I was panting. Out of breath, I nearly ran headfirst into the wall as I pivoted sharply and jumped into a new corridor.
It was dark. The glow of crystals was non-existent, and I hid behind a protruding rock. Covering my mouth with both hands, I tried to muffle the sound of my panting.
It was right behind me.
I strained my ears. Thud… thud… thud. Its massive paws echoed closer, each impact vibrating through the stone like a clap of thunder. I knew it could see better than me in the dark, of course, but maybe, just maybe, it would go for the other guy. He had been bigger, slower. Easier prey.
All of a sudden, the corridor was lit up with the glow of a crystal, except this crystal wasn't in the walls, but instead moving. A man held it, a stick in hand, topped with the crystal.
He was tall. That was the first thing I noticed as I tried to make myself seem small, squeezing further down into the nook, and trying not to be noticed.
His lean, muscled body was cloaked in dark colours that blended with the shadows. He stepped from an opening I hadn't even noticed. Instead of running away from the screams and shrieks behind us, he calmly let the glowing crystal stick drop from his fingers, its light now flashing across the stone floor, casting weird elongated shadows across his face. My heart beat sped up again.
"Hold onto my flashlight, would you," he said. The word meant nothing to me, but the glowing stick still hummed faintly in my palm.
Then, he moved.
Like an uncoiled spring, he launched himself out of the narrow passage with a massive jump and into the yawning cavern above. I watched his legs bunch, the muscles straining, before he soared upward in a single, powerful lunge. A flash of steel caught the faint light.
The tiger-spider burst into view an instant later, its eight legs hairy, striped carapace glistening, mandibles dripping venom. Its roar was part feline snarl, part insect screech, loud enough to rattle my teeth.
The man didn't flinch.
He met the monster head-on, his blade driving between its first and second legs with surgical precision. The beast screamed, thrashing, slamming its bulk against the cavern wall. Venomous fangs snapped at him, fangs longer than his forearm, but he moved like water.
He dropped low, rolling beneath the strike, dirt spraying up as his body skimmed the ground. Using the momentum, he twisted, rose, and made a brutal, upward sweep of his weapon.
Shhk!
The steel bit deep.
The tiger-spider's head separated in a spray of red. Its body convulsed once, twice, then collapsed with a thunderous crash that shook dust loose from the ceiling.
I realized my mouth was hanging open.
He was half its size; outnumbered by its limbs but twice as determined, and obviously, terrifyingly, skilled.
The man's head popped back into view, "Come on out, it's dead. Are you hungry? I'm starved, myself." I blinked. My mind struggled to catch up. As he walked away, I thought I heard him mutter, "Man, I could really go for some samosas right about now..." By the time I defrosted enough to respond, he had already moved back into the chamber.
"Are you coming?" his voice was faint, as if he were in the other corner of the cavern. I quickly scrambled up, grabbing the crystal stick and rushing after this strange form of nature, his pulse pounding in his ears again, but out of excitement this time.
My heartbeat sped as I finally caught up with the man again. "Wh-Who are you?" slipped out, unbidden.
The man looked up from where he was doing something to the carcass of the tiger-spider. He grinned, genial and unbothered, "I'm Jahangir."
To be continued...