Chrysalis

Hartos looked around and was satisfied with what he saw. The mercenaries had managed to penetrate the mountain in good order, and despite the intensifying attacks from the ants, they had maintained their formation.

He couldn’t help but sneer. Those fools who’d refused to join him would be crying bloody tears when they saw the haul he returned with. Thousands and thousands of ants surrounded them already, and soon enough they’d be dead, just waiting for their cores to be extracted.

But it didn’t hurt to be careful.

“Artis!” he barked.

“What?” his long-time crewmember replied, sounding harried.

“I need you for a second.”

“Make it quick,” she snapped, “this shield doesn’t maintain itself.”

He frowned, both at her tone and the implication of her words.

“Are we really being pressured that hard?”

The mage glared at him.

“Of course we are! Look around you, the bugs are endless! No matter how much firepower we pump out, they keep coming.”

“But you can hold?”

“Yes, we can hold. It’s just very difficult work!”

He nodded.

“Good. I want you to check and make sure the mythic is still asleep. We don’t want to be in here when the damn thing wakes up.”

“That’s the truth,” the mage muttered.

She fumbled about in her robes and removed the array from one of her dozens of pockets. She stared at it intensely for a few moments.

“Well?” Hartos demanded.

“There’s tens of thousands of monsters in this mountain, wait a damned second.”

He turned his eyes back to the struggle along the perimeter as the mage continued to study the device.

said finally. “It’s still

“You’re sure.”

hard to get clear readings with so many cores between the mythic and us, but a signal that strong is

“Go for it.”

the worst case scenario could be avoided, the leader let his mind dwell on the best case scenario. If they managed to dig in

he roared to the surrounding mercs. “We get a little deeper and we can set up a perimeter. Then we can start getting

efforts. The fighting was thick along the edge of the shields as the insects continued to press in on them from all sides,

of their numbers, it didn’t matter where they fought them, on the

to support the more

make a fortune?”

he noted how tense he

ready,” he

mercenary steadied him with

we’re holding off the insects just fine. We’ll start pulling them into the shield and harvesting cores. You’ll be drowning in

firmed and he took a deep breath to settle his

forward to

lad!” Hartos roared. “Another ten metres and we’ll start! Listen to your crew leaders and keep your eyes on the prize! Efficient killing and harvesting is

size of a human, the giant soldiers were intimidating beasts, especially when they came in large numbers. They were everywhere, climbing over the roof, on the walls, even walking on the shield itself or lunging up from beneath. Along with the rising heat the deeper they went, it was an oppressive, suffocating way

as he flung another slash through the shield. “They could hit us with ten times this many.

Hartos chuckled.

them as clever as you and me. Perhaps they’re protecting something and don’t want to leave their posts, or they’re fighting other monsters, or a hundred other reasons. Besides, even if more came, it wouldn’t make a difference, we haven’t shown them half

mark!” Artis called from amongst a cluster

get to work

hundreds of gathered mercenaries, but before he said a word,

thing in his mind was confusion as the ground beneath his feet simply disappeared and

mandibles scraping and scratching at the shield

he flailed wildly with his arms, trying to grab hold

rang out around him as the entire expedition plunged

it finished, the mercenaries thudding to the ground heavily. Drake crashed into the stone floor, landing on his

somewhere nearby. “Sound off! Get the shields

of tension that sent a chill through the young mercenary. Something had

the light?!”

second later, a dozen bright fires flared into existence, casting their surroundings into stark relief. Drake almost sagged back to the ground in relief when he didn’t see any ants nearby. His mind had conjured a thousand ravenous

was. Where were they? They’d been everywhere around them only a

Something shifted behind him.

he