The Redstar Rising Trilogy

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “The longer we argue, the more danger he’ll be in,” Torsten said.

  “Like you care,” Sora said.

  “I may not like the kid, but he’s an ally, and a soldier never leaves his allies behind.”

  The giant spiders poured through the trees as if they were a tidal wave. Thousands of them, the color of midnight. More continued dropping from above, blotching out what little moonlight there was to be seen. They fell on the warlock, crawling under his clothes and grasping at his painted face. He screamed and slit his hand. A spark of fire ignited, but never grew as one of the larger spiders sunk its fangs into the back of his neck.

  “Brother!” Uriah shouted.

  “We’re surrounded!” Sora sliced her palm and raised her arm. A stream of flames burst forth, searing dozens of the descending arachnids, but not before they’d already dragged the cultist away into oppressive blackness.

  “Ignore the babies!” Torsten grabbed Sora’s arm and aimed it forward. The larger spiders on the ground backed away from the heat.

  “You’re okay with magic now?” she said, terse.

  “Form up!” Torsten said, ignoring her.

  He fell back beside Uriah at the mouth of the cave, both their swords raised. Gryff was beside them, hair raised along his back as he growled. Sora ended her spell and joined them. She panted, sweat pouring down her forehead and blood dripping from her hand. The spreading flames kept the creatures at bay, but a few trickled through. One seized the leg out from under Sora, but Torsten and Uriah were there to meet them with cold steel before she was pulled away. Torsten ducked as one leaped at him, slicing it open thorax to abdomen from below. He caught another by the leg and flung it into the fire.

  They were large, but he was larger. He spun, coming face-to-face with a pair of glistening fangs. He didn’t want to imagine what their venom might be capable of. Gryff slammed into its side before it struck.

  Sora turned another into a charred husk, keeping it from attacking Torsten from behind. He glanced back and saw her hands on her knees. The cost of blood was draining her fast. A spider rushed, flanking her. Torsten leaped over a fresh corpse and swung down, cleaving the spider in two.

  He grabbed her arm. “We have to go through the lair! There’s no other way. If we beat Bliss to Whitney, we can all find a way out.” He slashed left, slicing off a bundle of legs. “They can’t swarm us in tunnels.”

  “I’m afraid you’re already too late,” said a woman’s voice, low and matronly. It was both comforting and chilling, and as soon as she spoke all the spiders froze where they were and watched, twitching.

  Torsten, Sora, and Uriah turned to see Bliss mounting the rocky walls outside her lair. Half-spider, half-human, she was an abomination Torsten could barely fathom. And the fact that her woman half was as stunningly beautiful as Oleander somehow made it worse.

  “Another knight, come to die,” Bliss said. Her voice carried across the woods, making the very leaves tremble. “I hope you’ll prove more formidable than your friend.”

  “Whitney!” Sora screamed. “I swear if you hurt him.” She drew a deep cut over her forearm and fire wrapped her whole arm.

  “It seems our battle with the beast will come sooner than expected,” Uriah said.

  “Beast? You of all people should be careful throwing around names.” She shimmied down to the ground.

  He stroked the back of his snarling wolf, sword at the ready, a mad grin plastered across his face. “Take her! Take her now!”

  Gryff sprung at her, fast as lightning. His fangs sunk into her shoulder and his claws tore at her. Sora launched a ball of flame at her chest that exploded into sparks as bright as Celeste. It blinded Torsten before he could aim a blow. Uriah rushed forward and slashed at Bliss' chest.

  Torsten’s vision finally settled, and he went to join them, but one of Bliss' arms caught his leg and threw him backward. With two others she flicked Uriah and Sora away like rag dolls.

  Her children grasped at Torsten as he tried to recover. His armor held their fangs at bay, and left him grateful they hadn’t bitten his hands or face. He roared and whipped his claymore in a full circle, driving them back, all the while watching as Bliss clutched Gryff with all four of her front legs and lifted him off her. The dire wolf had to weigh at least a ton, and she wasn’t even struggling.

  The wolf bit and snarled, but she leaned close in front of him and blew a puff of something acrid and yellow into his mouth.

  “Release him!” Uriah yelled. A spider crashed into his back and sent him staggering. He ripped off one of its legs, but he was too slow.

  Gryff’s veins grew thick and black under his shaggy coat. His eyes went the color of pitch, down to the whites, and she dropped him. He landed in a heap of tangled legs at Uriah’s feet, body shriveled like a grape left out in the sun.

  Bliss released a laugh that commanded silence, carrying across the woods and making the very leaves tremble. Torsten felt it resonating in his chest, like a vice squeezing away all hope—like Iam himself abandoned this foul and horrid place.

  “You puny, mortal children of Iam really think you can defeat me?” Bliss said, still amused. “I’m glad I saved my appetite.”

  XXX

  THE THIEF

  Whitney didn’t remember having a drink, but when he woke up, it felt as if he’d cleared the Twilight Manor of their whole stock. He groaned and struggled to open bleary eyes. They wouldn’t even budge. He tried to throw his legs over the side of his bed, but they wouldn’t move either.

  Shog, he thought, his memory beginning to return.

  Eyes still closed, he wriggled the fingers on his right hand because that was all it seemed he could move. They brushed a silky, sticky substance. A cold, feverish feeling stole over him. He struggled, his face growing hot until he could separate one of his eyelids a hair. A semi-transparent film blocked his vision, but he could make out the shapes of columns and slivers of waning light from the top of Bliss' lair.

  He thrashed left and right like a grounded fish desperate for water. His neck craned, simultaneously trying to find Bliss and hoping not to. His daggers were gone, his arms secured by the webbing.

  Panic overwhelmed him. Breath wouldn’t come. He felt as if he could die of suffocation. Letting out air and slowly drawing it back in, he calmed himself and let his head fall back. The stone floor hurt, but he didn’t care. He was going to die soon anyway. What a fitting end to his legend. Why shouldn’t the world’s greatest thief die in some daring attempt to steal from a goddess?

  At least, that was what he told himself to keep from hyperventilating.

  He flopped his body over onto his side and heard something jingle. He stretched for the sound with the fingers of the hand pinned to his chest, and his index tapped the amulet he’d stolen from Darkings hanging from his neck. It wasn’t a dagger, but if he could manage to break the gem free of its casing, it might just be solid and sharp enough to cut through the webbing.

  Good thing those demons thought it was worthless.

  He continued rolling until he was face down. Then he stretched his fingers as far as he could. His elbow stung from being bent the wrong way, but he used the ground to push it until he was able to get two fingers around the amulet.

  He took a moment to catch his breath, then stuck his fingernail between the gem and the frame. He used the momentum from rolling his body to tweak the amulet. His fingers bled, sharp metal digging beneath his nails, but he ignored the pain. Again, he rolled, and this time the framing bent slightly. One more time and the gem broke free of the set.

  He squirmed along the ground, pawing with his two longest fingers until he found the arrow-shaped gem safely nestled within the web. He fidgeted until he got the right leverage, then sawed into the webbing with the point.

  It caught at first, and he dropped it several times before finally starting to progress. The process was slow, but he eventually opened a gap that allowed him to move his right arm.

  Immediately, he f
reed his face, thankful to no longer feel like he’d been smothered by a very thin blanket. The webbing constricted the rest of his body like a woman’s skirt pulled too tight. He couldn’t lean forward any further without first releasing his hips and waist. He focused his attention on his belt line and made quick work of it. After that, it wasn’t long before he released his upper body and was completely free.

  Whitney gasped for air as he crawled out of his silky tomb, even though his face had been free for some time. It somehow still felt like he was drowning. He sprawled across the floor, staring up at the web-adorned ceiling. He knew he should get up and run, but he couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

  “‘I still can’t believe you nearly got us killed for that ugly thing,’” he said, imitating Sora’s voice. He raised the gem to his face and gave it a kiss. “Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  “Whitney!” a distant scream echoed through the cavern, full of panic.

  He rolled over. “Sora?”

  He jumped to his feet, but his legs were wobbly. He rested his palm against a column, steadying himself. Now that he was free, he could better remember what brought him to the position he was in. He remembered running. He remembered Bliss spinning him round and round. He remembered… the kiss. He wasn’t sure how long it had knocked him out, but it still had his body feeling funky.

  He staggered forward to another column and looked around. Dozens of other creatures were stuck in the webs surrounded him. Some strung up from the ceilings, others wrapped against the cavern walls. Somehow his web-sack had been left on the ground as if someone interrupted her lunch.

  He’d considered trying to cut some of them loose, but other than a couple of unmoving ones, none were within reach.

  Suddenly, his mind cleared for a moment. “Sora!”

  If they’d all come looking for him when he didn’t return, that would mean Bliss... “Oh, shog.”

  It was impossible to know which of the many tunnels would lead him to his friends, which ones would bring him to certain death, or which would do both. One thing he knew, the route he’d entered through would send him to an impossible climb.

  He heard some more distant shouts and closed his eyes to try block out everything else and pick a direction. When he had his best guess, he bolted... or rather, tried to. His legs felt like reeds of cattails sticking up out of the river he’d grown up playing in with Sora. It took a moment for the blood to return to them after being wrapped up so tightly, but after a few clumsy steps, he was surefooted as ever.

  Clearing the tremendous lair took some time. He stopped for a breather when he nearly stepped on one of the daggers he lost battling Bliss. As he bent over to reclaim it, he realized he was standing near the poor saps in shiny armor who’d lost their skin and flesh to the giant spider.

  The corpse out front clutched a raggedy old doll against its chest with a sterling, glaruium gauntlet that looked like Torsten’s before Whitney ruined them, but had the image of a lion carved on the top. He wasn’t sure what Pi’s magical orepul was supposed to look like, but this doll was a strange enough thing to be in a spider goddess' lair in the possession of a fallen Shieldsman.

  “Sorry buddy,” Whitney said as he bent over and pried the doll lose. What little was left of the corpse’s brittle bones crumbled. Its head toppled forward and rolled from its shoulders. The gauntlet grasping the doll clanged onto the floor. Whitney winced, hoping the clatter wouldn’t cause Bliss to return. When it didn’t, he took a moment to study the doll. It looked like something a beggar might make his son because he has nothing else—vaguely human in shape, but barely identifiable, with bits of yarn for hair.

  “All of this for a piece of trash?” He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but surely something more, like one of those exquisite mannequin dolls rich girls loved. At least something that didn’t look like a shrunken scarecrow.

  He sighed. It wouldn’t be easy to embellish the prize he stole from a goddess' lair, but the story of how he got it was grand enough. He stuffed the doll into his waistband, took measure of the armor, and decided to slide the gauntlets over his forearms. He figured he owed Torsten that much after ruining his pair back in the ruins.

  He continued toward the tunnel through which he could best hear the hollering of his companions. If he believed in gods and curses—the thought stopped as soon as he realized he’d just met an apparent goddess who knew his name. In that case, Whitney cursed himself for what he was about to do.

  Why must I always be such a hero?

  The tunnel led him into a snaking corridor. He slashed at sticky cobwebs with his dagger as he pressed forward blindly. As the corridor narrowed, he felt the egg sacs brushing against his arms. It wasn’t long before he heard the clear sounds of battle, the explicit sound of Sora’s voice, and grunts that could only belong to Torsten.

  “I’m coming!” Whitney shouted, earning a mouthful of webs.

  Just then, the corridor split and something slammed into Whitney from the side. He felt one of the red blisters pop as his shoulder collided with the hard wall. Hundreds of tiny, little legs drooled all over him.

  He swatted them as he whipped back around. A faint, orange glow illuminated the labyrinth of tunnels, revealing eight glittering eyes and venom-coated fangs prepared to drive their needles into him. Whitney brought his dagger up, and the steel drove hard against the biting chelicerae. A spider, the size of a mule, was repositioning itself for another strike, but Whitney got a leg up and kicked. He’d expected the creature’s body to be soft because of all the hair, but his foot felt as if it was planted firmly against hard stone. He pushed against the bulb of its abdomen and slipped. It was slick like oil.

  The creature knocked him back, poking and prodding with eight sharp claws. He managed to pull one arm free and drove the point of his dagger into the spot where a leg met the cephalothorax. The spider let out a humanlike cry, and then Whitney realized the sound was coming from his own mouth. One of the spindly legs managed to find a home in his supple flesh, digging into his bicep. He chanced pulling his dagger around and slicing at the leg. It found its mark, chopping it off at one of its forty-eight kneecaps.

  Off-balanced, the spider toppled slightly, allowing Whitney to wriggle free enough to swing with his other arm. He used the corpse’s gauntlets like a crude, blunt weapon and whacked the side of the spider’s head. The creature shrieked, its legs shriveling.

  Whitney leaped and drove his daggers down in the center of his many eyes.

  He stumbled away from the dead monster, arms covered in black goo. “It’s official, I can’t stand spiders.” He shook his hand off, then headed toward the flickering orange glow that could be none other than Sora’s fire.

  XXXI

  THE KNIGHT

  Torsten twisted his frame just in time to dodge Bliss' strike. Her many legs—each of them covered in tiny spikes—fell upon him in a flurry.

  He parried one leg thrust with the flat of his blade and tried to stab, but she batted his claymore aside like he was a child with a stick. He’d fought a giant in the Third Panping War, and even its strength paled in comparison. Slaying a dire wolf was no simple task and Bliss had done it without throwing a punch.

  “Uriah, forget him and help me!” Torsten shouted.

  Uriah and Sora were busy fending off countless spiders of all sizes intent on devouring Gryff’s desiccated corpse. They’d found a break in Sora’s slowly spreading blaze and funneled through.

  “My children will keep them occupied at least until you are dead, Torsten Unger,” Bliss said. “Iam has forsaken all of you. And I, the One Who Remained, shall feast on all men.”

  Torsten’s eyes went wild, his shoulders squared, and his nostrils flared. He was smart enough to know she was trying to taunt him into making a mistake, but he didn’t care. He might not have cared about Uriah’s mad quest to destroy her before, but now that he had looked upon her, he knew he was where he belonged. Even if they all died. This abomination. This evil. H
e couldn’t just stand idly by and let her prevail now that Redstar had stirred her and given her a taste for men.

  He understood Uriah, even if he could never forgive him.

  He planted his right foot and pushed off, driving the sword toward her. She laughed and easily avoided the blade by circling up onto the rocks. She was toying with him, and there was nothing he could do. Bliss snapped her leg toward him. It cracked against his chestplate and sent him reeling, short on breath.

  “Come now, knight,” she said. “Where is your god now?”

  Behind him, Sora shrieked. He took a second to glance back. She and Uriah were surrounded. She no longer wielded flame, so they stood back to back, slashing with their blades while the thorny legs of spiders tore at their clothes.

  In that split second, Bliss pounced, knocking Torsten’s claymore free. He punched, but her carapace was like plate mail. With his other hand, he grabbed one of her legs and held it back.

  The only way he was going to make any headway was to attack her human-like upper body, but she had been doing a flawless job of protecting herself. She drew back onto her hind legs and brought her weight down. Torsten rolled, barely escaping her dagger-like appendages and grabbed his sword along the way.

  “I do not fight for myself, monster,” he roared as he spun back around to face her. “In the name of the Glass and Holy Iam, today your reign of terror in these woods shall end.” He charged straight through her razor-sharp appendages and shouldered her in the thorax, his brazenness catching her unprepared. It was the first time he’d seen her tripped up.

  “Torsten!” The voice came from somewhere near the tunnels, and Torsten had never been happier to hear it. Whitney had been a pain in his backside, but they were outnumbered and outmatched. Another set of hands could be the difference between victory and death.

  But Whitney, as Torsten should have expected, lost what could possibly have been his only opportunity to surprise Bliss. She had retreated up on top of the cave’s entry, and somehow, he didn’t see her. Instead, Whitney’s gaze fell upon Uriah.