Chapter 9

The final confrontation.

Hugo was standing at the mouth of the cave. He wasn’t alone. He was facing another spider, one that dwarfed him in size and most definitely in horribleness. Ademar Lepsi was every inch the fairytale villain. Huge and hairy, standing on his back legs and waving his front legs in aggression. It blew my mind that spiders had ever seemed indistinguishable to me. The difference could not be more obvious now. I was having trouble breathing. I was too far away, too late. I was watching the scene play out five hundred feet below me, and I would never make it in time.

            Eleyn appeared frozen in place. Her eight eyes were blown with fear, and even on her back I had little chance of stopping Hugo. On my own two legs, the chances were even less.

            My pulse was racing and my lungs hitched, but I forced myself to try. One foot in front of the other, I slipped and slid down the hill, refusing to take my eyes off of Hugo, terrified if I blinked he’d be dead. The battle had begun. Hugo had reared up and met Lepsi in mid-air, pushing and snapping at each other. Hugo was terribly outmatched and he knew it.

            I willed my legs to go faster. For once in my life I wanted to be running, and now the air felt like molasses. There wasn’t time for fear. Just adrenaline and running. Heart and lungs. All the way down the mountain.

            Hugo lost his balance for a moment, and I ran harder, stumbling out of control. Maybe I shouted, maybe it was the rocks skittering out of my path, maybe it was instinct. Whatever it was, Hugo turned. Eight eyes met two, and time froze for a split second.

            In that split second, Ademar Lepsi pounced. Time did not slow down then. If anything, it sped up. I watched as Lepsi’s huge legs trapped Hugo’s turned head, as he flipped my friend effortlessly, as he bit down into his neck, as Hugo twitched once. As my fragile world splintered once again. It all seemed to happen in one movement, one second. Everything was blurring and distorting. I didn’t realized I was crying. I didn’t realize I was still running. I didn’t realize anything except that something in the world was terribly wrong and I was once again helpless.

            Running. Towards Lepsi or Hugo I had no idea. I was so close. Fifty feet. Thirty. Dimly I noticed Bartholomeus and the other spiders arrive. Eleyn had come up behind me. She and three other spiders converged on Lepsi, and he was drawn out of my sight.

            It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I skidded to a stop, falling to my knees beside Hugo’s prone form. I did not shake him, or yell at him, or bargain with him or God. I didn’t try to bring him back to life. I knew. I had known from the moment his eyes locked mine that he was going to die that day. That he was going to die for me, and that was exactly how he wanted it to be. Somehow, in one short month, I had managed to change his life, and in that same fell stroke, end it.

            My tears dripped onto his body, and I was stroking his fur. It already felt cold. That was impossible. It didn’t matter. Hugo was dead. He had died for me. Because of me. Unlike my mother’s death, this was no accident. I had caused it as much as Ademar Lepsi had, perhaps more.

            I don’t think I felt guilty. Not yet. Guilt could come later. At that moment I didn’t feel anything much except a great hole somewhere in my stomach out of which tears flowed. A great part of me was dead, and just like Hugo, I wasn’t trying to bring it back. I had plenty of holes already. You’d think the new ones wouldn’t hurt as much. You’d be wrong.

            I had no idea how long I sat there, frozen. Maybe I was crying or sobbing or silent. I didn’t know. I couldn’t feel. Shock, probably. Or merely a side affect of that strange kind of death during which you keep breathing.

            Eventually I felt someone, Eleyn, behind me. Her eyes were big and sad as she tapped me on the shoulder, but urgent too.

            “Oh Dash. I’m so sorry for you, Hugo…” Her voice broke. I remembered that it was her brother lying before me. Somehow it made it worse, that my hole was not alone, that I had not only ended Hugo’s life, but parts of other people’s too. Eleyn got her voice back, and she spoke quickly and quietly. “It’s awful. Believe me I know. But Lepsi’s still here, and none of us can stop. Nothing we’ve done to him has even slowed him down, and Hugo’s not the only one he has killed today. Will you help us? Please. For Hugo,” She acted as if I had a choice, as if I could refuse. I hoped the numbness would be an advantage. There was no more room for fear. It had been sucked down the hole along with everything else. The coldness was the only thing left, and it drove me to my feet.

            “Where is he?” My voice was wrecked. Screaming, then.

            “At the top of mountain. He likes to throw things,” She added grimly. If I could feel my mouth properly, I would have grimaced. Instead I nodded.

            “Well, wish me luck,” It was almost ironic. This day could hardly have gotten less lucky, and it was unlikely to start now. I found that this new me didn’t mind. Death was not to be feared when your insides were already decomposing.

            Eleyn squeezed my shoulder one last time, and turned away. There were no words. I started up the hill, trotting. I could not force myself to run. Trotting towards my fate seemed to work just fine. It would come all the same. That was the point, after all.

            I wasn’t watching the rocks as I climbed steadily upwards. Distantly I could see the peak where Lepsi held bloody court, and with a jolt, I remembered that it was the same place that I had watched the fireflies with Hugo weeks before. When I had railed against the dying of my light, against the very confrontation towards which I now went. With another sick pang, I realized that I had given Hugo the idea that evening, when I had challenged him to fight his own battles. I felt sick.

            I paused behind a jutting rock at the top of the mountain, assessing the scene. It didn’t look good. Body parts were scattered across the clearing, survivors clustered around the edges, gathering their courage for another suicidal assault.

            Lepsi was covered in blood that was not his own, the barbaric vision of the worst of fantasy, a thousand times grimmer reality. His pincers clicked rhythmically, menacingly. Slowly, he turned his head.

            It took more effort than I would have thought to rise. The sword was cold and heavy in my hand. I didn’t remember drawing it.

            As I stood, I felt Lepsi’s eyes on me, cold and calculating, taking in his challenger. He did not fear me, that much I could tell.

            Briefly, fiercely, I thought that he should.

            I looked him in the eye, and my eyes in that moment might have been almost as cold as his. It is dangerous to take the advantage away from someone. Then they have nothing left to lose.

            We never spoke. I didn’t even know if he could. Words were not important. The story was told in tiny movements, and in the weavings of that tapestry. The world had dissolved. Me and him. A mountain. A test of more than strength.

Stakes higher than life. Nothing left for me to lose. I raised my sword, and began to stalk forward.

            When I had read about the moment just before that final battle, I had always imagined the protagonist to feel great power. Maybe nerves, at least a sense of the importance of what was about to happen. I felt none of this. Objectively, I knew the stakes. Emotionally, there was nothing. Just eight evil eyes and one suddenly very small sword. I had stopped thinking. The bets were in, the odds calculated. I didn’t look at the stats. Me and him. Nothing more, nothing less.

            He sprang. Reflexively, I slashed with the sword, just managing to beat him back. Before I could plan or move, he was pressing again, and I was keeping him at bay. Maybe my brain didn’t mid dying, but my sword arm had other ideas.

 Slash. Stab. Block. Repeat. I wasn’t making progress, but I also wasn’t dead. Still, I knew I couldn’t keep this up for long. Already I was tiring. Somehow I needed to get to the underbelly. That was what Bartholomeus had said. How to do that though?

Get in close. It was my only option, and it was scary as hell. Even in my stony state, I felt a thrill of revulsion as I cut in close, dodging swiping arms in an effort to end it, seeing the huge ugly face up close. I almost made it.

I could see the giant abdomen. I drew back my sword to stab, thinking of Hugo when at the last second, one of his legs blindsided me.

I crumpled across the hairy appendage, felt it rise off the ground as Lepsi lifted me like a ragdoll, and swung me across his body. For a second, I was staring directly into glittering, angry black eyes. I knew it was all over. As that realization washed over me, stark in the face of evil, I felt the numbness drain away. I was going to die. And I was, once again, afraid. Terribly afraid.

And then the moment passed, and the great spider had swung me to his other side and thrown me high. For one sickening second, I thought I was going to fall right off the mountain. Instead, I hit the rock behind which I had hid earlier.

My left leg landed first. I heard the ankle crack, and my world turned white. I was almost glad when, a moment later, my head cracked against stone and I entered blissful oblivion.

I think I was only unconscious for a few seconds. At least, not much had changed. My ankle still burned white hot and my head throbbed mercilessly. Ademar Lepsi was still advancing on me, playing with his dinner before eating it. I was still afraid. For an instant, I wished for the numbness to return. The physical pain had sharpened my senses and increased my heart rate. I was terrified. I was helpless.

Lepsi did not hurry. There was no need. His prey was injured and trapped against a rock. No one could stop him. No one left would try. He had all the time in the world.

For some reason, my imminent death was still slightly surprising. I guess we all believe ourselves miraculously immortal in a dying world. Up until this moment, with bloody pincers and evil eyes looming feet from my vulnerable form, I had believed in some part of me that I was the heroine of my story. And you never kill off the main character. They can go to Hell and back, but they always survive. I finally realized that this was no story. Mariel and Hermione and Katniss and Sandstorm. They would always survive. They were the heroes. But this was no fantasy novel, and I was about to die.

 I shut my eyes, not wanting to look into the face of my murderer.

And then, something happened.

Well, nothing happened exactly, but something changed. It wasn’t even a decision. I got just a little bit angry. A little bit resentful that this was it. This was life, and these were the final curtains. You can’t choose which cards you get dealt in life life, but you sure as hell can bring a lighter and torch them, just because it feels like the thing to do.

My lighter was a foot away. It was a sword with a blue hilt. The spider was three feet from my face.

I lunged for the sword.

My right foot was planted firmly on the ground, and my sword was in my hand, but Lepsi was inches from my face.

I tried to run. I reached with my left foot and came down it hard. Pain exploded through my body. I wavered. For the first time ever, I couldn’t run. It was time to start fighting.

Now what happened next could be chalked up to a number of things. But one thing was certain. I wavered there, unable to see or think, blinded by pain. I teetered one way and then the other and then back. Fate or destiny or just dumb luck decided it in the end.

I fell towards Lepsi, skidding along the ground.

My vision had cleared slightly, and I looked up, the only way I could, really. I was under his belly. I wanted to laugh at the bizarreness of it all, but I did one thing first.

I stabbed, hard, into Ademar Lepsi’s belly.

He roared in shock or  perhaps pain. He convulsed once. He stilled, and then he died without ceremony.

I was crushed under a ginormous dead spider. I finally lost consciousness.

 

Author's Note

Unedited. You know the drill. Please read it anyway. I like this chapter.