As we continued on the woodland seemed much the same as before except an eerie silence that settled over everything. It reminded me so much of the Lady Blue’s ploy on the shore that I stealthy checked to see if a breeze still brushed by. It did, but nothing else moved as the shadows crept longer and kept ushering in the night. The rest of the creatures in the forest were apparently smart enough to give this area a wide berth.

It was a bit gratifying to see Ulo and Nii’s incompetence so clearly portrayed as their tracks kept leading deeper into the ominous wood, but with how sharp eyed Nii usually was, it was odd that they didn’t adjust their path. Either Ulo had been very convincing in her arguments to keep going southeast with very little deviation or the woods had been livelier earlier in the day.

Setting up camp wasn’t brought up again even as the first stars glimmered overhead. We all knew that stopping here would just be asking for unnecessary trouble. Either we left the creepy area behind on our own or we found the pair and left it behind with them.

Juniper refilled our waterskins as we walked and the fire starter pulled out pieces of flat bread cooked with berries and nuts for us to nibble on. I wanted to keep my gaze on the branches to watch out for danger, but Ulo and Nii hadn’t traveled through them, so I had to stay focused on the ground. The others switched off between who was watching overhead and who kept an eye on the surrounding trees.

I didn’t like the delegation.

Chirp also didn’t like that he wasn’t allowed to flit around anymore, but Wren had taken the other birds’ warning to heart. She wasn’t about to lose the little irritant to an ambush, so he got to pout on her shoulder.

The sun completely slipped behind the horizon and Breck and I lost the trail.

We searched through the area carefully, but no other signs appeared after the last couple partial footprints we found. Nothing to the southeast, nothing to the left or right, nothing farther back to indicate that we had been following a false trail.

Breck said the obvious answer before we could waste more time. “They were ambushed.”

“What would attack them and the birds?” Wren asked, hushed. “It’s not like they’re similar prey.”

We were back near the footprints. The trees were close enough here that they did a decent job blocking out the moonlight. It made it difficult to tell where the shadows of the pine trees began and the gloom from everything else ended.

The healer whispered, “Do you think they’re still here?”

Fern’s voice cut through the air, instantly taking command from Juniper. “Gather close and have a weapon ready. The sharper the better. If this is what I think it is, the others shouldn’t be dead yet.”

The healer’s voice sounded strangled, “Shouldn’t be?”

At the same time Wren hissed, “Why didn’t you warn us earlier then?”

“I didn’t—” Fern had to clear her throat when her voice caught. “They weren’t supposed to be here. Just be prepared and hide in the shadows if you have to.”

I pulled my spear free as we all bunched with our backs together and the healer in the middle. The fire starter crouched slightly to my right, knife in hand, and looking like he was ready for a fight. Fern had her own spear out on his other side.

It seemed to be the weapon of choice. Our new ring bristled with them as we stood shoulder to shoulder, Juniper on my other side.

“Colm, light up the sky.”

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Three flickers of fire bloomed in between the branches around us, one after the other. I only had eyes for the little flame in front of me. It only lit up the branches overhead for a moment or two, but that was more than enough to make out the monstrosity we were facing.

Half human and half spider, the thing’s body fused human waist and spider abdomen together. It had four long, thin arms attached to its upper body and four legs it could scuttle around on, all ending in three thick triangular digits. Its whole body looked like it was made out of dark, warped wood, but there were chunks that had broken away and crystallized on the edges. The face was wrong—too carved and unmoving to be real.

Which was when the entire face split down the middle to reveal two vertical rows of crystallized, needle sharp teeth.

The flame died, the healer screamed, and a sound too high for me to hear thrummed through the air.

More sparks of flame lit up the night, quick enough to show the monster a moment before it hit us. Movement from around our little group told me the storming thing wasn’t the only one.

I stabbed out with my spear and scratched it along the side. Colm grabbed one of the arms coming at him and stabbed it in its jointed shoulder. Fern stepped in close, knocking aside two other arms, and got her spear in the joint of one of its legs. A pulse of power from her and the monster shrieked in pain as wood splintered and flew.

I ducked out of the way of one large splinter as the creature’s last arm snaked around and caught Colm’s shirt. The older man stayed focus, jabbed his elbow into the creature’s elbow, but that didn’t break open its hold. I tried to stab the creature again and got it in one of its crystallizing wounds. Another high thrumming shriek echoed through the air, but the creature ignore me as it opened its maw and dripped long strings of spittle onto Colm.

He struggled as Fern and I attacked the monster, but it had two hands on him now and refused to let its prize go.

Breck’s presence pressed on my mind as she activated her blessing and, just like that, the creature let go of Colm as it tried to crawl over us to get to the girl on the other side of the circle. I ducked out of the way of a flailing limb and heard a cry of pain as I stepped into something wet.

Belatedly, I realized that Juniper had been attempting her water trick, but she was too focused on it and used to being protected by Idra’s shield. The creature’s clawed foot had scored a cut across her shoulder. I shoved the leg aside as Fern got her spear in the creature’s open mouth. A pulse of power from her and her spear head turned into a spiky ball that shot out for several inches in all directions. The creature screamed again and fell onto Colm.

He took the hit hard. He hadn’t moved with the same efficacy he started with. Now his movements were wide and sweeping, slow and weak. I stabbed into the creature’s open jaw as well, just for good measure, as I recognized symptoms. He was suddenly like a drunk who had too much to drink at the Heartsong Festival.

He couldn’t find the strength to push the creature off of him. After the creature gave one final twitch, I helped Fern flip the storming thing off the fire starter while he stared blurrily upwards, careful to avoid the strings of saliva.

Someone stumbled into my back and I fell onto my knees, barely keeping ahold of my spear. Twisting around to face the new threat I found the healer on the ground near me. He babbled incoherently as he tried to keep a new spider creature from pinning him in place.

Juniper struck before I did—finally realizing there wasn’t time for her water trick in this fight. Since it worked so well before, I aimed for the creature’s open mouth, but it turned its head just as I hit and knocked the weapon out of my hands.

Someone was screaming to aim at joints, wounds, and mouths, but I ignored them as I pulled out my knife. I couldn’t ignore the thick, odd hand that gripped my arm from behind as I went to strike.

Two more hands gripped me as I tried to stab my assailant and something wet and sticky dripped down my back. None of it had touched my skin, not yet. I shuddered involuntarily as I tried to break free. But that was no use. Too many arms. It’d take too long to break free attacking the joints and I didn’t have good leverage to turn around find any wounds.

Another mouth then. At least I wouldn’t be in danger of being swallowed this time.

Bunching my legs up under me, I surged backwards and up. The monsters weren’t tall, so it didn’t take much to reach what I wanted, but the move did surprise the creature and weaken its hold for a moment.

Just enough for me to strike over my head in an arch and catch it in its gaping mouth. I struck again before it had a chance to react. Saliva coated my hand and wrist as the creature shrieked too high for me to hear. I tried to strike again but its mouth snapped closed, needle teeth barely missing my fist and catching the blade.

I hung on as a numbing haze started to drift up my arm. I couldn’t lose my knife. I wouldn’t.

The creature punched me in the gut and I went down. My knife wasn’t in my hand, but it was difficult to focus on where it might be.

I needed to get away. It wouldn’t be good if I got caught.

Wouldn’t make it if I tried to run.

The creature punched me again. Its fist going in and out of moonlight as it did so.

I was laying in a shadow. Pine tree or from something else? I couldn’t tell by looking. But there was that faint feeling that if I just pushed hard enough I could slip through.

I pushed and pushed and pushed.

It was like trying to shove myself through a claustrophobic crack in the ground—a vague part of me was glad my mind was too hazy to pull on the memories the feeling brought up—and then I was falling.

Cool, oily ground pressed against my cheek as I lay sprawled out in the shadow paths. I knew we weren’t supposed to sleep in them, but I couldn’t seem to make myself focus. So I drifted just on the edge of sleeping.

I don’t know how long I lay there. Don’t know how long it took before I came back to myself enough to worry about what happened to the others and how much longer before I thought to wipe the creature’s spit off my hand. I cleared up faster after that.

I hated how quickly and thoroughly the creature’s saliva had affected me, but even as I vowed not to let it touch me again, I wondered if I could make use of it somehow. If nothing else, it would have been potent to settle difficult customers back when I had my healer’s beads—

I cut that thought off and focused instead on how it could be a good poison for hunting difficult or large game, much like the creatures had used it on us.

It felt odd to stay in the shadow paths for so long, and I didn’t like not knowing what was happening outside, but I was down to my sling for weapons and I doubted it would do much to the creature’s unnatural wooden skin. I needed to be fully recovered before I stepped out to see if anyone else escaped, especially if the creatures hadn’t left yet.

Of course, if they had left, that meant I’d probably have to find them in the woods to find the others. Fern had made it sound like the creatures had taken Ulo and Nii instead of killing them, though that seemed odd to me when they could have killed us a lot easier with their strength, numbers, and needle teeth. But they also had purposely pinned us down and used their incapacitating spit rather than bite me or the men.

So perhaps the creatures did want us for a reason.

But I wouldn’t be able to track them like I had with Ulo and Nii. I’d have to find some other way to locate them without getting caught.