“Does that mean that servants of the Blood God are going after whoever has the second gauntlet right now?”
Friya shrugged. “If it is not hidden like this one was, then yes, they certainly will be. I hope it is hidden though, and protected by many concealment spells, like the ones I placed on this gauntlet when it was still hidden away.”
“And if it’s not? What if the servants of the Blood God get hold of the other gauntlet and destroy it?”
“Then you had better hope that if you do need to resurrect a dragon, enough of my spirit remains intact for you to control the dragon completely with just the one gauntlet. Otherwise, you may well have a very difficult time getting the great beast to obey.”
“Then I guess I better get on my knees and start praying.”
“To yourself?”
I smiled from the corner of my mouth. “Do you know any other god who could do it?”
Fryia chuckled, but she still sounded a little nervous.
“Let’s just hope those toads haven’t found the other gauntlet yet,” I said. “Get some sleep. We have a long way to travel tomorrow.”
“We will speak again tomorrow, Raiser of the Dead. Goodnight.”
She flashed me one of her beguiling smiles and went to bed. I sat and watched my skeletons digging a hole for quite some time, then took a walk on my own through the forest. I was half expecting to be attacked by another Blood Demon, so I kept my breastplate on, but no more twisted creatures came shambling out of the shadows. Instead, all was quiet but for the occasional hoot of an owl or howl of a distant wolf. And in the background, vast, jagged mountain peaks blacked out the clear, starry sky. That was where we’d be heading when the sun rose, up into the mountains, into Aith, the city of the Arachne. I had no idea what to expect from a race of spider-people, but whatever else happened, it was going to be interesting, that much I knew.
Chapter Seventeen
I found Friya again the next morning, when we were already on the road. She was the Wise Woman, after all, and her counsel and knowledge of these parts and the ways of magic were a few of her greatest assets.
“Are these spider-looking motherfuckers just going to open the gates of Aith for us, or are they likely to greet us with a rain of arrows or, uh, spiderwebs, or whatever sorts of things they use for weapons?” I asked her. Despite never having set foot inside Aith, she was the one who knew most about it.
“That will depend entirely on the mood of the Webmaven,” she answered.
“The Webmaven?”
“Ruler of the Arachne. Their queen, if you will.”
“So if this Webmaven is in a good mood, they open the gates and let us in, but if she’s in a bad mood…?”
“They’ll send out an army of giant spiders to kill us.”
“I thought they were the spiders.”
“They are, but they also breed giant spiders, the size of bears. Each Arachne is bound to one of these giant spiders, almost like a witch’s familiar. The more powerful Arachne bind themselves to multiple spiders, with some spiders being bigger and stronger and enhanced with magic. They are similar to your undead troops, really. While the Arachne bind their minds and souls to them, if a spider is injured or killed, it does no harm to the Arachne who is controlling that spider. As you can imagine, it makes for a very efficient army.”
I thought of how I didn’t hesitate for a second to send my undead troops into fights and situations in which I knew a bunch of them would get killed, but they would overwhelm the enemy anyway with the force of their numbers. The thought of being attacked by an army of bear-sized spiders doing this made me uneasy, to say the least.
“Well,” I muttered grimly, “let’s hope this Webmaven is in a good mood when we reach the gates of Aith then.”
As we went higher in elevation, the trees started to thin out, and the forest wasn’t quite so dense and dark anymore. We came to a point in the road where there was a shallow stream flowing across our path. I decided to call a rest at this point because the spires and towers of Aith were visible among the mountain peaks in the distance, and our arrival there was probably only hours away now.
Wishing for some time alone, I followed the course of the stream for a while, heading up into the woods. I soon found a calm pool and decided that this would be a good place to stop and think. I had only just gotten lost in my thoughts, when I heard a twig snap.
In an instant, I was on my feet in a fighting stance with Grave Oath in my hand, but when I spun around, instead of seeing a Blood Demon staggering toward me, I saw Isu heading up the path. Her large, firm breasts shifted tantalizingly with every step she took, giving me a reminder from different angles of their perfect form. Her hourglass figure looked stunning in the form-hugging black dress she was wearing, a plunging neckline exposing a great deal of her generous cleavage, while the left side of the dress had a cut right up to her hip, so exposing the entirety of her long, shapely left leg. Her shoulders were bare, and her dark hair tumbled like a silky waterfall around them. Her pale eyes were bright in the shadows of the forest, and her full lips looked especially luscious. I couldn’t help but think back to the first time I’d seen her take physical form, and as the memories of what she and I had done then came into my head, my cock began to throb in a hot, swelling
