Seera followed Mister Shanahan down the tunnel to the fork. She gestured for the Wu Chi to head down the right hand side. She kept her rifle pointed down the left tunnel. If anything came up, she wanted to shoot as long as she could before Everett closed the tunnel behind them.

Mister Shanahan gestured for her to go ahead down the right. He aimed his own rifle down in the dark. He didn't have on his light. When he flipped it on, he would be using it to blind his enemies while he was shooting at them.

Seera passed the Wu Chi. She noted the assistants kept Master Yuen bracketed. Enemies would have to come at them first before they could attack the map maker. She approved of that for her own reasons.

“I'm going forward for a bit,” said Seera. “Wait for Everett, and Mister Shanahan, and then follow me. Be careful. There might be problems in this tunnel that we haven't seen yet.”

“Of course,” said Master Yuen. “Do you think the webbing will hold the tunnel behind us?”

“I don't know,” said Seera. “I'll keep an eye on it. If something comes into the tunnel behind us, we'll find a place to make a stand. I think Mister Shanahan can handle anything that isn't too big.”

And maybe some things big enough to kill all of them if they let the monsters get too close.

Seera threw her talent forward to look for any danger ahead. It allowed her to pick her way around spikes from the floor of the tunnel, small pits, and stumbling blocks in the way. She paused when something triggered her sense.

She asked for more detail. It told her a small group of armed combatants were in the tunnel ahead of her. She paused. She didn't want to confront them, but they were blocking the group's way. She decided to ask the group what they wanted to do before she caused a fight by accident.

She thought they could fight their way through if they had to do it. She didn't want to resort to the extreme of killing strangers when she didn't have to.

Seera backed up from the group in the dark. She kept an eye on them in case they charged her. She felt her talent would hand her targets even if she couldn't see them. That would have to do until they decided what they wanted to do.

The group had come down from the fork with Mister Shanahan in the lead. He paused when he saw Seera in the light.

“We have a group in the tunnel ahead of us,” said Seera. She threw her talent back down their trail. Another group was at the webbed door behind them. “There's another group behind us. Do we try to talk to the group ahead of us before we start shooting, or go back and wait for the group trying to follow us?”

Mister Shanahan didn't say anything. It didn't matter which group they dealt with first as long as she was safe, and they could get the job done.

The three Wu Chi masters argued in their own language before Master Yuen demanded silence. Seera thought the problem was the assistants were actually guards and they advocated going back, while Master Yuen wanted to go forward and see what lay at the bottom of the mesa.

“I think we should at least talk to the group ahead of us before we open fire,” said Everett. “We are trespassing on their home ground. They might allow us to leave without a problem.”

“So we go down and see if we can get by without killing anybody?,” asked Seera. She noted the expressions on the faces of the men. None of them liked that idea, but they would try it out.

She led the way back down the tunnel until she reached a spot she thought was close enough to do her talking. She looked around and pointed out cover for the others. If a fight happened, she didn't want them wounded accidentally.

“Hello!,” called Seera. “Do you want to talk?”

She heard a skittering in the dark. She imagined they had thought they were invisible down there. She guessed they were. It was luck that her talent didn't care about light.

“If you don't want to talk, why are you waiting in the dark?,” asked Seera. She kept her rifle pointed down at the group. She could feel her talent marking easy targets for her if she had to pull the trigger. “What do you want?”

“Outsiders are not allowed to enter,” said someone. The voice was raspy and marked the accents wrong. “You shall be used for food and stock.”

“We can go back,” said Seera. “No one has to know about you guys living down here.”

“No one will know,” said the voice in the dark. “You will never reveal anything.”

“It doesn't have to be this way,” said Seera. “We're willing to leave peacefully. There doesn't need to be a fight.”

A spear passed through where the voice thought she was. She frowned. She hadn't wanted this, but if they wanted to die, she would kill them.

“Fire in the hole!,” said Mister Shanahan. She heard something fly down in the dark. She ducked down behind her cover and covered her ears. An explosion lit up their enemy as it ripped them to shreds. The marine moved forward. Single shots dealt with any of the defenders who had survived the grenade he had thrown.

Seera moved forward. Her talent told her that the way was clear. This was why she had asked Mister Shanahan to come with her. She didn't have time to regret the request now. They had tried to kill her. They got what they deserved.

“It looks clear,” said Seera. “Do we keep moving forward, or wait for the others to catch up?”

“Go forward and look for another ambush point,” said Mister Shanahan. “There may be more than these two groups wandering around down here.”

Seera nodded. She headed down the tunnel, avoiding the blood and splashed body parts as much as possible. She wiped her face as she went.

Why had they thought they would prevail? All they had to do was back off long enough for Seera to take her people to the door to the central shaft. Everett could have yanked all of them out of there one by one to avoid any problems.

Why not let them leave without trouble?

Mister Shanahan came forward, playing his light everywhere. He seemed ready to kill more of the cave dwellers. He waited for her to go forward so he could be right at her shoulder in case they ran into more trouble.

“Are the others coming behind us?,” he asked after a few minutes of walking. “We might want to let them pass if we can.”

It took Seera a moment to realize he was talking about the other group of cave people trying to get through Everett's web. She threw her talent down the tunnel behind them. They had almost cut through the silk wall.

“They'll be in the tunnel in a few minutes,” said Seera. “I don't know how long it will take them to catch up to us.”

“They might pause when they see their dead,” said Mister Shanahan. “I wouldn't count on it. Let's see if we can find a defensible position in case they're faster than you think.”

“This isn't what I thought we would be doing,” said Seera. “No one knows there are people living in the caves. I guess we should have.”

“They seem at home in the dark,” said Mister Shanahan. “I wonder if they know anything about the monsters heading for the surface.”

“We won't know unless we take one, and I don't know if they will talk after what we just had to do,” said Seera.

“They probably wouldn't talk to us except as slaves being ordered around,” said Mister Shanahan. “We'll worry about what they know when we decide if we want to keep going. Eventually we're bound to run into more of them that we'll have to fight.”

“What do you think they're doing?,” asked Seera.

“The same thing that surface people do,” said Mister Shanahan.

The answer didn't ease the pressure in Seera's mind. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed to this expedition. They might be on the way to killing a bunch of innocent farmers and hunters. Did she want to be responsible for that?

If she wasn't there, what would be happening?

Emil and whomever he designated his field commander would be burning their way through anything in their way. A bunch of farmers wouldn't rank a thought unless they had some kind of power to stop the weapons in their tracks.

And Seera doubted they had anything that could stop the king of weapons in his tracks for more than a few seconds. She thought he could collapse the mesa on top of the cavern if he wanted to do it. It would wreck his capital, but sacrifices would have to be made for the greater good.

Seera pondered if Emil could really drop the mesa on top of anyone living there. She didn't know. On the other hand, Emil had a lot more abilities and more experience in ruining things for people.

She frowned as her talent told her the natives were coming down the tunnel after them. Whatever happened next, she was sure she would have to kill some of the people coming to kill her.

She was ready for that, no matter how much she didn't like it. She found an alcove ahead. They could use that for cover from the coming storm.

She waved for the Wu Chi to get behind the rock as she pointed her rifle up the tunnel. Mister Shanahan built a little counter on the other side of the corridor. He cut the lights and waited for the danger to come.