the three Elven leaders began calling out to all the slaves. Of course, the Elven newcomers certainly had the slaves’ attention, what with slaying a few Gwar and Warspiders as they had. But now the leaders were waving frantically, yelling to the slaves.
“THIS WAY!”
The slaves started running, tossing aside their tools, helping one another, and giving more than one Warspider a passing blow. As the slaves continued to race to the front of the room, Grimwarden, Goldarrow, and Charlie pulled back, heading toward the exit. Hundreds and then thousands of young people followed behind them, cheering as they went.
But it was Charlie who noticed what else was happening in the room. No longer concerned with the escaping slaves, the rest of the Gwar busied themselves with trying to maintain control of the spider beds. But they failed miserably as the rebellion was far out of control. Millions of tiny spiders were roused, and within moments, it was all the Gwar could do to stay alive.
“Grimwarden!” Charlie yelled over the din of their escape as the three stood aside ushering the slaves into the exit tunnel. “We have a problem!”
Grimwarden looked back and saw the rising flood of baby spiders spreading after the slaves. Even if they did escape, the spiders would overtake them in the tunnel. It would be a lost cause. He turned to Charlie. “Have any of that tar root left on you?”
“Sure thing. An arc stone, too.”
“How many?”
“Just one.”
One is all we need. Grimwarden grinned, then looked to the ceiling of the tunnel just before it shot upward to form the roof of the cavern. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Charlie gave a quick nod, then went to work. While Grimwarden and Goldarrow helped the slaves file past them and into the tunnel, Charlie wrapped the remaining arc stone in tar root—three times as much as he used on the last stone. He left a small spot exposed for the ignition. It was nearly the size of a baseball when he was through.
“This is going to be close!” said Goldarrow, seeing how many slaves still needed to be evacuated.
Venom and Song Page 37
