Timm hobbled to the walls, bent over his walking stick. He climbed the steps to the top of the guard tower by the gates.
The sun set behind the goblin host, blinding him, as climbed the last step of the tower. He raised a hand to shield his eyes against the harsh sun and he lowered his eyes to the relentless horde of goblins battering their walls. Metal clanged, goblin and men shouted, and battering rams thudded against the sturdy walls. Cracks and splinters marred their once seemingly impenetrable surface. They could not withstand the assault much longer.
The goblins suddenly halted, as if commanded by a single thought. An eerie, unnatural silence fell over the battlefield. The goblins, as one, turned their gaze to the northeast, to where the Spiderwood lay.
Timm’s eyes followed theirs, his heart pounding in his chest. From the centre of the Spiderwood, a beam of brilliant purple light shot into the sky, casting an unnatural, ethereal glow over the wood, the mountains, and the village for a brief moment. Fear and dread seized Timm’s chest, turning back to the goblin host. What evil magic was this? What had Alaric done?
His heart skipped a beat. The goblins had lowered their crude weapons, and thrown themselves to the ground in reverence to the great surge of light.
‘It’s over,’ he declared with uncertainty. ‘It’s over!’
The villagers took up the cry, shouting and laughing with relief.
----------------------------------------
The once oppressive forest now appeared almost submissive as the Spider led the men through. As they crossed into the once lush, vibrant greens of the outer wood, those same greens faded and wilted around them, turning the same dull purple of the Spiderwood. The Spider forged ahead and the two men followed obediently.
On the outskirts of the wood, they encountered a goblin scout crew. Four goblins seemed frozen in place. Their knees and faces were pressed into the soil of the outer wood, their arms outstretched before them, directed towards the Spiderwood. It appeared a position of worship.
Darius, drawing his sword, planted his foot into the side of one of them and kicked him over. The goblin immediately crawled back to his hands and knees, resuming his reverent position but with his arms now outstretched toward the Spider.
‘What magic is this?’ Darius asked in wonder.
‘She has saved us,’ Alaric replied. ‘Her magic is too powerful for their comprehension. They have surrendered!’ Darius felt a small sliver of foreboding gnawing at the edge of his mind, but again he could not transform it into a cohesive thought. The goblins trembled slightly before the Spider, who was already scuttling past them. She did not even pause to acknowledge them, so insignificant they were to her great power, and Darius and Alaric rushed to catch up.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
----------------------------------------
Finally, they found themselves in the foothills before the pass, the last rays of the sun just filtering through the last few trees before forest was replaced by rock. As they approached the sheer rock face of the mountain, the Spider paused for a moment, her dark empty sockets turning towards the vertical expanse before them. Without even a glance backward, she began to ascend. Her eight legs clattered against the rock with sickening clicks as she scrambled up the mountain.
The mountain pass was treacherous and the rocky terrain grew steeper and more precarious with each step until it would finally reach its narrowest and most difficult - the ledge that opened to the cave mouth from which they had come.
The sound of her movement echoed through the narrow pass, a macabre symphony of sharp, piercing clicks complemented by the wet, slithering noise of her body pressing against the rock as she squeezed herself through crevices that appeared far too small for her monstrous form. Her legs, each nearly as thick as Alaric’s torso, found purchase in the tiniest of clefts of the stone, gripping the sheer rock face with unnatural, almost magnetic precision.
Darius watched with horrified fascination as the Spider scaled the mountain with frightening speed and agility. Her ancient frail torso swayed grotesquely atop her monstrous lower half, her white hair flowing wildly in the mountain wind.
Darius felt another shiver run down his spine which had nothing to do with the chill mountain wind. That same air mingled with the disgusting stench of corruption and decay, nauseating him. The Spider continued to ascend, her movements disturbingly fluid, almost graceful, but at the same time completely unnatural. Darius forced himself to look away, to focus on the path. The unsettling image was etched into his mind.
Every so often, her toothless mouth would part, releasing a low, guttural whisper that seemed to seep into the very stone itself. Again, the sounds echoed around Darius’ mind, but he couldn’t make sense of them. It seemed the Spider was talking to the mountain itself, and it was responding to her, acknowledging her as the dark mistress of its ancient, hidden depths. Darius thought back to the cave mouth, how the cave had continued deeper and deeper into the mountain, far deeper than where they had left it.
The higher she climbed, the darker the sky grew, as if the very presence of the Spider was drawing a dark shroud over the mountain. The sun had finally set, but above the mountain seemed darker than night. The wind picked up, howling through the rocky crags, but the Spider was unshaken. She reached the top of the rock face and with a final, powerful thrust of her legs, pulled herself over the edge with an eerie, effortless grace.
Finally, Darius and Alaric reached the ledge, the Spider perched ominously atop the cave mouth.
The Spider turned her grotesque torso to Darius and nodded, her pervasive words echoing around his head once more, and he didn’t even look down.
He launched himself from the plateau.
There was a small part of him that wanted to scream. For a moment, the desire to scream was overwhelmed by the sense that here, hurtling towards the rocks at the base of the cliff, was exactly where he needed to be - to give his life for the Spider’s plan. He was reassured for a moment by the voices in his head, whispering, speaking and screaming to him at the same time in a language that he couldn’t understand.
That tiny bit of lingering doubt, in his mind since the clearing in the very centre of the Spiderwood, fought back and finally overpowered the Spider’s spell that he had been under since he first laid eyes on her, and he realised her trap. The trap she had set for him, for the council, and for the entire village. At once the voices in his head were silent.
He screamed.
Then he was crushed on the rocks below.