Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
I glance at the slope. The darkness is a quarter of the way down.
Next to me, Merc is still getting nowhere because he’s so bulky, he can’t maneuver to reach any of his other weapons.
Closing my eyes, I try to picture me gripping the crystal knife, my fingertips threading past the velvet bag’s clingy exterior—
The coins drop out of my pocket. I hear the jingling fall and ringing impact somewhere on the ground inside the webs that tie Lavante’s legs together.
My eyes shoot in fear to the spiders. But the sound is soft enough that it doesn’t call any of them back.
And now I have the knife.
Wielding it as Thale instructed me to, by gripping the cross-hilt and allowing the main shank to extend out between my fore and middle fingers, I stab forward.
The webbing breaches immediately—and continues to do so as I wrench my arm upward. I’m relieved to find the blanket of silk readily falls away, as cutting it releases the tension that is tied to its grip: The more I slice, the more I’m free to continue stripping it off me.
“I’m coming for you!” I hiss as I measure the dark line’s progression on the slope. “Just a moment more—”
I’m talking as fast as I’m ripping the strange knife around, and then all at once, my upper body is free. Beneath the saddle, Lavante is twitching, as if he knows he’s about to be released. I can’t continue on to his legs yet, though.
I pull my own free of the saddle, and leap to the ground. “I’ve got this, I’ve got you, I’ve—”
“Sorrel.”
At the sound of my name, I freeze for a split second and look up at Merc.
He’s staring down at me, wrapped like a mummy atop his encased horse, only his black hair and the steel of his chain mail showing.
“Get your horse free,” he says softly. “I’m okay here.”
“Are you mad?”
I go to jump up to the broadsword and he jerks his head back, like he’d step away if he could. “Sorrel. You keep going … don’t waste time on me.”
As his voice drifts off, I find myself unable to move. There’s a haunting quality to him, to the way he looks at me, an almost wistful expression on his harsh face.
“I’m not leaving you—”
“I am telling you to.”
“And when have I ever listened to you.” I wield my crystal knife and start into the web by the broadsword. “I’ll be careful, I don’t want to cut you—”
The cocoon starts to fall away, but as I glance over my shoulder, the line of the returning darkness is moving with increasing speed. I check the spiders around the temple, and they remain enthralled, but I picture them coming back as fast as they first arrived as soon as that red illumination is snuffed out.
“There’s no time,” Merc says sharply. “You’ve got to get Lavante free, and start running. Head for the slope with the mist. You can hide in the clouding there—”
I look about once again. He has a tragic point. The spiders move fast, and all those pathways over the crumbled wall prove they have no trouble getting in and out of the ruins. Even if half stay to consume him, some of them will set into a chase.
“Go.” His voice gentles. “But before you do, I want you to know something.”
Brushing my eyes, I make a couple more slashes around his sword arm, just so he can have a chance to defend himself. “What’s that?”
“You were right,” he murmurs with a small, wry smile. “I was jealous of Thale.”
Seventy-Two
The Race Is On.
As Merc makes the admission, my eyes search his. It seems so totally within his character to choose to be vulnerable at the end of his life, when it’s too late.
“You are such an aspinhaul.”
As I borrow a word from Mare, Merc throws his head back and laughs. Then he narrows his eyes. “What are you doing—”
“Shut up.”
I’m back at the cocoon, slashing with the crystal knife, its blade gleaming red. “I’m giving you a chance to save yourself—if I didn’t want you to die before, I definitely don’t now that you’re finally being honest.”
The more I do, the more he can do with his own blade that is so much bigger, and the next thing I know, the weight of the web is peeling free of his leather surcoat, and falling from his waist. And then he has a dagger in his other hand and is able to go to work himself.
I rush back to Lavante. I have to be so careful to not cut into him—and the way he throws his head as I go up his neck doesn’t help. Grabbing the reins, I try to control him as he begins to thrash his back legs and buck.
We are all but out of time. The darkness is about to reach the easternmost wall. From there, it will be a matter of moments before the eight-legged congregation is no longer hypnotized.