Ira was not able to bore many offspring, but this one pod in the cradle was a miracle. Her precious little miracle. Protected in its pod, sleeping in embryonic fluid, was a female like her, a mother. She laid on a gentle hand on the pod, felt a familiar bump from within. She smiled hopefully, she hadn’t for such a long time. Maybe, just maybe, she could manage to carve out a little place in this vast vast world for her village, her offspring, and perhaps for herself. The hope was intoxicating, she had to be careful. She had to stay sharp. The last thing she wanted to be was sloppy. All the insectoids had to die for this fragile future to take hold, find roots and flourish into something beautiful.

Carefully, Ira lifted the pod up from the cradle and gave it a kiss. “I’ll be back soon, all right? That’s a promise.” She turned to Elder Clarice as she kindly laid it back down. “Watch over her for me.”

Elder Clarice nodded.

In a perfect world Ira would not have to leave. But this was not a perfect world. At times it was cruel, horribly unforgiving. And so she grabbed her bow and quiver of arrows, then stepped on her home.

***

“Here you go, sir,” said a Hospitaller.

Cutter grabbed his armet and examined the repairs. The dents from where the mandibles had clamped down were crudely smoothed over with a hammer, erasing most of the decorative floral patterns like the vines on a wide wall had been ripped off. It pained him a little. The armet had sentimental value. The Veldt Emperor had personally awarded this set of regalia to him when he graduated from the academy. He remembered feeling so proud, so accomplished.

Oh well.

At least the armet fit well over his head, without any dents that jabbed into him as though mandibles were manicled around his head like some dreadful collar. Most importantly was its functionality. Sentimentality was a fool’s luxury.

“Does it feel good, sir?”

“Good enough,” said Cutter. “Good enough.”

***

Blades only.

Pyrik groaned.

Absolutely phenomenal.

For those who were entering the Maw, all guns had to stay behind for fear of shooting in a dark, confined space would accidentally ignite the spider fire or blast someone during a melee. Carrying lanterns into the nest was dangerous enough already. Why compound the risk?

Six people in total were venturing into those dark narrow halls: Cutter, Pyrik, Menov and three other Hospitallers who volunteered, paired off where one had a lantern while the other carried spider fire on their back, hence the prohibition on firearms.

“Careful where you swing that lantern,” Pyrik said to the Hospitaller with her.

She felt its contents slosh from side to side as she walked past the line of field cannons, the stakes manned by Hospitallers, up to the Maw. Cutter carried a share of the spider fire too. Somehow Menov managed to sherk off a part of the burden, and even though it made sense considering her slender frame to put her on rope duty so they could find their way out afterwards, Pyrik felt jealous either way. The hard clay made it impossible for her to bend over, or move around without tipping over like some clumsy pot.

“Hey, you mind that we switch?” Pyrik asked her companion.

“No!” Cutter snapped right as she was about to get handed the lantern.

“You know I’m far better fighter than a pack mule!” She protested.

The Hospitaller caught in between their little strife glanced at Cutter, who was stern about his command. “Sorry. Captain’s orders.”

Damnit.

Pyrik glanced up at the sky, praying that this might not be the last time she saw clouds sailing through such a cloudless day. Gulped down a lungful of fresh air. She glanced back, saw Ira stationed high up in a tree, who had her blunderbuss slung over her shoulder. She was determined to get it back. The blunderbuss was a gift.

“All right. Let’s get on with it now,” Cutter said.

Lanterns came aglow as matches ignited the kerosene in its chamber, then those carrying the light walked into the Maw and the rest followed after them into the dark.

***

Every part of her wanted to get this over with. Quickly. In and out. The dark was oppressive, the lantern lights far too small, hardly reaching any farther than several feet at most. This forced her to tread slowly, carefully, and it was torture, like trying to stop a boulder from rolling down a hill.

And worse there was no way of knowing whether insectoids were waiting for them up ahead or farther down in the tunnel. Sometimes she heard an echo, something like scuttling appendages on dirt, a shadow fraying the edges of the lantern light. Yet nothing manifested forth from the black. It stayed a-material, hanging in musky air. Perhaps it was a good thing that Pyrik did not have her gun.

The tunnels were winding, sloping down with a spiral, with a tendency to branch off into different paths that led to somewhere she would rather not find out. They stopped whenever they came across one of these branching points, crouched low, and listened. She would hold her breath, afraid that the sound might obscure some insectoid trying to sneak up on them. She heard nothing.

Down and down they went. Deeper and deeper. Time had a way of dissolving in those tunnels with no way of keeping track. It could have been minutes, it could have been an hour. The only minor reprieve was that it was not night yet, or else the insectoids would be pouring out of those tunnels and straight into them.

The straps on the container of spider fire ached against her shoulders. She concentrated on the discomfort to distract from the little panic sprouting in her lungs, and in her head was that voice, whispering for her to allow it to take over, to wash away the fear, offer absolute control over a glut of immense power. She loosened her hands from the straps, allowing them to dig deeper into her shoulders.

“That’s all the rope we got,” Menov whispered.

They took the moment to stop and catch their breaths. The air was stifling, almost suffocating as though their lungs extracted more dirt than anything else.

With a collective grunt the spider fire was heaved onto the ground. Good riddance. Any longer and Pyrik’s spine would have compressed into a single, inflexible vertebrae. She felt each vertebrae decompress, she swore she grew at least a foot taller. Her Hospitaller cracked his back, then crouched down with a groan to start rigging the three containers to one fuse. Pyrik took the opportunity to swipe up the lantern that was denied to her from earlier and scanned her surroundings.

The ground was riddled with so many pockmarks and long scratches that the earth was like a well-toiled field. Pyrik, with her lantern, probed farther into the tunnel, axe in hand. She was a lonely island of light drifting down a dark river. She stepped over rocks, loose threads of roots, and then she paused: bones.

Scattered, white, picked clean. They ranged in size and shape and species. Deer skulls mingled with human skulls. Pyrik felt their eyeless pits glare up at her, warning her to leave while she still could. The bones rattled as the ground started to rumble violently.

Pyrik ran back to the group. “The insectoids are coming!”

“I’m not done yet!” said the Hospitaller, still twisting all three fuses into one.

Pebbles danced around like fleas.

Screeches echoed through the tunnel, increasing in volume and magnitude.

“Let’s throw down one of the lanterns, form a line,” Pyrik insisted.

“A sound idea,” Cutter said as he rallied his men.

“Pfff! With five people?” Menov patted Pyrik on her shoulder, grinning. “Just make sure the fuse gets done and kill any insectoids that get pass me.”

“What are you doing?” Pyrik asked.

Menov had stepped in front of her, grabbed the lantern from her hands, dashed it on the ground several feet away, took off her overcoat, and wrapped up her sleeves. “Ever wondered how I got rid of that body?”

Pyrik’s eyes widened.

Menov delighted in the look like a child digging into a jar of candy. “Let me show you.”