The story so far…

Three Savage Land races – the croca’dyla, the arachni’adna and the aeria’akah – have been visited by the tragedy of cold-blooded murder. A mysterious man in a green cloak has visited each of the clans and, revealing himself as a blind visionary marked by each tribe’s god in turn, has declared the perpetrator of these crimes to be a female with red hair clad in animal furs… a description obviously fitting Shanna The She-Devil!

Shanna herself is presently acting as a grudging guardian to a man named Benjamin Clements, an outsider to the Savage Land who is having second thoughts about trying to stake a new life in this hostile, tropical wilderness. Shanna and Ben have survived an attack by the croca’dyla largely due to the intervention of Prince Iliago of the aeria’akah – an individual who once, ill-advisedly, kidnapped and imprisoned Shanna in an attempt to force her to be his breeding mate. Shanna taught Iliago the error of his ways back then, but now is forced to side with him in the present as she, Iliago and Ben are attacked by a horde of scuttling arachni on a narrow, rocky outcrop, high on a mountainside with seemingly no chance for escape…

And now, the adventure continues!

Shanna The She-Devil was quick, her speed, agility and reflexes considerably enhanced after numerous years’ residence in the Savage Land, but the arachni’adna were quicker still. Based on alacrity of movement alone, Shanna was at a severe disadvantage and couldn’t have hoped to last more than a minute or two before being tangled in coils of steely silk, or worse, bitten. Fortunately she was superior to her foes in one other, significant respect: she was one hell of a lot smarter than them. The Spider People were as vicious as they were gruesome, bordering on the sadistic, but they were blinded by their own blood lust and they believed their opponents to be possessed of similar tunnel vision. One thing they hated was a cunning adversary who was adept at misdirection…

“Come on then, beasts of nightmare!” Shanna roared, making an almighty show of bravado that barely stopped short of her beating her chest like a gorilla. “Here I am, an unarmed, helpless human female… who just happens to have torn your disgusting chief warrior’s heart out through her gut. I hear that stout-bellied Queen Heri’dii of yours cannibalizes the males of your species when they reach a certain age, leaving you females to swell her nest. If you ask me she’s got a taste for the wrong gender entirely!”

The arachni shrieked, so easy to rile, and scuttled forward in a black tide of legs and mandibles – which was just what Shanna wanted. She’d already taken an instant to gauge the exact lie of the rocky outcrop where she’d been cornered by her adversaries, and one precious treasure in particular had caught her eye. Recent events had left her weaponless, but now there was a chance to rectify that…

Shifting her weight into her left hip as she talked, drawing the attention of the arachni’adna to that side, she suddenly threw herself to her opposite flank, spread-eagled, diving forwards and rolling to the side in one lithe movement even as the startled spider-women in that vicinity crashed into one another in their haste to claim a righteous kill.

Shanna skidded to her feet at the extreme edge of the precipice, holding her espied treasure in her fist. It was a steel crescent, gleaming along its inner edge in the sunlight but otherwise dark with Shanna’s own blood: the hook that King Frajk of the vengeful croca’dyla had snared her with earlier, down in the depths of the rainforest, before she’d been carried aloft to this high peak by an unanticipated ally, the aerian Iliago. Shanna didn’t know where Prince Iliago was now – perhaps he’d already been torn apart by the arachni and his poisoned corpse cast from the outcrop, or perhaps the coward had taken flight and left her behind – but the bird-man had removed the dyla hook and healed Shanna’s wound with the oil of jujasi leaves in the minutes before the arachni had attacked.

Now Shanna held that same hook aloft, and smiled grimly.

“No longer unarmed then,” she snarled, her amber eyes now feral. “And, believe me… never helpless.”

The arachni surged forward once more and this time Shanna met them more-or-less head on, although her deft use of feints and counter-balance – moving with the drifting elegance of a gymnastic dancer, interspersed with more powerful thrusts of pure savagery – compensated for her inferior speed. She cut and slashed with her hook, expertly adjusting the flex of her wrist and palm to the weapon’s shape and weight, and aiming always for the spider-women’s multiple eyes or their weakest point, their soft underbellies.

She slew three of the beasts in as many minutes, slithering past their defenses with courage and dexterity and maintaining her equilibrium even as her adversaries stumbled at the edge of the outcrop, where she led them with every step. She was a whirling dervish, and her raw strength, as ever, was unexpected considering her slender build.

In that brief time she was beautiful and terrible, a scintillating, instinctive killing machine.

But it was never going to be enough.

The air misted with strands of silk, and it wasn’t long before Shanna found herself encumbered beyond her capacity to duck and thrust. Her legs tangled, her balance askew. She was momentarily upended. In that moment she knew her brief rebellion was done and that the superior numbers and swiftness of the arachni’adna had achieved their inevitable victory. Still, she wasn’t about to just give in and accept her fate…

Shanna wriggled past the toxic spit of fangs clacking at her throat and breasts, raising her hook for one last, desperate flurry. In that moment, both parties were taken by surprise – for, forgotten in the melee, Shanna’s companion Benjamin Clements had yet to suffer any injury worse than near-suffocation beneath a horde of hairy legs and swollen abdomens and the understandable phobia of spiders that this would provoke in him forevermore.

“Over here!” Ben cried, rushing forward. He was waving a branch in his hands, torn from the nearby jujasi tree, and his attention was focused on the arachni bringing Shanna down with their webs – so much so that when he reached the rim of the precipice, the first thing he knew about it was the notion of no longer having the luxury of solid ground beneath his feet.

“Ben, be careful!” Shanna bellowed. “The edge—”

But it was too late. Ben tipped, and screamed…

…and then vanished, plummeting over the crag into the misty abyss that yawned out below.

WAR OF THE CLANS

Part III: Shanna and the Arachnid’s Bite

By Meriades Rai

Ben tipped, and screamed, and then vanished, plummeting over the crag into the misty abyss that yawned out below.

Shanna cursed and her heart leapt in her throat. Ah well, she thought to herself, with an unfamiliar sense of defeat. At the very least it’s a better ending than whatever the arachni have planned for us…

And with that she wrenched free of her enemies’ grasp and threw herself backwards over the precipice in Ben’s wake.

The arachni’adna were stunned. But what they didn’t know was that Shanna The She-Devil was no quitter, and certainly not a warrior given to suicidal urges. She’d glimpsed something from the corner of her eye, the barest smidgeon of hope, and that was enough for her to take the plunge into the void and hope for the best…

The air was chill and thick this high in the mountains, and the velocity of her fall dashed the breath from Shanna’s lungs as surely as any inevitable impact with a jut of granite. She braced herself… but, unexpectedly, her plummet was arrested not by any collision but by silken strands wrapping about her arms and throat and upper torso, steel cords spiraling down from above as the arachni – descending rapidly on their threads in her wake – refused to relinquish their prize.

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes…”

Shanna felt the loop about her neck snap tight, like a noose. She began to choke and twist, the silk slicing into her flesh.

No!

Shanna whipped up her hand with the last of her strength, and the dyla hook – still clutched in her fist, tight enough to draw blood as it bit into her palm – flashed in the misty sunlight. The edge of the hook cut through the spider silk with a single slash, and suddenly Shanna could breathe again. Gasping, she set about freeing herself from her other bonds, even as the dark, sinister silhouettes of the arachni’adna above her wriggled into view.

“Come on, come on—”

It seemed so pointless in a way, to cut herself free of the silk only to resume plunging to her death, but Shanna was adamant that the arachni’adna wouldn’t take her. If she was going to die it would damn well be on her terms – if. There was still that fragment of hope – provided, of course, that Prince Iliago got his skinny, feathered ass in gear sometime soon…

Moments before the spider-women reached Shanna’s struggling form, and before she severed the final strands that would see her begin to plummet once more, a shadowed figure swooped down through the swirling fog and collected her in slender yet powerful arms, bearing her away a second before an arachni leapt for her with a furious shriek. Shanna slipped, scrabbling for a handhold, but then more arms embraced her, allowing her to secure her own leverage. Two pairs of arms…? She looked up into the familiar face of Ben, his buck-toothed expression fixed somewhere between exhilaration and sheer, blood-curdling terror; then she glanced across and saw that she, along with Ben, were being carried to safety upon a pair of shredded but not utterly defiled golden wings.

Iliago…

Shanna closed her eyes and pushed herself against the aerian’s chest. Not a coward then. Still a bastard, yes, but not a coward.

The She-Devil forced herself to breathe evenly, the thin air of altitude burning her lungs, but the journey through the mist was ultimately short and her heart was still hammering in her chest when the three companions came to rest on a plateau of clay-rich earth and scrubgrass just beyond the mountains and the cusp of the rainforest valley. Shanna wasn’t one given to naked displays of emotion as a rule, especially in the presence of a man she’d always told herself that she loathed, but she whirled upon Iliago as soon as she found her footing, ready to press her hard body against his once more and drag him in for a deep kiss of gratitude. Then, however, she saw his injuries and instead she recoiled, her expression stricken.

The aerian’s typically smooth and glistered flesh was blackened with necrosis, and torn with copious wounds. The arachni had bitten him, in some places removing whole chunks of flesh down to the bone, and vile toxins were coursing through his blood. Even his feathers were darkening, and as Shanna moved to support him so the bird-man slumped against her, his wings drooping like things already dead.

“The leaves!” Shanna barked at Benjamin, who was on his hands and knees nearby, dry-retching into the scrub. “The jujasi branch, I saw you with it up on the mountain. Do you still have it…?”

Miraculously, he did. It was lying on the ground close by, only recently discarded. Shanna grasped it eagerly, even as some dark voice in her heart counseled her not to raise her hopes; the curative properties of the jujasi leaf were much admired, and they’d certainly healed her own wounds, but Iliago had suffered far worse.

Ben looked on in a daze, his hand absently rubbing at his necklace beneath the collar of his shirt. “Those… those spiders…”

“Arachni’adna,” Shanna murmured, tending to Iliago but quickly becoming frustrated as she realized she didn’t know where to start. Could the jujasi be used as an antidote to poison? “Keep your wits about you, Benjamin. You’re my eyes and ears for the next few minutes. They’ve tracked me once, they’ll do so again. Hopefully we’re enough of a distance from the pack that attacked us that we’ve got enough time to prepare.”

“Hopefully? What’s the other scenario, that they’re on us again immediately? Them or those lizard-men with the whips? What happens then?”

“Croca’dyla. And if they’re around here too then, yes, we’re probably dead.”

“Does this happen to you all the time?”

“Yes. It’s the Savage Land, Ben, not the Generally Placid Land. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the past two weeks…”

“Why do so many people – so many things – want to kill you?” Ben asked. Shanna glowered, but it was a fair question.

“Deception’s hand is at work here,” she said, quietly. “Apparently everyone’s been led to believe that I’m the perpetrator of whatever crimes have occurred.”

“A stitch-up?”

“If that’s the term you want to use, yes.”

“Who’d do that?”

Shanna considered, although her attention remained focused on Iliago. She’d used a goodly portion of leaves now, and the aerian – though barely conscious – seemed to be recovering somewhat. His flesh remained riddled with necrosis, however, and Shanna was unconvinced she could rectify that.

“I have many adversaries,” the She-Devil admitted, after a pause. “But the arachni and the dyla – and the aeria’akah, come to that – aren’t easily fooled. To convince them all that I was their enemy… it’s a subterfuge that would require great power and cunning. Believe me, I’m interested to expose the identity of this green cloaked tjati as well.”

“Is he going to be okay? The bird guy?” Ben sounded genuinely mournful. “He saved me. I was falling, just tumbling over and over, holding on to that stupid branch… I really believed that was it. Then he came out of nowhere, snatched me up in mid-air, and then we went back for you…”

Shanna cupped the aerian’s face with an awkward tenderness, her eyes glistening. “I saw him, up on the outcrop, just before I jumped after you. I hoped he’d come after me – come after us both – but I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d just flown away in the opposite direction. He didn’t owe me anything, But that’s twice he’s saved me in a short time,” she said, softly. “I suppose I can forgive him for kidnapping me and putting me in a cage.”

“Very decent of you,” Prince Iliago said, hoarsely. Shanna flinched.

Iliago coughed, and a spattering of blood stained his lower lip.

“Hurts,” he hissed. “My blood… burning. My wings…”

“The jujasi needs time to work. And you need water, and proper anti-venom serums.” Shanna looked up, grimacing, her eyes narrowed as she scanned her present location. “I know where we are, about an hour’s travel from the area of the jungle where I live. I can get us home from here, get you some more particular medicine, provided we’ve got enough of a head start on the arachni – and any more dyla that are out there, gunning for me.”

“Home…?”

Shanna nodded, breathing deeply. “My home, not your aerie. I doubt I’d be welcomed there; they don’t believe in my innocence as you do, remember? But we have a chance. Don’t you die on me, bird-man, you understand? Up until now I’ve been on the back foot, ambushed and hunted… but now I know I’m a target and I can fight back. And, with a little bit of luck – and some planning – there’s no reason I can’t turn this day from hell around.

“Just stick with me, Prince. Because some green-cloaked son of a bitch out there is going to rue the day he made an enemy of Shanna The She-Devil…”

“She’s still alive?”

King Frajk of the croca’dyla turned quickly upon the stooped man in the green, hooded cloak, brandishing his scimitar with menace. “You have an opinion, outsssider?” the reptile-man hissed, his onyx eyes gleaming in the dappled light of the rainforest. “Perhapsss next time you will consent to joining us in our hunt, rather than lingering on the sidelinesss…?”

The blind tjati smiled in the shadows of his hood.

“I owe this She-Devil no personal hostility,” he murmured. “I am merely a diffident traveler who has witnessed a heinous crime and wishes to see the perpetrator brought to justice.”

Frajk’s eyes narrowed, and his broad jaw snapped wetly as he scrutinized the one member of his hunting party who was something other than dyla. He didn’t trust the tjati. In fact he couldn’t understand why he’d listened to him in the first place. He knew of the She-Devil by reputation and nothing about her suggested aggression on her part towards his people. If the tjati was lying, then…

The humid air of the jungle shifted with a faint breeze, and was suddenly ripe with the scent of oranges and apricots, and a tint of cloves. Frajk’s snout twitched and he shifted uneasily, his eyes clouding. There was a nasty taste at the back of his throat. What had he just been thinking? He couldn’t quite remember. Something about—

“I can guide you to her home,” the tjati said, softly, his hooded countenance inclined vaguely towards the canopy overhead. “She resides close to here, so my visions say. Will you follow me, Frajk? Will you finish this?”

King Frajk breathed deeply, his heart twitching. Something not right, not right…

Frajk turned to his fellow dyla, raised his blade aloft.

“The assassin lives ssstill!” he rasped. “We follow the tjati, and we slay her where she stands!”

The other dyla snarled and bellowed in accord, flailing swords and hookwhips.

And, in their shadow, the hooded tjati grinned…

In the pit of skulls, lit by the darkglow of the fires of memory, the ancient sorcerer’s disembodied spirit cavorted in helpless rage, casting crooked shadows upon walls of bone and hair and flesh.

She lives, he breathed, scrabbling uselessly at the living walls of his cage.

She lives. She lives! And until she dies, thus precluding all opportunity for her predecessor to return, my goal remains out of reach…

There were paintings and carvings in the bones on all sides: depictions of the spider god, Omm, in her gigantic and hideous glory, and of the crocodile god Sobek, and of Oshtur’s essence reconstituted as the hawk god Akah Ma’at, named after the city in the skies that had once born that same titles. Deities, once so powerful in ages past, in the sorcerer’s own time, but now forgotten, just as he had been forgotten – and would remain so, if not for the amulet.

An onyx sapphire set into a collar of gold and bone, the sacred amulet that could never be destroyed and which cursed any susceptible soul unlucky enough to chance upon it. The amulet had been brought to this strange and wonderful fragment of the modern world, this Savage Land, through the whimsy of the fates; this is where the sorcerer would be reborn, where he would rule, and from where he would come to dominate the Earth and scour it clean of the pestilence of humanity.

But only if she was not allowed to be resurrected in turn, to foil his schemes as she had so many times before.

The sorcerer’s spirit turned towards the carvings upon the inside of his host’s skull and conjured the perception of the three gods, Sobek, Omm and Akah Ma’at, now his to control. He concentrated on the effigy of reanimated flesh and bone that marched like a marionette under his hand: the cloaked tjati, bearing the mark of each deity in turn when he had visited the croca’dyla, the arachni’adna and the aeria’akah and beguiled each pitiful race with a veil of lies and a simple yet effective obfuscation spell that addled the mind through the use of sensory enchantment, hence the scent of fruit and spice and all the rest.

The sorcerer’s puppet had slain the previous dyla King, and Queen Heri’dii’s daughters, and the Shaman’tai of the aerie. The tjati had then implicated Shanna and bewitched those fools into believing the ruse, validating the deception with the marks of sacred blindness. All to bring about the demise of the She-Devil and to then propagate war among the clans. It was time, now, to bring about that first goal, without further delay.

Go then, he whispered, his words like ash and promises of poison upon the wind. Go, you dyla and arachni and aerian alike, and finish what you’ve started. In the names of Sobek and Omm and Akah Ma’at, seek out the She-Devil and eviscerate her. Pave the way for my unencumbered rebirth.

For the time has come for the High Priest of the N’Garai and the Scourge of Hyboria to manifest once more…

…and this Savage Land shall then belong to Kulan Gath!

To Be Continued…