Memory (II)

Maath’s clawed limbs sunk into the dark ground of the tunnels as she kept moving towards the colony. She had changed their shape to gain more traction as she moved on the hard stone of the deeper caves, the new recurve talons digging even in the firm basalt, new showers of sparks brightening the darkness around her with every step she took.

She had almost reached the outskirts of the Nest when the stone suddenly vibrated, the thunderous clamor of something huge and heavy hitting the stone soon followed the rumbling of the ground, filling her mind with dreadful visions of destroyed chambers and broken brood. She further pushed her body in an effort to save precious seconds, her abdomen lengthening slightly and the shell becoming smoother, reducing the drag of the air on her body. She sped up.

Members of the colony started appearing in the underground pathway; a caravan of refugee hatchlings, each one weighed down by a cocoon of many eggs, was proceeding down the tunnel, heading away from the battleground that had been their home, while grown males rushed forward, reinforcements to the struggling defenders. They disappeared behind her mere seconds later as she rushed past them in a gale of wind and metallic limbs.

Maath moved past the last bend of the passage and the entrance to her beautiful nest finally came into sight. Past the large and round opening, a monstrous shadow danced on the silver and obsidian-colored surface of the lair, cast by the light of the glowing blue mold that Olush had carefully bred throughout her life.

She madly rushed into the main cavern where the Anathema finally appeared before her eyes.

The being was laying prone at the far end of the cave as three huge, groaning cables of metallic silk strained to keep it in place while hundreds of Spear Spiders crowded around it, launching new lines to hold down its huge extremities.

The entire surface of the monstrous body was covered in spore-spitting pustules and jagged, gaping abscesses that spewed brown sludge onto the defending arachnids as they ineffectually tried to bite and pierce through its diseased hide. It had five, deformed limbs, each one larger than the biggest stalagmite and each one somehow bulging and twisting as they pushed against the bindings preventing their movement.

From her position, Maath could see a harried Chillushrith launching more and more lines of hardened silk on the creature’s body, ineffectually trying to keep it from moving as even the rock itself, upon which the main pillars were anchored, started breaking off with resounding cracks under the immense strength of the invader.

Maath stood witness as the festering ooze of the Anathema coated the beautiful silvery floor of her halls, as it suffocated her children and destroyed the work of centuries.

The Spider Queen’s core flared from within her brain; pure and unbridled hatred filled her mind as its energy lashed out, grounding itself on the metal veins she was standing upon, the concussive waves of power rippled outwards, through her carapace and into the cave itself, travelling through the metal like an electric current.

The first of the three main cables snapped off as the rocky protrusion keeping it in place finally gave out, the intense whiplash sending it crashing against the walls of the cavern as a shower of rocks smashed and clanged on the ground.

The glassy exterior of the cavern was fractured by the impact; gaping cracks snaked all over the jet-black obsidian interspersed with the rippling platinum striations of her species’ alloy, large shards sometimes falling on the ground and shattering in an explosion of deadly shrapnel.

The Anathema had freed the first of its limbs, a gnarled arm filled with tendrils and finger-like protrusions that continuously twitched and grasped at the air; the appendage extending with surprising speed towards the closest target of importance.

Maath tried to shriek a warning as the corrupted hand tried to latch onto Chillushrith, her normally hulking form looking almost tiny when compared to the palm of the massive creature.

The Thinker hissed her defiance as both of her sickles slashed in an upward arc, cutting off a number of the grasping tentacles, the amputated pieces falling on the ground like many bleeding and twitching larvae.

Despite her efforts, however, the deformed hand closed around her back, each of the fingers latching onto her exoskeleton and trying to bore into it, the plated carapace groaning under the pressure of the tendrils. Finally, with a distorted grunt from the monster, her daughter was thrown in the air in a wide arc, her body crashing a few seconds later on the other side of the cave with a cacophony of broken limbs and cracked chitin.

Maath shrieked in hatred and worry when she saw the broken form of Chillushrith on the ground.

Sharp ridges and acuminate spikes emerged from her back and joints, protecting any weak spot while the liquid metal of the cave started flowing towards her own body, a number of thickened plates quickly layering upon her own exoskeleton.

Her abdomen creaked dangerously as her insides were suddenly compressed and displaced, her shape growing thicker, more compact and heavier as the alloy finally solidified into armor.

Her two frontal limbs had now lengthened into heavy, sharp-edged falchions while the remaining legs had become thicker to support her hugely increased weight.

As the Queen was changing, the Anathema used its liberated limb to grab onto the second cable holding it in place; the creature’s arm bulged and twisted, the many putrid cysts and boils on its surface spewing more of the brownish, diseased ooze until, with a triumphant groan, it managed to snap it off, the second arm now able to move around.

The new limb was more similar to a squared boulder than anything else, designed to crush, mangle and shatter anything it impacted. And the arm now fell, almost slowly at first, on the largest cluster of males, still busy layering lengths of silk on the creature’s legs, trying to keep it in place. They were crushed into a gory pulp on the ground, the silk starting to tear away soon after.

The rotting Anathema now moved to stand up on its two, twisted legs, snapping off the silken threads with practiced ease. By the time the Queen of Spear Spiders took her first step forward, the only part of its body still constrained was its third, lance-like limb, an acuminate spear that struggled against the last groaning cable.

Maath started moving, the ground buckling under her weight, the hemolymph inside of her body put to tremendous pressures to propel forward her immense mass.

Her pedipalps crashed against each other, the sound of a rockslide echoing in the cave as she barreled towards the nightmare. A defiant titan of roiling platinum ready to rip into her larger foe.

The rotting Anathema was finally upright, now using its own weight to tear off the last creaking anchor. Upon hearing the thunderous sound of challenge, the being’s head finally turned towards her, revealing a blighted and cankerous mound of flesh, riddled with diseased wounds and pulsating growths.

The largest of those gashes suddenly opened wide, showing a mess of twisting and decomposing insides before suddenly producing an ear-splitting bellow that once again shook the stone.

Maath didn’t waver, her legs cracking the ground underneath as they advanced towards the creature, her pure, unbridled hatred letting her push her armored body at extreme speeds with barely any effort.

The blighted creature tried to swipe at her with its hammer-like limb but its precarious position had him missing, the massive mallet wheezing just past her head as Maath barreled forward, her two falchions ripping into the exposed leg before she simply launched herself against the weakened side, slamming against it and letting her momentum break through the limb.

A shower of rotten fluids covered her as she moved past the destroyed appendage, the monster’s bellow becoming a deep and keening groan as it fell down on the ground once again, the quaking fall ripping off the final anchor and freeing the last arm.

Triumphantly clicking for her attack, Maath didn’t notice the sledgehammer returning for her, the huge limb slamming against her thorax and sending her crashing against the wall of the cave, her exoskeleton smashing into the obsidian and causing it to explode in a shower of deadly shrapnel and pulverized glass.

She wheezed as she stood up, shrugging off the pain of two crushed legs with a short hiss, her body now much heavier.

Maath watched as the Anathema dropped the lance-like limb on the ground, using the long appendage as a crutch for its destroyed leg. Feeling a moment of weakness, the matriarch reacted instantly, using a large amount of the magical energy in her core to direct a large wave of metal onto the Anathema’s body, making it stagger as the sudden surge started to coat its lower limbs, traveling upward toward the rest of the body in a race against time and gravity to contain the creature.

Thus, it was with astonishment and fear that she watched the rotting being simply ignore the attack. A deep gurgle erupted from within its body as it started literally shedding the outer layer of its diseased skin to free itself of the new bindings. The sloughing-off skin didn’t even have time to hit the ground before the monster extended its gnarled hand towards her.

The Spider Queen tried to move away from the incoming forest of grasping fingers but her cracked legs prevented her from dodging it in time; dozens of tendrils and deformed digits closed around her two, already broken legs and started violently pulling until, with a wet, ripping sound, the two limbs were torn off with a spray of ichor.

She screeched in pain as the wound gushed out a literal torrent of highly pressurized blood before her muscles clamped shut on the two holes, preventing further blood loss.

The Anathema did not relent, using that moment of agonizing pain to raise the massive lance from the ground and thrusting it forward to skewer her through, only for the limb to hit a thick wall of metal Maath had instinctively erected between them. With a sound of torn metal and ripped flesh, the lance impacted the bulwark and pushed through it, the long weapon splintering even as it pierced through the barrier.

Maath gasped as a massive, round splinter entered the flank of her abdomen and speared through her insides, only stopping when it impacted the hard carapace on the other side unable to pierce through.

The Spider Queen felt the brown, putrid ichor spraying from the destroyed lance, she felt it as it flooded her own system, soaking deeply into her wounds.

The otherworldly being reeled, briefly clutching the destroyed limb as it took a single step back before doubling down on the weakened and agonizing Queen.

The huge hand clamped shut on her head, three of her eyes instantly crushed by the boring tendrils that tried to pierce through her armor as the massive Anathema raised its sledgehammer-like limb and started slamming it on her back, the metal groaning and creaking under the repeated strikes.

In a haze of pain and rage, Maath could feel her insides getting pulped with each percussion, her mouth already spewing a stream of warm, blue blood with each strike on her thorax and abdomen.

I will take you down with me. she thought, her core pouring more and more energy into the deep metal veins of her lair, the silver-colored substance warping and rippling madly under the magical effect while her own core was left dangerously empty.

The carapace finally cracked; her flesh now exposed to the elements by the rampage of the monster, her power faltering for an instant.

Its mouth opened again, a deep, gurgling reverberation echoing throughout the cave as the massive hammer was raised to its maximum height, ready to fall down and finally end her.

Then, just as the arm was beginning its final descent, a single, beautifully braided silken line wrapped around the arm, making the beast stumble and falter. Behind the grotesque monster, Chillushrith dropped on the ground once again, completely spent after the perfect throw.

The Anathema roared in anger, trying to snap it off, only for the single, silvery thread to be followed by hundreds more, thick and thin, each one of them anchored to the ground and working to keep the weapon away from their injured Queen as Eisor and the raiding swarm finally entered the fray, trying to distract the Anathema’s attention from Maath’s ravaged body.

The Anathema started turning, its hand releasing her head to rip away the new bindings while the lance started somehow growing back from its ruined state.

You will not touch them. She roared in mind, the magic in the metal finally flaring up.

BEGONE.

A massive lance of metal erupted from the ground, skewering the twisted hand right in its palm and starting to coat the rest of the blighted limb.

The being’s massive muscles twitched as it broke off the tip, only for a second spike to rush out of the ground and punch through its remaining uninjured leg, a fountain of infected gore coating the floor around it.

The creature’s keening sound was interrupted time and time again as the lair itself turned against it.

Lance after lance, spear after spear, the Anathema’s body was perforated all over until, with a last hissing bellow, the Queen of Spear Spiders formed a final, titanic lance from the largest river of metal on the ceiling and forced it through the diseased head of the Anathema, the huge shaft embedding itself in the ground an instant later with a shower of superheated metal which started burning through the impaled carcass.

Just as the darkness was enveloping her, she used the final rivulets of her power to order the still-moving alloy to coat the entirety of the infected corpse, its burning surface already spouting spores and noxious fumes.

She heard the anxious screeching of her many daughters as the void finally welcomed her.

*****

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