“What spiders?” Jerri asked, her voice low…and still excited.
He sagged in Andel’s arms, face bleak. “The spiders took everyone away. I have to get food and things during the day, and hide myself at night. That’s when the spiders come out.”
“What do the spiders do?” Andel asked.
Valette didn’t even wait for Andel to finish his question before trampling over him. “What do they look like?”
The boy was twisting his neck to try and keep an eye on every direction at once, but he did answer. “They’re big, bigger than me, and they have eyes everywhere.” He shuddered. “They take everything apart and put it back together. Everything.”
Calder shuddered too.
The Watchman scribbled frantically in his journal. “Just as we feared. Inquisitors of Ach’magut.”
“We’re leaving,” Calder said. “Bring him.” To the boy, he added. “We have a ship, and we’re getting as far away from here as we can.”
The boy looked to the harbor, and his eyes widened as he noticed The Testament outlined against the setting sun.
Jerri grabbed Calder’s arm as he’d begun to walk away. In a whisper softer than the boy’s, she said, “Listen.” At the sound, Andel and Valette froze. Even the boy stopped struggling, his eyes going wide.
Footsteps, coming closer. Not the rapid tapping he would have expected from giant spiders, but the ordinary slap of shoes against pavement. Calder looked back, waiting for the survivors to show themselves. There was plenty of room on The Testament for cargo, and they had enough supplies to carry a dozen refugees up the coast for another few weeks. Even if there were more, he could at least get them away from this haunted town.
But the boy struggled even more frantically against Andel’s grip. “Run!”
The crew glanced at each other, but then didn’t wait for any more instructions. They ran.
Calder had crossed the vast expanse of empty cobbles leading to the harbor, with only the dock in front of him. His ship was a black silhouette against an orange sky, and he was close enough that he could sense the perpetual fury of the Lyathatan beneath the waves. Even as he ran, he started to relax. Once they were onboard, nothing short of a Great Elder could catch them.
They didn’t make it onboard.
From the water on either side of the dock, spiders the size of wolves splashed up and clambered over onto the dock. Two of them stood on the surface of the dock, giving Calder a clear look at them. For the first time, he wished the sun had set completely. Then he wouldn’t have to see them.
It was difficult to tell the color of their chitin, but he thought it was dark blue, maybe a sort of slick purple. They had ten sharp, segmented legs, though two of them stayed bent up at all times, like arms. And they were covered in eyes. The segment he would dubiously term the ‘head’ was crammed full of eyes of every description: compound eyes, slitted reptilian eyes, even eyes that looked disturbingly human. Some of the eyes waved on stalks, which drifted toward the humans.
Looking at the two Elderspawn standing next to each other, he could see that neither of them had the same pattern of eyes or even distribution of limbs. One had eleven legs, four of which were pulled up and waving in the air. The other had ten legs, and three stalk-eyes to the two of its companion. It was as though they had been assembled from a child’s kit instead of born.
Andel and Calder reacted in almost exactly the same fashion. Before Calder realized he had a gun in his hand, he felt the kick of a gunshot and the familiar peal of thunder. Smoke drifted up from him as well as from Andel, and both spiders staggered back a pace. One of them waved a shredded stalk that had once had an eye on it.
Like two bodies possessed of one mind, both Elderspawn cocked their heads. Neither seemed particularly inconvenienced by the shot.
Mr. Valette had dropped his case and now clutched an iron spike in each hand. “In the Emperor’s name,” he said, and it had the sound of ritual to it. “Mr. Petronus, Captain Marten, I’ll thank you to take care of the one on the left. Drive it into the water, if you can. I will seal the limbs of the one on our right, that we may take it home for study.”
Calder was still struggling with the idea of carrying another Elderspawn home on his ship when the decision was taken out of his hands. The footsteps from behind them caught up. He edged to the side, turning carefully to keep both the humans and the spiders in view.
Fifteen men and women spread out side to side, and so many of them wore robes that Calder almost thought they were Magisters. An older man stood in front, smiling, wearing over his robe a ragged coat that looked like it had spent countless nights on the streets. The old man stepped forward and raised his hands to the sky.
“Praise Ach’magut, in his endless bounty, for sending us new brothers and sisters! Friends, be welcome in Silverreach. You have come at the right time.”
As if the stranger’s calm around Elderspawn hadn’t told him enough, Calder noticed the silver medallion that each member of the crowd wore hanging over their chests. The Open Eye. Not a Guild crest, that symbol, but it served much the same purpose. The Blackwatch watched for it in ancient documents.
More often than not, it stood for the Sleepless.
The old man laughed, and his people advanced. In Andel’s arms, the boy had gone limp with defeat.
“It’s not as bad as you think, friends,” the old man said. “Don’t despair!”
From past the end of the dock, a deep, male voice echoed over the water. “DESPAIR!” Shuffles shouted.
The sound reminded him of the presence of his ship. He stretched his mind out, a Soulbound calling for his Vessel. He could sense The Testament at this distance, but it was futile; while most Soulbound could draw power from their Vessels, his ship had no power to give. He could only control it, which was no help from so far away.
So he moved his Intent down, through the chains, to the place where the Lyathatan rested on the harbor floor. As clearly as he could, Calder called for aid.
The Elder gave no sign that it had heard Calder’s call. It sat still, hunger and ambition and wariness and calculation all swirling in its ancient mind. As Calder and his crew were dragged away, it simply watched.
And waited.
CHAPTER TWELVE
An ordinary man could never perform the function of the Emperor, for his is not simply a ‘job.’ His importance lies in his existence, invaluable and eternal.
Calder lounged in a copper bathtub filled to bursting with noxious green sludge. Pain slid away from his wounds and muscles loosened as the alchemical substance healed damage he didn’t even know he’d taken. Every breath burned the inside of his nose and made his eyes water, but the alchemists had insisted he breathe it in; even the fumes of this concoction played a vital role in his recovery.
He might have enjoyed it, if he wasn’t using all of his attention to pretend that Jarelys Teach wasn’t standing right next to him.
“We have been given some time. The Head of the Blackwatch reports that the damage to the sky shouldn’t be visible for another two or three days, which gives us at least two days to craft an official response. We would like to have you use the Optasia immediately, but it’s being inspected for damage by as many trustworthy experts as we could scrape up.”