Her eyes flew open. The Hawk was crouched at her side, gray wisps of hair spinning in the rising gale. Cold mist swirled like pipe smoke among the scattered boulders. The wind swelled into a roar so loud Anji had a hard time hearing the Hawk’s words until the woman bent forward and shouted:

“Funnel cloud! Get in the blasting tent!”

Anji pushed up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. She surveyed the far horizon, or at least the horizon that had been there when she’d fallen asleep. Now there was only a wall of black cloud surging toward them like a landslide. And under the blanket of roiling storm—a funnel of twisting white vapor throwing up dark dust and rocks at its base.

“How did—” she sputtered, gasping as the Hawk jerked her up, eyes still fixed on the vortex speeding toward their camp. A pulse of bright light illuminated the wind-churned tundra.

“Go!” bellowed the Hawk, her voice drowned out by an ear-splitting crash of thunder overhead. She spun for the tent, one arm still clamped to Anji’s elbow in a vise grip. Anji stumbled forward as a second thunderclap rent the air. They scrambled across the clearing, the Hawk’s breath a haggard wheeze in Anji’s ear.

“Why are you—”

A crackling sound issued from the ground. To Anji it sounded like the earth was dissolving in acid at her feet. She looked down, frowning, at what appeared to be thousands of fist-sized holes opening in the dirt. Her stomach lurched.

Spiders.

Silvery, bulbous bodies lifted themselves on jointed legs from the holes like a rising tide. Scores of red shining eyes stood out amongst the sleek hairs on their spindly limbs. They rose in unison on their hind legs, mandibles pointed at the sky as another thundercrack boomed overhead, then began scuttling in a frenzy around the camp.

The wind rose to a shriek as the Hawk shoved Anji inside the tent.

“What about Molli?” Anji said as the Hawk climbed in after. She took a final glance at the mare, hooves stamping on the ground as the swarm of spiders chittered forward in a single mass, legs clacking against the rocks. She yelped as the Hawk yanked her aside and slammed the tent flaps closed against the canvas floor, looping strands of string through riveted holes.

Above, the pattering against the tent’s roof rose to a roar. Tiny indentations bloomed across the fabric.

The Hawk shoved Anji away from the entrance and began fastening the tent flaps closed. Molli squealed outside and Anji heard a loud, fleshy thump. A flash illuminated the tent’s walls, white and stuttering, before another clap of thunder sounded outside like an ocean upending onto the plain.

“She’s dying out there! Those things are eating her alive, we have to—”