text: The hissing, chittering monstrosities poured into the room like golden insects, grinning and ducking their heads from left to right, as if trying to draw Zezili's fire. Not that Zezili had much of anything to fire. She backed up into the green pool, weapon out. It was going to be like dying at the claws of the cats, only she wasn't getting up this time.
  
  It'd been a good run.
  
  Zezili slashed at the first one who reached her, drawing blood. Another creature came from her left and bit her hard on the shoulder. Bit her! Zezili stabbed it in the face. They swarmed her then, hands and feet and faces pushing her to the ground. One bit her thigh. She kicked. Slashed.
  
  Somewhere at the rear of the mob, one of them screeched. Then she heard curses. Human ones. Had some of her force survived?
  
  The swarm turned away from her and attacked the group behind them. Zezili crawled back around the throne, dragging her leg, and peered out at the melee. She recognized the armor of Saradyn's men. He had come after her, then, and she hadn't even noticed. She had grown too soft out here in the woods, too wrapped up in her own woes. Saradyn's men hacked at the creatures, and she wasn't sure which she wanted to prevail. If she got lucky they might just kill each other and end all of her problems, but that was too easy. Rhea had never once blessed her with providence.
  
  Saradyn himself pushed free of the mob, lunging with sword and shield. He moved fast for a big man. Three of his men fell, and five of the women. One of the creatures scuttled off, injured and keening. Only Saradyn remained, backing up toward Zezili, feinting at the last creature. Blood streamed down his arm. Zezili half thought she might cut the rest of his arm off herself, but what was that going to accomplish, now?
  
  The creature had him pinned. It used one set of legs to grip his sword, and took him by the neck with its hands.
  
  Saradyn gasped.
  
  An arrow zipped into the room, followed by two more. They thunked neatly into the creature's back. It released Saradyn and turned just in time to get an arrow through the eye.
  
  Natanial, the beaked-nosed man, strode into the room, carrying a short bow and two more arrows in his drawing hand. He said something in Tordinian, and gestured at Storm's body in the throne.
  
  "They woke something up," Zezili said, pressing the stump of her arm to her bleeding leg.
  
  Natanial raised the bow, strung an arrow, and peered around Saradyn to get a good look at her.
  
  Saradyn sneered at her, and said something that probably wasn't complimentary.
  
  "They're like the Empress," Zezili said. "But you knew that, I guess, if you fucked her. They'll eat us up, starting with Tordin. I came here to stop it."
  
  "Tordin is mine," Saradyn said.
  
  "So you can speak a civilized language after all," Zezili said.
  
  "They murdered the whole force we brought through the hole," Natanial said. "If our interests are aligned–"
  
  "Go eat your cock," Zezili said.
  
  "Pleasurably," Natanial said. "After I'm out of this festering pit."
  
  "Your sinajistas outside?" Zezili asked.
  
  "Fire witches," Saradyn said.
  
  "Bang stones. Make fire. Yeah, yeah, fucking witches," Zezili said. It was like talking to some superstitious dajian.
  
  Natanial lowered his bow. "How are you still alive?"
  
  "Been asking myself that," Zezili said.
  
  "You're blessed of some god," Natanial said. "Just not mine." Natanial frowned at the two of them, clearly disappointed in his odds. Zezili horked out a laugh that loosened something in her chest. She spat phlegm.
  
  "Fight out," Saradyn said.
  
  Natanial shrugged, said something to him in Tordinian. Saradyn laughed.
  
  "What?" Zezili said.
  
  "He says we cut whatever's keeping your friend here upright and run back across those killing fields," Natanial said. "But that's about as tactical as Saradyn ever gets."
  
  Zezili glanced up at the big silver throne. "You think he powers them, maybe?"
  
  "They need all these bodies for something," Natanial said. "I expect they were hungry after they came out of there."
  
  Zezili crawled to her feet. "Good enough plan as any," she said. She smirked. "Well, Saradyn. You've got the biggest sword."
  
  He frowned, muttering something under his breath as he approached the throne. He barked something at Natanial. Natanial pointed as Zezili, made a retort.
  
  Saradyn held out his sword to Natanial.
  
  Natanial took the blade and got behind the throne. Zezili and Saradyn took a few steps back, inching toward the door. Zezili kept Saradyn in the corner of her eye, concerned he'd pull a knife. He never took his eyes off her.
  
  Natanial brought up the blade.
  
  Zezili cringed.
  
  The blade came down on the tangled root mass behind the throne. It thunked solidly into it, as if the pod were a tree trunk. A wound opened up in it, bleeding sticky green sap.
  
  Natanial cut again.
  
  Storm bolted up in the throne again. He screamed.
  
  Saradyn pulled his dagger out and held it in front of him like a talisman. He kissed his other hand and made some kind of warding gesture.
  
  Storm leaned forward in the throne, both hands gripping the armrests, gibbering green blood. Natanial hacked again.
  
  "She sees you," Storm says. "She sees you. She is here."
  
  Natanial's blade sliced through the final thread of the giant root.
  
  Storm's body went limp again. He tumbled off the throne, landing in a pathetic heap at its base.
  
  Zezili exchanged a look with Saradyn. "Time to run?" she said.
  
  "Run," he said.
  
  The three of them ran hard up through the tunnel. Zezili favored her injured leg. Natanial could have outrun them both, Zezili knew, but he stayed behind her, guarding the rear. As they broke into the clearing, Zezili noticed something in the light had changed. She gazed up into the sky where Para should be, but Para's light wasn't blue. It was violet, and its heavenly body was the wrong shape.
  
  "The fuck–" she muttered, but Natanial came from behind her, urging her forward, and suddenly what had happened in the sky wasn't so interesting anymore.
  
  Saradyn made for the great hole Zezili had come in. Halfway there, Natanial yelled at him, "They've got a swarm there!"
  
  Zezili swung behind a big tree. Saradyn slowed. Sure enough, there was a group of at least forty of the gold-skinned women between them and the hole. They were arranged in a loose circle, clicking in that strange language of theirs.
  
  Saradyn swore. Zezili searched the scattered ground around them, trying to think of some other way out of this fucking kill pit. She saw the great cocoons hanging from the branches, oozing their slimy sap. She followed the pods – low, higher, highest – and found a neat chain of them that ran up the side of the mountainous anomaly that encircled them.
  
  "The pods," Zezili said. "Climb those up and over?"
  
  Natanial stared at her hands – the three fingers and the dagger. "Can you?"
  
  She brandished the daggered stump. "Makes for great climbing, I'm sure."
  
  "Follow me," Natanial said.
  
  Zezili was happy to let him draw the first of them off.
  
  Natanial stayed in cover for half the length of the run across the center of the clearing before he broke into plain sight.
  
  Zezili staggered to keep up with him, but she was flagging. Saradyn slipped ahead of her.
  
  She heard the hiss of the women the moment they saw them, and it spurred her to run faster.
  
  Natanial caught the end of the swinging cocoon and climbed up it like some kind of arboreal creature.
  
  Zezili jabbed her dagger into the cocoon and clawed for purchase with the three fingers of her other hand. Pain jolted up her arm. She almost vomited. But the women were barreling after them now, advancing fast across the clearing, pushing bodies out of their way, and that fate would be worse than the pain.
  
  Saradyn's big ass was just ahead of Zezili. She hooked her fingers into his belt. He kicked at her.
  
  "Stop!" she yelled. "You kick again I shove my dagger up your ass, you hear me?"
  
  Saradyn must have understood, because he didn't kick at her again. With Saradyn climbing and her hooked onto his belt, she could push herself up with her legs while he pulled.
  
  Saradyn got to the top of the first cocoon. She pushed herself up next to him. They stood side by side, watching Natanial clawing for a root on the side of the mountainous barrier. They were just twenty feet from the top.
  
  "Swing the cocoon!" Natanial yelled.
  
  "Want to dance, then?" Zezili said, and cackled. She rocked her body weight forward. Saradyn did the same, swinging the cocoon until Saradyn could grip the other one. Zezili leapt after him. They swung again, to the next, and by then Natanial was scrambling up the side of the mountain.
  
  Zezili went to make the jump after him, and slipped. She yelled. Saradyn swore. She still had hold of his belt. Her legs swung out over the side of the cocoon. The horde of women had arrived below. Four of them tried to leap onto the first cocoon, but they were too heavy. It broke, and they toppled. Zezili swung herself from Saradyn's belt out toward the edge of the mountain, aiming for the root Natanial had used.
  
  She took a breath and released Saradyn's belt, flailing with the daggered stump and her fingers, praying one found purchase.
  
  The dagger thumped into the mountain, scraping down the side of it as she fell. She caught the end of the root with her three fingers. She swung her legs forward, clamping hard onto the rest of the root with her legs. She stopped falling.
  
  Zezili panted and sweated. She yanked her dagger out of the mountain and plunged it up again, relying almost entirely on her legs to push her up the top of the mountain.
  
  Saradyn was yelling at her, but she didn't pay any attention to him. Her legs were shaking. The women milled below her, hungry.
  
  Zezili pushed with her legs, up and up the length of the root until she saw a whole, lean hand thrust in her face. She looked up.
  
  Natanial held out his hand. She shook her head. What was she going to grip it with?
  
  He got down on his knees and took her by the front of her shirt and lifted her the last foot up to the top of the mountain.
  
  Zezili lay there, panting and hugging the loose dirt.
  
  Saradyn climbed up next to her, his face poking up. He spat something at her. She made a face.
  
  "I'm going to prepare the witches," Natanial said, and slid down the other side of the mountain. It was so steep he mostly tumbled down it, reducing the speed of his fall by grabbing onto shrubs and roots on the way down.
  
  Zezili stared Saradyn in the eye as he grabbed at the top of the mountain. She saw him grip a loose clod of dirt. He loosed his other hand, relying on the clod to hold him. It didn't.
  
  Saradyn slipped. He yelled.
  
  Zezili edged up to the side of the mountain and stared down at him. He still had hold of the root with one hand. He dangled out over the horde of women.
  
  "I'd offer a hand," Zezili said. She held up her stump. "But it doesn't look like I've got one to spare."
  
  Saradyn sputtered at her. He kicked at the side of the mountain. She figured he'd get a foothold.
  
  He didn't.
  
  The root tore.
  
  Saradyn's face crumpled into that of a fearful child – horrified, angry to learn that the monsters his parents always told him weren't real were, in fact, waiting for him, and had always waited for him.
  
  Zezili's mouth hung open.
  
  Saradyn lost his grip, and fell into the hungry arms of the women below.
  
  Zezili crawled across the broken ground, listening to Saradyn's cries, until she could get her feet. Then she slid down the other side after Natanial, mind still reeling from Saradyn's demise.
  
  Natanial was standing among a group of six men and four women in purple robes – the sinajistas, Zezili supposed. They argued.
  
  "What's wrong?" Zezili asked. She didn't get too close. Being set on fire sounded like a bad way to go.
  
  "They need line of sight in order to kill the women," Natanial said. He pointed at the glowing violet body in the heavens. "Even with a flash ascendance, they always need line of sight."
  
  She looked up the way she'd come down – it was too steep to climb. The only way back was through the hole. "They afraid of getting dirty?"
  
  Natanial said, "If they go in, they know they aren't coming out." He peered behind her. "Where's Saradyn?"
  
  "Needed to take a piss," Zezili said. "I'll go."
  
  "Where? To piss?"
  
  "No, into the hole. A delayed burst. Not sure what they'd call it." She made a circular motion with her arms, trundling them around each other like she was wrapping yarn. Her body was still shaking, the muscle memory of the climb. "You twist the fire spell around a living thing, then send it into the enemy. It's set with a delay. Gives you time to get inside before it's triggered. Pretty popular tactic of mine." Of Tulana's, really.
  
  "When have you ever done something like that?"
  
  Zezili showed her teeth. "Did it to dajians all the time," she said. She remembered the runner she had sent up to scout the top of that living mound, happily sending him to his death. And more. She'd sent so many more.
  
  "Burned like fucking torches," Zezili said, "but they took out a lot of the enemy, too."
  
  "I'm missing something."
  
  "Not at all," she said. "I'll do it."
  
  "Where is Saradyn?"
  
  "That's what I said. I'll do it."
  
  She was caught, every which way she looked. Standing here with fifty of his men, this predatory assassin, a gaggle of sinajistas, and Saradyn dead, well – there was no way out of it. She had come here to thwart the Empress's plans. She had come here to die.
  
  Natanial's look was piercing. "Saradyn," he said.
  
  "Didn't make it," Zezili said.
  
  "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you here."
  
  "Because you can kill me in there."
  
  Natanial barked orders to the sinajistas. They obeyed. Zezili felt the air around her condense. She took a long breath, like breathing soup. Her skin tingled.
  
  "How long do you need?" Natanial said.
  
  "As long as it takes to get through the hole and into the center of them," Zezili said. "When all that food's gone in there, I figure they're going to start coming out."
  
  Natanial said something to the sinajistas.
  
  Zezili waiting until the sinajistas gave her the nod, then walked back to the hole. They all followed her – Natanial, the sinajistas, the fifty men of Saradyn's still on this side. She felt like some kind of blood sacrifice to a vengeful god, and she supposed she was. She always wondered what it felt like, knowing you were going to die.
  
  She came to the mouth of the hole, and stared down.
  
  "Changed your mind?" Natanial said.
  
  "So you can gut me?" she said. "No."
  
  "They do far worse to king killers."
  
  "That man was no king," Zezili said. "Just one more foolish bag of meat who thought he was fucking special."
  
  "Like you?"
  
  "I don't think it," Zezili said. "I know it."
  
  She started down into the hole. The journey felt shorter this time, maybe because she knew what to expect. She raised her head and peered out over the clearing. The women were on the other side.
  
  Zezili ran toward them, waving her arms. She wasn't quite sure how long the sinajistas had given her before she burst apart. Maybe she wouldn't die at all. Maybe Natanial had just said it so he could watch her get eaten up.
  
  The women heard her. They raised their heads.
  
  Zezili stopped, out of breath.
  
  Finally.
  
  What were people supposed to think about, before they died? She didn't know. She thought about how tired she was, and how much she stank. She missed her fucking hand. Her leg was still bleeding. She leaned over to catch her breath while the swarm of the Empress's people advanced on her position, like something from a Dorinah opera.
  
  She straightened as they came at her.
  
  "Zezili?" Natanial stood in the mouth of the pit. What a fool. He'd burn up if he didn't run.
  
  The first line of creatures hissed at her, so close she felt the heat of them.
  
  Natanial cupped his hands to his mouth. "Anavha's alive," he said, and dropped back into the hole.
  
  Zezili snarled. "Son of a–"
  
  She burst into flame.