Ren of Atikala

by David Adams

  THE AIR HOWLED AROUND MY earholes and the world became dark. I slammed into a hard surface, landing square on my chest. I blindly pushed myself up on my elbows, trying to regain my bearings, but Khavi crashed onto my back, knocking the wind from me. His blade speared into the stone, bouncing away, the cutting edge less than an inch from my face.

  “Are you okay?” said Khavi, but I couldn’t answer. He hopped off me, seeming hardly worse for wear after his fall. I could do nothing but curl up on the stone, fighting to breathe.

  “You stay here,” he said. “I’ll go make sure it’s safe.” Khavi picked up his blade, moving away from me, inspecting the surrounding area.

  A minute of hacking and gasping later, and finally my lungs began to work again. I pushed myself onto my backside, and as I did, a bright light flared at the edge of my vision. Khavi held a vial of glowbug juice, its stopper removed. A drop of the stuff ran down the cutting edge of his weapon. The length of metal glowed like a lantern.

  “Where are we?” I asked, climbing to my feet and surveying where we’d fallen. The yellow light of Khavi’s blade cast a pallid radiance that revealed the featureless stone floor beneath us and precious little else. The faint motion of air around me hinted that this chamber was high and wide, open thirty or forty feet in all directions, but beyond that I could see little.

  At the edge of our light source, my eyes caught the faint glint of a metal surface, a yellow speck in the empty black void.

  “What’s that?” I asked Khavi. The two of us approached carefully, and as we got close, the source became obvious.

  A female kobold corpse, withered and mummified, lay belly up on the flat stone, thin cobwebs stretched between her twisted and gnarled limbs. She was clad in an aged but well-preserved shirt of mail.

  “This kobold was from Atikala,” I said, crouching over the corpse. “Look at her tunic. If she wore mail, she was more than a patrol leader. This was a skilled soldier…maybe even a Darkguard.”

  I could not see a dragon’s claw cloak clasp that was the signet of the Darkguard, elite assassins who travelled in disguise, magical or otherwise. The fact that she wore metal armour, though, signified an elite status that was undeniable.

  “What killed her?” asked Khavi, bringing his blade closer, giving more light to see.

  I touched her desiccated scales, feeling and exploring until I found a faint hole in the rotten tunic that covered her armour, then another. Two puncture wounds, almost a foot apart on her upper and lower body.

  “Picks?” I asked, but shook my head. The wounds were too fine. “Arrows?”

  “Who would recover arrows from a corpse but leave an intact suit of mail?”

  I didn’t know. I studied the dead kobold’s expression, the features of her face in death. Her maw was open wide and her face was dry and shrunken by the underground air. She wore a scream of dread and horror that age, death, and desiccation could not mask.

  I had seen dead bodies before, but nothing like this. My damaged claws explored her body, peeling back the tunic to see more of her armour. “Wait,” I said. “I think she’s still breathing!”

  “Impossible,” said Khavi, but I could see it, as clear as the light of a placid glowbug. The kobold’s chest rose and fell, ever so slightly, pulsing with life.

  Gripping the worn thread of the tunic with both hands, I tore it in half, exposing the whole of the dead kobold’s torso, and as I did, the corpse’s skin burst like a bug hit with a mace. Uncountable numbers of spiders, each no bigger than one of my scales, poured from the corpse’s chest, mouth, and empty eye sockets, a living swarm that washed over me, covering my arms and face, their diminutive legs skittering all over my scales as they ran over my body.

  I shrieked and slapped at my face and arms, a thick carpet of arachnids growing out, spilling out over the bare stone.

  “Get them off, get them off, get them off!”

  I flailed around on the ground. The heavy flat of Khavi’s blade thunked into my side, squashing dozens of the creatures, but scores more took their place, crawling insects replacing their fallen brethren faster than he could kill them.

  Then they began to bite.

  The burning venom surged into my body, and I shrieked again, thrashing and kicking, Khavi’s sword hitting over and over to little effect. The swarm of vermin stuck to his blade in clumps, crawling up towards the weapon’s hilt and swimming through the vicious fluid clinging to the steel. Khavi waved the sword around wildly, sending spiders and glowbug juice everywhere.

  I turned my thoughts inward, to the fire that welled in my veins. My lack of restful sleep in the previous night had drained my power, and the biting, burning feel of the spiders swarming all over me jumbled the words in my head. I conjured images of dragon fire, of surging heat and burning metal, but the only result was a thick outpouring of smoke from my broken claws.

  I rolled over and over on the stone ground, flailing my arms madly as the spiders bit me again and again, their fangs finding the gaps between my scales and injecting their poison into my skin.

  Warm liquid splashed against my leather jerkin and light flooded my vision. I thought for a moment that the spell I’d cast had worked belatedly, but a rich sweet smell filled my nostrils. One I knew intimately, and I knew the truth. Glowbug juice. Energy rich, nutritious, and luminescent, the fluid was a staple of our diets and a critical tool for our survival in the dark underground. However, it had one property that always unnerved those who understood it, who were educated and could see the dangers of such things.

  It was flammable.

  Khavi’s sword lay on the ground, swarming with spiders, its owner with a flint and steel in his hands.

  “No, no, no, no, NO!”

  But it was too late. Khavi struck the two together, showering my body with golden sparks, igniting the fluid and bathing the whole area in light. The spider swarm collectively understood the burning fire to be the death of them all and flowed off me and away.

  It didn't matter that they were gone. The feeling of them on me had been too much. I thrashed around on the ground, my armour on fire, the scent of roasting human skin mixed with the acrid scent of burned glowbug juice. I snapped off the clips of my jerkin, rolling out of it, the flaming remains of my armour basking the area in orange luminescence. I panted and slapped at my scales, fearing the flames were still upon me or that the hundreds of crawling legs would return.

  Glowbug juice burned brightly, but I hadn’t felt any pain. The flames had consumed a part of the cloth under my armour. There was a sooty mark, but despite the black stain, my scales were unharmed.

  Aside from a few I found and crushed with the palm of my hand, my body was free of the vermin. My armour, though, quickly burned through and became a useless pile of charred leather. The light from the burning jerkin lit up the cavern, which was almost fifty feet high and wide, the passage stretching off to the gloom on either side. All around me, hanging in the air like the ropes of a bridge, were dozens of spider webs, the threads as thick as my arm. Many had dried corpses strung out on them, hanging like cloth thrown over a line to dry. Khavi and I had, miraculously, missed all of the strands on our way down.

  “What is this place?” I said, my voice tinged with awe.

  “I don’t know,” replied Khavi. He struck the flint over his blade, igniting it in a burst of light.

  “Will you stop doing that?” I shouted at him, “You set me on fire!”

  “You were covered in bugs!”

  “Spiders are arachnids, not bugs, and you set me on fire!”

  “Well,” huffed Khavi, “the bugs are gone at least.”

  “They’re not—urgh. Forget it.”

  I grimaced as the venom worked its way through my veins, stinging me from the inside, but I grit my fangs and bore it out. I was a warrior, and I was accustomed to pain. Pain was passing. I would live or I would die.

  After a moment the burning faded. I stripped off the last of my armour and the cloth padding underneath
, clad only in my scales and the pouch of my eggshells around my neck.

  As I did my scales crawled. Khavi’s eyes were watching me. I stared back at him, his eyes roaming over my body, and I was reminded that he was assigned to breed with me before the disaster had taken our city. The thought had completely fled my mind until that moment, and I suspected that he had not put much thought into it either, but the look he gave my naked body brought that little problem back to mind.

  The strangest thing, though, was that I was more comfortable than I thought. He'd seen me without clothing before, but there was something subtly different here. We weren't hatchlings huddled together for warmth anymore, or trainees struggling under Yeznen's whip. Now we were adults, assigned to be together.

  I thought I would feel dirty, feel objectified, or feel threatened by the change in atmosphere; instead, there was simply a vague feeling of unease. Perhaps I was more comfortable with him than I thought. Perhaps my reluctance to do my duty with him was simply my inexperience in these matters.

  That, in itself, was unsettling. I didn't like being afraid.

  The silence persisted uncomfortably, and then I reached down and grabbed the cloth padding I had discarded. It was mostly intact, singed on the edges, but I put it on anyway. Covering myself seemed to break the tension, and Khavi finally looked away.

  I didn’t feel like talking about what had just happened, so instead, I staggered over to the burst corpse, kicking at it with my foot to ensure that there were no more spiders within.

  “I think it’s safe,” Khavi said, grinning at me. I didn’t like the way he did that.

  Unwilling to meet his gaze, I turned to the dead Darkguard, a shudder running down my spine as I stared at the empty-eyed corpse, her chest turned outward. I understood now why her expression was so horrified. I imagined the Darkguard as the tide of insects rushed into her eyes and mouth, feeling them lay their eggs into her flesh while she was still alive.

  It was best not to think about it.

  “Khavi, retrieve the chainmail. The Darkguard doesn’t need it anymore, and I don’t fancy being unarmoured in this place.”

  He stared at me like I had ordered him to cut off all his own limbs and head. “There is absolutely no way, in this life or the next, that I am touching that infested thing.”

  I sympathised, and being honest with myself, I wouldn’t want to touch it either. As much as I disliked Khavi leering at me, I disliked giving an order I found personally revolting more.

  But I needed something to take his attention away from me.

  “I don’t care. You burned my armour; I’ll need some more.”

  “I saved your life!” protested Khavi.

  “You set me on fire.” I reached into my pouch, removing my flint and steel and a glowing vial of my own. “If more spiders remain, I’ll be sure to return the favour.”

  He crossed his arms. “It’s not like you could burn anyway.”

  I frowned. “Why would you say that?”

  “You didn’t before when you were in the furnace.”

  I reached for the pouch around my neck. “No, but that was…” I didn’t know how to explain it. “That was just a one-time thing.”

  “Was it? The glowbug juice—wasn’t it painful?”

  I looked back up at the myriad of criss-crossing spiderwebs above me and at the dried corpses hanging there. Fire was rare underground as it stole breathable air. The forges of the city ran once a day. Even with my magic I’d never touched open flame before today.

  Glowbug juice didn’t burn hot, but the mark on my shoulder was undeniable. I couldn’t feel any pain there specifically, but I felt pain all over my body from the spider bites. A burning pain. I couldn’t tell the difference.

  My instincts told me not to question this too much.

  “I don’t know. The fire was on my armour.” I glared at him. “Armour that you destroyed. So go get the chainmail. Now.”

  Kobolds taught our warriors well. Our warriors followed orders even if they would lead to their doom. Still, it was with palpable reluctance that Khavi removed the shirt from the kobold body, careful to keep himself as far away from the hollow corpse as he could.

  “Here,” he spat, throwing the mail on the floor at my feet, a shiver running from his feet to his snout.

  I picked up the heavy suit of mail and inspected it to verify that there were no more spider-lings present. I had never seen metal armour this close before; each of the finely woven links had held together over however many years she had lain on the floor of the cavern, and I could tell even in the dim light that this was a finely made piece indeed. I slipped it over my head, wriggling into it. It felt comforting and fit me perfectly, a cocoon, the metal rings melding up against my scales snugly.

  I had never trained with metal armour, but as the rings of mail nestled in to my body, a memory surged into my mind. A racial memory. Just as we were born with the ability to speak, we sometimes came to know other things as well.

  One of my ancestors had used mail like this, had trained with it, fought in it, and died in it. I had no specifics of who this kobold was, a tantalising dangle of the heritage I so eagerly wanted to uncover, but try as I might, there was nothing more than the knowledge.

  “Like it was made for me.”

  The light dimmed. I looked to Khavi poking around the corpse with his weapon. He shoved it under the body, leaving the only available light the smouldering remains of my jerkin.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “There’s something underneath,” said Khavi, then lifted the blade with a grunt. The body, aged and dry, broke apart as he lifted it. A dozen spiders scurried out, and we jumped back, keeping our distance until they were gone.

  Underneath the remains was a long, thin dagger sheathed in a humanskin leather scabbard. The hilt was an ornate black onyx carved into a narrow point. I understood what it was. I had seen these kinds of weapons before.

  “She was a Darkguard.” I gingerly reached for the weapon, and giving it a shake, checked it all over for spiderlings. “This is a Feyeater.”

  “A what?”

  “A magical dagger, specifically enchanted to harm gnomes. The edges find its organs more easily, and wounds inflicted on their kind bleed more profusely, as though made by a much larger weapon.” I slid it from its sheath, revealing a blade as black as night, matte, almost invisible in the dim light of the cavern. The perfect assassin’s weapon, tailor-made for its target. “This Darkguard was hunting gnomes.”

  “That could come in handy when we catch No-Kill,” said Khavi. “Especially if we end up taking some of its toes.”

  I slipped the weapon back into its sheath and strapped it to my belt. “I agree, and anything that hurts gnomes is an asset to us at the moment.”

  “Especially this.” Khavi sniffed the air. “Where to now?”

  I looked up to the ceiling, but the hole we had fallen through would be impossible to climb to unless we used the thick strands of web as a ladder. Judging by how stuck the corpses were, that was definitely a bad plan.

  “There must be another way out of here,” I said, retrieving my shield and short sword. I took out my bottle of glowbug juice and carefully dripped a drop onto my weapon.

  I let the glow lead me as I started off towards the passage south, Khavi falling into step behind me.

  We walked through the gloom for several minutes, and then we reached a web made of the same oversized web strands we had seen earlier, numerous concentric pentagrams around a single point. The web blocked the entire width of the passage, and I suspected it reached to the ceiling too.

  “Can you burn through it?” asked Khavi. “With magic, I mean. We should preserve the glowbug juice if we can. I used most of mine earlier.”

  “I remember,” I said, scowling at him. “Distinctly.”

  “Hey, it was that or let you get spidered to death.”

  I took a breath, pushing aside the crawling feeling that ran up my body. “I need to
conserve my spells. My magic has been sorely tested this day, and I can feel my power waning.”

  Khavi regarded the web, hands on his hips. “Maybe we could cut through it.”

  “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t risk your sword getting stuck.”

  “What could make something this big?” he asked. Khavi extended the tip of a claw to one of the webs.

  “Don’t,” I hissed, recalling the bodies hanging in defiance of gravity’s inexorable pull.

  Heedless of my warning, Khavi touched the thick strand. I couldn’t believe what he had just done.

  “Huh.” Khavi tried to pull away, but his claw was stuck fast. It wouldn’t budge. He tugged again, harder this time, and the thread bent and gave, but then snapped taut and pulled his whole arm forward into the web. “Shit of the dead Gods!” he snarled. “I’m stuck!”

  “You idiot! I told you not to touch it!”

  “Well, I just had to!”

  “No you didn’t! Hang on, let me cut you free.” I reached down for the Feyeater on my hip, but a low, echoing voice from above stopped me.

  “Foodlings bring fire to my home,

  Juicy smell, not like a gnome,

  Smell the scent from where they bled,

  Lay eggs in them when they are dead.”

  Khavi twisted around, staring wide-eyed at me. “What in the name of the dead gods?”

  From above, moving its many legs and nimbly skittering down the oversized web, came a spider with eight eyes as red as ruby jewels, its mandibles clacking with anticipation. It was the largest specimen I’d ever seen by a significant margin, three kobolds tall and ten wide. It had six legs, four on one side and two on the other, and two blackened, writhing stumps where legs should’ve been.

  “Stay back!” I shouted, gripping my sword tighter in my claw. I raised my shield, fingers twitching eagerly as I summoned words of power in my mind.

  The spider did not slow its descent, its surprisingly articulate jaw clicking as it spoke.

  “Foodling yells and has a blade,

  But in its home it should have stayed,

  A tasty morsel I shall eat,

  Kobold juice is oh so sweet.”

  I kept my blade pointed right at the creature’s many glowing eyes as Khavi thrashed and squirmed in the web. “Let us leave,” I said. “We mean you no harm. We didn’t hurt the other spiders until they attacked us.”

  The spider continued descending, its jaws widening, a pair of long fangs dripped venom.

  “Indeed you didn’t, little folk,

  But Six-Legs needs—”

  I shouted words of power, a surge of fear blasting away my fatigue and the lingering traces of the spider venom within my body. A roaring sheet of flame leapt from my fingers, engulfing Six-Legs and pouring over the web behind it. The thick strands beneath its legs caught fire and snapped, sending the flaming ball of spider crashing down onto the stone floor.

  I relaxed, lowering my sword, but as the flames died, the spider stood, its body cloaked in smoke as the hairs on its exoskeleton burned down like little wicks.

  Down the length of its back were great spines, each tipped with a barbed stinger. No natural creature could survive such a roasting, but I stared into its eyes and saw a malevolent darkness there, cunning and patient, beyond the intelligence of a mere giant animal, or even most sentient creatures. I knew this was something more. It was a creature with a demonic taint in its blood, a filth that could only have come from some other lower plane of existence. A demon from the pits themselves had somehow bred into the monster’s line and filled it with its power.

  “How rude it is to interrupt,

  Food’s end shall come, swift and abrupt.”

  The spider arched up on two of its rear legs, its forelegs curling as it darted towards me.

  I held my sword out in front of my body, expecting it to impale its head on the sharp edge. My blade struck the hard carapace of the spider’s head and bent almost in half. The sword was fine kobold manufacture, and it did not break, but the strain tore it from my hand, bouncing and skidding across the stone.

  Fortunately it slowed the monster’s bite. I jumped out of the way, poison spraying in a wide arc as it tried to skewer me.

  Fire would not harm a creature of the lower planes. Flame was my element, but I knew at least one other trick. I held out my throbbing hand, summoning the last of my magic, shaping the raw energy into a dart of force. It leapt from my open palm but evaporated harmlessly as it touched Six-Legs’s hide, dissipating into the air.

  Fire could not burn it, steel could not pierce it, and magic itself recoiled from it. I frantically racked my mind for alternatives as the spider closed in on me once more.

  With a roar, Khavi finally managed to tear his arm free of the sticky spiderweb, his two-handed blade returning into his grasp. His eyes lit up, glowing an eager crimson as spittle flew from his lips, charging the spider with his blade held high.

  The spider saw him too, but I was closer. The spider nipped at me once again, its fangs closing around my torso and squeezing. They pressed against my newly acquired mail, and its eating tube slathered against me, the fluid dripping between the metal rings, fangs scraping against my scales. My fists thumped against its head, then I stabbed at one of its eyes with a broken claw.

  The spider howled, dropping me right as Khavi’s blade nicked into its abdomen, slicing through its thick exoskeleton and finding flesh. It dropped me right on my snout and turned on him, hissing. Khavi raged in return, shrieking his war cries as he hacked at the spider’s body over and over again.

  I drew the Feyeater from my belt. Its enchantments were only effective on gnomes, but it was better than nothing. As I looked for an opening to close and engage, the spider nipped at Khavi and missed his shoulder by a hair. I could see that the beast’s wound on its abdomen, minor though it was, had already closed.

  I knew this was a fight we could not win.

  “Run!” I shouted, pointing to the hole in the web my flame had left. “This way!”

  Khavi could not hear me. He continued to fight, slashing and hacking at the spider while the spider made measured nips, slowly wearing him down.

  I jammed the Feyeater back into its sheath and ran for the hole, leaping through the ring of burning spiderwebs and rolling back to my feet on the other side. I whirled and faced the fight, just in time to see Six-Leg’s fang slice into Khavi’s shoulder, tearing through his scales, and leaving a thin line of black blood and poison where it struck.

  “Khavi!” I shouted. “I am your patrol leader, and I order you to retreat at once!”

  Perhaps it was the pain of the wound or the orders given to him by his direct superior, but the burning light faded from Khavi’s eyes and his posture shifted, becoming more defensive. He blocked a second bite and sliced at the spider’s mandible, then ran towards the burning hole, an open mouthed Six-Legs in hot pursuit.

  I grit my teeth. Despite his strength, jumping was not Khavi’s strong point.

  Khavi leapt into the air. He snagged on a burning tendril of web and Khavi fell snout first on the other side, his blade flew out of his hands and nearly sliced off my foot.

  My short sword lay on the stone on the other side of the web, my magic was all but exhausted, and I couldn’t manoeuver my flame to avoid burning my prone and squirming friend.

  “No weapons have you,

  Such a shame, what can you do?”

  We needed options. I did the only thing I could think of; I drew the Feyeater and aimed with my hand.

  “Catch!” I threw as hard as I could. The weapon sailed out towards a wide-eyed Khavi. He caught it and slashed off the strand of web.

  “Nice throw!” He said.

  Khavi’s footclaws scratched gouges in the stone as he scrambled away from the web. Six-Legs, hissing as it clambered through the hole, snapped at Khavi. I swore that Khavi was doomed, but through sheer luck Six-Legs’s fangs failed to pierce his scales.

  We ran. Khavi sc
ooped up his blade, both of us running for all we were worth.

  But Six-Legs had more legs than the two of us put together, and this was its home. It knew every nook and cranny, every stone and pebble that littered the ground, while Khavi and I were running blind. It gained on us, closing ever closer, all of its multitudes of eyes focused on us, each glowing with an infernal light.

  Claws scraped on stone as Khavi and I stumbled through the dark until the tunnel began to narrow and climb. A glimmer of hope shone in my heart as I detected warm air moving down from the tunnel, but as we ran, the truth was less comforting. A web blocked the way out, a thick wall of sticky thread that reached from wall to wall, floor to ceiling.

  I looked for a way around it, over it, through it, but there was none. Six-Legs slowed, clearly confident that we were not going anywhere, its eight eyes flicking amongst each of them with a hungry glint.

  “Foodlings run into my web,

  Feel their life force wane and ebb,

  Six-Legs hunt you, tasty treats,

  Six-Legs drink you, eat your meats.”

  “To the hells with you!” spat Khavi. “I’ll make you Five-Legs if you come near me!” He handed the Feyeater to me, gripping his own blade in both hands as he slipped into a combat stance, standing at the ready and a snarl on his lips.

  It was merely bluster. We needed a way to fight the spider and had none. I turned my mind inward, trying in vain to conjure another gout of flame. Another spell of that strength was beyond my drained and exhausted mind, and the weaker cantrips would not be effective at harming Six-Legs at all.

  The enchantments on the Feyeater may not work against such a monster, but if there was one desiccated corpse around here with a magical weapon, there might be more. Something that might be able to help them.

  I murmured an arcane phrase. Dragonsight. The colour drained out of my vision and the world became a monochrome sea, the yellow light of Khavi’s blade turning grey. The Feyeater radiated blue, the only colour I could see, and all around me sapphire blue twinkled in the distance of the cave, pinpoints of light in the darkness as my spell made visible the magical aura of enchanted items.

  All too far away to help; all but one. A bright blue light shone from behind a rock near the cave wall, its faint glow barely visible except through the cracks in the imperfect seal. There was a tunnel there.

  Reaching out and grabbing Khavi’s shoulder, I yanked him over with me as Six-Legs began to advance. Grasping the rock, I rolled the boulder aside, finding a crawl space big enough for a kobold.

  “Come on!” I hissed as Six-Legs skittered towards us. “This way!”

  Khavi didn’t need to be told twice. He dove headfirst into the tunnel, pushing through the thin cobwebs that filled the cramped space and disappearing into the gloom.

  He had escaped, but Six-Legs loomed over me, mouth open to bite. Without any idea of what else to do, I held my shield up and crouched in front of the opening.

  The fangs pierced my shield, stopping an inch away from my scales, the force shoving me backwards into the hole. I scrambled away, dragging my damaged shield behind me as Six-Legs bit and spat down the passage.

  “Six-Legs suffers with a powerful thirst,

  Which of you shall I feed on first?”

  I turned, watching the spider’s fangs miss my feet by inches. I drew the Feyeater and let it give my answer for me, swinging in a wide arc and missing the spider’s head. The creature seemed more amused than alarmed, pulling its head back to the entrance of the passage and eyeing my dagger. It opened its jaws to speak again, but I thrust the Feyeater towards it, and it scampered back.

  I crawled backwards, moving with my right hand and clutching the dagger with my left, but then I touched something soft.

  A lump of web, sticky and unyielding, and my hand was stuck fast.

  I tugged frantically to no avail. Six-Legs, seeing me stop, bit at me through the opening. Even with my legs tucked up against my body, glancing hits from its fangs scratched into my scales, threatening to dig into my flesh beneath.

  Khavi grabbed my shoulders, and he pulled me free, tearing a chunk of the webbing away with my hand. He dragged me back through the cramped tunnel, bumping and scratching my knees and elbows. Something else was stuck to my claw. Khavi pulled, yanking and tugging until we burst out into a cavern lit with crystals. There were no webs.

  “Thank you,” I gasped, sliding the Feyeater into its scabbard, its eerie blue light shining out of the humanskin.

  “Don’t thank me yet, I think this is just an antechamber.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “You were bitten.”

  “What do you mean?” said Khavi, “I feel completely fine!” He gave a bold smile, then pitched forward, smashing his snout on the hard stone.

  I touched his back. He was still breathing, but his limbs were as limp as moss. I had nothing to help him, so I could only wait for the poison to run its course and hope it was nothing more than paralysis. I shook my other hand, still sticky with web, and found the goo impossible to shake away.

  A hilt protruded from the sticky mess, bathed in the blue light of my magic. Curious, I tugged the exposed handle, sliding it with surprising ease from the clump.

  A long, thin blade, thinner than my short sword but almost twice as long. It was a rapier, forged from some metal I didn’t recognise. Its hilt was carved and felt vaguely similar to stone. Its pommel was a heavy lump of pewter shaped into an open dragon’s claw.

  There was something about the weapon that called to me. Something that told me that finding it was no accident. It felt like another racial memory but more intimate. This wasn’t some ancestor who had used this weapon; it was closer to me than that somehow.

  I let the magic of my detection spell fade and colour returned to my sight. The glow faded away from the rapier. I ran my broken talons over the brown hilt, tracing down to the pommel, our recent peril forgotten. The incredible workmanship was something special, and it felt as though this weapon were made for me.

  The Gods were dead, everyone knew that; the sentient races had risen up eons ago and slain them for their meddling, but there was some hand of the divine in my finding it. Although my body was weary as if I could sleep for days and lingering traces of spider venom coursed through my blood, I was energised. Alive. After all that had happened, the collapse at Atikala and everything since, finding this weapon was a bright spark in a sea of grim tidings.

  But we could not stay here. Six-Legs was not far away. Although Khavi was helplessly paralysed, his face contorted like the dead Darkguard’s, I pulled his stiff body to his feet. I staggered onwards and upwards, hoping to put as much ground between us and Six-Legs as possible.