Their backpacks and equipment arrived a few minutes later, and the eight travellers left immediately without another look back, ignoring the arachnaurs' pleas for understanding and forgiveness. They marched hard, anxious to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the city of webs, continuing to walk long into the night rather than sleep within the spider people's territory, something that none of them would want to do even if it were possible. Thomas knew that any attempt to sleep while the thick, ropy cobwebs hung from the overhead branches would be completely futile, despite the fact that he needed sleep more than ever before in his life, and he doubted that he'd ever be able to look at a spider again without fear and flashbacks. The others, he knew, felt the same way. Even Drake, although the giant priest was straining to put on an act of calmness and confidence. Never thought I'd see a priest of Samnos looking so rattled and shaken, he thought.

     “Guess he's not so different from the rest of us after all,” he said to Patroclus, walking beside him, too low for the priest to overhear.

     “If you think that, then you know nothing about priests of Samnos,” replied the soldier. “He wasn't afraid for himself. He was afraid that he was going to fail in his mission. He was afraid that he was going to die and find himself standing before his God and have to explain that he’d failed the task he’s been given. For a priest of Samnos, there is no greater shame or dishonour.”

     “Plus, he would have failed to protect us,” added Diana. “I admit that I don't know much about his particular faith, but I would imagine that he sees himself as a guardian and protector of the innocent, which means that he sees the rest of us as his personal responsibility.”

     Patroclus said nothing, and the cleric looked across to see the soldier staring out into the darkness around them. “Don’t you think?” she pressed.

     “I expect you're right,” said Patroclus, but he still didn't look at her as he said it.

     “The mission comes first,” said Thomas. “Is that it? The rest of us are expendable?”

     Diana looked shocked and seemed about to deny it, but then she saw the expression on the soldier's face and, even in the gloomy almost darkness, Thomas saw her face go pale. “Is he right?” she asked.

     “With priests of Samnos, it’s all about the big picture,” the soldier finally replied. “They see the fight against evil as encompassing the whole world, the whole universe. The whole multiverse! The fight even extends into the afterlife!” He checked to make sure the priest was still out of earshot before continuing. “They sacrifice whole armies if they think it gains them an advantage in the bigger picture. They've been known to sacrifice whole countries! I'm sure he'll try to protect the rest of us if he can, but if he has to choose between saving one of us and completing the mission…”

     “No, I can't believe that!” protested Diana adamantly. “I've come to know him during our time together. We all have. I don’t believe he could be so, so cold! So callous and calculating! You're wrong about him, I know it!”

     “So why don't you go up and ask him?” suggested the soldier. ”Go get it straight from the horse’s mouth.”

     Diana looked ahead at the priest. He had his face angled upwards as he walked, she saw. It was a pose she recognised, because she did it herself from time to time. He was praying. Speaking to his God in the privacy of his own mind rather than out loud. Samnos would hear him either way. If Patroclus was right, she thought, then he would be praying for guidance. Asking his God whether it was right to drag the civilians into a mission that was, in truth, a purely military undertaking. They had all come of their own free will, it was true, but the priest had put a lot of pressure on them to come along, because he needed them.

     It was possible that all the Shadowsoldiers had been killed by the arachnaurs. Unlikely, but possible. Even if that were the case, though, there was still the dragon to reckon with. Drake still needed their help. One priest and one soldier would have little chance on their own. Add three wizards, a cleric and two good swordsmen, though… Those could make the difference when the crunch came. He needed them. Not just Drake and Patroclus, but possibly Fort Battleaxe as well. Possibly all civilisation. The number of wars whose outcome had hinged on the fortunes of a single city were beyond counting. The saving of Fort Battleaxe might well be all that was required to swing the war in their favour, and even if it wasn't, the finding of the Orb was a worthy end in itself.

     Now, though, the priest would be asking himself, asking his God, whether it was right to deliberately put civilians in danger, to ask them to risk their lives, no matter how great the need. Staring at him, Diana could see the debate going on in his head. She saw, from the set of his shoulders and the way he clenched his fists by his side, that he was furiously weighing their lives on a balance, on the other side of which was the success of his mission. What will he decide? she wondered. Will he stop and turn, tell us the he can’t ask us to come any further with him? Will he try to send us away? What will the others say if he tries to do that?

     Diana herself had pledged to go with him, and that had forced her brothers to come along as well. And that had made the wizards decide to come as well. It's not just Drake, she realised with a shock of guilt. It's me as well! If we'd all died today, it would have been just as much my fault as his! My fault! Oh My Lady, what have I done?

     You did what I required you to do, she imagined her Goddess saying. Didn't I send you a waking visitation, telling Thomas that his family was safe? Didn't I take a hand in placing you in the peril from which you have just escaped, as well as the perils that still lie ahead? There are great events in motion, and the lives of a handful of individuals are a small thing in comparison. The priest of Samnos knows this. See! Even now he comes to a decision.

     Ahead of them, she saw that Drake had stopped praying and was looking ahead of himself once more as he walked. She waited to see If he would turn to say anything to the rest of them, but he did not and Diana’s heart sank with dismay. He had decided that it would be worth six innocent lives to get the Orb to Fort Battleaxe, she saw, because how many innocent lives would be lost if the great fortress city fell? He would continue to ask them to follow him, she saw, and if some or all of them were killed, then he would find a way to live with it.

     There would be many more hard decisions to make throughout his life, she knew, and he would make them with the same grim determination as he made this one, sacrificing as many lives as were necessary for the greater good of civilization. Diana saw the priest straightening up as he walked, and she knew that if she could see his face, she would see a carefully emotionless expression on it. She would see a face that now had a few more lines and creases on it than it had had a few days earlier. A face that would now look more like that of his mentor, Resalintas, than ever.

     Diana put her hand to her silver carol flower and clenched her fist around it, squeezing it so hard that it hurt, and she whispered prayer after prayer to her Goddess as she walked while, around them, the forest continued to grow ever darker as night continued to fall.

☆☆☆

     Eventually, they could go no further. Ropy strands of web still hung from the branches here and there, but they were so tired that if they didn't stop soon they would start collapsing where they stood. They stopped in the next small clearing they came to, therefore. The travellers hurriedly arranged their sleeping blankets, and had no sooner fallen into them than they were asleep.

     It wasn't until nearly midday the next day, when they woke up, that they realised what an incredibly dangerous thing they'd done, going to sleep in his wild and dangerous jungle full of terrible creatures without leaving anyone awake on guard, and they reflected that it might well have been because they were still within the arachnaurs' territory that they were still alive, ironic considering the events of the past couple of days. They all felt much better for it, though, and their nightmare memories were beginning to fade as they continued south. The colour had returned to Jerry's cheeks, and Lirenna had regained some of her customary cheerfulness. Another few days, thought Thomas, and we'll be able to put the whole thing behind us, and good riddance. In fact, considering that a great many, perhaps all, of the Shadowsoldiers had also been caught by the arachnaurs, they might even, one day, be able to look upon the whole unfortunate episode as an extremely fortunate occurrence.

     "We should have asked them how many of the Shads they caught," said the wizard as he thought this. "We were in so much of a hurry to get out that we forgot to ask. Are we still in a race, or what?"

     "We are still in a race," answered Drake. "A race against time. Even if the Shadowsoldiers are out of the game, we still have to get the Orb to Fort Battleaxe as soon as possible. In all likelihood, the city is already under siege."

     "Yes, but if we only knew how many of them the spider people caught..."

     "Fifty two," interrupted Diana with a smug smile. "I didn't forget to ask."

     "Only fifty two?" said Shaun, disappointed. "That means there are forty eight left. Still too many for us. I was hoping they'd have lost more."

     "They lost quite a few ambushing my outfit," said Petronax. "At least a dozen probably, and they're bound to have lost a few more along the way. Even travelling without their distinctive armour, humans travelling in the company of shologs and goblins can't be anything other than Shadowsoldiers. They'll be attacked by every civilized people they meet."

     "So why didn't they send a force composed entirely of humans?" asked Matthew, but the soldier could only shrug.

     "Was the wizard among those who were captured?" asked Thomas.

     "No," answered Diana. "He got away, killing dozens of the spider people with firebolts and blasts of icy cold."

     "Good," said Petronax coldly, surprising the others. "He's mine. He killed a lot of my friends in that ambush, good friends that I'd known for years. The next time we meet, I'm going to have him."

     "He'll have you, more likely," said Thomas. "When a soldier and a wizard meet on equal terms, the soldier's history. You wouldn't stand a chance."

     "Then I'll make sure we don't meet on equal terms. If he can ambush us, I can ambush him. I'll have his head before he can cast a single spell."

     "We've got to catch them first," said Drake. "They're ahead of us again, by two days, and they still outnumber us, even if not by as much. And don't forget the dragon."

     "As if we could," muttered Matthew. Thomas agreed. Now that their ordeal with the arachnaurs was behind them, they were beginning to remember their other problems. In a few days time, they might just be wishing that they were back in the hands of the spider people, facing a quick and fairly painless death. Being dissolved by poison wasn't pleasant, but if it was a choice between that and being burned alive by dragonfire, the wizard knew what his choice would be.

☆☆☆

     It took them another ten days to reach the southern edge of the forest. They saw the trees thinning ahead of them, with glimmers of sunshine visible between the lush undergrowth and the vine and creeper covered tree trunks, and a few dozen yards further on they found themselves on the edge of a strip of prairie that ran between the trees and the mountains that towered in front of them. The border between grass and mountains looked sharp and abrupt from their vantage point, as if the mountains had erupted out of the ground in some vast, sudden cataclysm untold ages in the past.

     This part of the Red Mountains were relatively low, with rounded peaks and shallow slopes largely covered with vegetation, and Thomas remembered from his geology classes back in his apprentice days that they were the remnants of a vast range that had once stretched across the continent, millions of years in the past. For long ages the remnant had stood alone, surrounded by thousands of miles of swamp and jungle, but then another range of mountains had risen behind them, mile upon vertical mile of hot volcanic ash building up across thousands of miles as the fires of the world's core had reached a new heat. A vast plateau of lava and pumice had been formed, but the compacted ash was soft and crumbly and had been eroded away by wind and rain almost as fast as it was laid down, carving out a system of valleys and ridges between the vast, smouldering calderas.

     He remembered his amusement when he'd read that the first human explorers returning from this part of the world had called them the ash mountains, and that the map makers of old Garon, translating back into their own language and knowing almost nothing of the true nature of this range, had mistakenly called them the Red Mountains, the words for red and ash being almost identical in the language of the explorers. They'd been called the Red Mountains ever since, including the ancient remnant which was not volcanic in any way, or at least Thomas hoped not.