Draconic Shenanigans Episode 6

Chapter Six: Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

 "Oh my..." Jeremiah felt his mouth drop open in an undignified gape but didn't seem to be able to shut it again as the dog sized spiders clicked and clacked their mandibles together. The stirring breeze brought a musty, dry smell that made Kaelin's hair stand on end and Amelia sneeze a big dragon snort. Jeremiah lifted his hand and started muttering. Ulrich didn't say anything as larger, more bloated shapes began to heave themselves into view. Jeremiah closed his eyes, desperate to block out the sight and CONCENTRATE.

The power thumped through him and the giant lizard bucked, sinews creaking and cracking as charred tissue shed ash, bones knit themselves out of thin air, muscle reformed and scaly skin growing like a rash over underlying tissue. The lizard turned its head, blinked no longer glowing eyes and snapped at Jeremiah. As if that was the signal the spiders scuttled forwards, their dry stink billowing before them, thick enough to make you choke.

"Listen!" Ulrich grabbed the lizard's scruff, "Work with us, you have a chance of getting out of this alive. Fight us and we're all bugs' lunch!"

Somehow his words seemed to have meaning for the creature and it didn't protest as Ulrich scrambled on to its back but it was already moving as Ulrich reached down his hand and grabbed Jeremiah's arm. The fat priest had to hang on for dear life as the lizard flashed off through the dead trees and Jeremiah was reduced to a gasping mess as he tried to swing a leg up and over its back. Kaelin and Thorian were already out ahead, Thorian yelling for Calypso to heel. Over head Amelia banked and wheeled, head tilted to the ground. She dipped suddenly and swung back.

"This way!" she roared as she banked over head, "This way!"

 "Do as she says," Jeremiah yelled, still hanging more off than on the lizard's back. Charging through the trees, they saw the ruin of a once substantial house in a little knell. Ulrich didn't hesitate, kneeing his mount. It seemed that the elf people had at least some common commands because it sped up, swarmed up the side of the building, clinging to the stone work sideways (Jeremiah screamed as he nearly fell off the other side of the lizard's back), until it wriggled through a breach in the wall with a flick of its tail. Jeremiah tumbled off on to what was left of the upper floor, tottered to the bed and collapsed, whimpering and cursing. Downstairs Thorian, Kaelin and Calypso burst through the door, turned and grabbed everything they could lay their eyes on to barricade the gaps.

"At least downstairs is whole," Kaelin had a quick look round.

"Here they come!"

Kaelin shook her head as she ran up what was left of the stairs, Ulrich had sounded almost excited, then she looked out of the empty window frame and felt her mouth go dry. She could hardly see the ground for the scuttling forms of the dog sized spiders and this time they were backed up by paler specimens the size of heavy horses. She skin ached with the pressure of her hairs attempt to stand up on end, then she opened her mouth but the scream stuck. What her brain had first assumed were a couple of boulders, though it could not remember running passed them, were moving! Massive trundling legs rose and fell like the footsteps of death itself as bloated bodies the size of elephants hauled themselves into view, two sets of multiply eyes staring at the dilapidated house with a hunger that could devour worlds.

 Amelia tipped her wings, slid into a downward bank and spewed a line of metallic goo that coated several of the dog sized spiders and one of their horse sized cousins. The affected spiders stopped, waving their front legs in the air as if they couldn't work out what had just happened to them but others were already climbing up the front wall of the house, crowding at the windows. Thorian yelled at Calypso to stay with Jeremiah and leapt to defend one window, Kaelin jumping up beside him. She promptly regretted it as his blade whizzed over her head, narrowly missing taking her scalp off. The first couple of spiders were not so lucky, shrieking their eldritch sounding cries as their front legs parted from their bodies and they tipped over backwards to fall with ripe sounding splats among their fellows.

Ulrich struggled more, the windowsill restricting his usual fluid style and the lizard having the nasty habit of putting its head exactly where he didn't need it to be. He did have to admit that it was effective at biting the heads off of spiders however and the flinching back that it caused did enable him to stab another spider clean through its gob. Said spider let lose a gargling choked noise and then he flicked it back into its fellows.

Jeremiah jumped up and down on the bed, the frame creaking under his weight, as he yelled and balded encouragement to his comrades, threading power through the syllables, entreating them to shed more blood and more. Kaelin flicked her ears at him but concentrated on yanking the fangs out of the face of the spider trying to haul its bulk over the sill then she noticed the red haze filling Thorian's eyes and felt her mouth go dry.

The spiders on the end of the line, the ones that had been sprayed down with dragon goo suddenly erupted into flame, their limbs flaying out in random agony and then their exoskeletons split with the pressure of the boiling fluids within and their ruptured corpses crumpled to the ground in blazing heaps. Their fiery demise cut some of the swarm off from the house but the rest surged forward, clicking and clacking and Kaelin tried to scream again as she saw more of the dog sized spiders wiggle free of the absolute monsters that where bringing up the back line. The elephant sized monstrosities were spawning more of their dog sized young straight into the battle. The only thing that stopped her from completely loosing her mind was the immediate need to get out of Thorian's swing range to make sure she didn't lose her head. Ducking away from the orc cross breed as he mowed down spiders, her eyes fell on a barrel that stood in the corner of the room beyond Ulrich's window. Racing across she shook it, hearing a respectable amount of fluid sloosh inside of it. She heaved at it and swore as it dropped o her toes. Snapping her teeth down on a mouthful of cussing she heaved again, managed to lift it just enough to get it to the window.

"Move it!" she snapped at him and his lizard, then she crouched, adjusted her grip on the barrel and lifted. A spider scuttled in, climbing on to the side of the barrel as she lifted it to the horizontal, its fangs snapping at her face, then a puzzled expression  crossed its many eyes as the barrel tipped it back through the window, then it was falling through the window with the barrel coming down on top of it. The barrel bounced off the spider's shattered corpse and then smashed down hard enough to burst.

"Your Majestry, jewel of the sky," Jeremiah had fallen into sermon tone without realizing but it did mean his voice carried up to where Amelia turned almost on her own length, "Oh bless us with your fiery breath and ignite this pool of water thus provided."

Amelia managed a happy midair wiggle at his words and drew a breath so large her ribs creaked with it. The ball of metallic emission almost seemed too large for her throat but the results were spectacular. What had been in the barrel could have only been called water by dint of huge amounts of generosity but vinegar seemed to react to pure sodium almost as well. It fizzed and then caught fire! Hissing and shrieking, the flames seemed to dance on the surface of the vinegar pool before... it exploded hard enough to drive splinters through the tough exoskeletons of the spider's next to the pool. They shrieked and spun on the spot. The pool settled and then caught fire again before a second explosion gorged up the ground below it.  Kaelin felled the blast pull at her skin, the spiders on the face of the house were flatten momentarily to the brick work as two of the horse sized brutes and at least half a dozen of the dog sized scuttlers disappeared in the blink of an eye. Even the elephant sized monstrosity nearest to the blast shrank back from the shredded remains of its kin but that didn't stop another clutch of dog sized spiders wriggling free of its sides.

Ulrich looked at the hole blown in the battle line and grinned.

"Tally ho!" he yelled, slapping the lizard through the window, leaping down on to its back once he had room to follow it. Kaelin gaped as Ulrich's apparently suicidal charge carried him through the reforming ranks of spiders until he was UNDER the belly of the elephant sized spawning monstrosity, the lizard's fangs snapping at its jerking legs, Ulrich clinging on to the lizard with one hand and striking out with the other. She was going to follow him but a tidal wave of spiders poured into the breach, some swarming up the wall of the house, some trying to surround Ulrich. In that regard, their over sized parent was their own worst enemy as it would not hold still, spinning and whirling, writhing and shrieking, legs stamping every which way, threatening to smash its own young as it tried and tried to find where the thing that was cutting and gorging at its belly was hiding.

Thorian's blade was piling up the bodies as they kept trying to over whelm him but every time their surged through the window his two handed sword cleaved through them in two, bits and pieces of spider splashing the walls and floor around him.

Amelia banked and spat a line of goo, cutting across the front of the building, bathing every single spider that was on the wall with her volatile emission. Kaelin went to bite the spider climbing in at the window and jerked back at the last instance, realizing what was likely to happen if she got any of that stuff in her mouth. Grandfather could go stuff, she was not becoming a mindless beast. However, her first attempt at sword work was distinctly lack luster and the spider that was crawling in at the window seemed to laugh even as the goo coating it started to smoke.  That laugh was... it was Grandfather's. Grandfather laughing at the runt of the litter as the other litter mates threatened to shred her for being weak.

"I am not weak!" the scream was distorted by her elongated jaws but the blow that came with it was precise and vicious, carving the spider's head in two and barrelling its body back into its fellows just before they ignited. The fire licked up the wall of the ruin, setting things to smouldering and spitting but even as Kaelin was stamping out smoking patches on the floor she heard Thorian scream. A spider had finally got passed his defenses and set its fangs into his arm. It was the last mistake it ever did.

Thorian ripped the spider off his arm, the point of one fang snapping off in his flesh and slammed it to the floor. Before it could try to rock over his foot smashed down on it, over and over again, until there was nothing left but a greasy grey smear on the splintered boards. Jeremiah saw the red glow in the orc cross breed's eyes and his capering stopped as he fought the urge to cower under the bed, then Thorian was throwing himself out of the window with a roar that brought pause to the spiders in front of him. The horse sized monstrosity anchoring the front rank fell, head bisected horizontally, fangs and front legs spinning off in different directions. Jeremiah gazed at the destruction Thorian left in his wake and smiled. Chanting a pray to his darksome god, his fingers weaved the energies into tight spirals of terror and then lashed them at the group of dog sized spiders trying to crowd in on Kaelin's window from the left. As one the pack of spiders froze and then reared on to their back legs, fangs snapping at something not there, then they turned and fled, their strange, nerve shredding, clicking language disappearing into the distance.

Thorian was a whirl wind of destruction on the swamp's floor but the huge spiders were closing in, their smaller dog sized brethren crowding in close on Thorian, their numbers ever replenished by the spawning of the gigantic spider that stood waiting for him, completely ignoring the screams and shrieks of its fellow that had Ulrich slashing at its underside. Kaelin tried to cut her way through the spiders but there were too many and with two of her comrades mixed in with the spiders Amelia didn't dare use her breath weapon again. Instead she closed her wings and dropped on to the horse sized spider threatening to slab its legs through the window at Kaelin, fangs and claws doing their deadly work.

Thorian swept again through the ranks closing in but his sword cut low and gorged a line through the sickly soil. His energy was flagging and a spider, sensing the prey's weakness darted in, fangs digging into Thorian's boot and trying to yank his leg out from under him. It never had the chance.

A silvery grey blur leapt from the edge of the dell and manifested in midair as Hartseer with all four arms out and blades at their full extent. Then those shining blades slammed as a concentrated group into the spider's cephalothorax and ripped out sideways, the arachnid coming apart in a welter of blood and other fluids. Without breaking stride Hartseer ducked under Thorian's whirling blade, seemingly perfectly at ease with the fact the orc crossbreed couldn't distinguish friend from foe in his blood mad state, fitting into the orc's screaming frenzy to keep the spiders off his back while Thorian charged ever onward towards the massive spawning spider that stood blinking and drooling at him. If Hartseer heard Jeremiah's shouts for him to 'buzz off, you over sized metal bug' then he gave no sign.

Jeremiah opened his mouth to shout more insults at the King's Blade then shut it again as some things dropped from the sky. Several looked like men that had been crossed with bats, one of them looked like a harpy with a crow's skull for a head and face. Their shrill cries filled the air as their slashed and snapped at the spiders, keeping them from the right window that Thorian had left unguarded in his mad charge. Amelia called a guttural greeting to them even as she leapt to the back of another horse sized spider and set about plucking its legs off.

The spawning spider Ulrich was under continued to spin and squeal as he slashed at it and his mount bit at every leg that came near its snout. Kaelin also bit at the spider trying to come in at the window and it fell squealing as several legs came off. Dragging in a ragged breath, she looked around and realized that, at last, the number of spiders was decreasing, the spawning spiders finally unable to keep up with the rate of attrition.

The things that had joined them continued to peck and claw and bite at the spiders, distracting them to make them easier targets for Thorian's and Hartseer's swords.

Jeremiah screamed then, as he spotted the horse sized spider, crawling in at the gap where he, Ulrich and the lizard had first entered the houses. Faced with the cold, alien hunger glowing in its eyes his mind went completely blank, all his forbidden knowledge hiding in darkened corners and lost places. Then a long, low slung creature with a scaly but horse-like head and a crested mane undulated across the battle field, its short, wide spread legs churning as it scrambled up the side of the ruin, looped its body round the spider's middle and squeezed. The huge spider launched itself backwards off the ruin in a desperate bid to dislodge the thing but it came apart in midair, abdomen and legs going in many different directions like a watermelon constricted beyond endurance.

Ulrich struck out and felt his blade dig in. Somehow he balanced on the back of his thrashing mount and lunged with all his strength, twisting the blade even as the spider gave an agonized screamed and began to topple. Yanking his blade free, he set his heels to the lizard's flanks and it surged forward, dashing out from under the crashing bulk of the massive spider with a flick of its tail, as the huge bulk crumpled to the ground, joints creaking and cracking in its death throes.

With spine chilling shrieks more things bounded into the clearing, grotesque features made of a bizarre blend of man and mammal, insect and reptile, driving the spiders up into Hartseer's strike range, his glittering blades dicing and slicing. Thorian didn't seem to notice, focused without paused on the giant spawner in front of him. It finally seemed to realize that things had become more dangerous than it had reckoned but by then it was too late.

It screamed as Thorian's blade cut across its face, a fang flying off into the dead bushes, yellowish blood hosing down the surrounding turf. Thorian cut again and again, but it flayed and flapped at him, keeping its injuries to superficial gorges. Then the last of the smaller spiders fell blow Hartseer's blades and the King's Blade leapt forward, bright metal cleaving through a leg joint and the giant spider lurched awkwardly, trying to refind its feet but then Thorian's broad sword struck down through its skull and it crashed sideways, brains leaking through the rent in its face and at last the battle field fell quiet.

Thorian turned, swaying on his feet.

"Did we win?" he slurred and then collapsed face down in the dirt.

"Amelia!" Hartseer barked, swords fold/flicking out of existence and arms clicking back together at wrist, elbow and shoulder, "He needs a healer!"

"On it," she bounded forward, rippling like a cat over the ground.

"Thank you, your bright Majesty, we owe you so much for the care you show our comrade," Jeremiah called as she took wing, adding more quietly, "Unlike a overbearing lump of metal who tried to steal his thunder."

Amelia, not hearing the second part, felt a rosy glow inside as she cradled Thorian to her chest and pumped her wings with massive, ground covering down sweeps. Hartseer, who had heard the second part, shot Jeremiah a look of overwhelming contempt before turning to the approaching Crowface. The bone faced creature stiffened to attention and saluted Hartseer with military precision.

"You know that you don't have to do that any more, old friend," Hartseer said and there seemed to be a genuine warmth in his tone.

"What can I say?" Crowface's voice held the edge of a caw, "Old habits die hard. HE understands this. I confess that we didn't expect you so soon; we were under the impression that the messenger had not made it through."

"Messenger?" Hartseer asked, "Have you had need of a King's Special?"

"That or the King's Blade," Crowface bobbed his head, "Things have been... difficult but if the message did not make it through then why are you here?"

Hartseer did not answer but turned his head to where Kaelin and Jeremiah were emerging from the ruin, Ulrich guiding his lizard into step with them.

"We need the help of the magic user who lives in this Swamp to cross the lake by ship," Kaelin explained, "We are meant to be going to Nether Wallop but there is some new sort of monster in the lake which is destroying the shipping. The Captain of The Armoured Dragon said that your... master? (She guessed)... could help us."

Crowface scratched the tuft of feathers below his chin.

"That he may do and in return you maybe able to help us," he said after a moment, "We will escort you." He turned his head an rapped out a series of orders in a guttural sounding language. The rest of the things formed up around the comrades and stepped out with weary eyes, the winged ones taking to the air, scanning the ground from above. At the head of the column Hartseer and Crowface seemed to be discussing the tactical situation, a conversation that turned to what sounded like a campaign that had happened many years before. Ulrich frowned after a moment as he realised that he didn't recognize any of the locations the two were discussing. That either meant that it took place a very long way from their current location or very... very... very long, long ago.  That was obviously Jeremiah's conclusion as the priest piped up from where he plodded along at the lizard's side.

"Did you have a body back then, tin man?"

Hartseer paused mid stride and then his talons clacked down softly into the ground.

"Yes but I willingly gave it up," he didn't turn, speaking back over his shoulder, "It might be difficult for one like you to understand but my people were being decimated by a foreign authority. A man of power came to me and offered me a deal. I would experience more pain than any mortal soul has right to survive but when it was over, when it was done, I'd have the power to defend my people." He lifted his hand and the sword blades folded/flicked into existence from between the knuckles, giving him the appearance of wielding a double bladed weapon. "He told the truth... and he also lied." The sword blades folded/flicked back to whence they'd come.

"Oh power, lies and betrayal I understand totally," Jeremiah said confidently, not bothering to note that what Hartseer had done, he'd done for love.

"That is hardly a respectful way to talk about your King," Ulrich observed from where he rode on the lizard's back, one hand on its scruff and the other on his hip.

"My King?" Hartseer glanced at him, "No not my King, not then. King Tatsuya allows me to serve in honor of the descendant of one I'd promised to protect. One about whom I should have kept my mouth shut." He picked up his pace and stalked out ahead of them, obviously not wanting to discuss it further. Crowface looked back at Jeremiah and then looked forward again, shaking his head with disgust. Ulrich and Kaelin looked at one another and Ulrich arched an eyebrow. It seemed the King's Blade had quite a history and Ulrich could confess that he now had a burning curiosity to delve deeper into the details.