Protector

by Sam Ryder

  Belle reached out and I met her halfway, our hands clasping tightly. “You trust me?” I asked.

  She bit her lip and nodded. “Hard not to when you’ve saved my life twice now.”

  “Depending on how you count all the spiders you killed, you’ve saved mine more times than two.”

  That thought seemed to buoy her up and she raised her chin. “I trust you. Let’s do this.”

  Once more, I secured my legs around the webbing and then flipped upside down, dangling for a moment with Belle hanging freely beneath me to ensure my grip was secure. And then I began to swing.

  Back and forth, back and forth, small movements at first. Soon, however, each swing became wider as we gained momentum. Like the pirate ship at an amusement park, we began to gain altitude each time we reached one side. Halfway there, I thought.

  My hands were getting sweaty, but I refused to let them slip.

  Higher and higher.

  Despite my commitment, my sweaty hands didn’t care—they were slipping now, and I was forced to reestablish my grip on each hand in quick succession, which meant letting go and grabbing her again, higher, somewhere around her wrists.

  Belle gasped, but I was too focused to reassure her, putting my entire body into the next swing, which carried us three-quarters of the way up to the branch.

  It might’ve been high enough, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Our momentum slowed and then stopped, before we headed back the other way even faster, the displaced air cooling my skin as it hit the layer of sweat.

  My fingers began to slip once more.

  “Sam?” Belle said.

  “Not yet,” I growled between gritted teeth. I can hold her for another swing. I can.

  We reached our peak on the other side, and if I’d reached up I might’ve been able to grab the branch myself. Of course, then I’d have to hold Belle with one hand and haul us both up. I’d done similar already, but again, why risk it? Instead, I let gravity drag us back in the other direction.

  As we swung like a pendulum, I waited for the penultimate moment when we were still accelerating upward but were close enough to the branch that Belle would get there. My hands were slipping but I waited a second longer and then said, “Now!” releasing her a split-second before I would’ve lost her anyway. I followed through with my arms to give her as much momentum as possible.

  She flew, our bodies drifting apart as I was pulled back down into the next swing.

  I watched as she flung her hands out, reaching for the branch…

  And grabbing it, glancing back at me as she pulled herself up.

  Hell yeah! I wanted to scream, but instead I focused on my next swing, which I hoped would carry me high enough to follow suit.

  Unfortunately, the webbed hammock chose that moment to judder, dropping me a foot, leaving me well short of the branch even as I reached the peak of my swing.

  I looked over at the gossamer rope that had held us for so long already. Clearly it was strong. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that all our swinging had caused it to move back and forth along the rough branch. All that rubbing had chewed through several of the woven strands, which had snapped.

  I swung back the other way, trying to come to terms with the inevitability of my fall. As soon as the remaining threads were worn away, I would drop. I needed to be read—

  The drop came way before I thought it would, just after the strands made an audible snap! I was still descending from the peak of my previous swing, so I didn’t even hang in the air for a second before dropping. No, I pretty much plummeted.

  Upside down.

  Wearing nothing but a loin cloth.

  You should’ve been there—it was a spectacle. Ball sacks bouncing around. Penis flapping like one of those dancing air-filled abominations that used car lots and mattress warehouses sometimes use to attract attention to their end-of-year mega sales.

  I didn’t even need to reach out to grab the thick branch below me. Because it grabbed me first. I literally landed right on top of it, the tree’s wooden appendage punching me in the chest and knocking the air from my lungs.

  Owie.

  I lay there for a minute, gasping like a fish out of water, trying to get some o2 through my throat and into my lungs. All the while, I heard Belle calling down, “You okay? Sam?” Her voice drew closer and then her feet touched down on the branch right in front of my face. “What happened? You take a shot to the nuts or somethin’?”

  That was the only good thing: my nuts had been spared, the rest of me taking the brunt of the hit. Without access to a nice ooze bath, I’d be sore for weeks. Sore, but alive.

  So far.

  “Gimme a minute,” I said, focusing on breathing, something I’d never really had to think about before. Funny how we take all these automatic bodily functions for granted. I finally understood how asthmatics felt. Or old people who needed to haul oxygen tanks around with them like metallic pets.

  “Sam,” Belle said after two minutes, which was a minute more than I’d requested. “The sun is definitely on the way down, not up.”

  Shit. She was right. Shadows were creeping along the branches. Already I could tell the lighting was dimmer within the forest.

  “I’m good,” I said, which might’ve only been partially true. Still, I managed to sit up without any additional wardrobe malfunctions. Yay me.

  “Can you climb?” Belle asked, her expression dubious.

  “Yep. Right behind you.” I pushed as much confidence into my voice as I tried not to show the true pain I was in. After all, she had a two-foot slash down her leg, which was still bleeding, the blood just beginning to show through the makeshift tourniquet, the white webbing turning pink.

  I wondered if the creepy-crawlies could smell blood like many of the other monsters could.

  Belle gave me another long look, so I said, “I’m fine. Seriously. Go ahead.”

  That seemed good enough for her, so she moved back along the branch to the trunk. She carefully lowered herself down, finding a good foothold in a knot in the wood. I could tell she was favoring her injured leg, but it didn’t seem to affect her too much.

  I waited a beat longer before following, my chest screaming at me to Stop! I bit back the pain and scooted along the branch, taking a similar path down, mimicking Belle’s movements since she was a damn good climber.

  We passed the first of the canopy beds used by the slumbering creepy-crawlies. They seemed to be fast asleep, which meant we still had time.

  Maybe not, I thought as we passed the next webbed platform. I could see one of their legs poking out from its sleep pod, twitching slightly.

  That’s when I noticed movement from a few of the other pods as more shadows fell upon the forest. The Black might still be a half-hour away, but these monsters might be able to come out early because of the coverage provided by the tightly packed trees.

  “Hurry,” I hissed to Belle, though it was unnecessary—she’d gained quite a bit on me already.

  I listened to my own advice, taking greater risks and skipping the safe holds to stretch as far as possible with each step. I slipped and almost fell but managed to grab a branch and then hang-drop to the next one, using the trunk to steady myself. My hammer smacked against my hip where it was hanging from its scabbard.

  I was almost down. In fact, Belle had already reached the ground, looking back at me and waving her hand to urge me on.

  It was still a thirty-foot drop, somewhere between broken back and broken legs. In front of me was the final creepy-crawly canopy. The amount of movement from within the pods was substantial now, and I even saw one of the smaller creatures emerge from its cocoon, its body and stinger quivering slightly, shaking off the grogginess of sleep.

  I was out of time. I slung my body over the edge of the branch, gripping it tightly and stretching as far down as I could, trying to lessen the distance as much as possible.

  And then I let go.

  There was a rush of wind around me an
d probably more ball-bouncing, penis-flapping action—Belle would be scarred for life—and then I landed with me knees bent, tucking my head and rolling to deaden as much of the impact as I could.

  Even still, I felt the ligaments in my knees pop and my bones shudder. My hammer twisted around to smash into my pecs. My bruised chest screamed, You sadist!

  I crashed into something solid and hairy, flinching away because I thought I’d just come face to face with a creepy-crawly. Forgetting the pain I was in, I scrabbled back like a crab before realizing the spider-scorpion I’d collided with was dead. One of Belle’s victims from the night before. In fact, the area all around us was littered with them. There must’ve been at least a dozen. Pretty freakin’ impressive for a woman who’d never held a sword until a week or so ago.

  “Sam,” Belle said, grabbing me under the arms and urging me to stand up. I sensed something in her voice—a shred of fear. Which was certainly normal considering our situation, and yet I instinctively knew there was something more to be worried about then the hundreds of spiders that were about to wake up in the trees.

  I stood and saw where she was looking, what had freaked her out.

  It was a mountainous web pod. Unlike the other pods, it was resting on the ground. My mind flashed back to the memory of the enormous monster that had been Belle’s undoing the night before. The Queen of the Creepy-Crawlies.

  As we stared on, one of her massive legs jabbed through the pod.

  That’s when we ran.

  ~~~

  It was like Arachnophobia times a billion. Spiders dropped all around us while others scurried along the branches overheard, doing that spine-tingling shrieking thing. At this point, I was certain they were communicating, plotting our demise or calling out claims on body parts. The eyeballs are mine! Dibs on the feet!

  A medium-sized crawly landed directly in front of our path. We’d both already drawn our weapons, but Belle was quicker to react, slashing out and hacking through three legs at once. The loss of appendages threw the monster off-balance, giving us just enough time to skirt past it and continue running. There was no point in trying to kill them—there were simply too many. Escaping the forest was our only chance.

  Belle was doing remarkably well considering the damage that had been done to her leg. Blood was already seeping through the makeshift web tourniquet. But I couldn’t think about that now. Escape first, then deal with any injuries.

  “Which way?” Belle asked as she was forced to dart right to avoid two more spiders that had dropped to block the way forward.

  I’d always had a decent sense of direction, but it was kind of hard when I’d been knocked out with venom, shrink-wrapped and then fallen from a tree.

  Not to mention the fact that the crawlies seemed to be herding us in a particular direction. Probably back toward their queen, who was sharpening her legs in preparation for impaling us.

  As we crashed between two gnarly bushes, the branches stinging my skin like whiplashes, I tried to recall the positioning of the bronze sun. I was pretty certain it was behind us, though it was extremely difficult to tell while in the woods. But if I was right, we were heading in the exact wrong direction if we wanted to cross the shortest distance out of the forest. Which made sense, at least from the spiders’ perspective. If they were herding us, they’d want to force us further into the woods, where they could methodically surround us.

  Which meant we needed to go left, where half a dozen crawlies were skittering along the ground. Most weren’t too big, relatively speaking, only the size of pitbulls, but the largest was my height. At this point in my leveling up, I was around six-six, NBA basketball player height with the bulk of an NFL linebacker.

  The spider was even bigger, if you included the wide reach of its eight sword-like legs.

  “We’ve got to break the line,” I said, hot on Belle’s heels as she swerved around a tree.

  “You first,” she said, which would’ve made me laugh if not for my heaving chest. I veered left and she followed my lead this time, which meant she had to slow down a little. From the right, I heard a series of shrieks, the spiders protesting our change of course.

  Ahead, I could see the line of spiders, as well as several that had taken up position on branches overhead. There were gaps, but these mothers could move fast. I had a feeling they were almost baiting us now, trying to force us into a specific space where they would trap us. Instead of making for the largest of the spaces between the crawlies like they might’ve expected, I looked for the weakest link in their hairy chain.

  There! The furthest to the left were three smallish spiders all in a row. Small like fully grown pot-bellied pigs. So not actually small, just small relative to the other behemoths.

  I grabbed Belle’s hand and charged straight for the one in the middle, which skittered back a couple steps in surprise. Its many large eyes reflected an image of Belle and I running right for it.

  I released Belle’s hand, reasserted both hands on the shaft of my hammer, and swung.

  Bull’s-fucking-eye.

  Ichor splattered across my face as the creepy-crawly’s bulbous head exploded. I think I even felt an eyeball rebound off my cheek. Icky.

  But I didn’t have time to contemplate when I might get the chance to take my next bath because my peripheral vision had caught a glimpse of another spider scuttling in hard and fast from the side. As the first spider fell, I stomped over its body and then spun to whip another mighty swing.

  Crunch-ch-ch! My hammer shattered three of the next spider’s legs, breaking through each one and continuing to the next. The crawly hissed at me and jabbed one of its remaining legs awkwardly at my head. I managed to duck and then dive away as it tried to stomp on me. When I came out of the roll I was facing partly away, which allowed me a view of Belle, who’d stabbed her own foe in at least three places, gooey blood leaking out.

  She was doing well, which meant I could focus on my own enemy. I had this strong desire to go toe-to-toe with the spider like I was facing the heavyweight champion of the world. The only problem: if this took too long, we’d be surrounded and overrun. So, for once in my life, I did the smart thing.

  “Belle!” I shouted, and I saw her head jerk halfway toward me without letting the injured spider out of her sight. “We’ve got to run. Now.”

  I saw her hesitate for just a moment, so I added, “GO!” and took off running. Thankfully, she followed, and not a moment too soon, because that’s when the reinforcements arrived. The line of spiders had closed in on our spot, collapsing like an avalanche of sharp, hairy legs and pale eyeballs.

  While we’d fought, I’d been subconsciously aware of all the shrieking in the distance. Now I knew what was happening. Like soldiers on a battlefield, the spiders were changing their strategy to respond to our unwillingness to be herded deeper into the forest.

  As we shoved branches and bushes out of the way with our arms, I saw the result of all that shrieking.

  At least a dozen of the spiders had gotten in front of us, guessing our direction before even I was sure where we’d go. They were a mix of sizes, and once more I charged for a cluster of smaller ones I thought we could handle.

  I might as well have stepped on a pit covered with flimsy leaves.

  Because it was a trap.

  The three small spiders had a pair of big brothers with them, each of which dropped from somewhere high above, landing with a series of thumps on either side.

  It got worse.

  They also had their overprotective mother with them.

  That’s right—the crawly to end all crawlies.

  She landed in front of the other five, eclipsing them with her girth and making them look like the children that they were.

  Her body had at least a hundred eyes, each glittering darkly with bloodlust. She rubbed her two front-most legs together, and they make a wicking sound, like a pair of swords being sharpened.

  “Oh god,” Belle breathed, huddling by my side. I wished I had someo
ne bigger to huddle up against. “What do we do?”

  I knew the answer before she asked the question, because I’d been running through all the options as soon as I’d realized we’d foolishly run into a trap set by these devilish monsters.

  “I need you to do exactly as I say without hesitation,” I said calmly, my eyes never leaving the Big Mama Crawly, who continued to nonchalantly sharpen her forelegs.

  “I will,” Belle said.

  “Good. I need you to run as fast as you can. First to the right, and then when you get clear of the last spider, cut left and go straight until you’re out of the woods.”

  “Sam, I can’t leave—”

  “You can and you will. I need you to do this. For me. Please.”

  She was hanging on my arm now. “I’ll wait for you,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “You won’t. Find your way back to the others. Help them fight. Be the Warrior you were always meant to be. Now go. Now!” With that, I shoved her away. She stumbled slightly, but was agile enough to maintain her feet, turning and limp-sprinting, katana slashing the air at her side.

  The three smallest spiders broke away from the others to pursue her, which left me to deal with Big Mama and her two beefy children. To my surprise, the two kids backed away. Then again, they’d probably seen their mother kill many others—they were nothing but spectators now.

  And I was the sport.

  With a final scrape, she finished sharpening her legs. Her maw opened to reveal half a dozen rows of bladelike teeth, each set of which was framed by twin fangs as long as my forearm. She shrieked and the sound was so piercing it made me want to scratch out my own eyeballs. Instead, I gripped my hammer tightly, keeping one eye on those two front legs and the other on her barbed scorpion tail, which had risen behind her, quivering slightly.

  All around me, shrieks answered, the calls of her spawn, who had caught up to us and now lined the branches of the forest like a raucous crowd ready to watch a gladiator face a beast. And this crowd wanted blood.