Page 55 of The Inheritance
Bear stared at the spider army and let out a quiet woof.
“Yes. I see.”
I went back inside the cave, grabbed the queen’s head, and dragged it toward the gap. It barely fit, but finally I managed to push it through. I grabbed it and strained. The head was surprisingly light. I jerked it up above my head.
Look, I killed your enemy.
The spider herders watched, impassive.
I hurled the queen’s head off the cliff. It smashed onto the rocks below.
No reaction. Not exactly promising. I’d hoped for a cheer.
I picked up my ropes and walked along the ledge away from the flowers. Bear trotted after me.
We cleared the blossoms. I picked a large boulder, tied one rope around it, secured the other rope around a different chunk of stone and went back to the wasp nest to get the eggs. When I came back, the spider herders had moved directly below my ropes, arranged in a perfect crescent, with the monstrous spiders behind them.
I flexed. Some pollen had gotten on the eggs in the net sack. I waved my hands over it, trying to clean them. The pollen was featherlight, and after a couple of minutes most of it was off. I tied the rope to the net sack containing the four regular eggs, tied the other end of it around a rock, and held the sack above the drop.
Still no reaction.
I gently lowered the sack down. The rope was long enough. The trick was to keep from bumping the eggs against the cliff wall.
Nice and slow.
A spider herder stepped forward. I lowered the sack into their arms. The herder sliced at the rope with their hand, cutting the net sack free. There was no tug, no pull. One moment the weight of the eggs was on the rope and the next it vanished. The spider herder moved to the back with their prize, and I pulled the rope back up.
I still had the coral egg, Bear, and myself.
Bear would have to be next. I looped the rope around the rock three more times, then wrapped it around her, threading it through her harness.
“You will be okay, girl. I’ll be right down.”
I took a deep breath and gently lowered Bear off the cliff, supporting her weight with my arms. When she was about three feet down, I backed up, strung the rope over my shoulders, and began to let it out, little by little, foot by foot, going as slowly as I could. There was no way the old me could have done this. She would’ve been too heavy.
I ran out of rope and looked down. I’d calculated correctly. Bear was hanging about six feet off the ground. Letting her down all the way would’ve been a dangerous gamble. Bear was smart but she was a dog. There was no telling what she would do when facing giant spiders and weird looking beings. She could wait for me like a good girl, or she could decide it was biting time and get herself killed. Leaving her hanging was the safest choice. The spider herders made no move toward her and if the rope snapped and she fell, she wouldn’t get injured.
It was my turn. I hung the sack with the last egg around my neck, threading one arm through so Bear’s leash crossed my back. The egg was now against my chest. If I smacked into the cliff face, I could use my arms and legs to cushion the impact and keep it safe. I grabbed the second rope. I had never rappelled off anything in my life. Hell of a way to start learning.
It was easier than I thought. The first time I had pushed off a little too hard, but by the fourth bump I got the hang of it.
Push.
Push.
Push.
My feet met the solid ground. I let go of the rope and turned around. The spider herders stood motionless. They were almost eight feet tall, and they towered over me, menacing and silent, their faces hidden behind veils. Only the eyes were visible, two of them per face, large, narrow, with a strange-looking white iris on a solid black sclera that didn’t seem the least bit insectoid.
I lifted my paper sack off my back, pulled the paper open, and held the coral egg out.
“Bekh-razz.” My voice sounded ragged.
The spider herder in the center stepped forward. A bubble of light popped inside my head, and I knew that the herder was male and the staff in his hand, with the symbols etched into its shaft, meant he was in charge of this cluster.
The herder’s robe stirred softly as he moved and I realized that the humanoid shape was an illusion. The top half of him, the upright half, seemed human. His arms, unnaturally white, were long and thin, and his hands had six segmented fingers, each tipped with a black claw. He seemed to float forward rather than walk, and as he moved, I glimpsed the outline of four segmented legs underneath the pale silk.
A soft voice issued forth from the spider herder. “Horsun, gehr tirr did sembadzer.”
