Into the depths of the endless green Rene plunged forward. His breath was labored yet steady, his pace swift but measured. He could not allow terror to steal his breath away. For he was a man pursued, and as quick as he was, they were quicker still.

He fumbled at his breast pocket while lifting up his mask, took out a brass whistle and snatched it to his lips. He blew hard, two piercing notes that cut through the foliage and curved round the flanks of the surrounding hills, echoing into the distance.

He listened. From far away there came an answering cry, faint and urgent. He dashed off towards it without wasting a moment, trampling ferns and dead leaves beneath his boots.

It came again, louder and more insistent. His eyes darted about the eerie stillness of the trees, lips pulled back unconsciously into a rictus grin of fear.

The signal sounded for a final time, rising to a high-pitched note of terror that was brutally cut short. Rene stopped in his tracks. There was a pause pregnant with tension, and then he turned and fled in the opposite direction.

#

He had discovered the mistake on the third day of reconnaissance, as they had toiled up the slopes of a yet another narrow trail. He had been near the rear of the column, while behind him Lethway panted with exertion, weighed down like a mule with the excess baggage.

“What’s all this about then?” Lethway had asked Rene through the harsh rasping that issued from his mask as he gasped through the valves of his intake tube. He was moving heavily beneath the thick skin of his sealant suit, rubber-lined canvas creaking beneath the straps of the heavy packs he bore on his broad back.

“What’s all what about, Lethway?”

“All this. Give us a hand, would you?”

Rene reached down and helped his friend hoist himself over a boulder slick with moss.

“Well ostensibly,” he said, grunting as his arms took the weight, “The point is to establish the supremacy of the human race, and claim this world that is our irrevocable birthright, as decreed by the ancestors.”

“This world? Hah! They can keep it. Bastard place is too wet for my liking.”

Their journey had been greeted at the outset by pouring rain and intractable mud. Crossing the gorge, they had become mired so deep they’d been forced to abandon their pack animals in a hurry, hence Lethway’s discomfort. Finding a way through the place was nothing short of a nightmare. The karst hillsides were a wilderness of monolithic stone pillars overgrown with greenery, chess pieces arranged on a board without thought or reason. Every turn in the road carried the risk of becoming hopelessly confused, as surroundings shifted and landmarks were lost to view.

They reached a section of level ground and paused to take a breath. Rene cleared away the thick dew that had settled over his lenses with a grimy sleeve. About them a feverish mist had risen until the entire forest of stunted trees and dense shrubs that covered the hillsides seemed to perspire in unison with the twenty weary, footsore men. Looking out across the alien landscape, he began to wonder if there was truth after all to the myths of old, of the shaping of the world of Arachnea by the ancestor-gods. The stories spoke of Divine Engines striding about, tearing up the mountains by their roots and stomping the valleys into existence, drinking deep from the oceans and belching forth plumes of life-giving air.

But Rene knew differently. The strangely geometric proportions of the karst hills were merely the result of millennia of rainwater carving the soft stone to its present shape. Just as the stalactites at home lengthened with each drip and drop that fell in the caves, everything could be explained by the action and consequence of the laws of nature.

As for the ancestor-gods, they belonged to an age of myth. Their wonderous works were long gone, if they had ever truly existed. Their children would have to make do with what they had. Which, admittedly, was not much.

Rene took out his compass, holding it in his cupped hands and frowning.

“How’s the old girl treating you?” asked Lethway.

“Oh, you know. The usual. Silly thing can’t make up its mind where to point.”

He tapped irritably at the glass casing, watched the lodestone needle within bobbing upon the film of oil that kept it afloat. It wasn’t like he could complain about its quality. Each man in the unit was outfitted with the best equipment the Fleet could produce. They wore sleek sealant suits tailored for easier movement and carried state-of-the-art caplock firearms fresh from the Fleet gunsmiths. Even their masks were a step above the ordinary and used a highly sophisticated arrangement of intake valves and filters rather than the primitive recycler systems used by civilians.

All of this belied the importance Fleet Command placed on their mission. They wanted to push northwards again, deep into enemy territory. Why was anyone’s guess, but this was the first of a series of actions taken against what the biological division had designated as Mound Euler. For some inscrutable reason their superiors had decided it had to go, and so once again the 3rd Pathfinder Regiment would lead the way for the iron shod boot that would come crashing down.

“Crewman Rene!”

“Aye sir!” He ran up to the head of the column. The advance had been stalled for some time now. The men had begun to fidget, sliding packs from their aching shoulders or fiddling with the clasps on their sealant suits.

The navigator stood waiting, one foot leaning against the roots of a tree, a sour, pensive look on his face. Deschane was a lean man with a balding pate and dour appearance, and a personality to match it. Rene drew up, said:

“What’s the matter, sir?”

The navigator scowled and unfolded a disheveled map.

“Look,” he stabbed at it with a finger, “this was where we passed the river and took a right. Assuming we’ve been making the same time as yesterday, that should’ve brought us right about there,” he encircled a segment already cluttered with scrawls and arrowheads, “Correct?”

Rene swallowed hard and nodded.

“Care to fill in the rest?”

“Certainly, sir,” he stammered, “We proceeded north about eleven kilometers and paused to take bearings of several locations of interest. We would have gone further but our path was obstructed by the landslide on the southern slopes. For the past five hours we’ve taken a nor-nor eastern heading.”

“Where would that put us, crewman Rene?”

“Right about here, lord navigator.” He pointed with reluctance.

The navigator grabbed the compass twined around Rene’s neck and shook it in his face.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“And does here look even close to resembling that?” he snarled.

Rene had been tasked with occasionally peering down the compass’ pinhole sight and taking readings from one of the many peaks around them. Working together, using the same reference points, he and the navigator had aimed to chart a safe course through the endless karst hills that would steer them well around the ominous grey mountain that dominated the center of their maps. But the method was not without its difficulties. Their compasses, usually so obedient, had begun to act eccentric. The obstinate things refused to point out exactly where true north lay, tending instead to stray by six to eight degrees. The navigator hadn’t noticed the magnetic declination until recently, but by then they had already strayed from the intended path by a considerable margin. The phenomenon was caused, they had supposed, by massive amounts of iron deposits hidden somewhere beneath the area. But Rene had his doubts. At times it seemed to him that the place itself was deliberately leading them astray.

“We should be clear of it by now. We passed by the last feeder tower yesterday, yes? And yet there they are again!” Deschane gestured in disgust. Rene saw nothing at first, for the heavy precipitation was playing tricks with the lighting of the place. Huge blocks of stone raised their craggy heads above a veil of morning mists, some cast in shadow, others verdant and bright with foliage. It was only when the navigator had shoved a pair of binoculars into his hands that he finally caught sight of them.

Hidden amongst the columns of limestone were several tall, fluted structures so slender they almost faded into the background. Their ominous snouts reared hundreds of meters high and seemed so fragile that a stiff breeze could snap them in half. Far too graceful to be the result of natural process. A shiver of fear ran down his spine.

The mists were clearing, and in his mind’s eye he could trace the outline of the mound at the base of the towers, broad and dark and girdled with menace, stretching a full third of the horizon.

Dimly he was aware of Deschane taking the table of readings from his unresisting hands, the navigator mumbling as he compared it with his own set of measurements.

“Hmph,” he looked from one table to the other, and frowned at the map. “That’s odd.” he said with hesitation.

“Sir?” said Rene, numbly.

“Our readings are in agreement. Which means either both of us are completely wrong, or once again we’ve been led astray by our friends in military intelligence. Military intelligence,” Deschane snorted. “A contradiction in terms.”

A week before a squadron of balloons had been sent over to reconnoiter the territory, their swaying canvases pumped full of refined swamp gas. Some had been lost with all hands, smashed against the cliff faces by the wild winds that brewed in this tropical clime. The rest of the aircraft had been grounded by worsening weather conditions. Hence the need to send a foot patrol.

It was from these flights that they’d acquired the first rough sketches of Mound Euler and its surroundings. Now Rene knew how little those flight missions had really accomplished.

Rene stooped low and spoke urgently into his ear.

“Sir, those aren’t the same towers we saw yesterday.”

“What? Nonsense.”

He handed the binoculars back to Deschane and the navigator peered, unconvinced. At last he lowered the binoculars, clearly shaken.

“You mean to say they’re offshoots?”

“Aye sir. Tributaries of the main spine.”

The navigator riffled through the papers and found the charcoal sketches of the enemy structure. The artist depicted a trio of massive towers atop the Mound, a forbidding array of horns crowning a malevolent beast: the primary ventilation systems of the mound. They were clearly conical, as opposed to the cylindrical secondary structures that loomed before them now.

Oh yes, Rene thought, the aerial maps were wrong alright. Their actual position was several kilometers further from the Mound. Not that it mattered of course, because they had made another crucial mistake, one that would be the death of them all.

“Ridiculous,” Deschane looked sharply behind him—­—the men were uneasy and had begun to eavesdrop­—­—then continued in a whisper, “That would make Mound Euler at least three times larger than our estimates.”

“Yes sir. I’m afraid so.”

“But that would mean that the pheromone trails radiate outward for tens of kilometers.”

“We probably tripped it hours ago and never realized it,” Rene said hoarsely, “They know we’re here, sir.”

It was the Deschane’s turn to swallow this time. The navigator took a moment to gather himself, then nodded to himself and began to slowly fold his papers. Rene thought he was making an admirable effort not to show the panic that both now felt.

“We have to get back,” Deschane said through tight lips, “No matter what happens to us now, Fleet Command must hear of this. A colony of this magnitude...they must call off the offensive. Rene, what’s the shortest route back to friendly lines?”

Rene pored over the maps, sweat coating his palms.

“There is an inhabited mound around eighteen kilometers south west. Shouldn’t take more than a day’s travel.”

He tapped a small grey spot east of the river.

“A settlement? This far north?”

“Not quite. It’s only a forward operating base--Mound 13, according to the legend on the map.”

“It will have to do,” the uncertainty had gone from his superior’s demeanor, replaced by a layer of cold efficiency. “Column, about face!” he bellowed to the rest of the men, “We’re heading home on the double!”

There were dire mutterings, and strings of curses levelled at the officer, the mud and the mission in general.

“None of that lip, you dogs!” bellowed Lieutenant Jensen, snatching up his pistol.

The murmurs died down, but a few stuck out their chins and let their voices be heard.

“What about the mission, sir?” someone asked.

“We were tasked with making a reconnaissance in force. The way I see it, we came, we saw, and we reconnoitered. Mission accomplished, as far as I’m concerned. You’re welcome to stick around if you like.”

Without another word Deschane began marching down the path from which they had come. Rene caught up to him, satchel bouncing on the back of his knees.

“Sir, is it wise to keep this a secret from the men?”

“What, that we’ve just stumbled upon the largest mound on this side of creation? That they could be nesting under our feet at this very moment? If I told them that we’ve been walking in the kill-radius for the past few hours, they’d go to pieces. Better an orderly retreat than a rout. Button up your lip if you know what’s good for you.”

“Very good sir,” Rene whispered. He fell back into place, his heart hammering in his chest.

The going was easier than earlier, since they were no longer travelling uphill, but that was little comfort as Deschane rode them hard all the way down the slopes.

The men swore as they tripped over the butts of their muskets, the clay clinging to them every inch of the way.

“What the hell have you gotten us into?” hissed Lethway as he went past, sliding on his behind. But Rene only shook his head.

“Fine then. But even a fool like me can see that something’s got you and the navigator spooked.”

“Deschane knows his business,” said Jensen, the lieutenant, “Keep your eyes peeled and tread softly. If there’s trouble, we’ll deal with it the usual way.” He patted a hatchet he kept on a leather sheathe by his side. Rene knew Jensen wouldn’t be so cocky if he knew the extent of their troubles.

What had been intended as a long, wayward route safely beyond the deadly kill-radius had instead cut deep into enemy territory, across dozens of invisible biochemical tripwires, laid by their adversaries in the hopes of detecting prey, which they now undoubtedly were.

As they passed through a defile between two low hillocks, they heard up ahead of them a stone clattering sharply over a bare cliffside. Rene drew back in apprehension. The others saw his reaction and paused to look at one another.

“Keep a steady pace, men!” growled Deschane. He glared at Rene. By sheer force of will he kept the rest of them going, though they glanced all about them in trepidation.

“Right. They’ve found us. You all know the drill. Load and half-cock.”

“How?” whispered Lethway. The bags began to slip from his nerveless fingers. “We walked all the way around-”

“Never mind how! Pick that up right now, or I swear on ship and crew I’ll shoot you first!”

The men unslung their muskets and tore off the water-proof jackets. As they plodded forward, they hastily rammed paper cartridges down the muzzles and set their percussion caps.

“That’s right. Keep walking, easy does it now,” Deschane said in the same low voice, “Don’t let on that we know. Find your partners and form ranks.”

They exited the defile and fanned out cautiously into a wide semi-circle.

“Listen to me now,” Deschane proclaimed, “The survival of our species rests on your shoulders. Whatever happens now, at least one of us must return there and tell Fleet Command the following message: Mound Euler is an omega-class colony. Call off the offensive. The north is closed to us.”

“Remember the message. And may Sol, star of the ancestor-gods, shine upon you all.”

By unconscious consensus they all slowed to halt. There was the sound of muffled clicks as thumbs found hammers and coaxed them gently back into full cock. The lord navigator raised his pistol. Rene licked his lips--all the moisture had suddenly been sucked from his mouth.

They saw nothing before them but the ruddy faces of the cliffs. A nervous gust of wind shook the hanging vines and sent a shiver through the leaves. Rene held his breath for one long and agonizing moment, waiting for the inevitable.

And then Deschane stepped forward and fired into the shadows, and all at once the world erupted into violence.