Chips of sticky bark scat­tered on the snow. Hod wrenched his axe from the fir trunk, hoist­ed it. His shoul­ders knot­ted, lift­ed under furs and wool. Steel bit deep again into white wood.

Hod lev­ered the axe away, swung again. He huffed and puffed, breathed deep the win­ter air. A musk of pine and frozen soil sat dull on his palette. Steam­ing breath rose from the woods­man, fil­tered through snowflakes and wav­ing nee­dles.

A rhyth­mic, hol­low clop of steel on tree echoed in the silent wood. Wedges, bleed­ing sweet sap, dropped to the snow. Hod shift­ed his blis­ter­ing grip on the haft, cir­cled to the reverse of the trunk. He began again.

The blade slammed deep into the fir, widened a tri­an­gle in its flesh. Wet sap and frost, like flat spi­der­webs, shone on the chilly wedge of steel, glim­mered under the set­ting win­ter sun. Hod grunt­ed, grit his teeth. The fir quaked with every strike.

With a long, corky whine, the trunk began to tip. Hod hopped away, watched his hand­i­work tum­ble. There was a slow series of cracks; a quick, snap­ping crash. Snow burst about the top­pled bole, began to set­tle. Hod huffed, sur­veyed his work.

Ice slipped, spat­tered to the for­est floor from bro­ken branch­es. With a few rustlings and clicks of glassy debris, the wood was silent once again. Hod stretched, rolled his shoul­ders, groaned.

From some near­by hill­top, a cry went up: A long, high rat­tle, like teeth dropped down a wash­board. Hod froze.

The woods­man hunched his shoul­ders, scanned the trees with wide eyes. Branch­es shift­ed, not far away. A rip­ple of motion bled through the trees, bare­ly there.

Anoth­er rat­tling cat­er­waul sound­ed, ter­ri­bly close. It was dry and pierc­ing; a sound made in no throat imag­in­able. Hod squeezed the haft of his axe, watched the shad­owed spaces beneath pines’ branch­es.

Some­thing shift­ed there. Some­thing with rustling, furred legs and shin­ing eyes. Hod saw it scut­tle in the dark, silent on the crunchy snow.

Slow­ly, it emerged, click­ing throat­i­ly. One leg poked from the dark, set a hoof-like print in the snow. Sev­en more undu­lat­ed, rip­pled from the branch­es, con­vey­ing a low, hunched body. Mandibles hung close to the ground, twitched neath a clus­ter of roe-eyes set in fur.

The arach­nid stared at Hod, wor­ried its sick­le-jaws. It stamped with thick, hairy limbs, gouged the snow.

Hod widened his stance, locked his two eyes with the crea­ture’s many orbs. He held his axe high, stamped with one foot. In response, the spi­der jerked at him, click­ing. A snort of air kicked up snow, huffed by the thing’s heav­ing breath.

Slow­ly, Hod approached the beast. He whipped the axe to and fro, watched steel flash, dupli­cat­ed, in eight glar­ing mir­rors. He grum­bled, croaked deep in his throat, matched his adver­sary’s breath­less click­ing. The beast widened its ser­rat­ed fangs, crouched even low­er. In an instant, it leapt.

Eight hairy feet threw up gouts of frozen soil. The beast crashed inch­es before the woods­man. Jaws twitched before his legs, wide and sharp as log­ging tongs. Long front legs hung over his head, lined with black hooks. Hod mere­ly twitched an eye, blinked away snow.

The spi­der clacked its jaws, huffed again, ceased its click­ing. It low­ered its legs, ruf­fled its brindled fur. Slow­ly, almost calm­ly, it hiked itself up, turned its abdomen under ele­vat­ed legs. A dol­lop of stringy goo land­ed on Hod’s boots.

The thing turned on the spot, scut­tled back into the dark­ened fir boughs. Hod did­n’t watch it go. He loosed a long-held breath, made swift­ly away from the val­ley of the wolf spi­der.

***

“You hear that?” said the old man. He turned an ear to the shad­owed trees. Fire­light wavered in the grooves of his wrin­kled jowls.

Pow­ell cocked her hood­ed head as well, lis­tened. Out in the the snowy foothills, there echoed a hol­low clock­ing. She frowned. “Wood­peck­er?” she mum­bled, prod­ded the camp­fire with a stick.

The old man chuck­led, revealed a dearth of teeth. “No bird. You ‘ve nev­er been this far south, Ranger Pow­ell?”

“Nev­er.”

“It shows. Else you’d know the howl of der volf­sspin­ner,” said the man. He coughed briefly, spat into the fire. “The wolf spi­der.”

Anoth­er click­ing howl went up, reply­ing to the first. Dull, dis­tant, near­ly lost in the crack­le of the fire. Pow­ell smirked. “Don’t sup­pose they’re itty-bit­ty lit­tle spi­ders, are they?”

“No, Ranger. Worse. Much worse.”

“Come on. It sounds like there’s only a few,” said Pow­ell.

“Aye, but that how it is.” The old fel­low shift­ed on the his stump, jowls wob­bling. He shook a fin­ger at Pow­ell. “Don’t roll your eyes, fraulin. These beasts hunt alone. Jaws like sick­les, they have. Larg­er than wolves, they are, and silent. Only howl to mark their ter­ri­to­ry. Nev­er on the hunt.”

“Yeah?”

“Aye,” said the man. He coughed, wheez­ing. “Dead qui­et, when they hunt. Could be one here now, at the light’s edge. We’d nev­er know.”

Pow­ell tossed her stick in the fire, looked to her tent. “Think I might turn in. Lot of walk­ing, tomor­row,” she said, ris­ing. “Thanks for being such an enter­tain­ing guide.”

“I’d not take such a light­heart­ed tone if I were you, fraulin. It’s the small ones they go for, and you’re just about the right size for a bite.”

Pow­ell made a deri­sive snort, ducked under the can­vas. She yanked off her belt and boots, tucked her cloak about her, set­tled into the near-silent night. Her guide’s wet cough­ing car­ried on for a while, before turn­ing to damp, low snores, and, even­tu­al­ly, silence.

Come dawn, Pow­ell wob­bled sleep­i­ly from her tent, rub­bing hair from her eyes. Her breath hung in the win­ter air. “Brown,” she said, called the guide’s name. “Why’s the fire out?”

“Brow-” she start­ed, choked. By the firepit slumped a husk. Pow­ell, wide-eyed, turned it with a toe. Bones and gris­tle slid from a lac­er­at­ed shell of cloth and leath­ery skin.

Skin, pierced at the neck by jaws like sick­les.

The name “wolf spi­der” is a dread­ful mis­nomer.

A wolf is a social, coop­er­a­tive crea­ture that hunts in packs. A wolf spi­der hunts alone. It is as anti­so­cial as crea­tures come.

A wolf is a threat, but it fears humans. While it may eat your fleeces or your grand­moth­er, it won’t do so unless the deer have all gone. A wolf spi­der is a ter­ror with­out fear. It will eat your grand­moth­er because she’s fat­ti­er than a deer, and it will eat her cats, too.

A wolf howls to ral­ly its kin, to bond, to cel­e­brate the birth of new pups. The wolf spi­der howls because it wants you off its ter­ri­to­ry and it’s going to come and fight you if you don’t shove off.

These ter­rif­ic arach­nids are at home in the tree-clad foothills of the Coast’s cen­tral inte­ri­or. There, they stalk the rolling pines in utter silence, dwell in deep, glacial caves. 

They are unhur­ried preda­tors. Once fat­ted by a meal, a spi­der need only eat once more in a month. A wolf spi­der may creep on its tar­get for days before final­ly feel­ing the urge to strike. The only sure way to shrug a trail­ing spi­der is to leave its hunt­ing grounds, or meet it in com­bat. This is a tricky thing to do, as they are loth to attack with­out sur­prise on their side.

The ter­ri­to­ry of a wolf spi­der may encom­pass a small moun­tain val­ley. This hunt­ing ground will fea­ture a high place (a treed hill, an old tow­er, a cliff) where the spi­der watch­es its domain. Here, the beast squats, observes. It watch­es with keen eyes for intrud­ers and prey. The for­mer will be chal­lenged with a rat­tling shriek. The lat­ter will be not­ed for lat­er gob­bling.

Wolf spi­ders are pos­sessed of ter­ri­ble fangs (fre­quent­ly com­pared to grain sick­les.) With these mandibu­lar instru­ments, they catch and crush prey, rely­ing on the force of a sin­gle bite to sev­er ver­te­brae or induce shock. Slain prey are pumped full of a liq­ue­fac­tion agent, reduc­ing the sub­ject to a nutri­ent slur­ry. This goop is gob­bled straight away.

Notably, most vari­eties of wolf spi­ders spin no webs to catch prey. The small spin­nerets they pos­sess serve as con­struc­tion mate­r­i­al for their cob­web-cush­ioned nests, and as a mode of mark­ing ter­ri­to­ry with pheromone-laden goo. This goo, spied on the sides of trees or rocks, may indi­cate that a walk­er in the hills has entered spi­der ter­ri­to­ry. 

Some two cen­turies ago, some clever set­tlers inad­ver­tent­ly domes­ti­cat­ed the first tame wolf spi­ders. In a bid to pre­vent noc­tur­nal attack, they offered meats near­by the edge of their camp, an offer­ing made in order to divert the spi­ders’ appetites. This proved suc­cess­ful, and over sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions yield­ed the first domes­tic cob­hounds.

Nowa­days, cob­hounds are kept for hunt­ing, war, and com­pan­ion­ship. Some, bred for war, pos­sess fangs and huge bod­ies which out­do both war dogs and their nat­ur­al brethren. Oth­ers are loved by fanciers. They are trea­sured for their large, glassy eyes and their orange, vel­vet coats. Despite their qui­et domes­tic­i­ty, though, there remain many who want noth­ing to do with even domes­tic spi­ders.

They remem­ber only the wild ter­ror of the wolf spi­der. Of count­less eyes in the dark, and qui­et nights bro­ken by rat­tling, ter­ri­to­r­i­al screams. 

Note

The first of two arti­cles on spi­ders that are not dogs.