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Dominant Species
Issue #4
by Tom Zjaba
Chapter Six
The Queen City
After many days of traveling by foot, they are nearing the Queen City. They do
not know what to expect but they hope the queen can help them. They have heard
she is a tyrant, but they are hoping that she will show some mercy on them and
help them with their quest. But little do they know what is waiting for them in
the Queen City. As they near the city that was once known as Cincinnati, they
begin to see small towns. They are very small houses all huddled together with
farmland. Each little village has about seven to eight tiny houses, what appears
to be a chicken coop, a small vegetable garden and then large fields full with
cows and sheep grazing. As they look around, all the people are busy working.
Some are gardening, some are feeding the chickens, some are out watching the
fields. In the fields are men with long spears. There are groups of four men,
patrolling each area. With all the creatures that would want to eat their cows
and sheep, it makes sense to have all the security. The guards are all wearing
nice clothing and look very healthy. The townspeople on the other hand look
tired and a bit on the thin side. The chief goes over to one of the townsmen and
tries talking to him. "Excuse me, but which way to the Queen City?" The man just
looks at him like he is crazy and points. He then goes back to his work and
ignores the group. Some of the guards notice them. A few point out towards them.
But before they have a chance to do anything, a great roar is heard. The roar is
one that is unmistakable. It is the roar of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and he is
hungry. Some of the trees bend as the mighty beast emerges from the woods and
charges towards the cows. The men take a flask out and pours some liquid on the
tips of their spears. Then they run over and engage the beast. The T-Rex sees
them coming and roars at the incoming guards. But he is quickly confused as four
come from one side and four come from another side. The men line up four on each
side and one of them raises his hand and signals. In an instant, all eight of
them lunge forward and drive their spears into the sides of the T-Rex. While not
all spears hit their mark, most of them do. Blood begins to ooze out of the
T-Rex as he reaches over with his mouth and tries to pull the spears out. They
all then back up and watch the creature as it writhes in pain. Within a few
seconds, it falls to the ground and begins to spit up blood. It shakes
uncontrollably and writhes around, breaking a few of the spears off. Then it
stiffens up and stops moving altogether. They slowly move closer to it and make
sure it is dead. Then they try to retrieve whatever spears were not broken. All
but two of the spears are pulled from the beast.
Reluctantly, the chief and the rest move over to talk to the guards. The guards
are busy wiping off their spears when the men approach. "Great job! You guys
really work as a unit." he says to the guards. They give him a strange look.
They do not see too many visitors in this area. The stories of the queen are
enough to scare off most people. One of the guards responds "What do you want
here?" Once again, the chief takes charge of talking for the group "We are here
to see the queen." All the guards begin to laugh. After a few minutes of
laughing, the same guards replies "Why do you want to see the queen?" The chief
answers "We are on an important quest and hope she can give us some aid." They
all laugh again, this time even louder. The guard then regains his composure and
questions "You do not know about the queen, do you?" The chief responds "I have
heard she can be a bit of a tyrant." The guards all laugh out loud again. The
same guard then points and says "The queen city is that way. You will find her
inside or she may find you." They all start laughing again as they walk away.
The group is unsure what they mean but they came this far and intend on going to
the Queen City.
So they walk down the path and see more small villages. Just like the other
ones, there are fields with cows and sheep and men guarding the animals. The
people in the village are thin and look ragged. They are quiet and ignore the
men as they walk past. They have work to do and know they must do it. Even the
children work hard. They can be seen carrying buckets of water or feeding the
chickens. None of the children are playing or having fun. The chief finds this
odd. He knows life is hard, but the children in his village play. They have
learned to keep an eye out and not to stray too far from camp, but they do have
fun. Games like tag and pretend sword fights not only are fun, but also help
develop skills they will use later in life. And the whole village will go watch
the men play basketball on the old courts. Chief taught the men how to play and
when the moon is full, they go out and play. They do not know all the rules but
they have a good grasp of the basics. Luckily there are enough balls laying
around in the old stores as well as pumps to put air in them.
As the Queen City looms in the horizon, they see what looks like ropes strung
between the buildings. They are interwove into different designs and from a
distance, they look quite nice. "Wonder what those ropes are for?" Howlingmad
asks. Chief takes a good look and says "Not sure. Maybe the people live above
ground for safety." Bearslayer then joins the conversation "You would think a
city with so many skilled guards would not need to live above ground." That
worried everyone, but it did not stop their journey. As they got closer to the
city, they could see there were things stuck in the ropes. At first they looked
like dark lumps. But as they neared the city, they could see the head of a cow
sticking out of the ropes. It looked like the cow was wrapped up in the ropes.
Howlingmad once again asked the first question "Why do you think they would tie
a cow up there?" The chief once again fielded the question. He was only guessing
but he figured he had to do something to calm the men down. "Probably a way to
keep the meat safe from scavengers." No one really believed it but they did not
have a better explanation.
When they reached the front gate, there were two guards standing there. There
was a large wall that surrounded the city. The gate was large and made of steel.
It had bars on it, so they could look inside. Like the other guards, they also
carried large spears. The chief stopped to talk to them. He figured they would
want to search them and possibly confiscate their weapons. But as he went up and
began to speak, one of the guards said "Go on through." The chief stopped and
asked "Aren't you going to search us or take our weapons?" The guard laughed and
said "We are only here to keep people from leaving." The chief was surprised by
this answer and asked another question "Aren't you worried that we may hurt the
queen?" Both guards broke out laughing. When they finally stopped laughing, one
of them looked at the Chief and said "You really don't know anything about the
queen do you?" This made all the men nervous. Chief then asked "What should we
know about the queen?" The guard just smiled and said "You will find out soon
enough." With that, the guards opened the large gate and allowed the group to
enter. Eightdigit then asked the chief "Maybe we should just send Derrick." The
chief got angered and said "We came this far to see the queen and we are all
going to see the queen." They rarely seen the chief angry and this was enough to
keep anyone else from questioning his decision. So they all walked into the city
together. As they walked around the city, they realized it was very empty. The
streets were void of any life. They looked up at the buildings and saw those
familiar ropes stretched between the buildings. The ropes were weaved back and
forth across the buildings. Sometimes it was in a circular pattern. The ropes
were mostly white in color and looked very thick. Periodically, they would see
what looked like a cocoon. It would be in the ropes and the rope was tightly
wrapped around like a mummy. There was one that was low enough to reach.
Howlingmad went over to the building and started climbing up it. As he neared
the lump, he reached up with a knife and cut into the rope. It took a little
work to cut through the thick material. But he was able to get through it. Once
he cut through it, the lump fell to the ground. The men all circled the lump
that was over five feet in length. Howlingmad jumped down and used the knife to
cut away at the ropes. As he did this, they discovered something shocking.
Inside the tightly wound ropes was a body. It was the body of a human. They were
all pale and obviously dead. Suddenly it hit the chief like a bolt of lightning.
These weren't ropes, these were spider webs. Very large spider webs. And the
queen wasn't a person, she was a spider. The more he thought about it, the more
worried he became. Those guards were using poison on their spears. Poison most
likely provided by the queen spider. And the cattle and sheep were not for the
people, they were for the spider. No wonder the people looked so thin, despite
all the food. And now they were trapped in a city with a giant spider. The chief
decided to share this with the group "Men, these ropes are actually spider webs.
The queen is not a human but a giant spider. And we are trapped in her web." The
look on the men's faces was one of pure terror. By the size of the webs, she
must be one enormous spider.
As the men looked up in fear, they did not see a figure in the shadows. It
wasn't until they heard a voice, did they realize someone else was there.
"Quick, over here." They looked around to see where the voice came from. A man
stepped out of the shadows and motioned for them to follow him. While the
thought of blindly following a stranger was worrisome, the greater fear of the
queen spider was enough for them to cast doubt aside and follow him. He went
into a nearby building and down a set of stairs. As they reached the bottom of
the stairs, he ran down towards a door at the far end. There was light coming
out of door and it guided them like a beacon in the night. Otherwise, the
basement of this building was dark and damp. Electricity was long gone in most
of the world. Rumors spread that a few towns had electricity, ones near
waterfalls or other places where hydro-power could be harnessed. They also heard
of some towns that harnessed the power of the sun or wind power, but none of it
could be confirmed. As they entered the room, they saw something they had never
seen before. Propped up on a table in the middle of the room was a sword. But it
was not just an ordinary sword, it was a glowing sword. It gave off a strong
light that filled the whole room as if they were outside on a sunny day. In the
room were three women and a man. All were sitting against the walls. There was
bones scattered around the room and the room smelled of garbage. All the people
were dirty and their clothes were ripped and had stains on them. The man smiled
and said "Hello! My name is James Three and this is Matthew, Sarah, Mary and
Donna." Chief shook his hand and said "Just call me Chief and this is
Bearslayer, Howlingmad, Eightdigit, Spearfisher and Derrick." James smiled and
said "Cool names, where did you get them?" Chief then explained how they
acquired their names. James told him how they just picked names out of old books
they found in the ruins. He then asked him "Why are you called James Three?" The
man smiled and said "I am actually James the third as I was named after my
father who was named after his father, but I thought James Three sounded
better." The chief then asked "Why are you in the city and why hasn't the spider
gotten you yet?" James laughed and said "We came here when our village was
overrun by orcs. There was ten of us that came here looking for help. Little did
we know that we would end up as food for the spiders." This perked up the
chief's ears as he asked "Spiders? You mean there is more than one?" James
laughed as he said "You must have just gotten into the city. There are dozens of
spiders living in here. The queen is the biggest and the rest are her children."
The chief was very nervous now. "Is there a way out of the city or do we have to
live the rest of our lives hiding from giant spiders?" James looked at him with
a worried look and said "The only way we can see is the front gate. But the
guards keep it locked and have poisonous spears." Bearslayer then jumped into
the conversation "But the guards are standing in front of a gate with openings,
so why can't we just shoot them through the gate?" James jumped in and said "You
could, but the gate would still be locked." Bearslayer thought for a second and
then replied "But if we wait for them to open the gate and then attack, we could
get out." James did not have a quick response to this. He had to think about it.
After a minute of thinking, he said "They do bring in the cows and sheep once a
week. It is always the same day, so if we waited to that day, we would have a
chance." Chief jumped in "There are more than enough of us to overcome the
guards. They foolishly left us with our weapons, so it should be no problem."
Derrick who had been silent spoke up "What day do they bring the cows?" James
replied "It will be in two days." Bearslayer then said "We only have to stay
alive for two days." James replied "As long as we stay down here, we are safe.
The spiders are too big to get into the buildings."
That night the group cooked up what meat was left from the cow they stole from
the spiders. The meat was stored in an old refrigerator. The refrigerator did
not work, but it did help keep the meat better than being out in the open. The
men were eating the food and talking with the girls. The Chief and James were
off in a different room. The chief was asking James about his old settlement.
"What city did you come from?" James looked at him as he chewed on his cow ribs
and said "The city's old name was Dayton or at least that is what we figured out
from the ruins." Chief thinks about the name. He has heard of Dayton, even if he
has never visited there. "So tell me about Dayton?" the chief asks. James smiles
a bit and says "We had a good life there. The worst creatures we had to deal
with were Dire Wolves and the occasional troll." Chief then asks "How many
people lived there?" After he finished with the rib, he tossed it aside and
answered "There was a good hundred people. We were pretty strong in numbers."
This prompted the Chief to ask another question "What happened to you? Couldn't
you fight off the orcs?" James lowers his head and sadness envelops his face
"There were always orcs living near us, but their numbers were small. We never
thought of them as a real threat. But then one day, there were hundreds of them.
It was like an army just showed up and attacked us." Chief puts his hand on
James' shoulder to try and comfort him. "There have been reports of the orcs
assembling into large armies and attacking human settlements." James looks up
and tries to hold back the tears "We never heard anything. We were isolated from
the rest of the humans." Chief keeps trying to comfort him and says "When we get
out of here, head north to Cleveland and you can join with my tribe. Give them
this to let them know we sent you." He then takes a necklace he was wearing and
hands it to James. The necklace is simple in design, with some bones surrounding
a ring that is in the middle of the necklace. The ring is the Chief's old high
school ring. It will let the tribe know he is safe and that he sent them.
The next day they decide to rummage through some of the buildings, looking for
supplies. James warns them about leaving the area, but when they insist, he
offers to lead them. The chief always has an interest in artifacts and likes to
see what he can find. In a city like this where there is no humans living there,
it should not be too picked over. One problem with many of the cities is that
they have been raided by orcs, goblins or other humanoid creatures. They tend to
take all the weapons and canned food and destroy everything else. If they do not
know what it is, they fear it. It is not uncommon to see rows of smashed
televisions, radios and computers in stores that they have raided. They believe
if they destroy these items, the humans cannot use them to gain an advantage
over them. As they looked through the buildings, they heard a strange noise. It
was a shrill voice that rang out through the city. It did not sound completely
human but it was close. The voice said "Help me, I am hurt." Eightdigit looked
at the others and said "Should we see if we can help?" James looked at him and
said "It's a trap. That is the queen spider. She can mimic a human's voice but
as you see, it is not very good." Eightdigit was not completely convinced "Are
you sure? Shouldn't we at least check?" James motioned for them to come near the
window. He motioned for all of them to stay low "We don't want them to know
where we are." After a few minutes, they saw a giant spider walk past the
building. It was a good twenty feet tall and covered in hair like a tarantula.
It was black in color and had hundreds of red eyes that were looking around. It
walked slowly past the building and was very quiet. They were amazed at how
little sound it made as it walked, especially being such a big creature. After a
few minutes, it passed the building and disappeared. "They know you are here.
This will make tomorrow more complicated as they will be looking for us." he
says in a hushed voice. "Is it safe to move?" Bearslayer asked. "Best to wait a
few minutes. They tend to come in pairs." James said. And sure enough, within a
minute, another spider walked past the building. It was slightly larger but just
as quiet. This one did stop in front of the building and turn towards it. It
peered into the darkness and searched for anything. While it was looking,
everyone stopped moving and remained motionless. A few of the men were even
afraid to breath. After what seemed like an eternity, the spider turned and
walked away. A sigh of relief came over the men. James motioned for them to
follow him and they slowly returned to their hideout.
The next day they prepared to make an attack and try getting out of the city.
They would try to get as close to the main gate as possible. Once the guards
opened the door, Bearslayer would shoot them with his arrows and they would rush
out before the other guards could be notified. All they needed was for the
spiders to not find them first and they would be fine. The sun was nearing the
noon day level, the time the farmers usually brought in the animals to be
sacrificed that week. Most of the time, they brought a few cows or sheep. But
sometimes they would bring wild animals they caught or people who stumbled into
the area. The farmers knew as long as they kept the spiders fed, they would be
protected. It meant living on chickens and vegetables they raised and it often
meant not having enough to eat. But the thought of being out in the dangerous
world was scarier. At least here they could sleep peacefully as the guards
watched over the area. With their poisonous spears, they could take down just
about any creature that wandered too close.
As they moved closer to the gate, they saw the same two guards. They had their
backs turned to the city and were waiting for the villagers to bring the
animals. There was a building that was only fifty yards from the main gate. They
quietly hid in the building among the ruin and waited. Bearslayer pulled out an
arrow and readied it. He knew he had to get both shots off quickly and had to
hit with both of them. He would only get one chance and had to make it happen.
So he checked his arrows and made sure they were straight. He held them up to
his eye and did a visual check on the shafts. A slight bow in the wood could
mean the difference of a hit or miss. He also needed to make sure to kill with
the arrow and not just wound. The last thing he wanted to do was have them alert
the other guards. He noticed the horn around their necks that he was sure was
used to sound out an alarm. The thought of having guards coming from the front
and giant spiders from the rear was enough to scare him. So they waited
patiently for the villagers.
An hour passed with no sign of the villagers. They were all getting antsy and
tried hard to keep their movements to a minimum. Then out of the blue came a
wagon. Inside the wagon was four sheep all bleating loudly. They could sense the
danger and did not want to go into the city. But they were caged in the wagon
and had no say in the matter. So all they could do is bleat loudly. As the
villagers pulled up, the guards went over and examined the wagon. "Looks like
they are having mutton this week." he said to the villagers. They just nodded.
Most of them were scared of the guards and spoke very little. They did not want
to do anything to upset the guards and figured it was best to keep quiet and
just nod in agreement. The guards then unlocked the gate and slowly pushed it
open. Once it was fully open, the wagon went through. Before they could close
it, Bearslayer shot his first arrow. It flew quickly and struck the nearest
guard in the throat. He clutched at his throat and tried to pull the arrow out
but soon the lack of oxygen dropped him to his knees and he gasped for air.
Before the other guy could do anything, an arrow shot through the air and hit
him square in the chest. The arrow went between the ribs and struck him in the
heart. He fell back and within seconds, he was dead. This was their cue to run.
Everyone rose from their hiding places and started to run towards the gate. The
men had to help the women as they were weak. As they neared the gate, they saw
that both guards were dead. This was working out exactly as planned. They were
now within thirty yards of the main gate when their worst fear was realized.
Dropping from a web up above, the queen spider dropped right in front of them.
She was only about ten yards away from them and it made everyone jump back a
step. Here was this fifty foot tall spider right in their path. "So quick to
leave." she said in her strange voice. They did not know what to do. If they ran
back, they would be stuck in the city forever. But to fight such a monster was
pure suicide. "There no escape." she as she tried to scare them into running.
Bearslayer then pulled an arrow from his quiver and loaded it. Before she could
react, he shot the arrow right into her eyes. Like his previous shots, it hit
the mark and she screamed out. A horrible sound could be heard throughout the
city. Within seconds, they heard the scurrying of feet and they knew the rest of
the spiders were on their way. Bearslayer quickly loaded another arrow and shot
it into another of her eyes. Blood began to pour out of her eyes and she started
running towards the group. They all scattered, knowing she could not take them
all down. She made a straight path towards Bearslayer as he was the one who hurt
her. But before she could catch him, he sent another arrow into her eyes. This
one stunned her for a moment. The pain was getting greater and started to affect
her. She then shot a stream of webbing towards Bearslayer. While most of it
missed him as her aim was off with the multiple arrows in her eyes, some of it
covered his feet. He tried to move but fell down. She moved closer to him as she
said "You will suffer for the pain you caused me." While on his back, he quickly
loaded another arrow into the bow and shot it once again into her eyes. Once
again she was momentarily stunned. This gave him enough time to load another
arrow and send one more into her eyes. Blood was streaming from the wounds and
blinding her. She kept moving forward but could not see anything. Before she
reached him, Howlingmad ran over and cut him loose. Then James ran over to the
queen spider and pulled the glowing sword out. He had a special sheath for the
sword that was not affected by its power. He ran under the spider and stabbed
the glowing sword into her abdomen. He then ran down the length of her with the
sword jammed into her stomach and cut her wide open. As they quickly realized,
the sword was magical in power and easily sliced through the giant beast. While
he was slicing her wide open, Bearslayer sent another arrow into her eyes. At
the same time, Eightdigit began hacking away at her legs with his axe.
Spearfisher was standing on the other side, stabbing another of her legs with
his spear. The creature was being torn apart from all sides and the loss of
blood and multiple wounds were taking its toll. She began to teeter as her body
became weaker. Soon her legs gave out and she fell over with a loud crash. She
rolled onto her back and her legs were kicking out as she fought to keep alive.
While death slowly came to claim her, they rushed towards the gate as fast as
they could. They knew they had mere moments before her children would come
looking for revenge. As they looked behind them, they saw the rest of the
spiders were coming. Some were scurrying along the ground and others were moving
through the webs. They knew they only had a few minutes to get out of the city
before they were overwhelmed by the spiders. So they ran as fast as they could
to the gate and as soon as they were through it, Bearslayer, Howlingmad and the
Chief pushed the gate shut and grabbed the keys from the dead guards and locked
them. As soon as they locked the gate, the spiders came up and pushed on it.
Their massive frames pushed the gates back but they held. But now they were
climbing up the webs and headed out of the city. This made the group quicken
their pace as they ran down the road that led to the city. As they were running
away, the spiders were coming over the top of the walls and climbing down.
As the group was running away, they saw a wagon coming down the road. They
quickly pushed the driver out of the seat and all loaded up into the wagon.
Howlingmad cut loose the cows that were being pulled. The driver was stunned but
as soon as he saw the spiders coming, he ran for the woods. The horses reared up
as they saw the spiders, but Spearfisher and the Chief were able to maintain
control of the horse and quickly turned them around. They then spurred the
horses to run as fast as they could, which was a pretty easy feat. As they raced
down the road, they saw some of the guards up ahead. They must have heard all
the commotion and were coming to see what was going on. The wagon was going too
fast and just raced past them. They may have tried to stop the wagon if it was
not for the dozen spiders that were coming behind it. At first they stood there
stunned. They did not know what to do. They always worked to protect the
spiders. Surely the spiders would not attack them. They did not even know why
they were out. But as soon as the spiders were upon them, they found out that
the spider's wrath was against all humans, not just the ones that killer their
mother. The guards were overwhelmed and soon they also went after the villagers.
With so many people running around, the spiders were kept quite busy. This gave
the group a chance to get away and soon the village and all the sounds of death
and destruction were behind them. The sounds of screaming soon faded into the
forest. But this did not stop them from continuing at their breakneck speed.
After an hour, they were forced to slow their speed. The horses were very tired
and if they did not slow down, they would kill them. They came up to a river and
decided it was a good place to stop. Hopefully the spiders quit the chase and
went back to the city. As they stopped there, they unhooked the horses and let
them get some water. Everyone got out of the wagon and stretched their legs.
James and the Chief started talking. "Follow this river north and you should run
into a lake. Our home is along the lake." the Chief said. James smiled and said
"Thank you." Chief shook his hand and said "Take the horses and wagon with you."
James once again said "Thank you." He then reached over his shoulder and pulled
out the glowing sword. he walked over to Howlingmad and said "I will trade this
for your sword." Howlingmad smiled and took it. He then handed his samurai sword
to James. James smiled and said "I think you will need that magical sword more
on your journey." The chief then motioned for all the men to follow him and they
started walking down the river.
Dominant Species
© Tom Zjaba 2006
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