by Gunhus, Jeff
Chapter Fifteen
The first thing I noticed was that the breeze had simply died. The glowing paint particles stopped swirling above me and fell to the floor. It wasn’t just a lull either; the air had turned dead still. I felt an iceball churn in my stomach as I realized what it meant. Something was coming down the tunnel. And it was so big that it blocked the passage of air completely.
I saw its legs first. Impossibly long and hairy, four of them poked out of the tunnel, feeling the air like black, wiry antennas. The legs curled around and braced against the wall as the rest of the creature’s body slid out from the tunnel along with its other four legs.
Stretching out to full height after being cramped in the tunnel, now standing between me and the ring, was the largest spider I’d ever seen.
It looked just like the tarantulas I’d seen on TV—brown and hairy, with wicked pincers near its mouth that opened and shut with audible clicks. Only it was fifteen feet tall.
The tunnel filled with bones was apparently this spider’s lair. And if I didn’t think of something quick, I was going to be the newest skeleton added to that pile.
The spider seemed to have the same idea because it reared back, its front two legs clawing the air. Then, with its pincers snapping, it charged.
I sprinted to my left, reaching the pillar of the first archway just as the spider reached me. I ducked behind it as one of its grotesque legs smashed into the stone right over my head in an explosion of rock. I rolled forward, feeling a second leg scrape across my backpack as I scampered toward the next pillar.
I thought I was clear of it when I felt a violent tug on my backpack and I was suddenly flying backward through the air.
The spider lifted me like I was a ragdoll and hung me upside-down, thrashing me back and forth.
I still had my sword and I twisted midair to reach the leg that had a hold of me. But I was being tossed around so hard I couldn’t get the right angle.
Finally, the spider paused, maybe to see if it had shaken me to death yet. I seized the moment and stabbed it as hard as I could into the leg nearest me, sinking my blade in its flesh nearly to the hilt.
The spider freaked out. Its whole body broke out in spasms from the pain, and with a flick of its leg, it sent me literally flying across the room, smashing me into a wall. The impact knocked the wind out of me and I slumped to the floor.
The spider thrashed wildly across the room. It wasn’t really hurt it; I had just made it really mad. In only a few more seconds, it would attack again.
Quickly, I oriented myself within the room. I was no longer separated from the ring. In fact, I had a clear shot to it if I made a run for it.
The clack-clack of the spider’s pincers got my attention. I turned back toward it, my hand already closing around the next to last grenade in my bag. As the spider charged at me, I chucked it at the creature’s head.
It exploded in a satisfying boom and bright flash. The spider staggered back, slamming into the far wall. I knew it was just stunned, probably for only a few seconds. Still, I had come this far to get that ring and, even if I didn’t really have a plan to escape, I wanted to at least hold it in my hand.
I sprinted the last half of the room and reached the throne. I was about to grab the ring when something stopped me. I remembered what Aquinas had told me of the Knights Templar. Even though they ended up being one of the wealthiest orders in Europe, it was because the knights themselves had taken vows of poverty. That’s what the Templar symbol of two knights sharing a horse was all about. So what was a Templar Grand Master doing with a diamond-encrusted gold ring?
I looked at the gaping black eyes of the skeleton on the throne.
“That’s the test, isn’t it?” I whispered. “Jacques de Molay said only a true Templar would pass the test. It’s the vow of poverty. It has to be.”
I looked at the skeleton’s other hand. There it was. A ring carved from stone with a simple Templar Cross etched into it. That was the ring of a true Templar.
I reached over and respectfully slid it off the skeleton’s hand. I felt like I should say something profound, but a sudden noise behind me let me know I was out of time. I pocketed the ring and jumped to the side just as the spider’s leg smashed into the throne, destroying the skeleton in one swipe.
I had only one grenade left. I was sure running for it wasn’t an option since this creature was both faster than me and knew the caves better than I ever would. I clutched my sword and decided I had to make a stand.
The spider must have sensed my decision to fight because it paused and stared as if determining whether I represented any real threat. Quickly, it decided I didn’t and re-launched its attack.
I fended it off as best I could, but the ends of its legs weren’t like the soft part I had stabbed earlier. They were hard as steel and flew at me in a flurry of blows. It was like sword fighting against eight top-notch adversaries who were bigger, stronger and more talented. It wasn’t looking good.
Then I had an idea: a crazy one, but I was ready for crazy.
I pulled Xavier’s turbo-charged reel from my backpack and attached it to my belt. There were four projectile arrows left to shoot and a full reel of super-strong wire. What better way to capture a spider than with a web?
I shot the first projectile and embedded it in the ceiling above the spider, the wire trailing behind it still attached to my belt. With a cry I charged forward, blade pointed out. I ran right at the spider, stripping out more wire as I did. My little charge took the spider by surprise and I was actually able to run underneath it and come out the opposite side.
As the spider turned to face me, I ran around it in the opposite direction, still spooling out the wire as I did it. Two of the spider’s legs got caught up in the wire, throwing the monster off for a moment. As it tried to shake off the wire with its free legs, it only got more tangled up. I tied the wire off to a stone pillar and then quickly fired a second projectile into the ceiling, where it dug into the rock. I ran around the now-struggling spider, looping the wire over and under its legs. Finally, I braced myself behind the throne and pressed the button on the reel to winch in my web. Instead of it pulling me, I just wanted to pull the wire tight. Really tight.
It worked. As the wire cinched, it bound the spider’s legs closer together until finally, trembling from exertion, it fell over on its side, hopelessly wrapped up.
I tied it off and cut the wire with my sword. The spider struggled on the ground, but the more it struggled, the tighter the wire became. As it realized this, it stopped moving, its beady eyes turning toward me.
I walked to its head to finish the creature off, my sword up in case one of the legs popped free. Then the unexpected happened. The spider let out a high-pitched scream in an octave that seemed to pierce right into my brain. I held my hands to my ears to block it out but even then it still hurt. It stopped and I carefully lowered my hands, but the second I did, it screamed again. I didn’t know spiders could even make sounds, let alone use them as a weapon. Then again, I’d never run into a spider the size of a bus before either.
I had to make it stop. With my hands still covering my ears, I made my way closer and closer to the spider’s head, meaning to strike it the next time it paused. When it finally did, I was in position. I raised my sword over my head, but stopped when I heard a new sound.
A dull roar grew exponentially louder, as if a subway train was hurtling toward us from the tunnel next to the throne. A second later, I didn’t have to guess anymore about what had caused the sound.
A wave of millions of tiny spiders, stacked up so that they filled the tunnel completely, came pouring into the room like a geyser. Above me and through every tiny crack in the rock walls, there streamed thousands more.
I looked down at the giant spider. This wasn’t some horrendous monster. It was a mother protecting her babies. And trying to feed them. I lowered my sword because I knew she didn’t deserve to die. Even so, I wasn’t about to be lunch for her kid
s either. It was time to run.
I turned and ran to the skeleton-filled tunnel I’d used to come into the room. As I reached the entrance, I risked a look backward and saw the tidal wave of baby spiders swarming over their mother. In a matter of seconds they had sprung her loose. She rolled off her back and spun toward me. I could tell immediately I wasn’t going to get any mercy for having spared her life. As if on cue, the flood of tiny spiders, now at least eight feet deep, flowed toward me as the mama spider charged.
I grabbed my last grenade and threw it at the advancing swarm. Even before it went off, I was hauling down the tunnel, crunching skeleton bones beneath my feet.
I ran as fast as I could but I had no idea what I intended to do once I reached the cliff. There were the other two tunnels out there, but something told me they would be filled with spiders too.
The bridge was gone. And the river was way too violent for me to survive if I tried to jump into it.
I checked the reel on my belt. There were two projectile arrows left. It was the only choice I had.
I saw the mouth of the tunnel glowing from the paint I had sprayed around the arches. I looked behind me and saw the mama spider right on my heels, pushing a pile of her babies in front of her.
I sprinted out of the tunnel, and, without breaking stride, fired the projectile across the river.
Just as I did, the cave ogre rose up from the chasm in front of me with a roar, pieces of the old bridge still tangled around his body.
The projectile nailed him in the shoulder.
He grabbed at it, yanking on the wire before I had a chance to cut it. I fell to the ground as the ogre dragged me to him.
Just then, the spider burst from the cave. The ogre turned his attention on this new foe just as the spider launched itself onto the ogre, sinking its pincers into the ogre’s chest.
The ogre grappled with the giant spider, holding it in a bear hug and trying to keep its pincers away from biting it a second time. Meanwhile, I was still getting dragged around mercilessly by the wire attached to the reel on my belt.
The only thing that saved me was the ogre slowing down, its eyes suddenly heavy like it was ready to fall asleep. The spider’s venom from the first bite was doing its work.
But even as the ogre staggered, trying to keep its balance, it didn’t let go of the spider. Finally, in what seemed like a slow-motion pirouette, the ogre spun around and tipped over the edge of the chasm, taking the spider with him.
The split second of excitement was replaced by sheer terror when I realized I was still connected to the ogre by the wire.
In the blink of an eye, I was dragged across the ground and down off the cliff.
Midair, I swung my sword and cut the wire, twisted upward and fired the last projectile.
Up, up, up it flew.
Thwack .
It stuck solid into the top of the cave.
With a yank, I hung suspended just over the raging river. Below me, the ogre and spider continued their epic battle as they were swept away down the river and into the dark reaches of the mountain.
I clicked the button, praying that it would work. I don’t think I’ve appreciated any sound more in my life than the soft whirr of the reel pulling me upward. Once I was even with the cliff top, I swung the wire until I could make the jump easily to the far side.
After I was back on solid land, I looked across the ravine and saw that it was still covered with millions of spiders. I shivered at the thought of the other hunters and how they must have been devoured by those tiny things. There really weren’t any good ways to die, but being eaten alive by a swarm of spiders certainly qualified as a bad way to go.
I reached into my pocket and took out the ring. I’d done it.
“Don’t get cocky. You’ve got to make it back first,” I reminded myself. I slid the ring back into my pocket and set off for the exit to the Academy.
Thankfully, the way back was uneventful. Good thing too because I was out of glowing paint and the light from my sword was steadily dimming as I walked. I spotted a few dark shadows crawling on the walls, but they appeared to have no interest in me. Even the bats had moved to another part of the cave. The hike up the steep face where I slid down was a challenge because it was so slippery and I knew I could easily start another avalanche if I wasn’t careful. But I took my time and made it up safely.
As I got closer to the door, my pace quickened. I was eager to get out of the cave and see the light of day. Although I wasn’t even sure how long I had been underground to know if it was day or night outside, I had honored my pledge to both Aquinas and Tiberon. Not only would I have full monster hunter status and be free to leave the Academy, but Tiberon would have to tell me the location of both the Jerusalem Stones and the dungeons where Ren Lucre held my father. I was one step closer to saving my father.
But besides all this, there was one other reason that I was eager to get out.
Eva.
She had been the voice and the face I had carried with me through the entire ordeal. I found myself thinking about her more with each step closer to the door.
Besides, it was steadily getting darker as the paint faded. I wasn’t eager to try to finish the journey without light.
When I finally spotted the iron door at the end of the final tunnel, I broke into a run. I had heard the locks engage when they had shut the door behind me, so I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t open when I pushed against it.
I knocked on the door, but it still didn’t open. I grabbed a rock and pounded on the door, thinking perhaps it was just hard to hear on the other side.
Still nothing.
“Hey!” I shouted. “It’s Jack. Jack Templar. Open up!”
Silence.
Over and over, I pounded on the door. With my hands, my sword, rocks. Anything I could use to make sound.
Still nothing.
For over an hour, I hammered and banged on the door until my hands nearly bled from the effort.
Over time, the light on my sword faded, allowing the staggering darkness around me to crowd in. But there was no reply behind the gate. Not a sound of any kind from the other side of the door.
I sagged to the ground as the last of the light disappeared from my sword, tears welling up in my eyes from exhaustion and frustration. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Why weren’t they opening the door? I had made it back. I had the ring. I had…
And that’s when it hit me. What if I had been wrong about which ring to take? What if it had been the diamond ring all along? Maybe Aquinas was on the other side of the door with the others, refusing to let it open because I hadn’t completed my quest.
I pulled the ring out of my pocket and rolled it over in my hand in the pitch black. Doubts flooded my mind. I tried to imagine finding my way back to the old tomb in the dark, crawling through the caves, not knowing what creatures could be lurking around me. I shuddered at the thought. It was impossible. Even if I did make it back there, how was I supposed to cross the chasm again? How was I supposed to survive the millions of spiders?
No, I had trusted my instinct and I had chosen the wrong ring. Unless Aquinas took pity on me and opened the door, there was no getting out. I had enough food for a day or two, but after that I was going to have to hunt if I wanted to stay alive. Maybe if I was lucky I would find another way out of the cave. But if I wasn’t, I knew I was already standing in my grave.
As I mulled over my fate, I slid the stone ring onto my finger.
With a burst of light, the cold stone blazed red with fire. I nearly clawed it back off my finger for fear of being burned, but there was no heat and no pain. I heard the bolts and gears of the door clank around in front of me; then, with a whoosh of air, the seal broke and the door opened.
As I stepped through the thick iron gateway, the ring on my finger turned back into a simple, black stone. But I didn’t have a chance to marvel at what had just happened because I immediately heard shouts and screams coming from the training
fields.
I ran toward it as fast as I could but stopped when I cleared the gates that led from the caves. All the buildings were on fire. Hunters were running in every direction, brandishing their weapons. In the center of the training grounds, the Templar Tree was ablaze like a giant torch.
The Monster Hunter Academy was under attack.
Chapter Sixteen
Instructors barked orders at the younger hunters, organizing them into fire brigades in long lines from the wells to the worst of the blazes. Those not fighting the fires were caring for the injured. And there were a lot of them. I saw hunters with blood soaked bandages, others limping toward the protection of the Citadel.
Anything not made of stone was on fire. I looked to the main gates and saw they were intact and shut. Whatever had done this hadn’t broken through the defenses yet. I grabbed a hunter running past me. I recognized him from one of my classes. His name was Ben, one of the younger boys. He had a fluffy mop of reddish brown hair, sharp, twinkling eyes, and spent most of his classes cracking jokes. There was no humor in him now. His eyes looked me over like I was a wild creature.
“Ben, it’s me, Jack! What happened?” I asked. I felt his body trembling in my hands.
“Th…th…they came from the sk…sk…sky,” Ben stuttered. “L…l…looking for…looking for…”
“What were they looking for, Ben? What was it?” I asked.
He pointed toward the mountain face above us. There, burning right on the rock face, were four enormous letters, each as tall as a building.
J…A…C…K.
A piercing scream erupted overhead and a black shadow soared over the field. A burst of flame geysered from its mouth and hit the ground like a bomb. Dirt and snow blasted up into the air. Ben tore himself from me and ran away from the streaking form. The terrifying figure flew past the raging fires and I was able to see it more clearly. A dragon.
Every bit as terrifying and awesome as Hollywood made them out to be. It was long and serpentine, with an elongated neck and a waving, supple tail that twitched behind it during flight. Its black body glistened with the reflection of the fiery destruction beneath it but was covered with thousands of small scales, giving it the look of a snake. It had tall horns next to long pointed ears that lay flat against its head like an angry cat. A long snout and beady, red eyes swung back and forth across the field, as if searching the faces of the hunters who ran scattered beneath it. I watched in horror as it grabbed a hunter about my height and with my color of hair. The kid screamed as the dragon’s talons wrapped around his midsection and he was lifted into the air. The dragon held the hunter up to one of its red eyes, then tossed the kid aside like he was a piece of unwanted trash. The hunter hit the ground hard and lay there, writhing in pain, as the dragon banked hard and came back across the field for another pass.
