TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 23

Welcome back!

For those of you reading The Runesmith Chronicles for the first time I recommend going back and starting with the first book The Runesmith Chronicles (it's actually Oni and the Farmer but it's too late to change it here :P). Mostly so you have a better understanding of how things like the magic system works and what's going on as I often reference earlier chapters.

I update my profile with news and current projects each time I submit a new chapter.

As always, don't forget to vote and don't forget to leave a comment! I may not respond to every one but I read them all and they are greatly appreciated!

Enjoy!

Blu

-

Edited/Proofread by - oldfart and 2muchdiggity

-

Chapter 23

The worker perked up at the faint vibration coming from the surface. It was still far away and stopped nearly as soon as she noticed it, but it was unmistakably coming this direction. The sound reminded her of just before their last harvest, though there were far fewer of the creatures. There was little she could do at the moment, harvesting the interlopers would be impossible right now. The rest of the colony had gone deep for the upcoming cold season and it would take some time before even a small hunting party would get up here to the newest gardening chamber.

She stepped out into the tunnel and waved her gaster in the airflow leading down into the depths of the colony. The large, oblong appendage sticking out from the base of her spine worked similarly to those of regular ants, releasing a scent telling the colony there was more food to be harvested. Hopefully, they would still be around when the soldiers arrived. She was tempted to send out a little bit of the emergency pheromone just to see if a few more of the queen's beautiful army might come as well, but punishment for such a false alarm would be harsh.

The soldiers were so pretty, standing tall and proud with their small eyes and round faces. Instead of having mandibles by their mouths, they attached to a point up by their rounded, human ears. She wished she had ears like that, they seemed much more useful than feeling sounds through her feet and antennae. The soldier's mandibles were shaped differently from hers and closed vertically, covering the bottom of their faces and making them look deliciously dangerous. They also had long sharp blades extending from the back of one arm while above their wrist a needle-like stinger was hidden behind a tiny hole in the tough chitin. The worker loved to watch as the armor covering a soldier's torso separated to show the smooth and soft skin beneath. And their tiny gasters were so cute! Certainly not as useful as hers but they were able to produce the scents they needed, especially when hunting or fighting.

The worker had never seen a reflection but knew from her sisters that she resembled their tiny cousins. Personally, she hated her chitin-covered, teardrop-shaped head and with its large, multi-faceted eyes on either side. The two short antennae sticking out from the top of her head were cute though. Her scissor-like mandibles next to her mouth probably bothered her most, their placement and the extra muscles needed to use them barely allowed her to speak. A hard, black carapace covered her thin body and, though it had feminine curves, she knew that there was no soft skin beneath. Her outer shell meant that her middle legs weren't specialized into moveable armor and the insectoid limbs were instead used as an extra set of long, extremely strong arms or legs depending on what she was doing. When not in use, the middle appendages moved back and out of the way, the knees coming up behind her shoulders as the longer, lower part of the thin legs crossed behind her back.

As beautiful as the soldiers were, they were nothing compared to the gigantic queen. Her size was only matched by her beauty. She could crush a worker if she accidentally stepped on one. She needed to be big so she could carry around her large abdomen which constantly supplied the colony with new eggs. The rest of her body was smooth and soft flesh, much like the soldiers' torsos or the occasional human that they encountered.

The only thing she didn't like about the queen was the royal guard constantly nearby, those huge red women terrified her. That was probably a good thing. Too many of the workers, herself included, would sit and stare at the queen's beauty until they withered away.

The royal guard was also an uncomfortable reminder of what happens when you displease the queen. Though they were the champions of the colony, they weren't natural. Workers who displeased or disappointed the queen were simply killed, but soldiers were barricaded into a room and... changed... into the red women. The transformation made them mighty soldiers but reduced them to a child-like intelligence, just enough to follow the queen's commands. The worker preferred knowing she would simply be killed if she ever did something to warrant the queen's punishment.

Her antennae twitched as she caught a scent wafting toward her from the vent at the far end of the tunnel.

A human male was coming. No... two males were coming, along with two females.

A sense of longing that seemed to radiate from the bottom of her torso came from wanting desperately to experience something she never could. Where the queen and soldiers had openings to take the males inside them and collect their seed, she and the other workers only had smooth pieces of black chitin.

She once watched a soldier riding a male from their last harvest and immediately understood why they did such things in private. The sight left her, and the other workers who spied on the soldier with her, wanting to know that feeling. Once the woman collected his seed, she would take it down to the queen's chamber and share it with their matriarch. The worker had never seen this process herself but understood that the queen and soldier would rub their openings together as the soldier attempted to squeeze the man's seed into the regent. This didn't make much sense with the size difference. By her estimation, a soldier could nearly fit inside the queen's opening. She dismissed the thought; that was just silly. If the queen didn't need semen at the time, she would have the soldier press her opening to the matriarch's mouth so she could eat it as a meal instead. This was supposed to be a very pleasant experience for the soldier.

If a worker brought the queen a male, then she would often bestow a boon upon them. Her request would be to watch one of these sharings or feedings, it sounded like an amazing sight.

The worker ran up the slope, away from the garden, until she could feel the tiny vibrations in the earth from the group above. They were moving very slowly, but her antennae and feet were extremely sensitive. She moved along the wall of the large tunnel, looking up and marking their location until they finally stopped. Three were out front but another was standing alone, away from the others. Hoping her target was a male, she quickly and quietly began burrowing up and to the side. The tips of her antennae began to glow as the soil around her hands flowed down the slope and ran out of the hole as though carried by water. She was able to dig in near silence, other than crawling forward or using her insectoid middle legs to brace herself within the tunnel.

She stopped to get a read on her prey's position.

A foot scraped across the ground above her and the worker lunged upward. Her innate magic caused the friction holding the dirt together to vanish and effectively liquified the soil beneath the human's feet. Grabbing the leg of her shrieking prey, she quickly dragged the human down the steep slope. When the woman fell to the floor of the larger tunnel, the ant-girl darted around and cuffed the woman's head with a chitin-covered hand to silence her. She immediately realized from the lumps on the human's chest that this was not a male. The worker was disappointed, but it was still an opportunity. The colony needed to eat and there was still room in the garden chamber. She drew a viscous, sticky substance with strong healing properties from where it was stored in her gaster up into her mouth. Leaning over the dazed woman, she opened her mandibles wide and placed them on either side of her prey's thigh. The colony didn't need its food running away.

------

Kal slid down the tunnel and straight into the arms of the fighter.

"Don't look Kal. Don't look," she said quietly.

The mage glanced up at her face. "Why? What happened?" he said, trying to get free. The woman was extremely strong with that belt of hers.

"They took her legs off."

Kal stared up into the Falma's face, unbelieving of what he just heard. "Ria!" he called, gulping hard to keep his lunch down. "Store the priestess's legs." Ria was off to one side staring at the macabre sight and waved her hand almost as an afterthought.

"Oh!" she exclaimed as the limbs turned into specks of light. "That's a great idea!"

"What is?" asked Falma.

"Things come out of me exactly the way they went in. Without storing them inside me, there probably wouldn't be any chance to reattach them." The sprite made a face as it suddenly dawned on her that she had a couple of severed legs inside her.

"Is that the plan?" asked the fighter, looking down at the mage.

"It wasn't, but it is now," he said, stepping around the woman as she let him go and seeing a large pool of blood on the tunnel's hard floor. "Ria is right, we at least have a chance of restoring them if she has them." He looked over at the sprite, "Is there any way to store the blood but leave behind anything that got into it like dirt?"

"I'll do what I can."

"Split it in two if that's possible." A plan was starting to form in his mind. He wouldn't bet a copper on its chances of success, but it was better than nothing.

Ria retrieved most of what remained on the ground, splitting it into a bunch of smaller motes instead of just the two Kal asked for.

"Come," said the fighter as the last speck of light floated into the pouch on the mage's hip. "Kedder has a way to find the priestess and went on ahead."

"Keeping tabs on her?" asked Kal, raising an eyebrow.

"If she dies, we die. He was just being cautious," she replied. Further conversation was cut short as they began jogging down the tunnel after the thief.

------

Kedder looked down at his hand as he approached an opening in the wall of the tunnel. A faint red line visible only to him extended from the ring on his finger toward the doorway. The brightness of the line indicated the distance to the person or thing he tagged, which was currently the priestess. It was a handy little bit of magic but didn't work over long distances.

The gentle blue-green light emanating from the chamber beyond was welcome for the faint shadows it cast, but he was far from comfortable with the amount of noise coming from inside. A musty smell akin to moldy bread or fruit mixed with the scent of decomposing flesh assaulted his senses as he got closer. It reminded him of the times he dealt with the undead. He chose his footing carefully as the slope steepened, no sense in announcing his presence by sliding the rest of the way to the portal.

The thief carefully peered into the room, scowling at what he saw. Seven of the ant women tended to their fungal gardens inside. However, the gardens were not beds of dirt or refuse but creatures infected with the fungus. Inside, the horses used by the cavalry were held to the wall by long strands of strong, web-like material. Kedder's scowl came from seeing the animals move. He heard stories of fungal zombies before but had never seen one, now there was a room full of horses that the ants had turned. On the other side were more of the cavalry's horses while further down was a true fungal zombie, the unfortunate female cleric sent to find the missing company. The woman groaned loudly as she strained against her bindings, chomping her teeth and reaching for the target of Kedder's ring. Toward the back of the chamber, one of the ant-girls held the priestess against the wall while two others regurgitated a substance that turned into the silky threads when stretched.

Seeing the priestess made Kedder's legs ache but as he looked around the room, he noticed that she wasn't special. The cleric and all the animals had been given the same treatment. The thief gained a small bit of relief when he saw the ant-women had healed her somehow. He feared she might die of blood loss after they took her legs but that was no longer a danger.

Seeing one of the ant-girls turn his way, he pressed his back against the tunnel wall by the opening. When he heard the insectoid woman approaching, the thief tugged his hood down and tightly closed his cloak around him. To an outsider, it looked like Kedder vanished, but the cloak's ability only worked in shadows making him thankful for the fungi's faint luminescence. The magical garment didn't consider complete darkness to be 'shadow.'

The ant-girl stuck her head out and looked around for a moment. When she was about to go back inside, she stopped and looked up the slope. Kedder could hear it too, heavy footfalls coming toward them. That woman walked like a damn oliphaunt.

It turned to signal the others of an intruder but never got the chance. Kedder slid his ornate dagger between the joints in the front of the ant-woman's neck, blocking her airflow with the blade so she couldn't warn those inside. Angling the dagger upward, he quickly finished his gruesome task. The thief crossed in front of the doorway, catching the body of the woman as it went limp. Now on the lower side of the chamber entrance, he placed her as quietly as possible on the ground. She was surprisingly light for something covered in natural armor.

Kedder checked if any of those inside noticed his activities. Suppressing a sigh of relief, he darted across the front of the doorway and silently ran up the slope toward the fighter, hoping he could reach her before any more ant-women noticed the noise.

Behind him, tiny drops of fluid leaked out the end of the ant-girl's abdomen as it relaxed in death, releasing a cocktail of pheromones into the air flowing down into the colony.

------

Kal gripped his staff as a shadow detached itself from the darkness, only to relax when he realized it was the thief.

"Six ants in a room ahead with the priestess, one dead outside," he reported. "Also inside are the missing horses and the woman cleric they sent, all turned into fungus zombies by the bugs. Elden's legs are healed over, so she isn't going to bleed out on us."

"Six shouldn't be hard ta deal with," said the fighter.

Kedder looked at Kal's staff. "That won't be much good against ants. Their bodies are covered with armor. Do you have anything that slices or stabs?" he asked, dipping his head toward the sprite on the mage's shoulder.

Kal moved his hand down to the middle of the staff and said, "Naginata."

The wooden section shortened slightly as the platinum end cap extended into a short, single-edged blade with a slight curve and a circular guard at its base. The actual weapon was much longer and often used by soldiers on horseback, according to what Ikuno told him. The current size suited his fighting style better.

"Nice," said the rogue. He turned to Falma, "Draw them out into the tunnel or take them inside the chamber?"

"How many of the zombies are likely to help 'em?"

"None, they all got the same treatment as the priestess," he said tapping his thigh with the edge of his hand.

The mage shared a look with Ria, cringing at the thought.

"We block 'em in and take 'em out before they can call their kin," said the fighter. "Then cut the priestess free and get outta here. Any ideas about how we do that?"

"This tunnel must join up with the one we were looking at when they took Elden," offered Kal. "But there's no telling how deep we may go before finding the junction. Do you think there's any way to not kill them?"

Falma looked at him in surprise and a little bit of anger, as did Kedder, but her expression softened immediately. "You're a naïve thing, aren't ya?" she said, shaking her head. "No. If they can take her legs off, they can take her head off the same way. We aren't givin' 'em the chance. You go in there intending to kill or you make your way back to the surface. I'm not takin' chances with mine or Kedder's life. Understood?"

"Understood," said Kal, thoroughly chastened.

The thief shook his head in disbelief that the young man had asked such a question before returning to their task. "Fresh air is flowing down the tunnel," he said. "There must be an opening at the other end."

Falma nodded, "Good enough. Let's go get our priestess."

"Qui-et-ly," said Kedder through gritted teeth. "The way you walk, we may as well have brought the horses down with us."

The swordswoman rolled her eyes but Kal noted that she tried stepping more softly as they followed the rogue back to the chamber.

------

The ant-girls froze in surprise as the trio burst into the room. Falma and Kedder took up defensive positions by the doorway as Kal spun around. Shoving the end of his staff into the dirt, he reached out with his magic to the bedrock just below. Seconds later a slab of stone sprung up from the floor and embedded itself in the top of the entryway as he made a lifting motion.

"Done," said Kal, grabbing his sword-tipped staff and turning around. The ant girls were much smaller than he expected. The tallest was only the size of a young teenager. The only thing keeping him from spinning on his heel and leaving was how insect-like they were. With all the other monster girls he had met, he was expecting them to have more human features. Instead, ant heads stared back at him that sat atop thin, chitin-covered human bodies that sprouted insect legs from their torsos.

As much as Kal hated to admit it, after what they did to Elden and the other captives, it was easier to see them as monsters.

The fight was over in seconds, if you could even call it a fight. As soon Kal gave the signal, Falma exploded into action. A swipe of her sword clove two of them in half before she plunged the tip into the chest of a third.

Kal opted for the quickest means possible to dispatch the two on his side of the room. With help from the strength and speed runes, deft swipes with the blade on his staff left both of his opponents headless. As their bodies sank to the floor, the mage turned around and emptied the contents of his stomach. Daxas wasn't there to push the spear this time, that was entirely his handiwork.

Kedder sprinted toward the back of the chamber where a lone ant-girl stood near the priestess. The thief reached for his throwing knife as the terrified worker ran, only to stop with the knife raised and ready to loose. The woman reached the back wall and dropped to the floor pressing her back against the stone as she curled up into a ball. Tucking her head behind her knees, the ant-girl covered it with her arms while crossing her middle legs in front of her defensively.

The rogue dropped the knife back into its sheath. Fucking mage. The sprite's stories about Kal getting lovey-dovey with monster girls were getting to him. Normally, the woman would be dead already. As long as she didn't interfere, there was no point in killing her.

Ignoring the sound of the mage retching on the other side of the cavern, Kedder turned toward the priestess, frowning at her state. Elden's eyes stared off into the distance as she mumbled incoherently. A faint glow around her mouth and nose showed the presence of spores.

"Mage!" he yelled.

"Yes," Kal answered weakly as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

"Do you have a potion or something that cures diseases? The ants already infected her."