Seera followed Mister Shanahan at a distance. She knew he could take care of himself. She was more worried that something would get by him and attack the others. She didn't have any faith that the Wu Chi could defend themselves against any monster.

Everett was a weapon, and he could take care of himself long enough to escape with his ability. That was one of the reasons she had asked for him as an escort. She wanted someone she knew she didn't have to look after with everything that might happen.

The other reason was Everett wasn't as murderous as his colleagues and wouldn't turn a disagreement into a fight to the death.

He was too easy going for anything like that.

Mister Shanahan paused ahead. He swept the rifle left to right. Seera froze in place and held up her arm to keep the others back. Danger sent her awareness back to her. She took aim, letting her sense point the weapon for her.

She knew she wasn't as good as a trained marksman who had been shooting all of their lives at targets. Her ability should help her compensate for the lack of experience, just like it had shown her how to drive, and do other things on Earth.

She had more problems getting the langauge than the physical demands of starting a new life.

Something roared down the tunnel. She frowned at the sound. The stone walls acted as an amplifier. She had no way to tell how big a thing they were facing. She sent her talent down the tunnel to get a better idea of what they were facing. It told her more than one thing was waiting for them to charge into the dark.

Mister Shanahan fired his rifle down the tunnel. He didn't seem that concerned about what they were facing. Seera put it down to his usual inflexibility. He was there to get them to where they needed to go. Turning around wasn't an option unless the whole group decided what they were doing couldn't be done.

She knew that he could get to the bottom without them. The Fist opened up options for him that rest of them couldn't match as far as she could see.

Seera sent her talent down to see how many of the things the bullets had killed. It told her that there was nothing dead in front of them.

Had Mister Shanahan missed with his bullets? She doubted that. It looked like the monsters were too tough for their weapons.

Triangular heads emerged from the tunnel ahead. They glared at the group of humans with their milky eyes. They hissed as a group.

Seera let her talent point her weapon. She pulled the trigger. She winced as the bullets went into the blind eyes. The giant snakes hissed from the woundings. One fell dead as a few bullets bounced around inside its skull.

“The eyes are a weak point,” she called. She backed up to keep her distance from the charging mass of wounded serpents. They whipped around in the tunnel in a frenzy.

Mister Shanahan grabbed the neck of the nearest serpent and crushed it. He worked his way among the survivors and pushed the dead beasts out of his way. He snapped the last neck after dodging a vicious bite.

Seera cast about with her talent. Any danger was gone, or fleeing. Something that wasn't a snake fled down the tunnel away from them. She took aim, but her talent wouldn't give her a profile to aim at from where she stood.

She wasn't going to chase after whatever it was. That would be stupid in her opinion. It was better to stick with the expedition. If there was more than one of the creatures, she wanted to face it with allies at her side.

She scanned for injuries in her group. Everyone came back as unhurt. She was still in the lines of her contract.

“Brood snakes,” said one of the Wu Chi. “They live in nests and hunt together in packs. I have never seen this many in one place.”

“Don't they usually eat each other when there are too many in one place?,” asked the other assistant.

The first assistant nodded. He decided not to get too close to the twitching serpents. One of them might still be alive enough to attack. He liked not being swallowed if he could help it.

“Go ahead, Mister Shanahan,” said Seera. “The way is clear for the moment. We'll be right behind you.”

Shanahan nodded before moving down the tunnel. He turned his body light back on as he went.

“All right, we're going ahead,” said Seera. “Be careful and watch your step. We don't want to cause these bodies to twitch on us as we walk. We should be out of danger, but there might be more of these further down.”

She started along the tunnel after Mister Shanahan. She kept her vest light off. She used the light on the rifle to point the way. She made sure to keep her ability looking for danger ahead of them as she went.

She didn't want to walk into an ambush. And she had a suspicion that something smarter than the average monster was lurking in the cave and didn't want them traipising through its turf.

She hoped that it kept out of their way the precious hours they needed to get to the source and get back. She didn't want to kill everything in their way if she could avoid it.

She supposed she was the softest of the Weapons. The others would have no qualms about burning out anything in their way. She didn't want to bother unless she had to do it.

She saw Mister Shanahan standing ahead of them. He seemed to be examining something in front of him.

She joined him and swept her rifle around. The flashlight beam illuminated a honeycomb trellis heading into a hole in the floor on the left, and a gentle walk on a downward slope on the right. He pointed his own flashlight down the hole in the ground. Something shifted down there.

“I think we should keep going on the slope,” said Seera. “If we run into a dead end, we can come back and chance whatever that is down there.”

“Scales,” said Shanahan. He pointed his light at the fragments of snake skin scraped by the edge of the opening.

Seera used her talent to locate more brood snakes. A small concentration came back at the bottom of the hole. They didn't seem agitated, but that didn't mean anything.

They didn't have to be agitated to come after the group from behind.

“Can you plug it?,” she asked.

Mister Shanahan looked around. He let his weapon fall on its sling as he felt around for something he could use as a plug. He grabbed part of the wall and punched around the section he wanted. He pulled loose a thick sheet of stone. He dropped that over the hole.

If the brood snakes came after them, the serpents would have to use an unknown exit from their den to get back to the tunnel and face Seera's group. That would be suicide for them. She hadn't counted enough of the giant creatures to be a threat as long as Mister Shanahan was ready to deal with the problem.

“I think something herded the snakes on us,” said Seera after she and her partner started ahead of the group. “I can feel it wandering around when I look for it.”

Mister Shanahan nodded at the information. His expression barely changed.

“Do we go after the shepherd?,” she asked.

“He's already tried to kill us,” said Shanahan. “We can wait for him to try again. Keep an eye out. Be ready to shoot. Chasing him on his home turf means we have to be more careful of the others being picked off.”

“All right,” said Seera. She hoped that Everett shutting the tunnel behind them would be enough to force the enemy to stay in front of the group instead of trying to attack from behind.

Seera and Mister Shanahan paused on a ledge over a glowing river of water. He braced himself to keep the others from walking off the edge and falling into the rushing water.

She pulled a meal pack from her pack. She opened it and threw the food into the water. Glowing sparks showed fish attacking the various ingredients of a meal before they disappeared.

She looked around for a connection to the pool up behind them. She made out what looked like a chimney descending into the water. She shone her light on the stone. It vanished up into the ceiling.

She made out a small network in the wall with some of the water moving into the river below them, while some of the rest of it moved through the cave system. It looked like human plumbing to her but the pipes were carved out of the stone walls instead of something linking a source to an end.

“I think something is feeding the water from someplace beyond the walls,” said Seera. “Don't fall in. The fish are hungry.”

“Which way do we go from here?,” asked Master Yuen. “I don't see a bridge anywhere.”

Seera and Mister Shanahan swept their lights around the open space. The glow from the water lit up the bottom of the chamber as the liquid rushed below them. She didn't see any way to proceed other than jumping into the river and using that to get to where they needed to go.

She didn't like that idea at all. She would rather drop grenades in the water and kill all the fish before she executed such a move to get her wards through the opening where the river was going.

“I think I need to take a closer look at the tunnel where the river is going,” said Seera. She took off her pack and made sure she had a fresh magazine of bullets for the fish. She adjusted her bag so it wouldn't fall open if she had to do something daring and stupid. “I'm going to need a line, Everett.”

“What's the plan?,” asked the Spider.

“I need to see if that tunnel is tall enough that we can use a line to move us through without touching the water,” said Seera. “We can probably dam the water with Mister Shanahan's help. I want to make sure it's worth it before we try.”

“All right,” said Everett. He looked at where Seera shone her light. “Do you want to go over there? I can look at it for you.”

“I need to make sure for myself,” said Seera. She took a breath. “Ideally, if we can get through, you'll have to run some of your web as a line to move everyone from one side of the tunnel to the other. Mister Shanahan will have to go last in case we need to cause a collapse.”

“What happens to us if we do have to collapse the tunnel?,” asked Master Yuen.

“We'll have to find some other way out,” said Seera.