Chapter 82: Please Chase Responsibly

The spindleback hit the place where Jin had been standing and shaved a strip off the wall.

He ran left.

Water splashed over his shoes. He kept to the pale stones beside the channel, with the wall close enough to scrape his knuckles. Behind him, the creature folded three blades over its body and rolled.

“Down!” Lark called.

Jin dropped flat.

A blade swept above him. It struck the wall, throwing sparks into the water. The spindleback opened over his legs, its body suspended between four planted limbs.

Kessa's arrow hit the joint already wounded in the passage.

That leg folded.

Jin crawled beneath the falling edge, rolled into the channel and came up spitting water.

“I liked the other customer better.”

Nell's chain snapped against the stone above him.

“Then stop reviewing this one!”

She'd hooked a rear limb from behind the broken rib. Lark struck the opposite side, driving his sword's edge into the pale hide above a blade. The creature turned between them, pulling Nell's chain tight.

Jin scrambled onto the strip again.

Five strides took him from a square drain cover to a shallow alcove. He felt the stones through his wet soles and recorded the line as he went. At the alcove, he turned.

Lark had drawn the spindleback closer to the drain.

Its wounded leg dragged. When it turned left, the central body dipped toward the water.

Jin pointed to the dip.

“Again. Make it turn.”

Kessa moved along the far wall, bow drawn. Nell let her chain slip just enough for the creature to follow Lark, then pulled across its rear.

Jin returned to the drain cover on ordinary feet.

The spindleback opened toward him.

He selected Impact Hitch and drove along the recorded line.

One, two—

The body tilted.

Three—

A pale blade folded over the soft seam.

Jin reached the alcove and struck before he could stop himself.

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His knife glanced off the hard outer edge. The trapped rush kicked through his wrist and tore the point sideways, drawing a bright line across the blade instead of entering the body.

His trace vanished.

The spindleback struck back.

Jin ducked into the alcove. A hooked tip tore through the shoulder of his shirt and gouged the stone beside his neck.

He hadn't lost the arm.

He had to look down to be certain.

“Jin!”

“Still in one piece!”

“Then move the piece!”

Lark's sword hit the raised limb. Jin threw himself beneath it, landed in the channel again and felt the water dragging harder against his calves.

The drain cover tipped behind him.

The spindleback's planted foot had punched through one corner. Water gurgled into the gap. Something heavy shifted below the courtyard, followed by the grinding cough of old metal.

Nell backed away from the sinking cover.

The creature followed.

Its front limbs reached the wall.

Jin saw the change before he understood it. The blades hooked into the mortar. Its body lifted, dragging the wounded leg beneath it. Instead of forcing its way between the hunters, it was climbing over them.

Kessa lowered her bow for a clear angle.

“Underneath!”

Her fourth trial arrow struck the exposed belly.

The spindleback shrieked. Its body twisted toward her; one hooked limb ripped a block out of the wall.

Lark caught Kessa around the waist and took her behind the rib before the stone fell.

Jin pressed himself against the opposite wall.

The belly was soft. He could see the arrow moving with the creature's breath.

He could also see five blades between his knife and anything worth stabbing.

Nell caught his eye.

Her chain still looped around the low rear limb. If she pulled now, the spindleback would turn toward her and cover the belly again.

Jin looked at the chain, the drain and the creature's feet.

Then he looked up.

Three limbs held the wall. Two reached toward Kessa. One dragged behind it, wounded.

The others were feeling for somewhere to plant.

“Let it climb higher.”

Nell stared at him.

“That's your suggestion?”

“I'm developing it.”

The spindleback reached over the broken rib.

Lark met the descending blade with his sword held diagonally. Wood rang. His boots skidded, but the angle carried the tip past Kessa instead of through her.

She fired her fifth arrow into the belly, close to the first.

The creature hauled itself upward.

For a moment, only the chained leg remained within Nell's reach.

Jin ran beneath it.

“Slack!”

Nell let the links slide.

He caught the hanging loop with his free hand and put a foot against the wall. The spindleback lifted the leg, taking him with it.

His stomach rose into his throat.

The courtyard fell away below his heels.

“That,” Nell said, “is not a developed suggestion!”

Jin hooked an elbow over the folded joint and pulled himself close. A blade swept beneath his dangling shoe. He flattened against the pale hide, knife trapped between his palm and the creature's leg.

Above him, the belly folded around Kessa's two arrows.

Below him, the spindleback's lowest foot lifted away from the drain.

Water surged through the broken cover.

He understood what Nell could do with the chain now.

He also understood where that would put him.

“When I say pull,” he called, “don't stop because I'm screaming.”

Kessa looked up at him.

“Which kind of screaming?”

The creature began to turn.

“I'll make it distinctive.”