A few days later the travelers approached Fief Naxen. Duke Gareth the Elder greeted him and gave them good hospitality, later refurbishing their supplies for the two-day trip to where the spidrens were last sighted. The travelers stayed one night at Fief Naxen, and then continued their search.
The day they left Naxen dawned bright and clear. After a day of relaxing and preparing, the knights and squires were anxious to get back on their way. Kel and Neal were putting saddles on their mounts when a messenger ran into the fief breathless. He was dust-covered and had some nasty slashes on his face and arms.
"Spidrens—attacked—" he tried to say while catching his breath.
"Hush, lad," Lord Raoul said, giving the boy a tankard of water. When the boy was somewhat better, Lord Raoul asked him what happened.
"Spidrens have attacked Fief Lorane and we don't have enough soldiers to fight them off! Duke Goren of Lorane, the ruler of the fief has already been killed and our forces are in great disorder. We-"
"That's all we need to hear, youngster. We'll be on our way as soon as our mounts are ready," Raoul interrupted.
"Oh, thank you Sir," the boy and stumbled into the castle to get some food.
"Mount your horses!" Lord Raoul bellowed. "We've no time to waste. Onward!!!"
With a final shout, the travelers left Fief Naxen at a trot. They were headed directly for Fief Lorane.
Around noon the next day Lord Raoul found some of the sticky spidren web on a tree trunk. Seeing the blood scattered around near it, Kel didn't want to think about the fate of whoever had met the spidren.
As they went on, they saw increasing amounts of webbing. Finally they reached the outskirts of the fief, where they heard people screaming in terror as the spidrens attacked them. It was a terrible sight. All around them, on the ground, were people. Some of them were half-eaten, but nearly all of them were bleeding and in pain
"Damn," Kel muttered under her breath, "this is much worse than I expected."
Neal had run over to someone that was lying on the ground, and used his Gift to heal their brutal slashes, obviously from spidrens. Neal was able to heal two more people before Lord Raoul started shouting orders.
"First line, ASSEMBLE!!!!" he bellowed. Kel jumped up and grabbed her sword.
"Kel, wait!" Neal cried. He wrapped her in a tight hug before saying, "Kel, be careful."
"Neal, quit your worrying. I'll be fine."
"Well, in that case, go kick some spidren ass!" he told her, then kissed her cheek.
Kel ran to where the other first line warriors were standing. On Raoul's "Charge!" the knights and Kel charged the immortals. Seeing them from close up, Kel saw how ugly they were. The spidrens were about 5 feet tall spiders with human heads. They had a hole near their stomach, where Kel suspected they shot out their webbing.
The Lady Squire started to attack a female spidren, who was in the process of shooting web at a villager. Kel hit its side with her blade, getting the creature's attention.
"Oh, the little girl wants to play?" the spidren taunted, her voice cruel. "Well, you can play with this!" The spidren shot webbing at Kel, trapping her against a tree. Kel screamed as the immortal advanced on her, and before she knew what was happening, black blood spattered the ground. At the center of the blood was the Lioness, with a look of concern on her face as she looked in Kel's direction. The web that had trapped her had fallen away since the owner of it was dead.
"I'm okay, Lady Alanna. Thank you," Kel said.
"Anytime, but you can call me Alanna. Now, be careful, unless you want to become spidren meal!"
"No, ma'am! I'd druther fight them, that's for sure!" Kel assured the Lioness while walking back to the largest clump of attacking spidrens.