Kin of Jörmungandr

The second Nareau crashes on top of the first, slamming it into the ground and sending tremors through the earth. If ranked stone did not brace the tunnels down below, I’ve no doubt they’d be experiencing some rather severe cave-ins right now.

The arachnid below — the one with the shattered leg — screeches and tosses the other of its kin off. A couple of its front legs strike out, scratching deep grooves into the other’s head, right between the rows of eyes. Our new participant returns the shriek with a slam of the body. The first’s legs slice a distance through the ground, but despite missing a leg, doesn’t lose its balance.

Both Nareaus stare each other down, shrieking guttural growls, completely forgetting the original opponent.

My stomach burns with anger.

These creatures are clearly not sapient, but that is no excuse to ignore your stronger opponent. An insult even mindless beasts shouldn’t commit.

I hiss, flooding the sound with my presence, and in this undistorted place, it echoes off the walls, louder with each reverberation. It drowns out the Nareau’s growls, silencing them. Both heads snap toward me, forgetting the dispute between themselves.

Better.

Besides the dangling leg of one, the arachnids are indistinguishable. From the huge bulbous abdomens to their slightly hairy leg chitin, they are the same. Even the way they both leap at me at once is identical.

I spring to the side, soil and rock raining down over my scales. For two beings that were busy fighting only a moment ago, their coordination is incredible. Their sharp legs crash through the dirt with the full weight of their bodies in a unified attack.

Before I coil myself to spring at their legs, I glance to where I threw Scia. It takes but a moment to spot the little bat where its eyes and ears poke out from some small burrow in the soil. Scia is further away than where I left them, so they probably blinked that far. Instead of hiding as she should, her eyes stay locked on the giant arachnids.

I snap toward the arachnid further from Scia. As I fly through the air, I bend my body back and forth in a way that allows at least some sort of control over my flight. The one closer to Scia follows, almost bowling over its kin as it chases me. By the time I wind around the Nareau’s leg, I realise the better option would have been the other arachnid. It’ll be easier if I try to take down the already injured one first, then move on.

It’s too late for that, so I clench around the leg I already hold. In a moment, I hear the creaking of chitin, but it doesn’t break before two other legs bear down on me. Without time to bunch myself up first, I spring away. The first leg narrowly misses, blasting me with a gust of air before a loud crack resounds as it hits the earth.

I’m not so lucky as to dodge the second. It’s a clean hit, and if not for the momentum of flinging myself away, I’d likely have been sliced in half. I knew those legs had mass behind them, but I have trust in my scales. What I didn’t account for, was just how sharp those arachnid’s legs truly were.

The razor cuts through the hard scales of my back and gets stuck in a lower vertebra before launching me to the ground. Both the wound and impact hurt, but neither compare to the pain of failure. I shouldn’t have let that hit me. If I’d been treating this fight as seriously as if it were a proper opponent, it never would have.

My body size doubles, reducing the wound through my lower spine to nothing more than an inconvenience. Because of my failure, I need to commit more strength to the battle than I should have needed to. I’m still far smaller than these two, but it’s the principle of the loss that grates at me. I could have beat them with less if I had been patient.

My current problem is that with the combined number of their legs and fangs, there is no time to crush their legs without taking a hit myself. Those bladed limbs have already proven they can pierce my tough scales, so at least some care needs to be taken. There is an alternative, but it will rely on stupidity from my opponents’ half.

Curling my length, I wait for the Nareaus to act. When I’m the one to initiate the attack, it gives them the time to strike before I can get away. It will be better to try a more reactive method.

Both hulking masses barely stop for a second. They launch at me, large frontal legs all coming down on me at once. I dart forward, easily avoiding the strikes. Once I determine which is the seven-legged arachnid, I slither up a grounded limb closest to the other Nareau. I don’t curl around it, nor do I clench too hard. My body clings to the inner side of the leg, ready to pounce in an instant and leave none of my tail curved where it will take longer to avoid any attack.

The first leg strike, I avoid without leaping from the trunk of a limb. It takes a bit of finesse, but I noticed the arachnids have a tendency to strike along the outside of their stationary limbs. Not all that much of a surprise; the alternative would be far more clumsy without bending its body. Another benefit to the superiority of limblessness.

It is the strike from the eight-legged arachnid that I leap from. I’d expected, or hoped, for one of its legs to crash down on me, and therefor the other arachnid’s leg, but what I got was even better. The Nareau slams its head into the leg of its partner, both fangs clamping down on the space where I no longer hold. With no strength of my own, the seven-legged arachnid becomes six.

Another wailing screech rings through the air as the second useless limb falls to the ground, completely torn free.

The six-legged beast ignores me as I slither up another leg. It rises to three rear legs and attacks the uninjured arachnid with those remaining. The Nareau is fast enough to defend, raising limbs of its own to block, but one gets through its guard and cuts through the exoskeleton along its eyes. In a moment, the arachnid becomes half blind and blood gushes from the hole in its head.

Both shriek at each other, forgetting my existence once again as Eight-Legs mimics Six-Legs with front limbs raised to attack. They try to strike at each other, but it mostly leaves them locked in a struggle of strength.

They are punished for ignoring my presence. The leg I wind around crunches under my constriction, snapping and bending backward. Six-Legs — now Five-Legs — cannot hold its weight with only two legs and both buckle. Eight-Legs overpowers its kin and tosses it on its back, where it can do nothing but flail in vain as two legs pierce its abdomen and pin it for the fangs to crunch through the exoskeleton.

Truly, these are dumb beasts. Far dumber even, than little Scia.

Despite their strength, they mustn’t be all that old to be this foolish. I even went out of my way to prove to them I am not a serpent to be ignored, and yet they forget within a dozen heartbeats.

As one arachnid rips into the other, I consider reminding them who the true predator is… but I feel it is too late for that. Any excitement I had for this fight is quickly fleeing at the clear lack of intelligence and competency.

Five-Legs squirms under the grip of its less injured brethren. A powerful thrust of its remaining legs throws Four-Eyes — the half blind Nareau — away, allowing it to climb back to its feet, though not without difficulty. Fluids gush from the extensive injuries along Five-Legs’ abdomen, blood and fleshy lumps escaping with each moment.

It is resilient, I’ll give it that. But it will not live much longer.

Four-Eyes lands, unfazed, with another tremor through the ground. If I want to get anything beneficial from this fight, I need to remove one of them fast so the other has no choice but to focus entirely on me. Considering the circumstances, it is obvious which has to die first.

My body springs forward, wrapping around one of the few remaining rear legs and crush it with a squeeze. Half-Legs lets out another shriek, but keeps itself upright. It twists on itself and bites at me with its fangs, but I’ve already slithered up its back. Under the heavy weight of its abdomen and the burden of near-fatal injury, the arachnid’s legs quiver. It is only barely keeping itself upright.

The other Nareau faces us down, turning slightly so it can keep the side of its head that isn’t dribbling blood looking toward us. It won’t be long before it attacks again, so I need to make this quick.

Going for another leg would likely be the safest option; once it can’t walk, it can’t defend itself. But that will take too long. Instead, I slither across the smooth, furless chitin of the arachnid’s back until I reach its head. The beast is too large to wrap myself around the connection between body sections, so constriction won’t work.

Four-Legs bucks, its attention entirely back on me. The effort is almost enough to send me flying, but it lacks strength. It cannot twist its midsection far enough to reach me, and it needs each of its remaining legs to remain upright.

I wrap around one of its fangs and brace my tail against the side of the arachnid’s head. The tips of each are sharp enough to penetrate my scales, but not so the base. With as much strength as I can manage at this size, I leverage the fang away from its head, pulling it wider than natural.

The other fang snaps and closes with each repeated shriek, but it cannot reach me.

By the time I hear cracking from my assault target, the Nareau gives up any restraint it may have had. For the arachnid, this is now life and death. It abandons any effort to keep itself upright, first slamming its head — me included — into the ground. When that doesn’t stop the pain, it curls over on its back and stabs at me with its remaining legs.

Desperation has taken it, and while that desperation is likely its best bet, it only helps me tear the fang free sooner. Its jerky, distraught motions break the last of the exoskeleton holding the blade to its face.

I tear it away. My body flings away with the sudden loss of resistance, but with Four-Legs sprawled over the soil, I don’t go far. It is a simple matter of slithering back to its side to kill the thing. The Nareau lashes out wildly. Its fang remains gripped in a loop of my spine as I approach again.

Four-Legs regains its composure, but by the time it does, it is already too late. I slam its own fang into its inverted head, right between a series of eyes. A screech cuts off halfway. Besides a few twitches of its remaining legs, it falls still. Dead.

Nuisance out of the way, I turn to the other Nareau, only to fling myself sideways to dodge the massive arachnid’s leap. It crashes into its dead brethren, crushing the motionless body further.

The half blind Nareau spares its kin hardly a glance before returning its sight to me.

Finally. No more distractions.

Scia squeaks. I ignore the bat and slide through the soil toward my opponent. Scia chirps again, this time with far more haste, a tinge of desperation in its tone. Again, I ignore it and prepare myself to spring the moment the sole remaining Nareau attacks.

The bat blinks on my back, squeaking into my ear with an unreasonable amount of fear. It is too late. The arachnid strikes, so I leap, Scia screeching all the while.

As I narrowly pass the sharp leg, flying through the air, I see it. I see what has Scia so worked up.

Another centipede, only this time it’s almost as wide as these arachnids and twenty times as long. It has disgustingly numerous legs that seem to fade in and out of existence amongst the swarms of bugs. Three sets of fangs far more deadly than that of a Nareau bear down on me as it spears through the air from behind.

Where did it come from? Something so large couldn’t have possibly avoided my sight in this cavern.

Its origin doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s here and I have no way to avoid its bite. I’m already mid-air, so I can’t dodge. And it is impossible to grow fast enough to save myself with my size. I can only hope I don’t die immediately.

This would never happen in my warped tunnels.