Xerxes looked in that direction, but didn’t have a good angle of view.

“Here they come,” someone said a few cubits away.

One of the spider-like Abhorrent, the lower-level kind without the maroon face, managed to get past the wooden stakes. A soldier impaled it with a spear.

Another came over, to be sliced in half with a sword. A putrid odor rose up.

Far in the distance, something caught Xerxes’ eye. A topless woman.

Shit, he thought. Squinting, he verified that it was a pale-skinned woman with long white hair, and the lower body of a many-legged spider. What’s she doing? Just standing there?

His eyes shifted back and forth as he looked for more. So far, there was only one, and she was indeed just standing there.

An Abhorrent spawn lunged at him. He slashed it in half. Another followed. It suffered the same fate.

Then the fighting began in earnest.

The spawn didn’t stop coming. Xerxes’ blade was black with gore, and in the brief seconds of breathing time he occasionally found, he looked left and right at the soldiers on the mound, and all were in similar situations.

However, there hadn’t been any casualties yet.

What was more, he hadn’t cast a single spell.

He heard screaming to the west, but the angle of view was still bad, making it impossible to tell what was happening.

Another spawn leaped at him. He skewered it and pushed it off his blade with his foot.

Then a white streak shot at him, followed by another, and another.

She’s here. The juvenile.

He got his sword up to knock the first tentacular strand away. The rest he managed to avoid by lunging backward a step. The fingers of the juvenile Abhorrent shifted directions and shot toward him again. More clever dodging and sword usage kept him safe.

On the third pass, he tried to grab some of them, and managed to snag one with his left hand. But it wasn’t enough to do anything. He chopped it off with his sword and opened his fingers before the severed part turned into sticky liquid.

“Why are you hiding?” he growled.

The thing was obviously hesitating beyond the wooden stakes.

The whipping fingers didn’t come for him again. Instead, they shot to the side toward a Unit One soldier named Shuni.

“Watch out!” Xerxes yelled, swinging his longsword wildly to try to sever the fingers. They were too far away.

Shuni’s armor deflected four of the fingers. The fifth stabbed his neck. He dropped to his knees, his weapon tumbling from his hand as he put pressure on the wound. Blood oozed out anyway.

“Healer!” Xerxes yelled, glancing back at the camp. He saw several units standing by in reserve. And also Katayoun, hovering over a body while casting a spell. She looked up in response to Xerxes’ shout.

“Neck wound!” he yelled. Shuni tipped over and fell onto his side.

Tentacular strands shot toward another soldier in the line.

“No you don’t,” Xerxes growled. Taking three steps forward, he leaped onto one of the wooden stakes, then jumped out, holding his sword out in front of him. The juvenile Abhorrent looked up, her eyes black, her teeth gleaming, her breasts perfect yet sickly with their maggot-like coloring.

As he flew through the air, spinning his sword toward her, she retracted her fingers. The white strands zipped through the air toward him. But not fast enough.

She leaned frantically to the side, yet his sword still met flesh, stabbing into her side. The blade hit ribs, then slid off them. Flesh parted, and black blood sprayed out. But the sword didn’t stab into her innards.

Then Xerxes turned his head to the side as he collided with her. His cheek hit her chin. His shoulder, her solar plexus. His sword flew out of his hands.

They fell together, her host of spidery legs flailing as he knocked her onto her back.

Her stench clung to his nostrils as he flipped over her and rolled away. She scrambled to right herself, and he lunged toward his sword, which had fallen several cubits away.

As his fingers wrapped around the sword, he saw streaks of white in his peripheral vision. Pain blossomed in his shoulder and thigh. Other tentacular fingers wrapped around him. He swung his sword without thinking about it, and it severed all of them.

The Abhorrent said something in her language as her severed fingers retracted, then started to grow again.

However, Xerxes used the momentum he’d generated by the wild swing of the sword to lurch forward, bring the sword up, and then slash it down.

Numerous spindly legs flopped to the ground, and the Abhorrent backed up.

He bent his legs and jumped.

The sword stabbed into her belly. She screamed.

He reached out with his free hand, grabbed her shoulder, and shoved at the sword, causing the blade to whip to the side within her. It ripped out of her, along with a jumble of internal organs.

Then he brought it back around toward her neck. The blade bit into her, but didn’t sever her head as he’d hoped. Nonetheless, she fell, bringing him with her.

They landed in a flop of spider-like legs, blood, and gore.

She was dead.

Trying not to retch, he yanked his blade from her neck and got to his feet.

An Abhorrent spawn slammed into him from the side, knocking him down.

He punched it. Twice. Three times. It fell away, and he kicked it, sending it flying several cubits away.

“First Lieutenant,” Sergeant Stratos yelled. “Get back ‘ere. There’s more of ‘em!”

Xerxes ran, planted his foot, and jumped. Grabbing the end of one of the wooden stakes, he pulled himself over it and landed on the mound. Then he turned to look back out at the field.

There were four more juvenile Abhorrent like the one he’d just killed.

Behind them was a fifth who was larger than any of the others by twofold.