Fern kept a firm hand on me and at least one foot in a pine tree’s shadow while I smeared the last of the viscous mixture I made on the side of the tree trunk. Bloated grasper sap, water, and animal glue made for an easy mixture that would hopefully help hold any festerlings in place that came in contact with it. At the very least the sticky substance should help slow the creatures down.

The main disappointment with this particular trap was that I didn’t have nearly enough to spread it over all the trees in the area I wanted. The bloated grasper pods had each been about the size of my head but, even with the water and animal glue to spread the sticky substance further, I had only gotten some of the branches and trunks on about twenty different trees. All on the opposite side of the festerlings’ grounds from the creek.

That was what Breck would use to hide her body heat and rescue the others she could carry once my traps were all set. We wouldn’t be able to get everyone on this first run, but that was to be expected. If we could rescue the three that would be the most useful and thin the creatures’ numbers then it would be a success.

A branch creaked, and Fern and I tensed. Ready to disappear back into the shadow paths at a moment’s notice. The festerlings might be difficult to spot, but their bodies still could be too heavy for some of the branches they chose to perch on. I had a low grade headache from straining my ears for the slightest out of place sound for the past hour.

I eyed my work and then gave Fern a slight nod. She dragged me back into the tree’s shadow. A handful of moments of disorientation and then we were back in the mist and oil sheen world of the shadow paths.

Perhaps I was spoiled from the handful of times a whisper woman had transported me through the paths, but there was a definite difference in quality between traveling with them and the Sapling. The disorientation with her took a little longer to recover from and rather than a sense of slipping into the shadow or falling, it felt more like she was tearing her way through. It also took her longer to pick out the shadow she wanted to exit from, and there had been one time when she was leading me to one that she had to stop, reorient herself, and pick a different one.

All in all, it gave me a bit more perspective and pride in my own efforts. If she could still struggle with the boon, then perhaps my own progress with it wasn’t completely abysmal. Besides, I thought my transitions in and out of the shadows were smoother than hers even if they did send me sprawling from different unexpected angles when I left the shadow paths half the time.

She caught me watching her and a displeased look pinched her face. “I won’t have the concentration to take you through the paths much more today. Not without rest.”

I shrugged. “That was the last sticky trap. We’ve already placed the claw traps and trip wires I was able to make. Now I just need to apply the poison to our weapons and we’ll be ready. If we leave the traps too long the surprise might be ruined.”

Fern’s look shifted to something something closer to disquiet at my words, but she didn’t say anything. While the skills Rawley had gifted me were clearly helpful in our current situation, she had been a bit put off since I revealed my fledging proficiency with traps and poisons. She also didn’t like that I had pressured her into helping Breck and me before the hunter squad arrived. ‘Futile effort’ were the words she used before Fern grudgingly agreed to take me through the shadow paths.

A minute later and we were back in the woodland, only a couple dozen steps from our hiding place. We slipped through the bushes. Breck was inside the small hollow checking over her weapons while Chirp monitored the surrounding area. I had put him charge of watching over our supplies for the price of a sleet beetle a day because I knew Wren would never forgive me if I accidentally got her bird killed. And there weren’t a lot of useful things he could or would do without Wren there to convince him.

I checked the bowl of Traveler’s Catch paste I had made from the cuttings I had made in the seedling garden. It wasn’t nearly as potent as I knew it could be if I could boil the stems and thorns, especially if I also had ripple leaf bark, but the plant as it was could induce muscle cramps for a short period. That was an advantage I wanted against the many limbed festerlings.

The paste had set, so I carefully spread a small amount across my spear head before moving on to my knife and the others’ weapons. Fern took the chance for a short rest and Breck watched my handling of her weapons with a careful eye. In addition to her spear and knife, I put the small amount of leftover paste onto her throwing needles. The needles might not do a lot of harm, but I trusted her aim to get one in a creature if she needed to slow it down. I also added the Traveler’s Catch to the weapons we scavenged. I planned on taking an extra spear and knife with me. It might be a bit unwieldy, but I had practiced the night before with the extra weight and I could still run well enough with the weapons. If I had to travel across the goddess’s territory with the extra things it wouldn’t work, but our hit and run plan wasn’t focused on endurance.

Once our preparations were complete, Breck and Fern left for the stream and I snuck off for the obstacle course I had created for the spider creatures. If things went according to plan, Fern would transport one person to our hideout while Breck grabbed the other two and I distracted the festerlings. If there was time before the festerlings noticed the theft, Fern would grab a fourth person and transport them as well before helping Breck.

At first she had been adamant about joining me on distraction duty, but I rightfully pointed out that the whole point of what we were doing was to rescue the others and her ability to travel through the shadow paths would be more helpful there. Besides, if for some reason the festerlings didn’t pull their punches when trying to capture me, I would survive it with or without her help, but that wasn’t a guarantee for everyone else on the rescue of the mission.

Not that I was that keen on getting captured. Since I had more time to process what had happened during the fight, I realized that the state the creatures’ saliva induced was similar to when I had been frozen. Still able to move and more muddled awareness, but similar to the times when my mind had drifted during those long days and nights of immobility. I didn’t like it.

So I did what I could to keep their spit from my skin. Despite the somewhat warmer weather, I dug my cloak and gloves out of the bottom of my pack to wear. I wanted a mask, but I didn’t have one handy or materials to make it, so I settled for tying an extra cord around my hood, so it couldn’t accidentally slip back. My tunic and pants were already long sleeved, so they got tucked into my gloves and boots.

If the creatures’ spit got me it would because I stuck my face in the way of the offending stuff or they managed to saturate my clothes. I was determined to avoid both options if I could.

I slipped as close the festerlings’ camp as I dared. It wasn’t quite close enough to actually see the tree and captives by the creek, since that lay on the other side of the wide low hill, but I was confident that at least one festerling was likely hidden close by. If I pushed closer without the cover of the river I would be spotted before I was ready, if I hadn’t been already.

I took a brief breath to take stock of my nearby traps, nothing too crazy this close to the festerlings’ base, but the tree I was hiding behind had a good helping of the sticky mixture as well as one a little way away. The further from the base the more I had been able to set up without fear of being caught.

The creatures liked to surround and ambush their prey. If I saw one before I began to run it would likely be too late. I stood up from my crouch, spear in hand, knees bent, ready to run.

Then I screamed. Long and loud enough that Breck and Fern should be able to hear it from their spot in the creek.

The air thrummed from screeches too high for me to hear and I ran. The festerlings had the advantage of terrain as they jumped and scrambled from tree to tree, but I had the advantage of preparation this time around. I ran past sticky trees, dodged under line traps, stepped around a claw trap. The air kept thrumming with the screams of thwarted festerlings as I heard scuttling coming to an abrupt stop and one thud to the ground after it got clotheslined by a trip wire tied between branches.

A dark wooden body with too many limbs dropped in front of me in the late afternoon sun. The festerling’s face split open while I used my momentum to drive the spear I was holding deep into the crystallized wound on its human shaped abdomen. It shrieked and stumbled to the side. I dodged past and abandoned the spear. Hopefully we could retrieve it later, but for now I had to do what I could to avoid being cornered.

Rather than pull my second spear out of its holder, I vaulted over a fallen log using my free hands. Saliva plopped down on my hood as I ran around another tree. Risking a look back, I saw four festerlings hurtling through the woods after me. Not as many as I hoped, but perhaps at least a handful of others had been caught in my traps. Hopefully, Breck and Fern had a chance to rescue the others we needed.

A festerling hurtled into the trunk of a sticky tree as I ducked below it and kept running. It stopped giving chase as the creature had to contend with trying to pull two of its legs and part of its body free. The trap wouldn’t keep it in place forever, but it had more than done its job.

I grinned as I kept bobbing and weaving through the trees; doing my best to lead the creatures where my traps were laid thickly.

My cloak snagged on something and I was jerked backwards as my momentum abruptly came to a stop. My shoulders hit hard on an exposed tree root, but I ignored the pain and scrambled to my knees. I would have stood, but the tension in the cloak didn’t allow for that. Stomach sinking, I twisted to see what it caught on, and pulled out my spear just in case.

The spear point skittered across a wooden body before glancing off the edge of a crystallized wound. I repositioned the spear under on arm, to hold it level and steady, while I reached up to unclasp my cloak from my throat.

Which was when I realized my mistake. By tying the extra cord around the cloak’s hood I couldn’t get rid of the cloak as easily as I had the spear. Even with it unclasped the cord held the cloak in place and the knot wasn’t one I could easily slip free.

The festerling ignored my spear and went to knock me to the ground like they had with the fire starter the night before. I gritted my teeth and set the spear-butt against the ground, aiming for the creature’s horrid mouth. The spearhead dug into flesh as the festerling’s triangle fingers latched onto my shoulders.

Another one hit me from the side. My hip screamed in pain as I was shoved sideways into my spear. For a moment I couldn’t breathe and then the spear shaft broke, my cloak tore free, and my head slammed into the ground just shy of a root. I could hear my blood pulse, feel it in my cheek and forehead.

It took longer than should for me to realize that the creatures had gotten tangled with each other. I twisted free on one grasping hand and levered myself up again.

Running, feeling half blind, I tugged at the knotted cord holding my storming cloak in place. The knot was tied well. It held.

Cursing, I pulled one knife free, pulled the cord as far from my throat as I could, and slipped the knife in the gap. A new sharp pain bloomed along my jaw as I accidentally cut it, but the cord broke. A few tugs later and it and my cloak were abandoned on the ground.

I had lost track of my obstacle course and I almost stepped in my own claw trap before awkwardly hopping over it. Stumbling on the landing, I nearly fell again, and that’s what saved me from a new festerling that had jumped for me. It landed on the claw trap and the legs of its dead brethren snapped closed on its torso with enough force to puncture small holes in its wooden armor. The creature tried to haul itself after me, but the thick cord tied to the trap’s base and the trunk of the tree prevented the move.

I kept running.

Or at least, I tried to. But the awkward landing had hurt my ankle more than I thought and my foot rolled. Back on the ground, I tried to rise before another festerling could come but my hip wasn’t having it.

The festerling caught in the claw trap snapped its jaws on the cord holding it in place and sheared through the braided vines. Then it leaped for me.

I rolled out of the way. The air thrummed with its shriek as it missed.

I glared at it.

Knife in hand, back up stuck in my belt. The creature was between me and the closest shadow I could disappear into. I no longer had head protection against the creature’s spit. Running was no longer an option, but I could storming well make myself hobble, crawl, or roll to that shadow if nothing else.

It whirled toward me and I dove between its legs. Not quite to the shadow.

But there was a crystallized wound, raw and gaping, staring me in the face. Not one to waste an opportunity, I stabbed it. The knife sank in easily, more easily than it had when I attacked these wounds in the past. This wound was older though…bigger and more festered.

Pus popped onto my face and I gagged as the creature thrashed.

I stabbed it again. And again. It was too close to try for the shadow again and if I killed it that would be one less for us to deal with later.

The festerling tried to scuttle off of me as I stabbed it a fourth time, but I pressed my good foot into the edge of its wound, clawed my free hand into the edge near my head, ignoring the way the crystal bit into my skin, and held on as I continued to attack it. If I was underneath it, it couldn’t easily grab me or use its spit. The disadvantages of having a melded body.

I cut and stabbed as the creature thrashed and stumbled around. It tried to slam me into the ground to daze me from my hold a few times, but I gritted my teeth and held on. Besides, the poison seemed to be working by that point, since it didn't seem to be moving as well as it had. Near the end, it got a hold of my hair with one hand and nearly pulled me free, but the slight change in positioning helped me hit something I hadn’t before when I stabbed one last desperate time.

The air thrummed as the creature shrieked again and shuddered. Then it slumped alarmingly to the side—and I had one brief moment of victory before I realized that the dying creature’s weight had trapped my bad leg beneath it. I struggled to heave it off of me, but I didn’t have the leverage I had when I freed my spear during the night. Wooden spider abdomen pressed my back and shoulders into the ground until I only had a thin air space to see the ground beyond the spider’s bleeding body.

Scuttling sounds came from the trees around me and I froze. My leg was sticking out from under the body, but the rest of my body had been trapped in an awkward crouch beneath it, pressed up into the wound. I froze. There was no way I could get myself free and battle ready in time to fight another festerling. Or more.

Perhaps, if I just stayed still enough they would think I was dying with their brethren and lose interest. I closed my eyes and breathed as shallowly as I could. Willing them to go away.

I heard multiple creatures move around me. One prodded my foot and drooled a whole puddle over my leg, but the treated hide resisted the wetness, for now at least. I could feel the vibrations as they chittered and screeched at each other, but they seemed reluctant to move the body. Or perhaps they didn’t really register things that were losing body heat or that didn't cause vibrations. If they could even sense their own body heat through the thick wooden layer.

I was starting to think that they would hang around me forever when they all suddenly rushed off. Probably Breck’s own distraction she had planned to draw them off me, so that I could escape more easily once they had rescued who they could. Which had been a wonderful plan until I couldn’t move.

I glared as best as I could at the wooden armor pressing against the side of my face. One way or another I’d get the storming thing off of me before the others had a chance to return.