Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles (33 page)

Nedella scowled down at
Cheobawn and Sigrid.

“
Congratulations on your
win Ramhorn. I see two people just out of their sick beds. I am going
to trust that their packmates keep them from overindulging. Stay with
the lighter fare, you two. I have a fen hen stew that should sit well
on dodgy stomachs and the apple turnovers are yours to share if you
want, but this lot has plenty of other things to eat that you should
not, so do not feel honor bound to do so. The rest of you, good
eating. I expect extra help in the kitchens tonight for dish washing
duty.”

Ramhorn Pack hooted in
appreciation as they fell onto the pile of food like half starved
fuzzies. Cheobawn did not feel like fighting them for ownership of
any of the dishes but both she and Sigrid managed to snag a bowl of
the stew and a plate full of turnovers and biscuits drenched in
honey; a treat that they shared between them.

While they ate, villagers
trickled down the breezeway to congratulate Sigrid on his win and
greet Cheobawn, genuinely glad to see her up and about. Some came
bearing gifts. A couple of pitchers showed up on the tables, one full
of beer, the other fruit juice. The laughter around the table
increased and Soral and Erin’s cheeks flushed with drink. Soral
grew relaxed and giggly. Erin flirted shamelessly with Connor who
could only blush in confusion. Cheobawn ate so much her stomach
ached, though in truth it was no more than half a bowl of stew and a
single turnover. She nibbled delicately on a biscuit while everyone
else polished off the last crumbs of pastry.

Around mid afternoon, the
crowds around them thinned, the tables cleared, their glasses empty.
They were finally alone. Sigrid looked around the courtyard and
leaned over the top of Cheobawn to pin Connor with an owlish stare.

“
Have you told her yet?”
the Alpha asked.

“
Not had the chance, have
I?” growled Connor. “I was going to ease into it, gentle like.”

Cheobawn stared at the both
of them and then looked at the faces beyond. Iroc looked guilty and
Breyden had a sly smile on his face. Whatever the secret was, all of
Ramhorn knew about it.

“
Tell me what?” she
asked warily. “Is this the surprise you were hinting at before? It
can’t be the puppies. Zeff has already showed me my puppy. She is
gray. I have not had a chance to ask her what her name is.”

“
Maybe this is not the
time or the place,” Erin suggested looking around the courtyard.

“
I think showing is better
than telling, anyway,” Breyden said as he nodded sagely and nearly
fell over. Cheobawn had not kept track of how many pitchers of beer
had graced their table but it seemed the young Father had more than
his fair share.

Chewing thoughtfully on his
lower lip, Connor looked around and spotted something.

“
Nedella wouldn’t mind
us borrowing her cart, what with our injured folk not being able to
get back to bed in one piece.”

“
Eh?” Sigrid grunted,
looking around to follow his gaze.

“
I bet we could all fit if
the girls sat on the boy’s laps,” Meshel said, standing up and
helping Soral to her feet. She was a little unsteady, but so was
Meshel. Together they managed to keep each other standing.

Breyden leapt to his feet
and ran over to the cart, claiming the driver’s seat. Erin helped
Sigrid into the seat next to him before clambering into the truck bed
along with the rest of Ramhorn. Connor handed Cheobawn up into Iroc’s
arms before climbing in himself. He barely found a seat on the rough
boards of the cart bed before Breyden took off.

Cheobawn recognized their
route. They were retracing the path she had taken on week before.

“
Are we going for another
sauna?” she asked in dismay. Truth be told, she did not think she
had the strength left for one more adventure.

“
Hmm, that sounds like a
lovely idea,” Erin said, a dreamy look on her face. “Can we do
that while we are there?”

“
Business first,” Sigrid
said firmly.

“
What business?”
Cheobawn asked, looking curiously from face to face.

“
They set up this really
cool conveyor system that feeds from the waterworks dome into the
foundry furnaces,” Iroc said. “We volunteered to be on egg
shoveling duty to help dispose of all those spider eggs.”

Cheobawn blanched, the food
she had just consumed suddenly resting uneasily in her stomach.

“
No,” she breathed out
slowly, shaking her head.

“
We just want to show it
to you,” Erin said with a strangely pleased look on her face.

Cheobawn was trying to
control the panic rising around her heart. “Stop the cart. I refuse
to watch while you burn the children of Spider.”

Connor patted her hand and
gave her a reassuring smile. “We just need to get out the gate.
Play along. You said the eggs were important. We did listen, you
know.”

“
I did? You did?”
Cheobawn said, unable to contain her surprise. “What did you do?”

“
Just wait and see,”
Connor said patiently, a pleased look on his face. It made him look
uncannily like Tam when he was bursting with a brilliant idea.
Cheobawn closed her mouth and reminded herself that packmates trusted
each other.

The guard at the West Gate
was a young Father named Laird who congratulated Sigrid and Ramhorn
on their win as they approached his post. Breyden pulled a flask of
beer out of the folds of his tunic and threw an arm over the Father’s
shoulders.

“
Knew you wanted to help
us celebrate, so we brought you a little something,” he said with a
lopsided grin.

“
How much of this have you
had already?” the guard asked, smiling back as he twisted the cork
out and took a long drink.

Breyden scrunched his face
as if thinking hard hurt his brain. “Not sure. Lots, I think.”

“
We wanted to show
Cheobawn the new addition to the smelter intake. She is a fan of
Finn’s genius, apparently,” Sigrid said.

“
I am being relieved in
two hours. The Temple takes control of the outer dome then and you
all have to be back inside before the initiates can use the saunas.”
Laird said, shaking his head doubtfully.

“
Not a problem,” Sigrid
promised, a fist over his heart. “Out and back again.”

Breyden encouraged Laird to
take another swig from the flask. In no time at all, the guard
entered the two Packs into the dome database and checked them out of
the dome. Cheobawn was too distracted to follow the particulars of
the conversation; there was a place in the center of her heart that
felt as if a thousand flutterflies were caught there, trying
desperately to get out. She tried to breathe around this odd feeling.
Was it anticipation or fear? What was the source? She peered into the
faces of the people around her. Connor, misunderstanding her look of
worry, took her hand in his own and held on hard.

“
I am afraid,” she
whispered, “but I cannot tell you why.”

Connor bent down to put his
lips next to her ear. “It will be OK. I promise.”

Breyden sauntered back, a
pleased look on his face. He handed one of the tags in his hand to
Connor. The gate was already swinging open. Connor tugged Cheobawn
into motion, pulling her quickly through the widening gap, leaving
Ramhorn Pack to negotiate their way through the gate with their
wounded leader, on their own. He led her down the gravel path towards
the cooling pond.

Cheobawn eyed the sauna huts
but they appeared empty, their chimneys free of smoke or steam. Tam
and Megan and Alain would be out here soon and she desperately wanted
to wait for them. She wanted Megan to hug her and tell her not to
worry so much. She wanted Alain to smile at her mistakes and Tam to
scowl at her with his stern disapproving look while he wished her
more wisdom – Tam, her Tam, who loved her to distraction and
worried that he would not be able to save her when the time came. Was
this that moment, the moment meant to test her metal and the depth of
her wisdom? She wished for more wisdom all the time but wishing did
not seem to help.

Connor explained as they
walked, his words rushing out of his mouth like spring melt down a
ravine. “We tried to think what to do, but with you asleep we had
no one to ask and no guide but our own instincts. Sigrid thought we
could gather the eggs into our own secret cache in the southern woods
but the Fathers know the nearby forests as well as we do and Finn’s
cursed machine would have uncovered them long before the eggs could
hatch in the spring. Erin thought we could smuggle a few eggs into
the dome and keep them in the empty storage vaults but the eggs are
just too large to hide from the gate guards and Sigrid did not want
to risk them hatching inside the dome. Breyden was the one who
volunteered us to go on the egg search details. We rode with the
patrols and studied the Elder’s disposal process, looking for holes
to exploit. It all led here.”
Here
was the shore of the
pond. Cheobawn looked around and then looked back at him, truly
confused.

Ramhorn Pack sauntered down
the path, surrounded the remnants of Blackwind Pack, and herded them
along the water’s edge, their laughter tinged with excited
anticipation.

“
No spoiling the
surprise,” Soral laughed breathlessly. “We must all be there to
see the look of surprise on her face.”

Breyden took Cheobawn’s
hand and tugged her on until their feet found the deck planks of the
first dock. Leading her out along its length to the very end he
beamed at her, his mirth barely contained. Connor elbowed the elder
children aside, scowling at Breyden’s unwelcome familiarity with
his Ear.

“
Well, what do you think?”
Breyden asked.

“
Well?” Cheobawn asked.
“Well, what?”

“
It was the only thing I
could think of,” Connor said. “We had this pile of eggs and
nowhere to hide them so we hid them in plain sight. It was just a
matter of chucking them into the water when the Elder’s backs were
turned.”

Cheobawn opened her mouth
and then closed it again. She turned and looked in horror at the
deceptively calm pond.

“
You didn’t,” she
breathed. She peered down into the depths of the water but the light
was waning and the bottom was dark and murky. She listened with her
internal ears. The water was near to freezing but it was far warmer
than outside the dome. The eggs had thawed and initiated the next
cycle of growth. The babies inside their shells were awake, their
gills fanning the fluid inside their shells. She could hear them. She
could feel the microscopic pulse of their little hearts. She could
feel the frantic fluttering of their bloodstone minds as they
struggled to find their place in this world so far from their
mothers. This was the source of her unease. Cheobawn pressed the
palms of her hands to her chest as her own heart tried to match the
flutter of those under the water.

This was madness. Was she
still lying in a coma back at the infirmary caught in a Spider
induced nightmare?

“
How are you going to get
them out of the pond?” she asked levelly, her even tone belying her
panic. The ensuing silence drew her eyes away from the dark water.
The faces arrayed around her were worrisomely blank. “You had a
plan, right?” she asked, trying to keep the emotions roiling around
in her chest from bleeding out in her voice as judgment or criticism.
“They are awake. The water will warm with the coming spring. They
will hatch. What did you think you would do with the juvenile
spiders?”

“
We were hoping you could
tell us,” Sigrid said. That crazed look of adoration and utter
confidence in her skills as a witch was back on his face.

“
I?” she said, “There
are what? More than twenty spiders down there? Did you think the
Elders would not notice when they all began to hatch?”

“
Maybe we can just toss
them into Badnite Creek and hope it flushes them all the way down to
the Lowlands,” Breyden suggested.

“
These are not
space-faring spiders. They are egg layers. I don’t know that they
would survive the journey in the dead of winter. Even if they could
navigate an ice bound creek, I do not believe they will survive a
fall off the Escarpment outside their shells.”

Meshel thought for a moment.
“They are small. Gravity would not be their enemy. It is the winds
we need to worry about. Badnite Creek turns to mist halfway down the
cliff. The babies would get caught in the updrafts and be scattered.
The lower forests would get showered with baby spiders, each having
to orient itself and then find the great river before the predators
ate them.”