The Spider

Chapter 1: The Prince of Ventar

I awoke to the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. Before I could even part my eyelids fully and wipe the sleep from them, I felt a rough hand smack me across the face. I had fallen asleep the night before in a dark and moldy cobbled alley behind a butcher's shop. It would seem as though the butcher wasn't pleased with this. 

As my eyes adjusted to the cloudy grey sky, I looked at the man who now had a hand gripping each of my shoulders. He was tall and burly, with beady black eyes peering out from behind an auburn beard. He lifted me from the ground with one fierce tug and began to shake me mid-air. 

"I ought to report you for loitering boy!" he shouted amongst a stream of curses. "What is it you have to explain yourself with boy?" He shook me once more, not offering the opportunity to answer his questions.

"Fuck off, bastard," I snapped at him before spitting in his eye. I had no right to speak in such a manner, seeing as I myself was a bastard without a scrap of dignity or wealth, yet these were not things he knew. Before he had time to react, I twisted so that my head could reach his forearm and bit down as hard as I could. Blood filled my mouth as the butcher howled in pain. He released me and I bolted, jumping through an open window into his shop. He frantically tried to grab my ankles as I leapt, but I kicked him off. I sprinted past rows of pig carcasses hanging from the ceiling before exiting through a small wooden door at the front of the shop. 

I darted out into the street and kept moving. I swiftly wove between the other folk of the great Oaken City, capitol of Ventar. In the distance, the tall stone spires of Castle Oaken rose among the cliffs of the tall mountain it sat upon. Smoke came from countless chimneys in the drab grey homes throughout Oaken, staining the sky, buildings, streets, and people of the city with soot. The city was so cold in winters like this though that without the constant fires, every soul there would die.

Looking behind my shoulder for a moment, I saw that the butcher was still searching for me in the bustling street. He locked eyes with me for a moment, and his face lit up with rage.

"Stop that wretch! The boy tried to kill me!" he screamed. In just a moment, the situation turned much more dire. Suddenly, every eye of the street was on me, including a pair of knights on patrol. Both dressed in chainmail and brandishing steel swords, they set after me.

"Shit!" I muttered to myself, running even faster. I turned into a smaller street framed with little stores and taverns made of stone. I realized it was a dead end too late, and found myself running towards a tall stone wall. With the guards behind me I knew I couldn't turn around or they would surely capture me, so I got to the wall and started climbing.

When I had been a smaller boy I would climb all over Oaken, my tiny hands and feet fitting into the deep grooves of the stone buildings, but I was reaching my nineteenth name-day now, and could no longer climb so easily. Where nothing but skin and bone used to be, time had grown muscle and height. I struggled to get a good grip before beginning up the wall. I was able to make it just high enough that the guards couldn't reach my feet when they caught up to me. I continued to climb as quickly as I could, but the crevices between the stones were so small I could only fit my finger tips and the very edge of my boots into them. I slipped a few times, scraping my hands and leaving them sticky with blood.

I at last made it the top of the wall, and looked down to see the guards, albeit slowly, were climbing up after me. I took off running, leaping from the wall to the tiled roof of the nearest building. I bolted across rooftop after rooftop. Those guards may have had more strength than me, but they would never be as swift. I knew that if I kept going long enough, I would surely lose them.

I looked behind me to see not a single guard in pursuit and thought my plan a success. That was until I looked beneath me on the street, and saw at least six guards following me on horseback. Now I knew I was no longer going to be able to evade them through speed, but I could still outsmart them.