Nick would have been fascinated by absorbing the arachnids’ impeccable teamwork and tactics under other circumstances. A time when he wasn’t standing in the middle of said battlefield, so frightened that his mind had gone completely blank.
He wanted to run, but his leg could barely support his weight. Besides, there wasn’t a safe way to approach the lemurs’ line while scores of komos were engaging the tribe’s frontline fighters. But Nick didn’t need to think to watch the carnage play out—spider facing down hyena in a savage contest of pack tactics.
As enthralling as they were, the other battles paled in comparison to the duel taking place between the spider Bulwark and the Bonecruncher Alpha. Unlike the hastily joined skirmish to hold back Komo Alpha, every aspect of this fight had been orchestrated by the elite spider. The culmination of an ambush intended to remove the crunchers from the board in a single, decisive assault. In addition to saving Nick’s life, the Bulwark’s opener had stunned the alpha while binding its jaws. Disrupting the beast’s control of the pack and sealing one of its primary weapons in a single move, although the hulking brute could still rely on its wickedly sharp tusks.
Judging by the alpha’s wounds, the fight had only been going on for a few minutes. The Bulwark had gained the upper hand right from the start, creating momentum that the cruncher commander had been unable to counter. As Nick scrambled back from the fierce melee, he found himself drawn into the fight.
He was unable to look away, despite the danger engulfing him on all sides. He ducked behind a cruncher’s corpse to reduce his profile, eyes never leaving the fight. While he watched spellbound, the Bulwark unleashed a relentless series of blows. Utterly dominating the flow of battle and revealing a mastery of one-on-one tactics that he could only dream of.
Fortunately for Nick and the future of his advancement, while he had been unable to watch the bulk of their battle, he was able to witness its end. By this point, the alpha was bleeding from a dozen minor wounds, although it had managed to avoid becoming further entangled in webbing or being stricken by the Bulwark’s venom. While the latter was injured from its earlier fight, the massive spider didn’t seem to have taken any serious damage.
Nick tried to commit every moment to memory while avoiding being trampled in the process. It was clear from the get-go that the Bulwark had a method to its melee. A style of fighting centered around controlling the flow of battle and limiting an enemy’s options. At least when facing down a deadly beast that was able to hold its own in a contest of raw strength. While the Bulwark was nimble for a creature of its bulk, it was too big to rely on dodging. And though its natural armor looked tough, it wasn’t strong enough to withstand direct attacks from the alpha’s tusks.
Thus, most of the Bulwark’s defense consisted of blocks and parries. Predicting its enemy’s attacks and blunting their impact. Baiting them into overextending, then scoring wounds once it had created an opening. Its offense was a combination of direct damage and disabling strikes. Its forelimbs were as deadly as swords, and it could strike out with its other legs as well, although they seemed to have less power and control. Perhaps the result of some ability at work.
The colossal spider was also trying to influence the mental state of its opponent. More specifically, some of its moves were chosen with the goal of enraging its foe. Nick watched as the alpha crouched low and poised to spring, a posture he now recognized as preparing to aggressively leap. A heartbeat later, the cruncher went sailing straight for the Bulwark, flying so fast that its form was reduced to a streaking blur. The giant spider took a fraction of a second to judge the angle, then stepped lightly to one side, letting the deadly tusks go whizzing past its torso.
As the alpha’s leap carried it past the Bulwark, the spider reached out with one leg and pushed. Not trying to impale the hyena, but to foil its landing. The shove spun the cruncher to one side. It came crashing down, tumbling twenty feet down the hillside in an uncontrolled fall. At that point, the bonecruncher totally lost it. It started clawing at its face, uncaring of the rents it tore into its own flesh as it shredded the webbing binding its jaws, unleashing a furious howl as it leapt back onto its feet.
The giant hyena charged straight for the Bulwark, intending to make the spider pay no matter the cost. For a second, it looked like the blind rush would break through the spider’s guard. It had been slow to react, and it was too late to move out of the way. The cruncher darted in low, intending to gut the Bulwark from below, only to come to a jerking halt a few inches before its tusks collided with the great spider’s chitin. When the spider stepped back, Nick could see webbing shimmering in the sunlight, a complex construction that had been concealed within the Bulwark’s shadow.
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The alpha voiced its fury as it flailed, doing its best to shred the silken strands restraining its mobility. Although the beast managed to sever several thick threads, its every movement pulled the web-woven cage tighter until it was completely enmeshed. Incredibly, the fight wasn’t over yet. The alpha went into a frenzy, bucking, writhing, and biting like a creature possessed.
The silken prison began to warp and bend. It was clear that it would break before much longer, releasing the creature from its confinement. The Bulwark darted from one side to the other, searching for an opening but finding none.
By this point, Nick had already picked up a rock the size of a baseball and taken aim, having recognized that the fight had arrived at a pivotal moment. He wasn’t sure what would happen if the spiders won the war, but he knew he was dead if the crunchers did.
He cocked his arm back and threw. The rock went streaking out of his hand with incredible force. Nick had put every last point of his upgraded abilities, every scrap of stamina, into making the moment count.
The missile went flying in a liquid blur, fast enough to coax a dull roar from the air in passing. It arced over the battlefield, catching the alpha in the side of the skull with a thwack that resounded across the hillside. It wasn’t enough to bring the big bastard down, but it hit hard enough to stun the brute for a few seconds. Nick knew the beast would recover within a handful of heartbeats.
But the Bulwark wasn’t about to let that happen. It darted behind the alpha’s back and bit. Once, then twice more in succession. The alpha spun to face its foe, but the damage was already done.
The spider darted back and let its venom do the rest. Just as the bonecruncher pulled itself free from the web-trap, its body began to seize. It took a final, staggering step while foaming at the mouth, then collapsed into the dirt. The life faded from its eyes a few seconds later, breaking the trance that the battle had evoked within Nick and bringing the danger of his situation back to the forefront of his mind.
Over the last five minutes, the spiders could have attacked him at any point; culled his life as easily as the crunchers and komos they had slaughtered. For some inexplicable reason, they had chosen to avoid him. But they weren’t avoiding him now.
That was the moment when Nick came to two highly related realizations. The first was that every hyena in the valley was lying dead in the grass, along with most of the komos. The second was that all the spiders that had taken part in the ambush, including the behemoth spider Bulwark, had moved to form a circle around Nick and were staring straight at him. The experience offered him an unexpected insight into what a steak must feel like, sitting on a plate while looking up at the person on the other end of the fork.
“Shit,” Nick said, staring into the eyes of the elite spider. “I got lost in the moment. Sorry guys, I didn’t mean to wear out my welcome. I will gladly get the fuck out of here if you would be kind enough to let me pass.”
He spoke without paying attention to his words, as he was just trying to buy himself a few seconds to think. In addition to being dazed by his recent battering, he was caught in the middle of a truly bizarre situation. A situation that was worse than any of those covered in his contingencies, and yet, simultaneously, not nearly as bad as it could be considering.
Eager to avoid being the centerpiece of a feeding frenzy, Nick desperately wanted to make a break for it. But he was deathly afraid that doing anything of the sort would shatter this strange moment of equilibrium and goad the spider pack into swarming him.
Unable to understand why he was still alive, his brain whirled like never before, coming up with a hundred problems for each plan he concocted without managing to work out a solution to any of them. Try as he might, this wasn’t the kind of dilemma that Nick could think his way out of.
He was prepared for a final, desperate struggle, his only goal to break free and run for his life. He expected the spiders to rush him as one, binding his movements while the Bulwark darted in to deliver a lethal bite. Thus, Nick was completely dumbfounded by what actually happened. Instead of slaughtering him for a post-battle snack, the spiders seemed more interested in saying hello.
First, the towering arachnid that he had dubbed the Bulwark raised its body up, holding its forelimbs in the air in that creepy gesture spiders make. It followed up with a motion that was unlike that of any spider on Earth. The Bulwark gestured with one leg and then bowed deeply in Nick’s direction. As it didn’t have a waist, it tilted its whole body down before returning to a neutral position with a flourish.
As soon as the Bulwark came back up, the other spiders repeated the gesture, creating a rippling ring of bows that felt strangely like a ritual. Completely flabbergasted, the only thing that Nick could think of was to bow from the waist, overwhelmed by the strangeness of the situation. Apparently, it was the right thing to do. Without skipping a beat, the spiders broke formation and went running past him, moving to engage a final handful of komos that had moved too close to their web-fort.
Did that really just happen? He struggled to process this remarkable and totally unprecedented occurrence as he staggered back up the hill and slid through the lemurs’ line. Fortunately, by this point, the tribe had created large gaps in the komos fighting along the spear wall.
Nick walked to the back of the flat strip along the hillside and collapsed, laying down against the incline behind him, filled with poignant gratitude that he was still alive. At least for now.