The Scarecrow King: A Romantic Retelling of the King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale (16 page)

“There,” he whispered in the silence. “Do you see it?”

I forced myself to concentrate, to calm down. A faint glow still emitted from my skirts, and I stared at the smoking red embers of the now-snuffed torch. Beyond that, all I saw were cobwebs…

I squinted a little harder. Why could I see cobwebs in the darkness? A small disk of pale cobwebs, seemingly no large than my fist, loomed in the distance. “Is that…”

“Light,” he agreed, a laugh bubbling from his throat. “We’re almost out.”

The rustle came from behind me again, much louder than before. Hurriedly, I grabbed the lantern from my skirts and pulled it forward again, illuminating the cavern with soft light. “Did you hear that?”

Alek pulled his sword forth. He put his hand out, indicating that I should stay put, and took a few steps back where we had just come from.

Not willing to be left behind, I followed close after him, glancing back at that small circle of light with longing. We were moving away from it. But I followed Alek.

“Something’s following us,” he said in a soft voice. His back was to me, and he ignored the spiders that skittered over his tunic. “Do you have your dagger?”

I clutched it close, for once not distracted by the constant crawl of bugs in my clothing. “I do. What should we do?”

“Do you still see that circle of light at the other end of the tunnel?”

I glanced behind me. Even with the lantern out, I could still find that circle of sunlight, now that I knew to look for it. “I see it.”

Alek turned to look back at me, his face grim in the shadows. “Good. Now turn around and run.”

I paused, uncertain. Did he mean–

“Run,” Alek growled at me, his voice urgent. “Run! Don’t look back. Just run!”

I yet hesitated, taking a step backward.

“
Run
! I’ll be right behind you.
Go
! Go now!”

I turned and ran.

Spider webs pulled at my face and hair as I ran. I didn’t stop, not even when the webs grew so thick that I had to fling myself through them. I kept pushing and struggling towards that circle of light that grew larger with every step I took. The floor of the tunnel angled upward steeply, and I knew it was heading out. Joy and anxiety pulsed hard through my body, my breath rasping harsh in my lungs. I could hear nothing but my own pounding feet and heart.

“Run,” Alek shouted from behind me, and I kept running.

Just when I was close to the surface – so close I could smell fresh air – the spider webs grew so thick that they completely covered the entryway, and hundreds of the crawlers swarmed in the webs. I shuddered and pushed through them regardless, so desperate to get out that it overrode even my fear of them. The webbing caught my hair and spiders swarmed over me. I pushed harder, bracing my elbow against the web and leaning on it with all of my weight.

The strands broke and I tumbled into the sunshine.

I gasped and clawed at my face and hair, pulling off endless strands of webbing out of my eyes and mouth. Spiders crawled over me and I brushed them off awkwardly, noticing that for the first time in hours, they didn’t return when I brushed them away. I wiped at my face with frantic relief, laughing as I stared at my surroundings.

The mountains had cut away abruptly, as if chiseled by a godlike hand. I had fallen onto a small ledge that overhung a burbling creek of water and green, lush grasses. I scrambled to the edge of the water and splashed my face, wiping away the last of the cobwebs and gave a happy sigh. The sunlight beat down on my head, hot and blinding. I reached over to where the oil lamp had rolled in the grass and hastily righted it. The small flame had not burnt out, which was a stroke of luck (though no surprise thanks to my Birthright magic). My dagger had fallen in the grass next to it and I picked it up and wiped the blade on my skirts, then frowned.

Where was Alek?

I stared in the cave mouth with a sense of dread pooling in my stomach. “Alek?” I called.

No answer.

My mouth dry, I picked up the oil lamp and my dagger and moved back to the front of the cave. The strands there still crawled with spiders, and I was reluctant to go back in and let them crawl all over me again. “Alek?” I called again.

Still nothing.

I swallowed hard and went back in the cave.

The darkness engulfed me again, and I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. I wanted to go back into the sunlight. Instead, I forced myself to walk forward. “Alek!”

The familiar, heavy rustle echoed in the darkness. I moved forward with the lamp, desperately searching the darkness for Alek. What if he’d gotten trapped in the webbing and was here in the dark, lost and alone and going the wrong way? “Alek! Answer me!”

I heard a muffled groan. Heart beating fast, I ran forward, and then…stopped. Alek lay sprawled on the floor of the cave, his legs covered in webbing, eyes closed. His sword lay discarded nearby. Looming over him was the largest spider I’d ever seen. Each of the eyes was as large as my fist, and the legs were as long as I was tall. It was mottled black like the shadows, and wiry bristles of hair stuck up from its body. An enormous set of mandibles snapped and spit another wad of cocooning over Alek's legs.

It was wrapping him for dinner.

I choked back the urge to scream and clutched my knife tighter. The spider continued working, though as I stood there, trembling, it raised its two front legs, as if bracing to attack me.

I had to save Alek somehow.

I hesitated for a moment, then set the oil lamp down on the ground. I wouldn’t be able to fight with it in my hands. The cave immediately got darker, the sounds more revolting as the spider continued to work over him, its legs making the horrible rustling noise I’d recognized from before. Alek's sword lay not too far away – a few feet from me. To get it, I would have to move closer to the spider, but I had few other choices – my dagger didn’t have the reach I needed to defend Alek. I leapt forward for the sword, and the spider lashed out at me with one hooked leg, turning toward me and hissing.

I blindly slashed at the spider. The curved blade of the dagger connected with spider leg, and sliced through. The creature gave a horrible scream and reared its legs again, turning and hissing at me. I scrambled to reach Alek's sword but it lay stuck in the cobwebs, and I tugged, trying to free it and failing. This new kind of web that the monster spider was spinning was thick, sticky – my hands stuck to it just as much as the sword.

The spider hissed again, and its mandibles clacked close to my ears. I scooted backward against the wall as the creature turned fully to attack me. My fingers brushed against the belly of the oil lamp and burned at the sensation – the glass was almost too hot to touch. Without thinking, I swung the lamp and broke it over the creature’s face, spilling hot lamp oil over the eyes and mouth.

It lit on fire.

The creature screamed again and again, the legs buckling as it wove and scrambled to get away from me. I slid past it and grabbed Aleksandr's sword, but it wasn’t needed – the creature was hurrying back down the tunnel away from us, and taking the last vestiges of light with it.

Silence descended again, and the horrible, all consuming gloom. I forced myself not to panic, wiping frightened tears from my eyes. I sheathed my dagger and searched along the floor for Alek's sword, and clutched it in my hand tightly, waiting to defend us.

The spider did not return. Long moments passed and eventually my frightened muscles uncoiled slightly, and I moved forward on the floor, seeking Aleksandr. “Alek? Are you there?”

He didn’t answer, but after a few tense moments of patting the webs and searching, I found him and laid my cheek to his chest. His heart still beat, slowly but steadily. Choking back a sob of relief, I sheathed the sword back in the scabbard at his belt and tapped his cheek to wake him. No response. He might have been badly hurt, but I couldn’t tell in the darkness.

A spider crawled over my hand and I shook it away, then brushed Alek's face off in the darkness. We couldn’t stay here – we needed to get back out into the light. Very well – I could carry him. My hands grasped his jerkin and I tugged on his body. He was so heavy – heavier than myself and limp and unmoving. I tugged again, harder, trying to move him forward. His body shifted a few feet, but that was it. Frustration built in my throat, and I bit it back. I couldn’t leave him.

I wouldn’t leave him.

So I jerked and heaved and pulled and gritted my teeth, and inch by grueling inch, I laboriously hauled Alek's body through the darkness and toward the light.

The tunnel was endlessly long, and my arms ached. After a time, I looped my belt under his arm and used it to pull, but by the time I dragged him into the grasses outside the tunnel and into the light, it was fading toward night.

I examined Alek with worried fingers. His hair was full of cobwebs and filthy with dirt and dead spiders, but there was no bleeding. Why was he unconscious? I unbuttoned his jerkin and smoothed my hand over his chest. Nothing there, but there was a large twin set of puncture wounds in his shoulder, the edges of each hole red. The creature had bit him. A new kind of fear settled in my stomach – what if he never woke up?

I refused to think about it. Instead, I made him comfortable, unpacking our spare clothes as a makeshift bed for him. I got water from the stream and refilled our flasks, dribbling a bit between his lips to wet his throat, and stroked it to force him to swallow. He didn’t awaken, and the sun was going down. Trying to remember everything I’d seen Alek do for our campsite, I cleared a spot for a campfire and gathered wood. I’d remembered him grabbing strips of bark off of the trees to act as tinder, but there were no trees where we were at, just green grasses and a merry stream. So instead, I opted to burn a small portion of my sleeve that had gotten soaked in the lamp oil when I’d filled it. I pricked my finger and pressed a thumb print to Aleksandr's flint and managed to light the fabric after a few sparks.

Keeping it going proved a little trickier, and I spent half the night gathering tinder and dried sticks for the fire, and then trying to keep it steadily blazing. There was not a lot to burn in the area, so I had to supplement our small fire with whatever I could find, including our small, precious peat bricks. Strangely enough, I didn’t mind the work – the night sky was brilliant with stars, the breeze caressed my face, and I was so overjoyed at being out of the tunnel that I didn’t mind having to scrounge to build our fire or that the night breeze had a chill to it…if only Alek would awaken.

When the fire was going decently, I moved back to Alek and studied him. His breathing was as even as ever, but he still wouldn’t awaken. I pushed aside my worry and smoothed the rumpled, dirty hair from his brow. It was caked with spiders and dust, and I winced. While he’d slept, I’d rinsed out my own hair and shook out my clothing – the least I could do for him was the same. Ripping off the other sleeve of my gown, I soaked it in water from the waterskin and washed his face clean. His hair seemed equally dirty, and I used the cloth to try and clean it as best as possible – at least I’d be able to wipe away all spider webs and bugs from him.

A strange thing happened. As I stroked his hair with the wet fabric, my hands felt sticky. I rinsed my hands and went back to work, brushing the wet cloth over his hair to clean it, only to have the same results. Strange. I lifted the cloth closer to the fire and was surprised to see it covered in a shimmery golden shade. Some sort of residue from the spider webs? It would be impossible to tell until the daylight.

There was a choking gasp and Alek sat bolt upright, scrambling to his feet.

“Are you all right?” I called after him.

He reached for his sword and drew it, turning in a circle, his stance wary. “The spider–”

“It’s gone,” I said to him, getting to my feet. “I threw the lamp on it and it caught on fire.”

He touched his shoulder, where the spider had bit him, and then stared at me in wonder. “You scared it off?”

“With my lamp. Are you all right?” I moved toward him, loosening the collar of his jerkin and exposing the wound. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but it looked less red and angry than before.

He grasped my shoulders. “You scared the spider away with the lamp? That’s amazing.”

His praise made me blush, an uncomfortable feeling. “Not amazing. Just a bit of luck. I’d already touched up the lamp from before. The luck stuck around.”

Aleksandr shook his head, as if finding it difficult to grasp my words, then stared over me at the fire. “How did you get the fire going?”

A hint of a blush tinged my cheeks. “I used a bit of luck on the flint and steel, too.”

He stared at it, then back to me. “You keep saying that, but I don’t know what you mean. What luck are you talking about?”

Was he being dense? Deliberately rude? Mocking my small magic? I tried to brush his hands off my shoulders, but he clamped them down harder, staring down at me with intense eyes. “Rinda?”

“My magic,” I said crabbily. “If you must know.”

He gave me a dumbfounded look. “You have magic?”

“Of course I do. I’m Balinoran, aren’t I?”

“Does everyone in Balinore have magic?”

“Now you’re making fun of me. Of course everyone does…” my words died at the astonished expression on his face. “You don’t have magic?” I asked delicately.

“No.” He searched my face again, then gave my shoulders a bit of a squeeze. “I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time grasping this. Your magic is…luck?”

Oh dear. He was making it sound far more exciting than it was. “Only for inanimate objects,” I babbled, hasty to explain lest he grow more excited than he should be. “It’s very small magic, really. Laughably small. Anything I get a drop of my blood on, I can transfer a bit of luck to it. It’s mostly useful for small things, like not dropping dishes or making sure paintings hang properly,” I said, then stopped when he continued to stare at me. “Nothing, really.”

He continued to stare at me, his mouth slightly open. After a moment, he shook himself. “And you used this on the flint and steel,” he repeated.