He pushed on, and briefly, when he saw a change in the light up ahead, he hoped he might be approaching more open ground, maybe even coming back to the edge of the ravine. Then his hopes faded as he saw that it wasn’t a change in the light but some sort of mist. A few steps later, any remaining hope turned to dread when he realized that the mist was actually formed by dense clouds of cobwebs draped between the trees, blocking the way forward.

Tom edged toward them and could see now that they were bristling with life, thousands of spiders suspended within them. They seemed to stretch for thirty or forty yards along the trail, too, a continuous barrier of web and spiders. They weren’t big, not as big as some of the spiders they’d already seen, but that didn’t mean they weren’t venomous, and there were just so many of them. He looked around, searching for another way forward, but this was the only path unless he turned back, and if he turned back now he doubted he’d ever catch up with the rest of them. He moved closer again, noticing the way the spiders nearest him seemed to twitch and respond to his approach, small jerking movements rippling through the pulsing cloud.

He took a step back, overtaken by a fear that the spiders might even leap from the web, then took out the knife Shen had left in the side pocket of his backpack.

He looked around for a branch that he could cut. Instead, he settled on a thick vine winding up a tree and cut it in two places. He practiced using it to whip back the undergrowth, then moved back to the web.

There was another jitter of movement through the web in response to his approach, and Tom paused again, this time hit with a little regret. It was beautiful and ingenious in its own way, and if it weren’t an obstacle he wouldn’t damage it, but he had no choice.

He took a deep breath, then swung the vine to whip a hole in the web. It split down the middle, opening up a tunnel. Small bristling bodies seemed to scuttle in all directions, but it wasn’t enough. All he’d done was penetrate a little way, the web ahead of him apparently no less dense and full of spiders that were visibly more agitated now in the face of his violence.