He woke up with the first rays of sunlight. It was bright and pleasant. Although, he felt slightly anxious he had a good feeling about today. The warrior leader was already waiting for him, he greeted the large spider and then climbed on top making himself comfortable in his seat. The trip was only five or so minutes but the warrior leader insisted on giving him a ride. Their destination was the open tent he had set up yesterday.

Heading towards it he noticed that the human force was making a move, they were forming into ranks. At the very front were rows of archers, after them stood heavily armoured knights. The knights were few, forming only a thin single line, behind this line was the bulk of the force, judging by their equipment it was a mix of professional warriors and peasant levy. On the right flank, there was a squad of light cavalry, no more than a hundred men, but they looked quite fearsome. And interestingly enough he could see robed men with funny hats scattered all over, their colours made them to stand out and he counted no more than ten; he assumed those were the mages.

He was slightly envious of the humans, they had made a good show of force. It was standard before the negotiation to show off, and he had to do the same if he wanted to be taken seriously.

“Tell our warriors to line up.” He dismounted and issued a command.

“Understood.” The warrior leader rushed back to their camp.

He greeted the two guards by the tent and sat down on one of the chairs waiting for the humans to send a diplomat. There was a bowl of fruit right next to him. His stomach growled in hunger demanding breakfast.

“No, I cannot.” He pulled back his greedy hand and rested it on the side. “What is taking them so long?”

The human army had finished assembling. In the mass of humans, there was a knight with silver armour. He was quite shiny and even his mount was white making him to stand out from the rest.

“A noble of sorts.” He had assumed. “Hopefully the man I need.”

He turned to look behind his shoulder. The spiders had finished assembling. They too formed themselves into rectangular ranks of soldiers. There were five hundred of them, judging by the size it was only a fourth of the human force. And there were no archers or cavalry, or any variety at all. The contrast between the two was big, it was obvious that humans looked more formidable. However, he was proud of his spider warriors. They were diligent workers who trained every day from dawn to dusk. Also, he made his best to equip them properly. Each was armoured with thorn armour and carried a thorn shield in their left and a chitin axe in their right; all of which were reinforced +2. That, plus he had distributed the grenades he had made. Each warrior carried one of each: Spore Grenade and BlueDust Grenade. So, he was quite happy with what he had. After all, it wasn’t just about the number of men one was possessing.

The human messenger was taking forever to arrive, he began to wonder if he should send an invitation first. The problem was he didn’t know the correct etiquette and just hoped that someone will show up. Of course, he would ask the wisp for help if it was here, but it had a good excuse not to be. Which was that its influence was low outside the forest, so instead it remained in it and the last time he saw the green orb it was chatting to a bunch of squirrels. Maybe for the better because when it came to humans the wisp seemed to lose its temper quickly.

“Oh!” The humans had finally made a move. “But isn’t this odd?” He couldn't quite make a sense of it.

…

A while back, yesterday:

A bird composed of fire landed in between scattered scrolls all over the wooden table. Aurelius looked at it with surprise, but not with worry. The flame bird was a magus’s familiar sent here to deliver a message and the flames were mostly visual only; they didn’t burn. He unfurled the message from the bird's leg and began to read.

His eyebrows furled in anger.

“Monsters? Not elves?!” He read it only to midway, the language used was too flowery so he had gotten bored. “Whatever.” He had gotten the gist of it.

In a sense, the magus was lucky that he was currently in this remote city. You see, he was here to muster his forces in preparation for an attack on the neighbouring city. While he currently had only a fourth of the men it will be more than enough to deal with some petty monster infestation. Moreover, he knew that even something insignificant as this can cost him dearly.

The timbers coming from the forest provided the precious charcoal, the fuel he needed to smelt the ores mined locally and turn the metal into weapons of war, but that was only a side hustle. The real reason he was after the ancient forest was that the magus had figured out a way how to infuse the spirit stones with nature mana. Those pebbles were more precious than they looked and were the main reason why he could afford this war with a neighbouring kingdom.

Every day counted, a day of no production meant that his coffers would be lighter.

Unwilling to delay it further he shouted, “Get me the general!”, he was loud so that the servant outside his office could hear it.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It took him and his army of two thousand a mere three hours to reach the logging site. Everywhere he looked he could see stumps and smouldering piles of logs. He haven't visited this site for a long time, and he was happy with the current progress. The ledger said that it was the richest asset he possessed, but seeing it was believing it; soon he will be swimming in nature spirit stones.

The magus he’d hired was doing a splendid job, he was glad he hired someone so competent. Aurelius made a mental note to give a magus a pay rise. And maybe the army was an overkill for a simple infestation, it didn’t seem to spread outside the forest yet.

Soon, he could see an elderly man with a long red bushy beard and yellow robes running towards him, the front of the robes had a symbol of black hand embroidered into them. He recognised the man instantly, he was a member of the Black Hand Covenant, a covenant of free magi he had hired to help him with the war; the best decision he had made so far.

The magus looked worried, dishevelled even, he came running to Aurelius’s noble steed.

“What’s the rush?” Aurelius asked.

“Didn’t you rea…” The magus remembered the proper etiquette and bowed. “The King of Spiders demands your presence. Didn’t you read the message?”

He remembered reading about monstrous spider infestation but, “Ha! The king of spiders! Nonsense.” he laughed at the silly joke. Monsters had no kings.

“No, he is a powerful sorcerer. He commands these humanoid spiders.” The magus pointed at the distance excitedly.

Aurelius had to squint but he indeed saw a weird structure in the distance.

“Commanding monsters is that even possible?”

The magus shrugged. “You need to see it to believe it. He claims this forest and wants to negotiate a truce.”

“Outrageous!” Aurelius roared. “We don’t negotiate with monsters!”

After all, he had paid a pretty sum to the Holy Emperor to purchase the rights for this forest. Aurelius owned this land, period.

“My king, I beg you to reconsider. The sorcerer wields interesting magic, he will be useful in your wars.”

“Bahh! He is nothing more but a rogue magus seeking recognition. I will crush his monsters and if he survives you can have him.”

The magus clicked his tongue. “As you command.”

“We shall attack at dawn, make preparations.” He spurred his mount urging it towards the nearby old fort.

…

The spear cavalry was charging right towards the open tent.

“No, this is not right.” The King of Spiders had finally realised. “This is quite bad. What did I do wrong?”

However, there was no time to worry. The spider leader stopped right in front of the tent sending tufts of dirt and grass into the air; it made quite a rushed entrance.

“King. We. Must. Go.” The spider leader urged.

He looked at the charging cavalry, indeed, he couldn't stay here.

“It’s a shame.” He climbed on top and held tight on the seat.

The warrior leader sprinted back towards the spider forces. He turned his head and could see the cavalry charging right into the tent and wrecking it into pieces. He was lucky the warrior leader was an excellent runner and left the cavalry biting the dust.

The spider warrior's ranks parted letting him inside the middle of the force. And then the cavalry smashed right into the flank of spider warriors. It was worse than he expected, the blow was strong to knock them over and the spears pierced their shields with no problem. However, he still had some luck left over because the spears were deeply lodged inside the triangular shields since they were made of multiple plies of PurpleM leaves they were resistant to shattering. Of course, some spears had found their way past the shield and hit the armour, but that was made well too. Interestingly, ever so rarely, the spear would just shatter into splinters dealing no damage; he wondered why it was so.

Actually, it wasn’t the riders he was afraid of, no, it was their mounts. Those creatures while looking like horses weren’t horses at all. Their two black beady eyes looked soulless and hungering for blood. Their jaws were muscular and overly large, their maws full of sharp teeth. Their legs were bulging with tight muscles and were able to deliver a powerful kick. It was the monster-horse who did most of the damage to the spiders kicking and tossing them around. But in the end, what the cavalry managed to achieve was only to shock his troops and disrupt the orderly formation.

The spearmen quickly retreated, but he knew this wasn’t over. This was how the cavalry skirmish worked: charge, retreat, repeat. It sucked he had no good way to counter it, and throwing grenades at the mobile cavalry seemed like a waste, but at least the spiders managed to disarm some of them.

The trouble was not over because the main human force had closed the distance. The cavalry didn’t launch a second shock attack, this could only mean one thing.

“Oh no…” He finally grasped the real terrors of the war.

A rain of arrows descended upon the spiders. He quickly retrieved a shield from his inventory and raised it above his head. Nearby spiders rushed to his aid forming a turtle-like shell right above him.

“Retreat, back to the camp!” He commanded just before the arrows began to hit.

It wasn’t pleasant but they managed to reach the safety of the camp’s walls, and the arrows stopped. He gave a compassionate look to his warriors, the shield was only so large, and some spiders looked like pincushions or even porcupines. However, the armour and external chitin they all had provided some protection, they were hurt but not too badly.

The wisp had finally arrived to provide assistance. It grew in size “[Area Heal]” and exploded into the green shower of light.

“We have to fight back.” But there was little he could do against the arrows.

Charging the archers was the only option.

“No.” The wisp pulsed. “We lure them in.”

“…?”

There was a sound of crackling and it was getting closer.

“Wha…”

The fireballs rained on the camp setting everything on fire. One stray fireball had hit a spider directly, but by some twist of fate the spider glowed blue and the fireball just dispersed.

“Humans!” The wisp pulsed in renewed anger.

“Back to the forests. We retreat.” Again he had to make this choice.

They dashed to the forest and hid behind the trees. There just in the clearing, he saw the camp and the supplies he brought burnt into ash. He could hear the humans cheer and revel in the destruction they had just caused.

He felt anger swelling from deep inside.

“This is just unfair, what did I do wrong?”

“Nothing.” The wisp said in a calm voice. “They only do what they know best. Destroy.”

“But… I could have done better.”

The wisp pulsed to deny that train of thought. “You’re like a sapling: new, naïve and optimistic in your thinking. Only harsh trials of life will make you grow thick bark. Take this as a lesson so you can grow stronger.”

He felt like he failed his quest, everything was burning and falling down right in front of him. The arrows he should have expected that, but the magic bombardment was just unfair. It seemed it was too late to change the tides of battle. He looked at the fireballs flying right towards the treeline.

Everything was lost.

"..."

Or was it?