Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Underland Chronicles. I'm simply a faithful reader.
Part 1~ The Web Above our City
Luxa's back was pressed against the stone. She crept sideways, ever so slowly towards where the street came by the alley. A spinner was dropping down from the web and into Regalia... again. Of course it had six cutters on its back. The invasion was getting sooo much worse.
It was the people like her that were keeping the city alive. The defense people... who actually cared. She was mad at people like Howard. The doctors didn't need his help. The soldiers did however. When she brought up that argument, he said he needed medical training. Like he hasn't trained enough in the year since Gregor went back to the Overland.
Gregor.
Six letters. Six letters that brought her pain every time she heard or even thought about him. She had denied herself of love for a year, for a boy that wasn't coming back. It was painful and despite Mason, a boy who was trying to win her heart, and other boys with the same goal, their efforts just made her heart break even more. But she was a warrior now. Not a hopeless girl. At least that's what she told herself.
She thought about how it the war all started two months earlier...
The spinner queen "mysteriously" disappeared and her daughter took place as queen. Her first act was to build a web above Regalia. The Regalians weren't used to air attacks, after centuries of fighting gnawers.
The humans won some battles. But the spinners won many. And it took the cutters to say they wanted in, to make more species consider joining "the movement".
Most creatures weren't interested in joining the spinners because of the mistakes made with the gnawers. Creatures joined the gnawers, and lost miserably. It killed their people, depleted the supplies they had, and it wasn't worth it. But this was different, and human spies reported all the kingdoms were in consideration.
Luxa snapped out of her daydream as the spinner jumped on her.
The mandibles were coming down and Luxa saw no way out.
Suddenly, an arrow flew through the spinners back. Vikus stood above her, bow in hand. He had made a miraculous recovery, or as Howard said, but Luxa had seen his left side go slack.
"Let us flee!"yelled Vikus.
Twenty cutters surrounded them and they immediately went to work. Luxa watched her sword cutting them open. She had however seen Gregor fight and he was more fluent with where to strike.
Suddenly, a large cutter charged at Luxa. She found her sword had been forced out of her hands. Vikus was about to fire when a man came flying down from a roof, slashing open a spinner on the way down. He had two swords, and used the first to kill the cutter, and second to attack a spinner coming up behind Luxa.
Nathan.
"Move! Move! Move!" shouted Nathan.
Nathan was a rager from the Fount who was visiting Regalia when the first spinner attack happened. He'd been the last human fighting, until he jumped on the platform and was carried to the palace.
Nathan continued running, but would periodically stop to turn a cutter or spinner into ribbons. It was horrible, bloody, and as Nathan put it, wonderful fun.
They were just passing a street coming from the arena when a dozen hissers burst through the doors.
"Please tell me they're on our side," Nathan moaned.
"They aren't," Luxa gasped, "we never made a treaty with Lord Fang-Fang".
The hissers began smashing down buildings, they're tails moved in a dance-like fashion.
Nathans eye's glittered and he pulled out his two swords.
"You guys can go on, I'll catch up," Nathan grinned. And so laughing like a maniac he charged fifty hissers.
They ran back to the palace to deliver news of were the hissers stood. A large gray rat ran up beside them. Two scars formed an X on his hard face.
"Ripred," Luxa muttered.
"Oh, is that anyway to treat your bond," Ripred sneered.
They ran on.
They ran until they got to the palace and as they arrived, the most awful thing happened.
Spinners dropped into the High Hall.
Luxa screamed, "NO!" at the top of her lungs.
Hazard was inside.