"B" (Writers of Kern A-Z Blog Challenge)

          The Spider Queen was beautiful. She wore the shape of a human with glowing purple-blue eyes and a long, lean body that amplified the polish of her perfect curves. In her hand was a thin shortsword that curved slightly at the tip, its hilt and grip were small and capped by an hourglass shaped, red ruby that was held in place by a silver lattice of spider’s web. The sword whistled through the air in her deft hand. She danced with it. She was graceful, and practiced, and darkly elegant, but about to die.

          I ran out of the swirling gray shadows that I had casted around myself and surged forwards towards her back. The ground was littered with the dead husks of a dozen black widow spiders the size of dogs. I moved between and jumped over them, careful to not make a sound in my haste.

          The Queen was focused on Anten, whipping and slashing her sword back at forth at him. He was struggling to keep up with the flurry of her blows and was visibly tiring. She had him on the ropes and with a shrill scream, she swung her sword down hard towards his head and he faltered, stumbled back, and fell to his bottom. The Queen moved forward and stood above him triumphantly, raising her sword for the kill.

          My dagger slid into her form like butter and it didn’t stop until the entire blade was buried in her back. She screamed, in horror this time, and I brought my left hand around and jammed my second dagger into her neck. It crippled her and she fell limply to the ground in front of me. I was breathing hard, not fully aware that I had ended the fight. I reached down and pulled out my daggers and stood to look at my party in the remnants of shock.

          I had met them yesterday in Carvil. They had been sent by the mayor to investigate the recent killings on the road just outside of town where they discovered this lair. They decided they needed some reinforcements and offered me two gold pieces a day to help them clear whatever danger we found in the cave. I jumped at the chance to help them. Well, not exactly because I wanted to help them; I jumped at the prospect of food money for the next week.

          In the cave, we found the Spider Queen and her many eight-legged minions. Our progress was slow and we took damage at every turn. The fight with the queen had left the party wholly beaten and scarred, except for me. I had managed to stick to the shadows, picking my attacks with care and optimizing my movements. Now that the fight was over, I saw that I fared much better than the rest of my team.

          Anten hadn’t gotten up from where the Queen knocked him down, but he was moving and struggling to right himself. Jade was holding her left arm close to her body with her sword hand. She had been bitten by a spider and by the pale look in her eyes; I knew the poison was starting to take effect. She needed help. But the help we had brought was now a lifeless human form wrapped in webbing on the other side of the room.

          “You guys okay?” I asked.

          “I’ve been better.” Anten said as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Jade nodded her head and went to stand next to him.

          I knelt down beside the Spider Queen and picked up her sword. It was beautiful, just like her, and while her body was now a cold and dead beauty, the sword was alive with it. It captured the dim light of the room making the blade shine and the hourglass ruby was brilliant.

Jade helped Anten to his feet and they walked over to me.

          “Here, let me see it.” Anten said as he reached his hand out. I reluctantly gave it to him. He gripped it in his large hands, practically palming the entire hilt to get a grip on it. He examined the blade and nodded. 

          “Well this is far too small for me. I like my swords big and hefty, like Baldor the Firm here.” He gestured towards the giant great sword at his hip. “And you, rogue, use daggers, right? I think the only one of us who would actually get any use out of this would be you, Jade.”

          “I want it!” I blurted out as he started to hand it over to her. They both looked at me incredulously.

          “It’s not a dagger.” Jade said. The malice in her eyes was chilling.

          “I know, but I could still use it. It’s not that hard to duel wield a dagger and a sword.”

          Anten’s stare was hard as he looked me over, thinking. I wanted that sword. I had been the one to kill the Queen, to get that final blow, and oh, how it would solve all my problems. I could get any adventuring job I wanted. The prestige of walking down the stalls at the market with this sword on my hip would be more than enough to send the quest givers searching me out, instead of the other way around. I wouldn’t have to beg at their feet and plead for the job and the scraps of coins they offered. I dearly needed the money, and at the very least, I could sell it for quite a sum if I found using the much longer sword unwieldy and noticed that it affected my performance. Anten’s decision knocked me from my thoughts: “No, this is rightfully hers.” And he handed the Spider Queen’s sword over to Jade’s willing hands. She smiled and swung it a few times before sheathing it to her belt.

          My stomach sank.

          Anten bent down and searched the Queen’s body for any other loot and as he stood up, he tossed me the two gold pieces he had promised for the job.

          “You did good.” He said. My eyes were hard. I wanted that sword and losing it was not sitting well in my mind. Two gold pieces; that was all I had to show for this hard work. It wasn’t enough. “We’d be mighty pleased if you’d join us on whatever our next mission is, if that’d be alright with you?” He turned to the webbed man when he saw I wasn’t going to give him an answer. “Damn it, Hallix. We’ll go get you some help and be right back. Just sit still, okay?” The web didn’t answer either.

          They turned to leave and the sickness in my stomach turned to fire. Of course they wouldn’t give the sword to the new guy on his first adventure. It was so typical. And Jade barely even used her sword against the Spider Queen. She was shooting arrows at the dog-spiders the whole time, while Anten and I fought the boss. I wanted that sword.

          With the decision made, I cloaked myself in the gray-black shadows and rushed forwards to join the party, and jammed my daggers, one for each of them, into their backs. Anten cried in pain, but I must have hit something vitally important in Jade, she fell to the ground with a simple “Uhnff.”

          “What the hell, man?” Anten shouted from the floor beside Jade. “You backstabbing bitch!”

          I bent down beside Jade and pulled the Spider Queen’s glorious blade from her belt. “I wanted the sword. You should have listened.” He responded with a number of expletives and I wouldn’t have expected any less from him.

          I reached into my pocket and grabbed the two gold coins he had given me with the intent of throwing them back in his face, but when I looked at them, I put them back in my pocket. I needed the money after all, and it wouldn’t do him any good while he died down here in this cave.

          The sword felt perfect in my hand and I turned my back on the screaming warrior dying on the ground behind me.

"B is for Backstab"