Safe? Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. - C.S.Lewis

It turned out that Jamie was being a little too optimistic about his horse. As night turned into day three of the chase, it became increasingly evident that the palfreys had almost reached the end of their strength. Hank’s treatment of Marko and Gruffly was having a positive effect. Gruffly had regain consciousness for increasing periods but the continual riding lessened the benefits.

But the spiders still pursued. They were wearing the group down and had reduced the gap to only 20 minutes.

In the middle of the afternoon Sabine confronted Hank. “We're going to have to turn and fight. We won’t win a night fight, so we need to choose our spot and prepare for a last stand in the next hour or so.”

“And what does ‘our spot’ look like? I really don’t feel like being surrounded.” Hank asked.

Looking around Sabine sighed before answering. “That’s the problem with this forest, there aren’t any landscape features to help us. We’ll need to find something with dense trees either behind us, or better still a funnel of some description.”

They were still discussing this when a horse and rider burst from the woods and into their midst. Gesturing behind himself the massive man shouted at them and bolted past. Hank guessed the man was an Ore Cane and speaking their language as he had no idea what was being said. Jamie obviously did. He turned his palfrey to follow and kicked it into motion.

Jamie shouted briefly in reply to the rider in the same language. Then over his shoulder said to the rest of the group. “There’s a bunch of arachnids chasing him. They're less than ten minutes behind him.”

Nobody was ready for a fight no matter the discussion that Hank and Sabine had been having. The sudden nature of the interruption also left them a little spooked. So everyone turned and charged after Jamie and the nameless rider.

Fear can only do so much and it was clear that both the rider’s horse and their own palfreys were almost done. Everyone was exhausted, they were all slowing down. The very forest around them seemed to anticipate an end, becoming eerily quiet. The birds weren't chirping and movement in the undergrowth had long since ceased.

Suddenly, a loud coughing sound from the right rear of the group, broke through the quiet, startling everyone. Nobody saw anything, but the palfrey’s squealed in fear and bolted, the packhorse not far behind. As one, without rider prompting, all the horses turned to the left, running from the sound they had heard.

A few hundred metres later, the horses started too slow, fear and exhaustion at war. The latter winning. Another cough, once again on the right, tipped the balance back in favour of fear. The mounts all veered towards the left again and increased the pace. Fifteen minutes later, a cough on the left, the horses turned to the right. Over the next hour there were coughs from behind or to the sides. Every time they slowed, the same sound.

Hank couldn’t escape the idea that everyone, including the Ore Cane, were being driven. He wasn’t sure by what or where, but something had a plan and Hank hated not knowing what the plan was.

Eventually it became too much. “Sabine, I’m going to try reigning my palfrey. I want to know what is making that noise.” Hank decided to flush their manipulator out.

“Good luck. Mine has zero interest in responding to verbal commands or the reigns. The poor thing’s petrified.” Jamie remarked from just ahead of Hank

Hank started pulling up his palfrey. The poor animal was so grateful to slow down that it didn’t fuss, almost stopping dead. At which point a stripped head the size of a wagon wheel poked out of the branches behind Hank and coughed almost in his ear.

Hank jolted and almost fell out of his saddle. He wasn’t sure if it was because the paltry bolted or because he got such a fright he levitated. In either case the result was the same. He rapidly found himself at the front of the pack. No sooner had he reached the front than they broke out of the forest into a clearing.

Sunning themselves on a large rock in the centre of the clearing were three of the strangest things Hank had ever seen. They were the size and vague shape of a reasonably large dog. But their hind legs were quite a bit smaller than their front legs and their mouths were too oversized to be truly graceful. They had short dark brown fur, and they reeked of worst smell Hank had ever experienced. Hank’s first thought was that must be some kind of hyena.

He didn’t get much further than that. The slowing horses veered around the rocky outcrop almost making it into the woods on the far side when multiple thumps and a triumphant squeal that abruptly cut off sounded behind the group. Hank’s palfrey startled, but obviously having had one scare too many, stumbled, faltered, regained itself for a step and then collapsed. Hank already partly unseated, jolted in the saddle falling off the animal at the first stumble. Fortunately rolling away, he avoiding becoming trapped underneath the exhausted animal.

A quick look showed him that his palfrey would survive but the lather down its sides and in its mouth indicated that it probably wasn’t going to be any use for riding in the next few days. Hank figured it was irrelevant considering his demise was imminent if the twenty spiders boiling out of the woods, hd any thing to say. Most of them were about the size of the one they had first killed, juveniles he concluded. But towards the back, four much larger spiders entered the glade. If the one he’d fought before was bad these larger one were nightmares.

Hank tuned to see what had happen to the rest of the party. Gratefully he saw that everyone had stopped and dismounted as well. Obviously, their running days were done.

Sabine took also seemed to be looking around. “Hopefully those smelly dogs will provide some small measure of distraction. It’s time to fight”

A sharp crack sounded behind Hank and he turned just in time to see one of the dogs bite a spider leg completely off. The spider spun to stab it with a fang and missed. The dog in question took the opportunity to bite off another leg. Hank stopped stunned, he remembered how hard it had been for them to do the same to that other juvenile, these dogs had done it twice in seconds.

Sabine wasn’t gawping at the fight like the rest of the group. She realised this was where they needed to make their stand and so it had better be good. She took charge. “Wake up everyone. Jamie find out what this tower of humanity is called and what his weapon of choice is. It's time to fight.” She didn’t seem to realise that she was repeating herself.

Hank turned to head for his palfrey.

“No, you don’t.” Sabine grabbed Hank’s coat pulling him along. “Bring your staff this way Hank. We need to get into formation. Not all of those spiders are going to be occupied by those brown things over there. There’re only three of the things, we’ll have to deal with the leakers.”

“Sabine, his name is pretty much unpronounceable so the closest I can get to his name is Ruadh and he uses a claymore.” Jamie calmly interrupted Sabine between breaths as the massive man pulled an equally massive sword off his horse.

Sabine didn’t break stride or pause. This was her element and she knew her business. “Tell him I’m adding him to the group. There will be more benefits than losses that way. Also tell him I have no time for crazy stunts. He's to hold the left flank. That means no charges, sallies, gregarious offensive manurers or any other stupidity. He’s to defend the left.”

“He says that’s no problem.” Jamie replied after a brief unintelligible conversation.

In short order, the team sorted itself out. This time armed with a bow, Marko started shooting at the spiders from the rear of the group. One of the juveniles rushed over only to encounter the spears that Sabine and Jamie wielded in the front of the formation. Another rushed up next to it and Ruadh started laying into its legs.

Hank, swinging between Sabine and Jamie, whacked the first spider on its fang with his staff. It was quite awkward, both he and Sabine almost receiving a fang bite. But for the second time the staff seemed to make its weird semi audible noise.

Everything in the clearing reacted. All the spiders reared up. One of the adults started to make its way over to them. The dogs started making noise surprisingly similar to a girl giggling. It didn’t stop them tearing spiders apart. One of them received a spider bite in the side, which started bleeding quite badly. It didn’t slow the animal down at all.

The most surprising reaction to the staff’s semi audible noise, however, was a yowling sound from a number of places around the clearing. One of which transitioned to what could only be called a roar. At this sound one of the adult spiders turned away from the fight with the dogs, focusing on the woods.

In the meantime, the ringing sound allowed Sabine to kill the juvenile in front of her with a strong spear thrust into the arachnid. It was a toss up between Jamie’s spear and Marko’s arrows for the other one. Another juvenile rushed in to replace its sister in the front line. But it was the three and a half metre monster behind that really grabbed everyone’s attention as it advanced to confront Sabine.

Fritz, who was stationed on the right flank, struggled. Even though he was using his razor sharp axe, he just couldn't penetrate the exoskeleton of the adult spider’s leg joints. Ruadh might have been more successful with his raw strength but he was on the far side of the formation and occupied with the other juvenile.

Marko seemed to have decided juveniles were his best targets. So, he continued to fire arrow after arrow into the eyes of the smaller spider. Hank gratefully concluded that he was much more useful in this fight than his previous efforts. Although it's pretty hard to miss a target the size of small tea tray from only five metres away.

Hank took a moment to look further afield, to the rest of the fight. All the dogs were injured, but they seemed to have destroyed about ten of the juveniles. Leaving a ‘mere’ seven or eight juveniles still in the fight. Unfortunately, all four adults were uninjured, just as they had been when they arrived. He assumed that was because they hadn’t be able to pass their smaller friends until recently hadn’t actually fought much.

One of the adult spiders intently focused on the woods. It kept turning this way and that, almost like it was tracking something. There was a roar from the forest almost directly where it was looking.

As the roar rang out, a massive tiger like animal jumped out of the foliage from a different direction, landing on the back of a different adult spider. It’s shape reminded Hank of a tiger, but it’s colouring was completely different. He thought it was probably also larger than tigers were supposed to be.

In a flash the cat ran up the spider’s torso and proceeded to claw the spider’s eyes apart. In less than a second it had destroyed that spider’s ability to see, severely handicapping it. Then running back along the torso, it jumped back into the tree foliage, disappearing.

Hank was astounded, he almost stopped in amazement before a shout caused him to focus back on the fight in before him. Jamie had somehow managed to stab the adult spider directly in front of him, but his spear had broken off leaving him dangerously exposed, forcing him to step back from the front line. Seeing the gap in Sabine’s defensive the juvenile jumped though. Before anyone could react, it bit Marko on the shoulder. Immediately Ruadh turned and with shout hacked off a back leg. But the damage was done.

Gruffly, who had largely stayed out of the fight, charged in with a hammer, trying to smash a leg or something on the right side of the spider. Ruadh attacked the left leaving Hank trying pushing it away from himself and Marko with his staff. To be honest, it was a futile effort and Hank found himself pushed back towards the woods as he attempted to stay out of the incensed spider’s fang range.

All might have ended badly for Hank but, as he neared the tree-line, with contemptuous ease, a large tiger leapt over him and landed in front of the spider. With a yowl it swiped at the spider. It dodged to one side as the spider struck back. It took another swipe, and the spider stepped back. Into the perfect range for Ruadh who managed to remove another leg. The tiger then dodged the other way and took a further swipe. This time the spider found itself in range of a hammer blow from Gruffly.

The hammer wasn’t as effective as the sword but it did enough damage to the back leg that the spider decided it need to kill the things attacking it from behind. It turned to confront Ruadh. This seemed to be the cat’s intent from the start.

This time the strange tiger attacked with intent. It darted in at the spiders back legs and in a tearing sound painful to the ears, used its claws to rip away two legs. The spider toppled and collapsed. The tiger jumped onto its back and started tearing into the joint between the top and bottom parts of the body. In less than a minute, the feline severed the spider into two parts before disappearing back into the foliage as quickly as it had emerged.

Hank might have been slow off the mark at the beginning, but watching how easily that spider had been manipulated into attacking the wrong targets before being completely dismantled, was an eye opener. For some reason, he had been saved by what had to be an Exi. They must be those creatures Tom had described. Right there he decided that Tom had been right. Never get an Exi angry they're just way too smart for the average forest monster.