The cold, dark waters completely enveloped Jadis, robbing her of her senses. Even with three bodies, she could see and hear nothing, her entire world narrowed down to just cold water and the occasional touch of slick stone or her own selves. Her own hand couldn’t be seen even when she slapped it against her own nose.
It was terrifying to be so blind.
With all her strength Jadis pushed forward through the murkiness, her legs long enough to kick against the rocky floor of the waterway. Yet, that scared her because she was afraid that if she stayed too deep, she would miss the air pocket Eir had told her about and she wouldn’t have the breath to make it to the end. So she pushed upwards, her helmeted heads occasionally scraping along the top of the underwater cave ceiling.
Just as she was starting to panic that she might have swum too far, Syd spotted a dim green light ahead. Pushing towards it, suddenly burst through the surface of the water into the promised air pocket, helmet slamming hard into the rock wall as she gulped down stale air. Jay and Dys were right behind, popping their heads up into the pocket along with Thea and Busch, the latter of whom made no outward sign of struggling for breath.
Eir was in the now extremely cramped pocket, having waited for them to make it to her before moving on.
“Just keep swimming as far as you can go straight ahead,” she advised, her teeth chattering from the cold water. “It’s far, but we can make it.”
“Yes,” Jay said, keeping Busch’s head above water for a little longer, hoping he hadn’t taken too much water in. “Let’s go.”
With one final breath taken, they all dove under the surface again. Jadis didn’t hold anything back. She powered ahead, dragging Thea and Busch along, then sweeping even Eir up in her mad dash through the dark. The second leg of the swim truly was much further than the first. It was such a greater distance that she legitimately had no idea how Eir had managed it on her own. With her own lungs burning for air, she began to have waking nightmares that at any moment she would run into the drowned body of Aila floating back down the stream.
Instead, towards the upper limit of what was possible, Eir tugged on Syd’s arm, the dim moss light in her other hand directing her upwards. Pushing off the cave floor, Syd shot them upwards and they burst out into open air, coughing and sputtering. A second later Jay, Dys, and Thea joined them and, much to Jadis’ relief, she realized that she could hear Aila, Kerr, and Douglas coughing somewhere nearby too.
“Merde, this is not much better than where we were,” Kerr gasped out between coughing fits.
Jadis couldn’t see exactly what the archer meant. The cave was far darker than the alcove or the giant cavern, barely any cave moss lighting it. What little there was was just enough to show that the chamber was narrow, exceedingly so, but the ceiling was high above them. A narrow ledge was along the left side of the stream and, at least in one spot, she could see stalactites hanging down, water dripping from their tapered tips.
“Hey, I’m not sure Busch is breathing anymore,” Jay announced, still holding the man’s head above the surface of the stream.
“Let me check him,” Eir said, swimming closer to lay her hands on the guard. After a moment, she shook her head. “He’s still alive, but he’s in critical condition. We need to get him out of the water.”
“It looks like it widens ahead,” Kerr pointed out. “Let’s push forward.”
Swimming ahead a few dozen yards revealed the cave did widen out, a stony shore giving them all enough space to get out of the water. Once out, Eir immediately turned Busch over on his side and set about forcing the water out of his lungs by beating him on his back. A slight glow also radiated briefly from her hands as she healed him, but the light faded quickly as she spent the precious few points she’d regenerated.
“This looks like it might actually go for a long way,” Kerr commented, stepping a few paces away from the group as she surveyed the cavern.
“So, hopefully not a dead end,” Aila said, shaking the cold water off and wringing it from her long hair. “Though it still could be.”
“More importantly, what are the chances those demons don’t try following us through the stream?” Dys asked, looking at the faintly rippling water they’d come out of.
There was a silent pause as the question sunk in, the group still recovering from the swim.
“Maybe,” Douglas finally said, his shrug barely perceptible in the lightless cave.
“Maybe?” Syd repeated, shouldering her lance. “Just, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Douglas affirmed.
“Chances are they might not even think to look in the water,” Kerr clarified. “Demons are fucking stupid about things like that. The little ones are, anyway.”
Thinking about the demon-possessed Jana, Jadis had her doubts about Kerr’s assessment. Clearly the demon had been able to track them a long distance. Was all the intelligence necessary to track them, then pretend to be one of them gone now that the demon and its host were separated? If any part of Jana remained in the demon that had subverted her, then it had to be smart enough to know that they hadn’t just disappeared and would have had to have swum under the rock wall.
“Demons don’t breathe,” Aila weighed in with her own thoughts. “If they do follow us, they’ll have a much easier time with that swim than we did.”
“So we better not linger,” Jay nodded, kneeling down next to Eir and Busch. “Time to move.”
“Just a minute more,” Eir argued, teeth chattering worse now. “I-I can feel my m-magic restoring. I can stabilize him in j-just a minute.”
Jadis felt like an idiot. When Eir had stripped off her robe and boots, Jadis hadn’t thought to grab the garments for her. Jadis still had most of her supplies she’d purchased back in Felsen, though she’d left a few things behind in the alcove during the rush. She still had a few blankets, though they were soaked. Figuring it was best to get them out and start drying them so Eir could make use of one of them, Jay knelt down and started rummaging in one of her packs. Ducking her head down at that moment was the only reason the giant spider leg didn’t skewer her skull.
“Spider!” Kerr shouted out a late warning as the huge arachnid stabbed one of its many legs down at Jay, just barely missing her head as its razor-sharp barbs scraped across the metal of her helmet.
Various exclamations of surprise and alarm echoed in the cavern as Jadis focused her three selves on the foe at hand. It was, as Kerr had said, another gigantic ten-legged spider, its black shell blending into the lightless cave walls. It was on the wall at least a dozen feet overhead, the distance far but still putting them all well within range of its extremely long legs. Just like the one back in the village, it struck down at them with its sharp forelegs, trying to impale one or more of the group.
Syd struck back at the spider-demon, her lance giving her the greatest reach. She jabbed at its face and body, her weapon piercing its shell but not deeply. Jabbing straight upward was awkward and the lack of light made it hard to see what she was attacking.
Jay and Dys focused on knocking the many legs of the spider back as they attacked, deflecting them as best she could. While they fought, they shouted at the rest to move. Even without several people crowding around them, the space on the ledge was extremely limited. With others getting in the way of their dodges, it was turning an uphill struggle into an impossible task.
“Get back, out of our fucking way!” Jay ordered, almost stepping on Eir and Busch as she tried to keep the spider from impaling either her or them. “Give us room!”
Fortunately no one argued. Aila and Thea both backed off, getting out from underfoot. Eir, however, stayed with Busch, still trying to save the dying man.
“Eir, fucking move!” Syd shouted between jabs of her lance. “Leave him there!”
“I c-can’t carry him!” Eir cried in dismay. “He’s t-too heavy for m-me!”
Jadis would have to help Eir and Busch with one of her bodies. It was a risk since it would put more pressure on her other bodies for a few critical moments, but she couldn’t fight against the cave spider with the two of them getting in the way. Reacting to a brief moment where the spider withdrew two of its legs from being struck by her weapons, Jadis quickly had her Jay self turn and grab both Eir and Busch and dove back into the water, using it as cover to drag them further up the stream to safety.
Kerr, Thea, and Douglas didn’t stand idly by. All three moved in to help Dys and Syd while Jay was unable to fight, joining in and giving the spider-demon other people to target. Unfortunately, the tactic worked too well and the spider reacted in an unexpected way. Switching from sharp stabs meant to impale them, it abruptly swung three of its right legs in an arc across the ledge. The move was such a startling change that Jadis didn’t react in time and neither did the others, the lot of them ending up swept off the ledge and into the water, right on top of Jay, Eir, and Busch.
Everything turned into a muddled chaos of limbs and dark water. Jadis could barely tell which bodies were hers and which were her companions as they flailed desperately to get back out onto dry land where they could fight back. A brief warmth against one of her selves’ skin confused her for a moment until a metallic taste got into her mouth. The taste was unmistakable and caused her heart to drop into her stomach.
Bursting from the surface of the stream Jay looked around, searching for where the blood had come from. It didn’t take her long to find the source.
Douglas hung suspended in the air, impaled through the stomach by one of the spider’s forelegs. The man was chopping his massive cleaver against the hard shell of the demonic arachnid, trying to cut through the leg that had speared him, but even as Jay and her other bodies moved to get up out of the water the spider pierced him again, two more legs going through his torso and coming out on either side.
“No!” Jay shouted, leaping up in a repeat of when she’d tried to save Mounce.
Her left arm got around the big man’s legs and for a few seconds she hung there, suspended in the air, her weight dragging Douglas down. Then a ghostly flash of light struck the demon at the joint where one of the legs impaling the man attached to the spider’s body. The cave monster jerked backwards, its one leg detaching as it broke away and swung wildly from where it protruded from Douglas’ body before the spider jerked back again and the sudden movement dislodged the leg and it clattered to the floor. In the next moment, Jay too slammed to the cave floor, still holding Douglas’ legs. But not the rest of him.
A shower of blood and viscera splattered over Jay as she fell to the ground, Douglas’s lower half having detached from his upper due to the immense damage he’d taken from the three giant spider legs piercing his torso combined with her far too heavy weight. With nothing left holding it back, the demonically possessed spider monster skittered back up the high stone wall of the cavern and disappeared into a hidden tunnel near the ceiling, the entrance obscured by the dark and the stalactites.
Even as he disappeared into the den of the giant spider, Jadis could still faintly hear him chopping his cleaver against the monster’s shell.
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