A Bright Power Rising, Page 3

  Grael glared at them in turn. “I’ll kill you all!”

  At that moment, a shapeless, shifting silhouette burst out of the night and leapt over the campfire. The shine from the flames revealed the cloaked figure’s face, as passive as a golden idol. The eyes, glittering and cold, were at once beautiful and inhuman. Elaborate spiked axes flicked at the awed Jinglemen with serpentine grace. Anorsop gurgled a final scream as his punctured throat sprayed a bloody mist over his appalled comrades. Chalas, sitting victorious atop his brother, slumped over, dead. Asurach threw aside the corpse sprawled over him and chased his brother’s killer into the night.

  “Come back!” a sobered Tarum called as he ran to the fire. “Come back, you fool!”

  Somewhere in the fright shivering through Grael was relief for Harath. She was safe, for now, thanks to the mercy of the Forelight.

  “What was that?” Kaven asked, eyes shocked wide.

  “The Gilt Spider,” Hackit whispered.

  Grael’s relief wilted as Hackit stretched a finger toward him.

  “That pup summoned him!” Hackit cried. “He threatened to kill us all, just before the Gilt Spider appeared!”

  Tarum snorted and slapped down Hackit’s hand. “Why would the Gilt Spider do the bidding of a Stretcher?”

  “If it was the Gilt Spider, then we’re fortunate,” Gristle said. “By all accounts, he never leaves behind corpses, much less survivors. We won’t see poor Asurach again.”

  “The Gilt Spider’ll be back for the rest of us,” Hackit said.

  “And we’ll be ready for him if he does,” Tarum Sire said as he delivered a rousing kick to the snoring Scaral. “Get up! Gristle and Kaven, get rid of the corpses. I don’t care where you put them. Just get them out of my sight. The rest of you can encircle the camp with fires. Nobody sleeps tonight. Don’t fear the Gilt Spider. Elves bleed the same as any other race.”

  “You’ve killed one, have you?” Kaven asked hopefully.

  Gristle filled Tarum’s silence. “No.”

  Like the Jinglemen, Grael stared into the nocturnal abyss, striving to discern a creeping shadow against the blackness. First light brought some relief, despite Hackit’s dire warnings that the day belonged to the Gilt Spider.

  “What makes you say that?” Kaven demanded.

  “Stands to reason,” Hackit said. “The Gilt Spider is an Elf. Elves serve the Golden Light, the torch of day.”

  “All Hackit or the rest of us know about the Gilt Spider comes from the ravings of drunken Stretchers,” Gristle muttered.

  Hackit pointed to Grael. “The boy may know more. He’s from these parts.”

  Grael’s relief at the loosening of the constriction around his neck was brief. The Jinglemen hauled him to his feet.

  Gristle seized Grael’s hair and pressed the point of a knife to his throat. “You had better spill everything you know about the Gilt Spider, because if we have to ask your girlfriend, you’ll never talk again.”

  Grael wracked his memory. “I’ve never seen one of the Fair Folk before. Few in my village have, and then only as a fleck of yellow in the distance. Golden they are, and ageless. Their beauty surpasses all other races.”

  “We all saw one last night,” Tarum said. “Can’t say much about its beauty.”

  Grael talked through Tarum’s comment. “The splendor of their womenfolk is such that they have to be cosseted away and guarded by monstrous, misshapen beasts, for the briefest glimpse of their beauty drives the beholder mad with desire. A hero of my people, Alackalas, took one as his wife, but he could only behold her as a reflection in a mirror lest her unmitigated beauty drive him insane. In the end, the precaution was not enough to save him. Most Elves live in great cities where the sun rises. They have a few settlements in the mountains, like the one in the valley of Martyrsgrave, but rarely stray beyond them. The Fair Folk have taken little interest in Stretchers for generations.

  “The Gilt Spider is the exception. He is a hunter of men. The unwary and the foolhardy that wander the forests are his usual quarry, but he has even been known to snatch an untended babe from its crib. Those whom he steals are never seen again. They say that nobody sees him and lives.”

  “Enough!” Tarum Sire bellowed. “The boy knows no more than what he overheard from his mother when he was bouncing on her knee. Last night, our attacker had nothing more magic than surprise. If our guard had been sober and alert, he wouldn’t have had that.”

  Kaven’s lips parted to speak, then pursed in silent frustration.

  As the Jinglemen walked back to their campfire, apparently forgetting Grael, he sighed softly and bowed his head in gratitude for this little mercy.

  Tarum Sire continued. “I hope the Gilt Spider, or whoever he is, visits us again. Discounting Asurach, we number nine. The Gilt Spider numbers one. I like those odds. And I know someone in Formicary who would pay a fortune for the head of an Elf. A fortune.”

  “Who?” Hackit asked, scratching his ear.

  “Never you mind,” Tarum Sire said. “I know him, and that is what is important. Scaral and Kaven, you bury our fallen friends deep. If the Gilt Spider wants their remains, he can dig for them. The rest of you, strike camp.”

  “Asurach!”

  Jinglemen galloped past Grael. As their horses skidded to a halt, they leapt down and crashed through the undergrowth.

  The wagon halted where Asurach’s corpse hung by the neck from a tree. His eyes were bulging horrors. His tongue, swollen and black like a hideous slug, extended from his mouth. A dagger pinned a note to his chest. Sickened, Grael could hardly look upon it. He had never seen anything so horrible.

  Before he could warn her, Harath strained over the goods piled in the wagon to glimpse the commotion. She shivered at the sight of the dead man and quickly turned away, her eyes squeezed shut as though she was trying to wring the image out of them.

  The Jinglemen gathered beneath the dead man, untied the noose of yellow-green cord from the tree, and lowered the corpse to the ground.

  “What do we do with him?” Gristle asked. “Dig another grave? It’ll be dark soon enough, and I don’t fancy camping in this forest.”

  Tarum Sire shrugged. “Asurach ran off. He left us. We owe him nothing. Leave his body for the crows.”

  It took Kaven a while to unravel the noose’s knot, but Tarum insisted the cord must not be cut. The Elfin rope was worth more undamaged. While Kaven fumbled, the other Jinglemen puzzled over the parchment.

  “I can read,” Tarum declared as he seized it. He frowned. “It’s gibberish. Some foreign script.”

  “Ask the boy. He might be able to make sense of it,” Hackit squealed.

  As the document was thrust in front of Grael, he heaped silent curses on the old Jingleman for again drawing unwelcome attention to him. Some of the characters were familiar from inscriptions in the monastery of Pigsback, but a hint of comprehension, however slight, would earn him a violent interrogation.

  He shook his head and returned the Jinglemen’s stares with unfeigned apprehension. “I am a humble shepherd’s son. What would I know of writing?”

  “We should squeeze him a bit to make sure,” Hackit slurred.

  “Let the boy be. We’ve no time to waste on such nonsense,” Tarum Sire muttered. “The day will soon turn against us, and we must be clear of this forest before nightfall.” He tossed the parchment into the bushes.

  “Don’t throw it away,” Hackit squeaked, scrambling after it. “It might be worth something.”

  Tarum Sire’s scornful laughter filled the forest. “Scoop up a few cowpats while you’re at it, in case they’re worth their weight in gold.” His mirth collapsed into frustration. He yelled, “We cannot read your message, you stupid bastard!”

  The echo of his cry melted into the silence of the mountains.

  A loud, melodic voice resonated like thunder through the valley. “Give me the boy and girl, and keep your lives.”

  The hair lifted on the back of Grael’s neck. T
he astounding horror of the Gilt Spider’s demand tingled through him like a venom, leaving only a dead coldness in its wake. He trembled.

  Harath looked at him with glassy eyes, her mouth agape, her face white with fear.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Grael pleaded. “For the love of the Forelight, don’t hand us over to the monster.”

  “I couldn’t care less about you or your god,” Tarum grumbled as his gaze searched the encircling labyrinth of forest for the speaker. “Tell me this, Gilt Spider. Why do you want them?” he boomed.

  “They are my prey, and I am hungry.”

  “And why would the corpses you left at our camp not satisfy your hunger?”

  “They are buried. They are stale.”

  “Why did he not eat Asurach? He wasn’t buried.” Tarum muttered. Opening his arms wide, he yelled, “Like them fresh, do you? Come down here and collect your dinner.”

  “I desire the thrill of the chase. Free the Stretchers, and I will find them. You have until the sun sets. Their lives for yours. Make your choice.”

  “How do we know you’ll keep your part of the bargain?” Tarum asked.

  He waited but no reply came.

  Grael’s sense of impending disaster was mirrored in the faces of most of his captors as the caravan traveled on through the forest. Tarum Sire was the sole exception. He appeared to be in a perpetual daze, as if fascinated by some puzzle. When Gristle and others hinted they should surrender the Pigsknucklers to the Gilt Spider, Tarum smiled and waved away their veiled entreaties.

  “A wooden coin for your thoughts,” Hackit asked him as he rode alongside the old man’s cart.

  “A wooden one?”

  “If I offered anything but wood, you would hold me to it. What are you thinking?”

  “If the Gilt Spider was as almighty as everyone believes, he wouldn’t need to bargain with us.”

  Tarum kicked his horse into a canter, leaving Hackit mumbling nervously behind him.

  Grael found some comfort in his utterance. Clearly, Tarum was all that stood between the Gilt Spider and his quarry. The other Jinglemen would hand over their prisoners in a heartbeat. This twist of fate was peculiar and disconcerting. Last night, Grael had begged the Forelight to smite Tarum Sire. Now, the captives’ only hope depended on his survival. At least, until nightfall, when the Gilt Spider’s deadline passed and the Jinglemen’s decision was made for them.

  The day stretched mercilessly. Every moment dragged. Would the sun ever drop from the sky?

  Occasionally, some random Jingleman drew up beside Hackit’s wagon and exchanged whispers with him. Grael was too far away to overhear, but they had to be discussing the Gilt Spider’s ultimatum. They might be even plotting against their leader.

  It was late afternoon when the Jinglemen found a satisfactory campsite in a wide glade rising gently above the endless forest. A jagged outcrop at the center provided a bulwark against the bitter cold wind. The black and gray corpses of campfires beneath the rock and the tree stumps that pockmarked the clearing indicated previous transient habitation. Two Jinglemen were dispatched to the rock’s summit to stand guard while the others huddled around a newly kindled fire at its base.

  Hackit and Kaven tied Grael and Harath together back to back and plunked them down near the fire. Hackit joined his comrades by the fire and fixed a malevolent stare at Grael. The other Jinglemen took little notice as they tracked the sun’s slow, slow decline.

  Grael mouthed a silent prayer to the Forelight to hurry the night. As the sun rested on the shoulders of distant mountains, a question from Gristle sent a shiver through him.

  “Are we going to let the two kids go?”

  “Gules rises yonder, fat and bright,” Tarum said, pointing to the bloody moon smoldering in the ashes of the day. “There’s no cloud in the sky or the threat of one. Our friend will not surprise us so easily on a night like this.”

  “So, you’ll risk our lives to spite the Elf?” Gristle charged.

  Tarum Sire’s indulgent smile had a hint of deprecation. “For every risk I take, there must be a reward. In the end, we’re all dead. We might as well be rich in-between.”

  “Is an Elf’s head worth so much?”

  “It is.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  The Jinglemen fell silent again as the sun slipped away like sand in an hourglass, till the last shining speck disappeared, and with it, any chance to reverse their course. They had defied the Gilt Spider’s ultimatum and now must face the consequences.

  Bloody moonlight seeped into the night, shaping the darkness into a discernible topography. The Jinglemen were restless and taciturn, their eyes fixed on the encircling moorland for any disturbance creeping through the vegetation.

  Harath’s head tapped Grael’s shoulder as she leaned to one side. It was a comfort that she slept. He lowered their bound torsos to the ground and sought the same oblivion. The chafe of the rope, the awkwardness of his position, the prickle of the crushed foliage against his face, the sepulchral cold and the haunting specter of the Gilt Spider conspired to deny him. He turned to prayer to see him through the hellish night, knowing every whispered word brought its end closer.

  A scream tore through the silence. A commotion of shadows flitted above Grael. Excited voices clashed in thunderous babble.

  “Ruscondel’s dead!”

  “The Elf killed Ruscondel!”

  The grim outcome of the battle whirling around him was as certain as the Gilt Spider’s presence. Harath’s fingers touched Grael’s. He clasped her hand awkwardly as he listened to the Jinglemen’s panicked cries.

  “Get down!”

  “Quick! Over there!”

  “Get the bastard before he gets away!”

  “Where is he?”

  “There! There! There!”

  “I can’t see him.”

  “There!”

  The crisp twangs of loosed bowstrings hushed the clamor.

  “Got him.”

  Gleeful roars and congratulations gave way to confused dismay.

  “He’s up and running again.” Hackit’s foul slur was unmistakable.

  “I hit him. He fell. You all saw him fall.”

  “Scaral, that may be, but he didn’t stay down.”

  “We can't just lie here,” Grael whispered to Harath. “We need to see what is happening.”

  With some difficulty, they lifted off the ground, and sat upright. Grael was facing the Jinglemen, a clump of jittery silhouettes against the firelight.

  “Maybe the arrow missed him. Maybe he fell as the arrow was about to strike,” Kaven suggested.

  “Maybe he’s made of gold, and the arrow bounced off him,” Gristle muttered.

  “The arrow struck his shoulder. I’m certain of it,” another Jingleman insisted.

  “You must have the eyesight of a bat to see that in the dark,” Gristle said.

  “Didn’t slow him up much if it did,” Hackit said in a hushed tone.

  “Enough of this prattle!” Tarum Sire bellowed as he emerged from the huddle. “Either Scaral missed, or the Elf’s armor saved him.” His voice exuded confidence, but the light of the campfire revealed it as a lie.

  “Did you see the stumpy arrow that killed Ruscondel?” Kaven asked. “Too small for a bow. The Gilt Spider must have thrown it at him. Imagine the strength to cast it that distance and pierce poor Ruscondel’s armor.”

  “How did he see him in the dark?” Hackit asked.

  Scaral began to explain. “We were climbing up the rock to take our turn on watch…”

  “Shut up,” Tarum said, turning toward the others, his face once again veiled by shadow. “Enough of this childish drivel. The Gilt Spider is as much flesh and blood as any of us. It isn’t magic to run away.”

  “Flesh and blood he may be, but he’s killed four of us so far,” Gristle said. “And I think it’s time to do my magic. Kaven, grab your stuff. We’re leaving.”

  Gristle stomped over to his sleeping mat and
started to gather his possessions. After a moment’s hesitation, Kaven scurried after him and did the same.

  “If you leave now, I’ll make it my business to ensure no caravan will ever hire you again,” Tarum said, shaking a fist.

  Gristle continued to pack his belongings. “I’ll have to take the chance.”

  “Damn coward,” Tarum muttered as Gristle saddled his horse.

  Gristle paused, then finished tightening the cinch. He swung stiffly into his saddle and waited in silence for Kaven to mount his animal.

  Despite the risk of incurring Hackit’s whip, Grael could not keep silent. “Don’t go,” he begged. “Please.” Desperation inspired him. “The Gilt Spider is waiting for you out there. You stand a better chance as eight than two.”

  Gristle glanced coldly at Grael but made no reply. “Good luck,” he said to his former comrades as he kicked his horse and galloped away, Kevan trailing behind him but glancing back several times. The thunder of hooves peppered with the tinkle of dancing metal faded into the night. Of the original twelve Jinglemen, six remained.

  “Damn them, and damn the Elf,” Tarum said. “I promise by the Golden Light that begot him, this ends tomorrow.”

  Harath’s grip tightened, her nails dug into the backs of Grael’s hands. The pain was a welcome distraction from his own fear. The Jinglemen were now as much their protectors as their captors.

  Something squirming against Grael’s back jolted him awake. The dampness of the night clung to his face like cold sweat. The first light of dawn had already formed a halo over the mountains.

  Harath exhaled behind him. “I suppose we should thank the Forelight for surviving the night.” Her voice was shaky.

  “We’ll be fine,” Grael lied. He looked around the empty camp. Where were the Jinglemen? What if they had fled in the night? What if the Gilt Spider had killed them?

  “Tarum Sire, are you there?” Grael called.

  “Shut up, unless you want my fist for breakfast.”

  Grael’s heart lifted at the sound of Hackit’s slur. Even that devil was better company than the Gilt Spider.

  As the morning strengthened, the Jinglemen emerged from melting shadows. They immediately set about striking camp. Ruscondel’s corpse was placed in a shallow dent in the ground and covered with a thin, earthen veil. Grael and Harath were lashed to an uprooted tree trunk. Grael faced the outcrop. Harath, on the other side of the log, faced the forest’s edge.