The Heretic Land by Tim Lebbon

the site of their campfire. He paused many times, seemingly listening or waiting for something before moving on. Smoke from his scamp cigar drifted about his head, forming a larger cloud that settled over the area and stole colour and sharpness.
    ‘Why is he taking so long?’ Bon asked, but Leki merely shrugged. She was frowning, concentrating, and Bon wondered what she was waiting to see. He had no idea what magic was supposed to look like.
    Juda finished patrolling the site and knelt down. He reached into his pack and seemed to sprinkle something on the ground, moving his hand left to right in a casual wave. Then he stood, surveyed the area one more time, and started climbing.
    ‘That was it?’ Bon asked. Leki shrugged again. Her silence deepened her mystery. He wanted to clasp her hand, ask what she knew, but he was certain that she would only tell him if she wanted to. She’d had ample opportunity, and remained silent.
    ‘So now we run,’ Bon said. ‘Maybe I should just go the other way. Let the two of youflee, I’ll go back and meet the slayers on our trail.’ He didn’t mean that – not after the horrors he’d seen on the beach – but he was trying to provoke Leki into saying something. Anything.
    ‘Self-pity is ugly,’ she said. They watched Juda climbing towards them, and no more was said until he arrived.
    He scrambled up the slope and sat beside Bon, lighting another cigar. He was breathing heavily, but seemed otherwise untroubled by the climb. Bon wondered how long he would be able to keep up with Juda and Leki. Already his legs burned, his muscles ached.
    ‘That might help,’ Juda said.
    ‘What did you do?’ Bon asked.
    ‘Left something behind for them. A dreg.’
    ‘What will it do?’ Leki asked.
    Juda seemed upset and distracted. ‘We need to move. I’ll know exactly when the slayers reach here, and whether they’re still following our trail. And the more distance we put between them and us, the better.’
    ‘How will you know?’ Bon asked.
    Juda puffed on the cigar and the scamp smoke hung heavy and spicy in the air. He stared at Bon through the smoke, and seemed very far away. ‘You don’t know much, do you, Bon Ugane? How will I know? I just will.’
    Juda set the pace, taking them along the ridge and down into the next, much wider valley. He marched with purpose and determination, and it soon crossed Bon’s mind that Juda seemed to be rushing towards something, not away from something else.
    Venden Ugane came awake with something dead beneath him. He could feel it nestled under his stomach, an object whose presence was different from the bundled blankets and the sparse mattress he’d made frommoss and hat-hat hide. It was cold and hard. It did not belong.
    For a while he did not move, staring across the clearing at the remnant and those objects he had spent so long gathering to it. It had now arced up into a perfect half-circle, and the dead tree stump at one end had tipped over to an extreme angle, a skin of dried bark fallen to the ground. It had shifted more while he had been sleeping.
    He rolled onto his side and looked down to find what had died.
    He had no name for the orange spiders. As large as his fist and the colour of bloodfruit, this one must have crawled down from the low cliff and dropped from the overhang into his bed just as he rolled in his sleep. They lived up on the cliff face, spinning funnel webs in holes in the rock, venturing out at sundown to harvest any prey caught in the web traps they set elsewhere across the cliff. He had observed them keeping to their own traps and not thieving from others, and he had wondered why. It hardly bode well for survival. Catching and examining a spider had crossed his mind, but there had always been something else to do, and he’d never had the chance. Now, the chance had come to him.
    It had burst beneath him. Its insides were slick and sticky, stringing from his jacket as he sat up. The creature had seven legs and,