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.

“You’re sure.”

many cores between the mythic and us, but a signal that strong is hard to miss. I’m sure. Now can

“Go for it.”

avoided, the leader let his mind dwell on the best case scenario. If they managed to dig in deep enough and snag

mercs. “We get a little deeper and we can set up a perimeter. Then we can

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

use the full weight of their numbers, it didn’t matter where they fought them, on the surface or in the heart of the nest. In fact, the nest was better, since that’s where most

support the more experienced fighters closer to

make a fortune?”

around, he noted how tense he looked. The

ready,”

him with a

holding off the insects just fine. We’ll start pulling them into the shield and harvesting cores.

and he took a deep

forward to it,”

we’ll start! Listen to your crew leaders and keep your eyes

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 to fight. It was a good thing nobody

with more?” Drake asked as he flung another slash through the

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 of

mark!” Artis called from amongst a cluster of

get to work then,”

breath to bellow his orders to the hundreds of gathered mercenaries, but before he

He didn’t have time to be afraid, the only thing in his mind was confusion as the ground beneath his feet simply disappeared and he began to fall

his thoughts of mandibles scraping and

he flailed wildly with his arms, trying to

and cries rang out around him as the

into the stone floor, landing on his side. He managed to brace himself and prevent his head from

Path was that?” Hartos bellowed from somewhere nearby. “Sound off! Get the

undercurrent of tension that sent a chill through

the light?!”

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 mouths ready to

how strange that was. Where were they? They’d been everywhere around them only a moment ago, so what

Something shifted behind him.

he heard