Seasons, page 29
Now all the brigand saw was something the size of a lamb with far too many legs flying straight at him through the air. And the instant he grasped that, he started screaming. So did his men, all of whom were torn between shooting the monster and putting as much distance between it and them as possible.
So he didn’t see Rhapsody speeding across the distance between Matya’s door and his leg. But when she sank her fangs into his calf, his screams went into the soprano range, and he forgot he was holding Liliana as he simultaneously flailed at Harmony and tried to defend his leg from Rhapsody.
So Liliana slammed her heel down on the instep of the leg that hadn’t been bitten and rammed her elbow into his gut, then ducked under his arm and ran for the protection of her friends.
Meanwhile, Vanyel and the others hadn’t been standing around; the instant Matya threw Harmony, they charged the brigands.
The brigands were handicapped by the fact that Harmony and Rhapsody were moving as only swift hunting spiders can—here, there and everywhere—and biting whenever a leg came within fang-reach. They were utterly terrified of the spiderlings, and paying very little attention to their human attackers—in fact, most of them were trying to break off and flee.
The villagers had no such handicaps.
It was all over very quickly.
* * *
• • •
All of the surviving brigands had been tied up and stowed in Taffy’s empty barn.
The chief, however, was dying, slowly and very painfully. Vanyel looked down at him, writhing in the snow, as Vixen came up to him with Harmony cradled in her arms. “I guess I had some poison left after all,” the spiderling said, without a particle of regret in her voice. “Can we eat the dead ones?”
“No!” Vanyel said, as Vixen, Matya, Taffy, and Gudrun all replied “Yes!” The Herald looked at their faces searchingly, then sighed painfully and shrugged. “All right. . . .” he began, reluctantly.
“Yay!” Harmony replied, and wriggled to be let down. She and Rhapsody sped to Matya’s cottage, one of them stood on the other one’s back to reach the latch, and they let themselves in.
“Help . . . me. . . .” the brigand leader croaked, looking up at Vixen.
“Sorry,” she said, making sure she didn’t sound sorry at all. “I don’t know anything about the spider poison. Can’t help you.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” Vanyel hissed.
“Bit of both. All I know is that it dissolves you from the inside out, fast. Don’t know how to counteract that, and wouldn’t if I did.” She twitched an eyebrow at the Herald. “Not all Healers are goody-goody do-gooders who believe everyone is worth the effort of saving in the first place, and in the second, it would take a lot of experimentation to find a cure, if one could be found. So unless you’re proposing that I have the girls bite some more of the prisoners so I can do that experimentation—”
“No!” Vanyel replied, and shuddered. “No.” They moved away from the dying man, who at this point was weakening rapidly, his convulsions reduced to spasms and his screams to whining moans. “I’ve sent ’Fandes with a message to the Guard Post. They’re going to need wagons for the prisoners. It’s a good thing the road is cleared in that direction.”
Vixen stopped. “Give me one,” she told him.
Van whirled, face white. “What? No! I told you no experiments!”
“Not going to experiment. Going to send a lesson so no one messes with Kettleford again,” Vixen replied. “Give me one and bring him to Matya’s cottage.”
“But that’s where—” Van began . . . then understanding dawned on his face. “All right, I’ll pick the youngest, and most likely to have a revelation that this is not a business he should be in. I’ll meet you there.”
When Vanyel entered the front door with the bound young—less bearded—man stumbling in front of him, Vixen and Matya were waiting, with the spiderlings—stripped of their wooly coats, abdomens swollen to twice the normal size with their meal—standing between them and the husks that were all that was left of the first two brigands that had been killed.
“So,” Vixen said, her voice as hard as steel, “You recognize these two?”
“Two what?” the young man asked, eyes on the spiderlings, voice breaking.
Vixen reached down, grabbed one of the skin-sacks by the hair, and held it up to him, face toward him.
“These!” she said, shaking it at him.
He stared, mouth agape. “That’s—that can’t be—Oh gods, I think I’m going to be sick!” He turned green.
She threw the skin-sack at his feet. “Focus, you idiot!” Vanyel snapped, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him. “Now you listen to me! You see those spiders? They’re what did that to your friends. There are six more of them. They guard this village. And if anything gets past them—” He brought his face in very close to the brigand’s. “We call their mother.”
“Aye!” chirped Harmony. “Mama is big! She ate four cows once!”
The brigand went from green to white. “Hellfire, it talks!”
Vanyel shook him again. “I said focus. Now, you are going to fold up what is left of your friends, you are going to take them to whatever shithole you idiots are using for a camp, and you are going to show the rest of your friends exactly what happens to people who decide to take on Kettleford. Do you understand me?”
“Yessir! Yessir!” the brigand babbled.
Vanyel cut his hands free, and threw a sack at his feet. “Start folding and stuffing. And give me your gloves.”
After an interval interrupted only when their captive had to throw up a few times, the young man stumbled out into the darkness, gloveless, bearing only one of the sacks the brigands had brought with them containing the remains.
“Why no gloves?” Vixen asked.
“So he won’t be able to start a fire or improvise a weapon,” Vanyel explained. “All the more motivation to get him to his camp quickly. That was a very good plan.”
She gave him a slight bow, and looked down at the spiderlings. “Can you two eat something that’s been frozen?”
The spiderlings looked at each other. “I don’t know,” Rhapsody admitted. “Mama didn’t say anything about that. Just not to eat anything that’s too old.”
“I’m on it,” Matya said, as Vanyel went a little white again. “I’ll have the corpses stored in Taffy’s barn. When the girls get hungry again, we can thaw one and they can try it carefully.” She glanced over at Vanyel and grinned. “What? They were no damn use in life, they might as well be in death.” And with that, she hiked out the door in search of those who were cleaning up the mess.
Harmony yawned, showing her fangs. “Sleepy.”
“Me too,” Rhapsody agreed.
“It’s just about midnight, you should be,” Vixen agreed. “Go on, go take your spots. I’ll wake you if anything important happens.”
The spiderlings climbed the wall and settled themselves in their favorite place, next to the chimney, where the heated stone would keep them warm all night. Vanyel watched them lash themselves in place with a bit of spider-silk and shook his head.
“What?” Vixen asked.
“They’re adorable. And they can go from adorable to bloodthirsty killer in the blink of an eye.”
She laughed at him. “So can I. So can your friends, the Hawkbrothers.”
He shook his head. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me for liking that part of you.”
“Maybe,” she replied, and patted him on the back. “Or maybe you recognize that everyone has that in themselves, under the right circumstances, but what you like is that we’re honest enough to admit it.”
“That . . . and you know where I sleep,” Vanyel retorted. “I intend to stay on your good side!”
She broke into honest laughter. “Good enough,” she agreed. “And speaking of that, let’s grab a piece of that butter cake and go to bed.”
“You’re full of good plans tonight,” Van admitted.
And so they did.
About the Authors
Dylan Birtolo resides in the Pacific Northwest, where he spends his time as a writer, a game designer, and a professional sword-swinger. He’s published a few fantasy novels and several short stories. On the game side, he contributed to Dragonfire and designed both Henchman and Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops. He trains in Systema and with the Seattle Knights, an acting troop that focuses on stage combat. He jousts, and, yes, the armor is real—it weighs over 100 pounds. You can read more about him and his works at www.dylanbirtolo.com or follow his twitter @DylanBirtolo.
Jennifer Brozek is a multitalented, award-winning author, editor, and tie-in writer. She is the author of Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy, both of which were finalists for the Bram Stoker Award. Her BattleTech tie-in novel, The Nellus Academy Incident, won a Scribe Award. Her editing work has netted her a Hugo Award nomination as well as an Australian Shadows Award for Grants Pass. Jennifer’s short-form work has appeared in Apex Publications and in anthologies set in the worlds of Valdemar, Shadowrun, V-Wars, and Predator. Jennifer is also the Creative Director of Apocalypse Ink Productions and was the managing editor of Evil Girlfriend Media and assistant editor for Apex Book Company. She has been a freelance author, editor, and tie-in writer for more than ten years after leaving her high-paying tech job, and she’s never been happier. She keeps a tight schedule on her writing and editing projects and somehow manages to find time to volunteer for several professional writing organizations such as SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She shares her husband, Jeff, with several cats and often uses him as a sounding board for her story ideas. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com.
Brigid Collins is a fantasy and science fiction writer living in Michigan. Her short stories have appeared in Fiction River, Uncollected Anthology Volume 13: Mystical Melodies, and Chronicle Worlds: Feyland. Books 1 through 3 of her fantasy series, Songbird River Chronicles, and her dark fairy tale novella, Thorn and Thimble, are available in print and electronic versions on Amazon and Kobo. You can sign up for her newsletter at https://tinyletter.com/HarmonicStories or follow her on twitter @purellian.
Ron Collins is the bestselling Amazon Dark Fantasy author of Saga of the God-Touched Mage and Stealing the Sun, a series of space-based SF books. He has contributed 100 or so stories to premier science fiction and fantasy publications, including Analog, Asimov’s, and several editions of the Valdemar anthology series. His work has garnered a Writers of the Future prize and a CompuServe HOMer award. His short story “The White Game” was nominated for the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s 2016 Derringer Award. Find current information about Ron at typosphere.com.
Hailed as “one of the best writers working today” by bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith, Dayle A. Dermatis is the author or coauthor of many novels (including snarky urban fantasies Ghosted, Shaded, and Spectered) and more than a hundred short stories in multiple genres, appearing in such venues as Fiction River, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and various anthologies from DAW Books. “The Price of Friendship” is her fifth story in a Valdemar anthology. She is the mastermind behind the Uncollected Anthology project, and her short fiction has been lauded in year’s best anthologies in erotica, mystery, and horror. To find out where she’s wandered off to (and to get free fiction!), check out DayleDermatis.com.
Michele Lang grew up in deepest suburbia, the daughter of a Hungarian mystic and a fast-talking used car salesman. Now she writes tales of magic, crime, and adventure. Author of the Lady Lazarus historical urban fantasy series, Michele also writes urban fantasy for the Uncollected Anthology series.
Fiona Patton was born in Calgary, Alberta, and now lives in rural Ontario with her wife, Tanya Huff, an assortment of cats, and two wonderful dogs. She has written seven fantasy novels published by DAW Books and close to forty short stories. “The Rose Fair” is her 12th story in the Valdemar anthologies, the 10th to feature the Dann family.
Angela Penrose lives in Seattle with her husband, seven computers, and about ten thousand books. She’s been a Valdemar fan for decades and wrote her first Valdemar story for the “Modems of the Queen” area on the old GEnie network back in the 1980s. In addition to fantasy, she writes SF and mystery, sometimes in combinations. She’s had stories published in Loosed Upon the World, Fiction River, The Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016, and of course Choices, the last Valdemar anthology. Find links to all her work at angelapenrosewriter.blogspot.com.
Kristin Schwengel lives near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her husband, along with the obligatory writer’s cat (named Gandalf, of course), a Darwinian garden in which only the strong survive, and a growing collection of knitting and spinning supplies. Her writing has appeared in several previous Valdemar anthologies, among others. The nucleus for “A Midwinter’s Gift” started with the idea of Herald families. What might happen when everyone expects a child to be Chosen, and he or she is not?
Growing up on fairy tales and computer games, USA Today bestselling author Anthea Sharp has melded the two in her award-winning, bestselling Feyland series, which has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide. In addition to the fae fantasy/cyberpunk mashup of Feyland, she also writes Victorian Spacepunk and fantasy romance. Her books have won awards, topped bestseller lists, and garnered over a million reads at Wattpad. She’s frequently found hanging out on Amazon’s Top 100 Fantasy/SF author list. Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction River, DAW anthologies, The Future Chronicles, and Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy’s Edge, as well as many other publications.
Stephanie Shaver lives in Southern California, where she is gainfully employed by Blizzard Entertainment. When she’s not doing things for them she’s probably writing or catching up on sleep. You can find more at sdshaver.com, along with occasional ramblings on life and pictures of food she’s making for herself and her family.
Growing up in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada mountains, surrounded by deer and beaver, muskrat and bear, Louisa Swann found ample fodder for her equally wild imagination. As an adult, she spins both experiences and imagination into tales that span multiple genres, including fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and her newest love—steampunk. Her short stories have appeared in Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters and Valdemar anthologies (which she’s thrilled to participate in!); Esther Friesner’s Chicks and Balances; and several Fiction River anthologies, including No Humans Allowed and Reader’s Choice. Her new steampunk/weird west series, The Peculiar Adventures of Miss Abigail Crumb, is available at your favorite etailer. Find out more at louisaswann.com.
Elizabeth A. Vaughan is the USA Today-bestselling author of fantasy romance novels. She has always loved fantasy and has been a fantasy role-player since 1981. You can learn more about her books at writeandrepeat.com.
Elisabeth Waters sold her first short story in 1980 to Marion Zimmer Bradley for The Keeper’s Price, the first of the Darkover anthologies. She then went on to sell short stories to a variety of anthologies. Her first novel, a fantasy called Changing Fate, was awarded the 1989 Gryphon Award. Its sequel, Mending Fate, was published in 2016. She is now concentrating on her short story writing. She also worked as a supernumerary with the San Francisco Opera, where she appeared in La Gioconda, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, Khovanschina, Das Rheingold, Werther, and Idomeneo.
Phaedra Weldon grew up in the thick, atmospheric land of South Georgia. Most nights, especially those in October, were spent on the back of pickup trucks in the center of cornfields, telling ghost stories, or in friends’ homes playing RPGs. She got her start writing in shared worlds (Eureka!, Star Trek, BattleTech, Shadowrun) and selling original stories to DAW anthologies before she sold her first Urban Fantasy series to traditional publishing. Currently, her published series includes Zoe Martinique Investigations, The Eldritch Files, The Witches of Castle Falls, and the upcoming urban fantasy series, The Dark Backward.
About the Editor
Mercedes Lackey is a full-time writer and has published numerous novels and works of short fiction, including the bestselling Heralds of Valdemar series. She is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and collaborator, artist Larry Dixon, and their flock of parrots.
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Seasons (retail) (epub), Seasons
