Ahead, the forest thickened, limbs twisting into a wall of wood, their gnarled branches explicitly informing us this was as far as we went.

  Regante knelt, staring down at the dogs. His hand touched the side of the one closest to him and came back covered in blood, crimson and fresh. His expression hardened as he stood assured.

  “Torches everyone. Swords out. Looks like a few of them are still active during the daylight.”

  Together, we moved cautiously forward, following the path of disturbed leaves the dogs had caused, until we found a large bloodstain seeping into the ground. There was no corpse to be seen.

  The darkness drew back a bit as the torches flared to life, revealing more of the dense underbrush. Everyone took a selective sigh of relief even as I sensed this was the calm before the storm.

  “How large are these widowers to be able to drag such a large dog away?” I asked Saduwell.

  “Apparently quite large.” And for the first time I saw a hint of worry line his face. “Unnaturally large,” he murmured one more time.

  A few minutes more, and we found ourselves before a massive dead tree. It was set apart from the other greenery in the forest, its wide limbs piercing the sky in defiance of the heavens. There were no leaves left and its bark was beginning to peel off from the trunk in large chunks. As for the trunk, I estimated fifteen people together might be able to wrap their hands around it. The ground was like a checkerboard, patches of shadow and light freckled across the landscape. And right at its base, was a hole, diving underground, an inky menace.

  Regante raised his hand until everyone had stopped. He whispered. “On the count of three, Saduwell, James, and I will throw our torches into the tree to burn out any of the black widowers that might still be awake. Swordsmen will be in the front and the spearmen behind. Remember, the first priority is keeping the spawn at bay, the second is to kill. Archers shoot at will. Once we finish the wave, we can investigate the tree and prepare the nest for burning. Does anyone have concerns?”

  I had concerns. Everyone had concerns. The air reeked of it. It was one thing to talk bravely in the middle of town, but with the scent of death emanating from that hole in the tree, nothing I could think of calmed me down.

  “One, two, three.”

  At the count, the chosen soldiers tossed their torches forward. For a few moments, calm reigned supreme as the light illuminated the hollowed interior, and we peered forward in anticipation. Dense white spiderwebs clung to every visible surface. The center of the hollow was cloaked in particularly dense webbing while the edges were covered more sparsely with thinner strands.

  One torch had landed in a web at the front, already hungrily licking up the strands with enthusiasm. Another sputtered on the ground. And by some stroke of incredible luck, the third had landed directly on the densest part of the webbing right at the base of the trunk.

  Something incredibly fast scuttled from the tree, launching itself directly at the front line of soldiers. It was pure black, its eight legs thickly armored with a thick carapace. Massive spikes jutted from its limbs, resembling a thorn bush of iron, while the front of its face was covered in an array of eyes.

  The unfortunate man that had been attacked raised his shield admirably, but fell backwards as the black widower’s weight surprised it. The spider went straight for his neck, but his comrades reacted swiftly, stabbing at it from all directions with their spears. Many of them were deflected by the carapace, but it was enough of a distraction to save his life. The swordsman dashed in and out, swinging as hard as they could. The legs snapped one by one until a soldier wielding a great ax neatly chopped off its head, followed through and smashed into the shield.

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  The man under it groaned. “I think my ribs broke.”

  “Well, you’re alive,” Regante said. “That was underwhelming, all things considered.” We all nervously chuckled.

  Then the central webbing finally caught fire from the third torch, igniting it in a brilliant conflagration. The tree . An explosion of black bodies shot from the hole, momentarily covering the torchlight for one second.

  “Oh, fuck,” Saduwell murmured. Then the legion of black widowers were upon us.

  The front lines nearly flattened into thin cakes, buckling under the impact from the swarm. The fight broke up into fragmented skirmishes as chaos ran amok. Screams pierced through the air as the hunters became the hunted. The black widowers buried their fangs into exposed flesh and their legs cut through armor like a hot knife through butter. Bones crunched and snapped, the crackling a constant sound.

  A black widower nearby bit its prey, then its numerous eyes focused on me. It launched itself at me with terrifying speed, and I fell backward, scuttling, desperately trying to will myself into escape. Before it reached me, Saduwell dashed forward and then dove, sliding his sword underneath its body in one fluid motion, ending in a kneel with guts splattered across his face.

  “Fuck my day. Run. You need to warn them,” as he desperately held back another widower. “I said run Vidal!”

  His words reached me through my frozen shock, and I grabbed a torch that had rolled near me running in the direction we had come from. My pitchfork was useless. We were all going to die. This was not a nest to be burned out, it was an infestation that required great military might.

  A crack behind me was the only warning I had. Instinct took over and I dropped the pitchfork and drove to the side as I felt a surge of air pass over my right shoulder. Dashing to my feet again, I raised my torch higher. A cold chill passed through my body as my leg muscles seized up. I couldn’t breathe. A widower had followed me.

  I swished my torch back and forth, hoping against all odds it would leave me alone. It scurried side to side, its black eyes reflecting the torch. It looked… confused?

  “Go away!” I demanded. “I’m not prepared to die!”

  In answer, it scurried forward, its limbs a blur as it quickly closed the distance between us. I thrust my torch forward and closed my eyes in fear as it jumped. The weight of it slammed into me and knocked me backwards, and I was nearly knocked unconscious as my head hit the ground with a thud.

  Its body next to mine and through the dim haze of my pain, I noted in grim satisfaction its eyes had been burned. The spawn’s legs thrashed in distress, cutting thin gashes in my own limbs, as its head shook back and forth. Desperately I reached to my side for the knife, but it wasn’t there. I rolled away and lurched to my feet.

  Again, I ran. But in my haste my foot snagged on a root and I fell once more. The black widower sailed over my left shoulder. By pure luck, I had managed to dodge its lunge once more. I knew I could not depend on luck for the third time.

  At this point it had gathered itself and turned around. I wiped blood from my eye. There. The pitchfork I had dropped earlier was right next to me. I scrambled to grab it right at the same time as the widower sped towards me once more.

  The shaft nearly slipped through my fingers, but I managed to pull up the front of the pitchfork right as the spider impaled itself on it. The shaft snapped due to the stress and the mortality wounded widower ended up smushing me into the ground.

  I tried the other side of my waist and finally found the dagger. Even as I struggled to breath under the weight, I brought the dagger to a gap in the carapace and I stabbed, and I stabbed, and I stabbed. With a loud crack, the dagger punched through some inner shell. Finally, the Riftspawn stopped struggling.

  Vibrant purples, reds, and greens rocked my world, and my vision started to spin.

  I missed Zara. I missed Stoney. I missed my family.

  The widower disappeared, and I could breathe once more. My father’s head appeared, then split into four and started to spin.

  “Son! Stay with me,” my father’s head told me. “Nana Glob!”

  I tried to tell him everything was okay but for some reason my mouth felt sticky and I just felt so tired. The exhaustion crept into my bones and my eyes fluttered. Father shook me awake. I wanted to tell him to let me sleep. I felt myself lifted up and carried away. Time came and time went, and I felt at peace.