The spider thrust with its front leg. Curran batted it aside. The second leg stabbed, too fast. The narrow blade of the front segment sliced into Curran’s shoulder. He grabbed the leg with his left hand and smashed his right palm against the joint. The front segment broke off.

I lunged between the insect’s back legs, jumped, and landed on the spider-scorpion’s back. The creature flailed. I stabbed Sarrat as deep as it would go and clung to it.

Curran ripped the chunk of the spider-scorpion’s leg out of his body and buried it in the insect’s side, right under the broken limb.

I dragged myself up along the abdomen, trying to get to the head and the two black balls of the eyes.

Curran grabbed the broken leg and kept stabbing, hitting the same spot. Ichor flew. The insect screeched like nails on chalkboard and flailed back and forth.

I wouldn’t get to the eyes. It would throw me off.

I yanked Sarrat out, grabbed onto the edge of the wound I’d made, and sliced into the creature’s thorax, trying to saw its abdomen from its chest.

Curran kept stabbing.

Pierce, pull out, pierce, pull out, pierce . . .

Curran bit into the spider’s leg and ripped it out.

Pierce, pull out, pierce . . .

Moments flew by.

My breath was coming out in ragged gasps. Die, damn you. Die already. Die!

The spider-scorpion shuddered.

Curran leaped onto its head. Claws flashed and the spider-scorpion went blind. I kept carving. Curran began punching the back of the spider-scorpion’s head.

The thorax broke off from the abdomen. The gut swayed and fell, splattering the translucent innards over the pavement in a wet splat. The chitin sheathing the spider-scorpion’s head caved in and broke. The front part of the creature careened and fell, taking us with it. I blinked and then I was sitting on the ground face to face with Curran, the wet ichor under us sliding out from the spider-scorpion’s crushed carapace.

My whole body ached as if I had run a long race. I was out of breath. Rapidly cooling sweat slicked my hairline. I felt light-headed. I might have pulled out too much blood.

Curran was breathing deep. The wound on his shoulder gaped with red. The edges had begun to pull together, but long brown bristles stuck out of it—the stiff “hairs” that had lined the giant insect’s leg.

“Do we have a flamethrower?” Curran asked.

“No.”

“We should get a flamethrower.”

We looked at each other. The stench was almost unbearable now. I was covered head to toe with spider-scorpion slime and my own blood. Curran leaned over and spat to the side. That’s right. He’d bitten the damn thing.

“. . . water of the speed and the spirit . . .” a male voice intoned to the right.

I turned.