The spider screamed. She reared up on her back pair of legs and battered at us with the middle pairs.

I grabbed a beak-ful and two claws-ful of fur and flattened myself against the back of One Ear’s neck. A spider leg whistled overhead and punched the wolf in the back, right above her spine. One Ear’s howl was muffled by the spider waist still clenched between her fangs.

“Rosssie!” shrieked Bobo from where she dangled under the wolf’s hind legs.

I’m fine! Stripey?

I’m fine too! His voice came from under One Ear too. He’d flown as far as the silk threads would allow and was sheltering between her belly and the spider’s, using the wolf as a shield.

“Whew! I was ssso worried!”

One Ear mumbled a question that probably went something like, “What about me? Aren’t you going to ask if I’m okay?”

“I know you’re okay. I’m not worried about you.” Raising her head, Bobo shouted up at the spider chieftain, “Don’t you dare hit Ssstripey or Rosssie! If you hurt them, I’m going to bite you!”

Another spider leg whistled past and connected with One Ear’s ribs, knocking us sideways into a punch from the spider’s opposite foot. The wolf let out another strangled howl but locked her jaws and hung on. We swung back and forth crazily, propelled by punches from both sides. A spider foot caught One Ear in the side of her neck right next to me, and I yelped and scrabbled away from it.

A long, bright-green blur shot past me and latched onto that leg. Overhead, the spider unleashed a drawn-out wail. The world jerked up and down as she thrashed, trying to shake Bobo off her leg.

Crunch.

Bobo opened her jaws, leaving the leg bent and limp. “I told you I was going to bite you if you hurt them!”

The spider’s mouth opened again, but not to wail. A jet of fire roared past Bobo’s head, straight into the grass under us. Flames leaped up, painfully hot. Instead of backing away, the spider hobbled forward to suspend us over the fire. Her seven good legs bent. She lowered us towards the flames.

I flapped my wings and tried to climb One Ear’s head. She’s going to cook us! She’s going to roast us alive!

One Ear clamped down harder. Green demonic blood oozed out around her muzzle and dripped off her chin. It sizzled when it hit the flames, and the acrid fumes nearly choked me.

Stripey gagged and coughed. Don’t breathe it in!

Trying not to!

Clinging to One Ear’s cheek with my beak and claws, I glanced down. The fire was right under us. Bobo tensed her muscles and raised her body straight up like a flagpole, but she and One Ear’s hind paws were getting closer and closer to the flames.

The watching spiders screamed war cries and beat the ground with their legs. The pounding vibrated through my chest and thudded in time with my heart.

You have to let go! I yelled into One Ear’s eye.

You can’t! Stripey shouted. We’ll fall into the fire if you do!

Swing your body so we land on the grass!

One Ear swung back and forth, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Stripey spread his wings and beat them, helping to propel us, like a version of the children’s swing from my long-ago performance.

At the highest point, One Ear opened her bloody jaws and we arced through the air – straight towards a cage of spider legs.

Plastered to the top of her head, I shrieked, Nooooo! an instant before we slammed into the legs and crashed to the ground. The impact drove all the air out of my lungs and rattled my brain. I blinked. The world wobbled. The ground, no, One Ear’s head, was swaying under me. So was the sky. No, not the sky. The sky wasn’t striped yellow and navy blue, with scarlet patches. It was –

Everything went black as the spider’s jaws closed over One Ear’s head and me.

This was not happening! This could not be happening! I couldn’t get eaten now! Not when I had Temples to found! West Serica to conquer! An empire to reunify! I couldn’t die now! Death by demon wouldn’t even earn me good karma!

Nooooooo! No no no! Let me out! Let me out!

One Ear howled, and her neck muscles bunched and strained under my claws as she thrashed. Releasing her fur, I flew up as far as the threads would allow and pecked the roof of the spider’s mouth. It was so hard that it nearly smashed my beak into my skull. I raised my wings and battered at it, which did absolutely nothing.

The scent of blood filled the air, and One Ear howled again. “She’s biting my head off! Get her off! Get her off!”

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Outside, I heard a faint shout of: “That’s enough, ssspider!”

A crunch reverberated through the spider’s maw, but she didn’t release One Ear.

A second crunch, followed by a third. The spider convulsed. We were jerked from side and side, so hard that I thought One Ear’s neck would snap.

Over her howling, I heard Bobo order, “Let GO!” Her voice sounded closer and clearer now.

More crunching. More thrashing. A spot of sunlight hit the far side of the spider’s maw.

Are you alive? I asked One Ear.

A weak moan told me that she was, if barely.

Bobo’s coming for us. Just hang on a little longer. Raising my voice, I yelled through the hole, Hurry up! One Ear’s dying!

The next crunch was particularly emphatic and was followed by the screech of rending carapace. Daylight flooded the maw, and Bobo’s head appeared above us. Her face was covered in blood that was a darker green than her scalesm, and it ran off her fangs when she called, “Rosssie! One Ear! Are you okay?”

I’m fine! I called back.

One Ear didn’t answer. I nudged her cheek with my wing.

Hey, One Ear! One Ear?

Still no answer, although I could hear her wheezing.

One Ear’s not doing so great! We have to get Floridiana to heal her!

“Okay! Let’s get you out firssst!” Bobo’s head disappeared, and I heard her snap, “I ssswear to the Kitchen God, if you don’t ssspit them out right now, I’m going to bite off another eye!”

The spider’s jaws opened at last, depositing us on the crushed grass. One Ear lay limp on her belly, eyes shut, breathing so weakly that I could barely feel the rise and fall of her chest.

Stripey’s forehead filled my vision. You okay there?

Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine…. I gawked at the scene around us. The grass was coated with blood. More blood splattered the trees around us. On the other side of the clearing, the spider chieftain lay on her own belly, surrounded by her anxious vassals.

“You! How do we get the sssilk off them?” Bobo was demanding of one of the spiders.

He squeaked and offered her a dagger with the very tips of his forelegs, standing as far away from the viper as possible.

Bobo seized the pommel in her jaws and began sawing at the threads that bound her to One Ear. Once her tail was free, she slithered over to Stripey to cut him loose too, and then me.

I watched in a bit of a daze. What happened out here?

Bobo lost her temper.

I surveyed the bloody clearing and the utterly defeated spider chieftain. I’ll say she did!

Bobo’s jaw hardened into unfamiliar lines. “I did what needed to be done.” Then her face softened, and she nudged One Ear with her nose. “Hey, are you ssstill alive? Sssay sssomething!”

A moan sufficed to answer her question.

We need Floridiana, I said. She can fix up One Ear and – are either of you hurt? Neither of you are hurt, are you?!

Stripey spread his wings and rotated in a circle for my inspection. Nope. Apart from some rumpled feathers, I’m perfectly all right.

“Sssame here,” answered Bobo. “How about you? You were all the way in her mouth!”

I’m fine, I assured her, and it was true. Physically, I was just fine, and mentally – well, this wasn’t the first time I’d been inside a demon’s maw. If you included both Lord Silurus and Lord Magnissimus, this wasn’t even the second demon inside whose maw I’d been! I really needed to break this profitless pattern.

Stripey, can you go get Floridiana and the others? Take the dagger and cut down the web wall.

On it. Stripey seized the pommel of the dagger in his claws and took off.

And Bobo –

“Yep! I’m lissstening! What am I doing?”

What are we doing, I corrected. We are going to accept the spiders’ surrender.

----------------------------------------

The aftermath was an anticlimax.

Surely, after we got bound to one another by spider silk and fought a four-headed, one-bodied battle to defeat a giant joro spider demon, we deserved a dramatic surrender ceremony. At the very least, we should have gotten a formal assembly of all the spider demons, who would come up one at a time, bend their spindly legs, and swear fealty to us (well, fine, to the foxling, since she was going to be the nominal empress of all Serica).

That, however, was not what we got.

Floridiana arrived first, on Dusty’s back. The horse spirit galloped into the clearing, reared up so the mage slid right off his hindquarters with an offended yelp, and charged for the spiders. One hard breath, and the smallest ones went sailing into the trees. The medium-sized ones scuttled into a circle around their chieftain, and the largest ones leaped out in front, rearing up with their spinnerets at the ready.

While Floridiana dropped to her knees next to One Ear and began to probe the wolf’s wounds, Bobo and I chased the dratted horse.

“Dusssty! Dusssty! They’re sssupposssed to sssurrender to us! We can’t kill people who are sssurrendering to us!”

Stop, you idiot horse! Don’t kill them! We need them to govern this fief on our behalf, otherwise it’ll leave a power vacuum, and some other clan will move in, and then we’ll have to come back and do this all over again!

Dusty skidded to a halt before the spiders, his hooves raking four lines through the grass, and glared at them balefully. “We don’t need all of them.”

Yes, we need all of them! If they’re too weak, they can’t hold this fief, and then another clan will move in and we’ll have to come back and do this all over. Do you want to come back and do this all over again?

The spiders clacked their feet, expressing their gratitude to me for standing up for them.

Dusty blew at them again. The medium spiders braced their legs but were still forced back a few steps. “Fine. Under those circumstances, I will permit them to continue to exist. I, the Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders, Inquisitor of Vassals, shall accept their surrender.”

“Inquisitor of Vassals” was rather a comedown from “Vanquisher of Invaders,” but I supposed he was running out of nouns that started with “v.” More importantly – No, Dusty, it is not for you to accept the unconditional surrender of this clan. Or are you attempting to usurp the authority of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of All Serica?

I could swear Dusty’s face went pink under his mane. In a proper imperial court, he would have been executed for that faux pas. Good thing I was here to educate him.

There, there, Dusty. I am sure the empress will forgive you for overstepping in your enthusiasm to serve her.

He snorted again, this time at me. It wasn’t full force, though, so it didn’t blow me head over tail. It just mussed all the feathers I’d just finished preening.

“One day, bird. One day, you will address me by my proper name and titles!”

Yep. I already told you when that will happen.

Then, since he obviously didn’t have anything useful to contribute to the conversation, I left him to glare at the spiders and returned to check on One Ear.