‘ She screamed along with them, barely able to make out the familiar whoosh of missiles darting solidly into tough, white carapaces. The loss of several voices did little for the cacophonous chorus pressing against the sides of her skull, though with each silenced scream she could better hear the swift retreat of skittering legs through the grass.
Dazed and in pain, splashed by the spiders’ warm fluids, she struggled to free herself of the tight webbing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
11 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) The Lash, Akanul
Uthalion winced as he ducked low and pulled his sword free of a twitching spider. An arrow grazed his ear, the fletching sending a shock down his spine as it passed. He cursed at the near miss, flinching and holding up the edge of his cloak as a makeshift shield. Though it couldn’t have stopped the speeding missiles, it gave him a little peace of mind. The white spiders scampered awkwardly away as fast as they could. The lightning strikes intensified, reaching down from the clouds to make contact with the patches of glowing blue flowers and vibrating the air with thunderous crashes. Distant trees fell apart into more of the beasts, also fleeing the high-pitched whine that reminded him of an animal trainer’s whistle.
Grateful for the reprieve from what would have been certain defeat, Uthalion kept up his guard, fearful of having traded one dangerous threat for another. Vaasurri crouched nearby in the cover of a dead spider’s abdomen; Uthalion could just see the killoren’s drawn bone-blade held out straight and low over the short grass.
“Can you see them?” Uthalion called out, adjusting his cloak so that he could see the killoren.
Vaasurri shook his head slowly, not bothering to look up as he inspected an arrow from the spider’s body. The head was finely worked bone, and the shaft seemed cut from the bone-trees of the Lash. The fletching shined and sparkled as the killoren turned the arrow over, the feathers bearing a silver, metallic sheen like the birds they had seen earlier.
“Local,” Vaasurri said at length, shrugging. He turned to peer over the spider’s body as the flight of arrows ceased and the eerie whistling faded. Squinting over his arm, Uthalion saw a line of figures in mouse-brown robes with tall longbows at their sides. Deep cowls hid their features, and there seemed to be an awkwardness in their stance, something less than comfortable yet more than inhuman. Cautiously, Vaasurri stood, gesturing behind him as he prowled closer to the bound figure of Ghaelya. “Perhaps they can do something for Brindani,” the killoren said.
Uthalion glanced at the prone half-elf, taking in the many wounds scattered across Brindani’s body, a few of which were certainly bites and undoubtedly poisoned. He stirred and moaned softly, the sound little more than a whisper in the increasingly howling winds. Uthalion shivered in the icy chill and limped over to the half-elf, careful to mind his own wounds until they could manage some kind of shelter.
Brindani did not resist or complain as he was hoisted up to hang on Uthalion’s shoulder. He was just strong enough to push against the ground and maintain some footing. They turned together as Vaasurri freed Ghaelya, and Uthalion stared down at the genasi curiously.
“The spiders wanted her, sang her name,” he muttered quietly. His racing mind was caught between wondering why she was so important and struggling to not care, to keep moving closer to the ruins, to see to his own family. “This is madness.”
“Not… madness…” Brindani said, hissing the last syllable weakly, his reason having returned somewhat despite his many wounds or, Uthalion thought, perhaps because of them “Not madness… a dream… It’s all a dream, Uth… Just an illusion…”
Uthalion drew his attention away from the babbling half-elf as one of the robed figures approached, its longbow used as a white-wooded walking staff in a pale, long-fingered hand.
“Just keep quiet and save your breath,” he whispered in Brindani’s ear as they limped closer to Vaasurri and Ghaelya. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Exactly” Brindani replied and laughed, a wheezing coughing affair that wracked his body and made movement difficult. The sound sent uncomfortable chills down Uthalion’s spine. An unusual, ominous timbre affected the half-elfs voice as he calmed and added, “Not making sense.”
Ghaelya sat cross-legged on the ground, holding her bare head in a white-knuckled grip before inhaling sharply and opening her eyes. Vaasurri pulled away the last of the webbing from her shoulders and gestured at Brindani.
“Will he live?” he asked.
“I suppose,” Uthalion answered uncertainly and nodded at the robed newcomer just strides away. He eyed the powerful bow at the figure’s side and the low-slung quiver just visible beneath the whipping cloak. “But for how long?”
“We can arrest the speed of the poison,” the figure said in a mnst. lv masculine voice, thonffh it could have belonged to either gender. He raised his thin hand, palm up in a seemingly peaceful gesture. “If you will accept our aid.”
Uthalion looked from the newcomer to Vaasurri and to Ghaelya, his sword firmly in his grip as he narrowed his eyes and considered their options. Some innate sense of wrong-ness emanated from the robed figure despite its assistance with the spiders and offer of hospitality. Before he could put together a diplomatically cautious reply, Ghaelya rolled to her feet and retrieved her sword.
“We will,” she answered, sheathing her weapon and glancing at Uthalion. “We don’t have much choice.”
Oh, we do have a choice, Uthalion thought. And we may come to regret this one.
“We must be swift,” the figure said, nodding. He turned abruptly south, offering no further assistance as he swiftly strode to join his companions, calling over his shoulder, “The Tide commences soon.”
“Tide?” Vaasurri asked.
The figure paused, cocking his head curiously for a moment before turning and pointing north hesitantly, as if he gestured to the simple setting of the sun or a heavy rain cloud.
Uthalion glanced back as they limped slowly along to the line of figures. He squinted as the lightning’s brightness increased, as bolts ripped across the sky and ground in quick succession. No rain fell, nor could he smell any on the air, but the unending peals of thunder sounded like nothing less than the crashing surf of a turbulent sea against a rocky shore.
The strange figures disappeared, one by one, into a circular hole in the ground protected by a lid of what appeared to be earth and grass. Upon closer inspection, after their unlikely saviors had all descended, Uthalion noted the door was lined with and held together by long strands of webbing. Vaasurri lifted the edge curiously, studying its construction and peering down into the dark with a troubled expression.
“What do you think?” Uthalion asked.
Vaasurri tilted his head, listening as he turned to face the north. His green eyes were lit by a blue-white light as a sound like ripping paper echoed in the distance.
“I think we don’t have a choice,” he said breathlessly, moving aside as Ghaelya entered the pit first.
Uthalion followed the killoren’s gaze, wincing as the ripping noise grew louder and looked upon a white sheet of wavering flame. Stretching from ground to cloud, west to east across the Lash, an endless wall of lightning lit the gray plains in blue-white fire. It burned his eyes as it rolled across the Lash, igniting azure sparks on the ground as the flowers accepted the monstrous spring storm.
“Mystra’s bloody bones…” he whispered, lowering Brindani down after Vaasurri. With one last look at the Lightning Tide, he closed the trapdoor over his head and crawled down into the dark and the unknown.