Chapter 339: Shelob, Great Spider of Evil
Swish.
The longsword flashed and swung about, suddenly levelled behind him.
"My lord, do not strike, it's me!"
The panicked shout came just in time.
Levi frowned, taking a closer look at the Orc who had been sneaking along in his wake.
The creature was certainly distinctive. One leg was lame and ended in a fitted prosthetic. A steel plate covered his brow, giving his skull a hard, hammered look, and he was tall, almost up to a Man's height.
He reminded Levi of Azog. The Moria war-leader of the Misty Mountains Orcs had been much the same, turning his lost arm into a weapon.
"Oh?"
Levi regarded the Orc—or rather, the Uruk—with interest.
"And you would be?" he asked.
"I must have changed too much for you to know me at a glance," the lame brute said.
"My lord, decades ago, my band and I swore ourselves to you. We were then sent to our deaths. I alone crawled back. Now I am one of the captains here."
"All these years, my loyalty has never wavered."
He said it, but in his heart he knew the truth.
Before the battle of Dale, he had only feigned loyalty to Levi, in truth still serving the Dark Lord.
But when he walked away as the sole survivor of that war, something in him had broken.
Some shackles had fallen away.
"Mm…"
Levi thought for a moment and drew the blade back.
The Orc's heart sank in relief.
"I remember now. You. Interesting," Levi said.
He had not expected the Orc he had once bullied into carrying a message to the Witch-king to have lived this long, let alone clawed his way up to a captaincy.
Perhaps he might even be useful.
"Have you seen Gollum?" Levi asked at once.
"Gollum?" the Orc echoed blankly.
After Levi had given a rough description of Gollum's looks, he shook his head.
"Never heard of him, my lord. But I can keep special watch for you."
"Do that," Levi said.
Half idly, he talked with the odd chieftain a while longer.
Odd was the word. The creature's "reputation" was actually on the good side.
At the end of their talk, the Orc ventured, "There is one other thing, my lord. How am I to reach you?"
Levi considered and passed on one of the rangers' quieter ways of sending messages.
It was a fairly safe method. Even if enemies learned the steps, it would not hinder the rangers' work.
"Someone will come for you. Do your part well."
"If you learn anything about Gollum, tell me. Best of all, catch him," Levi said.
"Yes, my lord!" the Orc captain replied, full of zeal.
He left the narrow, fear-haunted pass with something close to joy.
Hiss—
Above the cleft, behind a bulging stone, Gollum clapped both hands over his mouth, his eyes wide with horror.
"Cursed, cursed, why is he here, gollum…"
"And that Orc, that slave. He has even bent a captain to his will."
His eyes narrowed.
He eased his head out again and peered down.
Levi had turned away and was already climbing higher up the pass.
No.
Gollum's gut twisted.
If he keeps going, he will come to the tunnel.
"Should we tell her…?"
His great eyes rolled. After a moment's thought, he chose the upper path and scuttled back, slipping ahead of Levi into Shelob's black lair.
"Go, go away from here, gollum!"
His thin voice rang around the hole, waking the great spider from her rest.
Shelob came crawling from the dark, a gleam of expectation in her many eyes. It curdled into disgust when she found he had brought no meat.
Gollum saw the change and babbled at once,
"A terrible creature is coming, gollum. A mighty one. Even the Dark Lord cannot handle him. If you meet him, you will not win. You cannot win!"
Hiss—
The shrill sting of her cry sliced at his ears. Shelob's displeasure was plain.
But…
Good.
Gollum shrank back, his wide eyes blinking in wounded innocence, as if he truly only feared for her sake.
Tap.
Soft footsteps sounded at the mouth of one of the tunnels.
Shelob and Gollum turned their heads together.
"He is here," Gollum whispered.
Ignoring her, he bolted deeper into the warren and wedged himself into a hidden corner, not daring to breathe.
Even Shelob, who thought of nothing but eating, looked down on such fear.
With a speed that belied her bulk, the vast spider scuttled forward. Her swollen body crashed through the cavern like a wain, the iron-hard, knotted hide and steel-stiff bristles on her legs smashing rock to powder.
Watching her charge, even Gollum's heart hammered.
Perhaps she really can hurt him…
Can she?
A few heartbeats later—
"Skreeee!"
A scream of pain echoed from afar, ringing down the cave. Gollum clapped his hands to his ears, his head buzzing until his vision doubled.
Ridiculous.
He groaned inwardly.
Is that a sound a spider should make?
"I told you not to go, gollum, but you would not listen…"
Rum…
A heavy tremor rolled nearer, passed over his hiding place, and rumbled on.
Shelob was coming back.
Gollum poked his head out, screwing up his courage. A stench of burning washed over him. Black, reeking ichor poured from gashes in her body, eating pits into the stone wherever it splashed.
She looked wretched.
"Do not run now. You were bold enough a moment ago."
The easy voice drifted out of the dark behind her. The speaker carried a huge sword in one hand and a torch in the other.
The firelight threw a towering shadow on the wall, like a Giant.
"Cursed heart, stop beating so fast!" Gollum thought, furious at his own panic, pressing both hands over his mouth.
Perhaps it was some remnant of his Hobbit stealth that saved him. Hidden in the dark, the man who strolled past in lazy pursuit of the spider failed to notice him at all.
"I have good things in my pack, fresh meat and cooked, beefsteak and lamb and pork, take your pick…"
"Where has she gone now?"
After a while searching without a glimpse of Shelob, Levi halted.
He looked towards a tunnel spattered with black blood.
There was no need to ask whose it was.
He stood still for a moment, then went in.
For all her filth, Shelob possessed a touch of rule-breaking power. When she had lunged from the dark and clamped her fangs into the Dragonflame Steel, she had gnawed away several ranks of its durability at once.
A worthy child of the first of the Outside evils to come into Middle-earth.
If Ungoliant could devour the Two Trees, then even if Shelob fell short of her dam, biting through iron and steel was plainly within her reach.
But she was not her mother.
The hunt through the caves went on for over half a month.
More than once, Levi sensed movement, but always a hairsbreadth too late. Each time, the spider slipped away.
Once, driven into a corner, Shelob had gone so far as to chew through the rock, gnawing a hole in the wall to escape.
The figure with the torch and sword had seared a deep mark into her mind.
Worse than the wounds was the shame of it, being chased and toyed with like a bug in a children's game.
Shelob was left torn in body and in pride.