The ball of water spat forth with the roar of a great waterfall and crashed against the mist spinner nearest to her. The sheer force of the water drove it into the shattered ground. Most of its body was crushed and splattered across the landscape before it could make a sound, and Johnathan dashed towards his rams, Dolly following closely after. Only a handful of minutes  had passed since the initial ambush, and his rams were already halfway covered in webs.

The nine remaining spinners split up their remaining forces — five darting through the grass towards Aethel, and four towards Johnathan and Dolly.

Aethel swung her wand around, bringing the still flowing torrent towards the one that closed in the quickest. The cascade tore through half of its body before it slowed to a drizzle. The creature screeched in pain, and attempted to build enough of the mana freely flowing out of its body in the green-blue blood that smeared the grass and shattered earth to form a web in its spinneret, before it died; rolling to a stop at the outer circumference of the dried out circle around the diminutive mage. Aethel dove out of the way and into a patch of still living grass as another leapt through the air towards her head. Its pincers closed in the air where her neck had been. Another leapt for her through the cover of the grass. She jabbed towards it with her wand causing the water that had been stuck inside of the earth beneath and the grass all around her to tear free in a small wave of boiling water that crashed against it. The spinner reeled from the sudden heat and screamed in pain, writing around on the ground in an attempt to dry the boiled water from its back. Aethel was quick to finish it off by drawing a crude iron dagger tucked in the back of her trousers which had been hidden until then by her bellowing cloak, as hard as she could into the creature's head.

“Three left.” She whistled a whisper, her shoulders heaving and sweat already beginning to pour down her forehead.

She rolled out of the dried patch of ground and into the grass once more as two webs clashed in the air where she had just been — one fired from the dried circle of grass, and the other from one of the other two that she couldn't see through the thick camoflauge of the silky mists, and the towering grass. The third spider skittered quickly through the grass where she had landed as if it was somehow expecting her to choose that specific patch of grass, and snapped towards her with its two long pincers. 

Aethel attempted to spring back in order to avoid the attack, but those pincers were quicker — clamping down on her right,  taloned foot. She squealed in pain as the pincers squeezed. Her other foot swung around to bring her remaining talons to bear. Those four sharp, black points dug into the exoskeleton wherever they landed during her wild kicking — one even gouging out a few of the spider's beady black eyes; though even that wasn't enough to stop it. The spinner's jaws squeezed down again. A pained chirp formed in her chest and she aimed the wand at the spider. The other two begun their final attack on her, sprinting through the grass towards the wounded fae. This was it. She had to do something or she would die. 

A ball of water formed beneath the spinner that had clamped onto her foot. She willed the mana she poured into it to spin; much like she had seen Johnathan do with the wind when they first met on the hill. The colorless, steaming ball slowly began to whirl in place in the shadow beneath the creature and she felt one of the talons that the spinner had between its pincers snap. It would have to be enough. The other two were closing in. She pointed the wand towards the closest one charging in from the dried circle of grass.

The whirling ball of water blasted forth from beneath the spinner clamped onto her foot; ripping off the creature's legs as it broke free from underneath it. It screamed in pain and Aethel kicked forth once again with her other foot, aiming squarely at the creatures head and finally freeing herself from it's grasp as the four talons on her free foot wrapped around one of the pincers, and cut through it like knife through the belly of a fish. 

The ball zipped through the grass, and, before the charging mist spinner could react, slammed into it. The creature was caught in the spinning ball's vortex; looking much like a leaf caught in a whirlpool in a draining lake, the spinning, whirling ball dragged the creature through the air and continued onward in a perfectly straight line; crushing the life out of it within its torrential currents. It would eventually stop somewhere beyond the web-formed mist; depositing the broken, spun corpse of the spider in front of a confused and concerned Arthur.

The last one pointed its spinneret towards her, but she was able to duck low enough for the spun web to zip in the the air overhead. One of the benefits of being short, she thought disdainfully. The movement, however, sent a wave of sharp pain up her wounded right leg. There was definitely  abroken bone somewhere in there. She jabbed the wand forward, but nothing happened. Her mana had been spent. She spat and cursed and readied herself.

 The spinners were predictable at that point, and she was ready for its leaping attack, ducking beneath its snapping pincer, and rolling against the ground in way that positioned herself directly underneath. She kicked out with her good leg upwards towards the center of its thorax, simutaneously she grabbed hold of the creature's two forelegs and held it in place above her. Fruitlessly, it tried to gather its spent mana to form another web to shoot down at her as it thrashed around in the air above the fae-kin; its thick legs leaving bruises wherever they connected across her body. Still, she held fast. 

Her talons scraped and scratched against the hard black carapace until they found the joint connecting the mist spinner's thorax to its abdomen. Her two front talons dug into the grooved joint, and she pushed the back two talons into the softer carapace near the spinneret. She pulled the two forelegs towards her head and pushed her leg downward at the same time. With a loud, snapping, pop the two sections of the mist spinner tore, and a wave of blue-green spider gore fell onto her as the creature squealed in pain and writhed on the ground. She wouldn't let it get too far away. Insects of all stripes were resilient and could continue living long after something like that happened. She knew this.  Aethel pushed herself off the ground with her good leg and threw herself down onto the spider's moving upper half, her elbow pointed and positioned right at its head. With a loud squelch, the mist spinner finally stopped moving. 

All five were dead. She had won. Aethel fell off the spider's upper half and rolled over to lay in the grass out of the spider gore. Her chest rose and fell as she released the breath she wasn't even aware she had been holding. It had taken under a minute for the fight to end, and less than a second to decide that she had to go help the kind shepherd deal with the four after him. Seeing him succumb to their attacks would leave a bad taste in her mouth, and the very thought sent fear coursing through her heart.