Chapter 458

458 One Breath, Maybe Two

“My mouth.” Guur said. “My mouth feels like my entire ass has passed through it.”

I held out a steaming mug. “Mint tea.” I said. “Fresh off the fire.”

“Tea is for old men who scratch their armpits.” said Guur. “Bring me something stronger.”

“Finish the tea.” Uma said. “Hold down a bowl of broth for an hour. Then we’ll talk about your fondness for what passes for alcohol in this backward town of yours.”

“Uh. Sister. Why are you in my bedroom?”

“May I answer that?” I asked. When she nodded, I said, “Larger brother, elder brother, you are in the feasting hall. We knew you would want...”

“Idiot.” Guur said, pulling himself off the mound of pillows. “You know. You know how I feel. Get me to my bed. I shall sleep for a day, perhaps two.”

Uma nodded to the guards, and the three of them...

“Let me help.” I said. “I’m stronger than I look.”

.....

Guur let out a lolling sound, and passed out. We tried to set him on his back, but he curled up on his left side, arms clutched over the harm he had done himself.

“Ignite.” I told the wood in the fireplace. It flickered and died.

Fine. I knew magic to be unreliable. I went to the hallway... “Why are there no lit torches?” I asked.

Nobody met my eyes.

“Fine.” I said. “I’ll be making a trip to the kitchen, anyway.”

I loaded up a platter with meat and spinach, a cup each of red wine and goat milk on one side. The bread I tore into small crumbs (but not so small as to be difficult for Guur’s hands) and spread melted butter upon them. The slices of an orange I used as garnish, with no expectation he would actually eat them.

“The enemy is coming.” he said. His eyes closed as they were, I couldn’t tell whether he was awake or asleep.

“Reports say they are pushing west, into spider infested areas of land.” I told him. “There is time to take one breath, perhaps even two.”

Then, he definitely dozed.

I had brought a coal up from the kitchen (it turns out you can do things like that without damaging your inventory slots), and with a bit of difficulty made a blazing fire. Honestly, it would be easier moving his bed later. For a while, there was sun and the sounds of a healthy town.

One by one, his other guards filtered out.

[You have been asleep for one hour fifty five minutes and thirty one seconds.] my System told me in what seemed like the next instant.

I drew my sword and whirled toward the door.

“I... I came to change the sheets.” the young woman said.

“Lord Guur needs the bed just now.”

“You will let me look for signs of bleeding, and let me change the sheets if he is.”

Wait. “One does not go from fear to such certainty. Not without training or a mental abnormality.” I took a defensive position.

“If you were dangerous, you’d have struck at me by now.” she said. “I live HERE, and you are NOT the scariest person under this roof.”

Well... she had a point, there.

Don’t try wrangling with a sleeping minotaur for the thick cotton comforter; you will lose, and may end up with [Cracked Eye Socket – Right]. Or left, depending upon which side of your face is facing him.

“Oh my.” The maid said. “That sounded painful.”

“Two days.” I said. “Possibly four, if I need to exert myself while healing.”

“I can see the swelling from here.” she said. “Garlic, ginseng, and rosemary, crushed into butter and spread on the side of a bandage.”

“Is there no fish oil to crush them into?” I asked.

“I don’t know what empire you think you’re in. I would have to send a runner to buy fish oil, and the pain you must be in...”

I chuckled. “Might of five, Physical Fortitude rank six. Resist Pain level seven, with rank eight in Resist Pain – Wounds. Take your time, and do this right rather than fast.”

She smiled at me. “I forget how many of you visitors live ... energetic lives. I’ll try to have the poultice ready by the time your shift ends.”

“Shift?” I said.

“By Lady Uma’s orders, sir. Four shifts of six hours each. You are not the only one who cares for the safety of Lord Guur. There shall be, and I quote, no foolery associated with the changing of guard shifts.” She somehow managed to close the door securely without slamming it.

My “six hours” went by quickly. Guur was awake long enough to eat half the platter, needed all of one sheet changed when his wound re-opened (a quick treatment of miko light stopped the bleeding).

Oh, and there was a spider, one of the blue (cerulean) ones from the other side of the Twelve Daggers. Her name was Tiwiki, and she was Aware, and we came to an arrangement where she would guard against intruders instead of wasting her venom trying to kill Guur.

“My concern,” I explained to Thurio and another whose name I never did get, “is that she says she was carried here in a box. That means that at least one foreign agent, presumably hostile...”

“... is here already.” Thurio’s companion finished.

“Well, we’re on guard here, you’d best be the one to tell Lady Uma, then.” Thurio said.

Which I did, much to her consternation. “And you have this from a spider?” she asked.

“Yes, Lady Uma.” I said.

“I don’t suppose the spider provided a name? Perhaps male or female? Species, at least?”

“She knows that she negotiated passage with Taladar Viksdottor, who is well regarded by animals on that side of the mountains.”

“I don’t care if she negotiated passage with the Queen of Basilla.” Uma said. “You are a terrible scout, and a worse spy. Who speaks to spiders, anyway?”

“I was first raised by a spider.” I reminded her.

“Your mucked up family explains much of your outlook.” she said. “How are you remotely sane?”

I shrugged. “I seem normal to me. So long as they aren’t trying to fix me, I’m not sure I care about whether my sanity matches anyone else’s definition.”

Uma sucked in a breath, held it for half a heart beat. “An answer worthy of a citizen of the empire. Good. I need you to do what insanity you do best.”

“I ... already planned on surviving.”

“No.” she said. “I need you to go into the woods between here and the Greywood, as far north as isn’t the Khanate. I need you to talk to spiders.”

I fiddled with the bandage holding the poultice over my eye.

“Quit adjusting your eye-patch just because it itches.” she snapped at me.

How? Oh, I suppose she had grown up with seven brothers.

“On that matter, does having an injured eye matter to spiders? I mean, with the multiple pairs of eyes and all?”

“Like to most thinking beings.” I said. “It will matter more to some than to others.”

“Good. Then I need you to recruit those willing to ally to our cause. Promise them food, in particular goats and sheep, in exchange for fighting our enemies, something they’re doing already. But more organized.”

“To get that many swarms to work together would require a spider queen.” I said.

“So transform yourself into a spider queen.” she said. “Problem solved.”

“No, you don’t understand.” I said. “First, while I could become a female spider, I’m... unpracticed? They would either see directly through my disguise, or would presume I was injured, and therefore food.”

“For my second point, Spider Queens tend to grow larger than even Children of Anansi. I actually lose a bit of size every time I transmute.”

“And your third?”

“I only have the two points, just now.”

“All right. We have enough spiders, more than at any point in our history. Just find their queen.”

I rubbed my knuckles over my good eyelid. “It’s more complicated than that.” I said. “However many years ago it was, a band of heroes slew the current Spider Queen. There hasn’t been enough time for a new queen to rise; I don’t know if the spiders in those woods are able to breed a new queen.”

“Well, then we have a conundrum. You’re telling me that our nearest spider queen might be in the Elven Greywood?”

“A land where I am forbidden to set foot.” I said.

“Oho. May I know why?” she asked.

“They blame me for the formation of the Tidelands, the war with the centaurs just outside their lands.”

Her eyes shone, briefly. “I have the beginnings of a plan.”

“I sense that I will not like this plan.” I said.

“Obey.” she said. “Obey, and all will end well. Tomorrow, perhaps the next day, when your eye has healed, you will head west and north. Gather no less than six hundred, and as many of them as you can. Stop.”

“You have the charisma skills, and the knowledge of the spiders. Organize the spiders and do what you can to harass the enemy, or more likely, just the supply lines. We will do what we can to make them pay for Narrow Valley, and fall back to the capitol. Retake a city if you can, but your main goal is to keep them distracted while Rakkal gathers the army.”

I let out the breath I had been holding. “Better than no plan at all.”