***
Somewhere in the gardens some fury had been released. Mestarés sincerely believed that an earthquake rippled through the already troublesome forests, sending all kinds of birdlife and critters running, presumably away from the epicentre of all the noise and tremors. Among these was a triple-tusk boar, a big creature, which they let pass through their ranks seeing that it only meant to flee the disturbance. Had it been charging at them it would have been a different scenario all together and Mestarés wasn’t sure anyone wanted to test how many bullets it could take before being brought to a standstill. So no, the boar, despite crashing through the undergrowth with all the alarm it could bring was not the problem.
Then came a noise that made Mestarés think he had lost his mind. It was some kind keening noise, and clicking too, like it carried with it not the hurry of fear as much as the hurry of hunger. Maybe they had been following the boar all along and by wretched luck had been led straight across the path of the Imperials: the spiders were not a welcome sight.
Among the monstra, the giant arachnids were some of the worst breeds of creatures Mestarés had ever encountered. They were not a garden variety pest, (Mestarés would rather not use that pun, but then again he’d also rather be doing anything else than be stuck here hunted down by something he should ordinarily be able to crush beneath his shoes). Whatever variety these creatures came in – and yes they were found right across the face of the planet – were of a breed that if you did not hate or fear them immediately, would do their best to win you over to the legions of men and women who could not even stand the smallest of their kind.
His men certainly had seen enough, and now being confronted with something that had half of them rooted to the spot was almost as bad as the men who jumped into action, firing wildly without order and without coordination.
Looking at how the spiders operated, Mestarés saw exactly why Fedaro ran around the world with the bayonet blade at the tip of his Musket. Unlike smaller spiders, these forest monstra came in a coordinated pack, and was as likely to come flying from above from a length of web as it was leaping from the ground.
The men who were not paralyzed with mortal fear shot at the spiders, very ineffectively, and they did not contain the threat without wounding one of their own.
The encounter did not last long, but in that brief period of time the spiders had wounded three men fatally and at least one of the Imperials was captured on a web, and then hauled up into the forest canopies until he was invisible. The last they ever saw of the young man were parts of him raining down on the rest of them as the spiders feasted. In response to all of that, the desperate gun-fire of a hundred men quickly reduced the spiders to obscene remains of hairy legs and carcasses mutilated and ruptured with spider blood.
When the last of the hordes of spiders were dealt with, Mestarés rushed to the man who had gone down in friendly fire.
Blasted amateurs! thought Mestarés in fury as he tried to stay calm, kneeling at the wounded soldier’s side and assuring him he was going to be alright. Jemead, the medic among them, was also there in a rush, and Mestarés was greatly relieved that he could take over, as his knowledge of treating wounds were limited to stopping the bleeding.
Sternroe did not keep his dismay in check. ‘Where in Belantine’s name did you learn to shoot?’ he demanded from the soldier who had shot his own.
‘Who’s Belantine?’ muttered Tony.
‘Shut up,’ mouthed Mestarés at Tony. Tony had been one of those who had almost shot one his own men. In fact he was very lucky he did not kill a few Imperials the way he was slinging his rifle around. On the bright side, his fervour, and the way he stood his ground, did down many spiders. Mestarés however was never, ever going to tell Tony that his recklessness had probably saved a few men.
When things had quieted down, Pryro, the man Mestarés had earlier given a promotion, came carrying a spider corpse like a sports bag, and threw it at the Captain's feet.
‘Did you see the markings on the spiders sir?’ he asked seriously.
Mestarés looked at the creature then, recognizing for the first time the big bold white markings on the bulbous torso of the spider. It was an intricate diagram in the form of a block - a maze or warren was the best way to describe it - painted in such a way that it represented the passages of death, a concept of the peoples of the Nillhe era, and since then its myth and rituals had permeated through many cultures and civilizations. Its premise was that those who strayed into death could walk the maze and come back to life, and command the creatures of death, like the spiders here.
‘From which province do you come from Pryro?’
‘Epossos, sir.’
‘That explains at least how you know,’ said Mestarés. Epossos was an outlying province of Doma Arak, where the last of the soul-eaters were seen; those that returned from the dead. Pryro was too young to have been part of that conflict, but maybe he had been a boy at the time and it would've been hard to forget the horrors of that particular occasion. ‘Thank you private. Keep yourself alive through this, I would like to see you do well in the force,’ said Mestarés with a nod and quickly walked over to Sternroe.
‘That was not a quake.’
‘It certainly was a quake of some kind,’ said Sternroe snidely.
‘It was a temple being ripped open,’ said Mestarés.
‘Another one of those Stonegald beasts?’
Mestarés shook his head, knowing Sternroe was insinuating that another great lizard had ravaged one of the many ruins scattered throughout Scithea.
‘Me and my second in command recognize the markings on the spiders. They are commanded by a soul-eater. They are doing the bidding of a Sigotor that's escaped its own burial confines.’
‘How do you know so much about this?’ asked Sternroe.
‘We don’t need to get into that right now. I learned all I need to know when I saw Fedaro face one of these things down in Epossos.’
‘Has Fedaro then killed one of these soul-eater dilemmas?’ asked Sternroe.
‘Yes, but not without a lot of help. Also they come in different varieties. This one will be older, and has drained upon many hapless souls, and because it has lain for such a long time in its own ritual it will be stronger than anything else to be found in the gardens.’
‘So this beastie is like whiskey, they lock him up in a cellar and he gets a little more flavour, eh?’ said Tony, uninvited to their conversation.
‘Get back in line,’ snapped Sternroe at Tony.
The short man stomped off muttering angrily.
‘The important thing to know here is that the soul-eater will be drawn to Gloria's dead spirits. That might even be the reason it has woken in the first place,’ said Mestarés.
Sternroe frowned and then seemed emboldened by an idea as comprehension dawned on his face. ‘So we if chase this soul- eater creature, it will lead us to the girl?’ asked Sternroe.
Mestarés could not believe what he was hearing. ‘Or, it gives us the perfect chance to escape. The soul-eater, as it gets its bearings together, will rather chase Gloria than us, and in doing so will take care of our target for us.’
Fedaro was right. Sternroe was given orders to capture Gloria alive at all costs.
‘We can't take that chance, we can't delegate our responsibility to some fiend from a ghost story,’ said Sternroe.
‘The Soul-eater is nigh un-killable,’ said Mestarés flatly at one last attempt to dissuade Sternroe.
‘Grow a pair, Captain, or take a walk. I need every man available. Who knows, maybe I'll return home such a hero everyone will forget your misdeeds in the shadows my accomplishments.’
A flicker of rage passed over Mestarés that he did not act upon, but he was convinced then that Sternroe had made his last remark without repercussion.
An inhuman roar rang in the forest confines, and if there were any doubt that the Imperial men would count this as the most gruelling first mission e
ver, it was swept away by that very sound.