Even by the standards of the land it resided in, the Valley of Eyes was a strange place. Stunted trees guarded the passes at either end of the wide swath of valley floor that no grass ever seemed to thrive on. The ground instead was a churned soil with an almost plum tint to it and jagged rocks rearing up in clusters taller than a man’s head. A rill threaded through the valley like a drunken festival goer vainly looking for his carriage home. The surrounding hills leaned in close to the land, as though eager for gossip.

Some said the place was eerie because of the almost absolute silence that reigned there day and night. Most, however, agreed it was the faces carved into every hillside that made your skin want to crawl away from your body when you thought about the valley. Though, to call them faces was a bit inaccurate, really. Each carving consisted of only brows and eyes. No two pairs were the same,  the expressions varied from gaze to gaze as one meandered down the valley. It was a bit hard to tell at first, but the discerning viewer could determine that the eyes belonged to different races if they looked long enough.

A rider in the valley would pass the stormy brow of a dwarf and the wide-eyed glance of a startled human. Looking across the way was the placid regard of a cerdivari veiled under those impossibly thick lashes, and the piercing stare of an elf, among many other pairs. As few travelers ventured through the valley, however, the carvings often had to be content with engaging in perpetual staring contests to fill the long silent days and nights.

The silence this particular morning was intruded upon by a chorus of shouts, most of them curses, and the snorted breaths of horses in full gallop. The riders that tore blindly through the pass seemed determined to make as much noise as possible as churning hooves kicked up clods of loamy soil. They ran four abreast, three harried looking riders on lathered horses and one riderless, bridleless horse strapped up with packs.  A rock loomed and cleaved their line in two, the riders swerving crazily to avoid impact. The pack horse didn’t veer in time and struck its shoulder on an outcrop, sending it flying in a tangle of limbs and luggage.

One of the riders heard the pack horse’s scream turned her head to see what had happened, eyes stinging in the wind.

“Nira!!”

“My ingredients!” One of the other riders yelled, adding, “We have to go back, damn all!”

“We can’t, we can’t!” The third rider’s voice was fueled by panic and he hunched low over his horse’s neck.

“We have to go back, or we’re all dead! Everything is in that bag! If you leave us, you’re dead!” The second rider bellowed, wrenching her horse’s head around and making for the rock. The rider who had seen the pack horse fall did the same, not looking to see if their third companion followed.

The two riders approached the spot where the horse had fallen. In its place, a woman sprawled, rubbing her shoulder with one hand as she disentangled herself from straps and cinches. She looked up accusingly as the others came to a halt by her and dismounted. One was a stocky younger dwarven woman dressed in riding gear. Her cloud of dark curly hair seemed to be reaching in every direction at once as she came forward hurriedly. The other was a tall lanky woman in raggedy robes, looking a bit like a disapproving hawk with her sharp nose and brow angled in predatory intent.

“Your stupid bag is fine, Rhatem”  the woman on the ground said flatly as the taller rider began to dig through the wreckage. She held up a travel stained pack to the searching rider, its flap tied with a sinewy cord.  “I didn’t land on it. You’re extremely welcome.”

“Stop being childish,” Rhatem snapped as she reached for the lumpy bag. Her long fingered hands, scored with  dozens of shallow scratches, clutched the pale green suede greedily. A stained cloth bandage wound around the pinky and ring finger of Rhatem’s left hand, pressing them together.

“Should we still be here?” The other rider asked querulously, tugging at her gauntlets. An unstrung recurve bow was strapped to her back. “Kalby’s mages are gonna-”

“The mages have our scent, they’ll find us no matter what. We’ve bought time, at least. Here’s as good a place to make a stand as any,” Rhatem cut her off flatly, not looking away from the bag as she rummaged delicately through it. Finding what she wanted, she nodded in satisfaction and slung the bag over her shoulder.

“I’m fine, really,” the woman on the ground said with faux reassurance as she swayed to her feet. “I mean, I only tore my shoulder to pieces on that rock. That’s all. Paeli, could you be a lamb and see if I’ve dislocated it?” She said the last sweetly, blinking at the dwarf.

“Oh, Nira,” the dwarven woman, Paeli, gave a long-suffering sigh as she walked over. “Looks like your shirt’s torn. No blood, you’ll have a mean bruise, I’m betting. Oh, wait, I know a test we can do.” Paeli turned and jogged to where the horses stood. The sweat was drying in gummy rivulets on their coats, and they looked at Paeli with exhaustion flickering in their eyes. Paeli gave them both a sympathetic pat before she reached up to unfasten the weapon on her saddle’s cantle. Struggling a little with it, she brought it back to where Nira was standing and held it up to her. Nira took the axe with a grin.

“Swing it,” Paeli advised. Nira obliged, and then winced. She did it again, the movement more fluid. She did it a third time, adding a small jump to the movement. “Well?”

“Feels just like home,” Nira said, grinning winningly at Paeli. “Sad about the shirt, though. Spelled clothing is expensive, especially the all over spelling mine needs.”

“So reassuring to know your ability to chop things in half isn’t hindered. We’re gonna need it soon enough,” Rhatem joined them, a vial of softly glowing blue liquid in one hand. Nira was about to retort when a high pitched scream cut the air.

“That sounded like…” Paeli trailed off as all three of them turned to look at the rider bearing down on them. It was their companion, the one who had kept riding when Rhatem and Paeli had turned back.

He rode right into their midst, nearly trampling the three of them as he swung down from the saddle and pulled off his metal helm. He threw it to the ground where it landed with an ambivalent splat and was immediately half consumed by moist earth. Sweat drenched auburn hair clung to his head and his grey eyes were as wide and rolling as his mount’s. “They found us, they found us!” He gibbered, flailing at his waist for his sword.  “They’re coming!”

“Is that supposed to be news?” Rhatem asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “Have you gone mad?”

“They’re-” He pointed wildly toward the valley’s southern pass, his voice choking off in his fear. All three women turned to look. Paeli gasped and covered her mouth with a hand as Nira’s face lighted with a wild sort of excitement.  The hillside carvings began to break out in a rash of  black and brown blemishes. The blemishes began to move, skittering down from the hills and coalescing into an impressive horde of spiders that were far, far too large. Peppering this battalion were centipedes the size of ale wagons, their armored bodies flashing a brightly venomous orange.

“This gives us considerably less time than previously imagined,” Rhatem muttered, uncorking the vial with her teeth and drinking it in one swallow. You three, battle stations, now! Let’s not mess around, here. Fire would probably be a good idea, I’m thinking.” Paeli nodded, running to grab the bowstring and quiver of arrows from her saddle. Nira rubbed her hands together before hefting the axe again, taking a few practice swings as she faced the advancing army.  “That means you too, Valsted,” Rhatem growled, giving the man still staring vacantly at the wiggling masses a firm shove to his armored back. “Time to protect the mage so she can save our asses, that’s the order of the day here, son.”

As if in a dream, he got moving, fumbling again to unsheathe his sword. Rhatem turned to look down into her bag. Pulling open one of the pouches, she reached gently inside it, drawing out a dove gray rat that was curled into a ball. The rat blinked and yawned, its whiskers bristling as it fixed ruby red eyes on Rhatem, whose expression had softened. “We’ve got work to do, my friend,” she muttered to the rat, holding her hand by her shoulder and letting him scamper to perch on her neck, tucking himself between locks of her graying brown hair.

“They’re just regular spiders, they’re not even, you know, magic spiders,” Valsted was babbling as he stood beside the rock that Paeli had scrambled onto. She was frowning in concentration as she strung her bow, and barely listening to him. “They don’t have human heads or shoot ice beams out of their eyes or-”

“Now we don’t know if they shoot ice beams or not,” Nira corrected, grunting as she completed a pattern dance nearby. “They could, maybe they’re just not in range yet.”

“No, I think they’re just regular spiders, just really, really large ones.”

“They could be coated in poison,” Nira volunteered. “Like, you touch them and you’re all over in a deadly poison and you drop dead.”

Valsted went on,  his voice bordering on hysterical. “When I’m dead and my sisters and mother are burying me, people are gonna ask ‘What did Valsted die of?’  Then my sister’s gonna say ‘Spiders’. Then someone else will say ‘What, spiders with human faces? Spiders that…that shoot ice beams out of their eyes?’ ‘No,’ my sister’ll say back. ‘Just regular spiders. Big ones.’ How does that sound? Six years’ work to be a knight and a spider the size of a pony is what does me in!”

“That’s not the least impressive way to die, if you’re worried about that,” Nira said.  “I had me an uncle who turned into a chicken on the wrong day. They didn’t realize til he was plucked and someone found the tattoo on his upper right thigh. Dying by giant spider’s all in a knight’s work, at least.”

“But it’s daytime!” Valstead protested.

“Stop it, both of you, or I’ll set fire to you both!” Paeli snapped, raising her bow and facing the oncoming horde. She had a strange, almost subconscious notion that the eyes ranged around the valley were gauging her stance and her aim. Her skin prickled to that thought and she felt a tremor race through her. Stow it, she advised herself, there’s things to be done. She stared down her arrow, fixating her attention on its point. In a moment, it was ablaze.

The first few spiders, the advance guard, were now in bow range, their needle legs carrying them effortlessly over the ground. Paeli nocked her arrow and shot, the fiery arrow plunging straight into the thorax of one of the smaller spiders. The thing flipped over onto its back, the fire spreading to its fellow soldiers as it kicked and crisped in agonized death throes.

“It’s not as if giant spiders are even very creative,” Valsted was saying in a whine, just to say things. “Every evil mage in every story ever has giant spiders. Real spiders, the small ones, they’re nice. They don’t want to hurt anyone, they just want to hunt and live. Just like me.”

“If you wanted to hunt and live, you shouldn’t ought to have become a knight,” Nira pointed out. “Come on, then, let’s die with dignity!” With that, she practically flung herself into the shape of an enormous bear, her axe forgotten on the ground at Paeli’s side. With a thunderous roar, she charged toward a clump  of spiders. Valsted stood for a moment beside Paeli’s rock  before running for another formation of spiders in the opposite direction.

Paeli hazarded a glance over her shoulder at Rhatem. The mage was crouched on the ground, scooping the earth and twiddling her fingers swiftly as though rolling tiny balls of dough. She couldn’t look for long, she tore her eyes away and sighted her next targets, thankful the creatures attacked in tightly packed groups and made it so easy to kindle.

“Vervain, I need the vervain!” Rhatem shouted, placing the second tiny clay figure beside the first she had made. A moment later, the rat appeared at her side, a sprig of the bright flower in his mouth. “Good, now the salt!” Taking the plant from the rat, the mage broke the small blossoms off and scattered them in a circle around the clay figures she had made. A third and fourth clay figure rapidly joined the first two. Three crude clay horses and a tiny clay rat completed the assortment. She felt a small weight on her leg and took the container of salt the rat had brought her. Uncorking the stopper, she muttered a few words as she wove salt around the vervain petals.

Without being bid, the rat scuttled back to her pack and returned to her with a small silver knife. Nodding grimly, she took it, nicking her palm lightly until blood glowing ever so faintly with blue began to bead out. She smeared each clay figure with a drop of it before setting them back into the circle, then flexed her hand to scatter more droplets on the salt and vervain circle, binding the grains to the blossoms with the blood. “Where is that unicorn hair,” she muttered to herself as she continued to work.

“What’s that bloody mage doing, playing in the dirt??” Valsted’s frantic howl floated over the battlefield. “We’re getting eaten and she’s playing in the dirt!!” The last four words were each punctuated by a stab of his sword into the body of another spider.

“Stand away!” Paeli yelled to him before loosing her arrow. It buried itself in the head of a rearing centipede, the fire melting its head and racing along its body, turning it into a blazing whip. It thrashed sideways, lighting the surrounding spiders on fire. One launched at Valsted, pinning him to the ground. He screamed, desperately thrusting upward with a fist as the blazing arachnid moved to bite. The thing rolled away from him and he staggered to his feet, encumbered by his mail.

Paeli pulled the last arrow from her quiver and stared into it. Four new arrows sprouted like corn from the empty pocket and she frowned worriedly. She was losing the strength needed to keep the arrows ablaze and stocked. Her limbs were leaden with exhaustion, and the constant feel of the impassive yet greedy eyes all around on her was taxing. She wished passionately for grass, which would have kept the arachnids at bay for perhaps a little while. Four arrows, then. She had to make them count.

“That damn shapeshifter, everything’s all muddled,” Rhatem cursed as she fumbled in her bag. “Can’t keep on her feet for five seconds and- AHA!” She yelled so wildly that Paeli glanced back again for a moment. “Alright, now we’re in business,” Rhatem said gleefully, untying the pouch she had found with hurried fingers. “Now we’re at the market, now we’re using counterfeit gold to buy that pretty brooch we wanted.” She worked as she talked, scattering white handfuls of hair everywhere in the bowl of earth she had made, save for the circle protecting the clay figures. Reaching into the bag again, she brought out two small stones that sparkled a dull gold. “What’s that, shopkeep? No, this coin is honest and true, earned it myself, I did,” she went on, striking the stones together repeatedly over the hair. “I earned it all right, I earned it at my job.” Rhatem bashed the stones together with all her might at that last word. A spark was born and it leaped hungrily for the white hair. The last sound as the world went white was Rhatem’s pleased, cackling laughter.

Before she was aware of anything else, Paeli was aware of the eyes. She hadn’t even opened her own eyes, but she felt those gazes leveled at her as though they decided what to do about her. Any moment now she’d feel an experimental poke at her side or her foot. She opened her eyes quickly to startle the watchers before they could pick her over, regretting the action immediately as pain lanced into her head. She shut her eyes again, groaning.

“You’re alive then! Good,” Nira’s voice hovered over her face.

“Are you hurt badly?” Valsted’s voice joined Nira’s.

“Unno,” she muttered thickly, though talking seemed to hurt. “Speers? Spurrr…sp..”

“The spiders are gone, we’re safe for the time being.” That sounded like Rhatem. “Open your eyes, girl. Nice and slowly.” Paeli did as she was bid, looking around blearily as her head cleared. Valsted knelt at her side, though Nira had moved away and was now peering with interest at something a little ways off. Rhatem,at Paeli’s other side, crouched down to peer critically into Paeli’s eyes, head tilting this way and that. Paeli blinked owlishly at her, though the mage’s gaze didn’t unnerve her half so much as the blind stares still all around them. “Where are we?” Rhatem asked her.

“We…we’re…unno,” Paeli said in dismay, uncertain as to what this place was called. “Nerr bin hurr for,” her voice burbled out of her in a useless dribble.

“She’s bad,” Valsted said worriedly.

“Thank you, Healer Valsted,” Rhatem said scathingly, not taking her eyes off of Paeli. “Alright, Paeli, I want you to look right at me. Yes, that’s it, that’s the way.” Placing a hand on either side of Paeli’s head and sliding her thumbs under the younger woman’s chin, she looked into Paeli’s eyes again. Paeli felt the world slipping sideways, but kept her eyes on Rhatem’s golden ones, reaching out to grip the mage’s thin arm with one panicked hand when it felt like she’d slide right into the ground. A moment later, the world righted and she was in command of herself again.

“How’d you….what did you…how?”

“The brain is like a muscle, my dear. I mean, most scholars say it isn’t a muscle, but it’s like one. You can knead out a muscle, you can knead out the brain. Well…sort of. Let me know if you start smelling oranges or have an urge to bark at the moon, would you? I’m not kidding,” she added when Paeli and Valsted laughed. “It’s not exact, I know a little but there’s a lot I still don’t know about it.” They stopped immediately and stared at her, both a bit frightened. She held her stern expression a moment more before it dissolved and she laughed, pounding Paeli on the back. “Joking! It’s safe, you’ll be fine now, Paeli.” They looked at each other again, smiling hesitantly. “But really. Oranges, let me know.” With that, Rhatem turned and walked to where Nira was crouched.

“What happened? I remember watching my arrow land in a spider and then I’m on the ground and everything’s gone.”

“The uh…the mage blasted all the bugs. See?” He gestured to the valley around them. Limbs and half exploded bugs littered the ground, coating everything in ichor. Paeli noticed for the first time that both she and Valsted were also coated in ichor, as were the horses. A strange swampy smell reached her nostrils and in a second visual sweep of the valley, she accidentally locked eyes with one of the carvings. Feeling a jolt, she gasped and looked away quickly.

“What is this place, anyway?” She asked, looking decidedly at the ground.

“We’re in the Valley of Eyes. My mother’s got a tapestry of this place hanging in one of her parlors.” Valsted looked around, giving a low whistle. “It does not do justice to how creepy this place really is. I hope we’re not staying here very much longer.”

“Valley of Eyes,” Paeli mumbled, getting to her feet. “What a great name. Perfect, really. Can’t get better than that.”

“What’s going on here?” Valsted asked as they approached Rhatem and Nira. The mage was currying down her gelding, having removed his tack. The big roan sighed and leaned into the circular motion, ears at half mast in relaxed enjoyment.

“We’re making camp,” Nira said as she grappled with large sheets of canvas.

“Why are we making camp here?” Valsted shrieked, his panic causing Rhatem’s horse to perk up.

“Two reasons. One, Kalby’s mages sent that little army of crawlies here because this valley scares them senseless, I’m pretty sure. Two, the horses are exhausted and if we try to go any further, they’ll just drop on their feet out here in the valley anyway.”

“If they’re scared of the valley, that means there’s something out here to be scared of, doesn’t it? I mean, those mages, they don’t flinch at much.” Valsted’s hand crept up to his mouth and he nibbled a nail.

“If they’re scared of the valley it means they don’t know the proper way to protect themselves. I do. We’re fine. Now fill these buckets with water and bring it back. Don’t drink any, though. Just…don’t.” Rhatem shoved two large buckets at the knight, and he blinked in surprise. “Go on, then, unless you want us all to die of thirst right here on the spot.” As if in a trance, Valsted turned on his heel and started walking toward the shallow stream, the buckets swinging at his sides.

Paeli found herself caught in the regard of another pair of eyes. She was transfixed by them. The eyes seemed predatory and devious, and though the stone they were carved into was a pale beige, she fancied she knew their color. They were a bright maroon, a velvety sort of color with sparks of pure red flaring in their depths. Not sparks, though. Snakes, snakes threading their way in and around each other like worms of fire in freshly spilled blood. What? She thought, her mind fuzzing over like a week old fruit as she stared at the eyes. What are you even talking about?

You’ll know,  something else answered her inside her head. It definitely wasn’t her own voice, that was for sure. You’ll know if you go closer. Closer, my love. It crooned to her, beckoned her.  She found herself  walking toward the carving even while everything inside of her rebelled, as though she were fighting to keep from walking off a cliff.

“Paeli! A little help?” Nira called, snapping the thread Paeli was being pulled by in two. “You’re better at this than me!” Her heart thudding and her fingers tingling, Paeli shook her head furiously and turned from her course. What was that she had heard? What was this place?

“Coming!” She called back, wobbling on shaky legs back to the relative safety of the group.