Page 170 of Blade of the Nightking

My outrage intensified. “Thank you?” I spat.

“You’re welcome.”

I grabbed his arm, my fingers digging into the hardness of his bicep. He glanced slowly down at my hand and back up at me.

“They're attracted to the scent of blood, especially blood touched by magic. Another moment and it would have called its nest, and their swarms number in the thousands.” His voice remained maddeningly calm. “They'll strip you to bone before you've run a hundred yards.”

My gaze darted instinctively to the trees surrounding us.

He shrugged out of my grip. “I just saved your life.” Stepping over a fallen log, he added, “Well, mine, really.”

Right. Because if I died, so did he.

I loosed a long breath. “Why did it bite me? I’m not bleeding.”

“I imagine it had something to do with the cut on your thumb.”

I raised my hand and stared at it. The tiny slice I'd made while testing the dagger's edge. I didn’t think Rìan had even noticed.

Making a face, I shoved my thumb back into my mouth and sucked away the remaining trace of blood.

After that, every insect that buzzed too close made me jump out of my skin. More than once I swatted frantically at empty air. Rìan said nothing, though every so often, I caught one of his unimpressed glances and made certain to scowl back.

The stream continued its path through the forest, the Vein flashing beneath its surface like liquid starlight. Rìan's attention remained fixed on the canopy overhead. The afternoon was waning, yet we still hadn't found the well.

He stopped so abruptly that I collided with his back for the second time. Peering around him, I saw that the stream continued off to the right. To the left, however, the Vein split away from the water, its glowing current skimming across the forest floor.

“This way,” he said gruffly.

We followed it. Another quarter hour passed in silence. Rìan's eyes never stopped moving, sweeping over the trees, the undergrowth, the spaces between the trunks. The forest gradually darkened. The few shafts of sunlight vanished, plunging the woods into a murky twilight. Only the Vein remained bright, its fluttering light flashing around our ankles.

Rìan glanced up again and his mouth tightened, his pace quickening. I followed his gaze, praying night wasn’t already falling—and froze.

Above us, the entire forest canopy had been woven into massive spiderwebs.

The strands were yellowed in places, gray in others, stretched from tree to tree in enormous sagging sheets, layered so thickly in places that they formed a ceiling above us. The silk was coarse and matted, like unspun wool left out in the rain.

And here and there, caught within the webs, hung silk-wrapped shapes. Bodies.

Some were no larger than deer. Others were enormous, their outlines warped beneath their casings. Some looked almost human.

Rìan's hand closed suddenly around my arm, and he yanked me after him as he followed the trail of light.

“How big are the spiders in the Wildlands?” I hated how frightened I sounded.

“Not spiders.” His gaze snagged on something in the shadows beyond the webs and he went still. My heart leapt into my throat. After a long, terrible moment, he relaxed and continued forward. “Spinners. They feed on energy—thoughts. Emotions. Fear and pain are the easiest to provoke, so that’s what they prefer."

“Where are they?” I searched the webs above us, then the forest floor, then the darkness between the trees, but saw nothing.

He ignored the question. “Remember—no magic,” Rìan warned again.

“But—”

“No talking.”

For a moment I considered arguing anyway. Then I noticed his hand resting on the hilt of one of his iron knives and thought better of it. Silence suddenly seemed like a very good idea.

The farther we walked, the thicker the webs became. They sagged between the trees like burial shrouds, swaying faintly despite the absence of any wind. The forest beneath them felt smothered, the sunlight reduced to a sickly twilight that painted everything in shades of gray. I had the sudden, sinking feeling that we weren't just walking through the forest anymore.