The victims fell to the floor, but their weapons did not clatter beside them. The tendrils of webbing had already wound themselves around the weapons and snatched them aloft. Now the same tendrils dropped to the chamber floor and began reeling in the dead and dying in an obscene parody of fishermen with their catch.
Pirvan kept his eyes firmly fixed on the horror, to not show weakness and to learn more of what they faced, if any untutored eye like his could see anything useful. To the side, Pirvan glimpsed Lujimar, standing as solid and as impassive as a boulder on a mountainside.
He wanted to shout at the minotaur to do something. He also wanted to shout at the murmuring humans behind him to show some pride before the minotaurs. The "Destined Race's" warriors were probably as uneasy about this deathtrap as their human comrades, but were certainly hiding it better.
It was then that Sir Niebar stepped forward, out of the ranks of the humans. He was wrapped in his cloak, all but his sword arm, and moved like a man just risen from a bed of near-mortal sickness. Behind him stepped Lady Revella-who had to be ten years older than the knight, but now walked as if she were twenty years younger-carrying only her staff.
A look passed between knight and Black Robe, of a kind that Pirvan knew he would never be able to describe. Nor did he wish to. Knights of the Rose were not supposed to share secrets with Black Robes, and there were those in the Keeps who would make a scandal if they suspected such.
Sir Niebar halted until the webbing had swallowed the last of the bodies. It now jerked and twisted, like blankets over restless sleepers, and Pirvan had the stomach-turning thought that it was digesting the bodies. Perhaps the spiders were only the servants-the hounds coursing prey for their master, the living web.
Niebar took the last three steps, to within reach of the nearest spider. For the first time, Lujimar seemed to notice what was happening. He raised one hand in an urgent gesture.
Before the minotaur could finish the gesture, Sir Niebar raised his sword. He raised it high overhead, held level, within easy reach of the nearest spider or the web. The spider did not take the bait. The web did. Tendrils as thick as tent ropes poured down and wrapped themselves around the web-and around Sir Niebar's sword arm. Pirvan saw his face twist in pain; there must have been something like acid on the tendrils.
Then the web lifted the knight clean off the floor. As it did, he came within arm's length of the spider. His free hand darted under his cloak and came out with a glowball. With an arrow-swift gesture, he thrust the glowball into the spider's gaping maw.
Then the web jerked the knight upward again, so violently that Pirvan thought-and hoped-that the motion must have snapped his neck. His close-cropped white hair vanished into the web; Sir Hawkbrother cried out in rage and despair. Close at hand, Pirvan heard Haimya fighting not to do the same-and Lady Revella raised her staff.
She said nothing, made no other movements, and indeed stood as if turned to stone. But behind the Abyss-fire in the spider's eyes, something glowed that had not been there before. It was a warmer color-almost the color of one of the glowballs, Pirvan realized, in the last moment before fire erupted from the spider's mouth and joints.
For a long moment, the spider seemed to be a wheel of fire: orange, crimson, wine-hued, and even a virulent green. Then the fire touched the web-and the spider vanished in a whirlpool of flame as the web burned.
Half-dazzled, Pirvan saw Sir Niebar's partly-consumed body fall to the floor. He was not too dazzled to see Hawkbrother and Eskaia dash forward to recover it. Nor did he fail to see Haimya drop her sword and run to join the younger couple.
Pirvan caught up with them by the time the web was fully ablaze. He never afterward recalled any of the details, nor at precisely what moment he heard Eskaia scream, nearly stumbled over a half-melted sword that seared through his boot, and caught a lungful of smoke of such gagging vileness that his breath wanted to leave his body for fear of another such.
Somehow, they found themselves standing behind Lady Revella. She now stood with her staff apparently planted in the solid rock, her arms crossed on her chest, and an implacable look on her face.
Her features softened as the four companions laid what was left of Sir Niebar down. Pirvan took only long enough to see that Eskaia was only burned about the arm and neck, before he faced the Black Robe.
"Did you send Niebar to his death?" he shouted.
"Take your hand off your sword when you ask one of my age a question," Revella shot back.
Pirvan did not move. Haimya came to stand beside him and practically spat, "Was he Rubina's father?"
The Black Robe's answer to that was an almost girlish shriek of laughter. "Oh, I wish he had been. But he was not." She sobered. "Only a man who saw that his time was near, and wanted to make his death worthwhile.
"The web could have stood off fire from outside for longer than we could stay here. But fire inside its defenses, inside a spider-neither Lujimar nor Wilthur could halt it."
"Lujimar?" Pirvan exclaimed. That had sounded remarkably like an accusation of treachery against the minotaur. But Lady Revella had not heard, nor would she listen.
Instead, she turned toward Lujimar and cupped her hands to shout, "Magic brother! Crack the roof, for the love of all gods and your own true death, before we stifle!
The ambush of the first enemy band reminded Gerik of a tale he had heard about the Silvanesti. Once upon a time, an ambitious human king had claimed part of their forest. He could send ten thousand fighting men to enforce that claim, he blustered.
"They will be shot down like deer," the Silvanesti emissary replied.
"What if I send twenty thousand?"
"Then each of our archers will shoot twice," was the elven reply, or so the story ran.
Gerik commanded twenty archers against somewhere around eighty foes. That meant shooting four times-or would have, if his archers had been the Silvanesti of legend.
They were not. But four arrows apiece still did enough work to earn victory in moments. By the time Gerik's people had shot that many, they had killed, wounded, or dismounted a good half of their opponents. At least ten had died before they could have fully realized they were in danger.
The quivers were half-empty when a sell-sword Gerik recognized as one of the horse-holders ran out of the trees. He had an arrow through his forearm, and ran first to Bertsa Wylum, who pointed at Gerik.
The man came up to Gerik and said bluntly, "We're for it, young lord. They had a second band behind us. The kender sprang that trap, but they've ridden off."
"Are the horses safe?" Gerik asked, and felt a fool the next moment, knowing he should have asked about the kender.
"Aye. The other fellows were too hot to be off on the trail of our folk, when they knew they'd been heard."
Gerik slammed his fist against a tree. From behind her own tree, Wylum shot another arrow, then called, "Hoy, good sir. Don't break your sword hand. We're not even finished with these fellows yet, let alone chasing down the others."
Finishing the House Dirivan band at Forge Vale proved swifter than Gerik had dared hope. A few more arrows were all it took to start the men holding up swords hilt-first or unstringing their bows. Bertsa Wylum led five of her band down, to collect weapons, take oaths of neutrality from those sell-swords willing to swear, and bind those of the House Dirivan fighters who would not.
Wylum returned, wearing a grim smile and carrying an armful of captured weapons. "I left five daggers and a sword for the lot of them. If any of them change their minds, it won't do them much good until they rearm."