VESKA SILMARA's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Veska held the deep-water rod and knew it was only half a tool. The frostpine shaft would not break. The lure would not bend. But the line still worried him. It was thick, yes, thicker than his old frostbark thread. The fis had snapped his last line without slowing. A second strike would snap this one too. He needed something stronger, and he had a day at most before Veyla returned to ask what he had done for the dying water. He left the lake and searched the western edge, where the die-off crept toward his channels. Two grids in, he found the caps collapsed and gray. No spore dust. No smell. The kill was clean and fast, just as before. Then he saw what he did not expect. Strung between two towering mushrooms hung a web of silk, wide as a boat, glowing faint purple. The strands caught the low light and held it. Veska pulled one thread. It did not break. He pulled harder, wrapping it around his fist. The silk cut into his skin before it gave. Stronger than any line he owned. He reached for his blade to cut a length. The web trembled. From behind the far mushroom stepped its maker. The spider was larger than a Frostglider, armored in deep purple, its swollen belly marked with slow green light. Orange hairs bristled along its legs. It moved toward him without sound. Veska froze. His spear tip glowed with fresh toxin. He had one clean throw. The spider gathered its legs to spring. Veska threw. The point took it below the green markings and sank deep. The spider shuddered, curled, and dropped. Its legs folded slow, then stopped. He waited until it did not move. Then he cut long strands from the web and wound them tight around his palm. The silk held his full weight without a sound of strain. "You killed it." Veyla stood among the mushroom stalks, bow slung, spear in hand. She looked at the dead spider, then at the silk on Veska's fist. She said nothing about the die-off around them. "The web will hold the fis," Veska said. "My line won't. This will." Veyla crouched by the collapsed caps. She pressed one with a finger. It crumbled to nothing. "This spider didn't kill the fungi," she said. "Wrong pattern. Something else did." She stood. "You have your line now. Nothing to stop you." Veska looked at the silk, then west, where the gray spread further than he had walked before. He had solved the line. But the killer was still out there, closer to his water than yesterday, and now he had no excuse left to wait. "Then I fish tonight," he said. Veyla turned back into the trees. "Bind it well," she said. "You get one strike."