“Just a few paces down, we’ll break right through, and we’ll have a space fer th’ pumps,” the Architect insisted, squatting over the intricate plans. They were lightly carved into a felsite dining table – the result of another discussion over dinner. The Mason was not pleased at the gouges in her table.
The Miner tapped a spot on the plans with a #4 stone chisel. “Just a few paces below there opens up, though,” she protested. “Urist and I broke through there, up above. We dropped a sounding line down nearly three hundred lengths and didn’t find the bottom.”
The Architect wasn’t dissuaded. “We’ve gotta do it. We need that reservoir. We can flush the goblins into the moat with this . . .” There was little reaction from the assembled dwarves. “And then we drain the moat and steal all their weapons and armor,” the Architect finished.
“Well, I’m for it!” the Trader chimed in.
The Mayor shrugged. “A’righty, we’ll try it.”
* * *
The Miner waved back the crowd. He stepped up, hefted his pick, and went to work. Stone chips flew, some striking the high-held torches, others getting stuck in beards and hair. Soon the pick slowed and the Miner began landing his blows more carefully.
With a crack, a dwarf-sized hole broke away from the sheet of rock and fell inward. A cool air, smelling musty with a slight hint of decay, wafted out from the
newly-hewn hole.
The Mayor waved forward the Wrestler and the Axedwarf, followed by the Architect with a torch held high behind their heads. “Carefully now,” the Mayor cautioned, before stepping through behind with the Mason, the Trader, and a Peasant. A kitten haughtily jumped the small stone lip, trailing after it’s doting master, the Peasant. The Mayor glared at it; he knew the trouble it would cause once it started popping out kittens of its own.
The Wrestler and the Axedwarf moved farther into the large space. There was a small lip of flat stone, sloping slightly downward, around a pit fifty paces across. The light flickered against the far side which stretched down and down, and cast back the occasional tempting glint of gems or minerals.
“Right over there,” the Architect said, pointing. “We just need to wall that off, and we’ll have a spot for the pumps.” The Mason and the Peasant began moving toward the work area.
The Wrestler, who had stepped to the edge and was peering into the pit, gave a small, involuntary cry. “By Armok, it’s a . . .” The Wrestler’s cry was cut short as he was thrown back twenty paces against the wall. He hit the wall just next to the newly-cut entrance and was followed instantly by the thick, sticky goo of a cave spider’s web.
The cave spider pulled itself into view over the edge of the pit, and it was large. Very. Three dwarfs in height at the least, and fangs the size of a thigh. It casually flicked the Mason and the Peasant to the side, then darted at the Wrestler, conveniently pinned to the wall.
With a cry, the Axedwarf threw himself at the enormous spider. His axe missed its mark, but he did manage to barrel into one of the long, arched legs. The spider stumbled for a moment, stopped in its charge for the Wrestler. It stood, turned, and plunged one clawed leg through the chest of the Axedwarf who was still sprawled on the ground. The Axedwarf shuddered and was still.
The Mayor and the Trader had picked the Wrestler from the wall while the Architect waved the torch high to distract the huge beast. The spider darted toward the flame, now closer, now farther, snapping fangs toward the hapless Architect. The Mason and the Peasant were both again on their feet, but had nowhere to run, since the retreating Architect was leading the spider directly toward them.
The other dwarves, led by the now-freed Wrestler, moved around behind the spider. They each grabbed a leg and tried to pull it back from their fellows, but the spider’s sheer size was too much. It absently shook its legs, sending the Mayor, the Wrestler, and the Miner sprawling. The Trader arched up, over, and into the pit, dropping without a word.
The Architect had worked his back to the wall of the cavern, but the spider decided that the other dwarves – without fire – were easier prey. It lunged to the side, around the torch, and gnashed its fangs. The Peasant fell, severed nearly in two. Without stopping to feed the spider lashed out at the Mason. The dwarf raised her arms and the spider bit clean through them – the left to the elbow and the right at the shoulder.
Before the killing stroke could fall the Architect stabbed the burning brand into the side of the cave spider. There was an eerie, otherworldly shriek, and it stumbled backwards. Two legs slipped off the edge of the pit, but it regained its footing and lunged forward for the Architect. In its eagerness it overshot and plunged its fangs into the rock on either side of the Architect’s head.
The Miner, pick regained after the chaos, charged next to the Wrestler at the flank of the beast. The pick sunk deep into its side as the Wrestler leapt and scrambled up the side of the spider, headed for the top of the creature’s body. The angry monster turned and snapped, trying to reach the pick now buried in its body. It found that the Architect was hanging from one of its fangs and tried to shake the dwarf off. Fangs snapped, and the Architect let go. The Wrestler began pounding on the back of the spider’s head, sinking dwarfish fists as far into the spiked flesh as possible. The spider slumped slightly, stunned.
“Help!” cried the Architect. The Mayor grabbed one fang and the Architect latched onto the other. They both grunted and heaved and pulled, boots scraping the floor, straining the fangs apart from each other as the spider tried to pull them together. The beast stumbled back and forth. It pumped its legs to shake off the dwarfs, it shot sticky strands of webbing onto the floor and across the pit, all to no avail.
It is a well-known phenomenon that when any group of talking beings is in a dining hall, there will come a moment when a perfect silence falls. Dwarfs, elves, humans, even the clipped language of the goblins and the slithering syllables of the kobolds fall victim to this. What is less well-known and far less common is that the same thing can happen in battle. It happened here.
For a heartbeat, there was no noise. The spider’s legs were all either planted or in the air. The Wrestler’s fist was pulled back, ready for the next blow. The grunting dwarfs were drawing silent breath. Even the clanking Iron Man, far in the depths of the pit, had paused to hear the sounds far, far above. In this silence there was a tiny but perfectly audible *crack* from the spider’s fang.
The sound came crashing back as the spider screamed. “Heave!” yelled the Mayor. The Miner, footing regained, leapt between the Architect and the Mayor, placed a hand on either fang, and pushed. The crack gave way to a rending sound and the giant cave spider’s right fang pulled off in the Mayor’s hand. The Architect kept firm hold of the other fang. The Mayor gave a sharp tug to pull the last of the connective tissue away from the seeping fang.
“Here!” called the Wrestler. He was still perched above the spider’s head, even as it bucked and thrashed and screamed. He held up a hand. The Mayor threw the fang, and the Wrestler caught it. He turned it and with both hands plunged it deep into the spider’s brain. The beast slumped to the cavern floor.
The Mayor looked around at the carnage. The Trader was gone, his Axedwarf was pulverized, the Peasant was now two smaller and less functional Peasants, and the Mason would need to learn to use a chisel with his mouth. The rest of his dwarfs were covered in blood, ichor, mud, and vomit. He suddenly felt something against his leg, and looked down.
The kitten.
The Mayor tugged his beard pensively for a moment, then flicked his foot. The cat flew out over the pit and uttered a plaintive ‘mew?’ before plummeting out of sight. The Mayor then walked over to the where the Mason lay on the ground, bleeding and unconscious. He stepped over his dwarf’s body to the Mason’s right arm, which still clutched the building plans. He tugged them from the fist, peered at them for a moment, then pointed. “The walls go over there?”
“Right then. Back to work.”
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Topic: GCS Fight - Mini story (Read 1009 times)