Forest air sweltered, and a gaseous tang began permeating the air around them. Black and red trunks grew thicker and as the nine grew closer to their destination. While Sanshall knew this was the direction they were meant to follow, his gift had an excited spicy bitterness to it.

Their hunter, Murkie, had left for Enkyall. It was a feat Sanshall was uncertain the hunter could achieve, but he understood the need. Valcha and the five should be more than enough protection in his absence. Then why this scent, this taste? While the source was not the singer; the path-minder's survival sounded sweeter near the unsightly whelp. Still, Sanshall had no desire to go near the kesit and the supposed remedy he carried. So he kept his distance and minded the party's way with Valcha.

Their party continued through the woods. Feet trod through the green alginated clay. Hands swatted at pesky biting birds who took the opportunity to succor on more than flowers. In some ways, the minder preferred the simple scent of the cold and the company of the few kesit. Now there were so many discontent odors of sweat, so many changes in moods.

Again there was that unsettling scent, a bitter flavor. He had thought of speaking, but the gift often tied his tongue and made him stiffen instead. So the worried kesit stayed silent and positioned himself where his senses were most balanced.

* * *

Strong paws sprinted through the underbrush, black tongue lolled. Floating shoulders hunched before an obstacle and leapt. One paw and its dexterous fingers caught a branch the other three gripped and leveraged the lithe body sideways.

From its higher vantage, the baru-rog scanned the forest. Slit blue eyes looked for signs of prey, moltings, snatches of fur, or down. Nose flared scenting for musk, scat, and blood. There was nothing significant here to sate its hunger. Its tail twitched in irritation before it scrunched its body and leapt again. Silent it landed, and silent it sprinted.

Its drum-like ears were slits in the side of its head. They buzzed in tune with the hypersonic whine of another baru-rog in the distance. There was scent, there was prey. Soon gas-filled membranous sacs behind its ears. They stretched and bulged. It whined and it echoed out into the woods. Twelves others resonated bringing the squealing whine to a crescendo.

The baru-rog's eyes widened with thrill as it coordinated its position. Its thick mane of black and grey blotchy feathers hackled. Blue eyes darkened and widened. They would hunt, teeth would gnash and saw through the bones. Then he would find a mate and sire cubs in the rotting skins.

* * *

There it was, surrounding him. That taste again. Whatever would come was coming. Sanshall moved before he felt the buzzing at the tips of his ears. It was just that, a feeling, not a sound, but it should be a sound. Soft as he was, Yagbur grasped at his head and held his ears. He was less panicked the closer he got to the singer.

The tips of his ears shook as did the shadows of the leaves. Yagbur looked at him and began to speak, but no words came out. The minder looked around and saw the others had continued, they hadn't noticed anything. Why had they not? Sanshall spoke, not as a warning, so his words should have come out. Air left his lungs, but the silence shook his throat still.

The singer stood and began shouting at the minder. Sanshall didn't understand, but his gift was warning him. Sanshall ran up to Ilsebek and shook him. The taster had his short skinning fang out in response. The shaman and the others saw the motion and awareness flitted across Valcha's expression. His hands tapped the unnamed in a rapid pattern and the shaman made quick motions.

Sanshall's senses were still scrambled, becoming more disarrayed as the danger approached. His warning had not been in time. Legs stretched as his desire to survive drove him forward. The minder went towards that loathsome kesit where it was safest. Looking back towards the others he saw the shifts of grey in the silver red canopy. Yagbur saw too as the lithe figure dropped out of the tree onto the initiate.

Its face was sharp and avian, but instead of a beak it just tapered forward to a nose not dissimilar to that of the kesits. The similarity did not end their either, eyes, paws, and pattern too bore some perverse semblance. Agile hands had the limbs gripped down as its long feathered tail whipped.

More dropped down to join in on the kill and bright flashes of smell assaulted Sanshall snapping him out of his daze. Yagbur shook the way minder and the danger diminished. Eyes met the freakish uneven pair. He was a curse and a burden. The deformed had wrecked the mind and body of a viable and strong hunter. Still, the Dreamer spoke of hope and death in him. Sanshall's own gift calmed and spoke of survival.

His eyes looked, and Yagbur was a whelp, a stunted runt. He would be light enough. Soft hands pounded on the way minder's back. They hurt, but less than the fangs of those beasts. They fled. There were screams, and death, orders, and struggles. Sanshall did not hear them, perhaps the runt did. He knew his senses were wrong, it was why he never spoke of them. In many ways, his senses were as twisted as this freak's form.

* * *

Sharp legs pierced the clay. Thin biometalic filaments stretched out sensing for life signals it had been following. The egg sack had gone dormant, but there was still a creature that had followed the same trajectory as the infestation. Two of the herd diverged. Fluids and the necessary nutrients from either prey or colony were low. It needed these resources to maintain track and sanitize what were now two small herds.

Thousands of layers of organs shifted, increasing their electric potential. Electricity arced through a chamber of specialized cells. Strobes light flashed. The drone's complex and sensitive photoreceptors waited for response, but none came. Its limited access to colony memory indicated a colony within range, but its memory would degrade in the drone. These were not meant to bear the full stream of data as long as they were. With no recourse, its instincts drove it further down its path towards the larger of the two herds.

Something had thinned the larger herd. Risk of further contamination was urged the arthopoidic legs forward. Complex strobes of light emitted again. Photoreceptors received a response. It was not a language, but the flashing arrays of lights conveyed what remained of the collective memory. More fragmented data flashed. A colony, a spire, thousands of orbits. Heat, writhing consumption. Spores propagated through the soft conductive tissue inside the spire. Teeth gnashed through. Forced calcification to seal and preserve. Starvation, dormancy. Iteration, after iteration of the same data, weather patterns, nothingness. The sentinels did not feel, but such a loss was still felt for their species, it was loss in territory, in propagation. Other spires had rerouted data, and that biomes data now lost to the collective.

Many neural nodes throughout the drone were immature. Cell walls unprepared for the constant charges collapsed. The information it gave became more fragmented. Its body had journeyed far with imbalanced preparation. It was half formed. Drones were not capable of storing under natural cultivation. Flash after flash, its life drained away as its information and warning of the infected herd uploaded to the spire, to the collective.

What could be recovered was. Through mapping of like data from the colony's collective memory data was pieced together. These failings, these forced functions were observed, they were preserved through the towers of light. Sentinels must contain the infestation, but flawed coordinates were all the colonies received. All drones in this region would monitor on higher alert for the precursive spores and chemical signals of emerging larvae. Dozen of drones began migrating primary spire addresses. Clusters of them strode over the trees. The clusters began their journey towards the estimated coordinates. They would follow and cleanse the infected creature.