“How do we get to him and Riki?” A mix of worry and anger playing on his face, Varek slipped past Dhamon. He thrust his staff at the web wall and tried to find a way through it, as he had with other veils. This one defied his best efforts, however. He beat at the wall with the staff.
“I propose we take what I suspect is the shortest route to reach him,” Ragh said. The sivak chose a spot near Varek, careful to remain just out of reach of the staff. He sliced his claws into the webs. They were as least as thick as his arms were long, and Dhamon noted that the web wall was home to thousands of tiny dark yellow spiders.
“Maldred!” Dhamon paused and listened again. “Are you truly on the other side of this mess, my friend? Or is sound playing tricks on me?”
He took a deep breath, took a position near the sivak, and sliced into the web wall with the sword again and again. Finally he was able to push himself into the web.
“What in the levels of the Abyss are you two doing?”
Varek stared dumbstruck as he watched Dhamon and the sivak allow themselves to be swallowed by the web. He beat at the wall a few more times, then tried to plunge after Dhamon. Dhamon could see nothing as he moved slowly through the webs.
Perhaps this isn’t real, he thought. None of it. The unpleasant muskiness was real enough, stronger man before, coming from all around him and settling in his mouth, making him gag. He could feel spiders crawling over his face and hands, squirming in his clothes. Some of them bit him. But he couldn’t feel the web. He couldn’t touch it and tell if it was silky or hard, damp or dry. There was resistance to his every step, but Dhamon found he could breathe. He could hear—
Maldred’s voice was still coming from somewhere ahead. He heard Varek behind him making slapping noises. Ragh was just ahead.
Dhamon worked up enough saliva in his throat to spit, trying to get rid of what he was certain were tiny spiders that had wriggled their way inside his mouth. He was able to move faster now, the resistance of the thick webs giving away and the air around him lightening. Dhamon pushed into a clearing, one surrounded by webs but open to the sky in the center. The sivak had emerged a moment before.
Maldred was several yards away, busily cleaving through a spider the size of a large house cat. There were dozens of similarly sized spider carcasses all around him.
“Glad you could finally join us, Dhamon!” he shouted over his shoulder. Maldred’s clothes were plastered against him, wet with sweat and the dark blood of the spiders. His legs were coated with webs. “Some help here, please!”
Ragh paused for only a moment before joining Maldred. The sivak clawed at a large brown spider, stomping on several gray ones the size of large rats.
“Keep them off me,” Maldred told the sivak. “I can’t use my magic and fight them at the same time.”
Several yards away, Dhamon spotted the half-elf, hanging suspended from a massive oak. She was wrapped in a web cocoon dangling a dozen feet off the ground. There were several huge spiders on branches near her, one hovering directly over her head. Riki was breathing, though it took him a moment to be sure of that. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was stuffed with webbing.
“Be careful of those spiders, my friend,” Maldred called. “They die easily, but they have a vicious bite.”
Dhamon looked for handholds amid the swaths of webbing. He started climbing, keeping his sword out and digging the fingers of his free hand into indentations in the bark while clamping onto the trunk with his boot heels.
“Riki!” Varek had emerged in the clearing. “Oh no!” He dashed toward the tree, dropping his staff and attempting to climb the trunk with Dhamon. The bark was slick with webbing, and Varek slipped to the ground in his panicked rush.
“Riki!” he shouted again.
“Over here, boy!” Maldred shouted. “Ragh and I could use some help. Another wave is coming.”
Varek made another failed attempt to scale the tree, eyes locked onto the bundled half-elf.
“Varek! Some help!”
He reluctantly picked up his staff, glanced forlornly at Riki, and opened his mouth to say something to Dhamon.
“Now, boy!” Maldred shouted.
“Hurry!” the sivak urged.
Varek finally turned to see the big man and the sivak covered from head to toe with the great spiders. He stumbled forward, leveled the staff over his shoulder, and brought it down in a sweeping motion, brushing a spider off Maldred’s arm. He brushed off another and another, making it easier for the big man to strike at the ones still on his legs. Beneath the spiders, Maldred’s bare arms were covered with large purple welts.
Varek turned his attention to the sivak. Most of the spiders Varek knocked off the sivak looked like hairy brown lumps atop jet-black legs. They had fangs—the cause of the stinging welts on Maldred’s arms—and eyes that looked as blue as a still, deep lake. A few that were even larger, just now emerging from the webs, were the size of full-grown sheep. They were nut brown with intricate yellow and black patterns on their backs that resembled the visages of dwarves. Varek brushed a few more of the creatures off Maldred and started clubbing the ones on the ground, grimacing at the sickening popping sound they made when he bashed in their heads. He paused between blows to look over at Riki. Dhamon was cleaving through the spiders around her and edging toward the branch she hung from. The spider that was directly over her was spinning a web to encase her entire head.
“Here come some more, boy! Look lively!”
The sivak moved forward, positioning himself to buy Maldred time to use his magic.
“Help Ragh!” Maldred encouraged.
Varek reluctantly joined the sivak, who had turned to face another swarm coming through the web to the left of them. The pair worked fast, claws rending, staff smashing, feet kicking away spider corpses or tramping across the larger ones that couldn’t easily be budged. Behind them, Maldred was deep into an enchantment, eyes wide, mouth forming words in a silent, arcane language. He thrust his hands above his head, thumbs touching, and concentrated until sweat beaded his brow. His body grew warm as the spell took effect. The heat raced from his chest to his arms and his fingers. Flames arced from his palms up to the webs above in the trees. There was a great “woooosh!” and a mass of webs caught fire and melted. Twitching, burning spiders fell like rain. Maldred turned to face another section of web and released another jolt of flame. The webs were so dense, and there were so many of them, he could only burn a section at a time.
Varek cried out. He had become distracted by Maldred’s magic and found that dozens of the peach-sized spiders had swarmed up his legs. A few purple welts appeared on his arms. The sivak paused in its slaughter of the rat-sized spiders and brushed the smaller ones off Varek. Varek crouched and smashed another hairy spider that was advancing, stepping on the body and swatting at another and another. At his side the sivak waded through crowds of the creatures. The largest spiders had chitinous shells covering their heads, and it took several blows to kill them. Varek was bitten a half-dozen more times before there was a pause between the waves of arachnids. He gagged from the smell of the dead spiders and from the burned corpses. There was another great roar as Maldred managed to burn away another section of webs. More spiders dropped.
Dhamon had worked his way onto the branch, killing all but one large spider that remained directly above the half-elf. The thing stared at him. Its bulbous black eyes, shiny as mirrors, reflected Dhamon’s determined face. Fangs protruded from the bottom of its head, dripping an ooze that smelled strongly of the musk Dhamon loathed.
It made a mewling sound, like a helpless babe, as he raised his sword and cleaved the thing in two, barely slamming his eyes shut in time. Blood sprayed on his face and tunic, and the musky smell soaked his clothes. He wiped at his eyes and carefully approached the web bag, the branch sagging under his weight the farther out he went.