The thread leading to her snapped.

Dusk was dismayed to hear their footsteps less. He put one limb on the ground after another into the world outside—an everburning darkness, and perhaps, a cool reflection of night light, if it could be described.

Grasses were black and poisonous to even lick of it. Venomous insects scattered like sands, and had hardly cared to find our weaver roaming it freely. He scoured the lands and, to his delight, a giant box with a giant four-hoofed skeleton, faintly burning in blue flame. He thought it looked at him at the briefest glance, snorted, and pulled the carriage away.

Dusk hoped to chase it. But his web was too far, and the carriage shrank in the distance, waving its yellow lamp in the dark night, leaving him confused and worried for his life.

“A weaver!”

A man’s voice—and it shocked him that he started to run back to the cave, when he was cupped into the darkness. He screeched, clawed his way out, only to feel his front limbs scratching hopelessly at wood. Dusk heard them talking, and he felt he could understand them, but it was too much for his soul to understand.

“I have a mind to forgive you, Ruel. Your mooning in the day found something. Do tell me what it is, I have a poor set of ears.”

“A weaver-spider, captain, the size of my palm. It be glowing blue. It must’ve eaten a fiend’s heart around here somewhere.”

“Or something more, I wouldn’t be surprised. The war’s rousing the bloody apparitions, and now weavers and reapers are in for a feast.”

Ruel licked his lips. “I’d love a feast. With all the red wines, a good roasted pig, and breasts to sink my fingers in. One of those veils on my lap’s a fair wish if we can sack a temple.”

Another man spat. “Keep it to yourself. I’d sooner sleep in the mucks of stables than bed a sunset ghoul.”

“Aye, you’d never seen a veil, I don’t blame you. But if it’s the horses we’re talking about—they would rather sleep under the rain than to see you poking their back hoping for a quickie. Now, a veil, I’ll bathe the fair maiden in a hot pool and I’d just cover my nose with a scented napkin twice over.”

The captain whistled around and found the attention of men. “Gather around,” he commanded. “Ruel, take the scouts with you and follow these carriage tracks. I reckon that’s the one we’ve heard before.”

Ruel nodded. “I’d bet my left balls for it, sir.”

“I want the reapers scouting the cave for anything notable. The specter couldn’t have gotten very far. And the weaver—give it here.” He cupped the wooden box on his ears. “Are you certain it’s a weaver?”

Ruel only smiled. “My left balls and my right, sir.”

“You heard the man. As soon as we return camp, I want some of you boiling a knife and kindling a fire.” —laughters from the men— “Ruel. Two balls might give you a free night in the temple of the ghouls, but I assume it’s the men you’re in want of bedding.” Now the hoots and cheers.

Dusk wondered where they were taking him, and hoped that it would be to his partner. But these thoughts were rare, and the cage rattled uneasily. The caves had been familiar and predictable, and he had known it was the entire world, but his surprise led to fear as he was carried far and beyond his home. He consoled himself, to the best of his abilities, to calm and process these new information filtering across his soul, but he could die, and his mind realized that his life might not be his anymore. He was caged, like the traps he set for his hunted insects.

There was a gap in the wood that light flitered through invitingly. He scuttled nervously to the gap, and looked outside with one good eye, and found a figure and three hanged men before him.

He was a young man, Claudius Sollun Pars, at fifteen years of age. There was a gait to himself rarely found in men of his age. He looked regal with eyes of blood. His black horns curved around his head like a crown. But contrast it to his fingers, which were once polished to sharpness and manicured red to match his eyes, withered with violet streaks. He looked weak but he stood tall, and the men around him respected him. When he spoke, he sounded as much as a normal young man, but there was weight in his voice.

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“Three men,” he said without turning to the approaching riders. “Three men I know that I thought were loyal, and just, and virtuous. They were supposed to woo the veils,” he shook his head. “Not rape one of their kind.” He turned to his Right Hand. “Uncle, I want the bodies wiped off their blood. We’ll depart to the temple on the morrow. I’d assume the veils will desire an apology and compensation, but to whatever extent, it won’t be enough. These men dishonored us.” He coughed with long, sickly breaths, and waved a hand to the riders.

In the distance Dusk heard the wails of a woman, so long and high it pierced him.

The captain, Marcus, carried Dusk inside a dirty, black and red tent unwashed with rain. There, Claudius sat at a chair tiredly and spoke in measured tones.

“They looked at me mad, those three men. But I guess vagabonds is the proper word.” He put a hand on his face and found his hand wet with sweat. “One of those men, Benjen, was my stablemaster’s son. I know him well. He washed my horse cleaner than a priest. He served me twice at his house and fed me full. He brought his wife with him now, and a child. Can you hear her? She was begging for mercy before, and now....” He craned his ears, eyes shut. “Did I do the right thing, Captain? I killed a husband, made a child fatherless, and murdered two more men that might have been. But it’s what’s just and appropriate. I could have castrated them, but that would not have been just to the veil.”

The captain cleared his throat. “You did what was just, my lord,” he said. “They are no men. These are beasts you hanged. Rapers. And they would have claimed more victims had you not punished them.”

“So it is,” He sat unconvinced, but seemed to visibly relax on his chair. “Has death finally claimed that bloody specter?”

The captain shrugged. “We found his cold body in a cave ahead of us. He’s left a living heart for a spider to feast.” He placed the wooden box on the table. “A spider turned weaver, my lord. And another thing....” Claudius held the box up and looked through dark hole to find a black eye staring back. Dusk stared evenly. “A carriage left just as we arrived. It must have been the veils. They have a distinct appearance to their skeleton horse.”

Claudius set the box down. “The poisoner’s friend is a pure ghoul, quite unlike her sisters which are reapers. Well, I won’t question their safety. How many riders you said are incapable?”

“Out of twenty, Five of them are sick, and two men are close to dying. The horses are well.”

“Spare seven riders to our backs and eight to our front. As for the horses, train men you trust to fill their position. Alas, the specter’s message would have reached his masters by now—and no doubt they’ll be on to us. Damn the man to torture. Now they know where we are,” he turned to the captain. “As for the sick men...”

“They want to see you sir,” he said.

“They will. Tonight. See to your duties, captain, and call uncle on the way out.

The captain saluted and left.

At the same time, his uncle and Right Hand, Ruthius Parsla, arrived. He had a finely trimmed white beard, a beer belly, and an old man’s gait. He was wearing a black and red uniform that was losing its color. A testament to his old age. “It’s a kingly decision you’ve made, son,” he said reassuringly. “It’s a brave thing, what you did. I see more of your father’s iron in you.”

“My father’s a poor reference,” Claudius laughed. He felt himself lose the tension in his shoulders. “This is my first time, uncle. Killing a man. Their deaths were....” Very quickly the air rottened by the smell of their bowels and the soils of their pants.

“Unseemly?” His uncle added, helpfully. “A good friend of mine, the late Robert Rassia fell off their house on a drunken night. They found his body misshapen and his face cracked on stone. Three years after his death, his firstborn hanged himself in a tower far from their house. It wasn’t until a week later that I found him with maggots clawing out of his mouth and insects sleeping in his sockets. On the funeral, they pumped him full of alchemical properties to keep him full and alive, while they placed a boquet of white roses over his missing eye, which was likely taken by crows.”

“That’s a cursed family, then,” he laughed mirthlessly. “Were we to ever meet with the Rassias, I have plentiful stories to set on their table.”

“What I mean to say, son,” he continued. “Is that death is never pretty no matter what stories we tell about them. Stories when they lived, how they died, or the dead vessel that sleeps in the coffin. The men you punished, you, and everyone else around you, will never have pretty deaths,” he paused. “These are the first men you’ve killed,” he pointed out.

“Yes,” Claudius replied, squirming in his seat.

“It won’t be the last. We have duties—yours, as the last surviving Pars and head of the house, and I, as your right hand. Their lives are your burden, son. It’s responsibilty. Now,” he glanced at the table. “I’ve been told you’ve recently acquired a pet monster.”

Claudius handed him the box. “To the doctor’s, uncle. It might be venomous.”

Dusk certainly was venomous. But it wasn’t potent enough to kill a grown person. He had been waiting inside, spinning the words he’d heard in his head, but unable to comprehend a single lick of it. He wasn’t certain if he could ever escape, since his predators seemed so sharp and fast and giants, and if he wanted to live, he needed to make them see him not as food, but as partner. He thought confidently that he should bite a piece of his predator’s flesh and give it to them as a sign of peace. Now that would be a stroke of genius.