“It will come in handy anyway. Have you fought a war-spider?”
“Well, my firsthand knowledge is from the other side, from my war-spider whom you fought outside the gates. So, in a way, it was me you fought; I was controlling the spider.” She grinned proudly.
I didn’t know whether to roar with laughter or yell; that very same day, she had quite literally been doing her best to kill me!
“Don’t worry,” she added, “I wasn’t too attached to that war-spider. I have others. You don’t need to feel bad about killing him.”
“Trust me, I don’t. About your other spiders, though… Are they all huge red ones like that one I killed?”
“They are, yes.”
“If you’re not mad about me killing your pet, you might be mad about something else,” I said, chuckling humorlessly. “On a different scale, let’s say. Tell me first, though, how you feel about a preemptive strike against your council buddies.”
She scrunched her beautiful face into a frown. “Those liars are not my ‘buddies.’ They want to kill me as much as they want to kill you and your friends. Regardless,”—a look of savage delight crossed Layna’s face—“I think it would be perfect. The Council of Aith thinks I’m a toothless ruler. This would be the perfect means by which to show those traitors just how ruthless a Webmaven I actually am.”
“Good. So, uh, keep the awesomeness of the idea of a preemptive strike in mind while I take you down to the sewers to show you what I did, okay?”
“All right…”
With that, I led Layna down to the sewers, where my squadron of undead war-spiders was awaiting my command. As I’d predicted, Layna wasn’t too happy that I’d slaughtered and resurrected over 50 of her prized war-spiders, but to her credit, she didn’t explode emotionally. She was actually impressed at what I’d managed to pull off, and she had plenty more war-spiders still in the pens.
By the time we returned to my chambers, Rami-Xayon had returned from her mission. She wore a dark expression.
“It is as we suspected,” she muttered. “But before I tell you anything, tell me where she stands.” She fired an icy stare at Layna.
“The Webmaven is with us,” I said. “The members of the Council who have turned to the Blood God are also planning a coup against her.”
“You have my war-spiders,” Layna said. “All of them are at your disposal. In addition to those war-spiders you have already… turned.”
“Then we need to strike hard and strike fast,” I said. “Where do these council members live?”
A sly smile appeared on Rami-Xayon’s lips, and she spoke before Layna could answer my question.
“Sometimes,” she said, “in the way of the enjarta, we consider the best time to strike at your adversary to be the time when he believes he is triumphant. Allow him the illusion of victory, and you will be able to attack him at his most vulnerable.”
I knew exactly what she was getting at.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The hour before dawn was dark, especially with all the torches and candles in our chamber extinguished. Still forms lay silent under their bed covers. I stood in the shadows and watched as the door was quietly opened from the outside. A number of war-spiders started filing in, creeping carefully across the floor, the footsteps of their huge, hairy feet strangely soundless on the polished marble. These were green spiders, not the red ones that belonged to myself and Layna.
I watched as each green war-spider walked up to a sleeping figure in a bed and positioned itself, ready to strike. I cocked my wrist crossbow and took aim—I had enough bolts to take out each of the spiders in our chamber, and I’d still have one or two left—but I didn’t shoot. Not yet.
Moving as one, controlled by their council masters, the war-spiders let out unearthly howls and attacked, pouncing on the beds. They plunged their huge, venomous fangs through the flimsy sheets into the bodies beneath, injecting them with deadly venom and ripping like sharp swords through their flesh and bones, impaling torsos and then ripping heads and limbs off in a frenzy of violence.
And still, I did not shoot. I was waiting for the perfect moment.
In his chamber, the leader of the Council of Aith—the one who had spoken with such haughtiness—laughed with malevolent glee as he experienced his spider’s kills, his mind linked to the beast’s in the same way mine was linked to the minds of my undead troops. He and his friends had just killed my entire party, and they would be handsomely rewarded for this by the Blood God. And after killing Layna, the city would be his.
He stood up from his ornate desk and walked over to a cabinet to pour himself a drink to celebrate the success of his traitorous mission.
At least, that’s what I assumed had happened right before the door to the old man’s chamber exploded, smashed by a massive force from outside, and I saw him scream in terror as a huge red war-spider, burst into his room, its eyes glowing an unearthly yellow-green, its fangs dripping with black, gooey venom. Whimpering with terror, the leader of the Council of Aith dropped his glass and scrambled for his sword, but the spider was on him in two bounds. I made sure it held him down with its eight legs and killed him very slowly, and very painfully.
The zombie-spider’s venom had changed its characteristics since they had become undead. Now, it was linked to my necrotic venom, and anyone they bit—if their victim survived being impaled by fangs the size of scimitars—would be infected with a fast-spreading grave rot that would turn their flesh gray and have it slough off their bones.
In my chamber, I watched as the last of the green war-spiders I’d shot with my Tree magic wrist crossbow stopped writhing. It turned into a tree, its legs becoming roots that pushed into and
