The Travelers' Song

by Brendan O'Gara

  Wandalor took the girl by the elbow and walked several feet ahead of the group. “Am I right that you are traveling to Blackweb? We are headed there, too. This lot,” he nodded over his shoulder toward the wagon, “is not the most gentlemanly, and certainly have rough exteriors. They are loyal and trustworthy. You will be safer with us than in your own bed. What is your name, child?”

  “I am no child. I’m the daughter of a lord. I am only” She stopped talking and Wandalor saw her mouth moving as she counted. “—twenty-fifth in line to the throne. I’m Lady Charlotte of Zebulon. My father’s kingdom is in the south, only about four days’ journey from here. I can assure you, if my father doesn’t hear from me in the allotted time, he will send an army to find me. I’m instructed to send a messenger once I get to Blackweb.”

  “Then, my lady, all the more reason for you to climb on the wagon and let us escort you to Blackweb,” Wandalor insisted. Charlotte looked down at her dusty shoes and wiggled her aching toes. She then looked up at the man’s blue eyes. She heard her father’s words in her head: “Safety in numbers. Find a farmer traveling with his family on the road and walk close to them.” The man in front of her was no farmer. He reminded her of an uncle, and she decided to trust him.

  She sighed, marched over to the back of the wagon where both Darr and Thalin reached, grabbing hold of her arms to help her up. She hiked up her skirt and climbed onto the wagon, sitting as politely as she could next to Johan and Gadlin on the front bench.

  Gadlin waited for Charlotte to get settled on the seat of the wagon and looked to her for a moment. He felt a strange whisper of a thought pass through his mind, gone as fast as it had appeared. After she looked at him and nodded, he called out to the horse. The group rode along in silence for few moments before they crested another hill. They could see off down the bumpy route. They knew about ten miles ahead of them was the river Esk, where Johan said he booked passage on a flat-bottomed barge to take them to the main island portion of the city of Blackweb.

  A port town, a section of Blackweb is located on the mainland and the major part of the city is located on an island connected by many short wide bridges. The main bridge is where the port’s men load and unload many vessels carrying both people and cargo. A second island equally distant from the focal landmass three-quarters the size of the big island is used to bring in the fishing vessels. On the large and small islands were many shops, eateries, inns, taverns, and supply traders, all of which are serviced by the ships. Emporiums serve every desire of residents and visitors alike. Blackweb, this mecca of trade, was the destination of both Charlotte and the travelers.

  While rolling along in the wagon, both Gadlin and Thalin notice that the sides of the road where the dirt has been pushed up the ground seems to shine. The two men notice this independent of one another, it being late in the morning and there being no dew on the ground. The shine was odd.

  The ground seemed to shine and glisten with what looks to Gadlin’s eyes to be spider webbing. Not an overly large web just, that it is there the pebbles and clay have a light spindly web to them. Thalin noticed that there are no trees close to the road. Gadlin searched his memory to discern whether spiders are known to be in this region. Drawing a blank, he went back to driving the cart. Not truly being from this region, if there was danger, he was sure that Thalin would alert him.

  They traveled in their usual manner with Gadlin holding the reins of the horse and Charlotte sitting next to him, Johan sitting half on, half off the bench. Directly behind Gadlin in the back of the wagon sitting with his back to the side cross legged. Wandalor read from a book, barely looking up to see the world around him. Darr by now had rolled slightly up onto his left side, having moved the packs about in the back to make makeshift pillows and to cover his head from the sun. The sun was hot beating down; in his metal armor he would be sweating soon, and he knew it.

  Thalin sat on the back of the wagon again, his crossbow with the bolt removed; however, still cocked for quick use, it lay between him and Wandalor. The crossbow lay on top of the other weapons; Gadlin’s own bow lay back there along with his quiver. Gadlin’s paired short spears sat upright wedged between him and Wandalor for quick access if a need arose. Thalin, not wanting to drag his sword in the dirt behind the wagon while they traveled, had taken his sword and belt. Both lay at his side.

  Thalin leaned down to pull a piece of grass as they passed by it. As he did, he noticed that at the base of the grass straw was a long tendril of the same webbing that he had seen in the clay, and a thought struck him. At that same moment, the rest of his friends and his new acquaintance heard what can only be described as the sound a twenty-five-gallon wine cask would make were it to fall off of the bar at an inn— a loud, wet thump. The wagon shifted, having lost weight from its back end. Darr sat up with lightning reflexes, pulling on Johan’s shoulder and screaming,

  “Stop the wagon!”

  Black and thick, dense as if night, air enveloped the traveler. Thalin’s shocked, ragged breathing was the only sound. He saw bright light in the sides of his vision, then nothing. A sharp, blinding pain penetrated his head, then his shoulder, all at the same instant. It was a blitz attack; something had him. Shock of his body being moved and jostled about with no self-control. He couldn’t see his body or anything in his surroundings.

  Thalin gathered his thoughts. He knew he had just been on the back of the wagon with his friends. He was now unsure if that was real or a dream. He felt like he was starting to wake from the dreaming. He was in a semi-paralyzed state and completely unsure of himself. As fast as it stopped, the physical abuse began again. He didn’t feel full on fear. Yet. He tried to figure out why he was being moved around and covered in wool blankets. It didn’t help that he was blinded from the blow to the head. Darkness closed in around him.

  Gadlin yanked back on the reins and grabbed the hand brake of the wagon. Before Gadlin’s hand released the brake or Darr’s skilled hands shuffled himself off the wagon, Johan, with the grace of a feline, leapt from his seat and deftly moved the back of the wagon. Darr scanned the air, looking for his missing friend. Charlotte reeled forward from the abrupt stop of the wagon. As the men moved and reacted, she realized that she, indeed, was in the company of warriors. They didn’t look it but moved as such. The travelers moved with precision but hadn’t even drawn their weapons yet. Gadlin shifted and reached out a hand to steady Charlotte. “Stay by the wagon.” He reached for his twin spears and leapt from the wagon.

  Wandalor stood on the back of the wagon, eyes moving frantically, and dug down deep into a pouch at his side. He inhaled and spoke an incantation in a language not known by travelers or non-learned men.

  “I see nothing in the skies!” Darr screamed. Adrenaline surged in his body and he reacted with muscle memory from time training.

  Johan knelt, studying the trees and the grounds near the wagon. He searched for signs that this was the first strike of a much larger force meaning to do more harm. After seconds he proclaimed, “I see no forces or sign of one.” Gadlin noticed dust that hung low to the ground shimmering in the air at his chest level. Something had displaced it as it moved. “Animal,” he stated.

  Wandalor changed his gaze to see his friends as the words of his incantation came to an end. He drew his hand out of the bag. Cast in front of him was grey dust that moved in a way not reliant on the wind. The dust, tiny iron filings, flew and touched each of his friends on their feet and trailed back to Wandalor.

  Thalin’s trail of iron dust went from Wandalor out to an area twenty feet behind them, off the side of the road and disappeared. Gadlin followed the grey dust and watched it disappear into the dirt. He took a deep sigh, for he knew immediately where Thalin went.

  Gadlin, soft spoken and stern said, “Darr, get Johan’s backpack and give it to me. It’s a trapdoor spider, and a big one. Ten to fifteen feet across, judging from the size of this door.” He pointed to the ground where a faint outline of a door could be seen to the trained eye
. “Maybe more than one, depending...” Gadlin didn’t move his eyes off the door. Darr reached back and grabbed Johan’s backpack, pushing some cloaks aside. “Why does he want your backpack?” Darr asked while shuffling in the wagon.

  “Johan climbs walls,” Wandalor said as he dismounted the wagon and moved to stand next to Gadlin.

  “Need anything else?” Johan asked, moving to gather up.

  “Johan, grappling hook,” Gadlin said as he moved over some brush to show a more defined area where the trapdoor was located. Johan handed the hook to Gadlin’s waiting palm.

  The group moved in silence as they positioned themselves so as to act in conjunction. Johan pulled out his daggers and then quickly put them away. With a second thought, he pulled one of Gadlin’s twin short spears from the straps where he wore them on his back. “Daggers are very short range,” Johan said to Gadlin, who silently nodded.

  Gadlin dug the grappling hook into the dirt and through spider webbing on the ground. He pushed through the tree limbs that the spider had woven into the making of the trap. Gadlin tossed out a bit of slack, leapt across to the opposite side of the door, and tightened up on the line. He nodded, inhaled sharply, and wrenched the door with the hook across the opening as hard as he could; not knowing how strong or weak the webbing was, and not wanting to take any chances with failing to open the door. His friend’s life was at stake. The sound of breaking roots and falling dirt filled the air as the trapdoor sheared off the ground and flew up quickly to the length of the rope.

  Charlotte stood on the wagon and pulled herself together, not knowing what to do. She looked down and spotted Thalin’s crossbow and bolts. She picked up the weapon and loaded it. Wandalor reached into his pouch and pulled out a glass vial, sealed with a wax-covered cork and filled with a shimmering blue liquid.

  Darr held his kite-shaped shield and gleaming zweihander sword. A large sword that takes two hands to wield, worn over his shoulder, it was more commonly called a bastard sword. He took up a position ten feet away from the mouth of the spider hole, sword in hand. His instincts told him his friends would draw out the beast and he must ready for it.

  A focused light shone down onto the immense spider. The enormous brown fuzzy spider, in fear of losing its prize, saw that the door was yanked away from its place. The spider dropped its prey, not getting a chance to bite into Thalin.

  Thalin came to his senses, a chill running down his back. The unpleasant realization of his location and predicament overtook him. He vomited in his unfinished cocoon, only to have the taste of it get back into his mouth. The putrid smell of what he had eaten for breakfast got into his nose and again he vomited. In his helpless condition he felt like an infant. Curses spewed from his mouth.

  Johan moved to the top of the cavern with Gadlin’s short spear. He saw the spider look at him with two of the four eyes on this side of its body. The daylight poured into the usually dark burrow. Johan braced to lunge downward with the spear. Gadlin called out to his friends, “Prepare yourselves; the webbing is sticky, not strong, so break it. Do not try to remove it from yourself—do that after we kill it.”

  As Gadlin called out, Johan lunged and jabbed the spear towards the spider. However, as he did, he saw the spear sink into darkness. He felt what he thought was the resistance of the carapace of the spider, however it was webs and roots. Johan lost his grip and stood. When he did, the spear stayed in the side of spider hole. Gadlin saw Johan stand without his spear and said, “Are you giving it my weapon? Is it dead?” Gadlin looked at Johan, shocked. Johan looked at Gadlin’s spear where it was stuck. “No, I missed the blasted thing.”

  Wandalor looked down into the hole and could see more clearly what Johan had done. Quickly he thought to himself as he held the vial and was prepared to toss it down onto the spider. He saw that the situation was different than his initial thought. Wandalor let the vial fall back into his pouch from where he had plucked it. He began a quick incantation to bring to bear a more readily available combat spell. The spider, flushed from his home and being attacked from a place of advantage, turned in the hole and moved Thalin. In an instant it launched itself out of the hole. In midair, it used its body weight and extended four of its legs to create drag in the air and turned itself. The spider passed over the heads of the men around the hole.

  Johan saw the spear in the webbing being pulled out of the hole with the spider. He reached out towards the spider as it passed him and quickly grabbed the weapon and held on, removing the short spear from the webbing. Darr, the defensive fighter, reached out with his shield to cover Wandalor as the spider thrust out its flailing legs in Wandalor’s direction as it passed over him. Two solids thumps were heard on Darr’s shield. Darr winced from the pain, knowing that his shield was made of a strong material that had been worked by the dwarves.

  Wandalor saw the changes in the spider’s actions only a fraction of a moment quicker than the other’s keen eyes, and released his combat spell as the spider shifted and leapt up out of its hole. Wandalor, with both hands open, palm out to the spider, his eyes ablaze in yellow energy, concentrated as bolts of that energy shot from his hands. The blasts struck the spider with resounding force and visibly shook it as it moved through the air. The spider landed behind the group. “Cut him loose and toss my spear!” Gadlin called out to Johan as the spider thudded to the ground.

  The unfinished cocoon that was Thalin tumbled half way out of the spider hole, still partially tethered to the spider. A faint mumbling and incoherent chatter escaped him as he lay in the webbing. The web near his head began to turn to a crimson color. He had suffered a blow of some sort to the head. Thalin lay motionless and unconscious.

  Johan did as Gadlin instructed. He knew better than to argue with a ranger in his natural element. Those of nature knew to follow Johan’s instruction when they were inside city walls. Johan was out of his element with this fight. Johan knelt down next to Thalin, took out his belt knife, and began to clear away the spider web from round Thalin’s mouth to keep him from choking. Johan examined the wound on Thalin’s head.

  Charlotte stood, mouth open in shock. She was amazed by these men. Shaking it off, she realized that she had the advantage of being behind the spider. The spider didn’t appear to be paying her any attention. Charlotte knew nothing about spider anatomy or what this animal was capable of; not a tiny one nor one of this immense proportion. Charlotte couldn’t control her excitement or her breathing as she was so close to this animal.

  In a split second, she decided to attack it. She gripped the crossbow in her right hand and pulled the weapon into her shoulder. As she raised her other arm to steady the device, she pulled the trigger, sending the bolt flying just above of the creature’s head. She knew that if she had only taken a moment more to aim she would have made short work of this animal. The bolt flew fast and hard past the spider’s center forward pair of eyes. Its two rear eyes adjusted to keep her in focus. The bolt went past the spider and glanced off of Darr’s shield, then ricocheted up over Johan and Thalin to fall among the underbrush. Charlotte cursed under her breath as she stumbled back to the wagon. She kept her eyes on the spider, too terrified to take her eyes off it to look with any concentration for another bolt. Instead she pulled out the first wooden thing that she could feel; she thought it was a bolt, only to have grabbed an arrow. She quickly nocked it before realizing that she had yet to redraw the crossbow.

  “Damn,” Darr uttered as he concentrated on his weapon. The bastard sword lit itself with firelight.

  “With a little training she could probably be dangerous with that thing,” Gadlin commented.

  “She’s dangerous with it now; not to anyone in particular, but she is dangerous,” Wandalor quipped as he reached into his pouch, pulling out a vial with black liquid in it and tossing it at the spider. The spider shifted its weight to its rear four legs and kicked at the item tossed at it. However, the vial’s size and color made it difficult for the spider to see. It shattered on impact, spreading
a black thick oily substance across the cephalothorax of the creature.

  “Good one, Wand; now me, then Darr.” Gadlin said in grunted breaths as he raised one of his spears above the spider’s view to attempt to distract it.

  The spider took the bait. It saw the spear that was intended to impale him earlier and lowered himself to move in closer to Gadlin. It attempted an attack the same time as Darr swung his flaming weapon at it. It’s four eyes landed on the right side where the liquid had been splashed and saw the flames of Darr’s sword close enough to feel the heat. With lightning reflexes, the animal rubbed its rear legs together and created an audible hiss as a warning. Anger flashed in its eyes. Connecting with Gadlin in a harsh ramming attack to pin him down, it only succeeded in impaling Gadlin in the leg with large barbed hairs from the underside of its legs.

  Wandalor saw that Darr has missed his attack on the spider. He spontaneously cast a spell from his vast knowledge of Eldritch and the natural world. His voice, powerful and throaty, forced his will and focused it on Darr. Darr, his armor, and weapons, immediately grew in mass and size to match the massive spider’s girth. Charlotte saw all the hair on the spider’s body began to stand on the animal and it shone as if oiled. Gadlin, impaled by the spikes of the spider, took to one knee. His strength and will seeped from his body.

  Johan freed Thalin by slicing through the web spun around his body. He saw the many blows to Thalin’s person. Johan thought his friend looked like he had been stoned. Thalin had many clearly defined circle-shaped bruises on his body. Johan knew he had to restore Thalin as quickly as possible, and the only way Johan could do that was with Eldritch. Johan had none; however, Thalin had potions.

  Johan was keenly aware that Thalin kept his potion pack well sorted and labeled, due to lessons learned the hard way. Johan opened Thalin’s potion pack and retrieved a medium sized bottle, which he quickly uncorked. He poured some onto Thalin’s head. Immediately the wound there closed, and vapors began to escape the area as the magic did its job. Johan moved quickly, taking care not to spill or splash any of the liquid as he poured half of the contents into Thalin’s mouth. The remainder he used to douse the visible bruises and injuries on Thalin. Thalin cried out in agony as consciousness returned.