The mother fled.

She would not be able to keep this up for long. She was not built for endurance, and her many legs trembled with effort. Soon she would have to face them. But before she made her stand, there was one last thing she had to do.

Racing through the landscape she scanned the surroundings for a suitable location in which to leave her precious charge. Her ventral eyes searched the ground for any promising crack or fissure. She knew they were frequent on this side of the mountain. This was not where she had wanted to go, but it would have to be enough.

On a whim of luck, her parietal eye caught a waft of essence suspended in the air. She burst toward it, determined to find the source. For a moment, she lost the thin stream suspended in the air.

She kept on moving in the direction she had seen it. She was desperate.

A little further on she found herself in front of a huge cliff wall. Conflicted on what direction to follow, she chose the right side. She could not backtrack now.

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It had been the correct choice, because soon afterwards she found the small drift of essence again, a little thicker this time.

She followed it to its origin. A slit in the cliff wall surrounded by dangling vines.

Her hind legs were on the verge of collapsing and she knew she would not be able to find a better place. It would have to suffice.

Squeezing through the slit, she entered and found herself in a small cave. The essence seemed denser here, and the vegetation appeared to be feeding on it. It was a good place.

She left the small, nearly transparent larva she had been holding in her frontal pincers on a patch of slightly glowing moss. She thought it looked beautiful, a white pearl on a bed of glittering green.

Her larva.

With pain in her heart she lowered her head and imprinted on it a set of impressions and instructions. It was all the help she could give to the child.

Exiting through the narrow slit, the mother started to scuttle down the side of the mountain again. She had to lead them away, as far away as possible.

She could hear them now, shouting and yipping. She could hear their dogs, barking in a frenzy. She could hear their mounts, frothing at the mouths from the effort of the past hours.

She had not been easy prey.

At long last the mountain cliffside bent a little and the mother stopped. She could not go on. She turned towards the direction her attackers would come from and laid down. She needed to rest her exhausted limbs before it began.

The time for running was over.

Now it was time to fight.