Shadowland. Spider World 06 by Colin Wilson

They quickly outstripped their pursuers; within a quarter of a mile, the sheep had given up and returned to grazing.

The danger had stilled Niall’s hunger, but as they walked back, it soon returned. Moreover, since it would be dark in half an hour, they had to think seriously about finding their supper. Niall would have been quite happy with the crunchy biscuits and goat cheese, or even a food tablet, but would have felt guilty if the captain had been forced to go hungry — which, after all, was the most important problem in a spider’s life.

From the bushes and shrubs on the rising ground came the shrill voice of crickets. In the desert of North Khaybad Niall’s family had often eaten giant crickets; roasted with herbs they were filling and appetizing. So he and the captain now made their way cautiously toward the bushes. But closer inspection revealed that the crickets here were far smaller than those of North Khaybad, and that they would need dozens to make a meal.

But from their changed position on the higher ground they could see that the sheep were moving away from them, and that the fallen animal was still lying on the ground. They made their way back to it warily, in case they were seen by the sheep, but by the time they reached it, the flock was a mile away. The black sheep was dead, with a broken neck, either as a result of its fall or the spider’s will-force.

The captain carried it back to the edge of the bushes, and it was among these that Niall lighted a fire with wood and bark fragments, hoping that no enemy would see the flames, and relieved that the dry wood burned fiercely without smoke.

Meanwhile, the captain used his claws to skin the sheep, which was about the size of a small pony. The black wool was so thick and wiry that it would have defied the teeth of most predators; but it yielded to the spider’s razor-sharp pincers, and in twenty minutes the skinless carcass lay on the grass. After Niall had sliced off two large steaks from the back leg, the captain proceeded to eat with relish, his powerful jaws tearing out the flesh in chunks, each of which would have fed several people. Niall looked discreetly the other way, and tried not to hear the grinding of the spider’s jaws.

When he had finished his meal, the captain found a comfortable hollow among the bushes and went to sleep, his legs bunched underneath him. Niall had been keeping an eye on the sky, anxious about spies of the Magician, but apart from a distant flock of birds, the heavens were a dusky blue and empty. By now he was so weary that he would willingly have lain down to sleep — tiredness had taken the edge off his hunger — but he forced himself to stay awake, yawning heavily, until the steaks were cooked in the glowing embers of the fire. Then he scraped off the black ashes, cleaned the charred meat with a handful of grass, and ate one of the pieces with a biscuit. While he was eating, the raven reappeared and perched on the stunted tree whose branches stretched above him. Niall gave it some of the biscuit, followed by a piece of the lamb, sliced off with his knife; it ate this with violent shakes of its beak. The meat was undercooked but tender. After eating, he carefully wrapped up the remaining steak in leaves, and stowed it in his pack. Then, somehow reassured by the presence of the bird, he stretched out in his sleeping bag.

He was not entirely happy about the idea of sleeping in the open; he had meant to explore the caves below, but climbing down to them would have been dangerous in the falling dark. As it was, the thick, coarse grass made a soft mattress, and within a few minutes he was asleep.

By the time he woke up, the sky was gray with dawn, and tearing and masticating sounds told him the captain was already enjoying his breakfast. Again, good manners made him turn away; instead, he lay with closed eyes and reflected on the puzzle of how the local sheep had become so aggressive. The vital force of the great goddess explained why they had grown to twice the size of domestic sheep, but not their belligerence. The fact that the black sheep had moved to form a barrier between the black and the white ones indicated that they were the bolder of the two. But that failed to explain how their belligerence had evolved.

Then he saw a possible answer. The creatures had attacked when Niall had pointed at one of them and said: “That one.” Was it possible that they were telepathic? And, furthermore, was it conceivable that their usual predators attacked them with will-force, leading them to evolve this tactic of charging? Niall recalled the assassin he had encountered in the hospital, and his formidable will-force, and felt that he might be close to a solution.

The chewing noises had stopped, so Niall sat up and unzipped his sleeping bag. It was covered with dew. By now the sun was up, and the captain was sitting a dozen yards away, digesting his meal. Niall went and sat a few yards away, and after cleaning the burned wood off his hands on the dewy grass, ate a light meal of goat cheese. This time the raven did not join him; it was probably winging over the valley hunting its own breakfast.

He stood up to take stock of their position. To the north, the foothills soon turned into mountains with snow on their summits. There were no obvious passes between them, which meant that the best way forward was probably to go east until they reached the plain, then turn north, up the continuation of the valley that had brought them here.

But first, Niall wanted to look at the cave dwellings below, to learn what he could of the cliff dwellers.

Niall went to the edge of the cliff and looked down the steps. They were very steep — so steep that it would have been folly to try and descend with his back to them. One slip would send him plunging a quarter of a mile down to the valley. But, like the steps up the pinnacle across the valley, these had handholds cut into them.

For safety, Niall decided to leave his pack behind; he hid it among the bushes, in case birds came to investigate. And since it was warm in the morning sun, he decided to leave his cloak behind too. But he slipped the flashlight into the pocket of his tunic. Then he eased himself over the edge of the cliff, and began the long descent. The spider, who was obviously unworried by heights, gave him a ten-foot start and then followed.

Provided Niall faced the cliff and concentrated on the handholds, he was in no danger. The steps were not as precipitous as they looked from above, and he was soon clambering down them at a reasonable speed. Even so, it was twenty minutes before he found himself on the wide ledge that formed a terrace in front of the cliff dwellings. Below him, there was still a drop of a hundred feet or so.

Across the valley, five hundred yards away, rose the Great Wall. Its top was level with the cliff dwellings, but its towers were fifty feet higher. From here it looked a truly formidable and impregnable barrier. At the foot of the wall there was a ditch about twenty feet deep, which could probably be flooded to form a moat. It struck Niall that the spiders must have entertained a deep fear of their enemy to expend so much time and effort on such a vast project.

Having recovered his breath, he now turned his attention to the cliff dwellings. The nearest entrance led into a cave that was probably a store room. Niall’s flashlight revealed that it was about fifty feet deep.

The next doorway, which still had a disintegrating wooden door jamb, led into a room with a seven-foot ceiling. Birds flew out through the window as they entered. This room was about eight feet square, and in the far wall, another doorway led into a smaller room, probably a bedroom. Beyond this, there was an even smaller room, which looked like a children’s bedroom. When Niall considered the effort entailed in cutting this small dwelling out of solid rock, he felt overawed — it must have taken years.

But why had they gone to so much trouble? Had this land once been so wild and dangerous that the valley floor was unsafe?

They went to the end of the terrace, peering into each of the rooms. In only one of them there were the remains of a bench, whose nail holes held crumbling rust. The others were empty.