Chapter Seventy-One. An Admission, Long Awaited.
Seventy-One
An Admission, Long Awaited.
The spiders make a clicking noise with their mouths as they come at us, their fangs gnashing—and one of them comes right toward me, separating from the pack.
Lavante whinnies in desperation. He cannot see, for the web has been spun up over his head, but I know he smells them.
He jerks under me, his frantic, fruitless movements transmitting into my own body through the saddle.
I’m wrestling around and not getting anywhere either, pushing against a million gossamer threads that lock me in.
The spider who takes special attention with me mounts the base of the cocoon from the rear, its bright red feet making deadly time. Something is dripping out of its mouth. Venom? It must be.
Higher, higher still, as he comes up Lavante’s rump, and I start to hyperventilate as I strain to keep my eyes on him.
I take one last glance over at Merc. He’s dealing with the same, one among many now up almost to his chest, staring him in the eye.
The fact that that spider uses the blade of the frozen broadsword as a toehold is a testament to how useless the weapon is in this situation.
Clickclickclickclick—
That’s all I hear as my breath rips in and out of my chest, and my vision goes wavy as my fear translates into tears—
From out of nowhere, a piercing red light sweeps in a circle, bathing the ruins in ruby illumination that’s so bright, it’s as if the metropolis is awash in blood.
The most incredible thing happens.
The spiders freeze. All of them. Then they rise up with their front legs, as if the mysterious illumination is calling to them.
As one, they turn toward the source, and begin a pilgrimage to the temple in the center of the metropolis.
The statue there, which has weathered the eons better than anything else, is the bearer of the beacon that summons them …
way up high, where the goddess’s hand reaches for the sky, is the seat of the unearthly light.
For a moment, I think it is magic at work.
It’s not. The red wash is an optical effect created by a beam of sunshine passing through a juncture between two of the Rozars’ jagged peaks.
As the hour has arrived, a precise alignment has occurred, and something in that stone palm is providing the refraction.
And it will not last. The sun will continue along its course, and the other side of the V will cut off the beam.
Plunging all into shadow once more, and releasing the spiders from whatever hypnosis has occurred.
“I’m trying…” Merc grunts. “… to get loose…”
For a moment, I’m frozen at the sight of all the spiders gathered around the base of the temple, their front legs risen up and spindling at the goddess. If a hundred came after us, then a thousand surely live within the ruins, and it’s as if they have one mind that connects them all—
Lavante lets out another terrified whinny and I snap back to attention.
I try to move back and forth to make some room within the webbing.
It doesn’t work—just like it didn’t work before.
There’s a give and take to the wrapping, every forward nic compensated by a corresponding constriction.
And I have nothing of the brute force that Merc does.
He’s straining as if attempting to lift his horse off the ground—and getting nowhere, even as he tries to seesaw his broadsword.
Glancing up to the statue, I follow the sunbeam to the mountains in hopes of finding we have plenty of time. We don’t. Already, the darkness is returning up at the top of the slope we came down, and soon enough, it will streak through the city and eclipse whatever is in the statue’s palm.
This is a torture—
There are a lot of ways to use a weapon like this, and you’re going to keep it in your pocket.
Thale’s voice enters my head like a command, and I suddenly become animated with purpose.
There’s not a lot of room to spare, but the red felt skirting I’m using as a cape is the savior.
Somehow its stiffness resists the cloying compression, and I’m able to force my left arm across to my opposite hip. My fingers claw into the pocket there—
And promptly get caught by Mare’s bag of coins.
The crystal knife is under them. I can feel the slick tip, but I can’t seem to get it around the bag because every time I move, the coins shift into the space I make.
I glance at the slope. The darkness is a quarter of the way down.
Next to me, Merc is still getting nowhere because he’s so bulky, he can’t maneuver to reach any of his other weapons.
Closing my eyes, I try to picture me gripping the crystal knife, my fingertips threading past the velvet bag’s clingy exterior—
The coins drop out of my pocket. I hear the jingling fall and ringing impact somewhere on the ground inside the webs that tie Lavante’s legs together.
My eyes shoot in fear to the spiders. But the sound is soft enough that it doesn’t call any of them back.
And now I have the knife.
Wielding it as Thale instructed me to, by gripping the cross-hilt and allowing the main shank to extend out between my fore and middle fingers, I stab forward.
The webbing breaches immediately—and continues to do so as I wrench my arm upward. I’m relieved to find the blanket of silk readily falls away, as cutting it releases the tension that is tied to its grip: The more I slice, the more I’m free to continue stripping it off me.
“I’m coming for you!” I hiss as I measure the dark line’s progression on the slope. “Just a moment more—”
I’m talking as fast as I’m ripping the strange knife around, and then all at once, my upper body is free. Beneath the saddle, Lavante is twitching, as if he knows he’s about to be released. I can’t continue on to his legs yet, though.
I pull my own free of the saddle, and leap to the ground. “I’ve got this, I’ve got you, I’ve—”
“Sorrel.”
At the sound of my name, I freeze for a split second and look up at Merc.
He’s staring down at me, wrapped like a mummy atop his encased horse, only his black hair and the steel of his chain mail showing.
“Get your horse free,” he says softly. “I’m okay here.”
“Are you mad?”
I go to jump up to the broadsword and he jerks his head back, like he’d step away if he could. “Sorrel. You keep going … don’t waste time on me.”
As his voice drifts off, I find myself unable to move. There’s a haunting quality to him, to the way he looks at me, an almost wistful expression on his harsh face.
“I’m not leaving you—”
“I am telling you to.”
“And when have I ever listened to you.” I wield my crystal knife and start into the web by the broadsword. “I’ll be careful, I don’t want to cut you—”
The cocoon starts to fall away, but as I glance over my shoulder, the line of the returning darkness is moving with increasing speed.
I check the spiders around the temple, and they remain enthralled, but I picture them coming back as fast as they first arrived as soon as that red illumination is snuffed out.
“There’s no time,” Merc says sharply. “You’ve got to get Lavante free, and start running. Head for the slope with the mist. You can hide in the clouding there—”
I look about once again. He has a tragic point. The spiders move fast, and all those pathways over the crumbled wall prove they have no trouble getting in and out of the ruins. Even if half stay to consume him, some of them will set into a chase.
“Go.” His voice gentles. “But before you do, I want you to know something.”
Brushing my eyes, I make a couple more slashes around his sword arm, just so he can have a chance to defend himself. “What’s that?”
“You were right,” he murmurs with a small, wry smile. “I was jealous of Thale.”