Curse of the Spider King by Wayne Thomas Batson, Christopher Hopper Read Free Book Online

met as Gwar and Elf came face-to-face. The Warspiders successfully crested the walls in greater numbers, and their Gwar riders directed them through the melee deeper into the city. They were searching for doors, and each they found—be it wood or iron—the Warspiders tore it from its hinges and tossed it away. Gwar infantry surrounded each new entry point and dispatched Elves as they issued forth. But a Gwar horn blast summoned their attention back to the eastern wall above the Gap.
    Larger Warspiders with long, red forelegs clambered over the walls. Their riders, hooded and robed, sat impassively in their saddles. For a moment, an eerie hush fell over the area. The huge Warspiders stopped and raised themselves high on their limbs. As one, the Drefids removed their hoods, revealing shadowy figures with long white hair, burning embers in otherwise empty sockets, and knife blades extended from their boney knuckles.

    Flet Marshall Brynn stood transfixed in the dancing shadows of torchlight at the top of the inner wall’s curving stairway.
    Screee! The Warspiders’ talons scraped the outer stonework of the stronghold. Brynn froze, but not because of the battle raging outside. She had seen an Elven warrior, one of her own flet soldiers, draw a blade and strike down another Elf in cold blood right before her eyes.
    â€œElden!” she cried, rage bursting free at last. “Elden, drop your sword!” Agile, even in full armor, Brynn raced frantically down the stair.
    Elden never glanced up at his commander. His cold stare lingered on a more immediate threat. Another Elf leaped over the fallen flet soldier and brought his curved blade crashing down on Elden. Elden blocked, barely. His enemy’s sword had come within an inch of his scalp. And before Elden could recover or counter, his enemy slid off the weak parry and drove his sword through the armor protecting Elden’s ribs. The blade went deep and up, surely into Elden’s heart. But Elden did not collapse.
    He grinned at his attacker with a sickly, misshapen kind of smile. Then he brought his sword down hard on his enemy’s helmet. The Elf fell away dead just as Flet Marshall Brynn stopped short three steps above. She flashed her rychesword, her movements a blur. Elden countered and attempted to duel for a moment, before Brynn slashed his weapon from his hand. It clattered to the stone, but before Elden could reach it, Brynn wheeled her blade around and carved a gash into Elden’s neck. But there was no blood. There was no wound. Elden vanished, leaving only swirling eddies of thin black smoke.
    â€œWhat devilry is this?” Brynn cried. She stood out of breath on the bottom stair and held her rychesword as if she might drop it.
    â€œThat was not Elden.” Guardmaster Olin Grimwarden strode to the foot of the stair and knelt at the side of the fallen Elf. “It was a Wisp."
    â€œA what?”
    â€œA Wisp.” Grimwarden’s broad shoulders sagged, and he shook his head. “They are enemies of old. Vapor-beings, shape shifters. We thought they had all died out generations ago. But now they reemerge, loosed by the Spider King to wreck our defenses.” Grimwarden stood, hefted his spear menacingly, and took Brynn by the hand. “The Wisp you dispatched is not dead. He will quickly take on another form. And there may be others within our ranks.”
    â€œCan’t they be killed?”
    â€œOnly by the two-edged sword,” replied Grimwarden. “Speak the Words as you strike, and the Wisp will be sundered.” He looked with regret at the familiar phrases inscribed along the haft of his spear. “If only we still forged all our weapons as we did of old—”
    Grimwarden flinched as bone-chilling shrieks tore through the clamor. Flet soldiers froze in mid stride and clutched their ears. “Drefids have come. That means—”
    â€œOur archers have failed.”
    â€œThen our