Chapter 14: Spider Queen

For days the unstoppable force has stormed through these dying woods, unhindered and unheeding of its dangers.

Oh, they tried to stop it, they tried to eat it. But their blood drips and dries on its arms. Its whole body reeks of their fear pheromones.

It hasn't slept in a day, but how could it? When that glorious beacon came into being, it felt the light in its very soul. It ran and fought and followed and oh how that light grew, from a spark to a flame, now to an inferno. As it gets closer it feels it more intensely, like the feeling of going home.

The demons that beset it are too stupid to remember why they should fear, and continue to try and consume it, as if an ant could swallow the sun. But, like a diligent and patient teacher, it reminds them.

Whether it is a sense of pride or a cornered animal knowing it must fight or die, they come down upon it. The canopy shakes and writhes like a storm as they converge upon it.

It runs. There is no shame in that, for it takes what battles it can or those that it must, and it runs towards something more important than pride.

The beacon that burns in sight beyond sight has been still for nearly a day, it knows its source still lives but this is its chance to catch that light. It knows where it is, it knows that if what he seeks were dead then the burning would be gone. It doesn’t know who it is, but— it has a good idea. And as a cloud of smoke billows into the sky, it grows ever more certain.

Running ever on towards a guiding star, the hounds of hell nipping at its heels, it feels that light begin to grow distant again, at speed. Despite its failing flesh, it thunders across the ground, all those in its way failing to stop it— it can’t let its quarry get away. it Can’t.

it comes to an empty inn and a burning pyre, but it does not stop, it knows what it seeks has long left this place. But soon, the light in its mind is outshined by the light before it.

The world has begun to burn.

At first it is simply another obstacle, taking the burns and letting magic flow through its blood to heal it. But as the inferno grows, it must run around the flames. its thundering heart nearly breaks as it feels that light grow ever distant, and rage fills its steps at the fact that it must take the indirect path. If it must run the width of the world, so be it, it will. Nothing will keep it from what it seeks.

Foes fall before it, and it outruns fire itself, until it reaches stone. Glorious stone that holds its pursuit within. There are no entrances, and it cannot climb it. So, it simply breaks in. Stone by stone, brick by brick, until it is within.

And that thing, that blazing thing in its mind— whoever that thing may be— lies above.

It will not be stopped until it finds the source.

***

“So,” I say, “How do we kill a giant spider? I could try fire again!”

Mato's glare shows how little he appreciates my humor. But I wasn't quite joking.

“You must be outta your mind if you think we're fighting that.” He retorts.

“Hurtful. But there's no way in hell that we don't need to kill that thing to get out of here. And the forest is burning, there's nowhere else to go! We've got no other option.” I explain.

“The fire hasn't made it to the northern side of this castle. If we fight our way to that side we can leave through another door or rappel off the walls with some rope. We can manage to keep ahead of the fire.” He counters.

“We stay out there for a while, get some levels or somethin’, and come back later. And if we do that, the whole forest leading up to this place full of webs n’ spiders will be gone.” Mato outlines, in a very well reasoned argument.

I think for a second. “Okay, I hear you. But, levels and gear aren't guaranteed and we are in the best possible conditions to fight this thing in.”

“Tired, wounded, limited bolts and mana, and with no retreat cuz we're surrounded by fire seem like the optimal conditions to you?!” Mato argues.

“Well when you put it like that… yes.” I crack up laughing, and wipe a janky tear from a busted tear duct beneath my patch.

“I may have something wrong with me, but hear me out.”

Mato folds his arms, disapprovingly, and looks like he's already expecting to shoot down whatever I say next. I should probably soft pitch this suggestion, but fuck it, I don't know how to dial things back.

“I can build a bomb—”

“No.”

“Just lemme finish!”

Mato sighs.

“I can build a bomb… not set it off but have like… a really long rope as a detonator. Then, we go out into an area of the forest that's about to burn and dig a foxhole or a bunker or something, then as the fire comes, I set off the bomb, kick the wasps nest so to speak, they all come pouring out and we either pick em off at range or they burn horrifically in the forest fire surrounding us.”

“First off,” Mato starts, “we don't have enough rope. Secondly, you'd have to get close to the spider queen to set that bomb if it's gonna be able to hurt it.”

“Not if I make it impact based and set it to fall off the battlements onto her.”

“Alright, granted. But guaranteeing that there won’t be a light breeze, or won’t be nudged by a spider, or you won’t just accidentally pull the rope taught would take far too long and make it much more likely for us to get bit. A bomb just ain't worth the risk of collateral damage. You might know how to build a bomb but I doubt you know how to build one safely.

Thirdly n’ most importantly, foxholes and dug bunkers ain't safe from fire. N’fact, fire's one of the best ways to kill people in underground bunkers. Fire above ground sucks the oxygen right outta them tunnels and the air that's left is boiling. Trust me on this one, son. And b’sides…”

His expression shifts to the first shit-eating grin I've seen on him.

“With what shovel?”

I stare at him with an aggressive frown– that I hope doesn't come across as pouting– until I have to turn away to hide a stifled smile as I mutter to myself.

“Sonuvabitch has got jokes now.”

“Alright,” I adjust, “no bunker. We'll put a pin in the bomb for now. But this is a castle, it's meant to withstand siege, defendable as hell. I'm betting that ladder hatch leads up to a catapult or ballista or some shit. Don't think it'd be able to be aimed at their own castle but I can finagle it. Also doubt we'd be able to reload it in time before we get swarmed, but it's one hell of an opening attack. Then, I hop back down here, where you've got like a hundred crossbow bolts, and we fire spells and bolts through the murderholes. Ya know, the things specially designed to safely kill attackers through?”

Mato thinks on this for a second, as he does he pulls down quivers of arrows and bolts and gets an estimate, then takes a step back and kneels with a grunt and checks the aim and positioning of the small slits on the stone floor and bottom of the wall.

Eventually, he speaks back up.

“Ya think these doors'll hold out?” He says gesturing to the doors on either side of the room, one leading to the spiral staircase within the castle and the other that should theoretically lead to the battlements.

“That hatch is prob’ly a weak spot.” He reasons.

“Doubt whoever made this place expected to be besieged by spiders so didn't reinforce above ‘em.”

“The doors have been getting smacked on by spiders this whole…” I trail off as we both realize the previously rattling barred door to the staircase has gone eerily silent.

“Hey where'd the spiders go?”

Mato shrugs. “Musta gave up.”

“Nuh-uh, that's horror movie logic. That's how you get killed. I'm gonna assume the worst that there's a secret door in here they're about to come through or that they're digging through the floor.”

I lay down on the tower’s floor and lay my ear against the stone.

I hear nothing through the thick stone besides the roaring fire outside the castle. The cool floor reminds me just how hot it's been getting.

“Okay, shelving that concern for now– the doors are strong, made to withstand axes. And we've established their weakness to hatches at the inn. The only way they'd break through that is with thousands of pounds of weight, and I doubt the spiders are inclined to make a cheerleader pyramid.” I say.

“Spider queen might be able to break through.” Mato counters.

“Yeah well, I don't think she actually weighs all that much. If she did, square cube law would have her unable to function. What does something that size even eat?”

“You're really tryna apply modern physics and biology to a giant magical spider?” Mato questions, with a sarcastic quirk of an eyebrow.

“Ey, we don't know that it's magic. Just giant.” I say, eliciting a frustrated sigh from Mato.

“Okay, let's leave an escape route into the castle proper in case the queen can break the doors down. Help me clear the suspiciously silent stairwell.”

I remove the bar and open the door a crack, letting Mato aim his crossbow through the opening. He gives a pushing gesture with his hand signaling me to open it further, and slowly I open the door fully. Mato steps into the stairwell, and I follow. Bright orange firelight flickers from small holes and windows in the walls as we slowly walk the empty stairwell to a landing below us. Mato gives a thumbs up, and we head back up to our tower.

Mato pinches the bridge of his nose. “Alright, seeing as we've already prolly burnt any lead on this fire and the spiders are tryna play peekaboo. We should, at the very least, see what's up that hatch.”

Giving a little “yuss” I start scrambling to the ladder, pulling my Pokin’ Stick from where it's tied to my satchel, and I slowly lift the hatch from afar. Nothing comes immediately pouring in, so I begin to climb.

“Fuck ye—!” My yell of excitement is strangled when I remember that I should try not to vibrate the webs.

“Fuck yeah! Catapult!” I shout-whisper instead.

Before me sits a glorious marvel of engineering– not nearly as glorious or marvelous as a trebuchet but far better for castle mounted defense.

Black-lacquered wood, metal machinery, and thick cord of a material I can't identify. All next to a tall pile of rounded stone ammunition stacked within a square basin.

“It brings a tear to the eye.”

I pull myself up fully and begin to clean the webbing off of it, and Mato follows soon behind me. I watch him as he keeps low, assessing for threats, then watch the color drain from his face and his stance stiffen when he looks over the side of the parapet.

Getting low, I creep over next to him, and tilt the left side of my head over the side to look down into the courtyard as well.

What I see slowly builds fear within me, bottled and ignored like resentment in a long relationship, growing more irritable and cruel until you eventually snap. My hands feel clammy.

I look down and see a spider, shaped like an orb-weaver. It takes up a large portion of my vision, but it looks like any normal sized spider, as if you were viewing a picture of one on your phone and leaning in real close to see some small detail.

That is, until your perspective shifts.

You notice the small stones around it, like corn kernels, and remember they are massive cobblestones making up the walls of a castle. You see its tiny infant children, skittering about on its thick network of a web, pouring into a single crack in the stone; and you remember when those “tiny” things fell upon you and how their bodies eclipsed your own.

It has the same unnerving twitch, the same small flashes of impossibly quick and subtle movement of any other spider, which you then compare to what you already know, and know those millimeter micro-movements that take less than a fraction of a second: they cover yards. And if you take the time to compare its fangs to the trunk of a tree in sight just beyond the walls, or its legs to the height of the towers around it, you realize a horrible truth:

That is a big spider.

I tear my eye from the scene below me, and begin scooting, still sitting, back to the catapult. I gently tap Mato’s ankle and he jumps, then I point a thumb back towards the catapult.

In terrified silence, we adjust the catapult. I have to pull a pin here and there to get it to face the right direction, and I feel a strange force guiding my movements. Small adjustments to the left, little cranks. Mato and I share a look as we, in perfect sync, begin to aim this catapult.

Normally, you would have to dial in your aim with a few test shots, but looking at the black lacquered wood and feeling a strange vibrating hum within, I realize that this catapult is enchanted. Some sort of magic is guiding our movements to properly aim at our target.

If I get the chance, I’m definitely stealing this wood.

Now comes the time to load it, and Mato and I move to the pile and both lift a heavy stone and begin taking it to the cup of the catapult. As we set it within, my eye catches a small engraving in the stone: A symbol that looks like a ‘C’ with an ‘A’ atop it. The same symbol I saw in the [Flaming Whip] notes. My curiosity is piqued.

Sweaty, scared, and in too deep, Mato takes firm hold of my shoulder, then looks me in the eye and gives me a long, significant look that I don’t understand, before he climbs back down the ladder, leaving the hatch open behind him.

Taking a steadying breath, and smirking slightly, I pull two small bottles from my satchel, as well as a silver teacup. As quietly as possible, I hammer the cup until it's nearly closed. Then, I pour in a decent amount of ethanol, and hold a loosely stoppered vial of nitric acid at the ready, ready to shove it into the teacup and throw.

I take a step to the lever of the catapult, and feel the buzzing in my veins. I take one last look at the burning forest behind me and feel the hot air nearly scalding my face. I look out at the false horizon, now blazed in greys, pinks, and oranges, and take a small furtive second to appreciate the beauty of this horrible moment.

I pull the lever.

Burning air whooshes against my face and billows the loose bust of my dress as the catapult fires. I run to the edge of the tower and watch the stone impact against the spider’s comparatively small head with a bone-chilling crunch. A silent roar sounds as the massive legs begin to retract and right themselves from the spider queen’s balanced position, shifting the wind and shaking the stones as they do. Then, the catapult stone begins to glow, and then burn in mighty flame.

“Huh, fire. So that’s what that symbol means.”

Then, I shove a vial in a teacup, and drop my bomb.

The world shakes as I hop back down the hatch, shutting it as I go, then falling 8 feet to the tower floor as my grip is shaken from the ladder.

Mato fires and reloads as fast as his hands will let him, and I quickly roll to my side and get up crouching next to him, ready to fire off a firebolt through the murderholes.

“I thought I said no bomb!” Mato yells.

“The catapult stone was enchanted!” I lie through omission.

I watch through the slit as the world is blacked out by the underbelly of the massive spider queen, and then am proven right when she doesn’t break through any of the doors.

She breaks through the wall.

My 14th concussion still sits on the bench when the stone wall goes spraying against us, but my collarbone feels as if it chipped.

I shake off my daze and look up in time to see Mato firing off a bolt into the face of the spider queen, deflecting off the contour of her chitin shell. Her eyes are the size of each of our heads.

I see him use [Instantaneous Reload] all 2 times he can today to fire bolts into two of those 8 eyes, then see him back away towards me as I flail and shoot a [Firebolt] into a 3rd. He begins to pull me from the stone wreckage towards our escape route as the spider queen’s fangs drip redundant venom into puddles, and her fridge sized mandibles open to reveal a gaping oblivion of an insectile maw.

Her head quickly jerks in the not-so-micro micro-movement of a spider and I flinch, expecting the end. I am surprised when her head shifts back out of the hole, backing up until I can see the ironically spiderweb shaped cracks along the top of her head.

I watch, transfixed and confused, as above and to the side of the spider queen’s head, leaping from one of the battlements beside us, a blur of black and silver descends. Like a falling star, like an angel descending on glorious wings not with the grace of God but with the wrath of The Lord, like the hand of God…

***

Found you.

***

Like a Deus Ex Demarchina, Demarcus falls from the sky, and slams his weapon into the cracked head of the spider queen, caving in its chitin. He staggeringly steps hard on its head, jumps, and rolls painfully across the scattered stones of the tower floor before quickly coming to standing. He looks at me, hesitating for only a moment— that same moment where your house burns down and, in shock and surrounded by firefighters, you hear the ‘meow’ of your cat you thought was dead and are too scared of hope to believe it. But the moment passes, and he pulls me in tight, his massive, kinda sweaty body hugging me with every square inch of surface area he can. His breath hitches and rattles as he whispers;

“Hey little buddy. I— I thought I lost you.”

Now would be the perfect time to let go, to hold him and be held and cry. Even in front of Mato.

Unfortunately, the spider queen isn’t dead.