The thick carapace shell protected itsinsides from blades and claws, making them nearly impossible tokill. When the shell was grey, it blended with the surroundingrocks easily, making it difficult to spot unless the creaturemoved. When it got the taste of blood, though, its shell darkenedto black.
Though deadly, it was slow and couldn’tchange direction easily. The narrow canyon was the perfect huntinggrounds, as its prey couldn’t dodge out of the way. It turned thenarrow space into a killing field, making escape impossible.
Run and it would use all its legs to propelitself after you. The thing was fast too. There would be noopportunity to dodge and trying to defend would be pointless.
A flash of color drew Shea’s attention. Shewaited until she saw movement again and inhaled. Eamon and anotherwere alive. They were hunkered down in the rocks, using them toescape the pinchers. It was a smart play as the creature was toobig to slide between the boulders, and its pinchers weren’t longenough to reach the men in the crevasses.
Shea stood and looked around. There. Thattree would do.
She rushed to it and dropped the pack on theground, pulling out her rope and tying it around the base of thetree. She slipped a glove onto her left hand then reached down andpicked up her short sword with the right.
Now came the tricky part.
Reaching inside for her calm center, sheclosed her eyes and took a deep breath.
This was such a bad idea.
Breathe in.
She could do this.
Breathe out.
She stepped to the edge of the cliff andlooked down. The creature wasn’t exactly under her, but that wasokay. She took five steps to the right, the rope following her.
She looked down.
This was such a bad idea.
She stepped off the ledge. The bottom shot upfrom her stomach and into her throat.
The rope slid through her fingers. It jerked,and she swung out and over the creature. She let go and wasfalling.
Falling.
Then landing with a thud, her hand clenchedin a death grip around her sword. She rolled, almost falling offthe creature’s back, before her shirt caught on one of the spinyspikes on its shell, and she halted, dangling with her shirt halfover her head.
She had the presence of mind to wrap one handaround the spike, brace her feet against its shell and crawl walkup its back as the shadow beetle thrashed beneath her.
The shirt began to tear sending her slidingbefore she managed to lurch up and hook her hand into a groove onits shell. She held on as tightly as she could. If she fell now,she was dead.
The creature settled back onto the ground.Before it could rear again, Shea was up and crawl running acrossits back until she reached its neck.
Through it all she held onto her sword. Itwasn’t easy and her left arm screamed from the strain of doing thework of two, but finally she was where its carapace met the roundlittle head that had a horn that looked like a horseshoe stickingout of it.
Straddling its neck with her legs and aimingthe pointy part of the sword at its neck, she raised her handsabove her head and brought it down hard, the blade entered and thebeast went mad under her, nearly unseating her. She held on as itcareened into a wall.
She really thought that blow would havekilled it.
She tried to yank the sword out. It wasstuck.
Come on, damn it.
She heaved with all of her might. It slid outa couple of inches and then got stuck again.
You. Will. Come. Out.
She wiggled the sword, sliding it out a fewmore inches. The beast heaved under her.
