Seemingly having had his fill, Karl turned away from his effortless slaughter with a contentious snort before lightly padding back towards the gap. Having deemed himself of fulfilling his task, Karl proceeding to lightly hop over the small hole before heading back.

Noting how the Crow-wolf was not walking towards them but more just sauntering past, Nosal nervously shuffled sideways to bar his way before crouching down.

“Umm.. we’re not done here yet… Mister Karl,” pleaded the boy as he reached for the hound with a glowing paw.

With no regards to the wonton slaughter that had just been on display or the slick gore that still clung to Karl’s feathery fur, Gelg shot towards the Crow-wolf whilst happily wagging her stubby tail as she licked and sniffed the massively larger hound.

Karl allowed this to pass only for a brief moment before letting out a low growly “CAW,” that warned off the pup that backed off dismissively with her tail between her legs.

Whilst doggedly ignoring the small pup who was hopping about furiously as soon as he took his eyes of her and walked past, Karl only briefly stopped to tilt his head and present one of his brown dark eyes at Nosal who was in his way.

Feeling very uncomfortable at the look given to him. Of which somehow reminded him of his scolding father, Nosal quickly rescinded his hand as he cancelled his skill before getting up and out of the way.

With a final withering “Caw” that was aimed at the boisterous little Beakhound who was starting to annoy him again as she starting to wiggle and hop around him, the Crow-wolf then gave a lazy wag of his tail.

With no more children ruffling up his feathers, Karl then continued on his way back the way they had come.

“Looks like he got you told there, eh brother?” Kano quipped with his musk of joy and very bemused look on his face with both eyebrows raised high at his brother.

“Yeah he did… like what the realms, I thought he was supposed to help us out!” whined Nosal beside his brother as they watched Karl quickly departing.

A short moment of silence followed on the little patch of farmland amongst the four, as they watched the Crow-wolf disappear round the corner of the farmhouse with nothing but birdsong off in the distance.

“Well he did kill off most of them for us little Nose… and was it just me or did he raise an eyebrow at you when you tried to stop him?” asked Kano with mirth in his voice.

“YEAH I thought that too! He didn’t even have eyebrows…” replied Nosal before the two brothers started to chuckle lightly.

But before long the two turned back round towards the gap in the quarantined patch of farm with trepidation.

The sight of a few Burrowers glistening in the morning twins, that have re-emerged and been sneaking over towards the gap quickly cut the boy’s nervous laughter short.

Wide-eyed they turned to look at each other before quickly bringing up their wooden swords to bare.

But the fact that they were so close to each other and hand no training with swords beforehand whatsoever, caused Kano to accidentally smacked his brother in the shin with blunted tip of his sword.

“OWWWW! What the Realms was that for!!”Nosal shouted out in pain before his face quickly morphed into one full of anger.

With one hand on his own sword which was now safely pointing down by his own side and the other hand up and splayed at his brother in front of his chest protectively, Kano quickly decided that the Burrowers were more important than his little accident.

“Wait stop we have to-,” he tried to reason before a quick whack of Nosal’s sword at his outstretched hand quickly cut him short.

“AHHHHHHH! What THE FUCK! Why you little… STOP! We have to get the Burrowers!” Kano shouted at his brother who was attempting to club away at him with his own sword but missed as he backed off from Nosal’s ineffective swipes.

Thankfully he was able to reign in his own anger as he pointedly gestured with his sword at the gap whilst his smarting hand was up against his chest.

The two then turned to look at the Burrowers which were now already being engaged by Dittat and Gelg, who were both holding off half a dozen of their adversaries on their own just beyond the gap.

Instead of questioning when or how the two had begun fighting, the brothers quickly put their own little squabble aside as they sought to come to their aid.

Over at the fight a stalemate going on. The inexperienced Gelg was markedly larger than the Burrowers, but too afraid to commit to using her beak and her claws being too immature and too short to cause any real damage and was left only able to bodily swat away ineffectively at the burrowers that was starting to surround her as she squawked furiously. Beside her was Dittat, who was only a portion of her size but was fairing marginally better with two incapacitated and twitching Burrowers to his name.

The hardened forward facing shell of the Burrowers head had prevented him from causing any damage with the first couple of opening salvos from his now elongated antennae. But having sent a lot more probing attacks and with the benefit of having the larger Gelg shielding him, he then quickly realized that if he used clasped both feelers together like a maul in an attack that was aimed behind the head and closer to the joint he would be able to actually daze and damage his opponents.

The weak joints between their many legs were also a viable target, but less effective in the overall fight due to how fast the Burrowers were and that they had six legs in total which meant that even if one was broken, it wasn’t as if the Burrowers would lost that much mobility. Dittat was quick to adapt when it came to combat due to how he was prone to picking fights on the ranch on a daily basis with his favourite pastime being to bully the local fauna, especially if they were smaller than himself.

But between the two it was slow work to dispatch the half dozen Burrowers with more re-emerging from burrows in the ground coming to join in on the fight now that Karl had left the scene.

Thankfully the brothers were quick to reinforce the two as the children announced themselves with a warbling and incoherent war-cry. The two boys both had their swords above their heads with looks that were a mixture of fear and anger as they charged in. But in their haste the boys had forgotten that they had to navigate the hole and the gap, which would only fit one of them.

Kano who was slightly ahead of his brother, then rushed headlong before fumbling and falling into the knee-high hole. His brother who was right behind him was unable to bring himself to a stop in his adrenaline-fueled charge and he too, came crashing down on top of his brother.

In a jumble of limbs whilst groaning and cursing, the brothers who now had dirt all over the front of their blue suspenders, quickly helped themselves up before fumbling up through the gap. The two then both tried to get through the fencing together at the same time before a getting stuck and small scuffling fight ensued between the two which just as quickly ended as Kano conceded to let his brother through first for he was more worried for their companions than to be bogged down with petty squabbling.

Although he did poke his brother’s posterior with the tip of his sword to hurry him through.

Just beyond the gap there was now four small dog sized Burrowers that were lying incapacitated as the duo had started to get the hang of fighting together. Gelg would be responsible for shielding Dittat with her bulk and received a few nippy scratches to her paws whilst he would occasionally whip out to try and stun one of their attackers. This was working well enough with their enemies being whittled down to only two whilst their reinforcements were fumbling about in the hole, but just as they were getting the hang of it all the Burrowers quickly turned the tides as nearly ten more of the insectoid monster trickled in to join in on the fighting and heavily tipped the scales in their own favour.

But just as the pair was about to quickly get overwhelmed, Nosal came in with a downwards overhead smash of his sword along with another wordless war-cry.

He was absolutely terrified of the seemingly enormous and menacing black chitinous creatures that were in actuality only three hand-spans but with fear and adrenaline, the little boy attacked with all he had.

His slow and predictable swing was easily evaded by the not-so nimble Burrower it was intended for as the wooden training sword smashed down and embedded itself into deeply the thick mud with a wet squelch.

The battleground came to a pause as all participants looked on at the pointless and ineffective attack. Even some of the automaton-like Burrowers that was rushing towards the fight themselves came to pause.

The failed attack left Nosal feeling embarrassed and eliciting a musk of shame beyond all realms as he tried to pull out his sword to realise to his horror that he had struck too hard and was now unable to retrieve his weapon from the muddy dirt.

But whilst he wished bury his head in shame, the intervention of his dramatic entrance did buy some much needed breathing room for Dittat and Gelg who had been fighting hard for the last half-minute.

He was left awkwardly fumbling about as he continued to attempt to free his sword in vain as more and more Burrowers joined in as they once again resumed their advance. The Burrower that was closest to Nosal and beside his sword choose this very moment to charge at the boy and caused him to let go of the wooden sword in fright, but was quickly fended off with a well-placed retaliatory blurry lashing attack that crushed two of its backmost right legs that send it tumbling sideways from Dittat that was beside the boy’s knee.

Kano then choose this moment to come to his brother’s rescue with more of an impact to his entrance. Instead of using and overhead swing, Kano instead opted to go down on one knee and slash his sword along the ground in fury and his brother’s defence.

“AAAAHHHHHHHHAARRGGGHHHHYEAHHHHHH!” he shouted with hefty helping of a musk of anger and fear and small whiny squeaky fart. The flat of his sword ploughed a ruinous arc through half a dozen of the creatures in a sickening crunch before ending in a small ruined pile of bodies as his sword slammed jarringly into the side of his brother’s embedded sword with a loud cracking of wood and broken chitin.

Quickly standing up again Kano readied himself for another slash but not before kicking Nosal who was starting numbly at the sickening scene.

“Come on Nosal! What the Realms are you do—Owww!” he shouted as one of the fearless Burrowers had darted over to scratch at his ankles before biting through his fur and drawing a nick of blood.

“It’s stuck!” whined Nosal who was once again attempting to free his sword but was forced punch and lash out in fear at a few of the Burrowers that was coming too close for comfort. His knuckles and hands were left feeling sore as they rapped against their hard shell, but thankfully the Burrowers hadn’t been able to retaliate with their forward digging claws yet.

“What!” Shouted back his brother in surprise before taking another kneeling slash at the oncoming little throng only to hit two Burrowers this time.

Having cleared a little bit of space, he then kneeled down and together the two brothers pulled at the stuck weapon before freeing the wooden sword with a “fa-whoomp!” from the dirt.

“Now help me out here or else heal the guys!” shouted Kano as he readied himself for another slash but not before making sure that the Delg and Dittat were safely behind him.

But just as he was about to take another knee with his sword poised over his right shoulder, the Burrowers quickly backed off in silence before all unanimously turning to face back towards one of the holes.

The brothers and Delg watched on in curious and foreboding fascination whilst Dittat rush ahead to land a free attack at the rearmost Burrower with its back turned with his whip crunching into the soft head/thorax joint and outright killing the creature.

But as they watched on, a small rumbling sound quickly grew in intensity before a markedly larger Burrower burst from the tunnel as its spawn watched in reverence.

The newcomer was a handspan larger than her brood instead of the same dark earthy hues as they sported on their carapace, hers was a pale off-white. Her forwards faced digging claws were also nearly double the size of any of her lesser kin. She marched forwards with purpose with the rest of the Burrowers opening a path for her in reverence as if she were royalty.

For it is exactly the case, for the newcomer was the Burrower Queen.

Seeing the credible threat that the Queen posed towards his companions and his brother, Kano felt fear but still gripped his sword tightly before standing up and putting himself between the oncoming queen and his party.

“Wait, wait Kano,” whispered Nosal from behind him with a glowing hand on his brothers shoulder.

Kano turned to look at his brother whom had a determined look in his eye even as he smelt his musk of fear underlying his own. The new Queen was nearly four handspans and surely a bronze ranked monster unlike her tin-ranked brood, one that they cannot contend with and come out unscathed.

“Let me-,” begun Nosal.

“No,” Kano shot back with no room for arguments before quickly shrugging off his brother’s green glowing hand and turning to face the monster.

He was not going to accommodate his brother’s fanciful notions of communing with the monster for some stupid resolution especially at the expense of Nosal’s safety, it was surely hostile considering they had already killed or maimed nearly a dozen of her brood let alone the whole throng that Karl had already massacred.

This was a monster to be put down and not one to be made friends with.

As the monster marched on towards him he took one step forwards with his left foot leading his stance and slightly cocking his sword over his right shoulder. His playfights with Dormit coming back to him as dread filled Kano at the prospect of facing the Burrower Queen.

But as the moment the fight was to begin drew closer with each step taken by the queen, a loud thrumming drone filled the air before a large green blur swept the queen of the ground.

A large Gildronfly then sped off into the air with the seeming tiny Burrower Queen in its massive clutches as it quickly disembowled the surprised Queen in its jaws mid-flight with some crunching sounds.

Leaving the Brownwhiskers and the Beak-hound pup along with Dittat in shock and surprise. Only for the feelings to be quickly replaced by an indignant fear and fury in Dittat at having recognised his own nightmarish rival that constantly plagued him.