The queen had butchered another two Kharlin villagers, feeding their blood to her eggs. Dawn was feeling sick and at the same time wondered why she was still alive.
“So many children dead,” lamented the queen. “My precious children.” She hissed at Dawn: “You! You are a killer!”
“You are the one to talk.” Dawn replied tiredly. “You just killed several Kharlin. They are all someone’s children, too.” The queen looked at her, red eyes glittering maliciously. “Oh, they are not dead. They gave life to my future children. They will live on in them.”
“Maybe your children will live, but these Kharlin are stone dead.” Dawn retorted. “You don’t understand. How could you, you know nothing.” Her big body advanced on Dawn slowly, the spiky legs clicking on the ground. “I know you hunt and kill intelligent beings,” Dawn said. “That is more than enough.”
“I am an intelligent being, and you would hunt me soon enough if I gave you the chance. Not that you would be able to kill me, of course.” The queen said.
“I’d rather call you crazy.” Dawn replied recklessly. The queen whirled around and hissed angrily: “So it is crazy that I want my children to live?”
“You abduct and kill peaceful villagers. Even the children. What right do you have to butcher them, just to feed their blood to your precious children? There are enough animals you could hunt if you need blood.” Dawn said hoarsely.
“And if you hadn’t burned my eggs, I wouldn’t have needed them. It was you who killed them all, wasn’t it? Your fault, child killer!” she grew agitated again.
“They will find you and kill you and all your children.” Dawn said. “No they won’t,”the queen settled down quite calmly all at once. “Who will tell them about us? You will be gone and your furry villagers will be gone. No one will even know we exist.”
“Oh yes, they will know. Because I told someone about the demons here when we got out of the caves the first time. He was quite surprised to hear there were oversized spider-demons breeding in the underground caves.”
“You lie! There’s no one out there for days but these furries. And we have taken them all.” The queen hissed. “I don’t lie. And you didn’t get all of the Kharlins. We got some of them out already.” Dawn retorted.
The queen began to scuttle around the cave nervously. It almost looked like she was pacing. “They can’t know about us. Not yet. My children are not strong enough. But maybe she lies. Rakor, my love. What shall we do? Secrecy is important. You told me that. No one can know about me. They will kill me if they know. But I’d like to see them try. They tried to kill me before, those fools. Called me an abomination. And weren’t they surprised in the city when I turned the tables on them. They’re not able to kill me. But the children will die. No!”
Dawn was wondering about the queen. There were moments when she seemed quite calm and rational - if one could call it rational to coolly butcher Kharlins for their blood - or when at least her actions made sense from her perspective. She wanted her children to survive. Understandable. Every mother wanted that for her children. But all that talk about not being able to be killed and loving a dead human was just plain crazy. And she talked about surprising the city. The war against the gray demons must have been fought centuries ago. She couldn’t have been around for that, surely. How long did spiders live anyway?
As she was thinking, the demons brought in yet another Kharlin. The Queen moved to the markings on the ground and started to open the cocoon. Dawn swallowed. The next poor Kharlin was about to be butchered. But the queen had no egg to soak up the blood this time. Out of the corners of her eyes Dawn saw a huge spider approaching her. She flinched. It picked her up and carried her to the queen. Dawn felt ice-cold fear engulfing her. Now it was her turn to be butchered and bled out. The demon laid her down on the ground inside the markings and scuttled off. The queen was still holding the cocooned Kharlin up. She cut the throat of the sleeping villager and let the blood flow into the markings on the floor this time. Then she used one of her forelegs to cut into her own huge body. Tar-like viscous blood oozed out. She let some drops fall onto the runes and they began to glow.
“Your death will make my children stronger,” the queen hissed. Another demon approached her and handed over an egg. She held it up and ran her forelegs over it slowly, then laid it down on the ground next to Dawn. The queen came closer and raised her leg. Dawn closed her eyes and turned her head away. At the same time a shriek sounded in the outer cave. It was followed closely by a hollow boom and further screeching. “What are they doing?” the queen shouted and scuttled away. The demons who had been standing around motionless began to move suddenly and hurried out into the main cave.
Dawn felt a spark of hope for the first time. Maybe Kharma and the others had come up with a plan to get her out of here? The queen halted for a moment, then began to mutter angrily. “Cannot stop now, or the blood will be wasted.” The sounds from outside grew louder, another hollow boom sounded. Then the smell of something burning wafted into the cave. Now the queen let out an angry shriek. “No.” She turned around and left the cave, too.
Dawn lay inside of the glowing circle together with the queen’s egg. ‘What is she trying to do?’ she thought. A moment later she was angry at herself. She was alone for the first time since she had woken up in the queen’s den. She needed to get out now. She summoned her sword from the storage ring. It appeared in her hand and penetrated a part of the cocoon that held her immobile. Frantically, Dawn tried to move the blade to separate more of the threads, at the same time wriggling around to loosen the cocoon around her. It was slow-going. She didn’t know how much time she had left before the queen returned. Suddenly, something moved next to her. She let out a small yelp. Had one of the demons returned?
A moment later, she saw it was Ankou that had appeared beside her. “Ankou!” she exclaimed hoarsely, almost bursting into tears when she recognized the cat. He nudged his head against hers, then carefully used his claws to free her of the sticky webbing. With his help she managed to free her arms and a minute later her legs. Shakily she tried to stand up, wobbling on her feet. She had been immobile for so long, everything was numb. Or was that still the aftereffect of the spider’s venom? “I’m an idiot,” she said, grimacing, and cast Nurture on herself. It helped. The shaky feeling went away. “Let’s get out of here, before the monsters come back.” She glanced at the glowing markings beneath her with misgivings. Ankou was already on his way to the doorway. Dawn turned to follow him when her gaze fell onto the demon egg next to her. She shuddered. She raised her sword and struck at it several times, until she was sure that it was destroyed completely. The glowing markings beneath her flared up with intense white light briefly and then flickered out. “Good,” she thought. That’s taken care of this one at least. She activated Shadow Play and hastily followed Ankou into the main cave.
There mayhem reigned. Webs were burning in her vicinity. She could hardly see anything farther away, because great plumes of dust and smoke hung in the air. Screeching and clicking sounds betrayed that demons were moving around there, but all Dawn could see were moving shadows. Coughing she turned to Ankou: “ Shall we try to get to the water?” But the cat had already turned away from the water and headed in the opposite direction. “We’re going in deeper?” she asked incredulously. But he just flicked his tail impatiently and sped up further. She looked around hesitantly. Where were the others? Kharma and Lutha and the other villagers? Had they gotten everyone out? She regretted that Ankou couldn’t talk.
They passed the smoldering remains of several webs. Behind those, another bend opened up into a side passage. Nothing moved here. Ankou slipped through the long passage and finally into a roomy cave on the right, Dawn trailing right behind him. The cave was filled with rubble on all sides, the floor crunching and sliding under her steps. When she looked at it closer, she saw it wasn’t stone she was treading on. All around her and on the floor everything was filled with bones. Partly those of animals, partly human ones. “Why are we here?” She asked Ankou, even though she knew he couldn’t answer her. He ignored her and led her even deeper in, past rows of skeletal bones until they reached the end of the side chamber. He squeezed into a niche next to a mound of old bones, and looked round at her impatiently, flicking his ears at her. She squeezed in next to him finally, grimacing as the bones touched her. There they waited for long minutes.
Just as Dawn decided she had enough and needed to get out of there right away, a deafening boom echoed through the caves followed by the roaring sound of falling stones. The ground beneath their feet shook, the bones in the room were buffeted around. “What on earth?” muttered Dawn, her eyes wide open. “That sounded as if the whole cave has collapsed.” As soon as she had said it, she feared that it really had happened.
She was itching to go out and look at the condition of the main cave. Was it safe? Thoughtfully she looked at Ankou. “Do you think it is safe to go out?” He blinked at her and shook himself, before he squeezed past her out of the niche. A cloud of dust was wafting its way inside their cave, Ankou sneezing repeatedly and Dawn coughing like mad as it reached them.
