Regulate breathing. Do not let joints stiffen. Run. Stand. Training and experience battled natural reaction, as it always did on the hunt. This was not a hunt. Eighteen against a chaerilite was not a fight, it was a slaughter. Stand and lead. Lead the colony away. The area was saturated with their scent trails and markers, and the scout’s panic had caused others around her to join in the alarm. If it did not know they were present already, it would in a matter of beats. Then, it would be them who were hunted. Tracked. Trails followed, snatched and cut one after the other, while that voided tail bit into any who approached. How many mistakes could she waive as accidents? How long could she believe in the truth of her sanity? What had she done. What had she done.

“Do not engage.” An unnecessary order. Most had gone still enough to convince the Queen they had fallen to torpor. “Thinker. Options.”

“Sing withdrawal to the creatures. Have them kill the beast themselves.”

“It will be a failure of their test. We signalled strength and confidence. We signalled power. It will be weakness. It will hurt us.” The thinker was stilled, every ounce of his energy devoted to his thoughts. Retaining his position, there was no chance of blending color into the glowing white and grey pillars for her scout. He lowered his body, trying to minimize his outline. Chaerilites had poor eyesight, poorer than most drones, but once they were detected there would be no further chance for planning. Every beat was precious.

“Potential annihilation of our people against definite annihilation of ourselves. It will be more harmful to remove us from the song, now, and to deny further work with the creatures. Surrender is the best option. Explain confusion. Ask forgivingness.”

“Mender.” Stupid. Stupid. The loping limbs of the mender reached to touch her, and Skthveraach clasped them close. “Its toxins?”

“Adolescent or adult. Venom is venom. One sting will kill if it releases.” You did not fight chaerilites with eighteen. You did not fight chaerilites with forty. “It may not inject venom if it does not feel desperate. Two stings then to kill. Maybe. Yes. Three. Depends.”

“It will not matter.” His one arm scratched and drew on the floor, designs and patterns as his mind was taxed to its limit. “We have eighteen. Four will die to occupy its tail, head and claws. Three more during the struggle at least. Eight to hold it down. One left to deliver blows, at best. If that one falls, we will need release legs to attack its vents. Hope that it suffocates before it kills the rest of us.” A single error would bring death. A single mistake would see most dead. They were not cohesive, and their fear made song a muddy slog. It was muddled without their fear to begin with. Perfect cooperation was almost impossible. Almost impossible. Almost impossible.

“Confirm previous logic.” The thinker hesitated. She clenched every muscle she had, flexing against her exoskeleton and feeling the tightness in her core. He dithered. She saw him try to recalculate. No individual was above the collective, no single was beyond the many. Why did it crawl behind her eyes, the way he tried to avoid the conclusion she knew he, as the Queen had, just reached.

“Potential annihilation of our people against definite annihilation of ourselves.”

“Reassess if our deaths are not definite.”

“Potential annihilation of our people against probable annihilation of ourselves. Restating last. Gains of remaining alive and assisting the creatures are vital.”

“Accuracy.” The contention of the word was all but smothered under the fear clinging to the notes of the scout’s music. He had not turned, and did all he could to ensure the vibrations would not travel to alert the monster of their presence, yet his thoughts traveled down and stood before the thinker. A sprig in the whipperwinds, rooted only by will. “Speed. Success. All other concerns… secondary.”

“Accuracy and speed. Success. All other concerns secondary.” The delver clenched his forelimbs together, head turned low, and the subtle sonnet he murmured was a memory of measures spent in the embrace of the deepest caverns.

“Accuracy and speed. Success. Queen will die, then we will die. Expected.” Dropping her leg from the Queen, mender’s graspers were split with as she began to regurgitate stored mass. Puking away the nutrition to leave the sticky adhesive residue, balling and preparing it into clots which were stored up near her vents to keep moist.

“Protect the Queen! Queen protected! Protect the Queen!” Attendants together were clutching so tightly that neither had noticed the cracks on their bodies begin to fracture once more. Sealant that had bound straining against the contact of bodies. Probable death. Probable failure. Almost impossible. Almost.

Drones bowed heads as they recalled the stories of their colonies. She did not begrudge the disparate noise of individuals and small groups chanting tales she had never heard. The spitter uttered no noise, joined no chorus, and merely sat folded in expectation of the inevitable. When she finally let all four of her eyes meet with the thinker, that raking in her gut had not ceased. A thinker who fled nest when danger approached. A thinker who pursued his own survival after Queen was killed. Yes. In that moment of indecision before his response, Skthveraach decided there was something wrong with her thinker. His antennae folded.

“I will ready the priority listing, War Queen.”

“Hhahtheehn Queen.” Lowering her pace, she raised volume only enough to differentiate her song from the clamor around her. “There is no concern. The chaerilite will be killed. Assistance will be provided.” She cut herself short as a ‘received’ was uttered from the Band. Eighteen bodies. Eighteen sets of mandibles and legs. Eighteen voices in dubious unity. Eighteen…

From near eighteen different colonies.

“Continue preparations of role. Mender, thinker, scout. All unassigned to consider themselves raiders. How many colonies present have encountered a chaerilite?” A flash of trembling bodies displayed confusion. She clicked her mandibles together, then again. “Scout, update.”

“It has our scent trails. Thirty lengths, walking parallel to us. Struggling through some of the pillars.”

“Repeating last. How many colonies present have encountered a chaerilite? How many here, before you were Skthveraach, have fought one?” Thirty lengths was nothing. It had no clear path in the maze of towers and false hills, but if it heard them, it would come. Black as fade. Curved like a hook and scythe made one. A drone timidly rubbed hairs to its sibling.

“Ckhehnvraahll-Colony killed one during foraging.”

“How?”

“We-, they, followed the stories. Obeyed the lessons.” There was no time for coyness and even less for hesitation. As drone faltered, she made command of rudest color and sharpest edge.

“Repeat last.”

“They followed the stories and obeyed the lessons.” The drone recoiled as though it had been stabbed clean through. She allocated sympathy to be expressed if they both survived. “Eight were killed while foraging. Alarm was sounded. Menials surrounded and swarmed. Two to each leg, five on tail, four to each pincer. Pulled, while others tore into its back. Twenty-seven killed before it was silenced.”

“The same for Ghescktyeelh.” That was not her scout. One of the menials? A smaller brown male, his legs squat and gaster unattractively shriveled. Ah. Her memories flashed as the information resurfaced. He had said there was another from his colony, when she had queried. “Twelve killed while foraging, twenty more during the battle. Swarm and surround. Immobilize, and silence. As the Founders did, Once and Again.”

“Once and Again.” The echo was instant and spoken by all without hesitation. Skthveraach bent her antennae skyward, then resumed her questioning. She had fought as this, as before, and watched her children die as this. If they had fifty, they could afford to cast down half that number. They did not have twenty. “Any others? Are there any others?”

“Khchechteeyh-Colony has never fought a chaerilite.” A ripple passed through the bodies assembled. It was not information. It was absence of information. Sensing the disquiet, the Queen herself tapping scythes together without comprehension, the drone continued in a rush. “Khchechteeyh-Colony has never fought a chaerilite. One was encountered by a scouting column, in the talltrunk forests. Nine were killed. The tenth returned to the nest.”

“The tenth escaped?”

“Confirmed.”

“Twenty-eight lengths. It has picked up our recent trails. It moves this way.” The scout above her was wrapped as though glued to his pillar. The drone squirted a dollop of alarm to the flooring, and Skthveraach grabbed a claw to the curve of his carapace to steady him. Focus. Focus.

“They attempted to fight. Six died. Four turned to flee. Three died. It chased the last scout, but it could not reach him.”

“Chaerilites can outrun drones, even scouts.” The thinker bit the interjection into the drone, but it did not rescind.

“He did not outrun it. It had killed the last, and was five lengths from him. Trees shook. Ground quaked. An arch of wood before him. He dived beneath, and the beast struck it head-on. He ran, and he ran. It did not follow, and stayed to feast on the biomass.” Skthveraach processed, breath short and baited still after the bars of running and climbing. They were not at their best, not by fair. But the beast had poor eyesight. It attacked the sound and clamor of their songs. The movement of their bodies. And this was a garden of rocks in their obstinate protrusions. Almost impossible. Almost.

“Immobilize. Deal with tail. Lock down. Silence. Thinker, listen full. Select most nonvital of-“

“It comes.”

It was more warning than most received, when facing these monsters. Three beats. She had three beats to draw the plan for the thinker, three meager beats to cram the fullness of her intent onto the single forelimb of the male she was no longer certain was found unfrenzied by these creatures. Until the shattering was heard, until the bodies around her leapt up from the impact of legs on hardstone ground, she signed and she sung. Not until twelve glistening eyes burst from around pillar did she pull away. Until the jaws with barbs tearing and sodden with spittle were wide and before her did she let contact break. Queens gazed downward on their people, it was the nature of their stature and size amongst menials, drones and soldiers half their mass. It was a rare thing to meet another whom they could watch eyes to eyes, legs to legs, cores bared. Skthveraach reared onto her back four limbs as scythes were thrown out to either side, and her neck craned backwards to watch as the hooked end of bulbous tail descended with the weight of the end on her.

“RETREAT! DISPERSE! LOCATE PILLAR! RETREAT! DISPERSE! LOCATE PILLAR!” Blade met barb. Color was lost from the world as she felt the impact tear through her. It took everything not to release her danger and fear signals, signals which would compel her colony to her aid. She needed them elsewhere. A droplet of venom the size of her claws fell against her body as she strained under the thrust of the chaerilite’s tail, scythes crossed to hold back the thrust trying to puncture her through. All she had was spent keeping back that tail. So, there was nothing left to give when it yanked back the stinger, and brought pincer about to slam against her.

The Queen could see the scattering of bodies as they broke and ran while she sailed off her claws and hurtled through empty air. Panic, but with purpose; her distraction had bought precious moments. They spread away from the clearing, using whatever tower or low rump in the landscape to break sight with the beast. Any death here was a loss. A waste. It would not even serve to slow it down, now when so much more food was present. She saw them run, and she saw the thinker repeating out her gestures to the next in line. Them, to the next. She tasted the terror in the wind she made rush past her, unsure if it was of her own glands or another’s, while pulling her legs inward to try and spin her momentum. Success, but only partial. She heard the crack as her unarmored body impacted one of the towers, and oh how she felt blood bubble up from the ruptures newly formed in her carapace. Leaking down to the floor, stringing along her legs. Two breaths. Lungs were fine. Vision blurry from the concussive force, it would return. Weight imbalanced; one of her left legs had struck wrong when she fell and would not bend. She rolled her weight back onto it, another crunch wetly emitting as the impacted chitin broke and permitted her free movement again. Pain. Wounded. Screaming later. She needed her air.

“Unnecessary! Proceed! All is controlled and well!” She really was frenzied. It was a wrongness, and she knew it. Skittering around the base of a wide cube, Skthveraach could hear the chaerilite slashing and flailing its tail from side to side behind her. The thing had lost sight of her, and sought to drive her from cover with its display. The Queen was a boulder. A bleeding boulder. Each swing of its pincers brought contact with the glowing pillars, fracturing and bending them at listing angles. They did not fall, but they twisted out of position. Good. But the strength; not good. She had expected to be able to hold the tail alone, or both claws. It was an adolescent and she was a Queen. A single blow had been enough to scatter that notion to the winds of the plains. The chaerilite ceased its stamping. Perked, and began to crawl as a slither further into the cavern. It had caught sight, sound, whatever it needed, from one of her colony. She could not hold it alone. The plan would fail. People would die without reason. Go. Move. No more stalling. As that glistening tail of plates sectioned and layered dipped from sight, the pain in her limb was of afterthought as she bolted ahead. Not further into the cavern of obstacles, but back to the other. To the cubes and cells. To them.

“I am Skthveraach Queen of Skthveraach-Colony.” The sanguine giants did not move. Could not move, truly, locked as they were. But their eyes were on her as she refused to allow a limp into her step. Not here, not now. “We battle a chaerilite. For your aid, you will be freed.”

“Stay here, alive. Go out there, die. Easy choice.” On her left, the tone of the behemothic soldier was not even dismissive. It avoided her entirely, as one may sing to a drone. Her mandibles clenched so tightly that spit oozed from her tube.

“Remain here without a Queen and you will be frenzied in measures. Sooner.”

“Then I will frenzy.” The faceplate of the soldier was pushed forward, and scars lined the softer meat beneath the crest. Visible damage to the tender flesh between crevices of chitin, battles fought and won. “Better to die as a Vhersckaahlhn than give my voice to a dead colony.”

“You are bleeding.” Deep rumble shook free of the centermost pen, its intonation causing a vibration through much of the Queen’s half-held form. Her exposed scythes dragging at either side to save the effort in raising them. She ignored the jab, and kept her focus on the leftmost.

“Skthveraach-Colony is not dead. When last I was above ground, it was Vhersckaahlhn-Colony who had lost half their territory these past cycles. On the retreat. Growing fainter.”

“Weaklings and chattel.” The soldier to her right growled and butt his plating against the invisible wall. Had she not been drained and conserving, the movement would have been enough to cause a reflexive step back. Or slash forward. “They fear Vhersckaahlhn. You fear Vhersckaahlhn. Vhersckaahlhn is strongest colony. Our raids are of story and legend. It took eight colonies to push us back. Disgraces. Not soldiers. Fodder.”

“You are bleeding.”

“It is superficial. The chaerilite struck harder than thought possible.” Snapping at the soldier who repeated self yet again, she did not need the reminder to feel the digging of disgust. Someone screamed in the room beyond, a shrill and piercing warning mired in pain and fear. Her stomachs clamped and churned. “I give you chance for purpose. I bring you freedom from these creatures, who will kill you.”

“Death as Vhersckaahlhn is better than slave to an enemy colony.”

“Skthveraach-Colony does not take-“

“Keep your frenzied falsehoods for the others, Skthveraach. You will feed them all the jelly if you ever get out of this place. Our Queen would not be so merciful. You would not even fertilize our farms.” Focus. Push past it. Ignore the sounds of the crackling beyond, the vibrations she could feel even here. One blow had halted her. She could not take two at once. There was no choice left to her but this, and her hesitation previous had hardened these soldiers beyond the point of recovery.

“Bleeding was caused by the chaerilite. You take part in the fighting?” Hate, pure and unabashed, emanated from either cell flanking the center. She had assumed the curtness and simplicity mocking, colored by the tones from adjoining siblings. It was not the only explanation.

“Yes. I will take one of its pincers.”

“It may kill you.”

“Yes.” The music was familiar. Not in any antiquated sense, not from before this place, but she had heard it since her arrival. When she first walked amongst the cells, one had called to her. Questioned her weakness. Even as movement made fresher the bloody trickle burbling from her thorax, Skthveraach spent some of that precious energy to take step nearer. “It will not. My colony will silence it and feast under the gaze of the creatures.

“You have fought them, too. They are strong?”

“Too strong.” One of the three made humored gruntings. Sprayed his cell with waste in disparagement, though Skthveraach could not smell it through the barrier. “If they think us weak, they will kill us. It is what they have told me. Only if we prove ourselves powerful, capable, will we be spared. The chaerilite must be killed. It is a test from them.” The other was rattling as well, but the longer the Queen stared only for the male in the center, the less pleased the leftmost seemed to become.

“Vhersckaahlhn. Do not seek harmony with this biomass.” There was no reply. She had not been looking closely when last this male had eyes on her. When he, and she knew now it was him, had watched her the last measure since her emergence from tube. While the others slept, while the Pod had assessed them. His eyes were smaller than other drones, other soldiers, more beads than orbs. And yet they were unfaltering in their steady, considering regard. “Skthveraach-Colony is enemy. Food for the larvae. Biomass for the colony.”

“No use of the jelly.”

“Confirmed.”

“Vhersckaahlhn!” Now, neither the Queen nor the crimson soldier were paying heed to the angered call. Their music was opposite. Their tones, polar. With each word exchanged and thought made manifest, it became a balance, the volumes complimentary.

“No returning to this enclosed box.”

“Confirmed.”

“Breeding permissions within the colony.”

“Such,” Value and loss. Furthest from her mind was the thought of nesting, and the soldier’s brevity had not specifically asked for the permission to mate with her directly. Whether she yet had brooding females left alive was another matter. There was no question that Vhersckaahlhn soldiers were some of the finest ever bred, however. How often had she heard her mother mournfully lament how much greater they could be if not shackled to a fool-Queen as they were? Only the most gifted soldiers were permitted to breed, but was this not that case? Another sundering crash from behind silenced any opposition her disgust may have surfaced to the notion. “Is acceptable.”

“One voice, under yours.”

“Vhersckaahlhn! Frenzy! Idiot! You are of Vhersckaahlhn-Colony! You are of the nests that will spread unending! Your Queen will silence the discord!” The leftmost soldier battered himself forward, and were it not for the inability to gain space enough for true momentum, Skthveraach believed truly he too could have damaged the creature’s walls as she had. No time for further distractions. The two were lost and worthless. One would suffice. One would have to suffice.

“Jhenaafhur! Hhahtheehn Queen, open this cell! Please, with speed, I must have their aid!” She expected perhaps a protest, or at least a question now that the Band allowed them directed contact. It was only a fluttering beat that passed before the wall split, and the two flanking bodies beat and battered themselves against their cells with renewed fury. As one, they both seized and collapsed in piles of waste and markings, pus escaping their vents as the creatures brought them pain at a thought. The entrance formed with crawling sluggishness, but the soldier was ready to move as soon as space permitted. “One voice, together. We must hurry, the colony-“

Scythe on scythe. Edge on edge. Her forelimbs were already as goo from the chaerilite’s blow, and had her head been turned just further towards the cavern where her people battled and awaited her return, she would not have seen from eye’s corner the swing the mass of meat had made. There was no space to avoid the attack, and bearing the brunt as it rammed against her sent the Queen skidding a half length backwards. Unlike the monster in the next room, though, however giant this damnable Vhersckaahlhn was, she only needed one of her scythes to halt it. The other was plunging forward, for that spot between head and oversized thorax, where unarmored meat waited as it had many times before. The tip sunk inward. She felt flesh give. But instead of letting his momentum carry him to his death, the soldier had begun retreat as soon as his strike was blocked. Edge of her blade sucked free with string of orange and red as the male fell back. Fell back, and spread the supplication markers in quick jerks. She advanced to finish her kill.

“Vhersckaahlhn-Colony stories say the War Queen killed only seventeen of our soldiers. That it was Composer’s luck, nothing more.”

“Eighty-four.” His head was bowed low, presenting his neck to her as the submissive pheromones filled the air. She brought her scythe down clean at the spot. And let it rest there, digging against the flesh, sunken, but not enough to sever anything important. “It was not luck.”

“My Queen would have died from that blow. You did not. I believe you. Skthveraach Queen is stronger. I am of Skthveraach.” Her eighty-fifth was waiting below her. One would rejoice. Seventeen were fighting to give her this opportunity. Ten and more would die if she dropped her scythe. The numbers did not match. She raised the edge away from the extended neck.

“We go. Now.”

“Received.”

She turned her back to the soldier, but did not let her sight entirely leave him. He saw the opportunity to strike, and did not take it. Vhersckaahlhn were little better than the animal in the next room. The male was no longer Vhersckaahlhn. Such was what she repeated to herself as they rushed from the two convulsing forms left sprawled in cells.

“Your Queen was fed to our slaves, Skthveraach!” He was no longer Vhersckaahlhn. “She begged to serve before she was killed! She was weak! Her spawn are weak!” He was no longer Vhersckaahlhn. “She was thrown with her drones to the troughs! She was not worth serving to our Queen! She, who will silence the discord! She, who will make us one! Die! Die! Silence to the Skthveraach!” He was no longer Vhersckaahlhn. He was no longer Vhersckaahlhn. They ran, the caged soldier shrieked, and Skthveraach was unsure whether it was towards the chaerilite, or away from the cells.

It was a changed landscape they returned to. A field of canting spires and fragmented rock. Sharp, jutting pieces of white littered the polished floor and cut at her claw when she trod upon them. The Queen did not require signal back to the soldier, for her had hunched low and slowed his pace with trained precision as they reached the danger signals. Neither could see the beast, but its hooked tail like a blackstone mockery of the pearl pillars moved in and out of view some thirty, forty lengths within. Orange and red blood painted the stinger, and her heart chilled. She could hear her colony, see them balled and huddled behind one of the first cubes to bear the floating lights, and made to join them with speed, and silence.

“Report losses.”

“None.” Blood spattered in splotches about the area, and she could barely breathe for the pain and warning signs. One of the drones lay flat and still, a puncture clear through the back of his abdomen which was being stuffed full of sealant by the mender. Her scout pointed antenna towards one of the drones, now down a leg, before continuing. “Stab missed anything vital. He’ll be slow, but can move. Other got too close to its jaws. Only got away because it was busy chewing on his leg.” Ball of goo had been clumped over the hole left from splintered chitin, the fluids visible still through the translucent adhesive.

“Pillar is selected. Better that you took my advice late than never at all.” Thinker had regained a touch of his composure, but the tremble in him now was a persisting thing. His role, he himself, was not used to this amount of movement. “You have made unity?”

“I am Skthveraach-Colony.” The male’s music was surety and confidence. Its reception was tenuous silence.

“He is Skthveraach-Colony.” Now, begrudging acceptance. “When it falls, all must serve. You as well, thinker.”

“Do not mistake my fatigue for inefficacy. I have explained the plan to the others. It is sound.”

“Good.” The creatures were restless. They paced, they raised voices to one another while the Band translated scattered ideas, words without meaning. She could see the Pod alongside the Hhahtheehn, pointing and jabbing both down and at the male’s chest. All was readied. Nineteen against one. No longer near impossible. Merely highly unlikely. “Which was selected?”

“Queen! Queen!” It was expected. One of the twins, the smallest of the drones, the least capable of holding down legs or damaging shell. The thinker confirmed the decision, and she let her antennae brush across the attendant’s shell. “Am ready, Queen. Am prepared, Queen.”

“They will sing of this measure until the death of all music, Skthveraach attendant. We slay a star-sent child this rise.”

“Queen, will succeed. Queen, will win! Queen, happy!” Keeping lowered, the attendant used footholds to clasp and rise way atop Skthveraach. Clutched, and finding balance, as the Queen rose to the looks of all. All save the mender, who never let beat’s distraction draw her from her role.

“We will draw it in. It shall strike, and be caught. As one, you will halt it. As one, we will bind it. As one, we will tear it apart.”

“Received.” The colony was not as one. There was doubt, and there was fear, and there was a tremble to the cleft of notes. But their purpose was agreed. Unity of purpose, as strong as unity of mind. The soldier reached leg, his entire carapace shifting at the raise.

“Received. My role?”

“At my side. Remain with the thinker. When he calls, first assist the colony, then join me at the front.”

“Acceptable.”

All was readied. Injuries and damage, but no deaths. Better than every encounter their colonies had known with the beasts thus far. It was hers to finish, and finish it she would. The hanging tail stood as a black mark on the white horizon, circling closer as the chaerilite eliminated area after area in its search. Her vents flexed. Two breaths. All was readied. She advanced.

“Queen injured!”

“Yes. I can see that. Yes.” Passing globule of spit and sealant up, the attendant snatched the binding up as they passed. Wounded drone was on his claws as the colony fell in behind her. From the smallest of twins lingering at side, gazing up to its sibling, to the stomping gait of the soldier all but matching the Queen’s mass. No hymns or chants for this, no stories to call on. They crafted something new, their broken colony of nineteen. The trickle of blood ceased at least when the attendant atop her smeared the ball along the fracture in her carapace, shoddily but effectively. It was there, just there, beyond the lines of pillars. A hallway of empty space cut out and unblocked by obstacle or barrier. The colony halted, took their place behind the chosen spire, while Queen and her rider strode out before it. Skthveraach had been too surprised to feel fear the first encounter. So was she readied for the second.

“Hold position. Begin cutting. Ready for contact.” They received. Mandibles and claws set to work, and the sounds of hardstone being chipped and cut were enough to bring the distant tail to halt. To swivel it in their direction. Skthveraach did not intend to leave their prey’s compliance to chance. Her leg burned as she rose off her forelimbs, and thin layers of carapace peeled as she sliced scythes up and down one another. Honing edges against her shell while raising her body erect. Stomping, side to side. It had heard. Around the corner it came, twenty lengths away, in all its segmented glory and all its sharpened terror. But she would not taste of fear, not lament her role. The largest target, the easiest for the beast to see with its pathetic eyes and dream of with salivating maw. Pincers snapped as her stamping beat set the challenge. Did monsters such as this hold memory? Were they more than base instinct and drive, as her people had once been? Was there recognition in those eyes as it turned to face her? It did not matter. No accords between those who ate, and those who were eaten. Only the discovery of which was which.

“From mountains steeped in broken shell/of fallen ones, which into dells//carved far below through woods now stilled,/and nests beneath torn wide and filled…” Her legs beat down as scythes beat chest, danger signals leaking freely from her now. Riling those who prepared behind, out of sight, out of focus. They had not sung together yet. So Skthveraach would sing for them. The power of the Founders grounded her, even as the ground began to shake. Began to shudder at the approach of beast who had found its target, and spent not a beat in hesitation. It loped, it leapt, and it charged as it had before.

“Came clawing up those who still lived/and raised their heads. No longer hid//they deep within cold rock's embrace…!” Ten lengths. Five. Fluid trickled down her back, the attendant soiled and sodden in abject terror. Pincers would spread wide rather than engage direct, tail would lower, and venom would flow as it plunged for the Queen. Left scythe was ahead, right was raised above at the ready, and the cool flat of the pillar was on her gaster behind. But under the thunderous strides, unfelt but not for the contact shared, it was not Skthveraach’s voice alone which finished stanza. Which called back to battles with the Mother, of the Founders, and of that future yet promised to them all. The tail reared back. Black-plated body skidded. The thrust was cruel and true. Their music joined as one, Skthveraach and the attendant rang defiant. “And felt song's light upon their face!”

“Attendant!”

“Queen!”

The nesting drone leapt from her back as the Queen threw herself aside. The crunching of body came first as the barb caught the attendant in the air, then slammed with might into the pillar to pin the form between. Chunks of lung exploded from the sides of the twin’s vents, blood pouring from the tube of mouth. Pain signals. Danger signals. And through both, venom seeping from around the wound cut clean into core, the attendant curled itself forward while it still could. Wrapping legs around the thrusting barb, locking limbs together unto death. It was the last the Queen could see before she struck floor, and jaws where she had just stood were cracked into the base of pillar.

“NOW! PUSH! NOW! PUSH!” Tail was flung backwards as pincers snapped to either side, dazed and slowed by the impact. An impact that could not, for all the monster’s strength or Skthveraach’s own, topple the pearl towers. Neither with weight of body or arm could it do more than bend. But with the base of the pillar chewed and bitten through, this pillar teetered. It swayed. A single chaerilite would not see it fall. Seventeen bodies, the soldier at the lead, struck the pillar together from behind. As one body. As one will. The tower groaned, the hardstone scattered out, and it fell. Fell, to strike down the length of the beast. Was it dead? No. But it was pinned. The Queen let loose every pheromone she had, and voices clamored the same shout.

“Queen in danger! Kill! Queen in danger! Kill!”

Over the pillar they swarmed. Around to either side they scattered. Her soldier took to the beast’s right, and she its left. Jaws trapped under rock and body flattened, its pincers still snapped and tried to snatch as her colony passed. She was upon it, digging her scythes into the joint where plating was thinnest. Snapping her own maw into chitin to grasp and clutch from safety of outer side, while her soldier did the same. No jaws to bite. No pincers to cut. Droplets of blood sprayed down on them as legs and bodies crawled over arm and shell, the tail winding back as it always did to plunge for the danger it now realized was before it. The barb struck one of her drones, and slid. It stabbed for the limping thinker, and the impact knocked him clear off his legs, but could not pierce. Venom seeped from the hole in the attendant’s chest and out the vents of lungs now filled with the poison, no longer drawing breath, but tip remained buried inside the body. A blunted weapon capable of nothing more than concussion now.

One to each leg. Mandibles splitting open armor and pulling straight each limb. Three to the tail, the weight of their bodies pulling it back and down, snapping and rupturing the base as I was bent at the wrong angle. Brackish crimson and yellow poured free from the gap, spraying those who stampeded over pillar to crawl and dig upon the flat back of the beast. Pulled apart, pinned down, its weapons blunted or seized. Twelve had been used to bind it. Seven rose upon its back, extended their scythes, and began to dig down with the fervor of tunneling. The delver, hooked near its vents, was particularly effective. Peeling away shell, scooping full graspers of meat, and throwing behind him like discarded soil clawfuls of organ and gore. Thrashing, roaring, Skthveraach could do nothing but perform her role. Hold her assigned pincer. Hold, and stare down into those beady and empty eyes before her half-squashed under pillar. Popped, leaking, yet still capable of staring up to her. Wanting yet to eat. To kill. To tear free and crush those who were excavating into its lung cavities now. There was no accord to be had. Eater, and eaten.

The spasms and tugging of the humongous claw in her grip slowed. Slackened. Legs fell limp. Tail was pulled and hacked at until it was torn free with mighty and combined pull. No hesitation. No halting. Not until all six legs were pulled from the pile of entrails now forming, not until pincers had been severed, not until the thing’s heart was bit free and thrust to the air was it certain. Covered in bile, covered in blood, covered in the black sections of shell scattered and thrown to the side, they stood. They panted and coughed and choked on the smell. Where tail had been thrown, attendant sat alongside the skewered corpse of her twin and let slip lament which was triumph and sorrow at once.

One became two. Two became eighteen. Eighteen were then nineteen, and as eighteen once more, the stood in the body of a daughter of the sky-sent. Sore. Silent. Alive. Mender was rushing from drone to drone, thinker wheezed on back where he had fallen, soldier had already begun to chew and eat at the claw he had held steady and unflinching and scout merely lay on stomach, staring into the hollow of the monster’s core. Skthveraach turned her head to face the ledges, on which the creatures watched. Let them deny her people now. Let them say they were weak and small. Hhahtheehn stood unmoving behind his barrier, and the Queen brought scythe high to him. Painted a risefade’s orange, dripping with the vitae of her kill.

For the Skthveraach-Colony, and for her people.