The spiders swarmed up the stilts, their pale bodies glinting like polished bone in the firelight. I counted at least thirty before giving up—there were too many moving too fast.
"Fuck me," I muttered, scrambling to my feet.
Laina was already firing, her bow singing as arrows punched through the first wave of spiders. But for every one she killed, three more skittered up to take its place.
"They're drawn to the fire," Joran said as he kicked one spider off the platform's edge. "Marsh spiders hunt by heat."
My hands throbbed as I summoned the twin daggers. This time, I was ready for the surge of energy—the scorching heat from Heartseeker, the biting cold from Frostbite. I channeled the pain, used it to focus my mind rather than cloud it.
"Laina, the north side!" I called, moving to the southern edge of the platform.
The first spider reached the railing near me, its segmented legs clawing at the wood. I drove Frostbite down, pinning it in place. The creature made a high-pitched keening sound, legs thrashing wildly. Up close, I could see its face—if you could call it that. No visible eyes, just a cluster of sensing organs and a mouth full of needle-like teeth.
My stomach lurched, but I kept moving. Three more spiders crested the edge. I swept Heartseeker in a low arc, slicing through their front legs. They fell back, chittering in pain.
"They're coming up the eastern edge too!" Joran shouted, throwing something that exploded in a flash of blinding light. Several spiders dropped from the stilts, falling into the dark water below.
More phosphorus powder. Limited supply. I filed that information away.
Laina had abandoned her bow for a hunting knife. She stabbed downward, each motion precise, wasting no energy. "We need to move the fire!" she called, her violet eyes reflecting the flames. "It's drawing them straight to us!"
She was right, but moving our only heat source in this freezing marsh seemed like trading one death for another. I needed a plan. Fast.
A spider lunged at my face. I ducked, feeling its legs brush through my hair. Heartseeker flashed upward, the blade slicing the creature in half. Its innards splattered across my coat—not blood, but something milky and viscous that hissed where it touched the fabric.
"Acid," I gasped, shrugging off my coat before the substance could eat through to my skin. "Their blood is acidic!"
"Of course it is," Joran muttered, stamping on a spider that had made it onto the platform. The creature burst beneath his boot, splashing more of the caustic fluid across the wood. It began to smoke immediately. "Because why would anything in this cursed place be simple?"
I glanced at the platform beneath us. Already, spots were beginning to weaken where the spider blood had landed. If enough of it accumulated...
"We can't stay here," I said, kicking another spider back into the darkness. "The platform won't hold."
Laina grunted as she dispatched two more spiders with quick, efficient stabs. "And where exactly do you suggest we go? In case you haven't noticed, we're surrounded by freezing water and thin ice."
She was right. Again. We were trapped—the platform our only refuge in a sea of hostile marsh. But if we stayed, we'd either be overwhelmed by spiders or the platform would collapse beneath us.
Unless...
My eyes locked on the stilts supporting our platform. Four main posts, each about eight inches thick. Sturdy enough to hold the platform and three adults, but not so sturdy that they couldn't be...
"We need to break the stilts," I said, already moving toward the nearest one. "On my mark, we tip the platform."
"Are you insane?" Laina's voice rose an octave, though her hands never stopped working. Another spider fell to her blade. "That's suicide!"
"So is staying here," I countered, driving Frostbite into the wooden stilt. The blade sank deep, frost spreading from the point of impact. The wood creaked as ice formed within its fibers, expanding, weakening the structure. "Joran, the northwest post. Laina, northeast."
Joran hesitated only a moment before nodding. "Better to choose our death than have it chosen for us." He moved to his assigned post, pulling a small hatchet from his belt.
Laina cursed in what sounded like three different languages, but followed suit, attacking her post with her hunting knife.
I worked Frostbite deeper into the wood, letting the blade's cold energy do most of the work. The stilt groaned as ice crystals spread through it like disease through a vein. Spiders continued to swarm, but fewer made it to my section of the platform now that I'd moved away from the edge.
"Almost there," I called, watching the frost patterns spread. The wood had turned brittle, hairline fractures spreading across its surface. "Joran?"
"Almost ready."
"Laina?"
She didn't answer immediately, too busy fending off a fresh wave of spiders with one hand while sawing at the post with the other. "Working on it," she finally growled.
I pulled Frostbite free and attacked my stilt with Heartseeker, the heated blade melting through the frozen wood like it was butter. The structure groaned ominously.
"Hurry!" I urged, sensing the platform's growing instability.
More spiders reached the platform's edge, a seething mass of pale legs and chittering mouthparts. The air filled with their alien clicking sounds, setting my teeth on edge.
"Got it!" Laina shouted, her knife finally breaking through her post.
"Joran?"
"Almost—there!" His hatchet bit through the last fibers of wood, the post now holding on by splinters.
"When I say jump," I instructed, working Heartseeker through the final inches of my stilt, "we all move to the northeast corner. The platform will tip toward the southwest, into the deeper water."
"And then what?" Laina demanded, dispatching another spider with a vicious stab.
"Then we swim," I said simply, meeting her violet eyes across the platform. "Unless you've got a better idea?"
She didn't, and she knew it. The look she gave me promised retribution if we survived this, but she nodded.
"On my mark," I said, feeling the platform shift slightly as my stilt weakened. "Three... two... one... JUMP!"
We all lunged for the northeast corner. The platform immediately tilted, slowly at first, then faster as the weakened stilts gave way. Spiders slid across the wooden surface, their legs scrabbling for purchase. The fire spilled, embers scattering across the platform and igniting small blazes where they landed.
For a moment, we hung suspended as the platform tipped toward the vertical. My stomach lurched with the sudden drop. Then gravity took over, and we were falling.
I hit the water with a shock that stole the breath from my lungs. Cold beyond imagining, it pierced through my layers like thousands of needles. The marsh water closed over my head, dark and thick with silt. I fought the instinct to gasp, kicking hard toward where I thought the surface should be.
My head broke water and I sucked in a desperate breath. All around me, the broken pieces of the platform floated like bizarre rafts. Spiders thrashed in the water, their movements growing sluggish in the cold.
"Laina!" I called, spinning in place. "Joran!"
"Here!" Laina's voice came from a few yards away. She clung to a large section of the platform, her black hair plastered to her face. "Joran's with me!"
I swam toward them, each stroke agony in the freezing water. My hands, already injured, screamed in protest. Heartseeker and Frostbite had vanished when I hit the water, returning to whatever space they occupied when not in use.
"We need to get out of this water," Joran said through chattering teeth as I reached them. Blood streaked his face from a cut above his eyebrow. "Hypothermia will kill us in minutes."
"There," I gasped, pointing to a darker mass in the gloom. "Land, maybe?"
Without waiting for agreement, I began swimming toward it, pulling the floating piece of platform with me. Laina and Joran followed, all of us moving with the desperate energy of the nearly drowned.
The mass resolved into a small islet as we approached—barely more than a hummock rising from the marsh, but solid ground nonetheless. We dragged ourselves onto it, collapsing in a heap of sodden clothing and exhausted limbs.
"We need a fire," Joran managed through rattling teeth. "Now."
I nodded, too cold to speak. My fingers had gone numb, useless claws at the ends of my arms. The cold had seeped into my bones, making every movement an exercise in torture.
Laina rolled onto her hands and knees, crawling toward a patch of reeds at the islet's edge. "Dry material," she explained, her voice barely audible over the chattering of her teeth. "Might burn."
Joran produced a small tinderbox from an inner pocket of his coat, miraculously still dry. His fingers fumbled with the clasp, too numb to work properly.
"Let me," I said, taking it from him. My own hands weren't much better, but the task gave me something to focus on besides the cold eating into my flesh.
While Laina gathered reeds and what looked like dried moss, I worked on coaxing a spark from the tinderbox. It took three tries before a tiny flame caught in the prepared tinder. I nursed it carefully, shielding the fragile heat from the damp air.
Laina arranged her gathered materials around the spark, building a small, careful structure. The reeds caught first, then the moss, sending up a thin column of smoke before bursting into proper flame.
"More fuel," Joran croaked, stripping off his outer layers. "We need to dry these."
We worked in silence, feeding the tiny fire and arranging our soaked clothing nearby. The heat was pitiful compared to what we needed, but it was something—a kernel of warmth in the vast, cold darkness of the marsh.
As feeling returned to my extremities, so did pain. My hands throbbed mercilessly, the bandages now sodden and useless. I peeled them off carefully, revealing angry red flesh beneath.
"Those need cleaning again," Laina said, her voice steadier now though still tight with cold.
"Later," I replied, flexing my fingers experimentally. "First we need to survive the night."
Joran had moved to the edge of our tiny island, scanning the darkness. "The spiders won't follow us here. They can't swim. But there are other things in the marsh that can."
"Of course there are," I muttered, staring into our meager fire. The flames danced weakly, barely generating enough heat to keep us from freezing. Our supplies were gone, our weapons reduced to whatever we'd managed to keep on our persons, and we were stranded on a tiny patch of solid ground in the middle of one of the most dangerous places in Frostfall.
And somewhere in the darkness around us, something large moved through the water, sending ripples across the surface.