by Martha Wells
Moon caught the fisher by the wiry fur on the back of his neck before he took another step. “He is dead.” Moon could smell the corruption that drifted toward them on the damp air. “They both are.” Moon had had to lift Kall to check the drone under him, and there had been no breath or pulse of life in his body.
“You’re sure?” Ventl demanded. “Benl was the first one to go try to see what the miners were doing. Perhaps—”
“No, this is a trick,” Ghatli muttered, aghast. “For them to appear at this moment—”
Yes, it’s a trick, Moon thought. But how did the miners do it? The possibilities made his skin go cold.
The Cedar-rin stared in silence, their expressions horror-stricken or dumbfounded or blank with shock. They clearly knew Kall was dead, probably the same way Eikenn had known, through their mental connections, but the realization had frozen them in place.
Kall walked toward them slowly, his footing sure on the grassy mud of the clearing. He carried something that looked like a woven basket. The dead fisher, Benl, carried one too, and as he entered the clearing he turned toward Ventl and Ghatli and the others.
The nearest drones dropped back to form a half-circle. An stayed where it was, as if it was rooted in place. Eikenn regained control of her face and voice, and said evenly, “Kall, what has been done to you? Your connection to us is severed. And your body is so damaged.” Clearly she knew this was a trap, but she seemed more inclined to spring it than flee it.
Kall said, “I have word. They don’t wish to fight.” The Cedar-rin primaries didn’t speak with much inflection anyway, so there was no real difference in his voice to Moon’s ears. Kall held out the basket. “They want the being who killed their scouts yesterday. If you give it to them, they will leave the rest of us alone.”
Moon hissed in dismay. He thought, You idiot. And how long would it be before Ghatli and everyone who was in the caravanserai realized that Moon was the only one who had been gone long enough, the only one who had been alone in the jungle, the one who had come back covered with minor injuries.
Ventl stared in confusion. “But that was the Cedar-rin, wasn’t it? That Kall and the others. They killed the miners.”
Ghatli shook her head, confused. “I don’t …”
Benl still moved toward the astonished fishers. This close the basket he carried looked like it was made of some kind of webbing, and not straw or reed as Moon had first thought. Webbing. Like the webbing the miners extruded. One of the fishers called, “Benl, what happened? Where have you been?”
Another fisher caught her arm to draw her back. Sounding frightened, he said, “Moon is right, Benl’s dead. I can smell it too now.”
Moon’s eye caught movement and he shoved a fisher aside and stepped forward. Yes, the basket was moving. He yelled, “Those things they’re holding, that’s the trap! Don’t touch it! Get back!”
He didn’t expect anyone except maybe Ghatli to listen to him but his conviction must have sounded in his voice. Fishers scattered away from Benl. Ghatli bolted for the house. And then the basket Kall held burst open.
It rained tiny white creatures in the air, glittering and spidery. Eikenn shouted, “Kill them! Don’t let them touch you!”
Moon resigned himself to shifting. Benl’s basket was a heartbeat from bursting and his scales might provide just enough protection from whatever was in it. But before he could shift, Ghatli yelled, “Moon!” and threw a metal bucket at his head.
Moon caught it and swung it, smacked Benl in the face and knocked him flat. The fisher let go of the basket as he fell and Moon pounced, slamming the bucket down on it.
He pinned it with his weight but the bucket jerked under him. The basket must have burst and the bucket was now full of whatever those things were. The drones had surged forward, two holding Kall while the others stamped and sliced at the white spider-like things. One ran past and Moon had a good look: it was a miniature miner, tiny and complete in every detail. Then a drone leapt to swing its sickle and sliced the creature in half.
The mini-miners inside the bucket surged again and Moon struggled to hold it down, thinking for a moment that he might have to shift anyway. Then Ventl ran up beside him and added his weight to Moon’s. Ghatli arrived a moment later, waving over two fishers, who carried a large flat rock. She said, “Here, use this.”
Moon and Ventl held the bucket by the sides as the fishers set the rock atop it. It sunk a little into the wet grass and stopped bucking, as if the inhabitants knew they were stuck now. It made Moon’s skin creep. He looked toward Benl, who lay there as if dazed, and knew it was going to get worse.
Eikenn strode over. The drones circled around to check the packed dirt and grass for more of the creatures. Kall was surrounded by drones, but he hadn’t moved. Eikenn said, “What is the purpose of this? What being do they speak of?”
“I don’t know,” Ghatli answered. She turned to look down at the unresponsive Benl, and shivered in dismay. This close, it was possible to see the fur was sunk in around his eyes and mouth, showing that the flesh beneath had begun to decay. “Some fishers found a dead miner last night, but we thought it must be one that died later, after your people fought them. I would rather know why two people we thought dead are—were—walking and talking.” She crouched down to look more closely at Benl. Moon said, “Careful. Let me do it.”
Ghatli stood and he stepped around her and used his foot to roll Benl over. Everyone but Eikenn flinched backward. Moon half-snarled.
Buried in the back of Benl’s head was one of the miniature miners. The way it was sunk into his fur, its legs must extend down through his skull.
Ghatli made a choked noise. Ventl gasped, “These things meant to kill us and eat out our brains.”
Moon wished that was an exaggeration but he was afraid Ventl was right for once.
Eikenn whipped around and snapped an order to the drones. One stepped behind the motionless Kall and used its sickle to slice his armor open. Moon didn’t have a good view but he saw the moment when the drone grimaced in disgust. The miner must be buried in Kall’s neck, below the curving horns that protected the back of his skull.
Ghatli and the fishers were locked in place, as if their bodies had turned to stone. Then Ventl said, “Kill it.”
Moon figured later that what happened next would probably have happened anyway, no matter what they had done. The timing was just a coincidence. But as one of the fishers drew a scaling knife and stabbed it down into the thing buried in Benl’s head, a dozen miners burst out of the upper slope of the jungle.
Fishers scattered in fear and drones surged forward. Moon shoved Ghatli and the nearest fisher toward the house and shouted, “Get inside!”
The miners went for the drones and the primaries first, but more drones poured up the path from the lake. A miner bounded toward the retreating fishers and Moon lunged into its path. It pounced on him, rictus jaw wide and arms reaching. Under the cover of its body Moon shifted and ripped with both feet and hand claws. Guts spilled out onto him and he shifted back to groundling and rolled out from under the miner as it collapsed. This is going to be tricky, he thought.
Miners tore across the clearing as drones slashed at their legs. Eikenn was on top of one, driving her sickle through a leg joint. Another miner darted at the house and Moon grabbed a rock and flung it. It bounced off the miner’s back and the creature charged for him.
There were too many Cedar-rin and miners fighting in the jungle so he ran past the front of the house and around the corner. He ducked under a limb of the large tree that supported the structure and flattened himself against the reed wall.
The miner tried to outthink him by leaping onto the wall as it came around the corner, perhaps meaning to get above him. But it landed half atop Moon and he shifted and popped its leg joint. Three more miners followed it, and three more died in quick succession, with limbs torn off and guts ripped open. Moon was far more expert on killing miners after his rampage yesterday and not nearly
as blind with anger; he was able to dispose of them far more efficiently.
He got tossed into the jungle at one point by a miner’s death convulsion and was almost seen by a group of drones. Fortunately their backs were to him as they hacked at an upended miner and Moon was able to shift to groundling before anyone saw him. He ran back around the house to the clearing and saw the battle was nearly over.
Severed miner legs and a few arms were strewn across the grass and dirt. There were four dead miners still mostly whole, one on its back with a sickle buried deep in its open mouth. Dead drones also lay beside them, and one of the primaries sprawled unmoving. There weren’t as many dead as Moon would have expected after seeing the aftermath of the battle yesterday. Clearly the Cedar-rin had learned from that encounter too, and An hadn’t been exaggerating about their ability to rapidly and silently share knowledge.
Other drones huddled on the ground, alive but badly wounded. An had survived, Moon was glad to see, and was helping another wounded drone remove its torn armor. Eikenn was alive as well, striding across the clearing with her armor splashed with miner blood.
Ghatli charged out of the house’s doorway and slid to an abrupt halt near Moon. She looked him up and down. “Are you hurt?” she demanded. “How are you alive?”
Moon shrugged. His clothes were wet and stinking with miner guts. It was an unfortunate consequence of shifting, that whatever was on his scales transferred to his skin and clothes whenever he changed forms. He couldn’t say he had run away to avoid the fight this time, and the only other option was that he had tripped and somehow fallen inside a dead miner. He had learned from bitter experience that it was better not to try to explain unexplainable things. “I’m lucky.”
The other fishers followed Ghatli out of the house more cautiously, and the Physician Iscre pushed past them, carrying a satchel of its medicines and tools. Ghatli pivoted, staring around the clearing, and said, “But where is Ventl?”
“Ventl?” Startled, Moon looked around. The only dead fisher in the clearing was Benl, whose body still lay undisturbed. The miners hadn’t even bothered to overturn the bucket and rock holding down the miniature miners. “He wasn’t with you?”
“He stayed out here to fight.” Ghatli ran past him, scanning the clearing frantically. “He isn’t here!”
Moon saw who else wasn’t here: Kall was gone. Ghatli headed toward Eikenn, who stood with three other primaries. Ghatli said, “One of our people is missing! Did you see what happened?”
Eikenn turned toward her. “They have taken Kall—Kall’s body, and seven of our drones who yet live. We go after them.”
Ghatli said, “I’ll go with you.”
Moon hissed under his breath. “Ghatli, you can’t—”
“I can,” she said, and called to one of the fishers. “Get my weapon!”
Eikenn eyed Moon. “You have no weapon. How did you, a softskin, fight these creatures?”
“It’s none of your shitting business!” Ghatli shouted at her, drawing the startled gaze of every drone in the clearing. “We must go after them now! If we hurry—”
“You will only slow us down,” Eikenn said, betraying a trace of irritation. Considering how much emotion the primaries usually displayed, it probably meant she was furious.
Eikenn started to turn away, and Ghatli said, “I know a way into your ruined city.” A fisher brought her a short metal spear with two prongs on the end. It was clearly for using on fish, and might be effective on a large lizard. Against the miners, it wasn’t much better than a belt knife. Moon rubbed his forehead wearily and swore. Ghatli hefted the weapon and added, “I was going to draw a map but I’ll take you there myself.”
Eikenn stopped. Turning back to Ghatli, she said, “Very well. Lead us.”
The fishers immediately protested, half of those gathered around wanting to accompany Ghatli and the others urging her not to go. Ghatli shook them all off and said, “No, stay here and help tend the wounded. And burn that mess!” She pointed at the bucket still covering the bundle of miniature miners. “I’ll be back. With Ventl.”
Eikenn didn’t seem to need to give orders. She headed for the path upslope, all the primaries and most of the drones breaking off to follow her, leaving only a few behind to help the wounded. Ghatli hurried to catch up with her.
One of the fishers anxiously asked Moon, “What are you going to do?”
Moon let his breath out. This attack might have happened anyway, but his deliberate assault on the miners yesterday clearly hadn’t helped. According to Kall, it was him they wanted. He said, “I’m going to do something stupid,” and followed the Cedar-rin.
Moon trailed after them long enough to see that Ghatli at least had no intention of leading the Cedar-rin straight up the path to the trade road. She took them to a narrower less-travelled way that branched off the main path and curved around the slope of one of the hills, then followed a ridge of rock upward. If Moon was guessing right, it would parallel the trade road as it curved to cross the valley, then turn off toward the cave Ventl had spoken of. If the cave proved to be a dead end, it would at least give the Cedar-rin a chance to come at the miners from a new direction.
Eikenn paused to send a primary and a group of drones up the main path, probably meaning them to be decoys, then followed Ghatli. The Cedar-rin were taking far more care, moving in groups with their weapons drawn, scouting through the jungle on both sides of the path. And they kept glancing at Moon, not quite suspiciously, but as if they were thinking of Eikenn’s unanswered question about how he had survived the battle. It made it more difficult for him to slip away. Finally he seized an opportunity and stepped behind a large clump of fern, and waited for the nearest drones’ footsteps to fade. Then he moved silently through the brush toward the closest tall tree.
He shifted, climbed it, and leapt into the air to flap steadily up toward the miner’s valley.
Moon flew up to the hills and was in time to see a large group of miners cross the churned-up dirt of the flat and vanish inside the crevasse. He didn’t see any sign of the prisoners or Kall, but they might already have been taken inside.
He did one high circle to check out the terrain. There were far fewer miners out in the valley, though the digging in the crevasse still continued. The second web system had been finished, though only four miners were using it to move dirt and rock, maybe the same ones who had been constructing it yesterday. There were still at least a dozen miners using the old web system to transport their baskets; the new one looked like a much better bet. It would have been easier to do this at night, but he didn’t have a choice. Ventl would surely be dead by then, if he wasn’t already.
Moon watched the miners long enough to memorize the pattern of their movements, then dropped behind the hill nearest the new web’s smaller but growing debris piles. He jumped from tree to tree, until he could work his way down toward the edge of the jungle. It took him long enough that Ghatli and the Cedar-rin might have reached the cave by now, if it was where he thought it was.
As he drew closer to the jungle’s edge the canopy thinned out and he went to the ground to creep between clumps of ferns and tall vegetation, tasting the air and listening for any hint of movement. Slipping out of that cover and into the gaps between the long piles of rock debris was tricky; fortunately his scales were nearly the same black as the freshly turned dirt. He made certain to get as much of that dirt as possible on him as he crawled between the piles; he hadn’t seen any sign that the miners were scent-hunters, but since the dirt was convenient he might as well take advantage of it.
Moon crept to the last debris pile, making sure he was on the right side of it. He had watched the process of dumping the baskets enough to know this was just barely possible. It wouldn’t have been, if the miners had their eyes on top of their bodies instead of between their front legs.
A miner pulled its basket closer. At this distance Moon could see the harness made of web that the miner used to haul the basket along and keep
it steady. Moon flattened himself against the debris pile as the miner tipped the basket up, dirt and pebbles tumbling out. When the basket was between him and the miner, Moon scrambled lightly up the pile and rolled into the basket.
Unlike the other web-producing predators he had encountered, the miners’ web was slick and hard, obviously meant to build things and not to trap prey. Moon lay flat to try to distribute his weight as evenly as possible. He was counting on the fact that the miners were enormously strong and Moon didn’t weigh much compared to a basketful of rocks, especially in his lighter winged form. This one didn’t seem to notice, and turned to haul the basket back toward the excavation.
The basket moved rapidly across the valley, jerking a little when it passed through the supporting scaffolds, and in moments it started to tip downward into the crevasse. Moon curled his legs under him and braced himself to leap out if he had to. Daylight faded as the basket moved faster and he caught glimpses of rough rock walls rising up. Then the other webs met in a junction and baskets slid and bumped along above him, but no miners appeared. Moon guessed they must tip the empty baskets into the shaft to slide down on their own, while the miners climbed down to get the filled ones and guide them up another branch of the web.
Shafts of bright light came from somewhere below him, and he had the sense of a much larger space than he had expected. This crevasse went a lot deeper than he had thought. That probably wasn’t a good sign.
Moon had to get out now, before the basket dropped down to where the miners were filling them. He twisted around and dug his claws into the bottom of the basket and ripped open a slit. He pulled it open enough to see a slanted stone slope in the shadows below. That would have to do. Hoping he wasn’t about to appear in front of an interested crowd of miners, he slipped out.
He landed on the steep slope and gripped it with his claws, finding purchase in what he realized was dressed stone, not smooth rock. The light was behind him and he twisted around to face it.