The Doom of Fallowhearth

by Robbie MacNiven

  “We’re going back to Fallowhearth,” Logan said to Ronan. “We’ll make our report to Lady Damhán and then turn south. I’ll make sure she frees Carys Morr and hands her over to you before we depart.”

  “I will not go back to the castle immediately,” Ronan said. “I will join the Redfern. Maelec Morr may not have believed the messenger sent from the castle, and I would not want him to attack any of the nearby villages because he has no news from me. I also do not trust your mistress to hand over his daughter without anyone to exchange.”

  “I told you, we’ll see she goes free,” Logan said, but Ronan shook his head.

  “This time I need to be sure. I will bring thirty of Maelec Morr’s bondsmen back to the castle with me.”

  “You think that’s enough to threaten Damhán and Kloin?”

  “I know their weaknesses now, and their castle’s. The size of the garrison, the number of their supplies. If we wish, we could take the citadel in a single night, or simply burn the town.”

  “Sounds like an extreme form of negotiation for a Fìrinn Bruidhinn.”

  “These are extreme times, Logan Lashley.”

  Logan couldn’t disagree with that. He glanced at Ulma, who shrugged.

  “Very well, then,” he said to the northerner. “We will wait three days on your return, and try to convince Damhán in the meantime. If you haven’t come by then, I’m going south with or without the rest of you. I’ve had enough adventures now for this lifetime.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was a morose ride south. Ronan departed after the first night and turned west, intending to skirt south around Fallowhearth, along the borders of Blind Muir, and search out the Redferns on the far side of the town.

  Ulma and Logan barely spoke over the remaining day and a half of the journey. What she thought about Dezra and Kathryn, Logan didn’t know, but he didn’t care either. It had all fallen apart, and Logan had had his fill. For the first time in his life, he just wanted to go home.

  They reached Fallowhearth in the late afternoon. The town was quiet, a few figures hurrying past shuttered homes and businesses. The air had turned cold, and the clouds were a low, gray blanket, threatening snow.

  “Gods, I’ll be glad to never see this place again,” Logan said as they rode into town, as much to himself as to Ulma. “I hope the Redfern do burn it down.”

  Ulma said nothing. Logan assumed she was just being taciturn, until he realized she wasn’t actually riding alongside him any more. He twisted in the saddle and saw her a dozen paces behind. She’d brought Ransom to a stop and was gazing up at a storefront across the street.

  “What is it?” Logan asked, turning Ishbel back to join her.

  “This used to be the town butcher’s,” she said. Logan looked at the timber building properly for the first time, noticing the boarded-up windows, door and the sign hanging above them.

  “Well done,” he said. “You can read the common tongue.”

  “Gods, you’re an idiot,” she said. “Don’t you remember what Damhán said? I told her about the stories relating to the butcher’s daughter. How she had disappeared.”

  “So?” Logan said defensively. “She said that they were just tavern rumors. That the girl had never been missing at all. She told me she checked herself.”

  “But what if she didn’t?” Ulma said. “This place was boarded up before we rode north. What if it’s been like this for weeks? What if the butcher left, or has disappeared as well?”

  “For Fortuna’s sake, Ulma,” Logan said. “Why would you make these sorts of suggestions just when I’m on the cusp of getting out of this gods-forsaken town?”

  Instead of answering, Ulma dismounted and tied Ransom to a hitching post. Then she crossed the street to the butcher’s door.

  “Don’t do this,” Logan called after her, in no mood to be dragged into another of the dwarf’s investigations.

  “Go if you want,” she snapped back. “Go and tell Damhán we’re giving up, or just hide in the Black Crow until the northerner gets back. You’re rarely any use anyway.”

  Logan bristled and tied Ishbel next to Ransom. Ulma was testing the planks that had been nailed over the door.

  “They look fresh to me,” Logan said as he joined her. “Like they were only put up days ago. You realize by far the most plausible story is that the butcher and his daughter have decided to get out of this festering wound of a town while they still can? A decision, by the way, that I think we should be seeking to emulate.”

  “Well, we’re here now,” said Ulma, pulling out her mallet. “Hold the top plank firm.”

  Logan sighed, but did as he was instructed. Standing on her tiptoes, Ulma hammered the top of the uppermost board of wood until it splintered around the nails and the length came clattering down.

  “That’s one,” she said, before setting to work on the next one.

  Logan held them firm, flinching at each strike of the mallet that came close to his fingers. He glanced occasionally over his shoulder. The few people that passed by glanced their way, but none stopped. Clearly a raggedy human and an angry-looking dwarf breaking into an abandoned shop wasn’t worth anybody’s time.

  The last plank rattled free. The door behind was locked.

  “I suppose you have some sort of potion for burning through the wood,” Logan said. “Or one that solidifies when you pour it into a lock and forms a key? That would be impressive.”

  Ulma looked at him impassively for a second before leaning back and delivering an almighty kick right to the center of the door’s frame. With a crash the timber gave way beneath her steel-shod boot.

  “Or you could do it that way,” Logan shrugged. He followed the dwarf inside.

  The first thing that hit him was the stench. It was totally overpowering, far worse than even the ungodly stink of Tobin’s festering kitchen. He recoiled back out into the street, his guts churning.

  “You pathetic manling,” Ulma called from inside the shop.

  “What in the name of all that’s sacred is that?” Logan demanded, breathing deep and slow through his nose as he tried to recover. Ulma’s answer didn’t help much.

  “I think we’ve found Lady Damhán’s missing horse.”

  Logan wrapped the edge of his cloak up around his mouth and, after taking a deep breath, stepped back inside.

  It was almost dark within, the only light filtering through the broken doorway and the cracks between the boarded-up windows. Logan made out a wooden counter and walls lined with empty rows of hooks that he assumed had once been hung with the butcher’s stock. A flight of stairs led up to a closed door, while a second doorway lay behind the counter.

  Ulma was standing beside it. Logan edged round the counter to join her, desperately battling his nausea.

  He realized that the dwarf was right. Damhán’s heavy gray horse lay behind the store front. It seemed curiously deflated, and stinking pink slurry was congealing around all of its orifices. The skin around its nose, eyes and mouth was shriveled up, the veins black. It looked as though its insides had been liquidated.

  “Arachyura,” Ulma murmured.

  “Here?” Logan asked, his pulse quickening. “In the middle of the town? That can’t be.”

  “Remember the Northern Watch was half Dunwarr built?” Ulma said. “Remember it had a passage beneath it? Well, we Dunwarr didn’t just help the baronies build the watchtowers. We helped to build Fallowhearth castle as well.”

  “I don’t like where this is going,” Logan said.

  Ulma eased open the door behind the counter without answering, having some difficulty bending one of the carcass’s legs.

  “We should go back,” Logan said, watching as the dwarf peered through into the rear of the shop. He felt uncomfortable, penned in. He realized it was the same sensation he got when he journeyed underground, the same phobia he�
�d been dealing with ever since Sudanya’s labyrinths.

  “Ancestor’s golden beard,” she murmured.

  “What? What is it?”

  Ulma forced the door a little wider and, against his better judgment, Logan looked over her head and into the room beyond.

  What light had made it through the storefront illuminated what looked to have been an abattoir adjoining the rear of the shop. Heavy sides of meat hung on dozens of hooks suspended from the low, heavy beams of the ceiling. Something, however, had clearly taken up residence in the butcher’s absence. Glistening strands of thick webbing hung between the sides of dangling meat, with some of it wrapped up in the thousands of cloying threads. The web was so dense Logan couldn’t see the back of the room.

  “I think I agree,” Ulma said quietly. “We should go.”

  Before Logan could respond, the light shining in behind them flickered. They both turned. Something was moving in the shop’s open front door. An arachyura, poised above the entrance – it could have been there from the moment they’d broken in. Its limbs were jerking and twisting with an almost rhythmic regularity, and Logan realized with a surge of horror that it was spinning. Spinning a web, right over the door.

  “Move!” Ulma shouted, shoving him aside and delving into her smock. Logan yelled in pure horror, trying to draw his sword, his hands shaking so badly he could hardly grip the weapon. As he did so, he realized with a plummeting feeling that the arachyura wasn’t alone. The entire ceiling was crawling with spiders, great and small, hundreds of them infesting the rafters overhead. They exploded into frenzied motion as Ulma pulled out a vial and hurled it at the doorway.

  The glass shattered and burst into flame. It seared away the freshly spun web and ignited both the arachyura and the doorframe.

  “Get out!” Ulma bellowed at Logan and made a run for the door. He followed just as the horse’s corpse started to distend and burst. Long, multi-jointed legs ripped free from the remains and thousands of smaller spiders came pouring out of the carcass.

  Logan dashed across the store, screaming. He could already feel spiders dropping on him from above. Ulma was ahead, about to duck through the flames framing the door, when a burst of webbing sprayed her, causing her to trip and sprawl across the floorboards. Logan reached down to help, wildly grabbing at the edge of her smock and unintentionally spilling several vials out onto the floor. He got her onto her knees in time to receive a second blast of webbing that dragged them both to the floor.

  Ahead, a black carpet of scuttling bodies was actually smothering the fire that had engulfed the doorway, burning themselves in their efforts to douse the flames. Ulma was fumbling with a trio of vials, pouring them together into a spherical glass orb which she stoppered firmly.

  “Why aren’t you using it?” Logan screamed at her, trying to haul himself clear of the sticky webbing that had engulfed half of his body.

  “Because I want to live a bit longer,” Ulma said.

  A weight slammed into Logan’s back. He yelled and twisted, thrusting his sword up into something with far too many legs. It squeaked and spurted a foul, stinking ichor.

  They were all over him. It was even worse than Blind Muir – claustrophobic, maddening. He slashed viciously, but more damned webbing snagged his arm and made his blows useless. Something was digging pincers into his thigh and another into his side. His body had already started to numb.

  His panicked mind unable to think of anything else, he tried to pray out loud, but more webbing struck his face. Limbs dug into his side, turning him over. He realized the arachyura weren’t trying to kill him. They were trapping him. More webbing clung like fish glue to his sides, pinning his arms to his body, his sword still gripped uselessly in one hand. Webbing over his mouth stopped him screaming. Things were biting his legs all over now. He was losing feeling everywhere. He couldn’t see Ulma.

  The last thing he saw was the fat, deformed body of an especially large arachyura dragging itself over him, its mandibles oozing. Then the threads splattered and bound his upper face, and he saw no more.

  • • •

  Durik stood by the window, looking out over Fallowhearth. Darkness was beginning to fall, creeping between the narrow streets and extending out over the fields and forests beyond. In the distance Blind Muir was already swathed in shadow, a brooding, oppressive presence on the town’s doorstep.

  “What is it?” Carys asked. She was sipping at a bowl of boiled root vegetables, perched on the edge of the four-poster bed. Durik had dragged it back to its place against the wall, leaving the door unblocked. There was no need for barricades while he was here.

  Durik continued to gaze into the encroaching night. The wind gusted, rattling the window’s small, murky crosshatch panes. The draught was working its way relentlessly into the castle chambers. He moved over to the fireplace, doing his best not to pace. It was almost impossible.

  “They’re late, aren’t they?” Carys went on, looking at the orc over the brim of her bowl. “Ronan and your friends.”

  “They are,” Durik agreed, placing a fresh log in the hearth. He didn’t want to have this conversation, didn’t want to admit how difficult it was to be trapped in the tower with the clan girl.

  “You expected them this afternoon. Three days to the tower and three back.”

  “Logan Lashley is often late.”

  “But Ronan of the Wilds isn’t.”

  Durik probed the hearth with the blackened fire poker, getting the fire sparking again, before returning to the window. He was struggling silently with a monstrous restlessness – a hunter required patience, but staying patient was easier said than done when he found himself helpless in the face of his friends’ unknown fate. Every moment since their departure seemed to have dragged on agonizingly.

  “If you wish to go and look for them, I won’t stop you,” Carys said.

  “I cannot leave you here alone. Not with the likes of the captain still here.”

  “Maybe I can come with you?”

  “Lady Damhán won’t allow that.”

  Carys lapsed into silence. Durik scanned the streets below once more, looking for any sign of Logan, Ulma or the northerner in the dying light. Perhaps they had found the crooked tower simply unoccupied? Perhaps they had chosen to spend the night there? He tried to accept the unknown, to come to terms with the fact that he couldn’t be sure until they returned, but the possibilities played out endlessly in his mind, each one darker than the last.

  “Lady Damhán scares me,” Carys said after a while.

  “Why?” Durik asked, not taking his eyes off the gathering twilight.

  “I don’t know. I feel as though her eyes are always on me, even when she isn’t here.”

  “She is a sorceress,” Durik said. “I’m sure she has many unsettling abilities.”

  “It’s more than that. She looks at me like a hunter.”

  “Don’t I? I would have thought I was more a hunter than one of Baroness Adelynn’s court advisors.”

  “That is the wrong word then. Not a hunter, a… creachadair.”

  “A predator?”

  “Yes, I think. A creature-that-hunts.”

  “Perhaps,” Durik said, the girl’s words taking his mind off his anxiety. What she said had a ring of truth to it. “I have known many such creatures in my time. But I do not see that in Damhán.”

  “Did you ever find one that could disguise itself? So it did not seem like what it was.”

  “Some, yes,” Durik said. “There are many cunning beasts across Terrinoth and beyond. But I have rarely known any with an ability to seem like an old woman.”

  “But you have never been to this corner of Terrinoth.”

  Durik said nothing, still standing post at the window. Outside, night fell.

  • • •

  Logan tried to scream. The realization that he couldn�
�t made him try to scream harder.

  Was he awake? He couldn’t see, though he was sure his eyes were open. He couldn’t feel, either. His body was gone. He tried to reach out, to twist, to turn. Nothing.

  It was warm. He could feel moisture on his face. Sweat, he realized. So he still had a face, at least. He tried to open his mouth, but it was sealed. He could only breathe through his nose. For a while he thought he was going to suffocate.

  It took time for the worst of the panic to recede. He gave up trying to struggle. His thoughts raced. Arachyura. That was all he could remember. Thousands and thousands of bastard arachyura. Something scuttled across his face. He tried to scream again, but could only get out a low, throaty moan.

  Gradually, more memories came back. The butcher’s shop. Ulma. The fire she had kindled. Had she made it out? Had the arachyura managed to put out the flames, or had the shop burned down? Was anyone looking for them? And where in the names of all the gods was he now?

  His body shifted. Something around him was vibrating, bouncing. The sensation made him queasy and caused him to instinctively try to put his arms out to steady himself. He couldn’t, though he felt the fingers in his left hand twitch. Feeling – slow, aching and painful – was beginning to return to his body.

  He flexed the hand, tried to move his arm too. It was pinned to his side. The other one wasn’t any better. The fingers of his right hand seemed fixed in place. He realized that was because they were locked around something solid, something that was trapped against the right side of his body alongside his arm.

  His sword. The rest of his memories returned, rushing back with ugly clarity. The arachyura swarming him. Their horrific webs snagging and snaring him, pinning his whole body, including his blade. That’s where he had to be now. Wrapped and trapped in a huge spider’s web.