THE CHILDREN OF THE SPIDER, Part 4

An hour or so before we got to the village of Crowe, we encountered a wagon. It was full of wounded and dying men.

The man driving the wagon was a burly Folk militia-man. Judging by his armor, he was probably a halberdier. However, he didn't have his weapon, he'd been viciously clawed across his upper body, and his left arm was obviously broken. The arm was bandaged and splinted, but he was doggedly clutching the wagon reins with his good hand. In the back of the wagon were a dozen-or-so badly injured Folk and Wilder warriors. An exhausted-looking healer, a bloodied bandage around his head and covering one eye, was trying his best to keep the wounded alive.

Jonah and I galloped up to the wagon and then pulled alongside as the wagon continued to rumble down the road. Up close, I could see that the Folk driver was pale from blood-loss and having a hard time focusing on the road. He blearily glanced at the badge of rank on my hauberk and sighed in exhausted relief.

"Can you take the reins, sir?" he croaked at me. "I keep fading out. I'm gonna drive us off the road."

Without a word, Jonah leaped from his horse and landed on the bench next to the driver. After Jonah took the reins, the driver slumped forward, craddling his injured arm against his chest.

I grabbed Jonah's horse by the mane and then dropped back. Still riding, I tied our horses to a set of hitching rings on the back-corner of the wagon. Then I climbed over the back and into the bed of the wagon. Under my feet, the wagon rocked and rumbled, but - of course - I had no problem keeping my balance.

The wagon stank of blood, fear, and pain.

"I can't do any more," the skinny healer told me, his voice filled with desperation. He was shaking and looked like he was about to collapse. Blood covered his body, but most of it wasn't his. He wasn't wearing the cloak of a mage, so I assumed his healing talents were a mixture of medicae training and a Wilder power. In the aftermath of a big battle, healers are often pushed to the edge. It seemed to me that this man had been shoved well beyond his limits.

"Take it easy," I said as I helped him sit down. Then I began checking bandages. All around us men moaned and whimpered. Some were praying. Others were cursing. Some were distantly silent. A delirious boy was whispering for his mother.

Men brush up against death in different ways.

One Folk actually was dead. I checked around his neck - he was wearing a cross of the old faith on a worn leather thong. I pulled it out from under his armor and left it visible. The gods were watching and I didn't want any of them to be confused when they finally chose their own.

"What happened?" I asked the healer as I tightened a leg-tourniquet on a violet-haired Wilder. Off hand, I didn't think the Wilder would make it to the village. At the very least, he would lose the leg.

The healer didn't answer, but someone else did.

"Big damn fight, senior samurai," an injured Folk archer told me distantly. "Lord Crowe and Lady Olivia took a bunch of troops to the other side of the frontier. We burned a Creed fort and the Creed are really pissed. They hit us pretty hard."

"Damned if I know why we're stirring up the Creed," the archer continued, "but - believe me - we've done one hell of a good job of getting their attention."

Actually, that was the point, but there was no time to explain that.

The healer looked at me, finally recognizing my rank. It suddenly occurred to him that he had a responsibility to deliver a report.

"Senior samurai," he began, addressing me with ragged formality, "Lord Crowe led a column ten miles past the frontier and killed the Creed who were guarding their biggest forward fort. Then we burned the fort and fell back slowly. At first the Creed came at us in small bands and we killed them without problem. Then a big bunch of them hit us on the flank as we were crossing the border river. We held them off, but a lot of auxiliaries were caught up in hand-to-hand fighting with the Creed."

I winced. Having non-Blood in melee combat with Creed is something you try to avoid.

"Helluva fight," the injured archer added tersely. "My buddies and I took one down. Big red-haired bastard. He killed three of us, but we got him. We were gonna get wiped out, but Lady Olivia saved us. She lit up those Creed pricks with the Lady's own lightning - for a second I thought the whole damned world would end in thunder. She kept us together 'til a pack of Blood rangers and some Angel skirmishers showed up."

The archer paused and shook his head before going on. "I swear, if I get home, I'm gonna build a statue to Lady Ororo."

Then the Folk halberdier-teamster sitting next to Jonah spoke up. "If I see Lady Olivia again, I'm going to offer to swear oath to her. I'll let her put me in charge of licking her boots clean if that's what she wants. We were dead until she showed up."

"As if licking any part of Lady Olivia would be a bad thing," someone chimed in faintly.

"Not the prettiest woman..." someone else added judiciously.

"Shut your hole," the halberdier growled as best he could. "Any woman who saves your life is beautiful."

There was a low rumble of coughing, faint, agreement. That was all for the good. The thing called 'morale' is an important part of keeping wounded men alive. If they start talking about women, that's a good sign.

The healer was a determined man. He got to his knees and tried to help the unconcious warrior who was next to him. There was a dull flare of fizzling light around the healer's hands, but nothing more. From the look on the healer's face, he knew he hadn't accomplished much.

Then the First Spider sent me his warning - a tingling sensation that alerts my kind of impending danger. I didn't bother to look at Jonah as I pivoted to face the rear of the wagon. He was feeling the same thing.

The horses tied to the back of the wagon screamed and started fighting their reins, trying to tear their way loose from the hitching rings. The wagon jerked in response. I barely grabbed the healer in time and kept him from being thrown overboard. The injured yelled or moaned in surprise.

With my other hand, I drew one of my swords.

There was a pack of Creed after us.

I threw the healer into the wagon bed and slashed loose the reins of the horses that I'd tethered to rear of the wagon. They immediately veered to the side and galloped away.

Almost immediately, the fastest Creed jumped up and onto the rear of the wagon, his fingertip claws digging into the wood of the back-gate. He was a dark-haired youngster wearing a necklace of teeth and not much more. As he tried to finish clawing his way into the wagon, splintering his way forward, I put the length of my short-sword through his heart. Without a sound, his eyes wide in surprise, the Creed tumbled away.

I drew my other sword as Jonah threw the reins to the halberdier sitting next to him and flipped backwards into the rear of the wagon. He landed on his feet and bisected the skull of Creed who was climbing the side of the wagon. The horses drawing the wagon were panicking and beginning to run wild. I could hear the halderdier cursing as he tried to keep them pointed in a straight and non-catastrophic line.

The wounded who were still able to move pulled out knives and hand-axes. Any fear or pain they might be feeling was overwhelmed by sheer hatred and the will to survive. The boy who had been so quietly sobbing for his mother painfully drew a field knife out of the boot of the dead man next to him.

Then the rest of the Creed began swarming into the wagon.

Everything became a blur or motion and blood.

A Creed went for the healer, I lopped off the Creed's reaching hand and kicked him out of the wagon. Jonah used a two-weapon crossing strike to decapitate another Creed who'd boarded from the other side of the wagon and was trying to hamstring me. We couldn't immediately do anything about another Creed who had swarmed aboard and was tearing at a screaming Folk. However, the warriors who could still move piled onto the Creed, slashing and stabbing as best they could. The healer was chief among them, screaming curses as he drove a heavy-bladed amputation knife over-and-over into the Creed's midsection.

Leaping straight up, I performed a mid-air flip that ended with my feet impacting into the chest and neck of yet another Creed who was boarding the wagon. His throat crunched under the impact and he was pitched from the wagon, clutching at a buckled larynx.

Jonah found a gap in the press of flailing bodies at the bottom of the wagon and thrust at the Creed underneath. Jonah's blade neatly penetrated into one of the Creed's eyes, through his skull, and then pinned his head to the wagon bed. The Creed's body and limbs began jerking spasmodically. The wounded who could still move grabbed the arms and legs of the Creed and pinned him down. Then a woman who was covered by more bandages than clothing seized the Creed by the neck. The woman's hands turned to fire and began burning through the Creed's throat. Until then, I'd assumed she was Folk, but she was actually a Scatter of the Torch lineage.

The smell of burning meat filled the back of the wagon. The Creed's screams became something bizarre as his vocal chords roasted.

By then I was keeping two more Creed busy, trying to keep them focused on me so they'd ignore the injured. One advantage I had was that I wasn't as likely to lose my balance as the wagon careened down the road. The Creed were sure-footed, but not like Jonah and I. When one of the two Creed fighting me finally stumbled, I put my left-hand sword into his solar plexus, while using my right-hand sword to keep the other Creed at bay.

Spewing out a gout of blood, the perforated Creed fell to his knees. He still managed to slash at my knee, but I sensed it coming and simply stepped out of the way. A sword-slice that wasn't as accurate as I would have liked removed skin and bone from the side of the downed Creed's face. A grotesquely exposed eye stared up at me. I could only see hatred within it.

Jonah forced his way between me and the uninjured Creed, giving me a much-needed break. I finished off the Creed whose face I had mostly removed. Then a burst of flame - the work of the Scatter woman - engulfed the head of Jonah's opponent. Howling in pain, the burning Creed jumped out of the wagon.

"Stay here!" I yelled to Jonah. Then I leaped off the wagon, landing in a crouch that absorbed most of the impact, shoulder-rolled forward, and ended up on my feet.

Behind me, I could hear Jonah cursing as the wagon rattled away. He didn't dare leave the wounded by themselves.

The Creed who'd been set on fire was frantically trying to extinguish his burning hair and shirt in a mud puddle. I impaled him through the back of the neck. That severed his spine. Then I chopped the Creed's charred head loose from his body with three precise blows from my other sword.

Scattered down the length of the road, the various Creed who'd been pitched from the wagon and were still alive reeled to their feet. The nearest one began eagerly staggering in my direction, reaching out for me with a clawed hand. With every step, he seemed to move with more sureness.

It couldn't leave the injured Creed to simply heal up and continue their rampage.

I had to kill them.

I was only a mile or so from the village of Crowe when Jonah found me. Like me, he was also on foot. I was pretty sure we'd never be able to recover our horses.

Sophie was going to be so pissed with me.

Jonah seemed surprised to see what I was carrying. From one hand dangled a collection Creed heads that were gathered together in a make-shift harness. I'd bundled them together with my travel-scarf and a spare equipment strap.

"Another charming local custom?" Jonah asked as he gestured at what I was carrying. He looked more resigned than disapproving.

"Yes," I replied.

Jonah sighed as he approached me. "Uncle Ben, sometimes it seems as if you've become more Blood than Spider."

I just shrugged, "Creed heal as fast as the Blood - and faster than us. Taking Creed heads is the best way to make sure they're dead, and counting heads tells you exactly how many of the enemy you've killed. There's no guess-work involved."

Jonah nodded, and then spoke again. "Uncle Ben... I won't nag you about this, but isn't it time to consider going home? You're the Dark Spider of our Clan. Someday you'll be needed."

I didn't really have an answer to Jonah's question. And it was something I don't like to talk about. So I changed the subject.

"How did it go with the wagon?" I asked.

"We got to the village," Jonah replied - I was grateful for how he accepted my refusal to deal with what he'd asked me. "I jumped out of the wagon and came after you after I saw some of Lord Crowe's troops. Three of the wounded were killed by the Creed. Most of the injured were injured yet again. I hope there's a fresh healer in Crowe, otherwise we'll lose more."

I noticed the "we" in what Jonah had just said, but I didn't comment about it.

Then Jonah frowned. "I'm surprised the Creed went after a wagon full of wounded auxiliaries. That pulled fighters away from the main battle with Lord Crowe."

I shook my head. "The Creed aren't exactly controlled when they're on the battlefield. A hunting pack might have become over-focused on what they saw as injured and fleeing prey. That's actually much like the Creed."

"Could it have been deliberate?" Jonah asked after a moment of thought. "Part of a plan to pick off Blood allies? One-on-one, the Blood are a lot tougher than their allies, but how vulnerable would a Blood army be if it lacked the support of their non-Blood auxilaries?"

I considered that. "I wouldn't ever call a Blood army vulnerable... but without their allies, they would definitely be less effective. The auxiliaries bring talents to a battle - like massed bowfire, magic, Wilder powers, and psychic communication - that the Blood just done have."

Jonah nodded, but didn't say anything.

"Usually, the Creed aren't given to much in the way of tactics," I added slowly. "History doesn't show too many smart Creed war-chiefs. They usually get the job because of brawn rather than brains."

"From what we've heard, it sounds like Lord Crowe got blind-sided," Jonah replied with shrug. "So maybe he's facing a smart Creed chief. That's something to worry about."

I considered that as we continued towards the village.

Behind us, the Creed heads I was carrying left a faint trail of blood in the dust of the road.