"Just focus on shooting," he said quietly to N during the standoff. "I''ll make sure none of them hit you."


    Three puddles of poison shot out over the river. The other spiders were up to something too, but Beam didn''t have the skill necessary to take in all the threats at once. Not yet.


    He noted N''s flying arrow and heard the death hiss of a spider that followed, then he dove towards her and tackled her free of the poison''s path.


    Three separate puddles of green poisonnded with a st onto the mud and stone ind, hitting three different sections of it. Narrowly, they''d managed to dodge the attack.


    But now they saw what the other spiders had been up to. A web rope shot from the abdomen of one spider towards the central ind, securing it in ce, creating a bridge for the spiderlings. The smaller creatures eagerly jumped on and went rushing for the middle. It must have been nearly a hundred that got on it together.


    Beam waited a moment, seeing the web rope sway stically under the weight of so many tarant-sized spiders, and then he shed with his knife, severing the web bridge with ease and sending hundreds of the creatures tumbling into the river.


    Another handful of the front runners managed to leap far enough to reach them, but again he dodged them and again he crushed them underfoot.


    "They really aren''t particrly smart," he said, watching the spiderlings struggle to swim, only to stop moving a few momentster. Seeing it so confidently secure the rope bridge, he''d hesitated a moment, wondering if his knife would really have been able to cut through it – but then he remembered he''d already tried such a thing in the forest.


    The webs were sticky, for sure, but a single swift cut didn''t allow that stickiness to properly take hold.


    The spiders were not creatures of great intelligence. Even though every one of their attacks had been foiled so far, they did not change their tactics, they merely went at everything even more aggressively than before, seeming to time everything together by some sort of collective hive mind that the creatures shouldn''t have had.


    There were six of the giant ones remaining and then a flood of spiderlings after that.


    Two giant spiders sped towards the river, their grotesque hairy legs filling their every movement with a creepy quality. They sshed through the shallow water towards Beam.


    Another two opened their fangs wide, allowing the poison to drip more freely until there was a sticky build-up of the green substance, and then they spat it, firing it into the air over a great distance.


    And then thest two shot the same sticky webs from their abdomens, allowing their spiderling brethren two separate bridges along which to form their attacks.


    N''s arrow instantly fired in response to the poison, killing another spider on the spot. Beam nced between her and the approaching bubbles of poison and she spared him a nod, before retreating off the ind and back onto the stepping stones.


    Beam breathed a sigh of relief, daring to smile, despite the approaching danger. "Well, that makes things easier," he said, ducking his head to avoid the poison, just as the first of the spiders came charging into them.


    It was a clumsy attempt at an attack. If Beam had his leg at full health and his speed, he could have punished it instantly. But with his body in the state that it was in, he was forced to dodge with a roll and recover his bnce, before attempting to confront it again, just in time for the second of the spiders to make it to the middle.


    "This sucks," he said in irritation. Without speed, it was far too hard to close the gap on these creatures. All he could do was stand still and y reactively, waiting for them to make a mistake.


    They lunged in at the same time, one attempting to bite his torso in two with its scissor-like fangs and the other jabbing at him with its heavy front legs.


    Another one of N''s arrows came flying past, puncturing the spider that had attempted to keep its range. Beam saw the many eyes of itsrade flicker as it observed the death of itspanion. He used that opportunity to jump, wincing from the pain as he cleared its fangs andnded on its back, running his knife down the full length of it.


    He rolled away as the body fell, just in time for the first wave of spiderlings to make it across the bridge.


    He quickly sliced the bridge nearest to him, but there were already half a hundred on his little ind, leaping to bite. In some way, because of the sheer number of them, they were more troublesome foes than the giant spiders.


    Beam too was forced to stage a retreat and he jumped across the stepping stones that N had, beforending in the shallow water of the river and wading the rest of the way there.


    There were only three giant spiders left now.


    The spiderlings were left stranded, hopping from stepping to stepping stone, but unable to breach the gap between them without wading through the same water that they had – and the only oue for them there would be death. Some tried despite that and the river ran ck as they joined the rest of the bodies that ran downstream.


    "Mm… This might be good, actually," Beam mused, seeing them gather on the middle ind. "If we take out the web bridges, they''ll be stranded."


    "But how do we do that?" N asked in a tense voice, as she held an arrow ready in her bow. As it was now, the two parties were locked in a standoff, with neither able to race to the other. Only the giant spiders could close that gap, if they chose to.


    And one did exactly that. It waded through the water and mbered onto the middle ind, crushing part of the mass of spiderlings that had begun to gather there, and then it allowed its fangs to drip with poison as it readied another shot. N''s arrow pierced it first though, and it slumped to the ground, drenching itself in its own poison.