Dedications: Whether you're a guest or not, I'll still thank you. To Emily Heggenes, thank you so much for taking the time to post a kind review to cheer me on. That simple review meant even more to me, because I was having a really hard time at that moment, until I saw your review.
Previously... Meilin shuffled closer and squinted to get a closer look. What could be in that covered box?
Suddenly, the red-haired man stated, "Did you hear something?"
Meilin froze and inhaled sharply. She began to feel uneasy. Everything began sounding louder, as the wind swept past, while a few leaves fell and brushed Meilin's face. Meilin suspected that Essix must've adjusted her grip on the tree branches above her, as she could hear something, besides the leaves. The bears stopped twitching, as they were most unfortunately, still half-hidden in place. Rollan could not be heard at all, as he was clearly the most experienced with hiding. Meilin tensed and began fearing for the worst, "What Rollan truly wasn't in his hiding place after all?!" What if he was…
All of a sudden, a hand slapped to Meilin's mouth, alarming her and muffling any noise that she made.
Meilin made a high-pitched, muffled scream during her shock, but the hand tightened around her mouth, making her noise little to nothing. Meilin questioned herself, "Why would I call for help when…" She whipped around, and swept a leg swiftly under her captor to knock him off of his feet. Only to turn and find that her captor was Rollan! Rollan fell onto one of the bears with a grunt.
The amount of noise he made frightened Meilin. She gave Rollan a look of concern, before she turned to face the campsite, where the two men were. She sighed with relief, when she saw that the men had not approached them. Clearly, they were still alarmed by something, but they didn't look towards where they were hiding. Fortunately, Rollan's landing on the bear's soft fur must've been quiet enough that it didn't alert the men. Their hiding spots among the foliage were also shady enough to prevent them from being seen.
To their relief, the brown-haired man only scoffed as he stroked his mangy beard, "Ah, it's probably just the spider." With one swift tug, he pulled the sheet off of the small cage, which he was holding onto earlier.
Seeing what was in the cage, Meilin stuffed a fist in her mouth, which stopped her shriek in time. Shivers were sent down her spine, as she stared at the creature with multiple eyes. It was a large spider! In fact, it was a tarantula. Meilin shuddered, as she could hear the creature's multiple, hairy legs clatter against the floor of the metal cage.
Rollan crept up behind her, but intending not to scare her, he chose not to tap on her shoulder. Instead, he put both of his hands gently on her shoulders. He only realized what he had done, when Meilin jumped a bit.
Meilin scowled at him for startling her that way. In spite of that, she was somehow comforted by his presence. It was quite relieving to know that he truly hadn't betrayed them. She watched as Rollan put one finger in front of his lips to signal her to keep quiet. Then, he lightly urged Meilin to step aside. Confused, Meilin exited out of her hiding place and into the shadows. She then saw that Rollan began shifting into her original hiding place, before signalling Meilin to take his better hiding spot. Meilin understood and nodded gratefully, before she crept there.
Just as she slipped into the better hiding spot, the burly man with brown hair set the tormented spider in its cage down upon the dirt, right next to a tree stump. The red-haired man scratched his hair in confusion and asked, "I thought that we were gonna' test on a dog, not something so small."
The brown-haired man seethed at that, "We were supposed to, but that was canceled by that new 'Rolling' boy! Ye ever heard o' him?"
"Rolling boy?" asked the red-haired man, "I haven't seen no boy rolling around on the ship's deck."
"Naw, it's a name," scoffed the first man, "Stupid name, if yeh ask me."
Meilin turned from her new, hiding spot between two trees. She felt a surge of sorrow when she saw Rollan's expression crumple up at their insult. It seemed that they both knew who these Conquerors were talking about.
"Awh, you mean, Rollan, the summoner of Essix?" declared the second man, figuring out who they were speaking about.
"Ye got that right, boy," snarled the burly man, as he tightened his hands into fists and rippled his muscles, "Shane let Rollan have his way. Otherwise, I'd have given it to him. I don't care what his puny Spirit Animal is. You've seen how skinny he is? I could've thrown him off the boat, if I had grabbed him by the shirt in time. Sure he's swifter with those leg muscles, but how long can he run for? He can't hide the fact that luck runs out. If he doesn't keep his footing up, he'll bite the dust." He shook his head in a gruff manner, before he ordered, "Anywar's, open that trunk up."
The slender man did as he was told. With a flick of his hand, he withdrew a small, glass vial that was filled with a bubbling, sickly-yellow liquid. He uncorked the liquid. When he did so, they could hear the liquid give a hiss, while the bubbles kept fizzing.
The burly man expressed his disapproval with a scowl, "No, not the small one. They won't mind how much we use, as long as we get the results they want. Take out the bigger flasks."
The thin man with red hair flashed a sinister smile. It seemed clear to them that he wanted to use the bigger flasks too. His bright red hair and facial features were lit up by the campfire, making him seem more intimidating. From the same trunk, he pulled out one conical flask after another, until the log bench next to him was covered in flasks.
Meilin got into a fighting stance. The men hadn't seen her and Rollan yet, but she already had a daunting feeling about this. She wanted to whisper to Rollan, "What is that? Nectar?" but Rollan was too far away, and she couldn't help but sigh and long for him… No, she couldn't long for him! She shook her head in denial. He was a Conqueror. Greencloaks don't fall for Conquerors. Greencloaks will fall off of cliffs valiantly like heroes and…
"Oh, Conor," she suddenly realized, "What happened to him? He fell off a cliff and… No, he can't be dead." As young as he was, Meilin secretly knew that he wasn't inexperienced in all aspects. Out of everyone else in the entire Erdas, he had summoned Briggan. To top it off, he had managed to stop Abeke and Meilin from continuously fighting. To Meilin, that was an impressive feat, because it could take a whole army to drag Meilin away, and she had even bested her martial arts master already. All it took from Conor though was his sensible words to stop their bickering. Now that she had been separated from the Greencloaks, all that she could do now for them was just hope that they were safe. In such a short amount of time, they had all experienced devastating perils and she was sure that they were heading towards more— much more than they'd ever dream up of.
Meilin then remembered waking up besides a tree, and looking up towards Rollan's glimmering figure in the moonlight. His forehead had beads of sweat upon them, as if he had been through a lot emotionally. She didn't remember much. Had he dragged her here for some reason, while she was asleep? Was there a reason why he would take her to that certain spot though? She narrowed down the possible reasons. If their cave had gotten attacked, he wouldn't have dragged her anywhere, because he would've woken her up instead. Or did he try to wake her up, but she wouldn't stir? No, she didn't think that that could be the answer. She was willing to bet that even if she got knocked unconscious, Rollan would be a heavier sleeper than her. That was when Meilin recalled seeing a vast crevasse filled with nothing but darkness behind Rollan.
Meilin gasped, "Could it be? What if Rollan's beads of sweat weren't about stress and worry? What if they were signs of panic? What if he wanted to throw me off of that cliff?!" Meilin only jerked out of her thoughts when she heard a clang come from the cage. The men had yanked the cage's door open. The loud sound frightened the timid spider, and it retreated away from the door. The red-haired man attempted to grab the spider with his left hand, while his right hand clutched a flask full of the menacing liquid. The spider shrunk away, before it picked up courage and attempted to bite the thin man's fingers.
It would've gotten a bite off of the thin man, if the burly man hadn't shouted, "Enough of this!" He tossed the thin man's hand aside, and grasped the large spider with a thrust of his hand. With his gigantic hand, he raised the spider into the air triumphantly. The frightened spider actually screamed in terror, and even at a distance, Meilin could hear it loud and clear. It was a scream that she would not forget for a while. It was a scream of terror, helplessness, and pain. The monstrous man slammed the spider down against the log bench, before he let go. The spider made a feeble attempt to stand up. It trembled, as it used one set of four legs to heave one side up, but failed to use the other side of its body the same way, so it collapsed back down. From this spectacle, they could assume that the burly man had broken a few of the spider's legs, and smooshed part of its body, as the spider had failed to mobilize one side of its body.
Meilin jumped up and wanted to emerge from the shadows. She didn't care whether she would reveal herself, she just wanted to save the spider from this injustice. Regardless of how many shivers that were sent down her spine from her fear of spiders, it was agonizing to watch this creature struggle helplessly, as its eyes pleaded for mercy. Before Meilin could even dive for the spider, the wiry man took a hold of the spider's head and shoved the bottle of liquid at its face.
The sight was so abhorrent, that Meilin and her group had to turn away for they could not watch this. Whether they were forcing the tarantula to drink the liquid, or just letting it slosh down its body, they would never know. They were paralyzed by this degree of inhumanity, and Meilin had to cover her ears with her hands, as the spider's shrill squeals and screams became thunderous roars.
When everything had finally gone silent, Meilin opened her eyes, but it was completely dark. Where did the moon go? Without the moon's light, it was pitch black. Meilin groped for her surroundings, and felt the rough bark of a tree, which meant that she still was in the forest. "Rollan?" she whisper-called, "Rollan, where are you?" She nearly slapped a hand over her mouth when she realized that she sounded almost frightened.
Within a moment, Rollan had gotten to Meilin. With the help of Essix's night vision, Rollan had been guided to find Meilin. He called, "Thanks, Essix!" Rollan then wandered the rest of the short distance to Meilin. He was sure that even without any special, he would still find Meilin.
Meilin heard Rollan's soft breath, and rushed toward him. Frightened out of her wits, she let Rollan embrace her, before he rocked her back and forth in his arms. She listened to his soothing voice that comforted her, "It's okay. It's okay. I'm here for you." Meilin ran her hand through his tangled hair, as she could feel his warm breaths.
Meanwhile, Essix watched in the distance. She really wanted to have some fun with taunting this couple, but she couldn't, because her beak was held shut by the bears' big paws. Therefore, Essix could only watch them. Her eyes flicked upward. She observed that there was a dim glow coming from the moon. The glow traced the couple's silhouettes, before it shimmered splendidly around them. This beautiful spectacle was heartfelt, until what looked like an enormous shadow rippled over the light and extinguished it. A red glow took the place of the white light now. Essix searched the sky for the moon, but she couldn't see it hovering above the treetops anymore.
She looked towards the couple, and nearly screeched out loud in alarm. She wasn't panicking about the couple, but what was beyond them that was partially hidden by the trees. To her luck, the bears had kept her beak shut, but her jaw was feeling a bit sore from their enormous paws.
What the spirit animals were frightened by was these gigantic, eight eyes that loomed between the trees, watching the couple. Each eye was fairly larger than Essix's wingspan. It took Meilin and Rollan a longer while to notice anything, but they did become aware when they saw that they both seemed to be illuminated by something. Then, they turned and saw those eyes. Unlike Essix, they weren't as fortunate to have a safe distance away from that creature. To make things worse, Meilin had screamed out loud when she recognized that creature for what it was. Despite the fact that Meilin had now given away their location, Essix enjoyed the sight of Meilin leap into Rollan's arms. She sniggered even harder when she saw Meilin glare at Rollan, as if he was the one who made her jump into his arms. Rollan just shrugged it off, before he put on a mischievous smile. He released his secure grip on Meilin. Meilin shrieked at the abrupt fall, but he caught her just in time, before she hit the muddy ground. Meilin's rage and Essix's amusement was unfortunately interrupted by the stormy voices of the men yelling, after they were alerted about trespassers.
"What's that?" enquired the young man with red hair, "We got ourselves a few snoops around 'ere?"
"Get 'em!" ordered the burly man.
The young man promptly ran towards them, but the burly man held him back by the shoulder. The burly man scoffed, "Not you. Him!"
"Who's him?" questioned the younger, thin man. Then, he saw the burly man pointing at the massive creature that they had force-fed. When they held the same thought in mind, their expressions turned into vile grins.
The spider tapped its legs upon its moist surroundings. Stunned, Meilin could only gape at the humongous spider, looking at it from bottom to top. Actually, the top of the creature couldn't even be seen. It stretched up so high into the night sky, until its top had covered the moonlight. Meilin's arachnophobia had fully kicked in now, causing her to let out a high pitched squeal of terror. When she did so, she didn't realize that that caused her to clutch Rollan's hand even tighter. She shuddered, as didn't want to admit her fear.
"Get 'em!" demanded the brawny man impatiently.
The enormous creature threw back its head and used its forelegs to clutch its head, as if it was trying to resist the order. When its forelegs landed upon the ground again, it caused the ground to tremble. The bears finally let go of their grip on Essix's beak, when they were shaken by the quakes. The spider twitched, before it finally succumbed. It bellowed loudly in a low-pitched voice that was unlike its normal, shrill screams from earlier. Its practical roar sent tremors throughout the vegetation, and even managed to send Meilin and Rollan flying back.
Rollan managed to hang onto a tree, and thrust a hand out to grab Meilin from flying back too far. Once that monstrosity had stopped screaming, Rollan yelled, "Run!"
Without hesitation, the bears pivoted and dashed towards the cave. Unlike the others, who fled as the spider charged, Essix stayed and headed towards the danger, for she knew that she could handle this arachnid better than the others. Essix dived towards the creature, and nearly dodged an enormous leg that attempted to trample her. She soared upward, before she dived down again. This time, she successfully took a mouthful… or a beakful of the creature's flesh. The creature reared and screeched in pain. Its eyes flashed with anger, before it sped up its charge through the forest. Wherever the spider rampaged through, trees came crashing down, while plants were being uprooted.
Rollan remarked, "Essix, I think that you only made it mad!" He ran aimlessly in the dark with Meilin. He feared that they could trip over something, or even worse— they could trip over each other! The only way that he was able to keep track of where Meilin was, was by hearing her loud gasps for air. Sometimes, she would slow down, before she would pick up her speed again. They trudged uphill, downhill, and sloshed through mud puddles. Rollan attempted to peel off the muddy leaves that had stuck to his face, before he was struck by an idea! He skidded to a stop, and groped for the nearest tree, before he began scaling up it blindly. Meilin seemed to have noticed his deviation, for she shouted, "Rollan, what are you doing?!"
"Uhhh, being wild!" he quickly replied. He then continued to clamber up the tree. It was a treacherous journey. The timing was critical to his plan, and that just made things even more nerve-wracking. While he clambered up this tree, he could hear the spider sending other trees crashing down. Pieces of rough bark also dug underneath his fingernails and scraped at his skin, as he continued to push himself upward frantically.
He knew that he had arrived at the top of the tree, when he could see the moon at last. The spider's huge body had been covering the moon up in the horizon, but now that he could see it, the lighting illuminated quite a good deal. Not too far away, he could see the spider's glowing eyes and the silhouettes of trees as they toppled down. In preparation, he poised himself, ready to jump off at any given moment.
When the spider was nearly below him, Rollan made one great bound onto a tree branch, before he leapt off feet-first. Just as he hoped for, he came rocketing down at an amazing speed. He positioned his feet first, intending to strike the spider in the eye, in an attempt to blind the spider. Even if he missed the eyes, he could still stun the entire spider with a well-landed hit. To his misfortune, the spider must've seen him coming, because it halted and faced upwards towards Rollan. Its eyes narrowed with contempt, before it proceeded to open its gaping mouth towards him. Rollan yelped as he knew that the spider intended to let him fall into its mouth and consume him. There was no way to defy gravity and stop falling, so he bellowed, "Essix!" Unfortunately, that only made Essix halt in her fight to look at him. This gave the spider enough time to swat her out of the air with one of its legs. Rollan shouted with anguish, as he Essix plummeted out of the air. He turned to face the spider and felt a spark of bitterness, but he couldn't do anything now to gain vengeance for Essix. He let himself face the spider, before he covered his eyes to avoid seeing his own end.