from it. Her” sword leaped out as the thing sprang, and it spitted itself.
Something soft touched the back of her hand. The end of a waving leg.
Smhee came up behind it as she stood there holding the sword out as far as she
could to keep the arachnid away. Her arm got heavy with its weight, and slowly
the blade sank towards the ground. The fat man slashed the thing’s back open
with his dagger. A foul odour vented from it. He brought his foot down on a leg
and whispered, ‘Pull your sword out! I’ll keep it pinned!’
She did so and then backed away. She was breathing very hard. He jumped up and
came down with both feet on the creature.
Its legs waved for a while longer, but it was dying if not already dead. ‘That
was a real spider,’ he said, ‘although I suppose you know that. I suspect that
the false spiders will be much smaller.’
‘Why?’ she said. She wished her heart would quit trying to leap up through her
throat.
‘Because making them requires energy, and it’s more effective to make a lot of
little spiders and costs less energy than to make a few big ones. There are
other reasons which I won’t explain just now.’
‘Look out!’ she cried, far louder than she should have. But it had been so
sudden and had taken her off guard.
Smhee whirled and slashed out, though he hadn’t seen the thing. It bounded over
the web, its limbs spread out against the dimness, its great round ears
profiled. It came down growling, and it fell upon Smhee’s blade. This was no
man’s-head sized spider but a thing as big as a large dog and furry and stinking