I flew backward in a sizzling fireball, hurling through the sky. The brunt of the impact was taken by the wall panel I’d torn off and my armor itself. The world smelled like it had been burned to ash, and I couldn’t hear a thing. Everything was muffled.
Some time later I smashed into the ground with a thud, groaning and rocking back and forth. Trying to get my bearings. My skin felt like it was on fire too.
Crawling?
I staggered up and got a look around. My eyes were still not fully functioning. I wondered if my head had been rattled hard enough for a concussion. Then I realized why my skin had felt like it was crawling.
I was covered in spiders.
“Shit!” I roared, smashing my gauntlets all over my body and crushing the little bastards as they tried to bite through the gaps in my armor. I staggered into the air, completely off-balance. Then spun like a hurricane, turning fast enough that the remaining ones flew off of me. Then I hovered in mid-air, panting. I brought my hand down to my dagger to draw on it, but it was cold and dead.
A faint ringing in my ears was slowly fading. And through it I could hear the shouts and cries of combat and the surging roar of flames. I turned toward it and saw Evelyn leading a charge. Fire was roaring from her palms as the villagers behind her strode forward with terrified yet determined faces. Pitchforks and sickles, hoes and even some swords at the ready. They slashed at the streams of spiders that were skittering around Evelyn’s fiery attacks.
I saw Jade flying above them. She was pointing at me and shouting something. I couldn’t make out what it was. I shouted back, barely hearing my own voice. She was waving frantically at me too. I shook my head back at her and picked up the obliterated wall panel I’d been using as a shield. I started sweeping it along the ground, crushing every spider in sight.
Jade popped into range just a stone’s throw away from me and yelled, “Luis! Behind you!” Then she blipped out of sight again, appearing at my side and popping us out of existence. When we reappeared, I was disoriented. The advancing villagers I’d been looking at were gone.
In their place was a giant spider that had to be ten feet tall. Huge black fangs were dripping with glistening fluid. Giant chittering mandibles were snapping beneath its too-many eyes as it began charging forward on man-sized pumping legs. I rocked back in surprise and reached for the metal panel I’d been holding, trying to get it in front of us. But I’d been moved too far from my position and struggled to find it.
“Mage on its back!” Jade shouted in my ear, “controlling the swarm!”
She pointed up on top of the monster, and I glimpsed a half-human half-spider thing riding in a leather saddle. Its head was a hideous humanoid form with pointed clicking mandibles. Long spindly arms were moving in sweeping motions like a conductor. I finally got a hold of the metal panel and tried to swing it around, but the giant spider chittered and slapped the panel down, sending it bouncing away.
For a moment sheer revulsion overtook me and my skin crawled, freezing my brain as the monster bore down on us.
We’re fucked.
Just as it closed in on us something tore into its side, moving way too fucking fast to be human. It was huge and metallic. For a second I thought Evelyn had rammed our RV into the monster, but the shape wasn’t right. Through the now-fading ringing in my ears I saw long protruding limbs and heard the crackle of what sounded like arc torches. Hot flames were burning bright.
Slowly my shell-shocked brain put a shape to the thing that had saved my ass. It was a robot. A tall one riding on tank treads, zipping in a circular path around the monstrous spider and melting its limbs in half as it went. Veering in a wide arc in a turn so tight that one of its treads lifted off the ground like a stunt driver pulling a trick.
As it veered around toward us after making a full circle I saw Tisha working the control sticks. Her usually soft face was screwed up in concentration. She shot the vehicle away from the spider just as the machine coughed and sputtered to a halt. A huge blast of steam gouted from vents on the back of the robot, and then the rumbling of the machine’s engines died out.
The spider screeched and clacked its jaws, inching toward Tisha’s stalled robot on its sawed-off legs. Green ooze was pouring from them. I saw the wizard on the creature’s back staring down at her with his own eight white eyes. Rage was clear even in the strange face. The mass of spiders shifted in direction and were now all headed toward Tisha’s robot and the giant spider. Then they stopped in place, turning in confusion.
I could feel magic roiling off of Jade as she extended her hands toward the spider-master in his saddle. She was jamming him with her illusionary magic. The confusion was going through his brood.
Taking the opportunity, I launched my dagger at the wizard on the creature’s back, sending it sailing directly for his chest. The huge spider lurched just as my weapon came to bear, but I adjusted its path and stuck the wizard in the side of his head. The blade sailed through him, and he slumped sideways in his saddle.
With him out of the picture the remaining creatures turned toward the big spider, hurrying toward it like a wounded mother. They trampled over Tisha’s robot, rocking it back and forth as they did. The dog-sized creatures were moving at great speed. The ones that spotted her on their way stayed put and bit into the metal, tearing at it and the transparent glass bubble that protected Tisha and gave her a view of the battlefield.
I panted with exertion and flew over to the robot, trying to lift it off the ground—but it was too heavy. I called back my dagger and took it in hand, standing on the top of her machine and looking down at her as she stared on in horror. I started kneeling and slashing at the beasts as they rose. My blade cut through them like butter, but it was too small to do any wide sweeps.
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“Tisha!” I roared through the combat. “Can you get out?”
I jabbed a creature in the abdomen as it crawled up the side, kicking another one as it mounted to my right and feeling my barbarian body’s auto-aim battle-history instinct going to work. Sensing my intentions and making them happen with perfect accuracy and devastating effect.
I pulled deep at my magic reserves, feeling them running terribly low. Like an open ocean swimmer realizing the edges of his endurance while endless waves raced toward him. Draining away what little was left.
I couldn’t keep this up forever.
The dumb spiders kept up their beeline for the monster behind me. I looked over my shoulder, almost forgetting that it was crawling on its bleeding stumps toward us. It screeched and struck out with its most intact arm, piercing through the tread to the right of Tisha. The tip of it sliced just into her pilot cabin. She screamed and launched herself into the opposite side of the wall.
“Tisha!” I roared. Then I front flipped off the robot to put myself between her and the remaining trickle of spiders, letting them strike at my back. Their bites were sharp and painful—though most of them found my armor. Ignoring them completely, I reached out with the last of my magic and ripped a hole in the front of the robot, clearing a path for Tisha.
But it wasn’t enough.
The crack was so small that Jade would’ve barely fit through it.
Behind the machine the giant spider brought its mandibles down, ready to crush the robot in one crunch. I threw my dagger at it. Not even able to rely on my magic to get it there. Only able to stabilize it so that it flew point-first. Just as the creature was about to crunch down, the weapon sliced into its eye. It screeched again and snapped its mouth.
In the split second I’d bought Tisha, the blonde mechanic phased through the exterior of the robot, passing through its hulk like a ghost. Her body was glowing gold, the glorious curves of her breasts, hips, and ass shining through her jumpsuit as she did. Her ornate golden necklace burned bright through it all. Tisha’s long blonde hair trailed through the air as if suspended in water. She leaped through the machine’s exterior and landed in my arms, her eyes flashing gold briefly before returning to their blue.
Catching her like a fucking pulp-action hero—not to mention seeing her practically naked—lit a magical fire in my reserves. It brought me back up to a semblance of fighting form. I backpedaled with her collapsed in my arms, blazing fire at the spiders that dared to approach and making my way back to the villagers and Evelyn.
Tisha mumbled something and seemed to have passed out. It almost sounded like handsome, but I wouldn’t let myself get that cocky thinking that was what she’d said in the moment.
Finally I made it back to the crowd, tumbling back into it. I squeezed Tisha around her soft waist and whispered her name to her. She fluttered her eyes open and looked up at me. Those blue eyes of hers flashing gold momentarily. Tisha smiled fully, for maybe the first time since we’d met.
“Well, hi there Luis,” she said, giggling.
I laughed back, in spite of the carnage. Feeling my heart swell. “Hi there yourself. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” she said, slowly pulling herself up. Levering on my strong body and getting to her feet. The spider ahead of me screeched. Evelyn was launching huge pillars of flame at it. Even firing scraps of metal and villager’s weapons too, using my own magic expertly.
“I’m gonna need to borrow your ride,” I said, easing her out of my grip reluctantly.
“I think it’s pretty much toast,” she said. Letting her fingers trail off of me slowly. “I don’t think you’ll be able to drive it anywh—”
Her voice cut off as I stuck my hands out and used my newly recovered magic to try and render the robot weightless. The effort of it took my breath away and caused my knees to tremble, sending every muscle in my body into spasms. “Evelyn!” I shouted. She turned to look at me, sensing what I was doing. “Watch out!” She drifted right, then backpedaled toward me, putting her own magic into the machine. Lifting it off the ground. Jade popped into existence on the left side, putting her own abilities into the mix.
“On three!” I shouted. “Aim for its head!” I roared, pushing forward with them. Getting close to the wounded monster which was now covered in a wriggling mass of its young. The things circled around to protect it from the villager’s weapons. “One, two, three!” We loosed the machine in a violent blast, launching it right at the spider’s face. It turned in surprise and opened its mouth as if to catch the hurling robot.
But it was too late.
The bulk of the rolling robot tank punched straight through the inside of the upper mandible of the spider from below. Pulping up and out through its eyes. The creature reared up in one last final twitch, then slumped down, slamming the ground and rocking our feet as it did. Every spider screeched in unison—a chorus of ear-rending shrieks. I hoped that they’d all just roll over and die, but they didn’t.
They all turned toward the trio of us and charged.
“Oh, fuck,” Jade said.
Evelyn hopped in front of us and started torching them all with a steady stream of fire. The flame was so wide and hot that it ran white and blue, warping the air in front of us. I found a tiny reserve of magic left and called up the airship panel that I’d blown through the air on, reeling it in along the ground like a skittering man-sized metal fish.
It skidded to the ground in front of us, and I tried to lift it but couldn’t. Jade looked over to me in shock. I shook my head and grunted, trying one more time. But the damn panel was just too heavy. Evelyn looked like she had the swarm covered for now, but they were coming in wide. Hundreds of them still oncoming. Flanking us.
“Chunk it up!” Jade said, making chopping motions. “Easier to manipulate.” She sent her intention into the panel, slicing it into smaller pieces. Then halving them again and again. Eventually she’d worked half of it into hundreds of tiny fragments. Like buckshot. As I watched, she repeated the process until the entire panel had been pulped up into metal scrap. Then she whipped six of them off the ground and turned to stand at Evelyn’s left flank.
She slung them across the ground in a horizontal orbit, whirling them like bolas, in the way the bad guys did to wrap up the hero’s legs in movies. Except with no string—and with the intention of pulping the spiders to bits.
Jade’s finesse made it look easy, and she’d killed ten spiders almost immediately, while keeping Evelyn’s left side clear. I reached out and found I could lift plenty of the buckshot, but I decided on a smaller amount, trying to make use of technique instead of brute force. I copied her moves and slung the metal along the ground, whipping them into a clockwise orbit.
The air hissed with the sizzle of roasted spiders and smelled like fried popcorn—for some reason. I shook off the strange realization and kept swinging.
“We’re here!” one of the villagers yelled, closing in behind me with a pitchfork and leaning in to stab one of the spiders that had slipped past the three of us. He caught it before it could get to any of us. I nudged Evelyn and she saw them. Then she shifted. Creating a formation where we led the fight but left space for the villagers to pick off the spares.
It went on like that for hours.
Finally, we won.
By the end, the three of us were leaning against each other like a human teepee. Panting in front of the downed mass of spiders. The sounds were almost sexual, if you hadn’t seen what was going on. I raised a hand to my ladies and they saw the gesture. Groaning, but smiling and slapping me exhausted high-fives.
“I’m supposed to be sleeping,” Evelyn complained. It had to be near noon now with the sun high in the sky, and her words reminded me that she was usually nocturnal. “I’m too pumped up. Adrenaline. Never gonna get to bed now,” she sighed.
“Excuse me,” a husky woman’s voice called from behind us.