A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The one on the right Beam took care of himself. It hissed as it leapt at him, its fangs dripping with venom. But it wasn't such a simple matter to get close to a creature with as much reach as it did, with its long hairy black legs making themselves into menacing clubs.

As Beam dared to step in close, a leg crept out to meet him. He severed it immediately. Even if his injured leg was holding him back, his hand speed still remained, and he trusted in it. With minimal movements, he span off that attack, using his good leg and he stabbed his knife in the underside of the spider, avoiding its fangs.

There was no time to celebrate the kill, however, for there were many more of the hairy creatures racing through the trees. It was such a stampede that the forest shook from their weight and the trees swayed sickenly, threatening to snap.

And now the wave of little spiderlings came running in too, with even more leaping ability than their parents. One leapt from the ground up as high as Beam's face, threatening to sink its fangs into his skin.

"Damn it," he cursed. These spiderlings were of unknown quality to him. He'd heard no mention of them from Greeves or his master. He could tell at a glance they weren't as strong as their giant spider counterparts, but he didn't know if that meant he could safely ignore their bites.

With the sheer amount of them, it wasn't possible to fight whilst avoiding getting bitten. With not enough information to go on, Beam called a retreat.

"Nila! Fall back to the river!" Beam said.

"Got it!" Nila shouted, sending another arrow flying past him. By the shrieking hiss that responded to the shot, Beam could tell that she'd found her mark again even without looking.

The girl's red hair swept out behind her as she raced down the path that they'd taken to get here. In a few short strides, Beam managed to catch up with her. A glance over his shoulder told him of the giant spiders' speed – they were slower than Goblins, for sure, but not by much.

Nila and Beam made it to the river first and then slid down the bank.

"We'll use the water to avoid the spiderlings. Don't get bitten, no matter what," Beam told her. It was a safe piece of advice. Even without knowing the general information on spiderlings and giant spiders, these creatures were clearly different, in that they lived together, whereas the rest of their species did not. It would have been naïve to assume that's where the only differences lay.

They waded through the water of the river towards the middle island. It was a stretch of five metres of shallow water that came up to their shin – not that threatening at all, unless you were the size of a tarantula.

Nila was already notching another arrow in her bowstring as soon as they stood on it. Beam took a glance at her quiver. There were only five arrows left. "Save it," he told her. "Use it when they're focused on me, so they don't have time to dodge."

Nila released the tension in her bowstring and nodded.

The giant spiders came flooding through the forest after them a moment later, with a carpet of spiderlings underneath their feet, as though riding a wave. Three giant spiders made it to the top of the cliff first, ahead of the rest, and they hissed in anger at Nila and Beam's placement in the river.

The trees shook, and more arrived after it. Another two. Then another three. Eight in total.

"There's still that many left?" Beam cursed. They'd already killed a fair few. This was far more than the ten that Greeves had informed them of. That, plus the hundreds of little spiderlings, the difficulty had certainly increased.

The river served its purpose though and as the spiderlings rushed to its shores, they leapt to cross. But even with their impressive jumping ability, not a single one of them made it more than halfway across. They landed with a splash in the water and were carried further downstream, struggling with their many legs.

A giant spider thundered down the hill, as though disappointed with the smaller creature's attempts. It paid no mind to them as it ran, crushing several underneath its massive legs.

It sped out across the river with contempt. The shallow water was nothing to a creature of its size. It hissed, spitting poison from its fangs.

Beam's eyes widened at the new attack and he grabbed Nila to pull her clear away from it. They rolled together away from it and then Beam sprang, before it could fire another one off.

He sliced through the legs it used to defend itself and cut a clean line down the front of its face.

"Seven to go," Beam said, flicking the blood from his knife. He kicked the spider corpse towards a set of rocks downstream, after seeing the spiderlings immediately seize the opportunity to use it as an island. A handful made it towards him, but he dodged them narrowly and crushed them all under foot.

He couldn't help but feel a little disappointed – all the while, he'd been searching for something new, some new way he might improve and exceed his limits, but even with his injuries, his old ways were working just as well. With a sinking feeling, he realized that the spiders might have just been too weak.

Even if they were pushing him and forcing him to act to the best of his abilities – they were not beyond his abilities, even injured as he was.

"These poison spit attacks are going to be trouble, but it seems like they're slower when they're trying to make it fly. Shoot them down if they try to attempt it," Beam said to Nila. She nodded.

The other seven spiders skidded down the hill after their brethren, similarly crushing the smaller spiderlings underfoot if any made the mistake of getting too close. They lined up along the bank, hissing, waving their two front legs in the air threateningly and baring their fangs. To Beam, it looked like all of them planned to unleash a poison attack and he prepared himself to dodge.

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