Chapter 14
Teeth and Water
Saan had put Nes and Trenna on the task on moving the big spools of armor-cloth into position. They used a couple more of the same metal pole that barred the door to make a ramp to slide the spools down, and already two of the three were in position in front of the only way in. Between the wide double door and the inner wall proper was a space about a meter long, a mini-foyer, and the first spool was placed within that gap with the second behind and touching it.
Nes and Trenna were sweating from the effort of moving the maybe hundred-and-fifty kilogram rolling objects in place, huffing and puffing as the last spool was being pulled out of the built-in shelves of the brick wall. When it was on the floor, they turned it toward the door and heaved as they pushed it to meet the other two rolls. Now the three huge spools as wide as the door frame were lined up one after the other, the row extending a third of the way into the room.
The whole time the others were working to get the spools in place, Saan was disassembling coils from one of the four looms opposite the spool wall. The metal strands were made of a strong and highly flexible alloy Nes promised would be very difficult to break. The pearlescent short sword she stole from the forge cut through that alloy with ease. She had removed twenty of the coils and was using her multi-tool to intertwine them into a circle.
Outside the door, the carnivorous fasshim grew restless at being denied entry. They scratched and chafed at the door, and... barked? Whatever noise they were making, it was deep, menacing, and made the creatures sound hungry. The Stitch may not be working on them too well anymore, their aggression upon reaching the barred door had on a steady rise.
Saan started losing her grip while wrapping coils now, her hands clammy and sore. She’d had to work incredibly fast to get the metal circle done, and was slick with sweat under her combat attire. It did not help one bit that she was nervous about any coming battle – her head stung lightly at the use of that word, but she ignored it that time – against creatures that she knew nothing about and could not fight directly. She was always prepared, or tried to be, that was one of her best qualities. It was a big reason why she ranked up higher than anyone with an equivalent number of years in the DSF. It’s why Dastou chose her to be his direct subordinate in regards to personnel, his administrator. This situation was so out of the ordinary that her nature was subverted slightly, and her confidence in her ability to think was half-gone.
“We’re ready,” Nes said, “and those antelope-bear fellas sound like they are, too.”
“They are fasshim, I think,” corrected Saan as she tightened the ends of the strings of her web.
“How do you know they’re ‘fellas’?” asked Trenna, wiping her brow with a forearm.
“Wild guess based on their horns,” responded Nes. “But I bet those disturbing teeth are shared by both sexes.”
Saan looked at the others’ handiwork. Atop the spools, a big square net of the filament-like string had been spread out, knotted intermittently to keep its shape. Saan nodded in approval, put her multi-tool in a pocket, and threw the short sword in a corner behind the cut-up loom.
“Good,” she said, “that will do. Help me wrap it onto this.”
The animal noises grew stronger, louder, and they chuffed at the wooden door desperately; the Stitch was no longer working on them at all. Saan grabbed one side of her two-meter-diameter circle of coils and gestured for Nes to take the other. She wished she had time to make it a proper barrier while looking at it now, its big holes enough to fit her arm through without issue. It would serve against the overlarge animals it was meant for however, and the two agents carried it to the spools and laid it down on top of the middle one where the filament thread web was.
“I sincerely hope this works,” Saan said. “The irony would be too great for a vegetarian to be eaten by monstrous versions of herbivores.”
Nes quirked up an eyebrow as he started wrapping thread onto metal. “Wait, is that irony?”
Saan almost assured him that it was, but now that she thought on it, she had no idea.
“Uh, I think that’s irony,” replied Trenna as she helped to complete the web. “I don’t have much of a formal education, so I’m not sure.”
It was fairly obvious that Trenna was trying to keep her spirits up after the confrontation with Milser in the hallway.
“Well, if we live through this, we can ask Dastou,” said Nes, “Correcting people is one of his two top-tier personal specialties in life.”
“What’s the other one?” Trenna asked.
“Acting like he doesn’t need to be corrected.”
Blurred Weaponry (Saints of the Void, Book 1) Page 19