The Dragon King
Chapter 17

Copyright© 2015 by Allan Kindred

The Shadow Brigade more than recuperated their numbers from the town, but most of the others were not happy to be told to leave their known homes and go into hiding, for their existence was now in serious doubt.

By the time they pulled out their cavalry had swelled to ninety, taking what enemy horses weren't cooked by dragon's breath, and the ones that were cooked were going to make fine meals for many days.

They headed west for about an hour, but Christopher decides that most of their actions have been in a westerly pattern, and if someone wanted to set up an ambush against them they would only be making it easier. They turn south.

Christopher asks Chaos, which turns out his real name is Ember, "My friend, fly south and get me an idea of how far the coastline is from our current location, and how long it might take to get there as the wagon goes."


The nights are getting colder, but the stars still twinkle with hope. Soon the storms will start to come more and more frequently. For waging a campaign it has both good and bad aspects to it. In a storm you are more concealed, both visually and sound, but as it wears on it can make your going harder and therefore slower. However, due to the fact that an end game was being played here, it just didn't matter. To hesitate is to die.


Ember returns in a matter of minutes, but at a hundred and fifty stretches their journey is going to take a little longer. Pushing hard day and night, they could cover the ground relatively quickly, but since the size of the last battle they knew greater numbers of enemy forces were soon to follow.

The forces of Kind showed them they have ability. Any respectable military force would respond in kind. In fact, you kind of have to, or things will just get worse. To show weakness is the gravest of misdeeds. Of course that is Christopher's new job, to make things worse for his enemy. The very people who have killed everything he ever loved.

"I'm only a part of this because we just happen to be going in the same direction." Christopher thinks with a smile.

Ember tells him, "There are four small villages along the way, not counting the ones on the coastline. The forest goes almost all the way to the coast. In fact, in parts the forest does go right up to it. Good for concealment." As it turns out the country of Venloring is almost entirely forested.

That was to be the general plan. Stay off the main trails, move at a natural pace so when their next battle does come they would be refreshed enough to survive, but move during half the day and half the night and train.

They go due south whenever the terrain allows. They are deep in a part of the forest that probably hasn't been seen in generations. The growth is old and thick. Not twenty minutes from the notice in change of the forest, Christopher can no longer see the stars twinkling in the sky through the canopy.

The smell becomes dank and thick and the atmosphere becomes oppressive. It is an old oppression indescribable in so many ways. Without them having to be told, everybody takes a tighter grip on their weapons. The horses begin to spook.

They are so deep within its world and the canopy so thick that Christopher knows they have lost their air cover. There is no way for the dragons to break through if trouble begins without either hurting himself or herself, or burning half the forest down in the effort.

The formation involuntarily tightens up. Even the minotaurs close ranks. That doesn't bode well. Christopher had come to believe that the unicorns were nothing like normal horses, but they, too, become spooked. For the first time in a long time Christopher is seriously thinking about calling a halt and then continuing on in daylight.

Before he has the chance to make the decision he comes upon two objects hanging from trees. It is very dark, even with the handful of torches they have lit, so realization comes in bits as he gets closer and closer. Shadow seems curious also. When they reach the first one Shadow puts his nose right up to it and he makes it start swinging slightly.

One of the girls rides up with a torch in her hand and shines its light on the objects and she swears quietly, almost dropping the torch. From the torchlight Christopher can see human faces of the people hanging upside down wrapped in a spider web cocoon.

They now can hear skittering all around them. It sounds like thousands of little feet in quick procession. From all sides, just outside the torchlight, of which every other person was carrying one at this point, come the disturbances. Even more disheartening, Christopher can hear them in the trees. He would have given the order to draw weapons, but it would have been unnecessary.

Just behind him and to the right he hears a minotaur give a snort and charge into the forest a couple feet. He quickly falls back into formation. Christopher figures he doesn't like being intimidated. For a moment you could hear them scatter and then nothing. No movement, no sound.


"That's what I couldn't quite put my finger on since we'd entered this place. Sound. It wasn't just this new danger that had gone silent, but the whole forest was quiet. Not a single sound from anything at all except them and then us."


The sixteen-year-old, raven haired, blue eyed, beauty of a girl, Caitlin, who Christopher put in charge of the wagon that she was now sitting upon, lets loose with an arrow into the black forest. Even in Venloring it is known as the Gojin Forest. You can hear it whizzing through some underbrush and then a thump as it sticks in a tree. There is still no sound.

Caitlin has become quite accomplished with her bow, since Christopher thought it best to have a stable platform for their artillery, and every time they stop Caitlin and a couple of the other soldiers help her make arrows. At this point she has hundreds.


"I was so proud of her. She was awed to be treated as an equal under these circumstances, and she would be the last one to let me down. I often mused how far she had come so fast at only the age of sixteen, and probably a woodsman's daughter only a short time ago. I found it hard to believe that I was only two years older. In fact I made it a point not to get into that by myself or with the troops. All I know is I didn't feel eighteen. My sandy blonde hair hadn't changed, except maybe a little longer, but my blue eyes had lost their innocence."


They thought to make camp and circle up to make a stronger defense if an attack came. They concluded that they had to be some kind of spider, but how big they weren't sure. They were obviously big enough to take down full-grown men. Did they do it by numbers, size, or were they poisonous?

They decide to ride a little bit further to see if they can find a more defensible spot. They begin to follow something akin to a trail. It takes a blind forty-five degree turn to the left and then opens up to a small village. The problem is the whole town is covered in spider silk. The moonlight lights up the white webs to an eerie nightmare scene. The village has a simple fence around it and gates on the west and east sides. Since they are coming from the west they push open the gate and it squeaks, and you could actually hear the tough spider web tear.

If nothing else at least they find out how big the spiders are. The body alone is two feet long on some of the bigger ones, and their eight legs make them half as big as a horse. As the troops get nearer the spiders scatter into the forest.

Well, it hadn't worked out too well for the previous occupants of the village, but Christopher figures they can make their strongest stand here. The best thing about it is he again can see the stars through the canopy, even though he hasn't seen one of their dragons yet. Christopher doesn't relish the thought of having a giant spider drop onto his head. Christopher doesn't think Shadow cares much for that thought either, for even he will from time to time glance upwards. "Actually it was kind of funny."

Christopher tells the humans, "Clear away the spider webs and you minotaurs take up defensive positions in groups of three."

At first reaction, one of the bigger spiders rushes forward to stop his or her home from being destroyed, but one of the unicorns smashes it with their front hooves. The crunching squishing noise makes Caitlin scrunch up her pretty face and shake the shiver out that just ran through her.

Once enough of the web is cleared away, Christopher tells Caitlin and the unicorns, "Take up position exactly in the middle of the village of the eight buildings."

Even though there was only three buildings on the southern side, they equaled the same size overall because the building in the middle of the south side was big. It must have been the store or town hall. Other than that the rest were nice little cottages, once upon a time.


"Not so unlike the ones in my village that I had spent sixteen wonderful years at."


Once the front of the buildings and the entire area in between them are cleared away of cobwebs, Christopher orders the fourteen remaining minotaurs, "Brothers, please take the western entrance to the village and reinforce it as best you can."

Christopher backs them up with ten humans and the two unicorns. He then orders forty soldiers to do the same on the eastern entrance.

Christopher hands Caitlin the reins of Shadow and tells ten soldiers, "Position yourselves around the wagon and the supplies." Caitlin has her bow at the ready.

Christopher arms twenty soldiers with long spears and lines them up in front of the buildings to defend from attack over the cottages and from the trees. The fairies have long since taken refuge in the wagon, and that is where Christopher tells them to stay. The remaining ten men will move with Christopher to reinforce any sector needing it, and to start sweeping through the homes. Each one of them has a sword or ax in one hand and a throwing spear in the other, although three are dedicated to carry the oil lanterns and torches.

The closer Christopher looks at the spider the unicorn had smashed, the more he realizes it looks just like a bigger version of a spider known as a Tarantula. He isn't sure if that is good or bad, but it makes him think that maybe they aren't magical creatures, just big ass spiders.

Finally it comes time to start their sweep through the buildings. Christopher figures they'll start with the small cottages and save the big building for last. The first door they force open doesn't bode well for his plan. It is grotesque in its beauty. It is like walking into a dream. The whole interior is covered in web, and sitting there in his or her rocking chair is a person sitting like they were relaxing before the time to turn in for the night. If they had been watching the fire in the fireplace it had long since burned itself out. As Christopher gets closer to examine the person, he sees that they seemed to have cut their wrist to die under their own terms before the spiders got them.

 
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