“Tzrg knows,” Rezrex said, looking the goblin in the eye.
Tzrg nodded and said, “Tzrg knows.”
He was launched backward into the cool cave air. His arms started flapping—he couldn’t stop them. His stomach jumped up into his chest. Tzrg fell and fell for what seemed like a full minute but wasn’t really more than a couple seconds. He hit the water hard—hard enough to smash the air from his lungs and leave him in the freezing cold pool, locked in mid-gasp lest he take in a lungful of water.
When he climbed out of the water, gurgling, desperate for air, Tzrg briefly wondered why he’d bothered to hold his breath. It might have been over.
4
“Y’know,” Lidda complained, “all this justice stuff is hurting my knees.”
Regdar suppressed a smile and glanced down at the little halfling. Jozan had seen fit to have Lidda crawl along the dry grass, following the blood trail, and Regdar couldn’t help but feel for her. She was certainly a thief, but there was something about her that Regdar found… charming? It wasn’t a word Regdar used overmuch.
“It goes into the woods, I think,” Lidda reported, sitting up on her knees and stretching her back.
Regdar followed her gaze forward to the edge of a deep pine forest that made its way up a particularly steep hill. They’d come easily three hours from Fairbye, and the sun was low over the high mountains in the west. The glaciers sparkled, and the mountains turned purple. Streaks of orange and pink colored the sky.
“Spiders would like the woods,” Jozan said. “It’s darker in there, and they could spin webs between the trees.”
Lidda stood, hugging her arms close to her body. “Yeah, well, mystery solved. Drinks are on me, boys. Last one back to Fairbye is a—”
“Hanged thief?” Jozan finished for her.
Regdar laughed, and Lidda shot him a stern, annoyed look.
“You want to go in there, following giant spiders, to save a sheep? We’ve been following a trail of its blood for, like, three miles. I don’t think the sheep’s gonna make it, guys.”
“We’re not going to save the sheep, Lidda,” Regdar said. “We’re going to kill the spiders.”
“Really?” she asked, looking into the edge of the woods rather than at Regdar. “You might want to start with that one.”
Regdar started to say, “What?” but didn’t have a chance to before Jozan shouted his name.
The big fighter drew the greatsword from his back with a shriek of steel on steel at the same time he saw the spider creep out from the underbrush at the edge of the woods. He knew that Jozan would have his mace out, and Lidda drew a bolt from her quiver and slid the crossbow from her back. It was impossible for Regdar to tell if the spider was looking at him, or at either of his friends, or at none of them. The thing had eight eyes of different sizes, all black circles that glistened in the sunset.
It came right at Jozan, who happened to be closer to it than either Regdar or Lidda. The priest stepped toward it, hefting his mace, his footsteps firm and confident. Regdar liked what he saw and smiled around gritted teeth.
There was a soft, rubbery sound from behind him—Lidda had fired her crossbow. The bolt shot wide of the spider and burrowed deep into the ground not ten inches from Jozan’s foot. The priest sidestepped, and the spider jumped.
Regdar hadn’t even seen the spider tense its eight, brown-and-beige striped legs, but the arachnid was in the air as fast as Lidda’s bolt. Regdar lunged at the thing almost as quickly, but he knew he wouldn’t get to it before it got to Jozan.
The priest let himself fall the rest of the way to the side, and the spider flashed past him. It hit the ground facing away from Jozan, and the priest rolled to his right, kicking out in front of him and to the side to make himself roll faster. The mace came down on the spider’s tear-shaped body, and there was a wet cracking sound and a burst of yellow ichor that obscured the medium brown X-shaped marking on the spider’s back.
Regdar drew himself up short and started to think about whether he should congratulate Jozan on the kill first or chastise Lidda for nearly nailing his friend’s foot to the ground. He had just about made a decision when another spider leaped out of the shadows at the edge of the forest and hit him hard on the side.
Regdar staggered back a few steps, and the spider scrambled up his body, its freakish sideways jaws, bristling with coarse fur, snapping at his face. Regdar thought the thing meant to bite his head off. The tiny, but sharp and strong claws at the tips of its segmented legs dug into the seams of his armor, gripping its way up him.
He couldn’t get his greatsword in at that angle, so he held it in his left hand and grabbed the huge spider—it was easily eighteen inches around—where its spherical head met its tear-shaped body.
Regdar pushed the thing away, and it came off with three distinct snapping sounds. Three of its claws had hooked so firmly into his armor that when he pulled it off him, the three legs stayed where they were, and the body came away, trailing yellow ooze. The spider started thrashing madly in Regdar’s grip, and the fighter wasn’t sure he could hold the thing. He squeezed it as hard as he could, but he couldn’t snap its neck.
The sound of Lidda’s crossbow hummed again, and Regdar was afraid she might be trying to help him. He wasn’t sure which he was more afraid of, the spider’s jaws or Lidda’s wildly flying crossbow bolts.
“Behind you, Lidda!” Jozan shouted, and all at once Regdar realized that there were more spiders.
It wasn’t easy, but he managed to get his greatsword in-between the still thrashing spider he held in his right hand and the side of his body. He punched the tip of the blade through the spider and let go with his right hand. The thing spasmed once, curled its five remaining legs in, and slid off the end of his blade, dead.
The ground all around Regdar was scattered with more of the fast-moving beige bodies. He kicked one, sending it into the air between Lidda and Jozan—directly into the path of one of Lidda’s steel bolts. The spider seemed to hang in the air for a second before changing direction an inch or so and falling dead to the ground. The crossbow bolt might have hit Jozan if Regdar hadn’t inadvertently lobbed a spider into the air between them.
Regdar stepped back to avoid one spider, and another bit him on the calf, through the hard leather of his boots. The fangs stung going in and held on tight, pinching him. He felt his own blood burst into his boot and soak his calf. With a curse, he hacked down hard and sliced the spider cleanly in two. A wave of hot yellow gore washed over his legs, and the spider’s bite released.
He managed to stay on his feet and turned to see Jozan strike at a spider on the ground, but the thing dodged away, moving perfectly sideways. Lidda was running backward, her knees popping up almost to the level of her chin as she danced away from the clattering mandibles of five spiders.
Regdar stomped down on another spider at his feet. His heavy heel came down right in the middle of the big X on the spider’s back. The carapace cracked, and the spider scuttled away, wounded but alive.
Jozan was fighting a bizarre duel with one spider, and Lidda screamed in frustration and fear. Regdar spun and lifted one foot to close with the five spiders that were harrying the halfling. He wasn’t able to finish that step before the dwindling early evening light was washed away by a spray of multicolored lightning.
Regdar put an arm up to block his eyes. Every color of the rainbow wrapped itself into a cone of dazzling brilliance that bathed the spiders in front of Lidda. The creatures scattered and tumbled along the ground, and Lidda fell hard on her nicely rounded behind. The short sword she’d been trying so hard to draw came out of its scabbard all at once and reflected the green, yellow, orange, purple, and white light.