Jaleigh Johnson - Spider and Stone

The older dwarf must be employing a spell to conceal sounds and scents, she reasoned, to allow them to move in the tunnels and avoid detection. It was the only explanation unless, Gods help her, the tales she’d heard in her childhood about the dwarves were true-that they sprang from the stone itself.

Next to Icelin, Ruen tensed as the younger dwarf stepped forward. He said nothing, but he held a huge axe comfortably in his hands. The single-bladed weapon bore three faintly glowing runes carved along the wicked edge. Opposite this blade sprouted three obsidian spikes that tapered to gleaming points like the horns of a beast. The dwarf’s father carried an identical axe on his belt. Icelin tried not to stare at the magnificent and deadly weapons.

“Where is Sull?” she demanded.

“You’re the trespassers here,” the elder dwarf said, “which means you stay silent.”

“We seek an artifact in the temple,” Ruen said. “We thought the place was abandoned.”

“Abandoned or not, you have no right to be here. You and your companions desecrated our burial grounds when you came to plunder our temple,” the elder dwarf growled.

“Yes, and you snatched our companion,” Icelin said. “We’d like him back.”

“Calass,” the younger dwarf said. Icelin didn’t understand the word. He went on rapidly in the Dwarvish tongue. The elder nodded thoughtfully. “There are no artifacts left here for you to steal.” Ruen cursed in response, but the dwarf ignored him. “As for your friend, our companions took him below to answer for his desecration. We came back when we heard you following.”

“Below?” Icelin didn’t like the sound of that. “How deep do these ruins go?”

The younger dwarf spoke again, and in his dark eyes, Icelin saw a mixture of pride, contempt, and an endless, aching sadness. If she hadn’t been afraid of provoking an attack, Icelin would have reached out to the dwarf. Crazy, she knew, but sadness like that … it urged her to soothe-to do anything to quell it.

“What did he say?” Ruen asked the father.

“Deep,” the dwarf said, “deep into memory.” He pointed to the passage ahead of them. “You come with us now. We’ll take you to your companion and then decide what to do with all of you.”

“Not yet,” Ruen said. “I have questions of my own.” He drew a dagger from his belt and held it at his side, a paltry thing in the shadow of the dwarves’ gleaming axes, but Icelin knew better than to underestimate what Ruen could do with the weapon. In her mind, she searched for a spell to defend them both in the close quarters. She hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

As she prepared to call on her Art, the elder dwarf suddenly turned and stared at her. “Don’t,” he said quietly. He raised his hand.

Icelin braced for a spell, but the attack was not what she expected.

A symbol flashed in front of her eyes, bright and painful, as if she’d been staring into the sun on a burning hot day. Three slashes of fire in the air-that was all Icelin discerned before a thunderous roar filled her ears.

She stumbled back, managing to hold on to her staff and the torch when all she wanted to do was thrust both aside and cover her ears. The roar was impossible to block out. She closed her eyes. An involuntary cry escaped her lips. The rune had faded, leaving only a blurred afterimage on the inside of her eyelids, but the thunder beat painfully in her ears and sent threads of fiery pain into her temples.

“Stop it!” Ruen shouted at the dwarves, but Icelin barely heard him. She couldn’t call her magic, couldn’t think beyond the roaring.

Dimly, she heard the ring of steel. Icelin opened her eyes and saw the younger dwarf standing in front of his father, blocking a dagger strike from Ruen. The dwarf swung his axe as if to drive Ruen back, but he dodged the swipe and delivered a swift punch to the dwarf’s arm.

His grip on the axe faltered. A flicker of surprise passed over the dwarf’s face, and he stared hard at his thin opponent, as if re-evaluating the threat Ruen posed. Through her pain, Icelin felt a rush of satisfaction.

Ruen was an uncanny fighter, a bundle of contradictions. To look at him, a hard punch would break him in half, yet Ruen was the one who usually delivered such terrible blows. As with so much in his life, his spellscar was to blame. It left his bones brittle, forcing him to wear a magic ring that kept them strong. That same ring also enhanced his physical strength, which, when combined with his speed and martial training, made him a formidable opponent.

In that moment, however, he was outmatched, at least in bladed weapons. Ruen sheathed his dagger and came at the dwarf again with just his fists.

For all their differences in height and weight, the dwarf was sure-footed. He dodged Ruen’s quick jabs, and Ruen had to use every bit of his speed to keep pace with the dwarf’s movements. It would be a long and bloody fight-the last thing Icelin wanted.

“Please listen to me,” she implored the elder dwarf. Her voice shook with pain. “I swear, we didn’t come here to desecrate this temple. If you give us back our friend, we’ll leave this place and never return. We don’t have to fight!”

The older dwarf’s face remained impassive. He glanced from Icelin to the battle between his son and Ruen. Icelin thought he was going to let it continue, despite her pleas.

Abruptly, the roaring in her ears diminished, leaving behind a dull ache at Icelin’s temples. In her relief, she almost sagged to the floor.

“Ruen, stop!” she called out. “It’s all right. I’m all right.”

The combatants paused in their dance of blade and fists. Ruen stood tense, but glancing at Icelin, he took a careful step away from the dwarf. His opponent did the same.

“It’s all right,” Icelin repeated. “Now we can talk-” She couldn’t finish. The cloying scent of blood and a burning substance filled her nose. Icelin choked at the unexpected foulness and covered her mouth to keep from gagging. The dwarves looked at her curiously-Ruen in alarm. They obviously smelled nothing amiss.

It was the scent spell. She’d stopped paying attention to it in the wake of the dwarf’s magical attack on her senses.

“What is it?” Ruen took hold of her shoulder with his free hand, but Icelin shrugged him off.

“Something’s near-gods, that’s awful.” She looked around the torchlit darkness but saw nothing. The dwarves exchanged anxious looks.

Then they all heard it. The scrape of stone and a stirring of air overhead made them look at the ceiling. That brief glimpse was the only warning before a large, hairy body dropped from the ceiling and landed on the younger dwarf’s back. A second weight slammed into Icelin and drove her to the ground.

Icelin caught herself on her hands, but the breath whooshed out of her, and the torch rolled away, sending sparks and fractured light in all directions. When Icelin looked up, a black cage surrounded her, but the bars of that cage were not made of iron. They were jointed and covered with stiff black hairs.

Rolling onto her back, Icelin suppressed a scream. The reflection of her prostrate form shone in the glassy black eyes of an immense spider. Its mandibles hovered directly above her head. Blood from the last unfortunate creature it had encountered stained those mandibles and dripped from its glistening black body. A thick, greenish liquid mixed with the blood, and the scent of burning poison rose in her nostrils again. Icelin dismissed the scent spell so she could breathe, but it was impossible to tear her gaze away from those soulless black orbs.

Icelin lifted her hands and cast the first spell that came to mind. She spoke the arcane phrases haltingly, but in her mind, she screamed her intent: burn .