“Let’s move.”
Eva took off. She didn’t need to look behind her to tell that Juliana was following. The traps on the roof disappearing as the gravel churned was proof enough of that.
The next building didn’t have a large gap between the rooftops. At least not a horizontal one. There was a few foot drop, but nothing that Eva couldn’t handle with a small jump. Juliana took a little bit longer to climb down as she decided to lower herself down. Eventually, she made it.
Only this roof left before the hunter’s roof.
“Why aren’t we moving?”
“I’m not sure where is safe,” Eva said.
Though Juliana had taken out all of the shackles before them, Eva still stood frozen. Bubbles of magic that Eva had taken to be wards dotted the rooftop. She wasn’t entirely certain that they were wards; Eva had only been in the warding class for a short while. But if the previous roofs had been mazes, this was a minefield.
It wasn’t a long minefield. Whatever was inside the building obviously didn’t need much floorspace. Were the wards gone, Eva could be across the roof in ten steps. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see a path through.
The only real consolation was the short drop. It put them out of line of sight of the hunter, granting them a short reprieve from the ice. Though the hunter should still be able to see them through the walls if Nel was right.
Which meant that the reprieve might only be around until they were successfully distracted or lulled into complacency. She would then rain ice down upon them from above. Possibly with the boulders that Eva had mentioned earlier.
Great. One more thing to be worried about.
“So what do we do?”
“I’m not playing her games. We’re skipping this trap.”
“Skipping? What do– Hey! E-Eva! Wait–”
Juliana’s protests were torn from her mouth as Eva hefted her up and slung her over her shoulder. Perhaps not as comfortable as the princess-carry that she had just used to cross the gap, but Eva needed a proper center of balance and a much better grip.
“Just clear out any shackles you can see when we land. I’m not getting trapped again today.”
Before Juliana could protest, Eva coiled the muscles in her legs and sprung off from the side of the roof.
Chapter 023
Arachne hissed through her teeth. Another of her legs was lying on the ground. Attacking with them had definitely been the right choice. Arms, and the hands attached to them, were just too valuable. Especially while she was weaving webs.
It hurt to lose them. When Eva had amputated her legs, she had taken several anesthetics to numb herself to the pain. Arachne hadn’t. And frankly, it hadn’t hurt much at all. The following weeks she had spent regrowing her legs had been more annoying than any kind of suffering.
But the hunter’s sword was odd. It cleaved cleanly through her limbs as if they weren’t even there. The human phrase would be ‘like a hot knife through a stick of butter.’ Worse than that, it reminded Arachne of being hit with lightning from the Elysium Order’s nuns. Not so much the time her face had been exploded—she hadn’t felt much from that incident—but she had been hit with it enough otherwise to remember its feeling.
That feeling of it crawling through her, eating away at even her demonic regeneration.
But still, better to lose a leg than lose an arm.
Though, that didn’t mean that the legs were infinitely disposable.
There were only the six on her back plus her two primary legs in her human form. Well, there had been six plus two. At the moment, there were only the two left.
The hunter was getting desperate. With the way the doll moved and hounded him, he had been largely ineffective in doing anything.
Except for when he sliced off her legs.
Really, that was more Arachne’s fault than anything. She didn’t have to put herself in danger. He would hack his way through the makeshift walls penning him in and escape. Arachne could just let him go instead of intercepting him.
But Eva was out there.
Seeing Eva stand up and walk into the dormitory had been a relief. Feeling her leave towards the city had been a shock. Arachne wanted nothing more than to chase after her. Her Eva could be walking into more danger.
Let’s be honest with myself, Arachne thought as she watched the hunter duck under the doll’s sword only to find himself punted across the plaza by the golem’s fist. Eva is definitely heading into danger.
That was just how Eva worked.
Arachne narrowed her eyes as the hunter crashed into Brakket Academy’s brand new fountain, mostly destroying it. The doll jumped high into the air, dropping down with her blade pointed straight at the ground.
The hunter managed to roll out of the way, dodging the attack just as he had the last four times the doll tried to get the drop on him.
It was enough to make Arachne wonder if the doll couldn’t learn properly. If he could dodge it three times, a fourth was probably not going to help. A fifth certainly not. She might eventually get lucky, but Arachne might be dead of old age by then. And Arachne didn’t even age.
The hunter continued his roll for a short distance before snapping up to his feet and charging the webbing separating him from the rest of the city.
And that was another reason Arachne couldn’t leave to help Eva. He was getting desperate to escape. Perhaps he had noticed Eva leaving as well and wanted to stop her from doing whatever she set out to accomplish.
That was something Arachne could never allow.
Glancing down at her severed leg, Arachne picked it up.
Not to mention, he is really pissing me off.
The tip of her leg was still sharp. This one had been severed at the first joint, leaving it looking more like the top of a spear than anything else.
Pulling back her arm, Arachne threw the leg at the hunter. She didn’t expect it to do much damage. His armor could stop the doll’s sword from slicing all the way through.
But the hunter did stop hacking at the webbing long enough to slice at the flying limb.
He backed away from the webbing almost immediately. The doll was still digging her sword out of the fountain, but Genoa’s golem was moving into position.
With two quick steps, he made it to the doorway of the Rickenbacker dormitory building.
Genoa’s golem crumbled to a mound of lifeless earth.
At first, Arachne thought that Genoa was fleeing, running away like a coward before the hunter could reach her.
A wall rose from the ground in front of the Rickenbacker. A smooth sheet of stone stretched high up, rising even higher than the roof of the building.
Arachne grit her teeth. The stupid woman should have just done that in the first place instead of creating the small pillars that Arachne used to web in the plaza. It would have been far more effective.
The reason why quickly became clear.
The golem was down. A fact that did not escape the notice of the hunter. Getting obviously desperate, he charged straight back towards the section of the web he had just been hacking away at. A section Arachne hadn’t had a chance to repair.
Golem down. The doll was still busy for another few seconds.
Too long. He could be gone by the time the doll got into the fray again.
Arachne grit her teeth and charged. Spare legs or not, he would not be making it to Eva.
— — —
Eva landed right on the edge of the roof, almost falling backwards onto the minefield of wards.
A barrier from a set of shackles that she had landed on saved her. It caught her, acting like a wall to lean against. Juliana wasn’t stopped by the barrier. She went straight through. It was a bit disorienting to have the weight on her shoulders not be stopped by the wall that Eva hit, but the situation quickly resolved itself as Eva shoved off the barrier.