The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (16 page)

After a few seconds, it reacted with the gum on the web
cord, breaking it into strands that she could peel away. Maelys forced her
inner hand up all the way and the stuck hand popped off. She glanced over her
shoulder; the octopede was still thrashing, sliding this way and that, coming
ever closer.

Could she climb the cord? Maelys didn’t think so; she had
never been athletic. She reached up with her slippery hand, touched the cord
higher up and it stuck, though not tightly; she could just pull free. She
enslimed her right hand and tried to spring up, so as to grab on higher.

She didn’t budge; suction from the surrounding swamp
creepers held her legs in place. Her right hand caught the web cord above the
left, slipped, then caught again. She held on grimly, pulled the other hand
free, rubbed more slime on it and took a grip higher up, then did the same with
the first hand.

It was like trying to pull her feet out of deep, sticky mud.
She pointed her toes, thrashed her lower legs and finally the suction broke.
Maelys drew her legs up above the swamp creepers, knowing she was far from
safe.

She was exhausted; her wrenched shoulder was throbbing and
blood ran down her torn calf to drip off her heel. The octopede spun around,
its hook-claws waving in the air. A host of finger-like protrusions above its
mouth were stirring, as if they had picked up the smell of her blood.

In a single movement, it turned over. The ovipositor pulled
free of the impaled swamp creeper and arched over the octopede’s back, dripping
pink fluid onto its warty skin. Tiny hooks on the ends of its stubby legs
latched onto the swamp creepers and it began to undulate across them like a
caterpillar, heading directly for her blood.

Maelys hauled herself up another few ells, feeling her
strength going. She’d never had strong arms and they had little left to give.
Up again, she told herself. Just one more heave and you’ll be out of reach.

She took hold higher up, without thinking to replenish the
muck on her hand, and stuck fast. Now she was really in trouble. Tearing the
lower hand free, she rubbed it across her slimy stomach and started to prise
away the stuck hand. She had to be exquisitely careful; if she lost her grip
she would be impaled on the ovipositor, which was sticking up below her,
catching her blood as it fell.

She managed to free herself and climb another hand-span, but
the blade-sharp ovipositor was not far below her bare feet and the octopede was
arching up its rear section in an attempt to reach her. She jerked her feet up,
only to realise that the cord was dangling below them. If the octopede caught
hold she would be trapped.

Kicking the hanging end sideways, Maelys hung from one hand
for interminable seconds while she tried to hook the dangling cord with her
arm. After three attempts, with the octopede stabbing ever closer to her feet,
she managed to drape the cord over her shoulder. She rubbed the slime away,
stuck the cord there and clung on with both hands, panting. She was safe for
the moment, but there was so far to climb.

Maelys had to keep going. The ovipositor speared up at her,
just missing her left foot; the octopede was now clinging to the swamp creepers
with its front legs and arching its rear section off the ground, giving it
another third of a span of reach. She dragged herself up further, sobbing in
desperation. Her throat was burning and her arm muscles were starting to cramp.

The octopede swayed upwards, stabbing again and again; the
tip of its ovipositor slid up between her toes, almost to her knee, and the
skin began to sting. She jerked her legs higher, holding her knees against her
belly as it kept stabbing below her bottom. If she weakened, even for a second,
she was finished.

She had to get up out of reach while she still could. Maelys
found the strength to pull herself up another few hand-spans, but could go no
further. Her muscles were trembling and wouldn’t hold her long, but in a flash
of inspiration she wiped the slime off her right hand, stuck it to the cord and
it held her. She hung there, panting, allowing her muscles to relax for the
first time.

The octopede could not reach her now, but it wasn’t finished
yet. It tilted its ovipositor back over its head and circled around on the
swamp creepers, its foot-hooks alternately piercing their leathery skin then
pulling free. What was it up to?

She hastily gunked up her left hand and was working the
stuck one free when she noticed the spinnerets at the octopede’s rear pointing
towards her. Maelys’s stomach lurched; she dragged herself up another few
hand-spans and stuck on, looking down fearfully.

A wave passed along its rear section; the flabby sac
contracted and a liquid jet shot up at her, solidifying into sticky web in the
air. Maelys jerked herself sideways and the jet shot past a finger’s width from
her knees, arching across the pit to fall near the far wall.

The octopede’s foot-hooks released; it moved slightly,
hooked on again, pointing its spinnerets squarely at her this time, and fired.
She swayed aside as the jet shot past her ankle, but Maelys couldn’t play this
game any longer. Next time it would get her. She had to climb the cord no
matter how much it hurt.

And it hurt more than anything she’d ever done. Her arm
muscles were shuddering with the strain before she had gone a quarter of the
way. The octopede fired again but did not reach her this time, and undulated
across the swamp creepers to the side wall. There it began to climb, clinging
to tiny cracks in the stone with its foot-hooks.

It was halfway up the wall already, while after all this
time Maelys was only halfway up the cord and going ever slower. She now
realised, with the despair of utter certainty, that she wasn’t going to make
it. She would still be a couple of spans below the hole in the roof when the
octopede reached the web above her.

Though every muscle in her body was screaming with
exhaustion, she kept going; she wasn’t going to succumb to it, and she couldn’t
let Vivimord win either. She was going to fight them to her last gasp. She was
never going to give in, no matter what.

Maelys still had three spans to go but the octopede was near
the top of the wall. Two-and-a-half spans: it began to creep across the roof,
upside down, its warty body dangling. Two spans; she was gasping, grunting, her
mouth as dry as paper. The octopede reached its web and headed across to the
cord she was suspended from.

She stopped and stuck on. What was left? Only to let go,
plunge headfirst into the mass of swamp creepers and hope that she broke her
neck. But she probably wouldn’t, and even a broken neck need not be fatal. The
octopede’s eggs would still incubate inside her paralysed body, and besides,
Maelys clung to life more desperately than ever. Life was hope; life meant she
still had a chance. Think!

The octopede reached her cord, clung there for a moment, its
pale, slanted eyes on her, and a pair of curved brown fangs above its mouth
slowly extended like a cat unsheathing its claws. That must be how it paralysed
its victims.

Maelys went down half a span and allowed the cord’s
stickiness to hold her again. If attacked, she would let go and fall; she had
no other options. Or did she? Could she use swamp creeper mucus against the
octopede?

It was worth a try, though she didn’t think it would work;
the beast had eight little foot-hooks to cling on with. It had walked across
the bed of swamp creepers, after all, by hooking into their leathery skins.

Scooping a handful of ooze off her thigh, Maelys cupped her hand
around the cord and slid down two spans, coating it liberally. She slid down a
further span, allowing friction to wipe the remaining muck away until the web’s
stickiness was just enough to hold her, but she could still pull free when she
needed to.

What would the octopede do? Had it ever played such a game
with one of its victims before? She doubted it; the caverns of Mistmurk
Mountain had been uninhabited for centuries. Maelys didn’t think it could be an
intelligent creature, but there was always a possibility that it understood
what she had done, and if so it could avoid her trap by lowering itself on
another line beside hers.

She felt exhausted; light-headed from hunger. Maelys
couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten. Even thinking was hard now. The
octopede began to come down, watching her all the while. She wasn’t acting like
its other prey, and it was wary of her. Could she make it more wary?

Unpeeling one hand, Maelys brandished it at the creature,
then bared her teeth and hissed. It stopped on the cord, its head swaying from
side to side, its ovipositor erecting and the glistening fangs sliding in and
out, then began to move down slowly. She needed it to come at her in a rush so
it would have all its feet on the slippery line at once. What if she pretended
to attack it?

She pulled herself up by her arms and let out a shriek of
defiance, though it came out as thin and fake, and the octopede didn’t seem to
be taken in. It swayed upwards but its legs stiffened; it was going for her.

Maelys took a tight grip with both hands; she did not know
what it would do or how it would attack. Her gut cramped; one more pain in a
long line of them. If there was a part of her body that wasn’t aching, she
couldn’t think of it.

It came down the cord more quickly than she had expected.
Maelys choked back a cry and tried to scramble down, but the slime on her palms
had worn off and she was stuck to the web.

‘Aahhh!’ This time her scream was pure terror. She wrenched
until the skin of her palms stung, but her hands would not come free.

Tiny drops of venom appeared at the hollow tips of the
octopede’s fangs. Her hands were loosening, though not quickly enough for her
to jump. What if she doubled up and tried to kick it off the cord? No, it was
too fast; besides, bare feet were no use against claws and fangs.

The octopede shot onto the mucus-coated section and its
foot-hooks slipped, for they hooked
around
the cord, not into it. It slid down under its own weight, dragging the rest of
its body onto the slippery section. The foot-hooks clamped on furiously but
could not gain any purchase; it was sliding directly towards her.

Once it slid below the slippery section it would catch hold,
and then it would be in a position to strike. The front pair of hooks locked
onto clean cord, stopping its head end instantly, but the shock tore the upper
six foot-hooks away from the slippery cord and the octopede fell outwards, its
ovipositor carving a semicircle through the air then spearing at her.

She threw herself sideways on the cord but, as the creature
swung upside down, its weight tore the two front hooks away and it fell.
Maelys’s hands were still partly stuck; she could do no more than tuck her head
under her arm and hang on.

One snapping claw struck her hard on the shoulder and it
tried to hook in, but the octopede had already fallen past. The heavy beast
plummeted down and slapped onto the swamp creepers, sending a squirming ripple
out, as if from a stone thrown into a pond.

It didn’t move; perhaps it was dazed or hurt, and Maelys saw
her chance. She had to take it, for she’d never get another. She took careful
aim at its head section, just behind its eyes, peeled away the last of the gum
holding her to the cord, and dropped.

She had no idea what was going to happen. If she missed, she
might break her ankles; she would certainly be at its mercy. The octopede had
not realised the danger, for it was randomly moving its legs as she plummeted
down, and she hit it at full speed.

The warty skin of the barrel-sized head section resisted the
impact for a moment, then burst and she plunged through, splattering stinking
yellow and green innards every-where. The ovipositor shot up at her but, as her
knees buckled, it passed over her shoulder and a stream of little white grubs
was forced out.

Maelys threw herself to one side, scrambling out of the
disgusting mess and plunging knee-deep into swamp creepers. She jerked her legs
out and scrubbed furiously at the stinging yellow and green muck all over her
feet and legs.

At a movement behind her, she glanced over her shoulder. The
octopede’s pale eyes had gone dull; was it dying? She couldn’t be sure,
couldn’t take the risk, either, for its lower sections were still moving. It
was still dangerous.

The left hook-claw snapped at her. She backed away, scraped
up swamp creeper ooze and rubbed her legs with it until the stinging died down
to a dull throb.

There was still green muck on her left foot, and some
unidentifiable sausage-like organ had stuck between her toes. She flicked it
away, revolted, wiped her fingers then scrambled backwards as the ovipositor,
swinging through the air, fired a stream of grubs at her.

Only then did she notice that the swamp creepers were
stirring, sliding over one another to feed on the splattered innards, and the
little grubs, which they passed over and swallowed. They weren’t entirely
vegetarian after all.

The octopede began dragging itself backwards by its
foot-hooks, towards the wall. If it reached it, it might still prevent her from
getting out; might even do the gruesome business with its grubs. No! she
thought. I’ve got to kill it. And then she had a brilliant idea. Picking up a
swamp creeper, she tossed it into the ragged cavity she’d burst through the
head section.

The swamp creeper began to feed on the octopede’s insides,
so she threw another in, then another, until the beast was so weighted down it
could no longer move. Shortly they began burrowing down its insides into the
undamaged segments, and before long all the little grubs had been eaten. She’d
won the first battle.

But, she had to get out before Vivimord came back for her,
and she had to have a weapon. She wasn’t going to let him off, either. If she
got the chance, he was going to die.