Robert Vardeman - Cenotaph Road

" Krek, please, for me. We' ve got to get out of here. I feel a trap. Spin a strand for us over the wall so we won' t have to go through the main portal. Please." She stroked the spider' s hairy legs until he actually shivered with joy.

" No one needs me. You would be better off to look for another means of escape. Dependence on my feeble talents will lead only to ruin."

" Nonsense, Krek. You' re one of us, part of the team. The three of us belong together. Together, we can defeat Waldron and his whole damned army!" Inyx waved her sword around with wild abandon until Lan cringed. And he didn' t much care for the way the woman limited their number to only three. Velika made the fourth. Just because she was held captive didn' t mean her heart wasn' t with them and their efforts to defeat Waldron and walk the Road.

Yet the niggling thought made him wonder. Did her love for him extend that far? Lan didn' t know. He was no longer certain of his own love for the blonde at times.

" Oh, very well. This one time only. I simply have not the strength to do more." The spider made a coughing noise preparatory to spewing out the sticky strand of web- stuff, but he paused as he took aim on one of the crenelations along the battlement. " I fear I dallied too long. Company of a winged variety approaches, and quickly."

Lan strained his eyes against the sky and finally saw several hard black dots moving slowly. Predicting where the specks flew proved impossible because of the angle, but Lan felt a sinking feeling that these black birds were winging to stop them. No matter where Waldron had gone, his feathered bodyguards adequately protected the castle from all invaders.

" Inside the great hall," he urged, pointing toward the central keep. " If we can prevent them from entering, we stand a chance to kill them one by one."

Inyx snorted as if she didn' t believe him. Lan didn' t blame her for the skepticism; his own faith flagged dramatically upon finding the castle deserted after the fight required to win free from the chamber cradling the Kinetic Sphere. Better to meet Waldron face to face than to fight off the droves of those evil black ravens. The first hit and sent him stumbling before he had covered half the distance to the doorway. The next streaked down and left ugly, bloody tracks across his shoulders. A third almost clawed off his ear with a mighty swoop that caused the bird' s pinions to creak and snap under the strain.

" Hurry, Lan," said Inyx, standing in the doorway, one hand sweeping an arc over her head to keep the darting ravens at bay. " I' m not going to come and pick you up!"

The words galled him. Pick him up! Power flooded into his injured leg, and he propelled himself in a flat drive through the door. He skittered along the polished floor and collided with a wall, his teeth snapping together hard enough to give him a bone- jarring wrench. The torn remnants of two ravens told him that Krek had already beaten him to the cleanup detail. Blood dripped from the mighty pincers and glued small black feathers to the hard, serrated surfaces.

" Did I do that smartly enough for you, highness?" he asked sarcastically. " I wouldn' t want to delay you more than a few seconds in your noble quest to beat a cowardly retreat."

" Cowardly!" snarled Inyx. " Stupid is what you are to want the likes of Velika. Can' t you see her for what she is? Pah! I want to return to the Road and leave an oaf like you behind."

" And I will go with you, for a short while, if you will allow it, Inyx," said Krek. " I tire of all this petty bickering over the lumpy female."

Lan felt sheepish as he propped himself against the stone wall. Krek was right. He was being churlish.

" No more arguing?" he said, holding out his hand. Inyx hesitated, then took it firmly in her own.

" None."

" Then how shall we ever decide how to get past all those filthy ravens? You humans do nothing without arguing."

Lan only sighed.

" We are not alone," was Krek' s appraisal. " I hear the ravens beating themselves senseless against the door, and there is another sound deep in the halls, a slight noise hardly worthy of mention. But I note it solely in the event you missed it." Krek spread his long legs, claws biting into the stony walls.

Lan exchanged glances with Inyx, then drew his sword again. Perhaps this was an enemy who' d die by the sword, unlike the flapping cloud of gnatlike birds outside. Lan silently railed against the ravens, then tottered and weakly put his hand out to maintain balance. The building swung in a large arc, making him so dizzy he fought down the giddiness it brought.

" Are you all right?"

" No," he said weakly, dropping to his knee. Putting one hand on his forehead as a support while resting an elbow on a knee helped quell the revolt inside his brain for the span of a heartbeat. Then he sank completely to the floor.

" Krek, have you ever seen anything like this wound before?" Inyx' s voice sounded muffled, distant, as if she spoke from the bottom of a well. Even her face refused to come into focus.

" A spider learns to brew many poisons, since it is our stock in trade. I suggest bleeding him to relieve the poison from the raven' s talons. And perhaps tourniquets here and here and here."

" You idiot," raged Inyx. " Putting a tourniquet around his neck will kill him instantly."

" Oh."

" But the rest of your suggestions are sound. Help me." Inyx drew the point of her dagger along each wound inflicted by the birds. When they flowed profusely, she dabbed away the excess blood and bandaged the new wounds. " I hope that will help," she said, worry tingeing her words. " The poison seems to have gotten a foothold already. Look at him twitch about."

" He has always appeared twitchy to me," observed Krek. " But then, most humans do. You say a poison affecting his nerves was used? This is the basis for my own personal brand of killing poison. It paralyzes the body without inhibiting thought, although in his case there was precious little brain to begin with. Why, I remember once when we:"

" What are you getting at, Krek?"

" Oh, nothing, save that I might be able to concoct an antidote for the poison if I obtained a small sample."

Inyx speared one of the dead ravens with the tip of her sword and held it out for Krek' s inspection.

" Is this satisfactory?"

" Not quite." He took the raven and devoured it in front of the woman' s horrified eyes. " Ugh, such a vile, stringy texture that meat has. I fail to see what you humans enjoy about it. Bugs are much more satisfying." He sneezed, sending a cascade of feathers spiralling about his mouth. Then he sank to the ground and pulled Lan nearer. " The poison is simplistic for one of my acumen. Allow me." Krek' s mandibles punctured veins on the inside of each of Lan' s wrists. Tiny drops of yellowish fluid beaded at the hinge of his pincers to run down a duct to the very tip where the viscous ichor entered Lan' s blood stream.

In a few seconds, Lan went into convulsions. Krek' s powerful legs held him, and the spider commented, " Humans lack a certain tolerance to this, it appears. But fear not for his safety."

True to his word, Krek soon released Lan, who looked up and smiled weakly.

" He is cured, of course," Krek pronounced with insufferable superiority. But neither Lan nor Inyx noticed. The man managed to get his feet under him again, and when the world stopped precessing, he felt as good as he had before the poison coursed through his veins.

" I owe you one, Krek," he said, solemnly squeezing a convenient leg.

" One what?"

" Never mind. I' ll let you know when the time comes. Did you notice any activity further inside the keep? Waldron?" He didn' t have to add " Velika."

" Several are inside. Perhaps as many as a platoon."