The Spider centaur collapsed into the sand.
Its body dissolved into motes of pale light. Its four broken blades lay scattered across the ground. Its eight legs twitched once, twice, and then went still. The silver forest around them was wrecked trees shattered, webs torn, the ground gouged by the creature's final charge.
Goliath stood at the center of the destruction. His chest was heaving. His blade was chipped and dull. Blood ran down his arm from a wound on his shoulder. He didn't wipe it away.
"Report."
"Two dead." The answer came quiet, reluctant. "Orin... and Sela."
Goliath didn't react. He just stared at the bodies. Orin had been impaled by one of the centaur's blades. It had gone through his chest and out his back. He had died before he hit the ground. Sela had been caught in a web and crushed when a tree collapsed on top of her. They had heard her scream. Then they hadn't heard anything at all.
"That's eight now," Rell said quietly. "Eight of us. Since we started."
