The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

Later, it would hurt. A claw dug at him, trying to find the leverage to cut, and Marcus jumped back. The blood-slicked blade slipped from his fingers.
    For a moment, they stood, facing each other. The beast curled against itself like a runner protecting a stitch. Marcus stayed low, feet grounded and knees bent, ready to jump away. Blood poured from the animal’s belly. It roared, snapping at the air, but it came no closer. Its eyes fixed on Marcus, then glazed and fixed on him again. Blood poured into Marcus’s ear and down his neck. Long ropes of saliva draped down from the animal’s panting jaw. Flies were already buzzing around them, drawn by the smells of violence and death.
    The beast coughed once, and then a sudden gout of blood shot out from its mouth and nostrils, bright red against the black muzzle. It slipped to the ground, folding its legs underneath it as if merely resting, and its dark eyes closed. Marcus took a long, shuddering breath.
    “Well,” he gasped. “Hope those don’t travel in packs.”
    Kit stood at the far side of the clearing, his walking stick held above him like a club, his face pale and his hair standing out from his head in all directions. Marcus’s legs began to shake, and he sat down. He’d been in the business of violence long enough to know how this would go. A half hour’s time and he’d be fine, but until then trying to will himself to normalcy only made it worse. He touched his wounded ear. The rip was rough at the edges and as long as the first joint of his thumb. He was lucky it hadn’t gotten more than a single tooth to bear, or the beast might have torn the whole damn thing off. The flies buzzed around him, sliding in to drink up the gore.
    “Are you all right?” Kit asked.
    “Had better days,” Marcus said. “Had worse, for that. If you’ve still got that salve in your pack, I’d take a couple fingers’ worth.”
    Kit hurried back into the trees and returned with the pale leather pack, one of the few objects that hadn’t yet rotted in the jungle. Marcus opened the stone jar and scooped a double finger through the yellow-white salve. It burned like fire when it touched the wound, but it would keep the maggots out.
    For weeks, they had battled the land, following animal trails that widened for a hundred feet and then vanished as if they’d never been, avoiding Southling hunters who haunted the nights, and spending as much time scraping for food and water as searching for the reliquary. Kit’s face had lost all its cushion, the skin growing gaunt against the bone. Marcus was fairly sure he’d lost a tenth of his own body’s weight, and he still had a bit of potbelly. The indignities of not dying young.
    “I believe I’ve heard of these,” Kit said, staring at the animal. “Kaskimar, they’re called where I came from, but … they were much smaller.”
    The actor reached out with his walking stick to prod the corpse.
    “Don’t touch it,” Marcus said, a breath too late.
    The black eyes clicked open and a paw lashed out. The walking stick flew out of Kit’s hand, cracking against a tree trunk. Kit fell back with a curse, and the beast closed its eyes again.
    “Sorry,” Marcus said. “Should have said before. Did it get you?”
    “I’m afraid so,” Kit said ruefully. “I may need needle and thread.”
    “That deep?” Marcus said, levering himself to his feet. “Let me see—”
    “No,” Kit said sharply. “Stay back. It isn’t safe. Just throw me the pack and then get away.”
    “Get away?”
    Kit nodded, licked his lips, and winced. Marcus thought he saw something tiny and black skitter across Kit’s arm, and his flesh crawled a little.
    “It’s the spiders,” Kit said. “There’s too many of them to keep track of. It won’t be safe for you.”
    Marcus tossed the pack to Kit’s side and made his way to the other side of the dying beast. The shaking was already less. Kit grunted in pain and started pulling their few supplies out and onto the ground before him.
    “How bad are the bites from those things?” Marcus asked
    “Hmm? Oh. They raise welts. Itch for a few days.”
    The beast took a deep, shuddering breath and didn’t draw another. In a few minutes, Marcus guessed, it would be safe to retrieve his sword.
    “Hardly seems fair that they bite you,” Marcus said. “Disloyal, somehow.”
    “I don’t believe they know who I am. What I am, for that. I doubt they have minds themselves, even so much as a normal spider