The ascent had taken both the remainder of the measure, and well into the next rise. Storm had become but a meager drizzle, yet as the colony marched ever higher up the winding road emerging from the trees, it was no longer the rain which stalled them. The biting wind, like icy tips of a hundred scythes, drew numbing lines inside her lungs each time the Queen’s vents flared open for breath. Had the air been still, it would have been merely an elevated chill, the bracing kind of shivering alertness Skthveraachk could even claim to enjoy from the raised balconies of Hollowcore’s own peaks. When it howled instead through the cliffsides and between craggy outcroppings, it made the cold feel like the darkest fades of Dracan’s winter. A numbing cold which got into your joints and made the jelly of your eyes feel hard and thick. Poking her head over the cover of the stoney barricade, a particularly vicious gust whipped the Queen’s antennae back from her head, and sent her back onto all six legs, lowering her profile as much as she could to let the gales slide off her shell.

“Two scouts silenced. Eighteen menials silenced.”

“Faderise ascent unsuitable as well. Too steep.”

“Your machinery postulates in ideal circumstances. Those were two of my most limber scouts. If they fell, it cannot be climbed.” Like a fat hive it sat, wrapped layers of silk, sealant and digested rock fused onto the side of the mountain. The shadows of bodies crawling all over its face, appearing and disappearing into the elevated tunnel entrances coating its crest. Rows and lines of sharpened stakes and naturally jutting crags denying easy access to the upper layers, demanding entry only by the single largest tunnel entrance alive and swarming with white bodied shapes. Interior cover from the winds, even as her own army huddled and shivered along the narrow paths for hundreds lengths below. More, still, pushing further into the peaks, seeking passages which would allow them to surround the fortified nest. “It has been oft whispered the Cktahnckleevhen were not the first owners of this nest. From the disrepair of their other territories, I see now where these rumors arose. The construction is immense. The effort put to the fortifications, enviable. The positioning, nigh impregnable.”

The Solovyova laughed at the suggestion, her voice present if not her body. That, as the Queen’s should have been, was safely in the array of vehicles further down the slope, beneath rigid canopies of inflated tents.

“We are to liberate Claws-On-Slope, not sear it from the face of the world.” Skthveraachk wished her song sounded more sure, more convincing. The pass was a symbol as much as it was fortification, a sight every colony traveling to the Rememberings would hold in memory forever. She did not want that sight to be of a hole in the mountains, like the Composer’s own scythes had thrust through the shell of the world. But equally, the ease of such taunted her, called and enticed and tempted. Hundreds of silenced voices was a generous estimate. Thousands would be more likely. “Direct the wyverns to another circling of the nest. Seek any alternate route of approach.”

Skthveraachk left a pair of watchful drones at the ridge, crawling on her core down towards the arrangement of vehicles and temporary shelters with attendants and menials in tow. Staring at the imposing exterior would not crack it open, however much she glowered. At the least, the mounted drones atop the racing soldiers had tracked every retreating raider to this path. It was unlikely any of the pale shells remained down in the valley beneath them, so equally unlikely the Queen would find herself trapped between paired forces. Such, given her own plans, would be greatest embarrassment. Thinking on the timing she would need, hairs rattled as another gust shook the cliff’s side, dislodging small stones which cracked and bounced their way down the slope as Skthveraachk called for her colony.

“Dispatch. Scouting probe. Twenty drones. Send to Cktahnckleevhen-Colony breeding nest.”

“Message?”

“Claws-On-Slope secured. Request Cktahnckleevhen forces to garrison and occupy.”

“…Queen is…confused?” Frenzied, is what the music sung without singing. Fearful of the implication even as the drone was obligated to utter it. “This is not truth.”

“Will take most of a measure to deliver message to colony. By then, it will be truth.” Menials and drones swayed in place, trying to internalize the rationalization. One began to shake, rapidly, vibrating in place. Skthveraachk gestured with claw across the distance, seeing the signs, and two soldiers escorted the shivering drone away from the others. So the dull snip as they severed the soon-to-be frenzying menial’s skull from its core would not upset the others. “Sing comprehension.”

“If sung to Cktahnckleevhen now, would be frenzied. When we sing to Cktahnckleevhen later, will not be frenzied. Received. We go.”

“Be of speed. Be of care.” The cluster broke away from the main column, descending cautiously while the tainted corpse was tossed over a ledge opposite, rather than risk it contaminating others nearby. Would be truth. Future truth. She gazed again through the eyes of her scouts as they continued to visually poke and prod at the mound of digested soil and stone, searching for weaknesses they had yet to locate. Patrolling boots stomped past her as the Queen slipped beneath the airseal of one of the tents, the thinner alien air a welcome trade for the immediate warmth which surrounded her amidst the nearly empty interior, the few pairs of humanites who stood abruptly from squat seating to salute her entry. She bobbed her head in response. “Be of ease. I seek only escape from the chill as you. Do not mind my presence.” Elevated castes. Not higher thinkers, officers, but their markings put them above the common soldierly. Probably why they remained warm, unlike many of their kind outside.

Fabric made rigid by alien means only barely rustled in the wind, and as bodies pushed and adjusted within to accommodate the Queen’s curled body. A meager six other drones managed to fit themselves inside, the rest huddling into the communal balls that had formed all across the flats of the rising roads, and wherever rises in rock blocked the wind. It meant a near silence in the link. A similar, unpleasant stillness in the tent as the usually noisome aliens kept quiet, avoiding both her eyes and general body.

“It is unpleasant, but survivable. I do not foresee more than forty of my children perishing from the cold. How do your own soldiers fare?”

One of the males fiddled with his suit, tapping at the console on its exterior.

“The supply priority is given to humanites. There are not enough resources provided, be they tents or vehicles, to accommodate all of us.”

One of the others piped up, now that the seated male with his forward lean had taken lead on the conversation.

“It is unnecessary-“

There was no time to argue, and frankly, little desire. The two lesser officers were out of the tent in breaths, their silhouettes passing by the cut circular windows in the tent’s side.

“I sing the thanks of beleaguered observers.” Skthveraachk’s back legs rubbed and rattled, sending the call out as roles were revised and drones recalled. A few losses would still be expected, but the smallest and injured who were huddled under the bodies of their siblings could at least take advantage of the humanite’s offer. “I had similarly hoped the work to secure my planet would be, better organized. But the number of soldiers is acceptable, the quality of equipment and technology, elevated from what I am used to.”

A female leant forward, joining the posture of the foremost male.

“My colony was dispatched shortly after being,” A thousand possible notes, none of them conveying precisely what the Queen wished. “Identified. Colonel Solovyova was the one to hold the line for many tenmeasures, and with my arrival, we pushed the Coalition from the peninsula. First at Guir, then all the way to Tarasque.”

Thankfully, the Queen needed not answer the first question when the second was thrust before her. Both were small sacrifices suffered for the sake of heat, and for the comfort of slowly feeling her eyes go watery again as attendants combed their hairs over their curved surface.

“The offer was made.” Short laughs, small gasps. It was a humanite cultural norm to expect half the things they heard to be untruths, and act surprised when they learned there was still truth in the stars.

“My place remained here, securing my world. For the Emperor, and for my own people’s sakes. It would have been wrong to take my colony from that role, for any reason.” Bodies entered tents where humanites, true to their offer, had stepped out or lessened their presence. Kindness, unexpected, and it was to the Queen to reciprocate. “What is it like? Earth. I have seen pictures, images, great constructs in the shapes of your kind rising past the clouds and oceans covered with roads and habitats.”

Head gestured to the airseal, and the other aliens signaled their own agreements.

“Then we both are fighting for a world we have never seen.” The humanite smiled, and Skthveraachk gave a chitter of her mandibles she hoped was close enough to the expression for the alien to register. “For a nest we have only heard stories of.”

“The soldiers of your kind we left on the planet were dedicated. They served efficiently with my colony, and by your standards, honorably.” Unable to rear up without puncturing the roof of the shelter, the Queen crossed only one leg over her core. “Whatever the Composer places before them, believe they will overcome.” Two of the aliens laughed. The others merely grinned, their wet bones on display. Menial-warriors and soldiers both had found a passage around the base of the controlled nest, and were approaching tentatively. The Queen sung her readiness to assist, but thinkers and soldiers both assured it was unnecessary. Their experience had grown significantly.

The correction was practically shouted, the Queen’s attendants jerking at the sudden volume even as they beat their antennae together. The alien trailed off, and Skthveraachk felt her even mild annoyance draining by the moment by the honesty on display.

“Different, than what you were accustomed to?”

“This information is erroneous, my colony has not eaten humanites for nearly a cycle now. I merely stabbed one of your officers to illustrate a fundamental reality, that-“ A shadow moved. A phantom was walking. Skthveraachk was alert, now. Awake, lucid, without excuse of jelsaah or even fatigue to fall back onto. A quartet of limbs was lurching by the tent’s window, the angles not quite right, the posture just not possible unless the formite was balanced on legs it could not possess. Its head bobbed like a corpse. Its mandibles, silent and still. And its eyes. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The Queen did not even wait to be outside before her warning signals had spurted onto both terrain and humanites behind her. Screeching as she called additional menials to her. “Locate!”

“Target?”

“Unidentified formite!” Outside. The balled cluster of bodies huddled outside the tent splitting apart to follow as Skthveraachk tore around the edge of the shelter. Smells of her colony, of humanite metal and lances, the howl of the wind. Confused shouts from the officers within the tent just as much as her own children milling about her legs.

“Searching!”

“Searching!”

“Seeking!” They came from all sides. They ran between the pathways created by transport, tents and unloaded crates. Going up on four legs, the Queen thrust herself above the tops of the obstructions, spinning as she searched to all sides. Nothing. Nothing. Menials tapped against eachother, confirming their membership in the colony, and some even thrust their bodies into tents near where they could smell the Queen’s warnings. Observers took stances and rings were formed as the search widened, so when a voice sung out from the perimeter, it took only a breath for it to reach the center of the spiral.

“Unidentified formite located!”

“Location!”

“Emerging from Claws-On-Slopes!” Impossible. Nothing could travel three hundred lengths in the span of a few breaths. “Raider formites! Coming! Approaching!”

“Formation?”

“Opened. Diplomatic?” White formites. Not black and oily with movements like chitin on strings of silk. Not the target. But unable to be ignored. Lowering herself back down, Skthveraachk sung confirmation, her mind already transfering to be closer to the front of the column. But not before her own eyes lowered practically into the dusted rock beneath her, and into the proof she could not reject. The trails of dragged clawmarks amidst more circular imprints where the shadow had been. Phantoms did not leave prints.

“Raiders halted eighty lengths from column. Thirty drones. Varying caste. And three curculites.” Skthveraachk did not approach. Not herself, not here. Her once-mated soldier asked for, and was gifted, that responsibility. The pale shells had halted, climbing down off their long-snouted mounts, waving their arms over their heads, making sure they were seen and that Skthveraachk knew they wished to be seen. Her own drones did not break from the link, but formed a chain of bodies reaching out to meet their enemies. Largest among them, his belts of skulls and repurposed humanite armor hanging from his body and knocking hollowly in the wind, the former Vhersckaahlhn did not match their swaying; that would imply they were equals. Rearing up, fearlessly displaying his armored underside, the soldier furiously tapped his half-sheathed scythes together as one of the smaller whites chattered forward, scattering scents into the wind.

“Am Skthveraachk soldier of Skthveraachk-Colony and Imperial Sovereignty.”

“And I am of Kh’a’jhick’jhick. Singer, for this cluster.” The pale shell would not be intimidated, going up on its own legs despite how the posture barely raised it halfway to the standing length of the soldier. “Curious your Queen does not send better relay for her notes. Will make negotiation difficult.”

“More curious how queenless colony thinks to oppose might of our unity.” The distance between them on the otherwise empty bridge was shallow, but seemed insignificant compared to the endless wall of mountain which rose to their alto. A grey canvas against which their minute silhouettes were but flecks. “There is no negotiation. Your nest will be surrounded. Its shell, breached. Occupants, devoured.”

“This is likely outcome. It is an outcome my cluster had decided to be undesirable. We came to feast on weakness before continuing journey. Did not anticipate…you.” Curculites behind the singer jittered and whistled, but the drones reached to briskly rub their undersides, calming the creatures. “You withstood our beasts.”

“Your colony bears weaker soldiers. Your mass is flimsy.” Gazing from singer to mounts, the soldier’s hesitant appreciation sounded through the color of his viciousness. “Your beasts…are more impressive.”

“As are yours. Never in our memories has the Jhick’Jhick met another colony with so many songless. Large. Small. Airborne! It is no mystery why our stingers were so disturbed. Recognition?”

“Recognition.” Skthveraachk had remained on the edge of the soldier’s consciousness, guiding without overruling his song. At the word, though, her music bellowed from her, the voice of the male harmonized utterly with her own. “You will return my children. They are not yours to use. Return them, and some of you may leave alive.”

“Some is good. All is better. We do not wish conflict, but even with your strange songless, you will suffer greatly in taking this nest. We have more of our own beasts, and our soldiers chant a song of unbroken perseverance. All shall bleed if mandibles meet.”

“Know that Queen could silence all within with a spoken note.” The vitriol caught the swaying raider off-guard, the opened truth briefly stunning it. “Know you live now only by grace of Composer, and desire to take nest rather than see it burned.”

“If truth is accepted, then Skthveraachk is twice more enemy we do not seek. But if Skthveraachk has not silenced us, nest must be more valuable than our deaths. Kh’a’jhick’jhick will leave Claws-On-Slope nest.”

“In exchange?”

“Fifty of your songless. The two-legged, the rolling cubes, and whispering fliers.”

“Unacceptable.”

“You have many.”

“Their value is incalculable. Their strength, limitless. Their crests I wear, my greatest pride.” The soldier shook the skulls on his cuirass. “The trade is not even.”

“Breeding rights. Forty-eight remaining stingers, our departure from this nest, in exchange for three filled sacks of seed from each creature.” The wind hissed malevolently, winding between their bodies. It was a necessary silence; the Queen needed time to relay the offer. Hissing fled under the slew of profane curses Colonel Solovyova uttered at the suggestion, fleeing the fury which echoed off rocky walls.

“This is not possible.”

“Your music curdles sour. We will not flee and quit this place for nothing.” It was not anger. More, resolution, that Skthveraachk smelled on the pacing raider. “Your songless are strong. Too strong. Cannot leave without further knowledge. If trade denied, will fight until we are all silenced. Watch, learn, gather knowledge, and slip drones past you to deliver knowledge to our colony once our death is certain.”

“Knowledge is given, freely.” The soldier wished to cut and bite and consume. The Queen only gently held him back, ensuring enough of his malice flowed through the composition of her piece. “They come. You die. Return to the deserts or flee elsewhere. Matters not. You will know them as we know them, soon.” How far had her message traveled already? A measure to take the nest before Cktahnckleevhen came. Achievable, but at what cost? The Queen did not back down, waiting as the pale singer turned and clicked less translatable messages to its own colony. Bodies on the battlements and at nest’s entrance tapping and whistling replies in song, until their queenless representative once more faced her swarm.

“Sing incredible confidence in your songless.”

“Warranted. Deserved.”

“If trade value unable to be reached, extend the clawed offer of challenge.”

“Elaborate.”

“Our weakness, accepted.” Rubbing forelegs together, the white chitin bent ant scratched pleasantly. “Strength of our beasts, confronted. Propose combat. Songless against songless. Allows us assessment and demonstration of creatures. Will leave nest in peace, and leave our stingers to you. If,” The rubbing quickened. “Your songless prevails.”

“And if your songless consumes ours?”

“Will still depart. Knowledge gained. But we keep stingers. And we take…twenty.” Mandibles jittered. “Total. Male. Some of each.”

“There is little space on these paths for such combat.”

“Will permit songless and tenders to enter nest, once Queen pledges there will be no bloodshed but that which has been sung for.”

“As Kh’a’jhick’jhick will sing intent not to harm any but combatant sent into Claws-On-Slopes.”

“Before the Founders, it is sung. Once.”

“And Again. Skthveraachk-Colony agrees. Prepare for our arrival.” The soldier resisted. A brief struggle against the directions the Queen gave, his own desires mixing with that of the colony. But in the end, the consensus was final. He lowered his head, and let his antennae stroke against the other drone, their scents mingling. Skthveraachk severed the connection, eyes returning to the Solovyova’s stance nearby. She managed to condense the explanation into the length of a tenth beat, before the Colonel thrust her face forward so close that the Queen feared their skulls would bash.

“Irrelevant. Your people will not.”

“Irrelevant. Your people-“ Now, Solovyova really did bump her head into the Queen’s. Uncaring for both how the position put her midsection directly between Skthveraachk’s jaws, and for how the attendants began to prickle and shake their hairs in warning at the contact. “We would give them a mixture of soldiers and vehicles. Twenty in total.”

“If the Coalition defeated us on Dracan, we would all be dead. If the sky fell tomorrow, my world would end. It is irrelevant, for it is impossible. The raiders believe you songless. Your intelligence and technological advantage against a mindless beast is not a contest.”

The translator sputtered hopelessly, the Queen patting the surface of the device as she would calm a pupae.

“Twice, thrice, ten times perhaps that amount would perish if we assaulted the nest. It was sensible agreement.”

“Soldiers exist to fight, and to die.”

“My children,” Her jaws sought to clench, but the Solovyova’s position meant the Queen was forced to hold them open. “Know their roles. They do not care even as you dismiss their loyalty. They do not flinch from what is asked of them. A formite would gladly fling itself from the peaks without hesitation to save ten of its siblings. This conversation would not be occurring if our positions were reversed.”

“Then we will send the verger.” The Colonel withdrew, her clenched fists remaining at her sides, but while the clench of her face laxed and waned, if only just.

“I had presumed you would be more comfortable arming, equipping, and relying upon one of your own. If it is objectionable, I expect any of your kind with the appropriate tools capable of handling anything my planet may throw at your claws.” The objection was, curiously, still present. But even more interesting was how lessened it was. Claims that the vergers were equally members of the Sovereignty, seemingly forgotten, and in only the time it took for the Queen to select her own cluster of representation, the Solovyova was on her communicator. The visor over her eyes flickering into activity.

It was a curt summation. One the Colonel only marginally elaborated on when the armored mass was brought before them both. Hands, not bound, still kept behind its back while the curved helm dipped in a bow, the soldiers accompanying keeping an unusually fair distance to either side.

“Terms have been reached with the enemy. You will be armed. You will fight, and kill, whatever creature the queenless send against you. You will not die.” Plating scraped as the humanite shifted in its bulky shell, the reflective face turning between them both.

The Queen tried to follow the gaze, seeking the individual in question, but Solovyova merely grunted.

Back and forth again, the vertical cylinder suspended on the back of the armored frame whirring and releasing puffs of strange gaseous vapor every few tenbreaths. And when the alien sung again, it was with that grating, unseen grin which somehow perverted the being’s music.

A finger thick as a menial’s scythe was raised, and the Queen wondered how flesh could fit within such an amalgamation of gears and turning wheels.

“You are not being fed sufficiently?” Solovyova seemed prepared to answer herself, but the verger’s rattling notes were quicker.

“If it is a powerful weapon, it will make the task simpler. Give it to the verger, and allot greater biomass for its consumption. These are small requests and simply attainted.”

“I do not understand your distaste of this humanite, but I do understand it obstructs the only important principle. That the verger succeed, and our enemies fail. Increase the biomass allotment. Deliver its requested weapon. That is,” The Queen sucked thin air through her vents. “An order, Colonel.” Risk. She was uncertain if the authority was appropriate here, if it was even applicable. The verger was under her authority, and this was surely a district matter. But also, a military one. It was possible, entirely possible, the Solovyova could overrule the demand. The only question was, would she? Thankfully, the female seemed more focused on glowering at the stationary tower of blue hardstone. On giving warning looks to both soldiers alongside it, ensuring their own focus was emptily forward, dutifully silent.

The soldiers pushed, prodded, brought the verger around and marched it away. They did not sound like reasonable requests. Doubtful was the first reasonable either, but she had no time for cutting details. Expecting the Solovyova to follow, she was surprised when the colonel maintained her stand as the Queen began to stride for the bridge, looking back over herself in silent question.

“The Sovereignty is a place, a belief, an empire dedicated to efficacy. This, I have been taught repeatedly. Enjoyment of an individual, pleasure in their presence, belief in their values, irrelevant. Merit is all. The Hathan told me to use the verger, and I do exactly that. Nothing more.” She denied her curiosity openly, and nurtured it privately. Skthveraachk left the colonel where she stood, joining the rows of soldiers that had assembled, and waited. Passing the time watching through a prying menial’s eyes how a massive lance was retrieved from one of the transports, the lights upon it flashing as soldiers tapped unknown commands into a console nearby while verger hefted and tested the weight of it.

“Queen should not accompany.”

“Hostile nest. Order critical. Cohesion paramount.”

“Presence will make soldiers vicious. Quick to attack.”

“Soldiers will control selves.”

“Unnecessary risk.”

“Wish to see battle with own eyes.”

“Queen’s decisions unsatisfactory.” The accusation startled her. Brought her head up, her mind focused.

“Queen directs colony.”

“Colony watches battle. Queen not required. Queen’s presence will endanger plan.”

“Queen wishes to go.”

“Queen’s wants immaterial.”

“Queen is Magistrate!”

“Queen is Queen. Queen is not more important than colony.” She balked at the insolence. Tried to find the anger with which to argue against the music. Found, instead, that she could bring no justification for personally attending such a spectacle. Only, that it is what a humanite would expect of its own kind. And she was not a humanite. The hum of the colony surrounded her, and once more, Skthveraachk settled peacefully into her place amidst the music.

“Queen will remain outside.”

“Received. Queen is safe.” The buzz died down, the concern and stress across the mountainside fading. When the verger arrived at last, her children surrounded it. Marched alongside it, smearing pap and markings across the armor while ignoring the swats and shouts of protest the alien made. The path rose, the pale raiders parted from the entrance while spitting their own markers and fluids over the group. Skthveraachk stood at the cliff’s edge, her own sight fading and falling away as the cluster of formites and single humanite vanished into the dark. Light coming as the Queen raised her song, letting her drones clamber and coat her in their bodies, seeing through walls of digested rock to the return and reprise of music uttered by the guarding soldiers moving ever deeper inside. No need to inspect the tunnels for weakness, to memorize the paths taken. Not even to marvel at the great central passage, inscribed with hieroglyphic guidance amidst webs of silken memory, the aroma of every colony which had walked this road before. Faintly, the colony could even detect its own place on the walls and ceiling, the patterns of sight and smell both upon the carven interior. Tunnels branched. The humanite verger slipped, occasionally, hunched forward so far to fit within the passages that it at times was forced to drop to both legs and arms, pulling the lance that was almost a half as long as it was tall along behind it. The final tumble depositing the now muddied suit and occupant out into open-aired chamber. A place designed to catch rainfall, most likely, and to funnel it deeper into the subterranean passages where it would nurture fungal farms and occupants alike. Its purpose, different, this measure. For above the pillars of the cistern, perched on the edges and hanging upside-down upon the sloped ceiling, masses of raiders had gathered. All chittering. All watching. All waiting.

“This is songless?”

“This is chosen creature.”

“Surprise sung. Expected flier.”

“Unnecessary.”

“We shall see.”

There was only one banded among those she had sent. The nearby white-shelled formites gave curious titters at the noises the verger made, drawing close as they sought to taste and feel for its body. Skthveraachk’s soldiers bit and snapped, driving them back, uncaring for how the other raiders rattled their hairs in warning and instinctive defense.

“Expected. Yes.” There was still a shallow layer of water within that had not drained, but bubbling fluid floated atop it as organic algae. Denoting where the ‘songless’ beast was wanted. “Enter. Prepare. Queen watches. Kill for Queen.”

Her soldiers did not follow. Keeping to their formation’s cohesion as they remained on the elevated slope above the room-sized puddle and the splashes made as the verger’s feet sank beneath the surface, its lance gripped in both hands and swung before it. The Queen believed, or at least hoped, this was how it displayed confidence. The possibilities, too, were limited in their favor. The rock forbade tunneling lumbrites, and while the opened ceiling permitted stingers, Skthveraachk doubted greatly they would appear. Skirmishers, best utilized when the enemy was unprepared. There were only a few creatures which could fit through the awning of the tunnels spilling into the room, and the perfumes which poured from them stunk of only simple beasts. An allomyrite, perhaps, a large dynastite-…wait. Her memories flickered, a strange sense of repetition coming over the entire colony. Familiar. These thoughts, familiar. This place, familiar, though they had never stood where they were now. So why did she have a sense of dread? Of having made this mistake previous?

“We sing with the voices of the first colonies! We thrive where lushlanders fear to tread!” Music burst from the raiders as they began to sing, stirring the air with their heartbeats. “We, who conquered the sands and made them green! We, who captured the beasts of the world and made them ours! We, who conquered the star-sent and made slaves of their children! Witness!” Pincers. Teeth. Ancestral fear as the eight-limbed shadow grew, the raiders calling it out with thrown meat taken from their own colony. “The power of Kh’a’jhick’jhick! A descendent of Chelice, The Mother!” Not again. Not this again. The stinger thrust from the tunnel, and as the beady eyes rolled and turned, the shriek of the chaerilite would have shook the very foundations of the cavern. Had it, of course, been fully grown. And not of an adolescence that, at kindest estimate, made it but half the size of the monster Skthveraachk and her colony of twenty had slew on the Palamedes. The raiders shuddered in fear as much as excitement, gnashing their mandibles and claws. Skthveraachk, within the nest and across the mountains, stared. And as the young chaerilite screeched out another call of hunting, the very peaks trembled. From the rapid, pounding crackling as thousands of antennae beat together, laughter sweeping down from the peaks.

“It…it is a CHILD.” The laughter shaking her colony brought vehement and vitriolic noises from the raiders, but the relief flooding the Queen was palpable in the air. “None are so stupid as to try and capture grown chaerilite! Only humanites! Hilarity!”

Fear? It sounded more like amazement. The stinger swung overhead as the under-developed claws snapped the air. True, it still rose above even the larger humanite, but the contest had already been decided. Her soldiers sung her words between heavy clacks of their antennae, practically bouncing in place.

“Venomous stinger. Movement-based sight. Already smells you. Concern, needless. Head is located just beneath eyes. Fire, and destroy.” Water sloshed as the six legs crawled, formed little waves as its body pushed through the cistern. The verger’s fingers tapped and drummed its weapon, the massive lance leveled in preparation for the single, perhaps duo blasts which would see challenge settled.

“Else? Jaws are likely strong enough to inflict damage on you. Do not allow it closer, fire. Kill.”

“It is approaching.” The verger continued to move to the side, its grip hard on the lance, but its digits refusing to send the tool into an active state. Pincers snapped up the cube of biomass that had lured the chaerilite into the makeshift arena. Jaws tore it to shreds. “Verger. Shoot while it is occupied.”

“Verger?” The laughter slowed. The weapon, at last, began to heat itself visibly and audibly. The white light building within the crystalline lattices scrawled through its interior. Chaerilite, scraps of biomass hanging from its mandibles, lurched upright as it sought the source of the disturbance. Too slow. The humanite aimed. Compressed the trigger. Filled the air with a sizzling crack as the lightning erupted. The hole it left was a melted circle of perfect smoothness. Visible, clear through. Raiders, Skthveraachk’s soldiers, and the chaerilite itself all turned together, looking to where the lance had burned a hole straight through the wall of the cistern. Deeply. Powerfully. Harmlessly. All eyes went back to the alien, and the chaerilite screeched out its realization. Charging the new threat. “VERGER!”

Claws snapped the air as the daughter of Chelice lunched, and once more, the lance rose. But rather than fire, it groaned as the verger swung it as a club, cracking both humanite technology and Kayyhaitchian shell as a gout of water went up from where the chaerilite went down. Battered into the ground by the impact, yet no less vicious for it. The verger barely had time to raise the weapon again before stinger was thrust, a great rending sound emitting as humanite was knocked clear off its feet, tumbling away into the pool. Skthveraachk threw her legs high as the raiders sung cheering wonderment, taking in every action with fervent analysis.

“IT IS A LANCE, VERGER! POINT, AND SHOOT!” Sloshing out of the water, sparks were bursting from the hole in the alien’s shoulder. The metal, turned inward, not showing puncture clear to the other side. Rising to its feet, the verger emitted sounds the Queen could not fathom to understand. And, as the chaerilite adolescent too regained its stance, the splash of the twisted lance’s toss from the verger’s grip was followed by the heavy crunching of hardstone fists. The humanite beating its own hands together, only to spread them wide in invitation.

Chaerilite screamed. Humanite roared. Legs propelled both across the distance to one another, and the flurry of blows kicked up waves which crashed into the slope beneath the stunned graspers of Skthveraachk’s children. Claw seized around the verger’s arm. Fist crushed an imprint into the shell of the chaerilite’s core. Blood, red and watery, spurted out of plates as a pincer seized and pressed around the humanite’s leg. Blood, orange and thick, burst from an arm as the verger grabbed and tore off the crushing bottom half of the monster’s left claw.

“The tail! Heed the tail!” Shock and terror as the colored bloods mingled, the Queen’s body shaking attendants and menials loose as she paced and stomped outside the nest even while her eyes remained within. It was readying its stinger, getting the humanite in place to deliver the paralyzing, toxifying final blow. Bite and claw and stab, a lone formite was helpless once immobilized, and even as the verger fought to fend off claws and snapping mandibles, the stinger was coiling back, muscles contracting and tightening. Grunting and cursing, punching into the beast’s mouth, cocking encased arm back to prepare another strike. Too late. The tail struck. The visor shattered. Reflective fragments scattered into the mirrored pool, the verger held by jaw and claw, with the stinger thrust clear into the curve of its helmet. Poison would be pumping from its sacs now, needless overkill through the tip already stabbing into the skull and head contained within. The tail thrashed, pushed, as if seeking to breach a final resistance. Skthveraachk scurried to her right outside the nest, the ball of her soldiers following her path within as they sought better angle. An angle which showed what resistance remained. The stinger, puncturing into the helmet, held back and still by both of the verger’s fists. Closed around the spike, denying it further motion in. Or, retreat back.

Twisting metal buckled as the chaerilite clamped its one remaining pincer and mandibles tighter around the exosuit’s frame, but the scream which sounded at last was one both monsters shared. Effort, from the verger, as a yank down tore the stinger from the end of the chaerilite’s tail. Pain, and fury, as the chaerilite splattered venom from the gaping wound in all directions. Pulling the spike from its helm, a flash of green and white from wild eyes was followed by a thrusting. Stabbing the chaerilite’s own stinger into it’s lowered head. Once. Twice, to drive it back. And then, there were only fists. Pounding down, again and again, one at a time and then both at once like some maddened animal turning prey to pulp. The verger’s encased body, its only weapon. Until the beast had ceased to move and thrash. Until the pool, dyed orange now, pulled the colors into long lines as it drained away ever deeper into the mountain. Until the verger, leaking from arm and leg and panting through the hole in its helm which hissed out air, pulled its fist to the sky. The stinger, still clutched within. Raiders were silent. Skthveraachk, frozen.

Teetering, singing in notes none but Skthveraachk could understand, broken helm’s face was pulled up. Toxins trickling out of the interior, splashed across the riven cheeks marked with deformity and turned high to show white, clenched, madly grinning bone beneath. The humanite punched the air once more. It was more than enough to send it spinning, turning, and collapsing down, face-first into the pool. The pale shells and her own black hued soldiers poured down, the former prodding and slapping at the body, the latter hurriedly working together to roll it over, and lift it from the water.

“It lives! It breathes! Challenge, concluded!”

“It breathes.” The other colony, queenless, still formed consensus quickly. “For how long, uncertain.”

“Unimportant!” Had the stinger punctured the humanite’s flesh? Bodies buckled as they hoisted the weighed mass, others hurrying to recover the thrown lance before the raiders made off with it. “Your songless, slain. Humanite survives. Our agreement?”

“Upheld. We begin departure. You will allow us safe retreat.”

“As sung and settled.” The verger was hauled with speed back towards the cliffs, the Queen certain she had just lost cycles of her lifespan from the pounding fury of her heart. Without the helm, it was a shriveled and misshapen thing that lay beneath. Its skin unlike any in the Sovereignty, marred and twisted rather than smooth and carefully maintained. But the soldiers saw no blood within, even the holes and cracks in the suit filled with a strange, white foam that formed patterns with the red crimson trails trapped within. Songless? Incorrect. The Hathan had been right in his first assertion. Vergers were not songless. Vergers, it seemed, were simply rutting lunatics.