Report: Beatriss and the charming peasant in Jangzy

Beatriss left Khanbaliq with eight soldiers from the House of Mehwa and four peasants hired as guides and porters. Just beyond the city gates they met two more travelers bound for Jangze—a cheerful young man and a weary young woman who trudged beside him in silence. The man introduced himself as Omesa, his smile quick and disarming, his manners refined beyond his station.

They journeyed together for most of the day—Beatriss and the two commanders on horseback, the rest on foot. Near afternoon they reached the moss-covered ruins of a temple. The soldiers proposed making camp there, but Omesa waved the idea aside. “If we press on,” he said, “we’ll reach Jangze before the moon climbs. You’ll sleep softer under a living roof than among the ghosts of a dead god.” His tone was light, teasing, and convincing.

Another hour brought them to a ravine spanned by a narrow footbridge. One soldier stayed behind with the horses while the others crossed. On the far side, the air turned cool and damp, and the forest grew dense. Pale webs glistened among the trees—vast, delicate, and eerily empty.

At dusk they reached the village. It was deserted. Omesa looked troubled but explained quickly that the villagers had fled to the hills because of the spiders—and that he, too, must soon follow. The four older peasants and the young woman departed in haste. Omesa lingered.

“You shouldn’t sleep in the open,” he said. “My house isn’t much, but it’s clean, and the trees will hide it from whatever walks at night.”

His hut stood at the edge of the village, simple but well-kept. He cooked rice and poured tea with graceful hands, making small jokes that even drew a half-smile from the weary soldiers. Beatriss found herself noticing the precision of his movements, the flicker of his eyes in the lamplight—an effortless charm that she distrusted but could not quite resist.

After supper, they set a watch. But before anyone could rest, sounds came from the trees: scratching, chittering, movement on the roof. The walls quivered. Hairy legs poked through the thatch. Beatriss gave the signal.

They burst into the night blades drawn. The spiders were as large as dogs. One forced its way inside and lunged at Omesa, who fought it off with a burning stick, laughing breathlessly—“You see? I’m not entirely helpless!”—until Beatriss cut the creature down.

By dawn, more than a dozen spiders lay dead. Four soldiers had been bitten and succumbed to the venom. The survivors carried the bodies to an empty hut. Omesa, his face pale but unshaken, suggested they “find a way to honor the living as well as the dead.” Beatriss rebuffed him curtly.

Exhausted, she fell into uneasy sleep. Her dreams were strange: laughter from the trees, a warm hand brushing her cheek, a fox’s tail flicking just beyond sight.

She woke to darkness, unable to move, pressed between damp earth and wooden planks. Overhead, she heard boots stamping on floorboards and called for help.

The soldiers pulled her up through a hole in the floor. The hut around them was not the neat cottage of the night before but a long-abandoned ruin, its roof half-collapsed, the walls thick with vines. Omesa was gone. They searched the village but found no sign of him—only pawprints in the mud, faint and sharp as though pressed by an animal walking upright.

Beatriss said nothing on the road back to Khanbaliq. But she dreamed often of the smiling young man who fought like a fox and vanished like a ghost.