Echodactyl swoops low over the frenzied demons, keeping close to the tops of the buildings to conceal her outline from any of the enemy.

The organized group moves through the chaotic demons. A dozen armored forms form a perimeter, holding large standards, gleaming white even in the rain with three blue swords crossed — the ancient sigil for the country of Gilead. The four-limbed vaguely female demons writhe and caper, attempting to run their bloody claws against the white banners, but they are ruthlessly crushed and pushed out of the way by the Hell Knights, their gleaming silver armor a cruel mockery of the noble Gilean paladins of old. Orange light pours from their helms, pulsing from fiendish orbs.

In the center of their column walks a grander horror. A white spider, massive and elegant – it’s legs arced and slender — longer in proportion than any mortal arachnid, click and clack down the city street, as careful and dainty as a maid with her master’s porcelain tea set. Every few hundred paces, the spider stops and two knights rush into the throng of demons , pulling gibbets of human flesh from their jaws — half butchered corpses, and to Echodactyl’s revulsion, still living citizens of Pice. All screaming and wriggling, stuffed into the massive creature’s gut.

Her flying arc takes Echo around the back of the devil column, and the backside of the vast arachnid. Her double-lidded eyes blink, and she stares at the bulbous sac rippling underneath the creature’s abdomen. Her lack of familiarity with land creatures gave her a moment’s hope, but with a sinking sensation she realized she knows exactly what she was looking at.

An egg sac. Full to bursting with the white spider’s young.