merely there to create the link to the females, through which the females controlled the subjugated animal. What better kind of defence for a creature’s nest than to use relatively massive and expendable proxies as guards? Or what better hunter-gatherers, since the nexus-worms themselves were physically helpless? She found herself marvelling at the sinister ingenuity of these parasites.
But the Nexuses controlled the males now. How was that possible? Certainly not through the Weave. It was vital that they knew, if they were to have any hope of disrupting them.
Kaiku’s thoughts fled as a warbling shriek sounded from the floor of the cavern, ascending in pitch until it hurt the ears. An instant later, it was joined by another, and another. The shrillings were all looking at the spot where Kaiku and Tsata crouched; and now the Nexuses had turned their blank white faces that way too.
‘They have seen us!’ Kaiku hissed, remembering too late that the shrillings did not need to see at all, that darkness was no obstacle for their sonic navigation system.
‘Time to be elsewhere,’ Tsata muttered, and they ran.
It was a measure of their determination, perhaps, that they both chose to run onward rather than back, picking unfamiliar territories over caverns they had already passed through. They raced along the walkway, their feet clanging on the metal, and burst into the tunnel on the far side. The wailing of the shrillings was echoing from all directions now. The alarm was spreading.
‘Hold this,’ Tsata said, shoving the small sack of explosives into Kaiku’s arms. She whimpered at the rough treatment it was suffering.
They headed down a bare and featureless tunnel, lit by occasional torches in wall brackets, most of which had gone out. The gas-flames were only generally present in the larger caverns and in areas where normal torches would not provide enough illumination. Shadows flickered by against the rough angles of the rounded walls, some ancient lava tube from an ancient cataclysm. Tsata ran ahead of Kaiku, and she saw that he had his gutting-hooks drawn, one in each hand. Gods, she wished she had her rifle now. She only possessed a sword which she was pitifully ineffective at using. That, and her kana, which would bring every Weaver in the mine down on top of her.
The shrilling leaped out of nowhere, reaching Tsata as the tunnel kinked right and obscured their vision any further. But Tsata’s reactions were honed by generations of life in a jungle where a man would get less warning than that before he died. He dropped and rolled under the shrilling’s pounce, his blades scything across its unarmoured belly and unzipping it from throat to tailbone. It hit the ground at Kaiku’s feet in a slick of its own guts, pawing the ground helplessly in its death throes.
But the shrilling had not been alone. Two more of its kind ran into view, accompanied by a Nexus. Kaiku felt a slow chill as she looked upon the thing, seven feet tall and rake-thin, robed and cowled in black with its featureless mask hiding it completely. She put down the stack of explosives and drew her sword.
‘Stay back,’ Tsata said, without taking his eyes off the enemy. He was in a fighting crouch now. ‘You would do no good here.’
He was right; and yet she felt terrible having him face three enemies alone without her, a deep and wrenching fear and guilt that surprised her in its intensity. Subconsciously, she was already preparing her kana. Whatever the cost, she would not let him die at the hands of these creatures.
The two shrillings came at him at once, moving with the fluidity of jaguars. One of them reared up on its hind legs to strike with the sickle-claws on its forepaws; Tsata used that moment to dart out of its reach and engage the second shrilling, which snapped at his belly with its fanged jaws. He barely evaded the bite, and the smooth bony crest of the creature butted him in the thigh, knocking his counterstrike awry and causing his blade to glance off the scales on its back instead of finding the soft spot where the throat joined the long skull. The first shrilling lashed out with its other claw, overreaching itself in the attempt; Tsata grunted as it tore into his arm, but he turned inside the strike and drove his gutting-hook into the rearing beast’s chest. Its ululating death-cry was deafening, and it appeared to confuse the other shrilling, which suddenly went