"What in the blazes do you think you're doing, Anna?"

Tallah's entire back was awash in pain. Anna and Bianca cycled illum at a pace that flayed her nerves raw. Every step of the march was agony, pure and undiluted, with the ghosts having thus far ignored all requests to cease whatever it was they were weaving.

'Pay attention to your sparks, Tallah. My business does not concern you, but you will be glad for my efforts when the moment comes.'

It was bloody easy for Anna to sound glib when she couldn't feel what her efforts demanded of Tallah. It was already hard enough worrying about her own store of illum and the trickle still filtering through Christina. Whatever these two harpies were attempting threatened to topple whatever semblance of patience and balance Tallah held on to.

The forest glittered with illum, though Tallah couldn't be sure what of that was the ambient power, and what was an alien thing. The daemons making themselves scarce after the Rock's fall was far removed from any expectation she had of the night, and the result was far from pleasant.

If Tallah could get a moment for herself, she'd scream in frustration. Coming out the gate ready for a fighting advance, only to be met by ash and bones, had taken the wind out of her.

The dragon was an impressive beast, but she doubted even it could've simply demolished the entire daemon host in the span of a couple bells. Something else was afoot and it would be coming to bite her in the arse. She was sure of that at least.

"Would you stop that?" she groaned as Anna yanked some more on her innards.

"Stop what?" Liosse asked by Tallah's side. She hefted her axe, eye scanning their narrow cone of light.

If one of them managed to retain her cool in the face of what was very obviously a trap, it was Liosse. The old war crone showed absolutely no sign of her age, not even after the already long, tense march out of the Rock to the forest. She ranged far out of the column, daring any daemons show themselves and be met with a kiss of the axe. So far, none had taken the bait.

"Nothing," Tallah lied, gritting her teeth.

Much as she liked Liosse, she wasn't going to admit to the depths of her heresy. In the heat of battle none of the Rock's keepers had questioned Tallah's abilities or how she came to wield them. The last thing she needed now, with the fate of so many on her shoulders, was for some of the more learned soldiers or civilians to suddenly distrust her. She was under no illusion that the march would continue as it had.

Liosse grunted something unintelligible and dropped back into the mass of humanity following their steps. Tallah heard her call Caragill's name.

The scouts had found nothing of the daemons. No kitties. No crows. No beastmen or serpents or any of the usual fodder. Tracks heading towards the crater, yes, but nothing else.

Anna insisted they were being stalked. She felt it somehow and Tallah believed the ghost. But they could find no trace of an enemy to defend against.

For peace of mind, Tallah had sent the ghost to keep an eye on Sil, trusting that a fight was incoming. That one's state of mind was a worry she kept trying to bury somewhere far beneath the surface until she'd have a proper chance to address it.

Vergil was a second concern. How the boy was still upright, helmet and all, was nothing short of a miracle. She couldn't complain of it, given they needed every able body, but still… something, somewhere would have to give.

The forest closed in around her as the night wore on. What little moonlight had showed them their way from the Rock was lost in the thick canopy, filtering down to little more than stardust by the time it reached the ground. Sprites and torches cast long, dark shadows.

She kept up the pace. They would be in the forest for a bell more before the way opened up towards the ravine. There was no avoiding it. Oh, they could've hugged the mountain wall tighter, have one side of their departure shielded… but that only meant having an anvil to be smashed against. The more she walked, the more she worried at what it was they weren't seeing.

Why had the dragon taken to the air? Where were the daemons?

Or, as Vergil would've put it, "What the fuck's going on?"

'Do you have a plan for the ravine?' Bianca asked in the interstice between Tallah's frantic musings. 'I can't carry so many over.'

You won't need to. We'll use the shards. We've enough channellers for as many trips as it takes.

'You could've left everyone at the Rock then, head out on your own and drop the shard on the other side. It would've saved us time.'

Tallah shook her head. If she'd done that, she would've left the Rock to fend against the underground tide on its own for however long it would've taken to fight her way out. If that creature from the city proper had gotten out, she would've returned to a mountain of corpses. Plus, she didn't know what lurked in the mountain ranges, aware some daemons would've probably already made their way out there.

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Something had been killing the messengers headed out of the Cauldron.

They would still lose many people now, but at least like this she lowered the time window where she'd be away. If they made it into the mouth of the pass, the healers could shore them up with barriers. And it was all hinged, again, on the dragon fighting with them. Now, that creature was somewhere above and who knew what alien thoughts crossed its mind.

'Maybe it's decided humans would taste better than daemons,' Anna suggested, intruding on Tallah's thoughts. 'We may never know, now the spider's made itself scarce. Amazing critter. It was the first of us all to figure our chances as hopeless and got out before we marshalled our collective idiocy.'

'Don't let the boy hear you say that,' Bianca said. 'It'd break his tender heart to be abandoned by its friend.'

Tallah did not share the sentiment but kept herself from speaking out. Luna hadn't struck her as a coward in becoming, not after how the spider had helped them in Grefe. Vergil would still get his heart broken, but it would come with the realisation that the creature had likely perished in the fighting.

Civilians grumbled in the gloom. They were tired. Even the children faltered by now, the night wearing on them. Healers handed out Cassandra's blessing even to the small ones, but the potency of the effect wore out faster and faster. They could only expect so much of people even with fear lashing them. It was a wonder of human resilience none had broken under the strain yet, but such were the rock hearts. Unshakeable to the last.

She wanted to call a halt for resting, but decided against it. A bit more. A small push. Just a little longer and they would be out of the forest and into the open again.

Just a little longer, and the trap would be sprung. She felt the tension in the air like spider silk, stretched among the trees, waiting for some hidden trigger to unleash itself.

Then she did feel something on her face. It was a momentary caress. She reeled, hands aflame, ready to lash out. Something caught fire in the air and flashed away.

Spider webs. Her fire reflected off so much spider web stretching among the trees, a latticework that barred every path ahead, from ground level to high up into the canopy.

It barred the way forward, shining like fresh snow.

A streak of blood ran down Tallah's face, from the corner of her mouth, up her cheek, to her right ear, all the way along the silk's caress. It had broken skin as if it were razor wire.

"Halt!" she heard herself call out just as others began grumbling. She wasn't the only one bleeding suddenly.

More people were now seeing the webs and adding things up. They had stepped in it. Swords whispered out of scabbards. Crossbows were cocked and raised. A collective breath was drawn.

Tallah couldn't see the webs in the illum. There was no weave to observe, nothing to suggest what exactly made them dangerous.

But there was something there, waiting ahead through the forest, among the trees where the web was thickest. It began moving.

"We've got company," she called out.

Vilfor marched several steps in front of her. He was already bleeding from a bevy of thin cuts on his craggy face. Nonetheless, the vanadal raised his axe and swung it about. Silver threads dropped to the ground with a screech of metal meeting… well, something like metal. The weapon sparked as he cleared the air. Liosse was on the other side, doing the same, opening up a space for Tallah. Soldiers soon took up the same task, clearing themselves room to move.

The thing approached. Tallah lit her lances, but kept them closely over the shoulder, careful not to ignite the webs ahead. She would if forced to, but memories of the fire Ludwig had caused in Grefe still needled her memory. She wasn't about to set the entire forest aflame with everyone in it. But, depending on what came, that might be preferable.

"I come in peace, sons and daughter of this world between," a voice drifted down from above. It wasn't coming from the direction where Tallah had spied movement.

Her head snapped up and met a figure descending down the side of a wide tree trunk.

Several loud gasps echoed her own.

"Can't be…" she said. "Can't be her."

She raised the mask a fraction and stared at the creature approaching.

It… resembled Erisa, what became of the girl at least. But the shape was even more wrong than that mutated husk had become back in the bone pit.

Vaguely arachnid. The lower half of its body was spider-shaped, but only just. There was no separation from top to bottom, all a white, almost fish belly flesh that stretched grotesquely over six tall legs. They moved jerkily, with unnatural stuttering as if the creature was stepping twice before landing a footfall.

The upper half, above the distended, swollen abdomen, was a pale, thin woman. Or, at least, it looked humanoid in general shape. She had a mane of long, silver hair spilling down to its spider midriff. Six eyes stared down at them. The mouth, revealed in the sputtering light of trembling sprites, was a gash filled with wet, black fangs.

All in all, it would've been a less horrifying sight than Erisa… if not for the way the being changed shape with each step. It oozed down the tree, each moment shifting something about its general construction, the world behind it bleeding eyes.

Tallah swallowed. They faced another of the true denizens of the portal, and this one could speak.

'What purpose do breasts serve on a creature like that, do you think?'

Tallah choked at Anna's sudden burst of curiosity. It was all she could do not to burst out laughing.

'Look. It has vestigial breasts. Somehow, I doubt that thing feeds milk to its young.'

'You can't be serious,' Bianca said, her voice incredulous.

'Why not? I'm deadly serious and I'd like to dissect it. Tallah, see that you capture it whole.'

Whatever pressure had been crushing her dissipated in the light of Anna's irreverence. A grin split Tallah's lips as she stared openly at the creature's chest area, having to admit that the ghost had a point.

"And who might you be?" she called out, genuine cheer creeping in her voice.

They had sprung the trap. And their enemy was revealed. Clarity made things easier to stomach.

"I am Mol'Ach, she who is emissary of the Great Mother, daughter of the White Ones, first of the many to come. I welcome you into the glory of serving your betters. Rejoice, humans, for you are granted salvation."

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