Screeches echoed in the Common House.

It reverberated off the wooden floor, through the bodies that stood aghast at the beastial figures within their sanctuary.

Tendrils of drool flecked out of mandibles as insectoids scrabbled over floorboards toward prey. A man with a musket aimed out the window was the first to fall, with his jaw swiped off, intestines unspoiled from their confines, as chitinous claws tore into flesh. Shots rang out. Heads peered over the railing from the top floor, confused.Folks started scrambling away from their posts at the windows, and flef to the far end of the Common House.

The injured and the bedridden, those that could not flee, were crippled swine for the slaughter, as insectoids tore through the all too easy prey. Appendages impaled bodies, plucked eyes, ripped limbs from sockets. A woman with a bandaged head was knocked to the ground amongst the stampede of settlers, slamming her head. She cupped her head in her hands, too stirred to notice the clawed hand reaching for her.

Swift with the saber, not a claw managed to touch her. It flew off with a flash of steel, then the insectoid’s head was parted from its shoulders, snarling no more. Cutter spun around and smashed the pommel of his saber into the face of one insectoid as he planted a boot into another, launching it through a window.

“Somebody close the wretched doors!” Cutter shouted. Mandibles snapped at him, and he slashed his saber at the insectoid. It snapped no more.

Ignoring the screaming ache at her side, Pyrik casted her attention to the double doors. They were flung wide open like a bedroom window at night, inviting any creature inside. At any moment another insectoid could come venturing through the door, and Pyrik could not allow that. However, she glanced at Cutter, feeling worried about leaving him to fend off the insectoids by his lonesome.

“He’ll be fine,” Menov said as she bolted for the double doors.

Having finally appraised their present situation, the Hospitallers on the floor above fired at the intruders, blowing apart plates of chitin and jaundice-yellow flesh with their rifles. Cutter threw a gauntlet-fitted fist into an insectoid’s chest, and the sound was like the bow of a ship crashing into a shore of jagged rocks. With a gob of blood bursting from its maw, the insectoid collapsed to the floor with its chest caved in, thoroughly dead.

Pyrik had only ever seen the captain use his rifle, and seldom the saber other than as a threat of violence. Now that she had though, no wonder Haldane went through the trouble to repurpose Cutter for his cause rather than seizing total control. The Hospitallers revered their captain like wary worshippers of a menacing god, for all those in his flock were his ward while those who threatened them were at the peril of his savagery. The insectoid that was kicked out attempted to grab Cutter through the window, however, he hammered a fist down on its head, breaching its skull like a tapping an egg with a decisive strike from a spoon, and exposed the coiled matter within as it spooled out on the window sill.

I doubt his men above are necessary at all.

Pyrik followed after Menov, who was already at the doors. She slammed the doors shut and was slipping the bar over when they burst open, throwing Menov back. An insectoid scuttled in, toward its prey on the floor. It tried to clamber on top of her, but she cocked the bar across its head, breaking one of its mandibles. It did not die though. In fact, it doubled down on its conviction to sink its maw into the feisty woman, inching ever closer to her face to achieve its pursuit.

“Raise it up high,” Pyrik called out to Menov as she freed her axe from her hip.

Menov roared as she struggled to get the insectoid away from her face, however, it was high enough for Pyrik to swing her axe up into the beast’s maw. The separation was clean, and gore splattered onto the ceiling.

“Couldn’t you have done it any other way?” Menov shoved the insectoid off of her, then wiped bits of flesh from her face.

Pyrik did not answer, she was trying to close the doors. Her teeth were clenched, upper lip curled up like an animal. A pair of gleaming red eyes were staring at her through the gap in the doors as they competed in a contest of strength. Her boots started to slide on the floor. The gap grew wider.

Those gleaming red eyes had a maw and a rancid stench and a screech like grinding steel. Menov came to the doors with the bar, about to slip it over, when an arrow suddenly sprouted from the insectoid’s forehead, ending the contest. The confused Hospitaller pushed the body off the doors, and slipped the bar into place.

“That arrow...” Menov looked at Pyrik.

"It's from a friendly." Pyrik tore off the helmet and threw it on the ground, fed up with the stuffy thing.

"Ah yes, a friendly arrow. Is that what you call those that came raining from the forest?"

"Haldane would have captured me if it wasn't for their intervention."

She wiped off another gob of gore from her cheek. “Charming.”

***

Pyrik and Menov waited at the doors for any more attempts at entering the Common House. None came. Pyrik relaxed her shoulders, and tried to stretch, only to get reminded that she was shot in the side earlier. She winced as she gingerly probed the bruises, suspecting that she might have a broken rib.

Just my luck. Let's just hope that the company physician is still alive.

That was her plan after checking in on Ellie. Getting taken as a hostage, threatened with immolation, such traumas might not mend so easily.

At least she's safe though.

Eventually, scattered gunshots sounded the end of another harrowing night, of another Hospitaller destined for the pyre. The night should have ended there, yet something had livened the Hospitallers outside.

“There! On the roof!” Somebody shouted.

“What in the realm of creation is that?”

“Take cover, take cover! It has a weapon!”

Oh no, Ira!

Pyrik was frantically trying to lift the bar from the doors when—

BANG! BANG! BANG!