Tallah

“Red light helps plants grow,” Vergil mused. “I asked on the Gloria when I broke into a garden by mistake. They used spotlights for it. Huh. Wonder what technology the angels here had.”

“Fancy that. More riddles for us to never solve.”

She pressed a hand to the back of his neck, and he recoiled from it. “Relax.” Sil grabbed his shoulder and then softly touched the area around the binding stud. “This is rather cool. Tallah’s close by.”

“Should we call out?”

“I’d rather we try and move out of this place. Erisa may be coming back soon. I don’t know what spooked her, and I’d rather not find out.” She laughed. “Also, I wouldn’t call to Tallah if she’s in her mood at the moment. I don’t think you want to test how your armour handles a fireball if she fires on you by mistake.”

In the ruby light the forest had turned ominous. Every rustle sounded louder. The shadows were darker and hid more of the way forward even as Vergil tried cutting a wide enough path for Sil not to struggle.

“Give me your helmet. You’re better off without it in this heat.”

“What for?” It was terribly warm, and his brow sweated under the metal dome. It hadn’t yet occurred to him to take the thing off.

“I need a weapon and you only have one sword. Whatever wood I’ve seen here is too soft for a proper staff. The helmet will do.”

“…how?”

He was loath to part with the thing but having it off was more comfortable. Anxiety needled the back of his head. Imagination provided giant spiders in the canopy above, just ready to drop down and bite the top of his skull off. His scalp itched.

Sil stuffed the helmet with dirt and leaves, packing it tight as she made it into a strangely shaped gauntlet.

“It’ll need to do.” She hefted it and threw an experimental punch. “Not going to be much use, but better than my bare hands for now.”

“That’s how you’re going to use it as a weapon?” He stifled a laugh.

“Mock me again, boy, and I’m going to punch you straight in the teeth. You tell me afterwards if this still amuses you.” She aimed the horns straight at his face.

“You never struck me as someone willing to get physical, that’s all. Especially not with a helmet for a gauntlet.”

He hacked at a particularly stubborn fern and revealed a crowded way forward, thorny vines making progress difficult. If this was a garden, it had escaped any control a long time ago and had grown into a trap. The deeper they went, the more difficult the path became.

“Live and learn,” Sil replied. “Me and this helmet have a history together, and I’m more than happy to use the Hammer as a hammer.”

Vergil stopped and, for the hundredth time by his estimate, wiped the sweat off his face. Every bit of his clothing was drenched, and he felt lightheaded with thirst. Sil wandered around the small area that could be explored without more cutting needed and inspected in turn the large leaves of various shrubs.

“Why is it so dense here if there aren’t any proper trees for these things to cling to?”

“I’m dead curious to know how they got so much greenery to grow underground, and so lush too.” Sil yanked on a vine that stretched like a web between a variety of plants and made a knot of it. “Cut here, where it bends.”

Clear sap oozed out of the cut, looking like blood in the light. Sil sniffed it, tasted it tentatively, then sucked on one of the cut ends.

“You can drink this.” She handed the second part to him. “Don’t drink more than your thirst needs, otherwise you’ll piss yourself without even knowing.”

He hesitated and grimaced at the ooze covering his hands but ultimately did as instructed. The sap was lukewarm and sweet. It helped him gain a measure of his strength back. Once begun, it was hard to stop drinking.

“How do you know it’s safe for us?” The thought came a bit late, after he felt quenched.

“My parents were trying to grow this as a house plant to help with irrigation in their garden. Mouse’s ladder, it’s called. The sap has a couple of alchemical uses as a reagent, but it’s safe to drink. Too much and it becomes a powerful diuretic. In our case, dehydration will be an issue soon. We’ve both lost blood and vomited most of our last meal.”

“Live and learn, indeed,” Vergil replied and dropped the cut creeper.

“Let me know if your pee turns bloody,” Sil said. “I won’t be able to help you, but I can at least take the sword to your throat, so you won’t suffer too much.”

Vergil froze before striking the forest wall again, thought for a second, relaxed and continued with his task. Death by red poison or death by black spider was death all the same. He found a certain peace in that.

Then the leaf he was about to cut attacked him.

A bristly spider, large as his head, launched itself off the leaf. It had been perfectly invisible. It struck Vergil in the chest like an angry ball of eyes and too many legs. He toppled over, surprised, and the spider scrambled off him in a mad dash, making for Sil.

She screamed.

Vergil rolled off his back just in time to see the creature leaping at her, eight legs outstretched as if ready for an embrace. It would’ve hit her in the face. Sil ducked back and shot her armoured fist forward with speed that, for a heartbeat, shocked him. She smashed the spider down into the earth and kicked it away before it had a chance to ball up from the first impact.

It rolled through the air, landed on all eight, and was back on the attack like nothing had happened. It deftly avoided Vergil stabbing down at it, rushed past between his feet and straight back at Sil. She had her makeshift cestus up and ready to defend herself, but it did not leap again. Instead, it tried to go for her feet, leap at her calf and climb up. She dodged and stamped down, trying to keep the thing off.

“Determined bugger. Get off!” Sil cussed as she stumbled over vines and almost went down on her back.

Vergil rushed to her aid and kicked the angry thing off just as it grabbed hold of her leg. It rolled through the air, balled up, landed again on its feet and attacked. He’d never seen anything more desperate.

It was too nimble and too fast, dodging both his stamping feet and the tip of his sword. Two quick lateral jumps, one back, and it launched itself again, legs tucked in mid-flight, right by his head for Sil. She was struggling back to her feet.

Vergil spun. Sil screamed and fell, her arms flailing as she tried to back up and defend her face all at once.

Luck made its first appearance of the day. The spider struck a vine when splaying out its legs, spun in the air, and Sil caught it with a swing of the cestus by pure happenstance. She sent it smashing against the trunk of a tree. Two legs snapped with a sickening crunch.

Vergil jumped over creepers and vines and brought the point of his sword down to impale it before it gained back its senses.

It screamed just as his sword came down. “Stop! Please stop!”

The sound was like a lance of noise that shot straight through Vergil’s skull. His strike missed as he dropped the sword and tried to cover his ears. It was louder than thunder, and hands over ears did nothing against the sound.

“We do not mean harm. We do not want harm. We need help. Please do not harm We.” It droned on as it tried squirming into a ball. “Please help We.”

“It talks,” Vergil shouted, chancing a glance at Sil. “What do I do?” Even at the top of his lungs, his voice was small against its screaming.

“Make it shut up!” Sil shouted back, hands covering her ears, cringing in pain. Her mangled arm couldn’t lift high enough.

The noise cut off with a soft sigh.

“Do not harm We,” the spider pleaded again, its voice a rough whisper now. “You must help We. We are… We are last survivor. All others are lost.”

Vergil hesitated above the creature, sword in hand, unable to bring himself to crush or cut it down. Sil came to stand next to him, cestus held up defensively.

“First, she tells us her story. Then she tries to kill you. Then she runs away. And now this.” Sil shook her head. Her breathing was ragged, and she bled through her bandages. “I’m losing the threads of this plot.”

The spider perked up immediately and opened its legs, tentatively peeking at them.

“The false mother hears all but We. We are not of the false mother. We are hatched of We. We do not love the false mother.”