The spider monster shuddered in the ruined gallery, her hooked foreleg still trapped in the stone Quinlan held around it. When she tried to wrench the hook away from his chest, he tightened his fingers.
Chitin cracked inside the rock, and dark fluid squirted through the fracture onto his gauntlet.
*SKRIIIIEEEEE!*
The queen's shriek struck the gallery walls hard enough to make Marielle clap a hand over her ear.
The harder the queen pulled, the more she widened her own wound, and Quinlan enjoyed every wet crunch. She'd been so eager to put that thing through him a moment ago.
"Leaving already?"
Fear drove her backward into the arch. Her swollen abdomen scraped against the masonry while her trapped limb stretched between them, its exposed flesh coming apart under the strain.
The queen raised her head to shriek into the passages behind her, the piercing, sustained call setting the webs trembling along the gallery.
*KRRRIIIEEEEEEEEE!*
