The Woodsman: Chapter Three

They broke camp; he quenched the fire and did his best to conceal their presence. He kept her wrists tied but had her beside him on the driver’s seat of the wagon. The air held a wet chill today, so he kept her wrapped in the bedroll, and she laid her head on his shoulder as they rode.

The black willow trees surrounded them, spiders’ webs hanging in drapery on the sad branches above them, and behind every slick black trunk laid an imaginary enemy in waiting. Giant spiders. Dire wolves. And any manner of beasts which made the dark forest home.

Dark elves too.

The road they followed was built before dark elves ever came to this land, a weed-grown, broken cobbled trail filled with muddy puddles, patches of overgrown weeds, and a few tracks here and there from travelers stupid enough to make the trip. The way never could stay straight, and it curved and weaved around the trees and small hill-like mounds of the forest floor.

“We need to make time.”

She nodded and buried her face into his stubble.

“I don’t know if you are dying, miss elf. I am sorry. I know nothing of magic, and I cannot help you. You are my prisoner, and I will make sure you get help if we live to reach the coast.”

She nodded, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“I’m sorry, don’t cry. Elves don’t cry.”

She sighed, and he knew the sound of tears as her breathing increased through her nose.

“Do you feel you are getting weaker? That you are getting worse?”

She shook her head no.

He smiled. That was good news.

“You are getting better then? See. No need to cry.”

He stared down the branch-sheltered road ahead of them.

“I never knew dark elves could cry.”

She nodded.

“I am sorry if I made you cry.”

She nodded again, her face still pressed against his neck and shoulder. She let out a long sigh, followed by a few sniffles. He offered her a rag to blow her nose on, which she obliged.

Why had he taken this mission? A courier mission to a remote outpost of the Queen, where the speed of cutting through the Dark Forest would mean they could have gotten up to the mountain fortress in three weeks instead of three months. Just ten men, a small force fast enough to move undetected, would be in and out in a few weeks.

“Why does there need to be hate in this world? I am sorry for both of us.”

She nodded.

“My name is Tyler, as if that matters.”

She made a motion that made him think she was trying to laugh and exhaled through her nose.

“It isn’t funny.”

She nodded and kept her head on his shoulder as they rode. The rain puttered and spattered, trying to come back, and the weather settled into a dreary cold mist that chilled him to the bone.

“At least you understand me. I wish I knew what ailed you. Before joining the Queen’s Men, I built ships and worked in the forests as a woodsman. I know a few things about herbs and natural medicines, but sadly this is not my neck of the woods, so I know nothing about the mushrooms or strange herbs here.”

She motioned as if she were pulling on her restraints behind her back.

He groaned.

“That is a lot to ask. You and your friends killed the rest of my unit.”

She shook her head no.

“That, I find hard to believe, dark elf wizard. I am bringing their bodies home to be put to rest. I doubt any will respond to restorative magic two weeks after passing. Their souls will have moved on, finding the souls of their families, and the bonds to the Realm of the Dead too strong for them to make the return home.”

She stiffened and bumped him twice, her eyes locked on the road ahead.

He blinked, taking his eyes off her to look.

“Do you see something? I don’t see- “

A tent-like canopy of webs hung in the black branches of trees above the road. Invisible normally, but the mists made tiny droplets of water stick to the silken nets making a beautiful pattern of hanging gossamer silken nets.

“Dark spinners,” he said, whipping the horse to a stop. The horse gave a nervous snort. They were warned about these giant spiders before they came into the Dark Forest, spiders with bodies three to four feet large and legs that extended twelve to sixteen feet. They could jump a man, inject him with paralyzing venom, encase him in a web cocoon, and carry you off to a next where hundreds of baby dark spinners would eat you from the inside out while you were still alive.

Nasty bastards.

A quick spy of the forest showed no other way but through. The eight-legged devils must have felt them come around and set up a trap for the next travelers.

“How many?”

She nudged him three times and then a fourth.

“Oh,” he sighed, “thanks.”

The road seemed straightforward enough, no webs if they kept their heads low.

“Think we could speed through?”

She shook her head no.

“Stay here.”

Her eyes blinked slowly, making him look like she could do anything else.

He smiled at her saltiness, staring into her eyes. She blinked, a bit confused, and the corners of her lips made a slight smile, and she tried to laugh. She shook her head, and her lips mouthed a few words he did not understand.

“I know; I am scared too.”

He felt a strange feeling, a tingling on his lips, that he should somehow say goodbye to her, be brave for her, and reassure her everything was going to work out all right. He settled for a few blinks of his eyes, dropping his eyes to hers and pressing his forehead against hers.

She nodded her forehead against his when they touched.

He hopped off the wagon and landed in a puddle with a splash.

He pulled his long knife from his sheath and pulled the large woodman’s ax from under the driver’s seat. He spied a ceremonial dwarven buckler attached to the side of the cart, put there by one of the dead soldiers, ostensibly for good luck.

Some good this did us.

He tied it to his left forearm and kept his knife in that hand. In his right, he gripped the ax with a white-knuckle grip.

He kinked his head to one side as he stretched his neck muscles and spat onto the road.

“All right, you bastards, want to play with the woodsman?”

He strode towards the apparent trap, eyes darting to the thickets and ferns on each side. Everything was wet, the bark black, and the weeds thick and tangled. Their movement would be far easier to see than a blasted dark spinner.

Now, the webs hung directly above him, and he felt himself enter the beast’s heart. Water dripped on him from above. He dared to look back at the wagon, and the dark elf’s eyes were locked on him, and she shook her head rapidly.

He turned as the hissing started.

About a dozen yards ahead, a rustle came from the side of the road, and he could see the ferns jerk as something crawled slowly onto the path. The long black legs, covered by inward-facing jagged spines, emerged from the wet undergrowth first, followed by the beast’s crab-like upper legs, black and wet from the rain.

A hundred eyes glistened from the beast’s head as the large black body, as large as a calf, effortlessly floated on the road carried by impossibly long spider legs.

Two long green fangs, each the size of a dagger, dripped venom from the beast’s mouth as a hiss emanated from the devil’s throat, which pierced his soul.

He would never forget that noise for as long as he lived.

The beast did not approach or attack. It stood its ground down the road.

He narrowed his eyes as the water dripped down his face.

He braved a step forward, and the beast did not move. He dared another, and he felt his heart beating faster. The beast still did not move. He even dared the third step, judging the beast’s intents, and it tensed, raising the hind of its body as if a cat ready to pounce.

The beast could have leaped the entire distance this close. Instead, it stood there, hissing and preparing to attack. What the blasted hell is this hideous devil doing?

He kept his eyes narrowed and focused on the beast’s hundred eyes. Then, he blinked and darted his eyes to the side.

The beast on the road hissed louder and swayed its body from side to side as if the creature was going to leap.

He stared back into the hundred hypnotic eyes again, and the hissing continued, though at a lower tone.

He darted his eyes to the other side of the road, and it happened again. The beast was trying to get his attention by hissing louder and swaying its body.

He turned his eyes to the beast and smiled.

“You don’t fool me.”

The hiss’ tone changed, and the drops of water from the webs above told him the spider jumping on him from above would soon be landing on his back. The spider that would have landed on his back, a slightly smaller one with a body the size of a large dog and legs which would have covered a bedroom, ate a juicy stomach full of woodman’s ax and covered him with a spray of green guts.

Things were happening fast.

The mother beast was training her young to hunt and had placed herself on the road as a diversion.

He was wrong about her.

She was a bitch.

The not-so-baby spider leaping at his left side ate a face full of his buckler as the weight of the impact sent him stumbling to the right side of the road. The second beast flew back, stunned but not dead, as it tried to recover. It thrashed in the ferns, and he knew the third was somewhere coming fast at him. The noise around him covered the sounds of approach, so he spun, letting the carcass of the dead first spider fall to the ground as he swept his weapon in a circle for a beast that never came.

Instead, he spied the black form of the third baby spider down the road, crawling towards a frightened horse, the baby spider’s hundred eyes locked on the helpless dark elf lying across the driver’s seat. Her eyes went wide with fear as she struggled, tied and helpless.

“My fault; I am sorry.”

He ran down the road, feet splashing in puddles, taking the chance that the mother behind him would not attack because he left the baby spider behind him alive. Let the young ones kill and learn to hunt, right, mother?

He heard the one behind him right itself and charge after him, the mud of the road making long, spear-like feet sink deeper into the ground, slowing the beast’s pursuit. He did not know how long it would be until it jumped on his back and sunk its dagger-like teeth into his neck to inject him with venom.

The last spider he chased seemed the smallest, so naturally, it went for the helpless one. It turned, saw him catching on its back with his ax, quickly jumped to the trees beside the road, and jumped from tree to tree, still headed for the wagon.

He ran faster than the smaller spider could move on the trees and slid to a stop next to the frightened horse as the animal reared up on its hind legs and stomped back into the mud, spraying him with dirt and bits of weed. The second spider was five yards off and still running full speed at him.

A blur of black speeding through the air met the thrown steel of his knife, and the third spider was dead, a dagger lodged between its fangs before it hit the ground.

The last baby spider jumped at him, and he rolled underneath his rearing horse.

He slid sideways and stopped against the horse’s back hooves.

The spider landed and lashed out with its long legs at him; the jagged spines caught on his leather jerkin and tore it open as if it were no armor.

And the horse’s two front hooves landed on the last spider’s head, crushing it and spraying him with green bile. The horse kicked the rest of the body away as he rolled free, standing beside the beast and calming him with a pat on the head.

“It’s okay, boy. Good job.”

Still, down the road, the mother spider hissed a mournful wail and lowered her body, a hundred eyes locked on him. He pulled his dagger free from the smallest and wiped it on his arm before returning it to its sheath.

He stepped back down the road towards the female spider devil, ax in hand before he thrust it in the direction of the forest from which she came.

“Best lay few more eggs now, shouldn’t ye?”

The mother spider hissed and strode off the road before darting through the forest at a speed he did not think possible. In moments, the giantess was gone. He knew she would be back with more, possibly hunting them both for what he did. Revenge ran in every living thing’s blood.

And she would be back for more.

“Eight-legged bitch,” he cursed under his breath.

He stumbled back to the wagon, cleaned, and oiled his weapons, and kept them in a place he could rapidly retrieve them. He crawled back into the driver’s seat next to the dark elf, and she blinked in surprise at him and dared a faint smile.

“It is okay, Milady; I apologize for leaving you helpless. I promise on my honor it shall never happen again if I can help it.”

She nodded and blinked a few times, and he felt her heart racing as she settled. She bumped him and squirmed against her restraints.

“I can’t untie you, not now. You know magic. I do not.”

She pulled on her arms, trying to free herself weakly, and moaned in pain.

He sighed.

“I find this hard to believe. So, you didn’t cast your magic at us? You and your friends- “

She shook her head no again, cutting off his words.

He stared down the road at the spindle of webs hanging above and the dead spiders on the road. The cold chill of terror gripped his heart. The fear was even worse than the one he had just faced. A realization which seized him at his core, that somehow, he was-

Were they not her friends?

That somehow, he was wrong.

He turned his head to face her and looked into her violet eyes.

“Wait? Were the other dark elves… chasing you?”

Her eyes grew large.

She nodded slowly.