Page 73 of Sinful Curses
He shook his head to clear it. Now wasn’t the moment to get all mushy as the noises from above grew louder.
More things hunted them.
“Get that protection spell ready,” he said.
Sahira lifted her hands before turning to Elsa. Their heads bent close together, but he couldn’t hear what they said over the increasing noise of those things. The creatures were getting anxious for them to continue.
Sahira and Elsa set their spears aside to clasp hands. While he couldn’t hear what they said, their power swelled on the air until it vibrated around them and danced through the night.
The currents of it tickled and caused the hair on his arms to rise as something powerful enveloped them. He didn’t know how long the spell would last, but it would protect them against whatever lay ahead.
When Sahira released Elsa’s hand, turned to him, and nodded, he started forward again. Unable to avoid the desiccated, mummy-wrapped corpses, Orin tried to do as little damage to them as possible as the noises above increased.
Whatever was up there, it wasn’t tracking them anymore. It was preparing for an attack while herding them where it wanted them to go.
CHAPTERSIXTY-THREE
Sahira keptone of her palms facing the ground as she drew energy from the rocks beneath her feet and the walls against her side. The realm teemed with life, and she used its power to help fuel hers while Elsa did the same.
The protection spell would keep them all safe for a bit, but an unrelenting onslaught would eventually break it, and she was certain that was about to come. She tried to control the rapid beat of her heart and the sweat forming on her palms, but she wished these things would get it over with.
The anticipation of the attack was almost as bad as the event. She wiped her palms on her pants as the increasing noises from above caused a trickle of sweat to run down her spine.
As the sun started rising, Orin blew out the candle, slipped it into his pocket, and peeled away the wax on his fingers. Shadows danced around them, but the sun’s rays never fully penetrated their crevice.
She tried not to look at the dried husks as they crunched beneath her feet, but sometimes a mushier one would draw her attention, and her stomach would turn at the mangled things. As they progressed through the bodies, they stopped cracking as much as the remains became fresher.
The white filament enshrouding the bodies was the worst as it stuck to her boots and tried to cleave her to the bodies. Sometimes, she’d drag one a few feet before she succeeded in extricating herself.
As the bodies became fresher and the gauze thicker, it also grew stickier. Whatever clung to the dried-out husks was as broken and decayed as the bodies, but not the stuff on these ones.
Ahead of her, Orin struggled to pull his boot free of the webbing clinging to his sole. He finally tore himself free, but the substance adhered to the bottom of his boot, and with every step he took, his foot stuck a little on the rocks.
“Not good,” Fath whispered.
The brownie hadn’t spoken since they’d entered these winding passages, but now, he’d decided to state the obvious. Sahira refrained from telling him that speaking felt like a way to invite something bad to happen. Considering the bad was already upon them, it was a stupid thing to think.
Unable to avoid it, Sahira got caught in the sticky filament next. Orin clasped her hand and helped pull her free.
She turned to help Elsa, but Zeth grasped her waist and lifted her over the top of the dead thing. He set her down behind Sahira before stomping through the remains that squished beneath his boots.
Sahira winced at the wet, sloppy sound he created; it was far worse than the crackle of bones. This dead thing sounded like its skin was sloughing off beneath the white gauze. She still couldn’t tell what any of these things were.
Sahira shuddered before pressing her back against the wall and edging around the next two bodies. They were also the last two bodies as they traveled twenty feet more through the tight confines before the passageway finally opened up.
Inhaling deeply, Sahira stepped out of the tunnel as she relished the open air around her instead of the walls. That feeling was short-lived as thirty feet away from them, a one-hundred-foot-tall and fifty-foot-wide, intricately woven web blocked their way.
Caught up in the webbing were dozens of filament-encased bundles tucked securely into the strands. Large, black creatures stood over some of those bundles, their front legs working as they sought to encase them deeper into the webbing, or their mandibles worked to drain them of their essence.
Sahira’s stomach plummeted as something exploded from above. She looked up in time to see dozens of black bodies leaping from the top of the mountains and over the top of them.
CHAPTERSIXTY-FOUR
They had nowhereto go as the three-foot-high and five-feet-wide spiders descended on them. Some rode air currents down while others shot out webbing that stuck to the wall opposite them. They used it to swing like demonic trapeze artists.
Some spiders hit the protective wall of air she and Elsa had erected. They released squeals of rage as they bounced off and across the ground.
Many rebounded and leapt up again to charge while the others hit or descended to the earth. With every step, the lobster-like claws on their two front legs clicked against the rock or scratched the ground. It was the same scratching, skittering sound they’d heard for a while, but now she knew why.
