Venom and Song (53 page)

“No, not that,” said Jimmy. “I mean, it is that, but . . . well, just listen.”

Jimmy explained what he'd seen in his vision. The other lords gasped. Grimwarden looked up at the volcanic cloud spreading above them. Jagged roots of lightning crawled across the sky.

“We've got to do something!” Kat cried out. “They'll be slaughtered.”

“I'll go,” said Autumn. “I'm the only one who can. I'll warn them. I'll get in and out in a minute.”

“How will you warn them?” asked Goldarrow. “You cannot see them.”

That silenced all discussion for a moment, but then Grimwarden said, “Our own soldiers knew what they were getting into. But the Gnomes came blindly to take up our cause. My heart is torn, Autumn. If you should not return—”

“I will,” she argued. “I'm not the reckless little kid who got skewered in Scotland. I have twice the speed now. I have my axes. And I have Ellos!”

That was when Grimwarden did something no one expected. He leaned over and kissed Autumn on the top of her head. “Go,” he said, “with my blessing.”

“No!” Johnny protested. “Let me go with her! I—”

“You could never keep up,” Grimwarden replied.

“But I can use my fire to—”

“Yes, you will use your fire, but not for this. To do so now would announce ‘Here we are!' to the Spider King and every enemy on the battlefield.”

They fell silent. Autumn drew her axes. She was a momentary blur, and she was gone.

Johnny felt as if his heart had torn free of his chest and gone with her.

As fast as the landscape went by Autumn, she saw it all, every detail. It was not like watching a movie but like watching a slideshow. First just rocky terrain. Then carnage: wrecked catapults and siege towers, broken bodies, fallen warriors. Finally she flashed up behind the teeming Warspiders, still locked in a struggle against thousands of foes they could not see.

Goldarrow's words came back to her.
How will you warn them? You cannot see them
. She had no plan, but she acted. Her eyes darting, scrutinizing the slides of vision, and analyzing every possible threat. She sprinted around the Warspiders, between them, even over them. Her movements were not smooth, not graceful, but they were fast. And while she ran she yelled out her warning to the Gnomes.

Finding a clear patch of ground, Autumn stopped to breathe. Seconds later, the Warspiders found her. From all directions they came, but the moment they were upon their prey, their prey was gone. Not knowing if the Gnomes had heard her above the din of battle, Autumn continued yelling her warning.

Barely a minute gone, she'd made a lightning-quick circuit of the undulating mass of spiders. Halfway through her second revolution, she tripped. Even as she tumbled beneath a huge Warspider, she could not imagine what she'd tripped over. She hadn't seen anything.

A Gnome.

The Warspider backed up. Its massive fangs hung in the air above her. But Autumn yelled out, “Gnome, are you okay?!”

“No thanks to you!” came a disgruntled voice from nowhere. “You Elfkind? Ah, a second, please.”

Autumn didn't have a second. The spider was upon her, the fangs crashing down.

And then there were no fangs. The Warspider shrieked, its fangs sheered off to bleeding stumps, and reared back to crush Autumn. But Autumn was not helpless. She sped out from beneath the spider. As it collapsed to the ground, Autumn's axes moved with swift and terrible speed. When she finished, there wasn't much left.

“On your bad side, surely I will not get, Elf,” said the Gnome.

Breathing heavily, Autumn stood over the dead creature, now a bloody pulp. She wiped her face. That's when she felt it: a light sensation on her nose. Then on her cheek. She saw the flakes, falling like snow. “Gnome!” she yelled. “Tell your people my warning!”

“What warning, Elf?”

Autumn told him.

“Oh, dear,” he replied, just as another Warspider advanced on their position.

“I've got to run!” cried Autumn. “Warn your people!”

“I will!” promised the Gnome.

A second silence fell over the battlefield. This one not spurred on by the shocking explosion, but rather by an eerie muffling of all sound. The ash had begun to fall. Tommy held out his hand and watched the gray flakes collect on his palm.

“Come on, Autumn,” muttered Johnny. “Get out of there.”

“She'll make it,” said Kat, patting him on the shoulder.

“But what about Kiri Lee?” asked Jimmy.

“The volcano likely has bought her time,” said Goldarrow.

“If she lives,” said Jett. He still felt they should have gone in after her the moment she went down behind the wall. Forget the map. Forget the walls. Kiri Lee was one of their own.

“You lords are made of tougher stuff than that,” said Grimwarden. “You may all meet your fate this day, but I very much doubt it will be from a fall. If anyone could survive plummeting from a height, it's Kiri Lee.”

“Yeah,” said Tommy, trying to sound cheerful. “I bet she floated down like a leaf.”

“What was that?” asked Kat.

“Volcano's still rumbling,” muttered Jett.

“No, I heard a kind of whistle,” she said. “A warbly kind of whistle.”

Jett shrugged.

The volcano continued to growl, though now its sound was dampened by the falling ash. Molten rock bubbled and gurgled, spilling over its edges and rolling across the ground in fiery globs. But more than the lava now, massive towering pillars of smoke and ash boiled into the sky. Whatever air current prevailed above, it seemed to be carrying all the ash over the battlefield. For now, it came down harder.

The Elves watched from their promontory. But Tommy was the only one who could see what the ash was doing. Of course, Jimmy had seen it, too, just minutes before it happened. Falling like a heavy snowstorm, the ash coated the battlefield in a blanket of gray. Tommy watched the Warspiders, wondering if the Gnomes had gotten the warning.

Clearly, some had not.

The ash began to adhere to the Gnomes revealing them, especially the ones out in the open or leaping from spider to spider. Before the Gnomes could drive the beasts mad, their hacking and stabbing coming from unseen hands. But now the battlefield was filled with little gray shadow-beings. Warspiders began to snap the Gnomes out of the air. Using their forelegs as spears, they skewered the miniature people as they fled. It soon became chaos. No longer invisible, the Gnomes raced in and out of spider legs beneath the creatures, seeking some path to safety. But, as far as Tommy could tell, very few were finding their way out of the death trap.

“The Gnomes are getting killed out there!” Tommy exclaimed. “Autumn must not have warned them in time!”

“I did so!” declared Autumn, appearing suddenly between Tommy and Grimwarden.

“AUTUMN!” Johnny picked her up and hugged her.

“Thanks, Johnny, but put me down.”

Reluctantly, Johnny put her down. “Sorry. I'm just glad, that's all.”

“Autumn, I can see the Gnomes,” said Tommy. “Because of the ash. The Warspiders can see them now, too. The Gnomes are getting torn to shreds.”

“Nooo,” said Autumn. “I warned them. I really did. I even got a chance to talk to one of them. I . . . warned them.”

Tommy stared at his feet. Death, death, and more death—that's all he'd seen since the battle began. And he had been able to do nothing to help. He was fed up with standing still. “Grimwarden, we've got to go help.”

“We have helped,” he replied, staring into the strange ashen twilight. “Against my better judgment, we sent Autumn to warn them.”

“But it didn't help,” said Tommy, earning him a swift stinging glance from Autumn. “Migmar's whole army could die. If we all go out there, we could save them.”

“You would indeed save the Gnomes,” said Grimwarden, eyes fixed ahead. “And you would strike a blow against the Spider King by annihilating an immense portion of his Warspiders. But . . . you would cost us all the war.”

“You've said things like that before,” said Jett. “I don't see how smashing those spiders to smithereens causes us to lose anything.”

“Jett,” replied the Guardmaster. “Do you not see how evenly matched we are . . . the Spider King's forces and our own? Back and forth, the battle wanes. His Gwar resistance opposes our flet soldiers. His Warflies oppose our raptors. His power over the volcano counters our legion of Gnomes. Move and countermove.”

“But, sir,” said Jimmy, his mind lingering on Kiri Lee. “The Spider King . . . he might be able to match everything we've thrown at him so far. But he doesn' have us.”

“Are you certain, Jimmy?” asked Grimwarden, his voice like steel wrapped in velvet. “Has your foresight grown so long that you can see what the Spider King has hidden away in that fortress of his?”

“No,” Jimmy said, lowering his head.

Grimwarden waited a tick. “Nor can I.”

“But we're going to have to go in there,” said Tommy. “Sooner or later, we'll have to face whatever he has in store for us. You trained us for that, right? What are we waiting for?”

“The map,” said Grimwarden quietly. “With that map, we will enter Vesper Crag at our bidding, not his.” He pointed to the tower where the red light shone.

Jett rubbed his temples. “But we left Nightwish,” he said, “knowing that we didn't have the map. Now we're gonna just sit here?”

“This is war, Jett,” said the Guardmaster. “We are in command. For now, we must give the orders and wait for our time to go forth. You do not see the Spider King down there chasing after Gnomes, do you? He bides his time. So must we. Nelly and Regis will return, and they will bring the map.”

“But, sir,” said Tommy. “They might get here too late. If they take even a few days on Earth, they'll come back long aft—”

“TOMMY!” Grimwarden spoke louder than he desired. He lowered his voice and said, “I'm speaking in faith. I know Ellos. The map will come or . . . or Ellos will provide something else.” He was quiet a moment. “You have all the authority here, young lords,” he said. “I command the military, but you command me. Do as you will, but remember . . . what authority you have is given to you.”

Tommy and the other lords bounced their eyes between each other and Grimwarden. Clearly he had the end in mind, not the immediate. And doing so required more discipline—and perhaps more faith—than all of them put together. Perhaps that's why he is still alive . . . and had kept so many of his people alive as long as he had.

“I'm sorry, once again.” Tommy dipped his head in respect. “We will wait.”

“I do not expect you to master in hours what has taken me centuries.” Grimwarden looked up. “When the time comes, I expect you to do your part. That's what you have been trained for, that's what you are gifted for. But for now, let me do my part.”

“Uh, Tommy!” Jimmy said excitedly. “Look!”

“What?” asked Jett, staring into the whirling ash. “All I see is spiders. They're pushing south.”

“Wait,” said Jimmy.

Tommy extended his vision. The Warspiders were indeed moving south, mowing down Gnomes as they went. But as Tommy looked more closely, he saw that as many Gnomes fell beneath the mass of arachnids, others scrambled out from beneath the spiders and crept to the west. Still other Gnomes were behind the spiders now.

Above the rumble from the volcano and the sounds of the battle, and in spite of the muffling ash, there arose such a grating wail that the young lords covered their ears. Tommy squinted and got the surprise of his life. The Warspiders came to an impossibly abrupt halt. They shrieked and flailed, but they didn't seem to be able to move. The Gnomes, meanwhile, in even greater numbers than Tommy realized, had the Warspiders surrounded. And these little warriors were leaning backward, pulling hard on something Tommy could not see—pulling as if they were playing tug-of-war with the countrymen on the other side.