(8)

They bounded Aggie in the stables shortly after she recovered her wits from Hadwin’s strike, but not before Aggie made another attempt to lunge at Saurus, this time more predicably and swiftly avoided.

“She’s mad, my lord.” Urged Hadwin, restraining the woman; he outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds and seemed to hardly notice her constant struggle. Saurus agreed the woman was mad so ordered her to be kept under guard throughout the entire night, as old as she might be, he would not risk her injuring his soldiers in any way. Saurus thought about what the woman said, how he had made her watch while he ate them. If this was true, and there was a monster capable of such evil, he was not surprised she ended up going mad. But something kept bringing his mind to those two small dots on her neck as if they were part of some bigger puzzle.

That night Saurus allowed each one of his captains to pick a handful of their own soldiers to reside inside the inn. The inn was large enough to house over one hundred foot-soldiers; the stables were equally large and still had some fresh hay and water. Captain Windermere was right, and the inn proved to have a sizable storehouse, inside ranged foods from eggs, salted beef to ingredients like barely and wheat, all was to be put to good use. Before the soldiers slept that night, they would feast on the small banquet the storehouse offered. In two days, they would be sieging Wetbrook, and fighting what horrors the town had prepared for them, Saurus wanted all of his soldiers and horses to be well fed for the task.

The inn was packed full when Saurus went to search for Hadwin. He found his captain amongst a table of seasoned knights; each one grew quiet when Saurus approached.

“My lord.” They all muttered in mutual respect.

“Find my son captain,” Saurus ordered. “And meet me at the stables.”

Hadwin rose to his feet sharply. “As you say, my lord.”

Outside Saurus looked over the collection of fresh tents that had been erected, outside each tent stood four guards, double the usual amount. The enemy was close and Saurus would not risk an ambush so soon before a siege. Many of the stars above hid behind a curtain of cloud, and only one of the two moons showed itself. When he reached the stable’s, he dismissed the five sentries he set to guard Aggie and observed her a moment. She was twitching frantically as if someone was poking her body with an invisible dagger.

“My Lady,” Saurus finally said after she refused to acknowledge his arrival. She looked up rapidly, casting him a set of pale blue eyes. The eyes veered him between thin strands of copper hair that now hung down across her face. Bits of straw stuck to her dress and blotches of mud-stained her knees and buttocks.

Saurus was intrigued by her, the same way a boy might be intrigued by a wild animal. He knelt and extended a hand.

“I don’t want to hurt you, my lady. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

A set of footfalls approached from behind and Saurus turned to see his son. He now wore a steel breastplate over his robes and at his hip was a saber--short yellow rope tied loosely around the hilt. At the sight of Hadwin, Aggie retreated further into the stable, and Saurus stood.

“Do you still have your Sending Stone?” Saurus said to his son Alaric. Alaric reached into a pouch to reveal a small stone, no larger than a pebble one might find on a stony beach.

“Good, we need to report this back to the Empire,” Saurus added. They looked down at the Aggie who returned to twitching again.

“I found her in a similar state,” Hadwin observed. “When I first got here. She kept rambling on about this ‘many eyes man.’”

They all remained silent for a while.

“You think he’s connected to Wetbrook?” asked Saurus.

“Undoubtedly,” answered Alaric not looking away from Aggie. “Maybe he’s one of her soldiers.”

Saurus knew by ‘her’ he meant the Spider Queen, the one they believed to have orchestrated the attack.

“It would make sense,” began Hadwin, “That he would call her his queen if he was just a soldier.”

Aggie began to laugh. It started out as a giggle to synchronize with her twitching, then grew to finally release a sequence of prolific squeals. Hadwin paced forward to silence her but when he got within a foot of Aggie, she snarled and spat at him wickedly. Saurus watched with utter surprise when Hadwin began to retreat, almost tripping over a loose shovel as he raised his hands to his face.

“What is it?” called Alaric, and when Hadwin turned, they saw smoke rising from his face. Aggie’s spit was burning him like acid. Hadwin looked more shocked than anything and frantically wiped away the spittle. Aggie laughed revealing a limited set of broken teeth.

“I see him…” she laughed retreating against the stable wall. She ran her back against it, like a bear scratching its back against a tree. “I see through his eyes when I close my own,” Aggie held her eyes shut as if to confirm her own claim and then let out another giggling fit.

“He’s already there,” she continued. “You’re marching the wrong way!” The stable was drowned beneath a wave of Aggie’s laughs, and no man moved forward to silence her this time. Saurus looked into her eyes and thought he saw something there, he thought he saw the moonlight reflect its light off a boys face in Aggie's eyes.

“Where?” Hadwin growled and Saurus noticed his face left traces of burn marks from the spittle.

Aggie rolled her head back in bliss, closing her eyes and extending her arms out as if she was ready to receive a hug, from someone not there.

“Leeside.” She said smiling. Saurus, Alaric, and Hadwin all looked at each other.

“Send a message to—” was all Saurus had time to say before Aggie spasmed, her eyes shot wide open and terror eclipsed her face within a heartbeat.

“No! please!” she begged up at them. Saurus, Hadwin, and Alaric froze. Saurus thought Aggie was looking at him until he realized Aggie: wasn’t looking at him at all, rather looking through him.

“I didn’t mean to—Aaaarhhhhh” she screamed. The scream was so raw, so filled with pain, that all of the men within earshot rushed to meet the screams, thinking maybe someone was in trouble. Hadwin turned to face the soldiers that appeared, many had swords in their hands. Saurus dashed towards Aggie feeling his son’s sudden grip on his arm, but Saurus moved too fast, wanting to help the woman that had only recently tried to claw his eyes out. Aggie lay flailing on the straw floor, her body twitching like it was being penetrated with hot knives. A river of green flem washed over her lips and she began to wriggle in Saurus’ arms despite his best attempts to hold her still.

“Get a master, now!” he demanded, and Alaric did, disappearing swiftly among the collection of soldiers all observing. Saurus looked one last time into Aggie’s pale blue eyes and through them saw a checkered tile; a chess game? By the time the masters arrived, Aggie was dead.