The Sea of Trolls

Jack desperately tried to reach his staff. He couldn’t undo it without throwing off his cloak. The spider moved like lightning, collecting her eggs. She whisked each one up with whatever those things were on either side of her fangs and tucked them away.

When she got to Thorgil, she puzzled over the shape. She reached back with two of her legs and whipped out a long line of silk. This she coiled around Thorgil until the girl looked just like one of the eggs. Thorgil, cursing richly, disappeared into the sack.

Satisfied, the spider reached for Jack. He felt the creature’s fang probe gently, and then he felt himself twirled round and round as the silk rope belted him in. He was lifted, handled in those awful things beside the fangs, and settled onto a soft bed of spider eggs.

The spider took off running. Jack could feel each footfall as the egg sack jounced and swayed. He could hardly breathe, and what air he did get was drenched in that sharp-sweet, nauseating smell. He struggled to reach the knife on his belt. The ash wood staff dug into his back.

The mother spider ran for a long time. Presently, she seemed to swing through the air and land with a jarring thump. She moved more slowly then, picking her way carefully until at last she stopped and dropped the egg sack. Jack heard wind whistling outside. He tried to saw a hole with the knife, but spider silk, for something that looked delicate, was as tough as leather. Jack sawed and stabbed until he saw spots before his eyes. His heart pounded and he was slippery with sweat.

He saw the tip of a fang penetrate the silk.

“You could at least help me,” complained Thorgil. “I can’t do all the work while you lounge around.”

“You’re wonderful,” Jack murmured. It wasn’t a fang. It was Thorgil’s sword. He immediately set about widening the hole. When he was able to wriggle out, he was astounded at the sight before him.

They were high in a canopy of giant trees. Wind whipped the branches, bringing a welcome freedom from the spider-stink. The whole of whatever they were sitting on billowed and swayed so that they had to hang on to the sack to keep from falling. “What is that?” said Thorgil.

Jack squinted. The colors shifted as the structure moved, but eventually, he was able to make out the shape. “I think it’s a huge spiderweb,” he said. Because the silk took on the colors around it, parts looked as transparent as air, while others were dark green or brown from the trees below. The sack was anchored to a particularly tall fir that jutted above the web.

In one direction there was only trees. In the other Jack saw round webs covering the forest as far as he could see. Here and there huge cream-colored spiders sat with their legs outspread. Some had egg sacks to the side like the one next to Jack and Thorgil. Others had dismal lumps where some creature had been captured. A few of these lumps were being fed upon.

“Now what?” said Thorgil. Jack had to hand it to her. Where most people would have screamed and fainted, the shield maiden was ready for battle.

Jack looked down. They were so high, the forest floor was lost in darkness. To reach it, they would have to pass through the web. If it was sticky—and it probably was—they wouldn’t get far. “Maybe we should go up,” he suggested.

They retrieved their food and water bags from the sack. Climbing would have been easy if the wind hadn’t been blowing, but of course it was. Jack wasn’t thrilled about the height either. They struggled through the branches to a perch near the top where they could sit.

The spider was brooding at the center of her web. Jack could see the bulge of her enormous belly and her spinnerets. At least she was facing away. “Why didn’t she eat us?” said Thorgil, ever practical.

“We smelled right,” said Jack. “Our cloaks made us seem like baby spiders.”

“I’m trying to look on the bright side,” the shield maiden said, clutching the rune. “Our situation, as far as I can tell, is this: We’re so high, we’d never survive if we fell. But sooner or later we’ll get too tired to hold on. Or the spider will find us first and eat us. If we wait long enough, the eggs will hatch, and a hundred or so babies will climb up and eat us.”

“That’s the bright side?” said Jack.

“I’m only trying to work things out,” Thorgil said. “Maybe you should use that staff to call up fire.”

Jack untied the staff. His back was sore from where it had pressed against him. He pointed it at the mother spider and felt it thrum in response. All around, the trees went whisper, whisper, whisper.

“I don’t have much control over this,” he said. “What if I set the whole forest on fire?”

“You’ll just have to be careful,” Thorgil said crossly.

Jack pointed the staff again. “This doesn’t feel right.”

“Would it feel better to have the juice sucked out of you?”

“I think there’s another way.”

“Oh, Freya!” swore Thorgil. Jack saw a huge eagle, like the one that had attacked him on the ice bridge, sail overhead. It turned and circled the tree. Thorgil drew her sword. The eagle veered away with a harsh scream, but it came back with its claws out—and ran into a strand of spiderweb. The bird squawked and tried to free itself, but it only fell onto the main web, miring itself completely.

The spider dashed out and sank her fangs into it. The eagle tore at her with its beak and claws, but it was greatly outmatched. Soon it was wrapped in silk while the spider sat back, waiting for her poison to work. After awhile the bird stopped moving. Jack and Thorgil clung to each other as they listened to the monotonous sucking sound of the spider’s feast. When she was finished, she dropped the husk to the forest floor far below.

“Now will you call up fire?” said Thorgil.

“Wait,” said Jack. The giant spider approached the egg sack. Jack tensed, his staff at the ready in case she made a rush up the tree, but she merely set about mending the hole the eagle had torn in her web. She moved back and forth, pulling long ropes of silk from her spinnerets. When she had laid one line, she squatted down and deposited a glob of goo. Delicately, she plucked the rope with one claw-tipped leg. The goo immediately vibrated out into droplets along the line.

Jack watched intently. This was extremely interesting. Not all of the web was sticky. If you could step between the droplets, you wouldn’t stick at all. The spider occasionally leaned back and looked up at the tree where Thorgil and Jack were. At the top of her body was a turret with eight shiny black eyes, but she didn’t seem to see the two humans cowering in the branches.

Now the spider did another interesting thing: She walked up to the egg sack and rested her fangs on it, apparently lost in an ecstasy of motherhood. Jack was convinced that was exactly what she was doing. He could feel the whisper of her thoughts and the tiny responses from the hundred or so eggs inside. She plucked rhythmically at a thread holding the sack. The whispering intensified, becoming more joyous.

“You know… I think that’s a lullaby,” said Jack.

“That’s a huge, ugly, people-eating spider,” Thorgil said. “Don’t go soft on me.”

“You’re the one who cooed over the baby rocks.”

“I didn’t know what they were. Burn all of them up. They’re our enemies.” Thorgil looked fierce enough to attack a hundred spiders.

“I’ve been studying the mother. She seems almost blind. She didn’t see us when she looked straight at us. I suppose the dragon had to get close before she realized the danger to her young. The spider can’t hear, either, or she would have gotten you when you were cursing so loudly in the egg sack.”

“So she has weaknesses. It makes it easier to kill her.”

But Jack couldn’t bring himself to do it. When he drank from Mimir’s Well, he’d remembered those moments when everything felt exactly right. When Mother sang to the bees or Father built the house, they were doing it so lovingly and well, the simplest activities were lit up from inside. They were filled with the life force. What the mother spider was doing now was the same.

It was necessary to kill to feed or protect one’s family and self. That was what the spider had done with the eagle. If she attacked Jack or Thorgil, he would have to slay her. But Jack also understood that if he killed the spider without need, he would lose his power and his music would go from him. He put the staff away.

“You are so stupid,” fumed Thorgil. She cursed him roundly as they clung to the tree trunk in the tossing wind. “I should go down there and stab her—and stab all those eggs, too.”