As Bee moved forward, each step caused more blood to seep from the gash on her back. Trickling down her legs, the pain surged anew, her earlier adrenaline rush subsiding into a torturous, all-consuming throb.
“Let me get that for you,” murmured the Worm close to Bee’s ear, making her tense up. The agony swiftly dissipated, yet she was under constant scrutiny. Exchanging anxious glances with her captors, hoping they didn’t suspect the truth of her infestation.
“Maybe I should tell them,” Bee thought.
“No, they wouldn’t understand, Sweetheart,” the Worm said. “They would hurt you. We have to get away.”
Thus, Bee marched on, struggling to maintain an upright posture when she felt more comfortable crouching down, escorted by these peculiar beings, humanoid in form yet alien in essence. They guided her through the labyrinthine tunnels, eventually merging into a vast stairwell. Here, the steps descended endlessly, devoid of the familiar bioluminescent glow. Instead, a piercing light from above fractured the darkness, mingling with the cacophony of unfamiliar voices. Hastily erected signs labelled this area as Ascending Junction 101-58, starkly contrasting the organic surroundings.
“Stop. There. Don’t move.”
The pale enforcers encircled Bee, and the one before her nudged her forcibly, signalling her to remain motionless. Her gaze shifted from the glaring light above, only to notice they weren’t alone. A procession of warriors, garbed similarly to her captors, ascended the vast stairway. Each bore the marks of battle — defeated, wounded, their bodies scarred and blackened by combat. Many were grievously injured, some missing limbs, each carrying the heavy burden of lost hope in their weary steps.
The duo escorting Bee exuded an air of dignity, in stark contrast to the wounded procession. As numerous injured warriors trudged by, one of their leaders halted to scrutinise the trio. He looked formidable, encased in metallic armour, hints of his strong jointed carapace segments peeking through beneath.
“‘Ware,” the commander hissed, his multifaceted eyes locking onto Bee while he spoke to her captors. “The warrens and the filter are lost, and the City has shown its ferity this day.”
Bee averted her gaze, weighed down by guilt. Were these warriors harmed in their search for her? Her unease was swiftly met with a firm grip on one of the siphons on her back, forcing her to remain upright and motionless.
“We won. Look at it! We won,” one of her pale captors barked, presenting Bee like a prize. “The Eidolon will be here soon.”
“Nay. This is no victory,” the commander responded, his attention momentarily captured by the glaring light above. After a pause, he returned his gaze to the child, addressing the others. “I will not wait any longer. My company has sacrificed too much already. However, know this. The hated Mother acted in concert with the wicked depths. I fear no corner of the realm is safe now. The peace is shattered.”
“Peace?” The second captor leaned in to insist, “The Pilgrim will scour this place.”
As the weary company resumed their march from the depths, some cast curious glances at Bee, who took deep breaths to steady her nerves. Eventually, the commander fixed his compound gaze on the two enforcers, nodding in agreement. A ripple of murmurs spread among the onlookers. Some showed concern for Bee through their gestures and antennae, but none intervened. Others recognised her and wore their contempt openly.
“Your sentiment will well ingratiate you with the Eidolon, I’m sure,” the commander said. Bee glanced at her captors, who looked pleased with themselves — but she wasn’t sure it was a compliment. Something in his tone was grim and spiteful. The commander turned to leave and said, “Do not fail her, then.”
“Bye,” Bee said, rebellious and not really expecting an answer. As predicted, the war leader ignored her, and she was briskly ushered back into the tunnel’s alcove by the enforcers, a temporary refuge from watchful eyes.
“Be quiet,” commanded the first enforcer sternly.
Exhausted, Bee leaned against the wall, gradually sliding down into a slouched position, her head tilting back to rest against the cool surface. In this constricted space, her eyes were drawn to the intricate iconography embedded into the silverline bone structure of the wall. The patterns ascended, weaving their way onto the arched ceiling of the corridor. They depicted a cosmic tapestry: a cascade of stars, spheres encircled by rings, fractured rings, and shattered spheres, with stars fading into oblivion. Each symbol seemed to tell a story, a history etched into the very bones of the passage. Yet, its meaning eluded Bee’s young mind.
“The starbursts,” Bee whispered to herself, grasping for understanding that would not come. It felt like she had seen just part of a greater puzzle. But to what end? The memory of poor Heych came to her unbidden. She expected tears but found the worst of the grief had passed. That was tragic in its own way.
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“These are old memories,” the Worm whispered. “That’s what I think. The City wants to share it, even though it can’t speak.”
Bee pressed her lips together, remaining silent. She could sense the ancientness of this place — a living entity, rich in memory, yet unable to impart its warnings to the generations of people that traversed its endless depths. With her eyes closed, Bee pondered what her mother might have done in such a situation. The idea of escape flickered in her mind, but weariness weighed heavily on her. Meanwhile, her captors’ bickering filled the air, and the shifting shadows cast by their torches indicated their vigilant gaze upon her, even without her needing to look back.
Bee’s eyes suddenly opened when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Her stupor was disturbed by slinking shadows. Her eyes narrowed, peering into the infrared haze.
“We have to go,” the Worm insisted suddenly. “We have to keep moving.”
Something was moving in the passage’s gloom. Belatedly, Bee realised that these brutes, with their electric lights, could not see it. A quiet and unearthly hissing sounded above them, drowned out by the two freaks shouting. She took a breath to steady herself before standing and stumbling back. Something was very close to where they were sheltered, a tall sinuous shape. Chrome teeth glinting in the dark. Bee forced herself to turn away, whining desperately, hand over her mouth.
As Bee stumbled past them and towards the stairway, the enforcers quickly turned to face her. With a grip tightened on his lance, the second enforcer shouted a warning, but it was too late. Already moving forward, Bee collided with the throng of warriors ascending the steps. The space became a whirlwind of limbs and bodies, colliding in disarray. Sensing someone close behind her, Bee instinctively pushed against one of the warriors to regain her balance. But before she could steady herself, strong arms encircled her waist. Trapped between her captors, she struggled and kicked, fighting against her captor, fingers frantically searching for something to grasp amidst the sea of bodies surrounding her.
The struggle abruptly ceased as a thunderous blast echoed up the stairway. The soldier who had seized Bee was violently thrown off balance, landing heavily upon her. His iron grip made it hard for Bee to breathe. Amidst the chaos of shouts and cries, a storm of shadows and flickering lights engulfed them. Bee found herself pinned under a barrage of lance fire, her screams broken only so she could kick desperately against the pale warrior who pinned her down. In a frantic effort, she glanced upwards just in time to witness it.
The towering, gaunt hound emerged from the passage behind Bee’s other captor. Distracted, he raised his weapon towards the stairway but was swiftly taken by surprise. The monstrous, eyeless creature — standing metres taller than the pale warrior — clutched the enforcer’s head and shoulders with one massive claw. With a swift, brutal motion, it seized his legs with its other hand and pulled his body in two. The freak’s innards spilt out, cries cut short by the violence of his end.
The creature tossed the enforcer’s legs to the ground and turned to face Bee, her captor’s upper body still held in one of its claws. The eyeless hound bared its fangs in a silent snarl.
“Get off me,” Bee said under her breath.
“Shut up.” Her surviving captor pushed her head down against the filthy floor, as the soldiery turned to fire on this new adversary. Their weapons pricked it, little more than needles. “Stay down!”
Still struggling against him, Bee fell still when more cries filled the stairway. His grip faltered, and they both looked back together.
A second hound appeared, lunging from another dark passage further down the stairway. It tore apart injured and disoriented soldiers caught in its path. Then it stomped a raking foot on top of one of the heavily armoured war leaders and fired a biocannon down into them, casting up a shower of sparks and gore that speckled the chamber walls. The hound’s head reared back and roared over the war leader’s broken armoured shell, bursting outwards.
“Fuck! Fuck this. I’m not dying like this!” The enforcer holding Bee down rolled off her, swearing in a panic, but kept a grip on one of her fluted siphons.
Then a lash snapped out of the dark haze far below, and two whip-sharp tendrils ensnared his throat and dragged him screaming into the chamber’s depths. Bee fell back as his hold on her broke, and she looked wide-eyed at the space he vanished into. A third hound emerged, a red glow emanating from beneath its broad crested skull.
The stairway surged as all the injured and terrified warrior-thralls who had witnessed this moved as one. Bee scrambled too, her injuries forgotten, crawling then lurching to her feet and joining the masses as they attempted to flee. She was kicked and shoved, every larger body trying to force her out of the way, determined to escape.
The air filled with blood and vapourised metal as a cannon shot tore into the crowd, then another and another.
Bee had just passed the first hound — the one she recognised, staring down at her — when the crowd suddenly parted.
Bee abruptly collided with a woman. The woman, seemingly prepared, stepped back smoothly and encircled Bee with a cloaked arm, steadying her. Bee, in her disorientation, clung to the stranger, who wore nothing but a tattered, hooded cloak. The conflicting nature of the figure’s form — soft skin but punctuated by powerful machines and bony armoured plates — left Bee bewildered. As Bee leaned back to look up, she found herself staring up into the woman’s hood. Where a skull — a face — should have been, there was none. Instead, a dozen bright yellow eyes encircled a central, gaping maw, its edges lined with countless rings of prehensile teeth.
“... The Eidolon,” the Worm whispered in wonder. “She’s real.”
With a cautious yet urgent hand, the Eidolon gently pushed Bee behind herself. The hooded figure then swiftly positioned herself as a barrier between Bee and the menacing hounds. Now crouching low, the creatures hissed and snarled, their vigilance apparent as they prepared their biomechanical weapons in the dim light.
The score of surviving soldiery continued to flee until only Bee, the Eidolon, and the wicked hounds remained. In a swift motion, the Eidolon drew a resplendent sword forged of star metal from beneath her cloak. Bee’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the blade, gleaming in the darkness, expertly wielded in the Eidolon’s adroit grasp.