“No!” Cyrusshouted, stepping from the steel platform.
The large arachnidflexed his fangs. Cyrus aimed his rifle. There was no clear shot.
“My fight,” Edwardsaid, struggling.
The halfbreedplunged his venomous fangs into Edward’s abdomen. Then the brute’s torso beganto convulse.
“Aaah!” Edward shrieked.
Cyrus and Fibianrushed forward.
“Back!” Edward cried.
Dark venom leakedfrom the wounds in his stomach. Edward twisted and writhed in agony, fightingto push the big spider off. The black arachnid withdrew his fangs and rose upon his hind legs, victorious. The surrounding spiders hissed and clicked excitedly.Edward curled up into a still, white ball.
Was Edward dead? Wasit over? The small spider had yet to turn to sand. The larger blodbad grew stillas if waiting for something to happen. The surrounding brood became silent.What was going on?
“Master Edward ingestedthe witch's blood,” Fibian whispered, “She is immune to the blodbad’s toxin.”
Cyrus stared at thefroskman incredulously. The big king spider shook and shivered, enraged. He stretchedwide his forelegs. The brood began to click and pop. Their war cry grew to a crescendo.Their hulking leader flared his mandibles and extended his fangs.
“Stop!” Cyrusshouted.
The halfbreed threwhimself upon Edward a second time. The small spider sprang to his feet and rolledto his side. The big blodbad bit hard into the earth. Edward leaped forward andsnapped onto the giant’s right fang. He dug his seven, spiny legs deep into thebrute’s face. The big blodbad shook, trying to pry Edward free.
CRACK!
Edward bit and snappedthe dripping fang from his enemy’s face. The king spider kicked Edward away andretreated, favoring the bloody socket. Edward quickly spun a band of silk. The largerblodbad recovered from his shock and grew furious. He started to charge Edward;his lone fang bared like a bull’s horn. Edward fell to his back and stretchedhis silk sling across two rear legs. With his forelegs, he loaded the halfbreed’sbroken fang into the makeshift slingshot. Edward stretched the sling to itsmaximum. The king bore down on him, ready to strike.
SNAP!
The slingshot lashedout like a whip. The projectile pierced the blodbad’s belly. The black spidercrashed into Edward, landing on top of him. The creeping horde shifted forward.The two combatants tumbled along the ground, then grew still.
“Master Edward?”Fibian asked.
No one moved.
“Edward…” Cyrus whispered.
The large blodbadslowly shifted. The hair on his body fell out. His torso and legs grew brittleand cracked. Edward burst free from under the brute’s weight. Like burnt charcoal,the halfbreed crumbled to pieces around the smaller blodbad’s snowy body. The king’stoxin seemed to have been diluted by his cross-breeding, but it was still lethal.
Edward pushed hisface into his enemy’s remains. Then he drew out the dead spider’s broken fang.He stepped atop the defeated champion and held his battle trophy aloft. Theblodbad spiders shuffled backward and bowed low, clicking their submission. Cyrusstared at Edward, lost for words. What other mysteries could this strange spiderpossibly possess? The king was dead. Long live the King.
Chapter14
LAYING WITH RATS
“YOU OKAY?” Cyrus asked, peeringdown at Edward in the torchlight.
Fibian moved forwardand collected the small spider off the defeated king.
“They’re with us now,”Edward said, dreamily.
He wrapped the brokenfang in web and stowed it away within his fur.
Cyrus watched asEdward’s breath gusted out in tiny clouds of vapor. The spider stared off intothe distance, as if under a spell. The hair on his body grew smooth, and hismany eyes retreated beneath his snow-white coat.
“What was all that?”Cyrus said, “King Fedor? The slingshot?”
“I could smell them,”Edward whispered, absently, “could sense them. It was all instinct, I guess,like Drache.”
Cyrus recalled thehulking dragon dissolving to sand right before his eyes, and the quivering Edwardthat Fibian had found within the monster’s remains. Edward’s resilience seemedbottomless.
Cyrus peered downthe steel wall, in the direction of the hune’s fore wall. He guessed thatKnavish would be captaining the island from somewhere in that direction. Hespied the many lights lacing the fourteen-foot-high metal perimeter. They wouldhave to avoid those torchlights if they were to reach Knavish unseen.
Cyrus glared at thetwo scoundrels lying at his feet. They had to cover their tracks. He knelt downand grasped the unconscious guard’s dagger from his belt.
“I wouldn’t want youto disgrace yourself,” he said to Fibian.
Then he draggedthe poisoned blade across the back of the klop’s neck. The knife drew a thinline of purplish blood. The fiend twitched, gasping his last breath, then movedno more. His body grew pale and still. The froskman glared at Cyrus with anexpression of resigned disapproval. Cyrus clutched both soldiers by their armoredcollars and dragged them bodily off the platform. He took care to avoid the unnervingmass of cruel black spiders gathered in the snowy grass as he walked towards thewoods. He hurled the sentries into the brambles and out of sight. Then he spieda freshly cut trail peering out of the forest’s edge.
“There’s a footpaththis way,” Cyrus whispered. “It must lead to Knavish.”
Fibian extinguishedthe two torches in the snow and walked towards Cyrus. He crossed through thecenter of the blodbad army with Edward perched on his shoulder. The pool of blackbodies parted, clearing a path for their new king.
“Follow me,” Fibiansaid, his eyes bright.
The froskmandelved into the narrow trail. Cyrus cocked his rifle and followed.
At the edge of thepath, hewn barbed creepers bled frozen yellow poison. Dark, decaying leavescarpeted the frosted earth. Tiny sickles of ice dangled from the crooked treelimbs beyond. Above, the tangled forest canopy weighed heavy like a hangman’sgaze.
As they crept throughthe woods, Cyrus was mindful of the unsettling click and pop of the blodbad hordefollowing at their heels. The arachnids’ chatter came from left and right. The spiderstraveled through the thorny underbrush, avoiding the open trail. Red-eyed miceand hunch backed rats scurried from the brambles. They clambered over the intruders’feet, fleeing the skittering brood.
The frigid footpathpenetrated inland. The glow from Fibian’s eyes fell upon a dead klops frozen bythe
