attaching itself to a different part of the cave entrance, and sticking as if it had been welded to it. When the net settled, it looked to him exactly like a spider’s web, and he hurried to the other edge of the entrance, watching the cave’s interior—
The rumbling stopped.
Something moved.
It was large, almost too large to pass through the cave entrance. He couldn’t see it clearly—it was little more than a bulbous collection of rubble shambling toward him—but he knew what it was, and he knew it was not something he wanted to fight alone. But the others—
“Ride!” he yelled, not bothering to look to see if they were obeying him. He was too busy tweaking the knots, easing them apart until the flame suddenly burst free and traveled along the tightly-woven threads of the net until they met in its center.
“Ride!” he yelled again, letting go of the strand of flame and clinging to the sky magic with a greater sense of urgency.
The thing waddled crab-like toward the entrance, slowed, but continued forward. The flame won’t stop it! Angus thought fiercely, studying the creature—a collection of boulders arranged over its shell. It had pincer-like brownish-red claws and short legs. Eye clusters.
He nudged the burning net forward, toward the creature, and it backed away a bit.
Ortis hurried past, Giorge close behind.
Angus urged the net further inside, pushing the creature back—
Ortis passed again, with the pack horse.
The creature edged forward, tested the air with its claw, the clacking echoed from the cave walls like a rock skipping down a road.
Angus gripped the blue-tinted thread firmly and tied off a knot. It would wriggle free fairly quickly, but it should hold the net in place long enough for him to mount his horse.
Ortis passed a third time, and then Hobart, leading Gretchen, slowed long enough to release Angus’s steed and look inside the cave.
“What is that thing?” he asked as he drew his broadsword and took up a rear guard position to allow Angus time to mount his horse.
Angus didn’t answer; he was struggling to get his foot in the stirrup, and once he did, he had trouble getting into the saddle. Gretchen, despite her training, was having difficulty resisting her instinct to flee from the fire and kept backing away from it—and him. By the time he was in the saddle, Hobart had turned and was urging them forward.
“It’s about to break free,” he said. “I don’t think those flames are going to keep it in there.”
“Ride!” Angus said, finally in his saddle. “We need to get away from it. It won’t pursue us far.”
Hobart nodded, and they hurried after their companions. They didn’t stop until they reached the relatively level, much wider expanse of the plateau. They watched for the creature behind them, but Angus was right; it didn’t follow them.
“Will it come after us later?” Hobart asked.
“Doubtful,” Angus said. “It’s an ambush predator; it digs a hole, conceals itself inside it, and when fish come by, it lashes out to get them.”
“Fish?” Ortis said. “There aren’t any fish up here.”
“No,” Angus agreed. “And that thing shouldn’t be here, either. It lives on the bottom of large lakes, seas, oceans. It shouldn’t have been able to survive outside water, but somehow it is.”
“That thing lives in water?” Hobart asked. “It looked like it was made of stone.”
Angus nodded. “It’s carrying the stone on its shell,” he said. “You heard that rumbling? That was its labored attempt to breathe making those stones grind together.”
“How did it get up here?” Giorge asked.
“That,” Angus said, “is a good question. But here’s a better one: Who put it there and why?”
Ortis frowned. “Someone doesn’t want us over here,” he suggested.
“Or,” Angus said, turning toward the interior of the plateau. “Someone doesn’t want something up here to go across that ledge.”
“Are there any tracks, Ortis?” Hobart asked.
While Ortis inspected the ground of the nearby area, Angus frowned. “You know,” he said. “That thing should have gotten you, Giorge. It’s fast when it wants to be, at least in water.”
“I was quiet.”
Angus half-smiled. “You’ve heard of trapdoor spiders, haven’t you?”
“Sure,” Giorge said. “They dig little holes in the ground, and when a bug or mouse goes by, they snap out of it and—” Giorge frowned.
“Now you understand,” Angus said. “It’s like that trapdoor spider. It doesn’t hear anything; it feels it. No matter how quiet you were—or how loud—it had to have known you were there. So, why didn’t it attack?”
“Maybe it wasn’t hungry?” Hobart suggested.
Angus shook his head. “It would have stored us for later consumption, just like a spider keeps flies wrapped up in silk until it’s ready to drain their blood.”
“Rabbit sign,” Ortis said. “If there’s anything larger, it will be deeper in the plateau. Probably near the river that feeds the waterfall.”
“All right, Angus, what are you thinking?”
Angus shrugged. “It may have been sleeping,” he said. “We probably could have just passed the cave without waking it up. If it was sleeping….”
“No sense worrying about it now,” Hobart said. “We’re past it, and we might as well find a campsite. We can figure out what to do about it on our way back.”
“If we get that far,” Angus muttered, reluctantly turning away from the ledge.
“Angus,” Giorge said, as they continued along the remnants of the road. “When I get another net, you’re going to have to show me how to throw it so that it stays upright like that.”
Angus half-smiled. “I would have to teach you magic, first,” he said. “How many years do you have?”
Angst
1
“We need a strategy,” Hobart said after they had made camp near a small, frigid stream. “You saw those fires. That means there’s something up here that is smart enough to make them. It won’t be human.”
“It could be,” Ortis suggested. “There are quite a few people who have gone missing. They may have decided to live up here.”
“Why?” Giorge asked. “It can’t be easy to survive in these mountains without trade.”
“This plateau has a lot of plants and animals,” Ortis said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it could support a fairly large population.”
“Population of what, though?” Hobart countered. “We know of several races who have fire, and I’m sure there are others we don’t know about. It won’t be dwarves; they keep below ground. Elves? They’re in the forests of the Western Kingdoms and far south of these mountains. I can’t see it being them either; they’re too fond of trees.”
“No need to go through the list,” Giorge said. “We know that, whoever they are, they aren’t going to be friendly. If they were, there wouldn’t be so many people disappearing.”
“That may be,” Hobart said. “But what about the dwarves? What would they tolerate in their part of The Tween? After all, they think this whole mountain range is theirs, don’t they. If they catch us over here, they’re not likely to let us go.”
“Dwarves tend to ignore the surface,” Ortis said. “Unless there are large enough numbers, they won’t interfere.”
“Not quite true,” Hobart said. “There are some things they hate enough to leave their holes to kill them.”
“Right,” Giorge agreed. “We can rule all those out. The fires weren’t small; if they were, we wouldn’t have seen them.”
“Those were the ones by the river,” Hobart said. “As long as we avoid them, we shouldn’t have to deal with large numbers. I’m more concerned with smaller groups further from the river. If they see us, what are they going to do? Will they engage us in combat, or will they tell the larger groups about us? Either way, it will be a problem.”
“Perhaps we’ll see signs of t
hem before we get too close,” Angus said. “That will help.”
“There’s only one question we really need to answer right now,” Giorge said. “Are we willing to fight and kill to reach our goal, or do we flee?”
“We can’t answer that until we know what we’re facing,” Hobart said. “We might be able to negotiate.”
“This is pointless,” Angus said. “You’re not strategizing; you’re talking about potentialities. We need realities before we can strategize. Until we actually know what we’re up against, all this talk is meaningless.”
“Not meaningless, Angus,” Hobart corrected. “If we can narrow down the possibilities, we might know whether or not an attack will come during the day or at night, what kind of weapons they might have, how they would respond to a group of our size—a lot of things. But you are right about one thing; we can’t answer most of these questions until we know what they are. But at least we can begin excluding some of the less likely possibilities, and we’ve started doing that. It will help. We can rule out what the dwarves despise, and that means the likelihood of a night attack also goes down considerably. Most of their enemies are nocturnal. It doesn’t disappear altogether, but it does drop. If we can narrow down the kind of weapons they might have, we can prepare our defenses better. The tactics for defending ourselves against a group of bowmen are considerably different from those against swordsmen, for example, and if we can figure out what they are, we can plan accordingly.”
“Isn’t the best strategy,” Angus said, “to avoid them altogether?”
“Not always,” Hobart said. “They may be potential