Harlon had been in the forest on his latest hunting trip for four days. So far, he'd barely found enough game to keep himself fed. As the eldest son in the family, it was his responsibility to make these forays into the wilds to secure food, and with winter coming, he needed to bring home a larger haul than normal.
The scarcity of game so far had forced him to push farther into the forest than he had before, and he was getting a bit unnerved by the unfamiliar surroundings. The forest was much darker here, thanks to the thick canopy formed by the massive hardwood trees. Despite the canopy overhead, an abundance of undergrowth had managed to take root, and it was difficult to see more than several yards in any direction.
Pushing through a particularly stubborn patch of growth that clawed at his skin and snagged his jerkin, he came upon a scene that he had never witnessed the likes of in the years he had spent in the wilds.
Here, the forest had been swallowed by curtains of gossamer, as if every spider in the forest had decided that this was the perfect place to settle down.
Harlon recoiled at the sight and he felt his skin crawl. Unconsciously, he wiped his hands down his sleeves and the back of his neck. He stood at the threshold of the spider kingdom and studied the webs with the horrified fascination of someone witnessing a hanging.
The webs varied in thickness. Some were barely visible and others were as thick as his finger. What monstrosity could make a web that thick? Placing his bow on his back, he unsheathed his gutting knife and poked at some of the web nearest him. The blade cut through the thinnest of the lot and he watched the rest vibrate in the dimming light. The vibrations unexpectedly spread throughout the spider city, and soon the webs seemed to be alive, a low droning sound emanated from them.
Harlon stepped back from the webs and watched for signs of movement, wondering if he had made a mistake by not just bypassing this horror show. Surprisingly, the droning died off, and no army of spiders raced across the web. In fact, Harlon could not see a single spider anywhere.
Regardless, he decided he'd let the webs remain a mystery for someone else to solve. He was turning away when he heard the unmistakable bawling of a buck in distress. He quickly scanned the web and immediately saw the antlered form of a large buck struggling in the white mass. It was, thus far, the only deer he had seen this trip.
He watched the buck struggle for a short time and noticed that despite its thrashing, no spiders emerged to subdue it. He pitied the animal, but he knew this could be his only chance to bring meat back to his family. He quickly knocked an arrow, aiming at where he thought the struggling buck's heart would be when the arrow struck. The arrow struck just slightly below where he intended, but still caused a mortal wound. He unstrung his bow and put it in the case on his back, preparing himself mentally to enter the spider domain, but when he looked back to where the deer should have been in its death throes, he saw nothing but the tangle of webs.
It must have gotten free and bolted, he surmised, but the buck wouldn't be hard to track in that sea of white. He began hacking his way through the webs, avoiding the ones as thick as his finger. Something had made them after all, and he wasn't keen on meeting the creator, his or the web's.
After several stops to clear web from his face and brush off imaginary spiders, Harlon made it to the tangle of white where the deer had been. There was a pool of blood on the ground, but no trail leading away. Puzzled, he bent down to look for a track, and felt something drip on the back of his neck. He brushed his neck, and came away with a smear of crimson on his hand. Slowly, he turned his eyes upward, and saw the deer hanging above him, out of reach. His skin crawled as he also saw a large dark shadow skitter across the webs high above him.
While Harlon didn't have an overwhelming fear of spiders, he definitely did not want to wait around for whatever was up there to lower itself down on him. He imagined eight giant hairy legs wrapping around him as fangs the size of daggers pierced the back of his neck and injected him with some foul and potent venom. He decided to leave the deer as bait for the thing and make his way out of the webs as quickly as possible. Following the path he had cut on the way in, he sprinted for the relative safety of the greenish-brown undergrowth at the edge of the white hell. He had just hit his full stride when his left foot suddenly stopped and he felt his momentum carrying him forward into a face plant. He reached forward to break his fall and then felt himself quickly being pulled upward toward the trees above. Soon, he was hanging face down, his left foot caught in one of the finger thick webs. He felt his bow slipping from its case, and watched it and most of his arrows tumble down and land silently in the webs below him. Panicking, he kicked at the web with his right foot, and soon found it stuck as well.
He hung there briefly catching his breath and felt the blood rushing to his head. Knowing he had to make a quick retreat, he carefully unsheathed his knife and pulled his upper body up so that he could reach the webs on his lower legs, holding onto his trouser leg with his left hand while he began sawing at the web with his right. No matter how he tried, though, he couldn't free himself.
He had dangled there thinking for only a short while when he saw a massive eight-legged form lowering itself down toward him from the canopy. As it neared, however, his fear was temporarily supplanted by shock and disgust. The creature was some sort of horrible mix between spider and man. From the bulbous abdomen, eight legs stretched out toward him, but the upper body of a gray-skinned man grew from where there should have been a head with mandibles and fangs. The thing's eyes appeared human-like, but they were a disconcerting shade of copper. Its face was framed by long white hair that had been pulled back into a tail. In one of its hands was a small crossbow, and Harlon could clearly see it was aimed at him. Harlon heard the dull twang of the bowstring as it sprang from its catch and felt pain blossom in his thigh. He struggled briefly, hacking wildly at the web, before he felt his strength ebb, followed quickly by conscious thought.
The abomination leisurely spun its way down toward its prize, and checked for a response by poking it with one of its long spiny legs. Seeing that the flesh sack only hung there motionless, it began the process of packaging the man thing for transport to the underground. Taking the unconscious form into its legs, the spider creature rotated it in circles while simultaneously passing its spinnerets over it. Soon, the man was cocooned and ready to be brought to the slave pens deep below the forest.
YOU ARE READING
Captive of the Matriarchal Elves
FantasyA young hunter, trying to fill his family's larders for the winter, finds himself hunted.