Mandollel pushes me. He dodges to the side as the teratome crashes between us. I fall in the opposite direction. One of its bug legs nicks me in the waist as it goes past, but it’s a scrape that doesn’t penetrate my tunic. I carry the momentum and roll to get more distance. Old training kicks in, old lessons come to mind, and I curse.

  Even if the teratome isn’t toxic, any wounds will at the very least get infected. I was lucky that time. I need to do better.

  I stand up from the damp moss and the scratchy shrubs. I take a moment to go through the parts of the teratome, considering my options. The armor plates have gaps between them, but the shot would be hard and there’s no telling if there’s anything important to hit there. There’s one obvious target. ”Go for the arm!” I shout at the others.

  Rworg follows the teratome and swings his sword at it. The teratome launches itself backwards with its arm. Rworg’s sword cuts through the air and branches and a whole sapling. The sapling falls onto the path where the teratome had been.

  We’re safe if we can get away. It has to be rather slow over longer distances. The problem is the explosive speed at which it can launch itself in combat.

  The teratome lands on a large tree, snapping dry branches and making pinecones rain on the ground. It clings to the tree, upside down. The masses of short legs on its underside grab onto the tree, frontal arm pointing down toward the ground. The large bug legs twist to point and stab at Rworg. Their angle looks wrong, but the fleshy joints rotate freely. They aren’t legs, after all, more like spikes used for attacking. Rworg backs away, sword swinging and swatting away the stabs. There are sparks when his sword catches the spikes, scraping and ringing against them.

  Mandollel appears from the side and swings up at one of the spikes with his shining sword. The cut is beautiful, striking the joint nearest to the thing’s body. The sword cuts through the joint but gets stuck on a strand of something inside it. The strand stretches but doesn’t get cut. Mandollel spins and pivots, freeing his sword and dancing back.

  The spike dangles on the strand, hanging and oozing clear liquid from the joint. Then the stump starts rotating wildly, yanking around the rest of the spike like a chain flail swung by a madman.

  Mandollel dodges a swing and barely manages to parry another. The spike swings around, clanging against the beast’s own carapace and slicing off chunks of bark from the trees around it.

  “Damn,” is all Mandollel says, backing away from the thing.

  “That makes it even more dangerous!” Finna shouts. She’s hanging back, stance low, daggers in hand.

  “Could have warned me,” Mandollel mutters. He flicks his wrist, drawing an arc with his sword and snapping the liquid off it. Steam rises off the liquid and I retch as the smell wafts toward me.

  The teratome lets go of the tree and falls. It lands on the hand, which squeezes together like an accordion, before straightening with an explosive push. It bounces into the air with amazing force. It looks dumb, impossible—dangerous. Rworg flings himself away, so he doesn’t get crushed by its massive body as it crashes back down.

  “The arm!” I shout again. We need to get that. It’s unarmored, and any damage would hinder the teratome’s movement. Even a teratome can’t ignore the laws of nature. A cut muscle is a cut muscle, no matter how weird the rest of the physiology of the thing is. Getting rid of the arm probably won’t kill it, at least not quickly, but we could run away if it can’t bounce around like that.

  Mandollel moves to keep up with the monster. He’s not on the path like the rest of us. Instead, he slides between the trees and over the underbrush, not tripping or bumping into anything. “You say it like it’s easy,” he says, and starts gesturing with his left hand, drawing runes that hang in the air.

  I grab my bow. I’m getting used to the thumbs otherwise, but all my muscle memory is working against me when it comes to the bow. I have to think about every movement, adjust everything. My teeth are bared and clenched together, and a constant growl of frustration rises from my throat that I can’t seem to stop. When I finally get the arrow nocked, Rworg is again standing between me and the teratome.

  I move back and sideways, trying to circle Rworg and get a clear shot to the beast. The path is narrow and there’s not much space to work with. Stumbling into the underbrush and dodging trees in the dark is not an option, not for me.

  The teratome lies still after its jump, armor plates rising and falling like it’s panting after doing something strenuous. Too soon, it pushes itself back on its mass of skittering legs and the longer spines begin their stabbing and swinging again. The two broken spikes are situated at the back of its body and, at the moment harmless, but they twitch in a way that makes my stomach churn. Approaching from behind might not be safe either.

  I consider warning Finna, who’s standing behind the teratome. She hangs back, not getting close. Right, she has fought the thing earlier already. Good. I don’t have to worry about her.

  Rworg doesn’t seem too hard pressed to keep the spikes from hitting him. He swings his sword around in arcs that seem almost lazy, which yet always deflect the stabs. He has to keep backpedaling, though, as the teratome is huge and keeps advancing at him.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The frontal arm is dangling in front of the beast, getting dragged forward under its body. I wonder if it’s used only for movement or if it could also attack with it. I don’t even want to imagine what would happen to anyone getting punched by that thing. My arms are straining from keeping the bow nocked for too long.

  Rworg cuts at the teratome and takes a step to the side. He’s right next to the monster, but he’s on his back-foot, leaning away from it. Exactly like Bann was. I let go. The string twangs. The arrow thwacks into the teratome’s arm. Rworg gives me a look, but he had his weight on his heel. It still probably felt pretty scary for him.

  For a good reason—my shot is still not great. I caught the outer edge of the arm, but at least I caught it. The arm flops to the side from the force of the hit. The beast still makes no sound.

  Then it rushes to the side, still facing Rworg. The frontal legs keep swinging at him, but it skitters sideways toward me faster than I thought it could. The dozens of legs below its body pump and work like a sped-up dance.

  A flash illuminates the approaching beast from the side and bright darts of light slam into the teratome. The armor plates glint. The wet flesh gleams as it flexes and balloons between the plates. The darts are exactly like the ones Lictor shot at Corum, but there are a dozen instead of hundreds. Still, each punches a hole into the armor and the ones that hit exposed flesh sizzle and blow out chunks of meat.

  Mandollel stands between the trees with his hand reached out to the teratome. His smile falls away as the beast doesn’t even slow down. That at least confirms the arm is the vital spot. The teratome cares more about the glancing arrow than any of the darts hitting its main body.

  It keeps rushing toward me. The arrow bends and snaps in half as the muscles of the arm flex and uncoil. The arm swings at me. I duck backwards, feeling the wind of its swing. Rotten stench wafts over me. The arm hits a tree. Roots snap and pull out of the ground as the whole tree vibrates from the blow. Dry needles and small dead branches fall from above.

  Finna has been circling the action and now dives forward with her daggers. The moment her feet land near the teratome, the bony spikes jab toward her. The teratome itself doesn’t seem to care, still moving after me. The spikes seemingly act by themselves. Finna halts outside of their reach. She thinks for a second and throws one of her daggers between the swinging legs. She hits the arm, but the blade only manages to nick the thick, rubbery skin. The dagger lands in the bushes somewhere between us.

  The nick is enough to redirect the monster. It halts and turns away. I breathe out as the swinging arm is no longer coming after me, but freeze as the beast’s movement brings its rear spikes near. One of the broken spikes nearly touches my boot as it gets dragged behind the beast. The other spikes are twitching toward where Finna was, instead of swinging at me. I stay still like a statue and let the monster move away from me.

  Once it’s far enough that I feel safe, I jump backwards. The broken rear spikes instantly start flailing, but I’m far enough and they only cut gashes into the nearby trees. “It senses vibrations!” I shout at the others. “Or something!”

  I’m not sure how much help the information will be. There’s no way to keep still when the teratome is coming right at you. Finna jumps to the side to avoid getting bulldozed by its advance. At least it can’t use the arm to jump itself forward.

  I finally have a moment to breathe and piece together what I’ve seen so far. I smile. This might be easier than it first seemed. The teratome isn’t one of the intelligent ones. Nothing but instincts and urges.

  “It’s dumb!” I shout.

  Mandollel gives me a look.

  I groan. I’m not used to leading. I try to imagine how Lille would do it, what she would say. “It keeps going after who attacks the arm and swings blindly at whatever else is nearby! We can lead it around!”

  I breathe in. It was a lot to shout when already short of breath and on the edge. I nock another arrow. At least I get it on one try this time. With practice, the extra thumbs might even turn out to be useful, but at the moment, they are still getting in the way and making everything harder. “Get me a shot at the arm!”

  Finna has kept backing away, but now dives and rolls to the side. The moment she lands on the ground, the legs snap toward her, but she bounces like a dancer, tapping the ground before being in the air again, almost like she’s floating. The people on this team really are something, have to give it to Lictor.

  The beast follows her and I get my shot. The arrow whistles through the air and ricochets off one of the armor plates. I go for the next arrow. Can’t let it get to me, just try again. It’s been years since I’ve missed so many shots. Some of the teratome’s legs twitch and swat at the air between me and it, but that’s all the reaction the shot causes.

  Rworg has no way to get in front of the thing. He yells at it from behind in his guttural language, but that’s all he can do at the moment. Mandollel is casting another spell, letting Finna keep the beast occupied. It’s not fast with forward movement, so she can keep out of its way easily enough.

  The path they are on veers to the side. I want to take time to aim but the teratome pivots after Finna. I don’t have a line of sight to the arm anymore, but maybe I can still get its attention. I breathe out and aim at the exposed flesh between the armor plates, at the root of one of the broken back spikes. The arrow strikes true, burying itself nearly completely into the beast. The wound spurts clear liquid and the spike jerks and drops down, unmoving.

  The teratome freezes for a moment and its front half lowers down toward the ground. Damaging the root of the spikes seems to be effective, even if striking the joints—

  “Watch out!” Finna shouts from behind the teratome.

  It pushes itself off the ground, too fast. I fling myself to the side, too late. Its rear half smashes me aside. As I land on my back, two of its spikes stab and punch through my stomach. I hear the sound more clearly than feel it, the squelch and the tearing sound as it pulls the spikes back, my blood spurting out and painting its carapace dark.

  I roll to my side, bleeding. The ground is cold against my face, everything is cold. This is not how everything was supposed to go.

  My thoughts go back to Ral and how his stomach was fixed by ambrosia. My vision dims, the teratome rears up, its arm hovering above my head.

  I refuse!

  I wrench myself up and to the side, the pain finally registering in my stomach. I don’t care.

  The teratome crashes down where I was.

  If I can only get a bit further away, it will focus on the others.

  I dodge down, somersault and land on my knees, back toward the teratome. Spikes punch out through my chest and shoulder and throat. Ground ahead of me is sprayed red. I don’t feel anything except a blinding pain in my throat.

  My head lurches forward, showing me the bloody spikes. I slide slowly down on them, my vision dimming.

  Only thing left is the smell of iron.

  I… refu…