Web of Defeat

by Lionel Fenn

  At noon, they camped beneath a massive tree that provided ample shade for resting and waiting until the sun had begun its homeward journey. During that time Tuesday grew moody because she didn't know any duck songs.

  A small herd of emaciated benst wandered nearby, sniffing the air and eyeing them all coldly before moving on, making them feel thankful and, at the same time, vaguely insulted.

  A larger herd of creatures with graceful legs and necks, long slender horns and upright white tails, passed shortly afterward, nosing the ground in their search for something other than browning grass and faded flowers.

  When Gideon waved his troop onward, they were paced for nearly an hour by a pack of animals none of them could see because of the height of the grass. The creatures had, however, a distinctive odor, which Abber speculated was the result of them being off their feed which, he explained further, was meat freshly killed. Gideon took out his bat at the same time Botham shouldered his axe and Horrn unsheathed his pitted sword. When nothing happened, Horrn sheathed his sword, Gideon holstered his bat, and Botham bashed a few dead branches, claiming he thought they were snakes.

  By nightfall, it was apparent that Harghe had not been exaggerating—the grass grew more scarce, and what there was was much shorter and without a streak of green.

  Botham stood guard that night with Horrn.

  The following day was much like the first.

  Gideon and Abber stood guard the second night.

  The third day made Gideon wonder if he hadn't slept through the first and second days since nothing much seemed to have changed, including the low line of woodland that formed the horizon. It was farther away than he had thought, and when he looked at Whale's map he was confused by several obscure markings that subsequently turned out to be Horrn's fingerprints. They didn't help; the map ended at Terwin.

  By the end of the third day, Tuesday had composed a goodly repertoire of duck songs which, at their more basic levels, lamented the loss of medium-well-done steaks, buttered green beans, and a large snifter of Napoleon brandy by the fireplace. She admitted they really didn't have much to do with ducks; but then, she pointed out, neither did she.

  That night Gideon heard the cold cry again.

  "Someone's watching," Botham said flatly as he dropped another branch onto the fire Horrn had made by rubbing his hair together.

  "Uh!" Abber agreed.

  Gideon, abruptly feeling confined beneath the low and gnarled trees they had chosen for a campsite, wandered beyond their cover and looked up at the stars. Then he looked south. Then he looked north and realized that he could no longer see Terwin's lights. A meteorite flared green across the sky and left no trail. Benst lowed in the dark. He felt terribly small and terribly alone, and only halfheartedly bashed in the brain of a plainssnake that had poked its head out of its burrow when it smelled what it hoped would be a hell of a feast. It wasn't poisonous; with fangs six inches long it didn't have to be. Now, Gideon thought, it wasn't anything anymore.

  The cry sounded again.

  Red stirred and growled in his sleep.

  The fire crackled, snapped, sent clouds of gold sparks into the air.

  Tuesday hummed a duck lullaby until someone clamped a hand around her beak.

  There was thunder.

  —|—

  "What do you mean, you forgot to tell me about it?" Gideon demanded loudly.

  "Well," Tuesday said sheepishly, "she went on so about it, I thought she was trying to scare me until I remembered I was a duck. Besides, she's a slut."

  They were huddled under a sagging lean-to made with a clever combination of wide leaves and a sorry-looking blanket Botham had in the bottom of his pack. It was crowded because everyone except the lorra had squeezed inside, which left little room for elbows and knees and a few good deep breaths; it was smelly because all their fur clothing was soaked to the hide, and so the loss of deep breaths wasn't all that worrisome; and it was damp because it was raining.

  "What, exactly, did she say?" he asked, holding her close so she couldn't run outside and revel.

  Tuesday's voice pitched high. "Well, golly, you'd better watch out for the storms, you know? Like they can come down really really hard and get you wet if you're not careful. I'd go with you, but I just washed my hair this morning and I can't do a thing with it." Tuesday choked. "I wanted to tell her what to do with it, but I didn't."

  "Good for you."

  "Finlay stopped me."

  "Good for him."

  "He tried to strangle me."

  Gideon kept silent.

  "Well, aren't you going to say something to him?"

  "Why?"

  "Because you're my brother and he was doing a terrible thing to me."

  Since "congratulations" did not seem apropos, he settled for a brotherly scowl the blacksmith easily ignored.

  "Thank you," the duck said sarcastically.

  Horrn, crammed up against a rough-barked tree trunk with his knees nearly to his ears, plaintively asked how long these storms generally lasted.

  "I don't know," Tuesday said. "Finlay was strangling me."

  "Days, sometimes," Abber offered from his place near the lean-to's mouth. "Weeks, even! Years, if it goes on! God, it's terrible! It's unbearable. It's all the constant pounding and the splashing and the running water and the thunder and all that horrid lightning just tearing things apart and the rain and the water just falling everywhere, everywhere I tell you, it's too much for one man to—"

  Finlay slapped him.

  Abber swallowed, sat up again, and thanked him.

  The rain stopped.

  "Sometimes five or ten minutes."

  It started again just as Gideon reached up to yank the blanket down.

  "Or not."

  "You should have told me," Gideon scolded.

  "I didn't know it was the season," Abber protested. "I'm not from around here, usually."

  "Not you. Tuesday."

  "I didn't know either."

  Lightning filled the air with the stench of ozone; thunder exploded so close by that the ground trembled.

  "It's so dark in here," Horrn whispered fearfully.

  "So rub your bat and give us some light."

  "Please!"

  "Not you. Gideon."

  "I can't," Gideon said. "It's wet. I've already tried."

  They heard Red wandering through the dark, butting a few trees, lapping at water, and purring.

  In the midst of another ferocious thunderclap they heard the cold cry, and shuddered as one because it sounded very much like the nasty laugh of someone who knew a secret they themselves wouldn't want to know, a secret that, once they learned it, would make them very depressed and not likely to want to learn more.

  "I don't like the sound of that," Botham muttered, holding his battle-axe close to his chest. "You'd better come over here so I can bash anyone who tries to hurt you."

  "Thanks, but my leg's asleep," Gideon said.

  "Not you. Tuesday."

  "My leg's still asleep," he said, releasing his sister so she could snuggle by the blacksmith. He shifted and groaned. "Maybe you could rub it or something."

  "Please!" the thief said.

  "Not you. Abber."

  "It's too dark. I can't see you."

  Water began to trickle along the ground where they sat, filling the cracks and flowing coldly under their buttocks. They squirmed. They dug in their heels to form ineffectual dams. They changed positions. They nearly squashed Horrn against the tree before he yelped and they apologized and cursed Red for having such a good time out there.

  An aged plainssnake crawled in out of the damp and Botham, once he understood it wasn't his darling duck, turned it deftly into a belt. A handful of panicked benst ran through the grove after the next lightning strike, and Red, after spotting the one who had jilted him several days before, turned it into breakfast. A large-winged thing took hasty refuge in the branches immediately above them, and nobody moved; they listened instead to its hea
vy breathing, its claws scratching for a grip, its feathers rasping against the bark. When it left during the next break in the storm, Botham slipped out to be sure it was gone, and slipped right into a mud puddle. Tuesday wailed. Horrn chuckled. Gideon hauled the man back in before he killed himself by finding a new lake.

  Three hours later the storm ended.

  An hour after that, the sun rose.

  An hour after the sun rose, the Grassplain was dry.

  An hour after the Grassplain was dry, Gideon saw the Web.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  All things being equal, Gideon enjoyed musing more than simply thinking because it implied the luxury of time and the intellectual agility to skip from one permutation to another without worrying that the proctor will take away your paper before you're finished. He wished, now, he could muse. What he had to do, however, was think.

  Naturally, he didn't want to.

  Thinking, in this particular case, would no doubt center on the distinct possibility that within the next few hours he would either lose his life or come so close to it as to make—no, never mind. It might also dwell upon the pain he would suffer if he decided to leave the protection of the grove and get himself attacked by whatever was crawling around that portion of the Web he could see from his place in the tree he had climbed once he'd realized what it was he was looking at.

  "Giddy, are you going to come down here or what?"

  With his right arm wrapped around the trunk he placed his cheek against the cool bark and said, "Oh, shit."

  He was facing west. Straight ahead, approximately one mile from where he sat, the Grassplain ended at the juncture of the Wall of Demarcation and the Web. To his left was the line of trees he'd been using as a marker for distance, and he wasn't bothered by the fact that it seemed he had reached a dense forest of apparent evergreens, none more than five or six feet high. To his right was a clear avenue of retreat, all the way back to Terwin. He had no idea what lay behind him, didn't want to know, and wouldn't have listened even if someone offered to tell him.

  The Wall winked its pearl-pure surface at the sun, rising to a haze that muddled the sky's wondrous blue. It ended rather abruptly, in a huge white web some sixty yards long whose strands were thick, the spaces between perfect triangles, and whose southern anchor was either a giant boulder or a midget mountain of such dismal hues that even the trees cluttered around its base seemed drab.

  The Web, he guessed, was no higher than the tree he sat in, and so imagined there was a spell of some sort that gave it the strength to keep the miles-long Wall from toppling over, or dissipating, or melting, or whatever the hell it might do were it not attached to the Web. It would seem, then, that all he and his band had to do was slash a few strands of foot-thick silk, and let nature do the rest.

  "Giddy, we haven't got all day, you know!"

  Slashing the strands, however, would mean that he would have to go over there since his reach, even with the bat, was rather on the short side.

  And going over there would mean he wouldn't be able to just slash the strands because there were a number of large things crawling around the Web. The Qoll. Though he couldn't see them clearly, he knew they would object strenuously to his dismantling their home; and their objections, if Harghe was right, would most likely take the form of mangling him to death.

  "Giddy?"

  "All right, all right," he said, took a last look, and climbed down to where the others were waiting.

  "How does it look?" Botham asked as he sharpened his axe on his anvil.

  "Bad."

  Horrn winced. "Dead bad or hard bad?"

  "Yes."

  Though the evening's storm had long passed, there were still large grey clouds spotting the sky; the temperature was not as high as it had been, but neither did the constant wind bring with it another promise of rain.

  Gideon squinted toward the Web. "We'll have to go soon, I think."

  Bones Abber, fresh from repairing his hair with an as yet unevaporated mud puddle, disagreed. "If we go at night, we'll have the element of surprise. If we go now, they'll see us coming and be able to prepare a defense."

  "If," Gideon said, "we go at night, we won't be able to see them. They're black."

  "A good thing, then. They're really ugly."

  "You miss the point."

  Abber shrugged.

  Tuesday flexed her wings but remained on the ground, waddling over to her brother and poking his shin with her beak. "If you don't go, I'll be like this forever. I don't want to be like this forever. I don't like feathers."

  "I'm going," he said testily. "Just don't push me."

  She poked him again and sulked off, quacking to herself about the infirmities of former quarterbacks who spent most of their time dodging extremely large men bent on destruction of a personal nature. When she reached the nearest tree, she turned and stared at him.

  Gideon looked toward the Web again. "Someone will have to stay behind."

  "Why?" Horrn asked hopefully.

  "To watch out for Tuesday."

  "I'm going!" the duck declared.

  "No," he said. "You're staying."

  "You know what that means," she said, waddling back to jab his shin. "It means you think I'm too weak to help because I'm a woman."

  "You're a duck," he reminded her. "And those things are bigger than you."

  She looked to Botham and back to her brother. "I can't carry a weapon."

  "That's right."

  "And somebody has to make sure some creature doesn't come along and take all the supplies."

  "That's right."

  Her chest puffed and her eyes gleamed. "Then I volunteer."

  "That's right."

  "And I'll stay with her," Botham said, standing faithfully at her side.

  "Wrong," Gideon said. "Bones is staying."

  Horrn looked distressed.

  Botham twitched his axe.

  "Bones," he explained, "is not a fighter. He's a masseur. I don't see him getting close enough to rub those guys to death."

  "I will do my best," the grey man said, standing at attention with his staff at his side. "I will not fail you."

  Gideon nodded, and they shook hands all around. There were no words of farewell, no final hugs or kisses; there was only a moment when Gideon winked at his sister before swinging onto Red's back. Then, as the wind increased enough to raise dust among the dead plants, he urged the lorra forward.

  Red didn't move.

  "Look," he said, "this isn't the time for second thoughts."

  Red twisted his neck and aimed a horn at his thigh.

  "Please."

  Red sniffed, curled his upper lip, and moved out, Botham striding along purposefully on his left, Horrn walking somewhat sideways on the right. And back in the trees, they could hear Tuesday singing an à capella duck battle hymn.

  —|—

  They approached slowly.

  And as the Web grew and became more distinct, they were better able to see the Qoll on the strands.

  They slowed.

  Botham hummed cheerfully to himself, tossing his weapon from one hand to the other and pawing at the ground like a bull. When Gideon looked at him quizzically, he winked and said, "Bashing."

  Horrn, on the other hand, was holding his pitted sword behind his back and smiling insanely, an ill-conceived and wasted effort to prove to the enemy that he was only along for the stroll and really wasn't inclined to join in the fun, which he clearly disapproved of.

  Then Botham stopped humming. "You know something?"

  Gideon looked down at him and waited.

  "Harghe is pretty big."

  "Biggest guy I ever saw, I think," Horrn said.

  "So how come, if he's so big, he didn't bash these things himself?"

  "Not that big," Horrn said dismally. "I guess."

  Gideon lifted an eyebrow and faced forward.

  The Qoll were round. They were also an unreflecting black. And they dripped from various places around their
roundness a gleaming red slime that evaporated as soon as it touched the ground and turned to acid steam.

  Most of them were on the Web, each holding on with a half dozen thick short legs from which hooks protruded at unusual angles; some were on the plain, walking upright, and the legs that weren't being used to hold them up were being used to preen their round black shells from which the slime dripped and seemed not to bother them a bit. Their heads were round as well, and at least as big as their bodies, which were at least as big as an overfed collie; their vision was cyclopean, their mouths were filled with pocked green teeth, and when by chance a bewildered bird flew too low and too close to one of them, a long magenta tongue flicked out, curled around the hapless avian, and flicked back. It wasn't fast, Gideon saw, but it was effective.

  "The way I see it," he said at last, "all we have to do is avoid the legs, the head, and the slime, and we won't have any trouble. Unless those shells are thick."

  "Not thick enough," Botham declared with a swish of his axe over his head.

  The Qoll noticed him.

  A strident thrumming soon filled the air as the Web began to vibrate and the land-walking Qoll raced to the safety of the strands, forming a large square in the center of which squatted the largest and ugliest Qoll and his four mates, who weren't all that much smaller.

  The thrumming continued.

  A shower of acid dripped onto the ground and soon hid the Web and its guardians behind a roiling wall of sulphurous mist which, after a few minutes, filled the air with a stench that had the three men and the lorra gasping for air.

  "They're trying to scare us away," Gideon managed, and grabbed Horrn's shoulder before he could turn around. "Trying, I said."

  The thief shuddered and tapped his sword nervously against his calf.

  The thrumming faded.

  The wind gusted at their backs and cleared the air.

  The Qoll, who had started to break up their defensive square, were obviously surprised to see that their visitors weren't writhing on the ground or racing for home. The leader shook his legs, causing the Web to tremble violently and, subsequently, drop a number of his soldiers onto the plain.

  Botham moved to his right several paces and readied the axe.