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The Elemental Portals

Book II – Medioterrae

Chapter IX – In an Attercop’s Parlour

Paul Collieman woke up slowly his head filled with morning fuzz. By the quality of the light it was either dusk or dawn, but he suspected dawn because he also caught the scent of flowers that only bloom early in the day. He wondered who had put him to bed and why he was wrapped so tightly in his bedroll. As his head cleared he gradually realized two things, the first being that he was not laying on the ground as expected, but hanging upside down, and the second that he was not wrapped in a blanket but restrained by some white, ropy substance.

The rest came to him in a flash. The drug Ladread had given them, how she had transformed into a great black dragon and the arrival of the spiders, which his befuddled brain had taken for fuzzy brown puppies.

He looked up at his feet. He found he was encased on a cocoon-like structure that left nothing but his head free. A single thick strand connected his cocoon to an overhanging branch.

He was facing the woods but could feel the rising sun on his back so he tried to turn. He could not move his body much but when he swung his head the entire cocoon turned on its single strand. By jerking his head to the side repeatedly he managed to turn himself to face the small clearing where they had been taken unawares.

To his horror he saw six similar cocoons, containing the still unconscious James, Annie, Gael, Magnus, Chris and Coyotka. But the most disturbing sight was that of Junafir, who was not encased in spider silk but hanging upright by her wrists, which were bound to separate trees. Her feet barely touched the ground, and they were restrained by web ropes that were attached to the bases of the same trees her arms were tied to. She too had yet to wake.

Paul shouted their names, which made him start spinning around again, but he kept it up, expecting that he could spin back around when he was done. He was correct, and his cries were rewarded with sleepy yawns at first, then cries of alarm as his companions discovered themselves restrained and suspended.

Gael was the first to recover fully.

“What the hell happened to us?”

Paul explained as the rest blinked their way back to consciousness.

“Ladread is Aldreda?” James asked, his brain still a bit fuzzy.

“Probably.” Paul conceded, slightly ashamed at having being fooled.

“Makes sense.” Coyotka offered. “Ladread is an anagram of Aldreda, and dragons love word games.”

“It would have been nice if you had mentioned that earlier.” Paul snapped.

Coyotka bit her lip as Chris offered her a word of comfort, but she was ashamed too for having missed some of what were now obvious clues.

“I have a couple of questions.” Junafir said as she regarded the six cocoons hanging at regular intervals around the edge of the clearing. “Like, why am I the only one that is hanging by their wrists and where is Yup?”

Paul suddenly realized that he had forgotten about the dwarf.

“I ... I may be able to answer that.” Coyotka said hesitantly. “Yup is higher up in the branches, where it is cool and shady, and he is still asleep, but breathing.”

“You can see that without your glasses?” Paul asked, sceptically.

“They’re for close in work. My distance sight is fine. Better than average, actually, but that is beside the point. I think I know why he is there and why Junafir is tied up the way she is, but I need to know a few things first.”

There was a general mumble of consent.

“First, has anyone been bit? You’ll know if you have because there will be a burning sensation, usually on the spine just below your skull.” A chorus of ‘no’s followed. “That’s good. It means we have time.”

“Time for what?” James asked.

“To escape before we’re eaten ... or worse. You see, spiders don’t eat their prey alive. They entomb them in a silk wrapping and inject a hemotoxic venom into them.”

Gael frowned upside down. “Hemotoxic?”

Chris, the former assassin, answered. “A poison that prevents your blood from clotting and then turns your organs and interior tissues into gelatin. Eventually even your bones dissolve, leaving a skin sack full of putrid goo.”

“Lovely.”

“Yes.” Coyotka continued. The way that they have arranged us suggests that they intend to eat Yup first, and soon, because the spiders hate the sun. That is why he is in such a shady spot. If they have not injected him with poison already, they will when they return. Then they can take their turns with the rest of us over the next couple of weeks. The last to be injected will see the rest go before them ... except ... except for Junafir.” She tucked her head against her chest as she finished.

Junafir spoke before anyone else could. “Except me? You said that like it was a bad thing. What is in store for me?”

Coyotka did not answer right away.

“Tell us.” James said softly, fearfully.

Coyotka spoke without raising her head. “Paul, how big were the spiders you saw?”

“About the size of pu- ... small dogs, young dogs.”

“Males. Was there a larger one too?”

Paul thought hard. “There was one that did not come into the light. Its eyes were wide higher off the ground as the rest and I got the impression it was much bigger.”

“A female.” Coyotka sighed. Then she raised her head and looked sadly into Junafir’s eyes. “It needs a place to lay its eggs.”

“WHAT?” Junafir and James shouted simultaneously.

“These spiders they ... they lay their eggs inside a live host.”

“They’re going to lay eggs under my skin?”

“No, in ... inside ... they won’t price your skin, Junafir.”

Now she realized why she had been suspended with her legs slightly spread and restrained.

“Uggh. Then what?”

“The eggs will hatch in about seven days.”

“And crawl out of me?”

“Not exactly. They will seal them in. The newly hatched spiders will have to ...”

“To what?”

Coyotka closed her eyes as if she were in pain and almost screamed out, “To eat their way out. They won’t have a lot of venom but there will be hundreds of them and .... and the only Wanderer to have witnessed a spider birthing reported that his travel companion said it felt like red hot ants burning their way out of her.”

“How did he escape?” James asked. “And did he save her?”

“The rest of their party had already been petrified and sucked dry. They were saving him for last but Dwarves prospecting for ore came along before they bit him. They cut them loose, but it was too late for her.”

“She died?” Annie asked quietly.

“She was the Wanderer’s wife. The spiders had already started to ... to …chew their way out. He put her out of her misery and burned her body to destroy the spiders inside her. He would have waited for the rest to return but he was alone and no match for the whole colony, so he left with the dwarves.”

To one side of Coyotka, Chris was puking his guts out onto the ground below his head. On the other Magnus appeared to have gone into shock. Across the clearing from her Junafir was shaking her head vigorously.

“Oh, no, no fucking no! James, get me out of here!”

James tried to move but found that he could not. “I can’t reach my sword, let alone draw it. Can anyone else each a knife, or anything else with an edge?”

They tried, even Chris who was still spitting the last of the contents of his stomach out, but none could move their arms inside the tight wrappings.

“What about magic?” Gael suggested. “Magnus, Magnus! Snap out of it! We need you.”

The stag shook his head. “I ... wait ... yes! I can feel my ring, they didn’t take it. I think I can rub it with my thumb ... just a second ... there!”

In the middle of the clearing the magic lute appeared and began playing a jaunty tune.

“Not very helpful.” Paul said dryly. “Can’t you do anything else with it?”

“No!” Magnus almost cried as he replied. “I can’t. My father disappeared before he could teach me anything about it and this is the only thing I can make it do. If someone else could use their magic I could help direct it, but I can’t do anything on my own.”

“Where’s Yup’s blunderbuss?” Gael asked.

“On the ground over there.” Chris answered. “But it doesn’t have a fuse in it, and his amulet is probably still on him.”

“Hey!” Annie injected. “You enchanted the emerald in my spearhead. It’s wrapped up with me under all this silk. I can feel it pressed up against my hip. Can you use your ring to guide me?”

“I can. What do you intend?”

“You said I could command the plants. Maybe I can get the trees to release Junafir. Coyotka, how long do we have until the spiders come back?”

The coyote winced into the sky then looked at the shadows. “Not long. They will want to get this done while she’s still in the shade.”

“Alright then. Magnus, what do I need to do?”

“Clear your mind. Breathe in for a few heartbeats then hold it. Let it out slowly and hold it again. Keep doing that as you concentrate on some point on your body, like the tip of one of your fingers. Let me know when you can feel that.”

They all waited in silence as Annie claimed herself. After a few hundred heartbeats she announced that she could feel all the details on one fingertip.

“Good.” Magnus said. “Now, slowly move that point of concentration down your finger until you feel the tender skin between it and the next finger.”

Ten heartbeats passed. “Got it.”

“Now move it over your wrist and up your arm. You should be able to go a little faster now but don’t go too fast.”

“Yes, I can move it easier, and faster.”

“When you reach your shoulder move it across to your spine. There? Good. Now go down your spine until you are close to where you sense the emerald to be. Go around, keeping the ball on the surface of your sin, to where the emerald is pressing against it.”

“I’m there.”

“Keep breathing slow and deep. Feel around the edges of the gem. Trace the contours with the nerves in your skin. Feel its warmth and its hardness. Feel how the surface is slightly oily. Then ... ever so carefully ... feel inside the gem.”

No one dared breath as Annie concentrated on her task.

“I ... I did it! I can feel the structure of the gemstone. There are lines, lines of stress and lines of ... of power. It’s like being inside a geodetic dome.”

“Whatever that is.” Magnus muttered. “Now, while you are in contact with it, concentrate on the trees you want to manipulate, and visualize what you want them to do.”

At first nothing happened. Then the leaves on the trees began to vibrate. Before long the branches that Junafir was tied to began to shake, then they began to move apart. Junafir was lifted off the ground as they pulled back, stretching the web that held her to them.

“Yagggh!” The young tigress screamed in pain. “You’re tearing my arms out!”

The branches returned to their former position as Annie lost her concentration and fought to regain her steady breathing.

“Maybe I can ...” she began and then fell silent as the trees trembled from root to crown.

After a few moments Annie let out all her pent-up air and the trees stopped moving.

“They are rooted too strongly.” Annie sobbed. “I can’t get them free.”

“Don’t cry.” Magnus comforted her. “You are just an ordinary girl and this is your first time. You will get better.”

“In time to free her?”

Magnus shook his head sadly. “No.”

“Then we need to think of something else.”

“Wait.” Paul called. “What’s that noise?”

The rest listened and soon the sound of rustling leaves and chittering came to them. Although they all knew what it meant Coyotka was the only one to vocalize it.

“The spiders are returning.”

Then they were there.

They came from the darkest part of the forest, where the branches were so thick that the sun could not penetrate. The males led the way, hesitating at the edge of the clearing to make sure that there was no new threat before venturing into the open.

They skittered about, checking the wrappings on each of their victims to make sure they were still secured. As Paul had said, they were about the size of small dogs, with roly-poly bodies that wiggled and jiggled when they walked, but there the resemblance ended. Up close their multiple eyes were troubling and the coarse brown hairs sticking up from their dark skin was dirty and smelled of rotten flesh. Their breath was worse, and the pointed mandibles that covered their mouths moved in disturbing ways when they came face-to-face to pinch the noses of their captives while assessing their state of consciousness. They appeared satisfied with most as even Chris’s reddened despite him having fainted dead away, but there was a commotion around Yup, who seemed not to be doing so well.

Two of the males lowered Yup down out of the shadows and now those opposite him in the clearing could see how pale he was. A third spider spread some noxious goo from its spinnerets over the web constricting Yup’s breathing and they softened enough for the spiders to pull it away from his mouth. Enough for the dwarf to draw a deep, unconscious breath.

“Thank the Maker.” Gael swore. “I thought he was dead.”

“Not Quite.” Paul observed.

“But why did they revive him?” Magnus asked as he fought to keep from fainting like Chris.

“Dead prey is only good for a few sips.” Coyotka answered, somewhat reluctantly. She was tired of being the bearer of bad news and knew that more was to come. “The necrosis only affects live tissue, and the victim has to be kept alive until they are just a sac of skin full of … of …”

“It’s okay, Coyotka.” Annie said softly. “We can imagine it well enough.”

Suddenly all the male spiders rushed to the point where they had entered the clearing. Those who were conscious swung their heads to look that way.

They had gathered for the arrival of the female. True to most species of spider she was much larger than her male counterparts, about five times larger in this case. Crouched on her eight legs her head was well above those of the males that were reaching up to feel her with their forearms. Her thorax, where the legs attached, was on a similar scale, but it was her great ball of an abdomen that was truly impressive. The quivering, palpitating sac was as large as a beach ball to James’s eye, or a big fat belly … a pregnant belly … a very pregnant belly. He gulped to swallow the saliva that fear had filled his mouth with.

The large female moved slower than the males, dragging the great sac of its abdomen behind it. It gazed around the clearing, uncomfortable even in indirect daylight. When it spotted Junafir its head stopped turning, and she began to move straight to the bound tigress.

Junafir began screaming before the creature was halfway across the clearing. James and most of the rest shouted and cried out in a vain attempt to distract it, expect Coyotka, who knew that spiders have no ears and do not ‘hear’ in a conventional sense. The coyote saved her voice, and just sobbed quietly in sympathy, because Coyotka knew what was about to happen to the young female tiger.

Having reached Junafir the female began to climb onto her, gripping tufts of fur with the short claws on the ends of her legs. As her bulk left the ground the increased weight bent the branches, lowering the tigress down to stand on her feet. As she climbed, the spider moved around behind Junafir, where her tail was lashing back and forth in anger. Using two of her rear legs the spider gathered some silk and used it to glue that annoying appendage to Junafir’s back, leaving the tiger’s buttocks exposed.

Junafir’s voice had failed by the time the spider had stopped climbing. Its head was now even with Junafir’s. Its thorax pressed against the tigress’s back and its hairy legs were wrapped around Junafir’s chest, making her breasts bulge into the spaces between them. The big ball of its abdomen was hanging halfway down Junafir’s thighs.

The rest of the captives, arranged as they were in a circle around the clearing, could not help but watch as a pale, white tube extended out of the sac near the spinnerets. It looked like a translucent sex toy, but it was articulate and curved up between Junafir’s thighs as the spider arched its abdomen to position it between the tigress’s legs. Soon it was poking and probing at the tender flesh there, searching for an opening.

James had stopped shouting and was crying now, but he could not tear his eyes away. Annie closed hers as the pale tube began to wriggle inside Junafir’s vagina, and Gael looked away, frustrated at his helplessness. Chris was still unconscious and Magnus had managed to turn himself so that he was facing the forest, but he could still hear Junafir’s whimpers and cries as the spider violated her. Coyotka watched through her tears, hoping to see something that could be of some use to them, even though she was not hopeful that she would. Paul stared with his eyes slightly out of focus, knowing that he could do nothing to stop this atrocity, but saving his strength in case an opportunity arose to spring into action. Slightly above the rest, Yup’s sleeping form twirled on the end of its silken rope.

A cry from Junafir brought them all back.

“It’s laying eggs inside me!” Junafir wailed, and when they looked, whether they wanted to or not, those facing her saw that small round objects were traveling down the translucent tube and disappearing inside the tigress. Behind her the spider heaved and grunted in effort as more and more eggs made their journey. She did not stop until Junafir’s abdomen had developed a little bulge, like she was pregnant, James thought, and that thought almost made him vomit.

The spider pulled the tube out and Junafir, exhausted by the terror, hung with her knees together as she fought to breathe in the constraining grip of the spider.

“Thank God,” James sighed, “it’s done.”

Coyotka shook her head and said sadly. “No … no, it’s not.”

The university curator was correct, the spider had only just begun. Without changing position or loosening its grip it curled its now slightly slimmer abdomen up while the tip of its laying tube slid back between Junafir’s legs. When it found what it was seeking it narrowed, and plunged.

“AGGGH!” Junafir screamed. “It’s up my ass!”

The tube, fortunately slick with mucus, forced its way inside her, twisting to and fro to counter the instinctive clenching of its victim. Once the first length was inside it began to expand again, opening the passage for what came next.

“Jaaames … do something!”

“Hang on Junafir! We’ll get you out of here. We’ll all get out of there, but you have to be brave until … until we can take them by surprise.”

Paul turned to look at Coyotka and the coyote shook her head. “They won’t leave until the eggs hatch.” She said only loud enough for the collie to hear.

The spider was humping its abdomen, forcing more eggs inside the tigress’s large intestine. Junafir was babbling about feeling them sliding up inside her, as her body spasmed involuntarily to ease them along in order to keep from bursting at the colon.

When the spider finally stopped and began to descend James turned to the coyote and gave her a pitiful, pleading look. Coyotka’s eyes filled with fresh tears and her throat constricted and all she could do was shake her head ‘no’ in response.

The academic was unfortunately correct again. No sooner had the spider reached the ground when she turned and began to ascend backwards up Junafir’s front. The pale tube was still extended, and it was aimed right for Junafir’s face.

“Oh, fuck no.” Junafir said through clenched teeth. “I don’t know what you call that thing bitch but I’ll bite it off it you try to stick it where I think you’re going to stick it.”

But before she could bar her fangs the spider, possibly from experience, used it’s four rearmost legs to pry the tiger’s mouth open. Holding onto the large fangs and lower incisors with its tiny claws it forced her mouth open as far as it would go. Then it stuck the white tube down her throat.

Junafir gagged and almost choked, but the constant flow of eggs kept anything from coming back up the other way. She had to suck air in through her nostrils desperately and gulp it down when she could as those spongy balls began to fill her stomach. Still the tube pulsated in her mouth and throat, feeding her a seemingly endless supply of spider eggs barely small enough to pass her gullet.

This time when she was through the great female spider descended and backed away from her surrogate womb. Her abdomen had deflated considerably, and the spider looked almost as exhausted from her efforts as Junafir did.

Junafir hung limply by her wrists, spitting the last of the mucus from her mouth as she drank in fresh air. Her belly was noticeably distended now, and James could not begin to image how many eggs the spider must have put inside her to make it so. He didn’t want to think of it, either; he just wanted this to be over, one way or another.

As he hung upside down imagining how he would carve the big female up if he could just get a hold of his katana, he noticed a movement on the floor of the clearing. The smaller males were moving as a group past the female, toward Junafir.

“Wha- … what the hell ... Coyotka, what’s happening? They aren’t going to hurt her, are they; not with all the colony’s eggs inside her? What are they doing?”

Coyotka managed to summon enough strength to speak but one word before sobs overcame her. “Fertilizing.”

James almost went into shock, and Junafir began wailing as she too realized what that one word meant.

The female spider had been carrying her eggs for months in search of a suitable host. They had been inert inside her and stayed that way until she was sure that they were safely deposited in their host. Now that she was sure her offspring were taken care of she sent out a scent signal to the males that had been following her, waiting all this time for the chance to father some or most of her little ones.

The males fought each other as they clamoured up Junafir. They cut her in their efforts to hold on as rivals tried to throw them off and take the lead. Some went behind her where the smell of freshly laid eggs emanated from between her butt cheeks. Others went straight for the gash between her legs while the swiftest took the longer route to her head.

When the first few reached their targets, they extended fleshy tubes much like the female’s but theirs were longer and slimmer in proportion. Those down below wasted no time in inserting them. With all their legs wrapped around her hips they pumped madly as they deposited their sperm around the eggs. This was not an act of pleasure for them, but rather one of desperation. It was all about getting their seed in fast and deep, before the competitors could rip them off the egg-host.

The first to reach her head used half its legs to hold her mouth open while it stuck its extended pedipalp into her throat. Before he could release his sperm though, another pulled his legs free and Junafir’s jaws snapped down and castrated him. He fell off her face, screaming silently more at the failure to mate than the injury, but another was soon at his place. This one, a larger and sturdier specimen, managed to fend off the competition until he had pumped a mouthful of spider spooge down her throat. Mission accomplished it sprang away, only to have another take over that orifice.

Between her legs a form of cooperation had emerged as groups of the strongest spiders banded together to fight off all comers. Once they had secured their territory they kept fighting with half their legs while holding onto Junafir and each other with the rest. That way they were all able to stick their lengthy protrusions in at once, and the excess cum dripped down her thighs and onto their abdomens as she was held open by a half dozen spider cocks in each hole.

The initial assault was the worst, and even after they were done with the more dangerous hole behind her teeth the smell of rancid spider sperm was making her retch. The big groups had left her other orifices, but a few smaller males continued to take turns at those holes. The last was only the size of a kitten and it had a hard time keeping its grip on her cum-soaked fur as it poked about behind her. Once it found the puckered target it stuck it in just far enough to eject one quick squirt before dropping to the ground, as happy as a spider ever could be, even though the chances of it inseminating any of the eggs further up inside were slim to none.

When the males had cleared away the big female approached Junafir again.

“Now what?” James said wearily.

“She has to seal them in, so they don’t … don’t just crawl out before … before …”

“Their first meal.” Paul finished for her.

All the fight had gone out of the big cat by then. She just hung there as the female gathered sticky webbing and applied it to her. She barely even reacted when the spider smeared the sticky goo over her mouth, carefully leaving Junafir’s nostrils clear so that she would still be alive when the eggs hatched seven days hence.

Once she was done sealing the eggs in the female settled down in the shade close to where Junafir was hanging. Most of the males found places to rest too, although some of the smaller ones that had not partcipated in the fertilization were restless. Once climbed up to where Yup was hanging and began to clear the web away from the Dwarf’s neck. It probably intended to bite Yup and start the putrification process so they could feast on the little fellow that evening, but it was thwarted tough by the female, who leapt up and grabbed the little male before it could bite, chittering at it angrily. None of the travellers, not even Coyotka, could tell what the big female was saying but clearly these morsels were out of bounds for now. The male scurried off before he lost a limb for his trouble.

“They look healthy and well fed.” Paul observed, speaking aloud so that the should of his voice might reassure the others. “Wouldn’t you agree, Coyotka?”

“What?” Coyotka was surprised by Paul actually asking for her opinion. “Oh, yes, yes. I agree. These spiders can live on only one meal a week if need be and often store live food until it’s needed. The seven of us could last them a couple of months in a pinch.”

“We won’t live that long.”

“Some of the strongest might. The spiders will start with the weakest first, injecting their venom just before they die. They will bring water for the rest. You won’t want to drink ... but you will. The urge to survive will be too great.”

She looked at the collie out of the corner of her eye in case she had gone to far, but their leader was gazing off into space. Was he contemplating their fate or making desperate plans, she wondered?

They hung in silence, but before a hundred heartbeats passed Annie spoke up.

“They can’t understand us, can they? She asked.

“Not likely.” Coyotka answered. “At least it’s never been reported that they can. They don’t hear the way we do, in any event, so normal talk is just like a wisp of a light breeze to them.”

“In that case, I have an idea that might work.”

Paul swung around to face her. “What is it?”

“I’ve been trying to clear my mind and withdraw from. ... from all that was going on, and I succeeded. While I was in a self-induced trance I connected with the emerald again. Through it I could feel the minds of the trees and the plants, and also all the living things around us.”

“You felt the spiders minds?” Magnus asked in an awed tone. “Can you make them free us?”

Annie shivered in her cocoon. “No. Their brains are too alien and convoluted for me, especially when they were in the mating frenzy. The female especially is ... well she’s evil, just evil. I don’t think that I can control her, and even if I could get one of the males to start freeing us she would kill it before we could be freed. But there are others in the clearing.”

“Others?” Gael asked, hoping that she was not referring to ghosts of past victims.

“Field mice.”

“Field mice?” Paul said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He had hoped for eagles or something big that Annie could command to attack the spiders, but ... field mice? He wondered if Annie had been hanging upside down for too long, but decided it would be best to hear her out.

“How could field mice help?”

“They could gnaw through our bonds and free one of us, at least, but not while the spiders are here. They are afraid of them.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“James, let her speak.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Annie continued. “But if we can get them out of the clearing I think I can convince the mice to free me.”

“Did you have a plan to accomplish that?”

“Sort of. Coyotka, you said that they don’t hear the way we do. I remember reading in Biology that they use the hairs on their legs to detect vibrations, like prey struggling in their webs.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Annie turned to Magnus. “Do you think that you can imitate those vibrations on the strings of your magic lute?”

The deer-man thought for a moment. “I can if I tune my ring to you, and you can read the spider’s minds enough to tell when they’re getting excited.”

“I think I can do that.” She turned back to Paul. “What do you think? Should we risk it?”

“We have nothing to lose, and it’s the only plan we have. Go ahead.”

Annie rolled her head to relax her neck and started her deep breathing exercise again. After a few moments she confirmed that she had a rudimentary connection with the spiders.

“Bring out the lute, Magnus.”

Magnus closed his eyes and concentrated. Once again, the lute materialized in a puff of violet smoke in the middle of the clearing.

At first the spiders stood up, wary of this unknown object, but thier senses told them that while it was mobile it was not alive, and therefore probably neither a threat nor a potential meal. They began to relax again.

The lute began to play, musically at first, with clear clean notes that were spaced out to complement each other in perfect cords and harmonies.

“Nothing.” Annie reported. “Something a little more punk, maybe?”

“Punk?”

Annie sent magnus a memory of some of the bands her father listened to when he was a rebellious youth. He was not allowed to play his old albums at home because her mother claimed that the sound could strip paint, but he had demo’d them for her when they were alone.

“By the forest gods, what the hell was that?”

“I’m not quite sure, my Dad always called it ‘music to irritate your parents by’.”

“I would have killed mine.”

“Can you imitate it though?”

Magnus frowned but the tone of the lute began to change. The notes began to conflict with each other, the cords were ragged, and the strings began to scratch as if he were playing on the guts of a live cat.

“There, that last bit caught thier attention.”

Magnus drove the pitch of the screaming strings higher, imagining a moth caught in a web as eight-legged death approached. The spiders were up now, skittering about the clearing to triangulate the source of the distress.

“I can sense hunger, ot immediate hunger but the need to catch and preserve for tomorrow’s hunger. But it’s not strong enough to distract them from the bounty hangling around them. We need something ... something bigger.”

Magnus concentrated. He changed the image of a timid little moth to that of a great stag, a deer with six points on each horn and a chest as broad as an oak tree. In his mind it was caught in a web made of cords as thick as strong rope, and he imagined it struggling, almost breaking free as it’s antlers tangled in the web.

That got the spiders’ attention, and they began leaping at the lute so that Magnus had to raise it up to the level of the branches. That did not help for long though, as the nimble males began climbing the trees to ambush it from above.

“Now Magnus!” Annie shouted. “Make them chase it!”

He did. Rather than run the gauntlet of massed spiders he dematerialized it and had it reappear far down the trail they had followed to reach the clearing. The spiders hurried after it, with even the big female joining in with more speed than she had displayed earlier. So much so that she drove though the pack of smaller males, tossing the ones she overtook aside as she fought to be the one to reach the prey first.

They were almost upon the lute when Magnus moved it again, to the far limit of his sight this time. When the spiders were almost on it he sent it speeding off south along the trail they had cut in the underbrush.

“How far away can you make it go?” Paul asked.

“I have no idea, but I’m connected to it and it can follow my memory of the trail all the back to the village if needs be.”

“Annie, are the spiders still after it?’

“Yes, but they are almost out of my range.”

“Better leave them and concentrate on the mice then.”

Annie closed her eyes and shifted her focus. It looked like whatever she was doing was taking quite an effort but after a short while she relaxed. Soon after several little brown mice with big fan-like ears appeared in the clearing below her. Her lips moved silently and the mice set off for the tree she was swinging from. By the time those mice reached the branch and began chewing a dozen more had gathered in the grass, waiting their turn to help.

“Send some to me.” James implored Annie. “I can use my katana to cut the rest free.”

“They don’t trust the rest of you.” Annie answered, fighting to keep her concentration. “They have an inherited fear of cats, dogs, coyotes and, to a lesser degree, horses, deer and humans. They are only coming to me because I can connect to them.”

“But Annie ...!”

“Shut up James.” Paul ordered. “Use your time to get your circulation going again, for when Annie frees you. We’re bound to be stiff after hanging like this all night and half the day, and we’ll have to fight our way out of this, eventually.”

Except for Chris and Yup, who were still unconscious, and Annie and Magnus, who were both focused on their tasks, the rest began to writhe and wriggle inside their silken bonds, clenching their fists inside their cocoons, tensing their muscles and rolling their joints as much as they could.

Annie fell to the ground with a ‘thump’ when the cord parted near the branch. The mice below had already fanned out around where they expected her to land and they moved in quickly as the ones above dropped from the branch onto her chest. They began nibbling at once, concentrating on the cords around the arm closest to her spearhead.

Magnus spoke in a trembling voice. “I ... I’m losing the connection with the lute. I set it to follow my memories, but I can’t tell if the spiders are following it any more.”

“They are too far for me to read.” Annie replied, pushing the rising fear away so that she could better direct the mice. “Come on guys, chew, chew, chew.”

Finally, the threads began to part, and with a jesk her arm was free. She raised her spearhead like a short sword and flexed her arm twice to get the blood flowing back to her hand again.

“Thanks guys.” She told the mice, who all sat in a line on her chest and bowed before scurrying off into the woods again. Clear of the mice, Annie began to hack away at the rest of her bonds.

“Hurry, Annie.” James urged, glancing back and forth between her and Junafir’s limp, hanging form. “Hurry.”

Annie did not waste breath answering. Gael had made the spearhead so sharp that it cut through the spider web easily, but she had to be careful not to slice into an artery as she went. As soon as she could she stood up on wobbly legs and cut James down.

“Get my left arm free.” He told her. “I have a short blade I can reach once it’s free. I can finish while you free someone else.”

Annie did as she was asked. As soon as James’s arm was free she turned to Gael.

“No.” The big horse stopped her in her tracks with his command. “My sword it too big to help free the rest. Do Paul first.”

Annie bit her lip, turned and complied.

“Sense any spiders?” Paul whispered as Annie went to work on him.

“No.”

“Keep half your mind out for them.”

“Oh-oh.” That had come from Magnus, who looked very worried all of a sudden.

“What is it?” Paul asked the stag.

“The lute blinked out of existence. I had just enough of a connection left to feel it go. The spiders must have caught up to it and tried to bite it.”

“Can you get it back?”

“Not right away. It took too much out of me to keep it going a long as it did. Even if I could bring it back in the clearing the sight of some of us being free will be more urgent to them than prey they can only imagine.”

Annie got Paul undone enough that he could finish himself with his sword. James had just finished clearing the last of the cocoon off his legs and was headed to free Junafir so Annie went to Gael next. They would need his big sword if the spiders came back before they could get away.

Whle she was cutting the cords around heis broad chest she heard him murmuring to himself.

“What are you doing?”

“Counting.” He said between murmurs.

“Counting what?”

“The number of breaths ... murmur murmur ... since the lute ... murmur ... disconnected.”

“Why?”

“I counted my ... murmur... breaths from when ... murmur ... the spiders left. murmur murmur. “If they come back ... murmur ... as fast as they went ... murmur murmu ... we’ll have at least that many ... murmur ... before they get back.”

“Let me know when you get close to zero.”

Gael nodded, and Annie doubled her speed, shoving the pearhead in sideways and jerking it sideways to cut through more web with each thrust.

“Zero.” Gael said just as Annie sliced the last of the cords from his legs. In an instant he was on his feet with his broadsword drawn looking back down the trail as he snorted hard to fill his lungs with invigorating oxygen.

Annie looked around. James had cut Junafir down and laid her on the grass in the middle of the clearing. He and Paul had gotten Coyotka, Chris and Magnus down and were working on freeing the deer and the coyote. Yup they left suspended, as his sonorous snoring indicated that he was the farthest from regaining consciousness.

James slapped his short blade into Coyotka’s hand. “Do you know how to use this?”

“Theoretically.”

“The time for theory has passed.” Paul said as he worked to free the stag’s legs. “We need applied sciences now.”

“The pointy end goes into the bad guys.” James said, slapping the coyote on the shoulder before he moved on to try to revive the assassin, who at least knew how to handle a knife.

Annie stood up and stared down the trail. “They’re coming.”

“Paul?’” Gael called as he set his hooves into the soft ground.

“They don’t know we’re free. Those with weapons get on each side of the clearing where they won’t see you.”

As he spoke Paul grabbed Junafir, who was still limp and lifeless, by the scruff of her neck and pulled her to the far side of the clearing. James jumped forward to challenge him.

“What are you doing?” The boy-man cried, brandishing his sword as loyalty to Paul and love for Junafir fought inside him.

“The eggs are the most important thing to them now. They won’t do anything to hurt her but they’ll go straight me if they think I’m going to. I’ll try to cut down any that reach me, but it’s your job to attack them from behind and kill as many as you can before they do.”

James stood frozen for a moment, then he spoke. “I should be with her.”

“Whoever stands above her is the most likely to be killed or bitten, which is the same as being killed, and Junafir will need you in particular, if any of us survive.”

“They are almost here.” Annie warned.

James cursed and jumped back to his position. He, Magnus and Coyotka were on the right side of the trail, Gael and Anne were on the other with Chris, who was just regaining consciousness. Yup was still fast asleep and wrapped in his cocoon at the edge of the clearing.

Paul positioned the recumbent form of Junafir and stood over her with his sword raised. The blue sapphire on the pommel caught the sun and flashed like the remnant of a comet as he raised it up over his head as if to strike her. He held that position and waited, his muscles standing out with tension as he kept his eyes on the trail leading to the clearing.

The noises imitating large prey had ceased when one of the faster males managed to get a fang into the strange wooden thing they had been chasing. After wandering around a bit in confusion the female remembered the clutch of eggs she had left behind and turned back to the clearing. Still tired from the mating ritual and their frantic chase she went slowly, followed by the males, who pestered her into letting them bite the short fat one when they got back so that they could suck the juices out of him the next day. She agreed, if only to shut them up.

As she approached the clearing along the cleared trail the food had made, the first thing she should have seen should have been the cat-lady she had sealed her eggs inside hanging from the branches. Instead, while still far enough away that her field of view into the clearing was very narrow, she saw that some of the food had managed to free itself … and it was threatening the egg-host!

Anger rose up in her and she charged straight at the canine. The males caught the scent and vibration of her anger and rushed to assist her. Thus, with no plan or organization, the horde of arachnids charged into the clearing, their attention focused on the host and the creature that looked about to kill it.

Paul stood his ground until the big female was only a body length away and then he turned toward her and screamed “Attack!”

The female could not hear him and would not have known what he was saying if she could, but believed that the canine was about to battle her over possession of the egg-host. She reared up on her rear legs to try to bring her abdomen around so she could cover it in sticky webbing. Paul was too fast for her though, as he spun around with his sword held low to slice off all four of the lower leg segments that she was standing on. On the follow-through he swung it high over his head and down in a lateral slash that separated her head and the upper portion of her thorax from the rest of her.

She was dead, even though her forearms continued to wave and twitch, but they were still outnumbered five-to-one by the males.

Paul sliced one that leaped at him in two in mid air but had to roll to crush another that followed close behind. Behind him Gael was swinging his broadsword at chest height splattering any that tried to leap at his face while Annie crouched behind him and kept those on the ground at bay with jabs from her spear. On the other side of the clearing James was whirling like a dervish as he flowed from one classic strike into another so fast his sword was a blur. Coyotka had to stay well back to avoid getting slashed on the backstrokes. This left an opening for the more intelligent males to get in behind James, and the best the coyote could do was to poke them from behind with the short blade James had provided.

Paul would have gone to help James but a fair number of the males were still trying to get to Junafir to protect the eggs they had recently fertilized. He was forced to back away from the main fight as the more cautious survivors tried to skitter around the edge of the clearing. Some even took to the trees and Paul had to call a warning to the others to watch their heads.

Some of the remaining attackers tried to spin capture webbing, and the defenders found themselves spending more time cutting the threads as they fell than cutting down the assailants. Other spiders, the smaller ones, crept through the high grass and tried to bite the two-legged creatures, preparing their strongest poisons for injection. It would mean losing most of the food but that was better than letting your next meal kill you.

Magnus did not have a sword or a dagger, but he had found a large tree limb and he concentrated on squishing the creepers on his side. Across the clearing though they were making progress, and one of them had actually crawled up onto the recumbent form of Chris, who had been freed of his restraints but not yet regained his senses. The spider on his chest began feeling about the fox’s neck for a pulse and, finding a weak one, advanced farther to check its breathing. If the prey was still unconscious it might have time to restrain it for later.

The feel of tiny claws on his lips and nostrils brought Chris back from dreamland. It had been a troubling dream that he was having, something about Coyotka sliding up his chest, but she was much lighter than she should have been and had twice as many arms and legs as she should have.

He opened his eyes and saw eight black orbs staring back at him and he screamed, but his hands went instinctively for his knives, and while he might not have been as fast as Sevade had been he was fast enough; fast enough to carve the spider into four pieces before it could strike at least. Sitting up, he saw another trying to bite him through his thick cloak. Still screaming he brought his knives across and back in a double slash that left nothing but ichor dripping down his legs.

There were only a half-dozen or so web throwing spiders still in the trees but they were protected by the thick foliage. Annie could not concentrate on them because of the smaller ones still making sudden attacks through the grass. She paused, placed the palm of her hand on the emerald Magnus had recently enchanted and concentrated. A moment later there was a flurry of movement in the grass by the edge of the clearing.

Suddenly the clearing erupted as spiders that were small but still deadly broke from cover and headed for the trail, which the only escape route not covered by two-legged fighters. Some of them were covered in mice, mice that had sunk their large front teeth into the soft spots on the spider’s backs where they could not reach or bite back. Others were being chased by snakes that were almost large enough to swallow them whole and which were quite possibly venomous in their own right. The last creature to run out of the clearing was a roly-poly ground hog with a murderous expression on its face; she had lost her mate to the spiders earlier in the year and with a little prompting from Annie she was bent on revenge.

With their ground support gone the ones in the trees began to disperse, but not before one tried to crawl down the cord Yup was suspended by to inject the venom that would turn the juicy morsel into a sack of spider slurppies. With a swing of his blade Gael cut the cord before the spider could reach Yup and Annie took it out with a well-aimed thrust of her spear.

Everything came to a stop as everyone looked around and listened for any sign of spiders lurking in ambush. Annie touched her gem again and closed her eyes for a moment before declaring, “They’re gone.”

Paul slumped, exhausted from the burst of activity after hanging upside down for so long. Annie wrapped one arm around Gael and he did the same for her, but neither dropped their weapons. James did drop his sword as he rushed to Junafir and cradled her head in his lap.

“There, there.” He crooned above her unconscious form. “It’s going to be alright now. Everything is going to be fine.”

Coyotka stood up on wobbly legs. She looked down and saw four dead spiders at her feet. Rising the short blade she registered the spider blood and guts stuck to it and realized that she had been the one that had killed them. She turned to Magnus, who was also struggling to his feet, and gave him a brave if shaky smile. Then she saw the fat spider that had impaled itself on the stag’s antlers, when leaping from the trees to bite him perhaps, and she threw up all over his tunic.

Chris was still twitching when he got up and moved over to where Yup had landed. The fall seemed to have gone part way to reviving the little man. Chris began to slice away at the cocoon, and by the time he peeled it off the dwarf was stretching and yawning as if he had just woken from a refreshing nap.

“I have just had the craziest dream.” Yup said as he sat up in the middle of the clearing, blinking in the sun. “There was wine and dragons and spiders … and mice, I think.” He rubbed his eyes and looked around with a friendly expression, but the smile faded from his face as he took in the crazed look on Chris, the smell of puke and the sight of Magnus wiping his tunic while Coyotka tried to pry a spider the size of a marmot off his antlers.

“Did I ... uh … miss something?”

Paul Collieman © Collifan

Gael Tholkes © MarcusXLight

Junafir Pawstone © Frostlupus

Chris Cinereo © Kyroo Echos

Yup Thatchwatyahurd © Kyroo Echos

Sevade © Frostlupus

Constance “Coyotka” Jotkowska © Coyotek

Darryl D. Dragon © Major Matt Mason

Ladread © White Tiger Hunting

Aldreda © White Tiger Hunting

Magnus © Thwaitesy