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Mistwing closed her eyes and searched her body for data. She was splattered against a ridiculous web that defeated every effort she made to move. She needed to learn more about this trap.
It was deadly. She knew that already and had learned it the hurt way. Every part of her ached and was stretched wire-taut by the barrier holding her. Jace had blasted on into the cavern and she could scarcely draw enough air to breathe, much less shout. The only way to reach him was mind-to-mind, assuming he was sane enough to hear her.
Fortunately, one of Misty’s fronds was virtually free. Only its tip was stuck to the web. It hurt and a strange static ran up the frond from that point of contact to make her dizzy. She spent a minute drawing in air and once she felt steady began to gently pull away. Her frond gave a simple twitch, less than a tug ...
The trap struck back. It snapped forward with ten times the force of her tremor to coat the frond completely. The air she’d sucked in emerged as a thin shriek. It felt as if the frond had been ripped out.
Misty rolled her eyes to find it still intact but matted to the body of the web and stretched painfully far. She could feel blood trickling behind her ear to run down her neck. Her scream faded away. She could hardly think. Manic anger churned in her gut, and she realized she might have to give in to it, or admit she was less than a step away from panic.
“No, no, no.” The breathless pain in that familiar voice drew Mistwing back to the world. She opened her eyes ... or tried to anyway. Only one responded. Her left lid tore and stung to finally open no more than a slit. It was enough.
Ace was striding up and down in front of her. His face was ashen and his knuckles the color of custard where they gripped the blaster. Their eyes met and she tried to shake her head, but nothing moved. However, a spasm passed through the web, which tightened like a fist in her hair. Every strand of both fronds was glued tightly together. Her telepathy became a memory, along with flying and fighting.
“Not ... your fault,” Mistwing panted, reduced to using words by an evil cobweb.
Ace looked as if she’d stabbed him. “Of course it’s my fault,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I tried to blast through without looking and just left you behind. I shouldn’t have been so oblivious.”
“You should,” she said, which stopped him in mid guilt-trip, although not mid-stride. He kept on prowling as if unable to stand still. “Ace. You got through ... cos not watching. I was looking round ... so I noticed it. It noticed back.”
“A fluke on my part,” he grated, stamping harder, “but I take your point. I won’t waste time beating myself up.” A ghost of a smile appeared. “You can do that later.”
“Promise?”
He nodded and his smile grew but the grip of the blaster he was cradling crackled, before cracking in his hand. He gazed down at the split plastic as if trying to work out how it broke. “Sure.”
“Ace,” Mistwing whispered. She stopped, shocked to hear a tremor in her voice. “Ace,” she repeated, and it was there again, but this time she didn’t mind. She was terrified and he was the only person in the Universe she’d share that with.
Ace finally stopped pacing, while his desperate grin slipped away. “I’ll get you out,” he promised. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I just need to calm down and think.” A second later his lids snapped up and he looked at her properly—really studied her as she hung there, already twisted and stretched. His jaw tightened while his fronds bushed wide to send thoughts she couldn’t sense. His gaze narrowed on the web coating her fronds and he grimaced but nodded understanding.
“I want to start blasting,” Ace said aloud, “but it won’t help. Too close and I’ll roast you. Too far away and I’ll free more strands to hunt for you. The web also seems to reseal after being melted. So, it’s time to get cutting. Relax, love. I’ve got plenty of blades to try.”
Misty had to admit that was sound advice—wise even—but she wouldn’t be relaxing any time soon. Not in this drakking web and not in her sleep after she was free of it. Not for a very long time.
Ace stored the blaster with steady hands and decompressed a sword instead. It looked like an ancient longsword, but its edge glistened with exotic matter. Surely that could cut through anything, even the web from hell.
However, it would help if she really did relax. Tensing her muscles would only draw any reaction to Ace’s attack closer to her. Misty stopped fighting her stinging eyelids and let them sag, along with the rest of her body. It was very dark with her eyes shut. She opened the one that still worked straight away because it was impossible to relax while feeding her imagination.
“ACE.” Her hoarse cry was enough to warn him.
He turned in time to face a nightmare far worse than anything she was imagining.
It was a spider larger than any Mistwing had ever seen. Its eight eyes rolled as one to look past Ace and settle on her. “Food,” it whined. “At last. The Master rewards the ultimate guard.”
Its voice dropped to a manic mutter, but its gaze never wavered from Misty. It stepped forward and one of its hind legs dragged while its carapace was strangely cracked and shriveled. Dangerously hooked spears were tilted in lines across its back, but most had sunk into its shell and seemed more of a threat to the creature itself than any potential target.
It looked as if it had been severely water deprived. It also looked depraved.
“Drink,” it croaked while its dry fangs clacked together. It didn’t seem to notice Ace at all. He darted to confront it, but it stared at Mistwing and kept on coming.
Ace roared at the muttering beast, and it finally reared back, waving its spiked forelegs in his direction. Misty’s fists clenched with excitement. She didn’t even wince when the web tightened like a noose around her hands.
The monster’s belly was partially exposed. Ace had a chance to end this.
Misty’s fists clenched further, until her nails drew blood from her palms and the web striped the back of her hands with red. She silently willed Ace to attack. A running drop-and-slide would take him under the spider’s abdomen. A risky move of course, so he’d have to be quick ...
Ace spun away from the posturing bug.
Instead of attacking he turned back to Mistwing and swung his sword. It carved through the strands down her right side. The pressure on her arm and leg eased but her torso was still wrapped tight. She hung from her imprisoned left side, dangling like a juicy flit, but only briefly.
The seared ends of the severed cables writhed and twisted until they managed to touch each other. They melded together like melted cheese before springing taut once more. Misty was pulled upright and stretched across the web more painfully than before. She hissed and glared at Ace. Her fronds were still trapped but hopefully her expression yelled, Idiot.
Fortunately, he didn’t waste time staring into her eyes. He swung back to face the spider.
Which was finally charging.
The creature was huge. It towered over Ace despite staying on all its feet this time. Its head, which was all eyes and bristles and fangs, snapped forward. “LEAVE. My meal.”
“My fiancée,” Ace amended and then he was gone. What the hail?
Misty’s heart stuttered then pounded again when she found Ace in the shadows beyond the spider. He must have snap-rolled under the attacking beast. The man was moving faster than anyone should be able to. A ragged cheer escaped her flattened chest but quickly faded.
The spider turned its attention straight back to Mistwing.
And Ace was running away. Misty didn’t blame him. It was by far the most sensible thing she’d ever seen him do, yet it seemed somehow ... small. And out of character ... which of course it was. She peered into the flickering shadows just as brightness erupted from Ace.
He’d turned his com light to full and Misty’s eyes leaked tears as she forced them to keep watching.
Ace had stopped by a dark mound in the middle of the chamber. It wasn’t a boulder, or part of a toppled tower from the ruined city, although it seemed to be surrounded by fallen colonnades.
It was surely too large to be a spider, yet that was what it looked like. Its cracked carapace rose into darkness, despite the light dancing around its feet. A dark puddle spread from its sagging belly and its two remaining eyes, each as large as a shield, were dull.
They didn’t glitter in the light the way the smaller spider’s eyes did.
“NO,” that little beast shrieked. It spun away from Mistwing to stalk toward Ace and every harpoon on its desiccated body twisted high enough to target him. Motes of carapace flaked from its dry skin to dance in the light. “LEAVE MY QUEEN. RUN OR DIE.”
Well, that was clear enough. Fortunately, Ace was terrible at taking orders and Mistwing prayed he’d be especially terrible today. Don’t run. Don’t die.
Ace did retreat but only until his back was against the gigantic corpse’s flaccid abdomen. Misty blinked as more of those fallen pillars appeared in the light, angled around Ace to lean against the spider’s ruined flesh. They looked horribly familiar... Her face twitched in shock. The space web. Those huge spokes that kept their ships from Blizzard had been vomited from a spider’s guts. It looked as if producing them had torn the queen apart.
A creaking sound was the only warning that the spider guard was about to attack.
Mistwing forced her sole eye to stay open against growing pressure from the web. A harpoon streaked away from the beast in a twisting flight. It spun straight at Ace, who ducked inside the remainder of the queen’s ruptured carapace.
The missile streaked past into the darkness. The spider shrieked at Ace’s escape and that hissing wail almost covered the smack of the harpoon burying itself in the far wall.
Ace stepped into sight again and blew a kiss to Mistwing. Her heart lifted even as she scowled back and willed him to stay focused. She needn’t have worried. He was already busy with his com. He finished programing it, then dropped it.
Mistwing blinked but the shining band was still there, abandoned at his feet. He raised his right hand over his head with a flourish that drew her eye as surely as the spider’s. He held aloft the explosive block they were supposed to use to shatter the crystal.
No. The word felt dull and clipped ... and went nowhere. Mistwing’s fronds were still smothered and trying to use them left a sharp ache in her temples. She couldn’t shake her head either. So, she tried to project actual words without being able to breathe. “Ace, we need that.”
“Need you more,” he said, his voice as calm and certain as his actions. “Also, gotta plan.”
That was a relief and a pleasant surprise. Ace had always been a wing-it kind of guy. However, he had great instincts and a sharp mind. She was willing to trust him.
Ace slapped the bomb against the queen’s shattered flank.
A soft wail came from the smaller spider as it hunkered lower, and then froze. Its eyes darted in half-a-dozen directions. How far did its devotion to its queen’s corpse go? Would it risk being blown up to keep her body intact?
The soft scrape of a boot on rocky ground drew Mistwing’s attention away from the monster. Ace was walking toward her. He turned as he came to keep watching the spider with eyes as well as fronds. It studied him just as closely and started to tremble. The further he got from the queen the more it shook.
Ace took another step to come within arm’s reach of Mistwing.
That step broke the spider. It whimpered and finally moved, scuttling to join its mistress. It reared onto its hind legs to reach the packet left by Ace ... who wasn’t watching.
He hefted a smaller bomb instead and planted it at the base of the rough stone arch holding the web.
Mistwing’s eyes went wide, and she twitched in horror. She managed to stop fighting almost at once, but the strands wrapped around her chest creaked tighter anyway. She gasped a shallow breath and realized it was her ribs creaking not the web.
“The bomb on the queen ... a decoy,” she whispered.
[confirmation, resolve] A cover, no more, but anchored to the husk by my com. Should be a decoy for long enough. Don’t know any way to cut through the damn web. So, let’s explode what’s holding it up and drag you away, still in it, if necessary.
“Hate the plan,” Mistwing panted. “Want ... old you ... back.” However, she didn’t complain further while Ace set the charge in place and pulled on his emergency com. He side-stepped to join her, so she risked a glance at the spider. It had stopped whimpering and wasn’t trying to remove the fake explosives. Instead, it was spinning a web. Slimy silk flowed from its body to cover the apparent bomb.
Ace stopped almost close enough to touch, even in her webbed state. He angled himself between her and the blast. Before Mistwing could protest and check how much of his shield he was using for himself ... he detonated the charge.
Nothing happened.
Mistwing still couldn’t turn her head but did her best to strain her eyes by looking sideways. Ace sprinted to the wall and her peripheral vision finally saw why. The bomb was covered by the same sticky mess as the decoy. The web presumably wasn’t sentient, but it reacted to any threat as effectively as it reacted to prey.
Her gaze flew back to the spider, and it was close. Far too close.
Its mouthparts dripped a viscous drool. Its gaze was fixed on Ace ... and it took a bound that brought it closer still.
Ace was gone. His wings spread and he jetted away in the time it took Mistwing to blink. Her com had been crushed as soon as the web closed on her, but she still had kres vision. She followed his flight deeper into the cave and a chill touched her.
There were more mounds further in. More gigantic bodies that had become derelict hulks. This must have been a breeding ground once, a place full of queens and new life. Now it was a charnel house. A sad relic to a mass tragedy.
“Do you know how it feels to lose your queens?” the spider called in a high-pitched shriek. “To see each ripped open by a dead brood? To watch their bellies stretch until worms blast out like guts?”
Mistwing shuddered and the trap twisted tighter. The origin of those crazy space webs was even uglier than she’d imagined. An entire chamber of mothers sacrificed. She choked at the thought and a strand tightened around her neck.
She froze and tried not to breathe. If she wasn’t careful, she’d soon lose that option. Claws skittered over rock. She looked up to see the spider advancing. On her.
“Do you know how it feels to lose your queen?” it screeched again. “Shall I show you? Yes? Make you watch.”
Jace’s reaction was instant and as crazed as any Beserk.
He charged at full speed. The wind smacked together in the wake of his passage as he attacked with a whipcrack of wings. The spider reared up to wave a pair of forelegs at him. His wing claws met the spider’s claws, and he buried an ax in its head.
A choked cry of delight escaped Misty. It might even have been a cry of relief.
It faded as soon as it started. Ace’s mighty blow skewered the creature’s bristles. It severed several of the spider’s eyes. It dented the skull beneath ... but that was all. The monster hissed and fired every harpoon it had.
They all missed, except one.
The largest missile launched last from the peak of the spider’s shell to skewer Ace. He’d contorted himself in a wild somersault to avoid the others, but that carried him straight into its path when it followed. It threw him to the ground and pinned him there, shattering his shoulder and hooking into his ribs. He twitched once but that was all.
He couldn’t even try to get up.
An unseen fist clenched Misty’s heart tighter than any web. The fight was over and Ace ... Ace was down.