A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Nila found it first. She shot without warning, as they had discussed she would.

There was a hiss from a creature as it cried out in pain, before it died a moment later. A corpse fell wetly to the floor, sliding off the branch of a tall pine tree. It landed with a splatter, casting green blood around it.

Beam gripped his knife tightly, his ears primed, searching for any more signs of life that might have arisen in response to the noise. But even after a few seconds, there was nothing. Just complete silence. Not even the noisy forest birds made a sound.

They relaxed slightly and examined the kill. Nila's arrow had shot it straight through its head, and its black legs splashed out messily around it. Its body – without the legs – was indeed slightly bigger than the wild pigs. It was a horrifying sight to behold. Beam glanced at Nila to check on her.

"What?" She asked quietly, noticing his gaze, anticipating that there was something behind her.

"No, err… It's just… you're not scared of spiders?" Beam asked in a similarly quiet voice.

"Why would I be?" Nila hissed back.

"Just y'know, girls are scared of even house spiders. I woulda thought something like this would be a bit much," Beam said.

"Are you making fun of me?" Nila growled?

"No. Was just checking to make sure. Anyway, nice shot. We'll leave the kills here until the job is done. Greeves estimated ten spiders. He said he wants the fangs and the venom sacs – he doesn't care about anything else."

Nila nodded, retrieving her arrow and carefully wiping it off on the ground to ensure none of the spider's blood would touch her. Even though she hated being compared to other girls, Beam thought her reluctance to get dirty was still a pretty girly trait.

They moved deeper into the woods, checking the area around where they'd found the other spider more thoroughly. Now that Beam was certain about the size of it, he had more of an idea of where to look in the trees. Too high up and the branches wouldn't be able to support the creature's weight, even with the webs strung between the trees.

As such, he supposed that most would be nesting around halfway up the trees, just like this one had been.

They stumbled upon two more, also asleep in their webs halfway up the tree. Nila killed another one immediately with her arrow, sending its body crashing to the floor.

The other spider woke up from the noise and hissed. Nila fired another arrow to catch it before it moved, but the creature had already leapt from its previous perch, falling to the ground on a rope of web.

It hissed again, baring its fangs dripping in a green venom.

Beam felt his skin crawl. He'd asked if Nila felt anything seeing spiders of that size, but in truth, even he was feeling more than a little creeped out about them. He cautiously held his knife in reverse grip, wondering how he might close the gap between himself and the creature to deal the killing blow.

The spider held its front two legs up like spears, threatening to jab him if he came too close. And then there were those fangs too.

Beam took a step forward to gauge its reaction. One of its front legs immediately shot out. Beam no longer had the leg speed to dodge it, so he twisted slightly at the hip, letting the leg shoot past him, before he brought his knife down and severed it.

The spider hissed again, more loudly this time, as it directed its full attention towards Beam – a fatal mistake. Another one of Nila's arrows flew, spearing through its head and ending its life. It collapsed where it stood.

Beam would have turned to congratulate her, but he could already see more spiders running through the trees, having sensed the commotion.

With how dense the pine trees were and the lack of light that managed to penetrate, Beam couldn't count just how many there were at this distance, but he knew there were certainly more than the ten that Greeves had claimed. And along with them, a veritable army of smaller spiders – the size of tarantulas – ran along the ground.

Before they got too close, Beam rushed in and pulled the arrows from the corpses of the other two spiders that Nila had killed. He couldn't find the missed arrow, but these two would do all the same. He handed them to Nila, positioning himself a few steps in front of her, to hide her from the spider's vision and give her a better chance at a shot.

With him blocking her from their sight, Nila dared to let another one fly before they got in too close. Beam felt the air rush by his ear, as the arrow sped past and sent a giant spider tumbling from the trees, crushing several of the smaller spiderlings as it fell.

There was a chorus of hisses, and then the giant spiders were almost on them.

"This sucks," Beam said, seeing the approaching army. "Nila – if any come from the back, we're running!" He shouted.

"Got it!" Nila said.

The spiders fanned out through the trees before they hit them, but their focus was still primarily on Beam, it seemed.

Despite being a little stronger than the Goblins, they didn't seem to be quite as intelligent. Beam held them up at the front with his knife.

Using the momentum from its sprint through the trees, one of them leapt, looking to crash on top of him and crush him with its sheer weight. Two others came in from the sides.

Beam slid his knife along the bottom of the first spider as it leapt overhead, covering himself in green blood. He dodged backwards, avoiding the corpse and preparing to confront the other two that were already so close.

He tutted as he moved slower than he would have liked, his injured leg complaining every time he asked something of it. But Nila was there to help. With Beam in front of her, obscuring the spider's view, another arrow whistled past his shoulder, killing the beast on the left.