He hissed something in his language, something guttural and grim.
“What?” Lyra called.
“Do not to shift your weight. At all,” he commanded.
Lyra almost instinctively twisted to look at what was coming, but she caught herself, and remained a rigid statue on his shoulder.
She felt him jump, and then she gasped as the ground dropped away from beneath them. They teetered above a steep, dark ravine.
Asier balanced on a fallen tree, moving carefully, leaning to the opposite side to compensate for her weight. The thin trunk flexed and bobbed under their combined weight. If he slipped—or if the tree broke—it’d be a long drop to a wet landing. The water would break their fall just well enough that they might remain conscious while the spiders dissolved and consumed their flesh.
Lyra’s entire body was clenched, every muscle strained taut as piano wire.
When at last solid ground appeared beneath Asier’s feet, Lyra let out a shuddering sigh. Asier resumed his all-out sprint.
Lyra looked up, bracing herself to shoot again—and nearly dropped the gun in shock. Crossing the ravine had slowed them significantly. She’d been so focused on the drop that she’d forgotten about their speed. It had eaten up precious time, allowing the spiders to close in. They poured over the downed tree with ease, crossing the ravine in less than a second. Once on solid ground, the nearest one spit a jet of black acid. It fell just short of Asier’s heels.
Clenching her jaw, bracing her elbows, Lyra lifted the stock to her shoulder, took aim, and fired. The nearest spider exploded into goo. She smashed her thumb down on the primer again, waiting, waiting… come on you stupid fucking—
Ready. She lifted the gun, sighted in, and dissembled another spider into its component parts.
She missed her next shot. The nearest spider spit a jet of acid that spattered the back of Asier’s leg with little droplets that hissed and sizzled through his trousers.
Lyra swallowed the scream rising in her throat and sighted in her next shot. Spider parts shot through the air like disgusting confetti.
One by one, she picked them off until there was only one last monster scuttling jerkily after them. She pressed her thumb to the primer. The light came on faintly, then pulsed out. Lyra’s heart stuttered.
No.
She pressed her thumb to the primer again. The light winked weakly at her, then died. No, no, no!
“It won’t prime!” she yelled to Asier.
The spider spit again. Most of the jet fell short, but a few droplets of black fluid landed on Lyra’s unprotected hand. It burned like hellfire, immediately opening raw red wounds. She gasped at the pain.
“Asier! It’s close enough to hit me!”
He snarled something in his own language and spun around. Lyra’s stomach took a second to catch up with movement. Before she really knew what was happening, Asier had dumped her on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Lyra scrambled to her feet as he marched forward to intercept the fast-approaching spider. “Asier! Stop!”
He reached into his coat and pulled out the small electron shooter. He blasted the spider with it. The creature gave only the faintest indication of having felt anything—a momentary stutter in its staccato gait, before it lunged forward.
He blasted it again with the electron shooter. Then again. And again. Each subsequent pulse seemed to have less effect on the creature, until nothing at all happened when Asier pulled the trigger.
The spider was upon him.
Asier leapt to the side, barely avoiding a jet of the corrosive black fluid. He threw the electron shooter to the ground and pulled his knife out.
Lyra clapped her hands over her mouth, holding in a scream. She didn’t want to distract him in any way. But horror clenched her body like a vice, and a faint, rasping keen escaped around the edges of her hands.
Asier lunged forward, just to the side of the spider. The creature turned on a dime, spitting again. Asier twisted away from the stream, but some of it spattered his jacket. Sizzling holes appeared in the material.
Lyra cast around, looking for something—anything—to help. The arc rifle lay on the ground beside her, but it would take time to prime it again—and most likely to accomplish nothing. She couldn’t waste even one second.
In front of her, Asier dodged another spray of acid.
Panicking, Lyra picked up a baseball-sized rock, and hurled it at the spider as hard as she could. It missed the mark by a meter, landing with a dull thud.
But the spider rounded on it as if it were fresh prey—and that was all the opening Asier needed. He brought his knife down—plunging it through the carapace with brutal crack, and burying it to the hilt in the top of the spider’s head segment. Asier released the knife immediately, leaping back.
The spider did not die quickly. It thrashed around in circles, legs crossing drunkenly. Black fluid leaked from the knife wound, and dripped from its maw. A high-pitched chittering sound emanated from the gaping mouth, while its pincers worked in convulsive twitches. Eight shining black eyes pulsed with waves of technicolor iridescence.
Lyra’s stomach churned as she watched it slowly wind down into an oozing, spasmodic death.
At long last, it collapsed and went still. Both she and Asier stood frozen, watching the spider, waiting for it to surge suddenly upright.
After several minutes, when it seemed likely to stay dead, Asier circled around it, coming back towards Lyra.
She looked up at him, prepared to exchange weak smiles and shaky, relieved laughter. Instead, he bent down, gathered her into his arms, and held her against his body. After a stunned second, she relaxed against him, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. He pressed his face to the top of her head, and simply held her.
Lyra felt something, deep in her chest. It was like a door opening. A light turning on. She pressed her face against Asier’s throat and closed her eyes.
Too soon, he set her back on her feet. “We have to keep going,” he said gruffly.
He snatched up the arc rifle, and slung it back over his shoulder. Lyra fell into step beside him.
As they journeyed onward, Lyra felt a new kind of tension burgeoning between them. She wanted to touch him, but gently, sweetly. She wanted to make sure he was safe, unharmed, but she also wanted to strip him down and feel that big, hard body against hers. And after they’d given each other all the pleasure they could bear, she wanted to lay in his arms and listen to his heartbeat.
She didn’t know what to do with that feeling. So she didn’t speak. And neither did he.
As the sun sank beneath the horizon, the trees thinned and finally gave way to the grassy plain.
They stopped at the edge.
“Where’s the ship?” Lyra asked, squinting in the gloom. It was the first either of them had spoken in some time. She all but whispered the words.
Asier pointed. “Straight out. It’s cloaked.”
Lyra had never encountered cloaking technology that could hide a ship from human vision entirely. She squinted again, trying to resolve the darkness into some kind of form—but still saw nothing.
Asier waded into the grass, and Lyra followed the path he broke. The dry, yellow grass rustled and shushed as it swayed in the mild wind. It tickled against Lyra’s bare leg.
“Do we have to worry about spiders?” she asked, hurrying to stay close at his back.