The guard's knife stuck on the first cut.
Jin yanked it free with a string of white glue trailing from the edge. The thread around the man's wrist tightened. His heels rose.
Jin sawed harder.
The strand parted.
They fell into each other and hit the dirt as the pale creature dropped from the wall.
Its front legs struck where Jin had stood. Two narrow blades punched through the packed earth.
The guard rolled away. Jin scrambled backward, knife lifted.
The man's sword clattered onto the threshold. He shook his freed hand, tried to close it and swore when the fingers wouldn't obey.
The monster's head was a flat plate with tiny black eyes along the edge. Behind it hung a swollen abdomen, white as an unwashed bandage. A copper edge glinted beneath the folds at its neck. Thread ran from its underside to the gate lintel.
It pulled.
The creature shot upward. Its blades scraped sparks off the gate hinges as it rose.
Jin swore.
He was supposed to be the one with the movement trick.
“Jin!”
Kessa stood in the watch building's doorway. A strand looped around her spear. She hacked it with the edge of the head, keeping the shaft between the monster and two workers crouched behind her.
Inside, Garran held a ceiling beam on his shoulder.
No. Not the ceiling.
The beam had been torn loose. Threads connected it to the creature above the gate. Every pull dragged it toward the doorway, crushing the space where the workers hid.
Garran's boot stayed planted in one pale footprint on the floor. The rest of him shook.
His sword lay beyond reach.
Jin looked at the strands stretched across the yard.
The ruined reel lay on the step beneath a heap of loose quills. White fibers clung to both. A thick line led from the heap to the thing on the gate.
Their prize had brought a dinner invitation home.
The monster turned toward Kessa.
Jin whistled.
“Wrong table!”
He waved the knife.
It sprang.
He flung himself sideways. One blade tore a furrow beside his thigh; the other caught his left shoelace.
A small source note: the NovelPhoenix site hosts this chapter, but the version here was copied without permission.
SPECIAL QUEST — THE GENEROUS HOST
OFFER THE INVADER YOUR SHOE. IT MUST TAKE THE SHOE FROM YOUR HAND.
THANK IT WITHIN HEARING OF A WITNESS.
REWARD: EXP +25.
“You saw that and thought I wasn't losing enough footwear?”
The guard dragged a fallen bench across the workers' doorway. Kessa slipped around it, putting herself beneath the web lines.
Jin sheathed the knife in the guard's belt as the man passed. Then he pulled off his damaged shoe.
His sock met cold dirt.
“Madam,” he called. “A gift.”
He held out the shoe.
The black eyes shifted toward it.
For a hopeful moment, nothing happened.
One of the workers, a woman with a gray braid, peered around the guard. She looked from Jin's offered shoe to the monster.
Then she took off a wooden clog.
“No, wait—”
It sailed over his shoulder. The creature knocked it aside with a blade and turned toward the doorway.
Jin slapped the ground with his shoe.
“Excuse me! Personal service over here!”
The woman vanished behind the bench. Jin heard the guard laughing once, sharply, as the black eyes came back to him.
Jin waggled the dangling lace.
The front blade snapped out.
He almost pulled back. Almost.
The point speared the shoe's heel, wrenching it from his fingers. A second blade crushed the leather against the first. Thread spilled over it.
“Thank you for shopping local!”
Kessa barked a disbelieving laugh.
SPECIAL QUEST COMPLETE: EXP +25
LEVEL 14: 32/40
The monster hauled the wrapped shoe toward its mouth.
Jin backed into the yard. One boot, one sock, no weapon.
She thrust upward.
Her spear struck the soft join behind the flat head. The creature shrieked and dropped the shoe, clutching at the shaft with its middle legs.
Jin caught the dangling butt before it could pull the whole weapon away.
He planted his feet and hung on.
The pull dragged a stripe through the dirt beneath his sock.
Kessa shouted something at him. He couldn't catch even the shape of the word.
Then she let go.
For half a second he hated her.
She ducked under his arm, seized the guard's discarded sword and chopped through the thread running to the torn beam.
Inside, wood crashed to the floor.
Garran was free.
“Oh,” Jin grunted. “Good choice.”
The veteran came through the doorway with his own sword in hand. He cut one of the monster's middle legs at the joint.
The creature fell off the gate.
Jin let the spear go and stumbled clear. It landed on four limbs, the injured middle leg twitching against the ground.
Garran advanced.
The abdomen flexed.
Thread fired across the yard, striking wall, post and the far end of the bench. The monster skittered backward between the lines.
Every time Garran struck, it pulled itself out of reach.
Jin found his wrapped shoe near the gate.
He picked at the thread with two fingers. It stretched without breaking, sticking to his skin. Damp beneath the outer crust.
Across the yard, Bram emerged from behind the water trough with a taper in his good hand.
Jin saw what he meant to do.
So did the creature.
It pulled one line.
The bench shot out of the doorway and hit Bram behind the knees.
He fell. The little flame went out.
Then every strand in the yard drew tight at once.
The gateposts began to lean inward.