(12)

Hadwin

Hadwin cut through the cold morning air like an arrow on his return journey to Leeside. His mare was light and fast between his legs, his two wolf brothers had to chase to keep up.

‘Come on girl, don’t fail me now.’ He thought when he saw the Dober cliffs approaching. The winding road that cut around the vertical cliffs appeared daunting at first. Hadwin spurred his mare onward, muttering supportive words into the mare’s ears as she approached the narrow path.

‘That a girl – aha’ he said when he felt only the slightest wavering in her gallop. His mare seemed to dance around the cliff’s narrow path. The path weaved inwards and outwards, all the while a vertical drop to his right would send him into the ocean. Plumes of white foam and seawater sometimes sprayed up into heights to shower them; Hadwin tasted saltwater on his lips.

After a while (he could not guess how long exactly), he felt the urge to look over his shoulder and see how his brothers were faring, but fear cut him like a knife, and he kept his eyes ahead. Hadwin considered if he looked away for a heartbeat, his mare would stir off course and tumble over the rockface, him along with her. Hadwin gripped the reins more tightly.

When his hands were too sweaty to keep a tight grip, he began to pull the reins ever so slightly. His mare panted to release jets of steam from her nostrils as she slowed.

“Good girl.” He said, patting her neck gingerly. She had galloped for some time and was hot to the touch. Behind him, he heard another set of galloping hooves. Relief washed over Hadwin like the ocean spray when he saw his brother riding to meet him. His wolf brother was just veering around a bend in the rock when Hadwin realised something was wrong. He did not slow down and Hadwin thought for a moment he intended to run him down, sending them both off the edge.

Hadwin turned to set his horseback in motion seen as there was little room to avoid such a charging mount. “Slow down you fool,” Was all he managed…then he saw it.

Behind his brother, something gave chase. Hadwin’s eyes widened to full moons. His brother panted frantically while a small army of spiders tailed him. The spiders scurried creating small rhythmic drum beats with their spiny legs; small rocks bounced along the ground from their scurrying march to tumble off into the ocean below.

“Ride!” Hadwin exclaimed, unable to believe these spiders had been able to keep chase with their horse’s. Despair hit Hadwin like a boulder when he noticed his brother’s horse exhaling heavily and staggering rather worryingly. The horse looked ready to trip and fall off the cliff at any moment. Hadwin knew his own mare was not going to fare any better if he forced her into a gallop once again.

“Fine, let’s have it your way,” He cursed dismounting. Before he thought further than the next two heartbeats in his chest, he beat the rump of his mare, sending her off at a gallop alone. He removed his battle-axe, gripping it in one hand. Two hand axes gleamed at his waist beneath his bear pelt. He awaited the approaching force to notice: The spiders were small, no larger than a wild wolf and light. He understood how they were able to keep chase with horses such as their own.

Hadwin watched his brother’s expression fade from terror to confusion, then finally arrive at bravery. The two men held out their arms in unified understanding, the horse passed Hadwin, but his brother was pulled from it in a forearm embrace. Hadwin did not take his eyes off the approaching swarm but began to inhale rapidly, filling his body with oxygen until the point of dizziness.

“The lone wolf dies,” he muttered through inhales.

“But the pack survives,” he heard his brother collab. Hadwin charged at the rushing spiders first, refusing them their initiative. Whirling his battle-axe up over his head in a devastating arc, it collided with three spiders that all leapt together to pounce at him, each one let out a shrill squeal as they went exploding over the edge to feed the ocean below. Hadwin no longer thought, felt, or saw; he simply moved, cut, hammered, punched, bit, and tore at his foes. He was dimly aware of his brother fighting beside him.

Then there was a booming crack, followed by the heavy impact of rocks from above. Hadwin looked up and saw more of them scuttling down the side of the rockface to come leaping down atop them. Hadwin raised his battle-axe to shield against a hurling spider, but as it collided with him, they both went down in a tangle of hairy legs and flesh. Hadwin felt the weight of the spider disappear as both spider and axe rolled over the edge and become swallowed up in a jet of saltwater.

Hadwin turned to catch the sight of pincers darting towards his face, his hands were up to catch them before his mind had time to process. He kneed, feeling his knee collide with the soft underbelly of the spider, and lifted the creature over him to follow its brethren into the drink. Across from him, he caught a glimpse of his brother fighting a set of spiders with his own axe, right when another foe collided from the rockface above and tipped him over the side. He took four with him and Hadwin heard his brother's final roar before the water swallowed him.

Hadwin rose, equipping his dual hand axes at his waist, his last and only weapons—excluding the natural weapons his God gave him. He watched, taking a breath but the spiders did not charge him. They outnumbered him twenty to one but only scurried around him, circling. Some barred their pincers and hissed, some spat venom at him. Hadwin dodged and repositioned so his back wasn’t over the cliff edge when a shadow eclipsed him. He looked up.

Climbing down the rockface was another, bigger spider. This one, however, looked like the one they found in the forest. Its legs and abdomen all took the appearance of a spider, but the torso gave way to pale humanoid flesh, two long pale arms and a face as sunken as a rotting corpse.

The creature landed in front of him and the other spiders retreated from its presence. It issued a harsh, guttural cry that sounded to Hadwin, like a gargling drowned man. He clashed his hand axes together to make the steel sing.

“Ohhhh, aren’t you precious,” he said through a mouthful of blood. “Come here then. The fishes need feedin.”

He clashed his axes together again and this time the creature charged. It stood a good ten feet from the ground so Hadwin knew which part he wanted to shorten first. The creature charged wailing its gargled cry, Hadwin charged to meet it. He ran so quick he was able to slide between its long, uncoordinated legs before it had time to readjust.

Hadwin swung with his left, then his right, being sure to throw all his weight behind them. He felt his steel axe hit what felt like bone, then soft flesh, then bone again, as he cleaved through two of the creatures eight legs. The creature stumbled and wailed some more, trying to keep its footing under the immense pain it must have felt. One of its legs slipped and went over the edge slightly—but recovered, tossing a wave of rocks to spill out over the edge.

Hadwin dashed under the creature again, using its own body as a shield, and hacked at more legs. Chopping them in half like a lumberjack chopping trees.

“You’re all legs and no bite!” Hadwin roared, cleaving another two legs off. His arms were growing tied and his breaths were now laboured. His senses were slowing too he realised when the creature suddenly exposed a barbed spike from the tip of its abdomen. Hadwin threw himself left but the spike grazed his right arm and took some flesh with it. Hadwin didn’t feel any pain, but rather the opposite as his arm grew numb. He swung with his left and took off another leg, this time the creature surrendered and fell under its own weight, no longer having the legs to support itself.

Hadwin felt himself get crushed beneath the creature’s weight and then legs grab at him as it rolled over the edge. The creature was defeated but he would go over with it. In one last attempt, he tried to hack at the leg retraining him, but it was no good. He met the edge of the cliff, slamming his axe into the ground to find purchase but only found the solid rock to bury it in. The axe collided and bounced off the surface of the rock with a twang—then hissed as it scraped, producing pale sparks. He was going over he now knew.

His body met open air when his axe suddenly hooked on the edge of the cliff. The creature tugged one last time under its own weight then fell through open air to meet the ocean, leaving Hadwin hanging from his axe. A burst of hope and thrill washed over so strongly, he felt his skin ripple in gooseflesh.

He went to raise his right arm, his free arm, the only arm that wasn’t holding him alive and found he couldn’t. He tried again but the arm was completely numb. Whatever poison was on that creature’s barb had worked fast. Hadwin hung there suspended over the cliff edge. Only his left arm that clutched an axe was stopping him from falling.

Hadwin began to laugh, first to himself, then to the world around him. He was going to hang here until the strength in his left arm gave out. His mind flashed how easy it would have been to lift himself up if he had the ability of his right arm. He laughed again and saw arachnid legs curl over the edge, and a set of beetle black eyes look down at him.