James Silke - Prisoner of the Horned helmet

She thrashed helplessly against the gooey threads. The effort only secured her more firmly to the web.

Her strength ebbing, Robin hung in place like the last bite on a plate. Tears welled up under her lashes, but she fought to see the source of a grating sound below her. At the base of the web, a circle of ground three feet across was lifting. She screamed. Her body shuddered, shaking tears loose from her eyes.

Staring down into widening darkness, she watched spellbound as hairy clawlike legs grasped the rim of the dark hole. The legs flexed, then lifted the dark umber body of an enormous spider out of the darkness. It was a Chupan, about forty pounds, the color of dirt and in bad need of a haircut. Its body was all belly. It was mostly mandible, except when the curved mandibles were open, as now. Then it was all bad intentions. A meat eater.

Robin flailed, and long strangled cries leapt past her trembling lips. Music to the Chupan’s ears.

The spider watched Robin’s right leg flail wildly at the open center of its web, then started for it, but reconsidered, as if the leg were too great a bother. Instead it moved sideways for the other leg. That sandaled foot was securely stuck to the web.

Robin wiggled furiously and managed to twist her head under her shoulder until she could see the hairy creature nearing her foot. She yanked frantically on her left leg and freed it slightly so that its sandled foot sank even closer to the advancing mandibles.

The Chupan lurched upward, snapped at Robin’s trembling foot and came away with the sandal.

Her eyes sliding back, Robin sank, semiconscious.

The spider chewed on the sandal for a while, then its pea-sized brain seemed to decide there had been some kind of mistake, and it spit the sandal out in pieces. Seeing the pinkish underside of Robin’s bare foot, it started up the web again.

When the spider was positioned to dine, with a choice of five perfect toes as appetizers, spreading jaws crashed over its pulpy body.

The jaws belonged to Sharn. He was still in midair when they snapped shut, cleaving the spider in two. He landed cleanly on all fours ten feet beyond the web, then calmly spit bits of its chitin and hairy pulp from his mouth as he watched the two oozing pieces of the Chupan roll past him and down the crevice. Calmly the wolf began to pick off the bits of web which had caught in his fur.

A short time later, when Robin’s eyes flickered open, Gath’s shadowed body blocked out the sun. He was cutting her free of the web with his dagger. She whimpered, looked into his dark face and found his slate-grey eyes wandering across the rise of her breast, the turn of her neck. His cheeks felt like flames against hers as they brushed past.

Leaning her head against his cheek, she moaned, “Gath!”

Ignoring this inadequate effort to restart their conversation, he continued to cut at the web. Suddenly she dropped and landed hard on her backside at his feet. She groaned and pushed herself up onto her hands, and looked at him. Did an amused glitter pass behind Gath’s eyes? She was too dazed to be certain.

She caught her breath, then dragged herself to the side of the crevice and let her exhausted body sink back against it. Her mouth trembled. “I…1 thought I was going to die.”

Her dark feathery eyes grew wet. He squatted facing her. A cheering grin lifted the corner of his mouth, defying her to cry. She dropped her dusty head in her hands and began to sob.

The grin went away, and he stood abruptly. “You are not hurt.” •

She looked up past her hands, startled by his abrasive tone, and stammered, “But that… that thing almost killed me.”

“In The Shades one is always almost dead.”

She flinched, glanced at the wolf then back at him, and saw no opening in the armor of his eyes. Had they been watching the whole time? She indicated Sharn, said uncertainly, “You ordered him to… to save me.”

“No. No one orders him to do anything.”

She nodded and looked off at Sharn gratefully as she pulled at the sticky residue on her cheeks.

He picked up her walking stick and extended it to her. “You are too far from home.”

She nodded. “I know, but I believed you would listen to me.”

She passively accepted the stick, and he lifted her off the ground as if she weighed no more than a basket of peaches. She staggered slightly and caught herself against his arm. He did not pull it away. A smile leapt back into her cheeks and her eyes lifted to his, but the armor was still in place. She withdrew her smile.

“Go,” he said quietly.

She nodded, removed her remaining sandal and tucked it in the bundle hanging from her walking stick. She sighed, then barefoot moved down the crevice towards Sharn. As she came alongside the wolf she stopped, kissed him on the head before he thought to protest, then continued on down until she was swallowed by the sunlight.

At the bottom of the crevice, she looked back up at the two predators standing in the dusty glow. Massive. Impressive. As one with the rocks and forest.

She turned and started through the forest. After traveling over a mile, she could still feel Gath’s presence, and see him in her mind. Held there by the fingers of her imagination.

Robin Lakehair traveled Summer Trail heading east. She crossed through The Shades and the Valley of Miracles to Thieves Trail, which she took south until she reached Border Road at Lemontrail Crossing. There she paused and drank greedily from her waterskin. As she did, she gazed across the gorge and her heart sank.

Just beyond the remnant of the bridge, a heavy Kitzakk spear stood upright in the ground in plain view. Impaled on it was the fresh cadaver of a Wowell witch.

Robin’s mouth gaped open. One hand covered her mouth, the other held her stomach as it convulsed. She grabbed up her things and scrambled back to her feet.

Hurrying east along Border Road, and passing only occasional travelers, she soon reached Amber Road. It was the main merchant road. It started far to the north in the Empire of Ice, stretched across the forests, then south through the cataracts and across the deserts to the jungles. There was some traffic to the north, but none coming from the cataracts to the south.

Robin’s eyes darted about suspiciously as she dashed across Amber Road and hurried on. An hour later she rounded a bend and stopped to catch her breath. She had been traveling for four hours, but now, in the distance, she could see Three Bridge Crossing and her Cytherian home, Weaver. It waved in the midday sun like a giant, multicolored flag. She dropped to the grassy ground, leaned back against a rock and sighed with relief. She was no longer too far from home.

The village stood on a reddish hill cleared of trees except for occasional clumps. It was shielded on three sides by forest. The border gorge guarded the southern side. Sheep and herders cluttered the wide clearing which Robin knew surrounded the village. Past it rose a palisade wall with a gate at the northern corner. The wall stopped just before reaching the southern end of Weaver. There the village fell apart and ended in rubble just short of the gorge spanned by the three bridges where workers were building gates. The village’s three main interior streets crossed over the bridges of Three Bridge Crossing, then joined together and moved south up into Weaver Pass.

Weaver itself rose above the palisade in irregular tiers. Mud and wood houses crowded the lower tiers. They were well-made structures with outside shutters on the windows and the stone chimneys rising from flat roofs exhaled white smoke. Clean-clothed and freshly scrubbed residents were active here sorting wool, cleaning and washing it, and combing and carding it into fluffy readiness for spinning.