she’d overheard her sisters-in-law comment that no man would be interested in a girl who was built along the lines of a cow.
She’d made the mistake of repeating that comment to her mother, when Kel’s plan to be a page had first come up. Her mother had gone white with fury and had put her daughters-in-law to mending several years’ worth of old linens. It had taken a great deal of persuasion for Kel to convince her mother that her quest for knighthood did not mean she wanted to settle for second best, knowing she would never marry. Getting Ilane of Mindelan to agree to her being a page had been a negotiation every bit as complicated as what her father had done to get the Yamanis to sign the treaty.
And see the good that did me, Kel thought with disgust. Lord Wyldon offers me second best anyway, and I won’t take it. I could have saved my breath talking Mama around.
She was ready to get to her feet when the sound of bodies crashing through the brush made her look up. Gruff voices reached her ear.
‘Hurry up!’ a boy growled from near the river. ‘Do you want us t’get caught?’
‘The Cow’s at home,’ replied a second boy’s voice. ‘She stays there all morning.’
Kel stood, listening. If they were on the lookout for her, then they were up to something bad. In just three months she had taught the local boys she was someone to respect. Kel grabbed a sturdy fallen branch and ran towards the voices. Racing into open ground between the trees and river, she saw three village boys. They were about to throw a wriggling cloth sack into the Domin.
Her mouth settled into a tight, angry line; her hazel eyes glittered. ‘Put that down!’ she cried.
The boys whirled, startled, dropping their burden on a half-submerged tree limb. One of them punched the smallest in the shoulder. ‘Home all morning, eh?’
Kel shouted, ‘I know all of you! And you know the law in Mindelan – no killing of animals without the baron’s leave!’
The biggest, taller than she by half a head, advanced. The other two were right behind him. ‘Who’s to make us stop, Cow?’
The Yamanis had taught her well. She waded into the boys, using her club as an equalizer. She whacked them in the belly so they couldn’t breathe, and on the collarbones and biceps so they couldn’t raise their arms. One youth punched her face; he caught her on the outside of one eye. She changed her grip on her branch and swept his feet from under him, then stood on one of his arms.
Another lad grabbed a branch and swung at her; she blocked it with hers, then rammed the length of wood into his stomach. He doubled over, gasping. Kel shoved him into the third boy. Down they went in a tumble. When they untangled themselves, they ran. Their comrade also chose to make his escape.
Kel looked around for the sack. The current had tugged the tree limb on which it rested out into the deeper, faster water at the centre of the river. She didn’t hesitate, but waded into the water. Kel was a good swimmer and the river here was fairly shallow. She doubted that whatever small creatures were struggling in the sack could swim.
Movement on the far bank made her look up. What she saw made her halt, cold water rushing around her thighs. Something black and strange-looking walked out from under the shelter of the trees. It looked like a giant furred spider nearly five feet tall, with one difference. The thing had a human head. It stared at Kel, then grinned broadly to reveal sharp teeth.
Her flesh crawled; hairs stood up on her arms and the back of her neck. Spidren, she thought, recognizing it from descriptions. Spidrens in our woods.
Like most of the legendary creatures that now prowled the Human Realms, they were virtually immortal, immune to disease and old age. They died only when something or someone took pains to kill them. They fed on animals and human blood. No one could get spidrens to make peace with human beings.
The thing reared up on its back legs, revealing a light-coloured shaft at the base of its belly. From it the spidren squirted a high-flying grey stream that soared into the air over the river. Kel threw herself to one side, away from the grey stream and the sack she was trying to catch. The stuff was like rope. She realized it was a web when it fell in a long line across the surface of the water. It had missed her by only a foot. The spidren bent and snipped the rope off from its belly spinneret with a clawed leg. Swiftly it began to wind the length of web around another clawed foot. As it dragged through the water, the sticky thing caught on the cloth sack. The spidren reeled in its catch as a fisherman might pull in a line.
Kel brought the horn up to her mouth. She blew five hard blasts and might have continued to blow until help came, as the spidren gathered up the sack. It discarded its web with one clawed foot, held the sack with a second, and reached into it with a third. The beast grinned, its eyes never leaving Kel, as it pulled out a wet and squirming kitten.
The horn fell from the girl’s lips as the spidren looked the kitten over. It smacked its lips, then bit the small creature in half and began to chew.
Kel screamed and groped on the river bottom with both hands for ammunition. Coming up with a stone in each fist, she hurled the first. It soared past the spidren, missing by inches. Her next stone caught it square in the head. It shrieked and began to climb the bluff that over-looked the river to its left, still holding the sack.
In the distance Kel heard the sound of horns. Help was on its way – for her, but not for those kittens. She scrabbled for more stones and plunged across the river, battling the water to get to the same shore as the monster. It continued to climb the rocky face of the bluff until it reached the summit just as Kel scrambled onto the land.
Once she was on solid ground, she began to climb the bluff, her soaked feet digging for purchase in soft dirt and rock. Above, the spidren leaned over the edge of the bluff to leer at her. It reached into the sack, dragged out a second kitten, and began to eat it.
Kel still had a rock in her right hand. She hurled it as hard as she had ever thrown a ball to knock down a target. It smashed the spidren’s nose. The thing shrieked and hissed, dropping the rest of its meal.
Kel’s foot slipped. She looked down to find a better place to set it and froze. She was only seven feet above the water, but the distance seemed more like seventy to her. A roar filled her ears and her head span. Cold sweat trickled through her clothes. She clung to the face of the bluff with both arms and legs, sick with fear.
Leaving its sack on the ground, the spidren threw a loop of web around a nearby tree stump. When it was set, the creature began to lower itself over the side of the bluff. Its hate-filled eyes were locked on the girl, whose terror had frozen her in place.
Kel was deaf and blind to the spidren’s approach. Later she could not recall hearing the monster’s scream as arrows thudded into its flesh, just as she could not remember the arrival of her brother Anders and his men-at-arms.
With the spidren’s death, its web rope snapped. The thing hurtled past Kel to splash into the river.
A man-at-arms climbed up to get her, gently prising her clutching fingers from their holds. Only when Kel was safely on the shore, seated on a flat rock, was she able to tell them why she had tried to kill a spidren with only stones for weapons. Someone climbed the bluff to retrieve the sack of kittens while Kel stared, shivering, at the spidren’s body.
Her brother Anders dismounted stiffly and limped over to her. Reaching into his belt pouch, he pulled out a handful of fresh mint leaves, crushed them in one gloved hand, and held them under Kel’s nose. She breathed their fresh
