The sun came to perch itself in the cloudless noon sky, and all were busy with preparations.

At the village, Hospitallers stirred giant clay cauldrons as arachne put equal parts of spider silk into the boiling tree sap, occasionally feeding some branches when the fire was diminishing. Fumes from the boiling concoction were sickly sweet like rotting fruit, and the men had faces pinched with nausea, frequently throwing their heads over a shoulder to gasp for fresh air. An arachne would suppress a chuckle, amused by the frailty of human constitutions.

Pyrik grinned.

At least they’re not glaring at each other constantly. I suppose work has that sort of effect.

The two kinds had been working together since morning, and any animosity they harbored for each other was set aside as they sweated in mutual toils because hating was a waste of energy they could not afford at the moment.

Spider fire, the finished product, was carefully poured into clay pots and wooden barrels gathered from both settlements, then carried to the maw of the tunnel network. Ira reassured that she had production handled at the village so Pyrik followed a wagon to the Maw.

At the Maw, arachne were sharpening long branches to stakes and Hospitallers planted them in the ground to build a kill zone, two lines of stakes that flanked the entrance, thus would funnel the enemy should any survivors emerge from the initial fiery attack.

“This is no ordinary fire,” Aella explained to Ira, Pyrik and Cutter. “This substance will cling on as it burns, and no amount of water nor smothering will quench the flames until the fuel is spent entirely.”

As a result Cutter had banned his men from having a puff on their pipes, which garnered many unhappy groans.

Just handling the spider fire made Pyrik’s palm sweaty, which in turn made her sweatier as she feared a pot or barrel might slip from her grasp and a rogue match would accidentally burn her alive.

No such accident happened though. The containers of spider fire were placed mindfully into a large pit dug out just for its storage. Pyrik ran a sleeve across her forehead, glad to be done with handling that combustive substance for now. She pressed the canteen to her lips and drank some water, sighed with relief, then drank some more. She had not a moment of pause since the morning was a glimmer in the horizon.

Cutter groaned. “Come on now! We’re almost there!”

Above the pit were the sounds of soil churning, grunting, and leaves crunching. Curious, Pyrik capped her canteen and climbed out of the spider silk pit to see.

“I didn’t know you had those this whole time!” Pyrik pointed at the cannons.

The field cannon was a standard piece of imperial artillery: its barrel was steel and slender, dwarfed by the wooden carriage and axel body. She had never seen one in action, only ever heard its deafening roar in the distance whenever she skirted the frontline during the travels. The little she knew were in pubs where a soldier recounted the glorious effect of grapeshot tearing through masses of bodies like wet paper. Cutter had hauled four field cannons to the Maw.

“Each company is issued four field cannons,” Cutter stated matter-of-factly.

“Those would have come in handy at night, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps, if we were in an open field with the beasts concentrated en masse for effective use. The insectoids are far too mobile for our grapeshot to be worthwhile, so we stored them away until now.”

Pyrik glanced at the kill zone. Combined with volley fire, the arrows from above, the addition of cannons was going to be a brilliant performance in tactical devastation.

This plan might just work.

***

A short while later, everybody sat down for lunch.

Most of the two kinds ate separately from each other except for Ira, Pyrik, Cutter and Menov. They sat on the grass, in a circle, all nurturing their hunger and exhaustion with hot bowls of stew while Ira chomped down on a curious fruit. It appeared like an apple yet it peeled like orange, and when Ira bit into it there was no spurting of juices for its flesh was somewhat gelatinous.

Menov pointed at the wedge of fruit with her spoon. “Mind if I try some?”

With her mouth full, Pyrik swallowed with an audible gulp, looking nervous. “Can she eat that?”

“Scared that I may keel over?” Menov joked.

Pyrik looked deathly serious.

“Relax, Pyrik! We’ve shared our food with Aella plenty of times and she’s fine. Here.” Ira offered a wedge to Menov, who expertly stabbed it with the spoon and ate it in one bite.

Pyrik cringed. So did Cutter. They watched Menov, anticipating something horrible to happen.

“Do you... feel any different?” Cutter asked.

Menov belched loudly. “No.”

Cutter waved at his face, looking awfully disgusted at her very unlady-like manners.

Ira giggled, and continued to feed Menov wedges, who happily accepted each bite. “Cutter?” She offered a wedge to him.

Cutter shook his head. “I am already having a difficult time eating my stew, with the taste of the berries lingering in my mouth. I think I will pass.”

“Your loss.” Menov snatched up the wedge with her teeth like a seamonger with a seal, eliciting another fit of giggles from Ira.

If Cutter shook his head any more it might roll off his shoulders.

Pyrik continued to stare at Menov, forgetting about the stew entirely as it sloughed off her spoon with a plop! The corpse on the basement stairs, there was no way that could have simply disappeared into the ether. That woman was hiding something, and she did it with a jovial smile.

“Do you want a wedge?” Menov asked, having noticed her staring though Pyrik knew from that toothy grin her words were double-edged with meaning.

“I haven’t seen you since Ira, Cutter and I went into the red forest, or while the rest of us were slaving away at work,” Pyrik said, almost accusingly.

“I was out looking for Haldane,” Menov said, “making certain that mad mutt is put down for good.”

“Did you find his body?” Cutter asked.

Menov shook her head. “Sadly no carrion-pecked corpse I’m afraid. I reckon he’s already fled from this dreadful fleshmill.”

Cutter pressed his lips, unsatisfied with the uncertainty. Pyrik’s remaining appetite went afoul. She hoped that he fled away, far from this settlement because the alternative was that he might be lurking around somewhere, licking his wounds, patiently waiting for an opportune time to strike. Suddenly she felt how vulnerable and open they were, and each branch and wavering leaf in the breeze was hiding a killing shot from a pistol.

“Don’t you fret,” Menov said to Pyrik. “I seriously doubt that he knows about the berries, and even if he did there are patrols just in case.”

Despite the assurances Pyrik would rather see his corpse getting strips torn off from a vulture. Now that was absolute, total assurance. She sighed, shoveled the rest of the stew down the hatch. That was out of her realm of control now. The only thing that mattered was in a few hours when the mission would take place and the bugs would burn.