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The air crackled around them and he glimpsed the storm in Thea’s eyes.
‘Not now,’ he cautioned. ‘You’ll need all that power for the Great Rite.’
For once, his apprentice heeded his warning. He noted her grip on her sword tightening as she unsheathed Malik’s dagger from her belt and gave him a single nod.
Side by side they stood, as three arachnes crept into their space from beyond the trees.
They were smaller than the one in Vios, but just as cursed with darkness. A strange clicking noise permeated the air as they approached, their forms grotesque: a twisted fusion of spider and human and hatred, their multiple eyes gleaming with a sinister hunger.
‘Good odds,’ Thea quipped, twirling her steel in invitation.
Wilder baulked. ‘How d’you figure that?’
Thea shrugged. ‘Last time you were fighting with broken chair legs.’
Then, his apprentice lunged.
Wilder followed, his blades glinting in the weak sunlight and reflection of the snow. He moved with the grace of the Furies, each strike to the lashes of darkness swift and precise as he fought his way to the largest monster’s layers of chitinous exoskeleton.
‘Mind your left!’ Thea shouted, and he dodged just in time to miss a thick net of webbing flying at him. The arachne snapped its pincer-like fangs, dripping venom as it surged towards him on its eight freakish legs.
Wilder somersaulted, feeling the icy kiss of snow on his back as he rolled beneath the monster and cleaved his blades through the lower half of its limbs.
The screech that followed shook icicles from the nearby trees, but Wilder was already on his feet, seeing Thea as a blur of movement in his periphery as he launched himself onto the arachne’s back and plunged his blades through its thorax from behind.
The monster staggered on its severed legs, black blood pouring from its wounds onto the snow as it collapsed.
Wilder leapt from the falling creature, not wasting a moment as he sought Thea. She was wielding her sword and dagger against the two lesser arachnes, her face lined with determination, her footwork as flawless as ever, even in the snow.
Twirling his blades, Wilder came to her side.
‘Don’t know if you realise, but I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ she muttered.
‘Thought you’d have these two little ones handled,’ Wilder retorted, knowing that Thea often responded to a challenge.
A wicked smile curved her lips. ‘Well then, stand back and watch how it’s done, Warsword.’
Thea threw herself at the remaining monsters, her sword and dagger carving through darkness and sinewy flesh, eliciting shrieks from both creatures, black gore spattering onto the pristine snow around them. Wilder guarded her back, but allowed her free rein on the attack, knowing she needed this. She needed her blood hot and her body warmed up for the trials ahead. She needed the confidence in her abilities.
The cursed forms of the two remaining arachnes faltered with every swipe of her blades, unable to withstand the ferocity of Thea’s assault. She embedded a dagger in one of their human-like skulls and flung an array of silver throwing stars at the other’s many eyes.
‘I was right, all that time ago…’ Wilder mused, watching her carve up the monsters.
‘About what?’ she managed between blows.
‘You’re even more beautiful with steel in your hands, and the blood of your enemies splattered across your face.’
He saw a flash of a smile before, in a final manoeuvre, Thea jumped, avoiding a slash of darkness, her body twisting in mid-air only to come back down in perfect form, her sword slicing through the thick neck of the final monster, severing its head completely.
The head rolled across the snow with a dull thud as Thea landed deftly beside the falling carcass.
‘Not bad, Apprentice,’ Wilder murmured. ‘Not bad at all.’
But Thea’s eyes were fixated between the trees, where a naked branch bounced, disturbing settled flakes of ice. ‘Someone’s there.’
Wilder charged towards the bush, instantly finding the tracks that led away from the muddied slush. He scanned the surrounding forest, but there was nothing but white snow and barren trees. Whoever had watched the battle had fled.
And that someone had likely set the arachne upon them.
