Book One – Chapter 16

The dark stirred.

They came before the pain had even settled into shape.

She heard them first. Not one singular sound — but a texture, layered and converging. Skittering limbs rasping stone, friction gathering into cadence. A dry hairline rustle filled the air, like a ripple of claws combing the cavern floor. It was a sweeping, swelling gust scratching and searching the surface, a sound sharp and constant. A low, skimming, soaring storm; the movement of masses in motion.

She felt them. Legs brushing against the corpse above her. Fast bodies flittering past, across, around; friction without discernible form. The air turned thick with stale vibration, hissing with their pace. Pressure without weight. Whispers without voices. The cave began to breathe to their rhythm as the swarm filled it.

Then came the strands.

She felt them as they flung — fine, adhesive filaments snapping across the mound of chitin and ruin that pinned her down. They came from every direction, not woven but cast. They passed over her, under her, around the whole grand arachnid, looping, binding, enveloping. Net over net the network grew, slow at first, then with the frantic precision of instinct. Lines pulled taut, stitching chaos into design. A pattern. An architecture. Barbarthara recognised the structure; meant to hold the carcass — meant to shape it. Cage it. Cage her.

The first touch landed like a tooth.

Then another.

And another.

Sharp, swift stabs. Pinpoints, then hooks. Not tearing yet — testing.

And then, the first bite. Mandibles snapped against the grand arachnid’s abdomen, pressing past the mass to reach her. They did not gouge. They took. A swift incision. A clean removal. A segment gone from her flank. Another followed. Then more. One after the other, they darted in. Felt. Sought. Found her. Segments of her pulped and softened tissue were pierced, seized, severed, and dragged away before she could brace against the loss. Sap streamed. Tissue dimmed. Her every attempt to rebind, to regrow, was met with new violations, her every rethreading interrupted mid-pulse. From beneath the carcass, from every angle, dismemberment —

But not as attack. They were methodical. A swarm with structure. But not cruel. Not even aggressive. Purposeful.