Gil laid out his bundle of broken branches and pulled out a small kit wrapped in canvas. He unrolled it to reveal a slew of knives and other strange tools I’d never seen before. He picked the largest knife and began to shave slivers off the bark.
“Need to thank Duran again for his gift, though it’s actually the first time I’m ever using it,” he said before he froze and snapped his head around, eyes wide. “Which you didn’t hear, right?”
“Not a word,” I replied, doing my best to keep from laughing.
“You’re too good for him,” he said and turned back to focus on his work.
I smiled at him, and then it dropped as I was left standing around while everyone else was busy with something. Guess I’ll go and see if there’s anything else I can do to help.
***
It took well over an hour for Misumena to get close, which was more than plenty of time with Evelyn leading things. She ran us ragged as we worked furiously to get everything set up. By the time we were finished, I was dripping sweat and shaking with fatigue, but I was the lookout, and I had to keep my eyes and ears open for when she showed up.
The low thuds and rustling of trees were a dead giveaway, but I had already alerted the others. I’d spotted her through the eyes of a fly clinging to a vine nearly fifteen minutes ago and immediately told everyone.
Misumena ambled through the jungle as fast as she could, which was rather slow. But sooner than I’d have liked, she trampled over a few trees as she broke free from the woods. She had changed color slightly. Her translucent white body was now a very light shade of green that matched the forest that surrounded us. But it was wasted on us—we were in open ground, and her camouflage was useless against us.
Her body still bled from the wounds we’d inflicted, but her eyes were open and utterly enraged. As before, she didn’t move fast. She inched forward towards us, rightfully cautious and calm. The small wounds we’d dealt her already had trickled, leaving light streaks of blue on her leg and chelicerae.
She didn’t change her tactics, which I was thankful for.
Because it played right into Evelyn’s hands.
An arrow launched from the massive tree just overhead from Misumena and struck the top of her head, taking one of her eyes. She writhed in absolute pain, letting out an inhuman squeal as one of her many eyes ruptured, spraying azure blood into the air.
Misumena lashed out in unhinged rage, slamming her leg against the tree Evelyn was in hard enough to crack the wood. Splinters of wood and bark coated her leg when she retracted it and scurried faster than she’d ever moved before. She tried to return to the forest, but Adam had prepared for that.
A shrill roar echoed through the valley as a great winged beast swooped down from the clouds. It was long, serpentine, draconic.
Thick scales the color of fresh moss glowed in the summertime air. It whipped its reptilian head around to glare at Misumena with too-bright yellow eyes. The beast had a thin, spiked tail and powerful legs with long ivory claws at the end, but it was missing arms. Where they should’ve been were two leathery wings that it tucked in as it dropped from the sky.
The wyvern was terrifying to behold, but having met an actual dragon once upon a time, it couldn’t hold a candle to them.
Still, Adam assured us that it was the right creature for the job.
The wyvern dipped low, and like a bird of prey, extended its legs and sunk its talons deep into Misumena. The wyvern attempted to pick up Misumena, but the weight of the creature was many times more than the wyvern, and it couldn’t lift it high. It groaned and let out another roar as it kept attempting to follow Adam’s orders.
With a sudden twist, Misumena snapped its front legs and wrapped around the wyvern.
It struggled in vain against the powerful legs of Misumena, and it couldn’t escape. It couldn’t fight back as Misumena sank her fangs into the wyvern and began using her chelicerae to tear into the flesh of the dragonkin.
“Damn it!” Adam cursed as he held out his hand.
The wyvern dissolved and returned to its housing before Misumena could kill it.
“I thought you said it would work!” Evelyn screamed.
“How the hell was I supposed to know the thing was strong enough to take out Wynonna? She was my best flyer!”
“What about one of your golems?”
“I only brought Abby and Lawrence!”
Evelyn screamed while holding her breath, and her face turned a very unflattering shade of purple. “Just use the damn lava golem!”
“And burn down the entire forest?”
Evelyn mimed choking Adam and then threw her hands up. “Anyone got any brilliant ideas? I’m all ears.”
Misumena was wary now, and she’d stopped her advance, afraid of any more surprises, but we had none. Our game plan was to get her over the waterfall using the wyvern, but now we were back to square one.
Well, nearly square one.
“I really hope this works,” I said and took off toward Misumena.
Gil and the others shouted at me, but I ignored them and raced across the grass until I was right in front of Misumena. My chitin wormed from under my skin and crept over me in half a second. Fire burned in my limbs as the power of the Hive strengthened them. I leapt high, putting the entirety of my strength into the jump. I sailed over Misumena’s head and landed on her abdomen. She reared back as my weight settled on her, and she tried to shake me off, but as soon as I had my balance, I formed spikes on the bottom of my feet to keep me anchored. They sank in only a fraction of an inch, but it was enough.
I knelt down on all fours and crawled my way toward her front. Misumena’s legs couldn’t reach me, and I didn’t have any trouble as I reached her head. Evelyn’s arrow had done its job and punctured through at least two of her eyes, but I needed her blind for what I was about to attempt.
I said a quick prayer to my goddess, because despite everything, Misumena was still of the Hive, and she deserved respect.
With a grimace, I summoned dagger-like shards of chitin in my hands and sank them into her remaining eyes. Her bloodcurdling scream tore at my ears, and I curled in on myself until the pain stopped swirling through my eyes. I wasn’t in any danger of falling off, thanks to my chitin, so I just had to endure the screeching pain until it ended.
As blood gushed from her torn and gored eye sockets, I withdrew the chitin around my fingers and dug them into her. I reached for my control magic, let it spill through my fingers and enter Misumena. She was not a descendant of the Hive, was not a creature that technically fell under my bailiwick. She was a goddess of the Arachne, a being worshipped by tens of thousands at one point. But Misumena was Hive, and that put her under my control.
My consciousness slipped from my mind and traversed into Misumena. Her consciousness was expansive, a twisting, convoluted maze buried underwater. Misumena was aware of me, and she was furious that I dared to attempt to subjugate her. I hated it as much as she did; this was an intelligent being, not one of my little ones who had degraded to nothing but instinct. What I was doing was wrong, was the worst thing I’d ever tried to do, yet I had no choice. For us to succeed, Misumena had to die.
Her consciousness fought hard against me, but this was in my blood. It was what I was born for. No matter how wrong it was, I was good at it. I smothered her will against my own and suffocated her until she gasped for air. As the holes formed in her psyche, I slithered my way inside and broke her spirit.
As I finished working my way through her mind, she slumped over onto the ground. Her mind retreated in on itself as I bludgeoned my way through her. I’d done irreparable harm to her, and the brute force method had broken part of her psyche. I would have to control her manually if I wanted to get her to go over the edge.
Reina said dead, not disabled. If we want to beat her trial, this has to happen. I steeled myself and let all of the chitin in my body flow out of me and through my feet into Misumena. My body was light as a feather after the heavy chi
tin entered Misumena and molded itself over most of her body. I focused on the limbs and pushing my magic as far as it could go through her.
She rose on my command, but working two separate forms of magic at the same time was the most exhausting thing I’d ever done, and not even a couple seconds after I’d completed the spell, I started shaking as my mana fled from me.
Need to hurry. I lumbered the shell of Misumena toward the edge of the waterfall. Her legs scuttled into the river, and with each step, they splashed more water into the air to rain over me. When we reached the edge, I spared one last look at the Gloom Knights, who were rushing toward me, and I pushed Misumena over the ledge.
The fall was much shorter than it looked as I rode atop the nearly brain-dead carcass of a fallen god towards what I assumed would lead to my death.
My world was a blur of blue as the rushing water kept pace with us as we both aimed for the shallow and rocky depression at the bottom of the cliff.
With a bone-jarring, teeth-gnashing crunch, we hit the bottom, and I went sideways as my legs forgot how to work properly. My bones ached, and a dull, throbbing pain radiated up my entire body and squeezed until I nearly suffocated, but I was alive.
I was alive, and Misumena was not.
For a while, I lost track of time as I fought to keep consciousness as my head ached with the backlash of being inside Misumena while she died.
Before the fight, Gil had rappelled down the waterfall using a length of rope tied to a stake and had sunk his numerous giant spikes into the ground in a wide circle. His trap had been very effective.
Misumena landed on nearly half a dozen of the sharpened wooden sticks, four of which hadn’t broken in half when she landed on them. They stuck through her body, the tips protruding through her carapace dripping with blood. One of them had come half an inch from sinking into my calf, and I heaved a sigh of relief, which turned into a hacking cough as even more pain coursed through my lungs.
But I was alive.
When my body stopped shaking with the brush from near death, I shivered as blistering cold water droplets from the spray of the waterfall hit the nape of my neck and slid down my back.
“Cold!” I shouted, nearly jumping out of my skin.
I shouldn’t have moved, because the act revealed I was far weaker than I’d noticed at the time, and I sagged to my knees as a sharp pain thrummed through my head and my vision swam as a wave of dizziness rolled over me. Mana depletion. I’m still holding onto the spells. Need to cancel them before I pass out.
“Shit! Eris, are you okay!” Gil shouted.
Gil, along with the others, was standing at the edge of the waterfall, leaning over it to stare down at me.
“I’m…I’m fine,” I said, my voice dripping fatigue.
A tide of emotions flooded through me as the wall between my mind and Sam’s tore down. He was in tremendous agony.
Sam!
“Gil, call Sam!”
I let the magic controlling Misumena ooze out and fade away. The spell that allowed me to manipulate my chitin took longer to unravel, but the control spell was what took the most out of me. The chitin liquified and slowly started seeping back though Misumena and back to my body.
Misumena jerked in the throes of death, her arms spasming and coiling in on themselves.
Something hard poked me in the stomach, but I barely noticed. “Ow, that stung,” I said, rubbing at my stomach.
Something warm and wet clung to my fingers. I glanced down at whatever had hit me.
One of Misumena’s translucent legs was sticking into my abdomen. I don’t think that should be there. A low ache spread from my stomach to my spine, and I couldn’t hold my body upright anymore.
Something caught in my throat, and I coughed, trying to dislodge it. A river of blood poured from my lips. What? What’s happening?
My mind caught up with my body, and I screamed through a mouthful of iron. A frigid winter settled over me, and then nothing else mattered. I was tired and wanted to sleep.
So incredibly tired.
Endless sleep called me, and I answered.
Chapter 17 - Heist of the Century
Sampson
For the second time that day, I found myself in front of the Iron Cathedral. Though not hitting as powerfully as the first time, its majestic beauty still wowed me. Mika and the hired help followed behind us, keeping a good distance so as not to arouse suspicion. By the time we arrived at the gate that led to the walkway to the church, the streets were barren.
The nearby shopping districts were closed, and the nobility were at home or one of the numerous parties we passed walking up the cobbled street. The loud music coming from inside the houses was muffled only by the heavy stone walls.
Once we were in front of the gate, I double checked that the street was empty, and trusting my gut that no one was watching us, Raven and I hopped the chest-high stone wall. The others would follow in ten minutes and keep an eye on thigs while the two of us stole the Heart.
Raven landed beside me with practiced quietness and slid me a sly grin. “You ready for this, Duran?”
“As well as I can be. Just have my back, and I’ll have yours.”
“Let’s do this,” she said and crouched about fifteen feet in front of me.
With a low ruffling of many feathers, Raven transformed into her bird form. Her raven form was smaller this time, just over ten feet in length. She bent low to the ground to hide her large shadow and tilted her head towards me.
“Hurry and get on before someone sees us.”
I climbed atop her and nestled in the crook just before her wings expanded. Raven didn’t wait for me to settle before she followed her wings and launched off the ground.
We flew into the air, but instead of flying higher, she kept low and glided, rather than flew. Raven only flapped her wings when it was absolutely necessary, and in only a few minutes, the Iron Cathedral loomed over us.
“Circle around. The window we want is on the other side,” I told Raven.
The plans of the church were clear, and I knew exactly where I needed to enter to give us the best shot at success. Raven flapped her wings once more and rose to the roof of the cathedral. She landed on one of the few non-gabled spots, and as soon as her feet hit the stone, I slid off her.
The location where she landed was part of the main cathedral itself, and it meant we would have to do a bit of climbing to reach our entrance point, but there were precious few places for a bird of her size to land on the heavily sloped roof.
I took a look around while Raven shifted back to her human form. We had a long and thin, flat roof that spanned the majority of the church but slanted on all sides, which would lead to a long fall and a short stop if we went over the edge. Risking a glance, I scuttled on my knees as a gust of wind slapped at my face.
High above us was one of the many vents that led to surface and brought fresh air to the underground kingdom. I peered over the edge at the rocky ground a hundred feet below us. Large slate-gray tiles lined the slanted roof and were thick enough to offer handholds to grip if I somehow slipped off, but even as the renowned craftsmen the dwarves were, I didn’t want to trust my life to a roof tile.
“We need to be careful crossing. One wrong slip, and that’s it for us.”
“For you, maybe. I can fly,” Raven replied, a snarky smile on her lips.
“Then you’re responsible for catching my clumsy ass if I fall.”
We both laughed for a second before the realities of our job wiped the smiles from our faces. No sense waiting around, let’s get this job done and get the hell out of here. My pep talk did nothing for my hammering heart and nerves. Sweat rose on the nape of my neck as a chill that had nothing to do with the cool air sent goosebumps down my arms.
I looked over at Raven and despite the fire in her irises, the fine hair on her arms stood on end. I reached over and took her hand in mine, giving it a squeeze. “We’ve got this.”
She gulped and nod
ded.
“Stay back until I give the all clear,” I said as I let go of her hand and pulled a potion from my inventory. Lightstep was lime and grain alcohol with a bittersweet undertone, but I drank it with a grimace and crept over the stone roof.
Lightstep wouldn’t stop me going over the edge, but it would help muffle my steps, and it gave me more stability over uneven ground.
I moved slowly, cautious of anything out of place. It wasn’t likely, but I wouldn’t put it past the dwarves to have trapped the roof. But as I slunk along, keeping as low to the ground as I walked on all fours, I found no traps or any detection magic.
Foolish of them—and a grievous mistake on their part. Though maybe the sides of the building are trapped. Not many thieves have access to a raven shifter, I imagine. As I reached the end of the stone, I waved Raven over and planned my next move.
The end of the roof sloped down about ten feet and ended in about two inches of stone that formed the lip of the building.
“Not much room for error,” I whispered as Raven caught up and peered over the edge.
“Better not fuck up, then.”
Too true. Not waiting for my brain to catch up with my actions, I vaulted the stone and slid down the tile. The rough edges dug into my side, leaving bruises as I dropped down. My right foot hit the side of the lip just fine, but I misjudged the left, and it glanced off the edge and sailed down to open air.
“Shit!” I cursed as my weight shifted and I found myself falling.
I scrambled, flailing to find any purchase I could as my body tempted gravity. My hands grabbed hold of one of the tiles in desperation, and I stopped falling, but my body was halfway on the roof and halfway off. I was supporting myself on one foot as I gripped the stone tile.
And I thought this was going to be boring. I lifted up as gently as I could, but as I put most of my weight into my arms, the stone cracked and broke off.
I hung onto the broken half, still attached to the building despite the sharp edges slicing into my fingertips. The cracked part of the tile tumbled off my arm and into open air right down towards the rock below me.
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