Chapter 67: The Blade's Defiance

The Spinner King does not move like a spider. It moves like a thought.

It does not scuttle. It is.

One moment, it is a mountain of chitin and flesh, a hundred yards away, its humanoid torso smiling. The next, it is on top of us. Its speed is not physical; it is conceptual. It exists where it chooses.

"ERIMA!"

Kizawa's roar is what saves me. The mental shackle on him breaks as the King shifts its focus from taunting to acting.

The King is not aiming for me. It is aiming for Hachiro. The anomaly.

A leg like a black obsidian spear, the size of a bus, slams down where Hachiro is standing.

Hachiro dives, rolling desperately to the side. The impact of the King's leg on the silken floor sends a shockwave that throws us all from our feet.

I hit the ground hard. The obsidian arrow clatters from my hand. The Grak-ta bow is ripped from my grasp. I am disarmed.

Yogawa screams, a sound of pure, unadulterated terror, and curls into an even tighter ball.

The King is a whirlwind. Its other legs stab down, a forest of instant death. Stab. Stab. Stab. It is not trying to kill us. It is herding us. It is toying with us. It wants us to despair before the end.

And then it sees Kizawa.

Kizawa is not running. He is not dodging.

He is charging.

He is a blur of blue and black, his two swords a flash of cold steel. He is running up the leg of the Spinner King.

"YOU- WILL- NOT- HAVE- HER!" he roars, his voice not human, but a force of pure, suicidal Will.

Insolent.

The King's mind-voice is a spike of ice in our skulls.

The humanoid torso on the King's face frowns. It is annoyed. It raises one of its long, elegant, silver-white arms.

Kizawa is almost there. He is about to leap from the leg to the humanoid body, his blades ready to carve into those milky eyes.

The King's arm moves.

It is too fast. It is a white blur.

It backhands Kizawa.

It does not stab him. It does not grab him.

It swats him out of the air like a common, annoying fly.

The impact is a sickening CRACK that echoes in the vast, silent cavern.

Kizawa flies. He soars across the web, a broken, ragdoll shape.

He slams into the silken wall a hundred yards away.

And he sticks.

He is impaled to the wall by a single, thick, glistening strand of silk, fired from the King's humanoid wrist.

He is stuck. Crucified.

He is alive. I can see him struggling, a dark, desperate shape against the pale web. But he is immobilized.

"KIZAWA!" I scream, my voice raw.

"See?" the King hisses, its humanoid mouth smiling again. "He is safe. Just like the Flame-Girl. Resting. Protected."

It turns its full, massive, eight-eyed gaze to Hachiro and me.

"Now. Where were we?"

It raises its leg again, this time to crush.

"GET- AWAY- FROM HER!"

Hachiro roars.

And he charges.