Chrysalis

It took a long time before we actually began to fight as the sapient do. The gift the Eldest bestowed on us seemed natural, once we had it. Our old forms fell away and were replaced by the new in such a seamless way, we never considered what that transition really meant for an embarrassingly long time. Although the Colony learned at a tremendously fast pace, and developed in many different directions at once, in battle, too often we defaulted to the behaviour of monsters without thinking.

To the monster, fighting is for territory, food or preservation. Using all the tools at their disposal, monsters fight in a brutal fashion to meet their needs. We thought we were brutal. We crushed our prey with horrific violence, never giving them the chance to fight back. What were we, if not apex predators?

The sapient showed us different ways and reasons to battle. For hate, for revenge, for power, as punishment and as reward. In truth, there are a thousand reasons why they fight, a thousand times a thousand, almost all of them unimportant or nonsensical in the eyes of the Colony. But the way they fought, even against each other…

Savage, merciless, pitiless. They would go further than any monster would in seeking the destruction of their enemies, chase them to the end of the world and laugh the whole way. The Colony had to learn to treat them the same way, if we wanted to survive. The records show the discontent these actions caused amongst our family, it was unnatural to engage in such a profligate waste of resources. To push an already defeated foe into the dirt, in case they might one day rise up again? The Colony did not fear the defeated as the sapients did. What had fallen to the Colony once, would only fall harder the second time. What we discovered over time is that our actions were interpreted as 'mercy' and 'weakness', a sign that we were prey, not predator.

What we learned was how to finally teach the foolish who we really were.

• Excerpt from 'The History of Warfare in the Colony' by Historiant

Granin sighed. He was tired. He could feel it in his bones. Beneath the granite that covered him, beneath the flesh and right in the core of him, he was tired. It wasn't the two days he'd been awake that was draining him, though it didn't help. He could push for a week if he needed to, and it was starting to look as if he did. The perpetual posturing and bickering within the Shaper Circle wasn’t the main issue, though it certainly grated on him. How a race with such affinity to the common building blocks of the world became such posers he had no idea, but it was reality. Not even the constant suppression of the Warriors had drained him to this point. He was so accustomed to it that he almost didn't notice that the Shapers were the last to be fed, the last to get water, the first to wake and the last to sleep.

It was the Nobles.

and Lords, the Blades of this house or that, their true-skin inevitably formed

home in order to expunge whatever shame the House of Balta had decided Anthony had inflicted on them. He knew it wasn't likely, but if he lived to see the day when Anthony chomped a few of these pompous morons in

awake?" A callous voice

the old Shaper grumbled, careful to pitch his

and cursed as he made his way over. The Shapers didn't warrant the expense of lights on this expedition apparently. This kind of suppression was a touch unusual, but

the voice

"That's me."

at the front

in his voice told Granin all he needed to know about this

himself to his feet, "I wouldn't

made their way through the camp it grew progressively brighter as they left the Shapers Circle behind, entered the Warriors and then the Nobles. Here the pride of House Balta rested, Shield Guardians, Blade Saints, Sword Dancers, veterans of waves, internecine House conflicts and more than a few from

centre of the camp and toward the front. He heard it before he saw it, shouted orders, the ring of Skills and explosions of magic. He almost sighed. He'd been here not that long ago, pitting his Will against the ants as they tried to push back and hold against the golgari or, failing that, causing rock falls to delay them. He

mages, each with their eyes closed and senses extended, watching the stone with their minds. It was draining