The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [19]
Gerard made his way another length closer, then another. Several of the creatures paused long enough to rotate beady-eyed heads in his direction, and Gerard shuddered under their scrutiny. He forced himself to remain still and eventually they turned back to their gruesome actions.
“Lad. Gerard. Can you free us?”
Sir Ruden was the only one who seemed able to speak clearly. Sir Brand was clearly unconscious, and Daffyd was facedown on the ground, not moving beyond the faintest rising and falling of his chest as he breathed. Sir Thomas kept struggling against his bonds, to the point where his mouth was muffled by the ever-tightening bands.
“Stop that, or it will cut off your air,” Sir Ruden said, as sharply as a whisper could manage, then returned his attention to Gerard. “Can you?”
“I…don’t think so.” He wanted to be the hero, but the practical voice was in charge. Even moving a handspan closer meant attracting the attention of the spiders, and he still had no idea what might fend them off. He considered fire but had no means to make any. Water? Most villages were near a stream or creek, but he didn’t hear rushing water anywhere. Even so, without a bucket he couldn’t do anything, and going into the village to get a bucket would not be wise. The moment he crossed over, he would be bound and imprisoned the same as the others.
“No, sir,” he said finally. “I don’t think I can.”
Silence fell, emphasizing the faint crunching and sucking noises of the feeding spiders. It made Gerard’s skin prickle again. To distract himself, he looked more closely at the spider silk, trying to see if there was a break or a pattern he had missed. With a jolt of horror, he realized that the leather gear the four of them were wearing, basic traveling armor, was beginning to dissolve under the pressure of the bonds. A glance back at Sir Ruden showed that he was aware of what was going on, as well.
“Go.” Sir Ruden, his eyes dark through the white ties binding him, stared at Gerard as though by that alone he could move the boy. “Find Matthias…return…”
Gerard hesitated, torn. Part of honor demanded loyalty and he could not leave his companions there helpless.
Leaving them seemed like betrayal. But to go closer would be to end up with the same fate.
With a heavy heart, Gerard took off.
FOUR
“Lovely. Simply lovely.”
They were horrible beasts, the blood-spiders, but Morgain could understand her companion’s satisfaction in their work. Only a dozen, placed on the outskirts of a village, could reproduce in an afternoon to become a veritable army. Of course, they needed to be fed after that, but every plan had a cost.
And Morgain hadn’t had any supporters in that village, anyway, and did not have much to lose.
When her spies reported that some of Arthur’s knights had taken her prophetic “gift” and were moving into the Shadows, Morgain had uttered the spell which released the blood-spiders. Then she had given them the image of a knight in traveling gear. The moment after one of them saw a knight, they would all cease feeding and hold the intruders.
And so it had happened. The monk’s prophecy twisted to her own means had been the trigger, Morgain’s handcrafted wood-witch had been the bait, and the spiders the jaws of the trap.
A deep bell chimed from somewhere deep within the keep. The shadow-figure, garbed once again in a heavy hooded robe, turned as though responding to something below the tones, something beyond Morgain’s hearing. The great hooded head nodded once, and a slender, white-skinned hand was raised to tap Morgain once on the shoulder.
“I need to be here,” she said.
“You do not. The araneae will do as they were created to do. The plan has been set in motion, and it cannot be stopped now. Come.” The words were spoken in a gentle voice, but they had an undeniable force behind them. Morgain resisted, tapping her fingers on the surface of the flat-edged scrying crystal, then relented. Pushing back in her chair, she waved her hand over the crystal and uttered a silent command. The crystal flickered, then went blank.