Hugo & Rose by Bridget Foley Page A

into the air. It was a large one, even by the standards of the island, its thorax hovering ten feet above the ground.
    â€œRose!” Hugo was still moving, making the best of his head start, but his neck was turned toward the monster behind the oncoming horde. He needed her to know of the real danger.
    She knew.
    The Bucks were gaining on her, their panic rising now the hunter was in the open.
    Rose angled closer to the blades of grass, reaching out toward them. Every step that didn’t push her farther away from the Bucks and their clamoring hooves and their clattering racks was a risk. But she needed a weapon.
    The first two plants slid from her grasp. She was moving too fast to catch hold. But she was able to wrap her palm around the third, using the momentum from her body to pull it from the ground.
    In her hand the blade transformed, growing a handle to fit her grip, pulling into itself, its sides sharpening. A sword. As strong as steel, but still as green as the plant it had come from.
    She had what she needed, but they were running out of space. Up ahead the saw grass gave way to a rocky outcropping … the herd was going to get pushed onto the beach.
    It was then that they overtook her.
    She was lucky she wasn’t speared in those first moments. The lead Bucks were less close together than their brothers farther back. Rose pulled as close as she could to the body of the nearest animal, her free hand trying to catch hold of the lowest prong of its antlers. Maybe if she could swing onto its back …
    Behind her and yet somehow above came an inhuman scream. The Spider had plucked one of the animals from the rear of the herd, seizing it with its enormous palpae. Rose turned her head in time to see the Buck’s spine crunch between the monster’s dark mandibles. The Buck screamed again before folding in half and slipping farther into the Spider’s maw.
    The herd turned onto the beach. Rose tried to keep apace, but she had two legs to their four. Ahead of her the end of a Buck’s antler caught the eye of a second, blinding it. The creature tumbled, its front legs folding.
    Rose leaped over its body just in time to miss the second animal that collided with it.
    Where was Hugo?
    The sword felt sweaty, slippery in her hand. Her thighs burned. She could barely breathe.
    Where was he?
    Movement to her right. A dark shape. Brown hair studded with sand. Striking from above.
    Rose veered left and the Spider’s palpae seized the Buck next to her, yanking it from the ground. She looked up; its hooves tread air, still running, going nowhere but into the beast’s mouth. A spray of blood hit the back of her neck as the Spider consumed its latest morsel.
    Where the hell was Hugo?
    A stream of sunlight bored a hole through the clouds. It threaded through the air, making its way to the surface of the island. The thread grew, prying the clouds from the sun, until the whole of the far end of the beach was alight with a magic shimmer.
    There he was. Standing in the shadow, watching the edge of the newly glowing sand. His face was calm. Waiting.
    Behind him the line of sunlight raced forward, moving toward Hugo and the galloping herd.
    He turned as beams struck the sand just inches from his feet and began running toward Rose. The vanguard of a pure line of light.
    The Spider was now among them, keeping pace above the charging Bucks. Rose looked up. Its abdomen loomed above her, its pelt sticky with gore and sand. A metatarsus pierced through the air, punching the ground next to Rose. Large hairs jutted from the shell of its mottled leg.
    Rose hacked at it with the blade, piercing its carapace. There was a wet snap as the sword cracked into its exoskeleton, a brittle break into the meat of its leg.
    The Spider reared up with a shriek, its lower abdomen dropping, knocking the bodies of the Bucks in its path forward. The deer, wild-eyed, broke through its legs, scattering onto the beach.
    Rose pulled on