The Glauerdoom Moor Read online

  Sai sat at the base of the largest tree and leaned back, trying to get comfortable. “Why did I agree to do this?” she asked herself. “Oh yes, I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  “Sai,” Hatch interrupted her thoughts as she cast wary glances about the gloomy hill, “how about if you come clean about why you are doing this?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, sounding as incredulous and innocent as possible. “I want to be cleared of my crimes and have a clean record in the kingdom.”

  “You know what I mean. You were going to run off at Wildflower’s. You only stuck around because of the witches’ attack, but you’re still here now. That’s what I want to know. Why?”

  Sai frowned at that. She didn’t usually have to answer to anyone. “Maybe I just want to make a difference.”

  Von Wilding scrutinized her as he dropped an armful of firewood. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with looting Von Drakk mansion, would it?”

  “Why? Does he have anything worth stealing?”

  “Only broken dreams,” Von Wilding lamented.

  Hatch shook his head, saying, “I want to believe people can change, but sometimes it’s hard. I just want to know where you stand. Are you really with us?”

  Von Wilding grunted at that.

  Sai snorted in argument toward Von Wilding.

  “I do what I wanna do,” she said with a bit of venom.

  Hatch nodded, then changed the subject. “You take the first watch? Wake me when the moon is near the Dragon Star.”

  “All right,” she answered reluctantly.

  Once the others were asleep, Sai tossed the occasional twig on the fire to keep it alive. Orange coals gave dim light but comforting warmth to her toes. They had lined their wet boots around the fire to dry them. The desire to run away from the entire princess-rescuing business still teased at her brain, but the foreign sounds of the swamp at night made a much stronger argument to stay put.

  She nestled against the tree and found that she was as comfortable as she had ever been since this journey began. That is, except for a rock that was poking her in the back, so she rolled over slightly to readjust her sleeping position. It would be time to have Hatch take over soon enough, and then she could relax and sleep.

  Unfortunately, the spot she found had two rocks poking her like bony fingers on either side of her spine. She sat up against the tree and felt her hair cling to something. Reaching around, her hand caught hold of sticky webbing.

  “Yuck!” she said, wiping away at the gossamer shroud. She adjusted herself again and tried to get comfortable.

  The fire had died down to only soft orange coals peeking out beneath black clumps. Sai thought she heard something in the tree. Glancing up, a hairy thing moved gracefully amongst the leaves. It scrambled over a limb and vanished. At least it wasn’t too big. Probably a squirrel.

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then the thing plopped down on her bedroll from the limb above, soft and clumsy, like a kitten. She could faintly see grey hair in the moonlight. It stalked up the blanket toward her.

  Sai realized in horror this was no kitten. It had too many legs. It was the biggest spider she had ever seen.

  “Spider!” she screamed.

  The huge arachnid’s myriad eyes caught the moonlight in hungry anticipation as it shambled up Sai’s blanket. Fangs dripped venom while the spindly legs pinched through the covers.

  She kicked beneath her blankets, sending the thing flying through the air, where it fell into the red and grey coals. With a wretched twisting it caught fire and burned with a horrible stink.

  Sai shook in disgust and loathing. Hatch and Von Wilding were up in an instant with blades drawn.

  “Where is it?”

  “What happened?” they shouted in unison, glancing about for a foe.

  “There, in the fire.” She pointed. The cringing form of the spider, large as her boot, smoked with its legs curling skyward.

  “Not even a very big one,” said Hatch, shaking his head as he sheathed his sword.

  “What? It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen,” Sai snapped.

  “You’re a city girl,” retorted Hatch with a grin.

  “You’ll see bigger tonight,” warned Von Wilding, directing their gazes to the top of the hill.

  Something moved amongst the trees and underbrush. At first Sai thought it was one of the stones resting half-sunken into the hillside, until she realized the tombstone-sized hunk of grey had legs big as a man’s and was rapidly waddling toward them.

  “Goddess preserve us,” muttered Sai as she drew her twin blades. Her eyes never left the glittering dark orbs of the giant spider.

  “We need fire,” shouted Von Wilding.

  Hatch said, “Sai. I’ll attack its front. You port behind it and we’ll take this thing down.”

  She didn’t answer; she couldn’t look away from the spider’s eyes.

  A sudden weight landed on her shoulder. She wheeled, blades slashing.

  Hatch leapt away, a blade almost slicing his arm. “It’s me. We have to focus. Did you hear me?”

  “I’m here!” Sai responded, glancing back to the spider.

  Hatch held his longsword ready, while Von Wilding kindled a torch from the coals.

  Sai found herself stepping back and away from the looming monster. Nothing had ever driven such terror as this into her before. Those eyes—what is it about those glossy black eyes?

  The spider crept forward, its legs scraping over stone and brush. About yard away from Hatch, its mandibles opened, and a wretched cry echoed from its cavernous maw.

  Hatch sent his blade crashing down, but it was battered away by the massive spider’s forelegs. Von Wilding flashed his small torch toward the multi-eyed face, but he too was cast aside. The monster stepped toward Sai and she blinked away.

  The spider rocked to-and-fro looking for her. She reappeared behind to plunge her daggers down into its oily black abdomen. The blades only scratched its thick carapace, and instead of turning to face its attacker, the spider shot silk out and lassoed Sai in a tangle of sticky webbing.

  She tried to port away but was still bound by the silk clinging to her body like a second skin. The next spot she ported to, she unwillingly fell against the ground. She couldn’t roll or stand.

  A tiny spider the size of her thumb crawled up to her face as if it were a conqueror and waggled its forelegs.

  Sai spit and ported a short distance away, still on her stomach and still on the ground and still thoroughly unable to free herself. She could hear the others shouting and the ominous scraping of the spider’s step.

  Hatch shouted, “Give me a moment!”

  Von Wilding snarled an unintelligible reply, sounding more beast than man, but renewed his own attack.

  Fumbling through his gear, Hatch produced a crossbow and bolt. Loading and cranking the mechanism, he then placed a perfect shot right between the spider’s eight eyes.

  The monster stiffened in stricken horror. Forelegs clasped the bolt biting into its brain and all its attention flew away from its present foes.

  Both men launched an attack with their swords, hacking at the joints in the spider’s upraised legs until three out of four nearest to them had been severed. Hairy half-limbs twitched in grass, unaware they were unattached.

  Hatch shouted and plunged his blade into the monster’s open jaws and drew the blade back out, now black and wet with the spider’s gore.

  Von Wilding continued his assault too, and the flaming branch in his left hand lit the feathered shaft of the bolt aflame. Now the spider had a continual burning in its line of vision, rendering it panicked and blind.

  “Help me!” called Sai.

  The monster tried to scuttle back and away but struggled on only five legs.

  “Help me! I can’t move.”

  “Where are you?” asked Hatch.

  “Over here, in the cattails.”


  “Don’t move! Be silent!” said Hatch.

  “Why?” she asked.

  The answer came lumbering over the top of her as the spider tried to retreat. She fought the urge to port away from under the hairy abdomen, not wanting to land in water and drown. She closed her eyes and prayed to the Goddess that the spider didn’t sense her and take a bite.

  Sai held her breath.

  A clawed foot pressed down on her shoulder and hesitated before moving.

  Something grabbed her shoulder and pulled her up. Sai opened her eyes to look Hatch in the face.

  “This is sticky,” he said, trying to release his hand from her webbed shoulder.

  “Get me out of this.”

  Hatch ran his dagger down her side as gently as he could, cutting away the powerful silk. “Don’t struggle, I don’t want to cut you, but I’m sure I’m cutting some of your leathers.”

  “Just free me.”

  A splash made her jerk and watch as Von Wilding continued his flame-prodding of the giant spider into the swamp. It was clear the monster didn’t care for the water, but it was wounded, blind, and fearful of the fire. It wallowed in the murk a few moments and went still.

  “I hate spiders,” growled Sai.

  “Everyone does.”

  She gave a slight smile of remembrance. “No, there was a boy named Mathias in my hometown who loved them. He kept them as pets.”

  “I’ll bet he never had one like that,” said Hatch.

  Sai grinned. “No, he didn’t, but I bet he would have liked to.”

  Hatch grunted. “Well, you get some sleep. I’m sure it’s my turn for watch by now.”

  “No, it’s all right. I can watch a little longer.”

  “You sure?”

  Sai nodded as she tossed a few more twigs on the fire. “I couldn’t possibly fall asleep just yet. Dead spiders stink.”

  Chapter 8: The Witch Wealds

  They traipsed through the Moor as fast as their sloshing wet boots would allow, for the wet earth seemed to forever be sucking and grasping at their feet to try and hold them in place a little longer. Sai wondered if it was her imagination or if the Moor was truly that malevolent and desired to keep them prisoner forever. Thankfully, the next day they reached relatively firm ground and followed a trail that ran alongside the bank of a swamp while trees made a gloomy roof overhead.

  “At least my feet may dry a bit,” remarked Sai to the others, breaking the silence of what had seemed hours.

  Von Wilding pointed ahead, saying, “We’ll be crossing to the other side soon enough and your boots will get wet again. I try to dry them out every time we stop to keep off the swamp rot.”

  “Off your boots?”

  Von Wilding chuckled to himself. “No. My feet. Having them be this wet all the time will cripple a man, or Riftling, for that matter.”

  She snorted at that, but the next time they stopped, she too took off her boots and socks and tried to dry her feet thoroughly.

  “Time to get moving again,” said Hatch.

  “We just barely stopped for a rest,” complained Sai.

  “We need to hurry. We only have a few hours of daylight left and need to find a good camp, not to mention travel as far as we can—time is of the essence, and the Moor is doing its best to slow us down.”

  “You talk like it’s a person.”

  “Not a person,” said Von Wilding, “but it is like a living thing, aware, hungry, and like many other living things—evil. It would harm us whenever it can and slow our progress. We need to hurry for the princess’s sake”

  “What kind of princess goes and gets captured?”

  “A brave one,” Von Wilding said.

  Sai scowled, but got to her feet and followed the others along the misty path. She was of the opinion that any princess who was silly enough to get captured wasn’t likely to be a very great warrior. And prophecy? Who needs it? Just another way to control people as far as I’m concerned.

  She was grateful that they stayed on dry land for the next hour, but the fog and trees gathered closer, making it near impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction.

  “Wait,” said Von Wilding, holding his arm up as a gesture of silence.

  “What is it?” asked Hatch in a whisper.

  “I don’t recognize this wood,” he said softly.

  “How can you tell?” asked Sai.

  “Look, ahead in those ash trees, a campfire and thatch dwellings.”

  “A town?”

  “Maybe, but I think it might be worse.”

  Sai chuckled. “Worse than a town? A hovel of huts?”

  “We may have wandered into the middle of a witch weald.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A witch’s wood, their abode. We might even be surrounded by them already. We should backtrack and get away from here swiftly as we can.”

  Hatch grabbed Von Wilding’s shoulder. “No, we can’t waste time going back. We should attack. It would be a surprise. Sai?”

  “Bad idea,” Von Wilding said.

  “You’re the tiebreaker, Sai,” Hatch said.

  She looked at each of them and could see the reasoning behind their arguments. She didn’t want to walk anymore. Her feet were sore and tired. But she couldn’t help but think of the witches that had attacked them at Wildflower’s. Their lightning bolts and other strange magics were formidable and dangerous. Could they even hope to prevail in an attack on the witches’ home territory? How many might there be in those few huts up ahead?

  “Either choice seems risky,” she stalled, still mulling it over in her mind. “But if they knew we were here and were going to attack, wouldn’t they have done it already?”

  Hatch nodded as a grin split his face. She decided that he was handsome when he wasn’t telling her what to do all the time.

  “I think we should attack—take the fight to them for a change.”

  “The longer we try to spy on them,” said Von Wilding, “the sooner they will know we are here and we will be caught in a trap.”

  “Then let’s hurry,” argued Hatch.

  Von Wilding bit down viciously on a piece of jerky and chewed it like he was still arguing with Hatch.

  Hatch smirked. “We stay close but low and try to see how many there are. We take out the most powerful ones with our bows first. Sai, you port in close and tie them up if you can, but if not, be vicious.”

  She nodded.

  They crawled through the underbrush on their bellies, careful to not make the reeds bob too much at their passing.

  The witch weald huts were formed in a semicircle about a central courtyard of swept dirt while a smoldering fire was situated in the middle, a great black cauldron hung on wrought iron posts over the blaze.

  At least three witches were chattering amongst themselves near the fire. A tiny one was waddling about gathering firewood, while an especially crooked-looking old crone shouted at her to hurry.

  “I’ve never seen one so small before,” whispered Von Wilding.

  “It is odd, maybe a dwarf witch,” agreed Hatch.

  “Anything is possible,” said Von Wilding.

  “What do we do?” asked Sai.

  Hatch scanned the weald again and pointed at the three witches sitting together. “We’ll distract them with a fire—we’ll burn down one of the huts. Then divide and conquer.”

  “What if more witches see the smoke?”

  “In this fog? Not a chance.”

  Von Wilding argued, “Attacking them like this is taking a big chance. I hope you are right.”

  “Scared?” taunted Sai.

  “I’d be a fool not to be cautious.”

  “So I’m a fool?”

  “You said it, not me,” Von Wilding whispered back and shot her a toothy grin.

  “Quiet, you two.”

  Hatch looked to Sai, who said, “I’m sick of being on the receiving end here. Let’s do it.�
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  “All right, we’ll get those three last. Let’s take care of the old crone and the little one first. How should we start that fire?”

  “I’ll do it,” said Sai. “I’ll port behind those trees until I’m to the hut. Then I’ll look inside, grab the old one, and tie her up.”

  The others nodded and then Sai was gone, moving in a blur as she ported in behind the huts.

  She was behind the closest hut. Hugging its edge, she crept around until she was inside. There were dirty bedrolls piled on the floor, a table shoved into a corner, and an odd collection of bones heaped upon it. Crowding the bones were jars of curious liquids in all colors imaginable, and other jars with obvious disgusting items like eyes and organs. Sai didn’t want to think about any of the body parts belonging to a Riftling, let alone a lousy human, and hoped it was all “eye of newt” and the like.

  There were several brooms leaning along the wall and Sai determined that they would be perfect kindling to set the hut aflame. Sai lay two brooms together, took out her steel and flint, and produced sparks like tiny stars.

  Someone opened the tent flap and maroon twilight splashed inside across Sai’s guilty hands.

  The figure was short. It wasn’t a dwarf; it was a little girl. Her face was dirty with soot, save where tears had run the darkness down and away. She was wide-eyed with shock. Sai guessed she must be one of the children taken from nearby villages, kidnapped and forced to become slaves for the witches. Perhaps they eventually became witches too, but no, not so young. Sai’s mind reeled at the implications in a whirlwind encompassing a fraction of a second.

  “I’m here to help,” Sai said, almost as surprised as the girl.

  The girl was frozen, clutching her broom.

  “I’m just making a distraction.”

  The girl’s lip trembled in fear.

  Sai reached toward her. “I’m a friend.”

  The girl’s piercing wail could have been a banshee’s. “Heretics!” she screeched.

  Sai grabbed her and clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The alarm had been heard by everyone.