Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
If I had to herd spiders, this would certainly be a good place. From this angle, the cavern looked almost like a canyon, relatively narrow with steep, mostly sheer walls. They had a water source – the narrow ribbon of a shallow stream twisted along the cavern’s floor. I couldn’t see any other entrances, although there had to be some, probably far to the left, behind the cavern’s bend. If stalkers or other predators somehow invaded, they would be easy to bottleneck. It was an ideal, sheltered location except for one thing.
Another spider herder emerged from behind the bend on the left. My ledge ended only a few feet away on that side so I couldn’t quite see where they came from. This one was pushing a larger cart.
“Here we go,” I murmured to Bear.
She flicked her ear.
The spider herder paused. Above them, about forty feet off the ground, a large blossom glowed with gold instead of red. The herder raised their staff and leaped at the wall, clearing ten feet in a single jump. They climbed up the vine, shockingly fast, reached the flower, and thrust the staff into the blossom.
I glanced to the right. Across the cavern, a fissure split the wall near the ceiling, a crack in the solid stone about eight feet tall and five feet across at its widest.
Nothing moved. The fissure remained dark.
The spider herder swirled the staff as if scraping the pancake batter out of a bowl.
The fissure stayed still.
The spider herder pulled their staff out. Three dense clumps of spider silk hung suspended from the top, glowing softly with cream-colored light. They were about the size of a beach ball.
A segmented body squeezed out of the fissure and dove, three pairs of translucent wings snapping open in flight. A wasp-like insect the size of a kayak zipped through the air, glinting with blue and yellow like a blue sapphire wrapped in gold filigree.
Bear jumped up and growled.
The spider herder saw the wasp and scrambled down, but not quickly enough. The giant insect divebombed across the cavern, hooked one of the spider eggs with its segmented legs, tearing it from the bundle, and shot up, buzzing along the wall into a U-turn. A moment and it squeezed back into the fissure, taking its prize with it.
The spider herder stared after it for a long moment, climbed down, and deposited the two remaining egg sacks into their cart.
I had seen a similar scenario play out hours ago, when I first found the cavern. I had backtracked since then, exploring as many of the tunnels around it as I could. All of them either dead-ended or led to a narrow, bottomless chasm that ran parallel to this cave. I returned to the ledge a while ago and have been sitting here since, observing and deciding how to proceed.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. The anchor was still straight ahead and to the left of me, radiating discomfort. I opened my eyes. I was looking right at the bend of the cavern.
If we wanted to get to the anchor, we would have to pass through this underground canyon. There was no way around it. Backtracking wasn’t an option. We were truly lost at this point.
Unfortunately, I had a feeling that the spider herders wouldn’t welcome our intrusion into their territory.
Another wasp squeezed out of the gap and dove down, aiming for the cart. The spider herder let out a loud clicking sound. A green spider the size of a donkey raced around the bend of the cavern and leaped into the air, knocking the wasp into the wall. The insect and the arachnid tumbled down through the vines and rolled onto the floor. The wasp jabbed at the spider with a stinger the size of a sword, but the spider clung to it and sank its fangs into the wasp’s neck. The insect’s head fell to the ground.
The spider herder made another clicking noise. The green spider abandoned the wasp and scuttled over to the cart. The herder pulled out a glowing yellow globe and tossed it to the spider. The arachnid caught it and ran back around the bend.
“Look, Bear, your cousin from another dimension got a treat.”
Bear tilted her head.
The spider herder leveled their stave at the wasp’s body. A moment passed. Another. A bolt of green lightning tore out of the gem and struck the carcass. The insect sizzled and broke into dust.
The activation time was a bit long. The wasps would have no trouble evading, considering the delay it took to fire, but once the beam hit, the results were devastating.
If Bear and I strolled down there, assuming we somehow got down off the ledge, trying to make our way past the herders would be impossible. Between the green spiders and that green lightning, we wouldn’t get through, not without some serious injuries.