Arapach the Fat lived alone in the woods, spinning and weaving and snaring and suckling. As befitted a spider, and Arapach the Fat was a very good spider, due to having long practice at being one. Arapach’s webs were the finest in the woods, they said, they being those in-the-know. There weren’t many of those-in-the-know anymore. To be one, you had to get caught in one of Arapach’s webs and get back out to talk about it.
They were very good webs. Which is what the man on the horse in the shiny, noisy clothing found out when he rode face-first into one, launching him face-first to the dirt with a clank and a crunch.
Arapach came out, of course. No proper spider misses a stir on their web such as that, if not for the chance for a feast then for the hurry to get on with repairs. Flies don’t catch themselves, as Arapach had always said.
This, however, wasn’t a fly. That was most peculiar. “Pardon me for asking, person who just destroyed my web, but what are you?” asked Arapach.
“Sir Karrowich,” said the man, muffled somewhat by dirt and the odd angle at which his head was stuck. “I am Sir Karrowich, and I am a knight of Rudonia. And I am a dead man; I fear my neck has broken.”
“That is a great pity, and I am sorry,” said Arapach. The knight’s hard skin seemed entirely inedible, and it would be a waste indeed. “Since I have caused this, can I help you in some way?”
“There is one thing you can do, stranger,” said Sir Karrowich. “I rode in haste with a message of utmost importance to my lord, King Gistoff of Rudonia. The Duke has risen against him, and his army rides but a short ways behind me, under the command of Sir Bannagan of Binstron, with a secret darkness at its rear that I cannot see and have not named. Make your way to our king and warn him! Warn him, and ride to arms against the traitor in my stead!”
“Well, all right then,” said Arapach. “But I’m not sure they’ll listen to me. I’m not the sort of person that kings speak to often.”
“Take the ring from my left hand,” implored the fallen knight. “Hold it high and proclaim yourself my squire and they must listen! They must! Succeed, stranger, succeed, or all our fair land will”
Arapach waited politely. Then Arapach nudged the knight gently with a leg and realized with a spider’s instincts that the man was not going to say any more, or do anything at all, ever, except maybe transition into topsoil.
“Well, I suppose I owe him that help now,” Arapach sighed. A little silk net was made to catch the air, and soon enough Arapach was ballooning miles above the comfortable little forest and into the big blue sky, circling in the drafts and searching for a grey stone castle on a rocky and inhospitable hill more suited to scorpions than spiders.
Finding it was easy enough. Finding the right window was a bit harder, and by the time Arapach was peering at a man in a court on a chair with a crown the sun had sunk down to near nothing.
“Where is Sir Karrowich?” asked the man with the crown to the men in metal that stood around him, who Arapach knew must be knights. “Where is my champion, friend, servant and scout? He said he’d bring us word before dusk, but dusk has arrived and Sir Karrowich remains gone. What will we do?”
At this, Arapach dropped into the room on a silken thread and hovered in front of the king’s nose, which caused a stir.
“Hello,” said Arapach. “I am Sir Karrowich’s squire.”
“Poppycock,” said the largest of the knights present. “You’re a flycatcher at best, and Sir Karrowich could defeat ten dozen men at a time without pause for breath. Why would he take such a small and silly thing as his squire? You must be lying.”
At this, Arapach showed the ring from Sir Karrowich’s left hand, which had been placed upon Arapach’s leftmost leg, to show synchronicity.
The knight reddened. “You could have stolen that.”
“Sir Karrowich, gravely injured, passed it on to me,” said Arapach. “He said that I was to warn King Gistoff of Rudonia of the oncoming army of the Duke, under the command of Sir Bannagan of Binstron, in whose wake a secret darkness follows that he had not seen and had not named. This is his ring that he gave to me as he lay dying in the forest, and this is the warning that I promised to deliver in his name.”
“Then we are dead all the same!” cried the king, tearing with wild abandon at his beard. “Woe! Alas! Alack! Sir Karrowich was the best of our knights in all respects, and against Sir Bannagan of Bistron we have no equal present! We will be shredded to snippets at the castle gates by cock-crow!”
“Surely you have some knights right here,” said Arapach, waving at the largest of the knights present, who glowered uncomfortably at the spider.
“They are but pawns and pudding-heads as to Karrowich,” sobbed the king inconsolably. “Halmsley there is the best remaining, and Karrowich could kick him up and down a tourney as if he were a child with a toy ball-and-string. Woe! Alas! Alack! We are done for and done properly!”
“Well then, it seems my debt to Sir Karrowich is outstanding yet,” said Arapach. “If your straits are so troublesome, I shall improve them.”
“The Duke shall be here in scant moments,” bleated the king, twisting in the utmost misery atop his throne.
“I will work quickly,” said Arapach.
“You are insignificant and will do us no good in any small way whatsoever,” declared the largest of the knights present, who was apparently named Halmsley.
“I will work cunningly,” said Arapach.
“Do be careful,” said the queen, who’d been listening to the entire affair carefully.
“I will work carefully,” agreed Arapach, and departed for the castle gates.
The duke’s army was already encircling the base of the rocky and inhospitable hill more suited to scorpions than spiders when Arapach came to the gate. At least five thousand men in all, each armed, armoured, and if not dangerous then dangerously enthusiastic. Bloodlust rode in the eyes, plunder sat heavy in their pockets, and recklessness twitched between their teeth like a lizard’s tongue.
“We’re doomed,” said the largest of the knights present. “Best to begin working out ransom rates for yourselves, lads. The king’s going down but at least we can get off with our necks intact.”
“You may do as you like, Halmsley,” said Arapach, who was beginning to spin, “but I’m staying here.”
“Who would ransom you anyways?” snarled Halmsley with a flip of his hand. “And it’s SIR Halmsley, bug. Knights are ‘sir,’ bugs are ‘nuisance-fit-to-be-squashed,’ is that clear enough?”
“What about kings and queens?” asked Arapach, with interest.
“Kings are ‘sire,’ which is like a bigger ‘sir.’ Queens are whatever you please; they’re women, and women don’t get to be knights.”
“Why’s that?” asked Arapach.
Halmsley shrugged. “Just don’t. Same reason bugs are nuisances-fit-to-be-squashed, bug.”
Arapach made a complicated gesture at Sir Halmsley whose meaning was entirely apparent across species borders, and the knight stomped off swearing. Most of the others followed him, leaving Arapach alone at the gates to finish weaving.
Soon after dusk, the first man came. He was large and he was angry and he was frightened and he was gravely puzzled as to why the castle gates had been left flung open wide, but that did not stop him. A howling war-cry on his lips, ferocity in his heart, he soon had webs in his mouth as he ran full-tilt into Arapach’s snare, as did the man behind him, and the man behind him, and the man behind him. Before fifty seconds had elapsed the entryway to the castle was clogged with a yelling, clanking morass of dangling men, all of them stuck fast and twitching too violently to allow their fellows to cut them free.
“A good start,” said Arapach. But there were thuds from the walls: the clanking sound of siege-ladders. Arapach made haste but no waste, and laid a second snare.
The first man reached the top of his ladder no more than a few moments later. He reached for the battlements and walked neck-first into a thin little band of unsticky silk, the sort of line Arapach used to run along the webs without getting all eight feet stuck. It was firm and resilient and stretched taunt as piano-wire, and it bounced the poor soldier head-first down his ladder – or rather, helmet-first, much to the sorrow of his companions beneath him. The ramparts were alive with the sound of cursing and thudding.
A clank and a call of triumph came from the courtyard; the gate had been breached at long last by the careful removal of several men whom nobody had liked very much. Within a moment’s minute the inner walls were awash with a horde of men, indeed, all the remaining army, packed tighter than fish in a barrel and three times as salty. Their dander was up from their humiliation, and their torches waved with fierce abandon; to burn was as good as to loot now, to their slighted minds.
This made Arapach smile, in that horrible way spiders smile. Arapach smiled so broudly that it almost stretched all the way around and back again, and then Arapach did a very cruel and clever thing, which was triggering the great pit-web that had been so quickly dug into the soft and loose soil of the courtyard.
Right away, the whole army was balled up tight. And perhaps that would’ve been no more than a distraction. Earlier, maybe. But this was now, and the men were angry, which is easily frightened, and bloodthirsty, which is readily panicked, and most importantly they were all waving torches. Spider-silk, contrary to what some may say, is not very flammable. Oiled armour and leathers, regrettably, are.
It was all very unpleasant.
Arapach stood there above the gate, surveying the lands, and spotted one man who remained, a man nearly the span of two in size and plainly a knight by his shininess, although in his case it was a rather dulled and sooted shiny. He rode past the hanging-men of the gates and surveyed the great bonfire with contempt in his eyes, unmoved by the unwholesomely pork-like scent that filled the air.
“Greetings,” said Arapach. “Am I to believe you are Sir Bannagan of Bistron?”
“Am I to believe that you are the insolent bug that has destroyed the Duke’s army?” asked the knight.
“Yes,” said Arapach.
“Yes then,” said Sir Bannagan of Bistron. “Now stand your ground and be squashed, or clear off.”
“I am the deputized Squire of Sir Karrowich of Rudonia, and will not clear off,” explained Arapach. “It is my duty to face you and defeat you.”
“Fine,” said Sir Bannagan of Bistron, with a roll of his eyes. “Let the duel begin.” And with that he raised one foot and brought it down very heavily.
Arapach was not there.
Sir Bannagan of Bistron swore softly and brought down his other foot, twice as hard.
Arapach, an old hand at this game, was not there.
Sir Bannagan of Bistron snarled and brought down both his feet in rapid stomping succession, stamp-stamp-tramp-stomp-tramp.
Arapach, who was ready for that, remained not there.
Sir Bannagan of Bistron swore loudly and robustly and flew into a fury, feet stamping, sword slashing, arms waving, throat bellowing curses black enough to tarnish silverware, the earth creaking under his limbs.
Arapach was not there. Instead, Arapach bit Sir Bannagan of Bistron rather firmly upon the nape of his neck.
Sir Bannagan of Bistron shrieked with a pitch that would startle a screech-owl and swung his hands to his neck, where Arapach was not. Due to his superior discipline and training instilled by a thousand thousand hours of practice he did not drop his sword first, and the pommel impacted with considerable force.
Arapach stood atop Sir Bannagon of Bistron’s boots with a well-earned satisfaction, and surveyed the horizon. Still the darkness behind the army loomed, even after it was decimated (in the common-use sense of the term), even after its commander was felled most thoroughly.
“Come on then,” said Arapach impatiently. “Flies might not catch themselves, but there’s no catching to be done if they won’t at least show up for the snaring.”
The darkness rumbled. And then it shattered.
The figure behind it was revealed to the eyes of all; slavering, bellowing, and thunderous. It was a dragon of unreasonably large size, and who knew what promises of treasure and meals had lured it from its undermountain home and brought it sepulchrously squinting into the light of day with eager fangs. The land groaned under its scaly belly; the clouds squirmed away from its sides; the sky roiled against its back. In its breath was the noxious scent of corpses long-decayed; in its heart was lustful greed; in its eyes was hungry death. Its claws were half a league long and its teeth were half a league longer and its deadly gaze that could stop a man’s heart cold and dark was keener than an eagle’s and thrice as cruel.
“Hmm!” said Arapach the Fat. “This will be interesting.”
There were many songs written about that battle afterwards, which is how this sort of thing goes, really. Fish swim, birds fly, spiders spin, and singers lie, lie, lie, lie until they run out of money, and then they lie some more. In this case the lies were exceptionally bold and blatant because not a single man dared peek out a window at the hideous racket and see what transpired, lest they see their doom approaching and die horribly aware rather than peacefully ignorant.
So the tale of how the dragon breathed poisonous fire that no man could withstand, but Arapach did, was a lie.
Furthermore, the tale of how Arapach’s shield withstood a dozen blows that could fell a castle, yet still stood tall, was also a lie.
In addition, the tale of how the spider’s counter-strike slit the worm into two halfway along its body, tearing the earth with its agony, was a lie.
And the tale of the fight’s-end, where the dragon swallowed Arapach whole only for Arapach to cut through its belly and let out all its innards, that too was a lie.
So what happened was this: Arapach the Fat climbed atop the dragon as it ate the bonfire in the courtyard, blissfully ignorant of the spider’s tiny presence, carefully clambered to its eyeball, and bit it exceedingly hard there in its most sensitive place with as much venom as Arapach could muster.
The dragon reared and roared and pawed at its eye, blinded and pained. It was shocked that something could harm it, and baffled that it could no longer see it. The fury of a pained immortal is a sight to see, and so too must have been what the dragon expressed when Arapach bit its other eye ten seconds later.
Oh the racket! Oh the calamity! Oh the rage of it all, the spiteful anger, the fury, the indignation! But underneath all that show-fury and ire lay the heart of a true predator: a cautious coward that cannot afford to die for a meal. And so it was that at the fangs of Arapach the dragon knew caution and terror for the first time in millennia, and retreated to its undermountain home to nurse its eyes and brood upon the treachery of Dukes that offer gold and land but say nothing of hideous pain and blindness.
“Huzzah!” called the king.
“Huzzah!” cheered the knights (who’d appeared again rather suddenly).
“Good job,” said the queen. “Thank you very much.”
“A pleasure,” said Arapach. “I have not laid such snares since I was a spiderling, and the challenge was a treat.”
“A treat you have earned, brave, noble, excellent Arapach,” gushed the king. “Squire you may have been, but a knight’s heart you possess! I hereby knight you SIR Arapach, and may you shield us for years to come!”
“Oh,” said Arapach. “Oh, but that’s impossible, I’m sorry to say. I must decline.”
“What?” said the king, blinking dubiously.
“Knights are ‘sir,’” said Arapach, “and that’s all well and good. But I am a woman, and women don’t get to be knights.”
“Besides,” she added, “I’m not sure they’re all that to make much of. No offense to your Sir Karrowich, of course.”
In the end, an arrangement was reached that satisfied all parties. Arapach remained Arapach, or Arapach the Fat on respectful occasions, and had a seat at high table in the court of Rudonia that she never attended, and her woods were put under royal protection, so that she might spin there for as long as she liked and as long as her great-great-great-great grandchildren lived.
Which was a very long time. Spiders have many children, and Arapach the Fat was a very good spider, due to long practice.
But she always was good at improvising, too.