Belle and the Prophecy of Grey

Chapter 13

When Belle came back to herself, the first thing she noticed was that she had a terrific headache. She got up on one elbow and carefully felt along her scalp, hissing as her fingers came in contact with a bruise the size of a grapefruit. She didn't feel anything but tenderness at the wound site and decided it was probably okay, but quickly began an inventory of the rest of her body.

She seemed all right, if a little scraped and bloody. There was a cut matted with blood on her lower arm from the rat who had scratched her, but fortunately it only seemed to have gotten one claw into her. That and the bump on the head seemed to be her only injuries. Luckily she had her first-aid kit, and everything inside it seemed intact. Carefully she sat up and started to rifle through it. First she took a small swallow of a mild painkiller; the headache was starting to mess with her mind. Then she washed the wound on her arm and dabbed it with anti-infection cream. She had to cut away the lower part of her sleeve to reach it, but it was torn and bloody anyway. After bandaging the wound and putting everything away, she felt well enough to look around.

It was pretty dark, but she could sense the presence of many bodies. Crawlers? No. More legs. They must have reached the land of the spinners.

When she turned her head, she dimly made out Gregor and Boots in the beam of a flashlight, dangling from a web. She knew for sure then; there were spinners around. The rest of the party were standing around and below Gregor and his sister, cutting them free with swords. Belle got carefully to her feet and went over to them.

"Belle!" Ares gasped when she reached up and touched his back. He laid his claws gently on her shoulders, mindful of potential injuries, though the intent way he was studying her suggested he would have liked to make a more thorough examination. "Thank the gods. We thought both you and Gregor lost."

"I couldn't have been lost," said Gregor as the final shreds of web were removed from his legs. "The tunnel came straight here. And wasn't Belle with you?"

"Not lost in direction," Luxa said solemnly. "Lost forever."

Gregor blanched. "Oh," he breathed.

Belle leaned into Ares for a moment, feeling a shiver though her minor wounds had brought her nowhere near death. She reassured herself with a look around at her friends, who all seemed okay and present and accounted for.

"What happened with the rats?" asked Gregor, shifting the subject off death and doom.

"All killed," said Vikus. "You need not fear that they have seen you. Or Belle."

"It's worse if they see us?" said Gregor. "Why? They can smell I'm an Overlander from miles away. They already know I'm here."

"This is so," agreed Vikus, "but they do not yet know that you bear a resemblance to your father. As for Belle, she smells of us, so only the dead rats know that she is a 'daughter of the sun'."

Strangely, that didn't make Belle feel any better.

Gregor had opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again as a score of spinners descended around them, perching in nearby webs. Belle tried not to automatically cringe away, as pretty much anyone not born here would have when faced with human-sized spiders.

One magnificent creature with beautifully striped legs swung down directly in front of Vikus. He bowed. "Greetings, Queen Wevox."

The spinner rubbed her front legs over her chest like she was playing a stringed instrument. Her mouth didn't move, but she spoke in an eerie, wavering voice. "Greetings, Lord Vikus."

"Meet you, Gregor and Belle the Overlanders, meet you," said Vikus, indicating them.

"The boy makes much noise," the queen said with distaste.

"The Overlander ways are odd," Vikus agreed, shooting Gregor a look that warned him not to argue.

"Why come you?" strummed Queen Wevox.

Vikus told the tale in ten sentences, using a calm, soft voice.

The queen considered what she had been told. "As it is Vikus, we will not drink. Web them."

A horde of spinners surrounded them. Belle looked up, frowning, as a gauzy funnel of silk grew up around them as if by magic. It isolated them and blocked everything around them from view. The spinners stopped spinning when the funnel had reached thirty feet in height. Two took sentry positions at the top. All this occurred in under a minute.

Everyone looked at Vikus, who sighed. "You knew it would not be simple," Solovet reminded him.

"Yes, but I had hoped with the recent trade agreement..." Vikus trailed off. "I hoped too high."

"We still breathe," said Mareth encouragingly. "That is no small thing with spinners."

Gregor was looking from one to the next with confusion, trying to make sense of the conversation. "What's going on?" he finally asked. "Are they coming with us?"

Solovet shook her head. "No, Gregor," she said quietly. "We are their prisoners."