Zeal of the Covert

Chitinous tarsi lighted down on cold stone. The sound was lost in the enveloping patter of rain rushing down sloped roofs. Droplets of water beaded ineffectually on waxy exoderm, repelled by the two bodies. Only their setae-furred antennae and locks of silken hair needed any cover. Darkling sky over chilled air over empty streets. The two chrylurks had retained stealth so far, gliding and bounding over the city's rooves. Now nearing their destination, they had to descend to the streets, courting the great risk: a mortal spotting them. But mortals were why they were here. They touched down beside a cobbled road, a short stretch bracketed by hard turns, each leading to larger road. This short extent served a little clump of buildings all packed tight. Ahead a cart lay on the side of the road. Above them, lamps of burning oil leaked light from a few windows. ---Does the trail still linger? (sent Heresy, strumming the ghostly silk between them. Clear yet fuzzy: the rain inflicted the barest interference.) The two were stepping under the eaves of the roof they'd leapt from. Cipher, the smaller chrylurk, was pulling a woven sheath off their antennae, segmented lengths shivering in the wet air. A chrylurk's marks could stick well in fair weather, but the rain only trapped the scent. Cipher's antennae waved then flinch-froze. The familiar scent of ==Sister Disgrace== had guided their journey. This was her hunting grounds, and she'd left marks all across the territory. Old scents, though --- this was fresher, meant to be a message. ---This is where it went wrong (Cipher said.) ---How can you tell? Acrid notes of ==distress==, metallic notes of ==pain== --- an odor so much like hemolymph, not by coincidence. Drawn morbidly, Cipher neared an alley, thin gap between packed buildings. ---Scents for warning and tracking, and here. (She crouched, tugging at the shawl covering her hair. Her silk fell out, a pale waterfall.) Cast a line. This is her silk. Heresy did not cast a line, though a spiderlouse crawled down her neck. The chrylurk plucked it with a claw and tossed it toward Cipher. A dragline stretched the distance; upon it, the roof-filtered drizzle was caught and suspended. Discarded silk, scattered among the grime and puddles, was faintly drawn upward by her hair's evanescence, like iron filings to a magnet, while the spiderlouse dug about for the same and began to chew. Then Heresy's swarmling found it: a hooked spool of shed chitin, still bearing knots of preserved serivane. Heresy seesawed her antennae, a nod. ---Her belaying spool (sent the hunter.) So she clipped her hive-bindings here. ---Three reasons you might do that (sent Cipher.) One, to protect herself: she needed quiessence to hide from an alchemist. Two, to protect us: she needed to cut her trail so an alien hive couldn't find ours--- ---Why leave tracking pheromones, then? Why lure us? Cipher rose, hair waving in an wind that did not exist. Her apertures narrowed to slits at the interruption, but she continued: ---Or three, she had no choice. She lacked the sanguimel reserves to maintain hive-bindings. ---She dropped everything. Maintaining one thread or even sending a distress signal would not deplete her unless she was already starving. ---You think that makes it impossible. I think it makes it so much more concerning. ---It would mean she might be---forgotten. Cipher took a step toward her sister, a clawed leg reaching out (reaching up; the hunter was taller) and touching a coxa-shoulder. Reassuring, except for the sharpness of her prod. ---If the alternative is she fought an alchemist? (sent Cipher.) I think both these threads tie the same knot. Creak. Cipher had to turn her head --- Heresy could see it already. While they'd investigated, a door had opened further down the alley. A human bore a lantern in hand and carried a pot stinking of refuse and waste, fit to be tossed among the alley's garbage. He dropped both at the sight of the two shadow-black bugs skulking. '(I wonder if he'll answer our questions,)' Cipher thought. "More of them?" came his whisper aghast. '(Nevermind,)' Cipher thought. Chitin-hooves smashed against cold stone. Abound as the pair were, when Heresy leapt high, Cipher was already crouching low. They moved in concert; the larger hunter lunging and the lithe weaver skittering. Cipher's silken hair writhed akin to a pit of snakes. Rope, woven in preparation for this operation, unslung itself. The jab of one primary claw hooked a rope, and a flick of her secondary hand sent a thorny loop toward her prey, while finally the grip of her tertiary talons kept her braced to the stone of the alley. Heresy fell with a predator's vicious grace. The man witnessed sudden, vision-eclipsing violence. A chrylurk was upon him --- two primary raptorials stuck down to disable his arms --- one secondary hand thrust forward, strangle-tight at his neck to silence the screams. He could do nothing --- not even run. The rope Cipher had thrown already whipped past him and curled around his legs, thorns digging into linen. All his limbs were bound. He fell: the thunk against the stone was wet in two ways. Cipher still skittered forward. Swarmlings crawled out from the nest between her legs, and she sent them seeking onward, destined for the still-open door. But her focus on was on her over-eager sister. ---Bite him (Cipher advised.) Tranquilize the threat. We can drain him later. ---No. ---More useful to us alive. Can't drain or parascixtize dead meat. Heresy lifted a claw and slammed it down. Blood gushed as her claws dug in, then a gurgling sound, then she ripped. The man's trachae was gore dislodged from a bloody cavity. "Exšh't," she scraped. Cipher thought of Disgrace, those acrid notes of distress and the hive-bindings clipped and spooled with panicked abruptness. ---I don't blame you (Cipher sent.) Heresy rose, her hooves giving the corpse with a bone-shattering stomp. Her head snapped to her sister, proboscis curled sneeringly high, toothed mandibles bare. ---Obviously. How could you? (she sent, but her hive-song was more tone than message. Brutal satisfaction and hate radiating.) Again, a shared thought and two moved as one. Heresy lifted her dripping secondary hand, and Cipher rose from her skitter-crouch like a flower growing. Rivulets of blood descended from the murder-drenched hand and fell upon Cipher's mouthparts. Her hypopharynx darted forward to lick blood warm from the killing. Heresy's other hand came forth, brushing across Cipher's head. A pat for one second before she gripped the voluminous silk-hair and pulled her sister up the rest of the way. ---Let's finish this (the hunter said, chiding.) You were yapping about what's useful, but this--- ---Cost nothing (the weaver interrupted.) I sent my swarmlings to scout the building, and I await a report. Three more heat signatures on the ground floor, smells like two humans and a freemouse. ---And Disgrace? ---Her scent's strongest behind a door my bugs cannot slip past. No way to reach her but through the mortals. ---Do you want me to wait around for you to spin up a plan? ---I was thinking about the utility of that. ---So "yes". That answer is "yes" and takes six words less. ---It's "no," I think. The sound of your violence was muffled by the rain, and I wove a vaneweb --- reckless, but telling. Were any of these mortals alchemists of the most dangerous sort, they would have sensed it and stirred into action at once. ---So they're all easy pickings. That also takes less words. '(Disgrace would tell you to be nicer to me)' Cipher thought. But she didn't send it --- not when that rift in their hive's fabric had not yet been stitched. And there was no way to mend it but to cut. Cipher stepped aside. The door was on the right side of the alley, and she'd skittered along the right wall. Now she followed a hair's breadth behind Heresy --- an easy distance to manage when both moved in concert. Heresy opened up the door gently. For all her ferocity, she knew not to spook her prey. She stepped inside and did not even need to scan around. Cipher's swarm had carried forth lines of silk, so both chrylurks knew the lay of the space. The side door opened perpendicular to a corridor which joined to one room rich in heat and scent (likely the kitchen) and one room with mud tracks (likely the entrance). The two humans were behind this wall before them, but reaching them meant going around. The freemouse stood in the kitchen, pausing at the door's faint creak. Swarmlings relayed all they heard and all they vibrated their silken lines. Cipher's stout scalp-hive integrated all these noise-waves, but it was guess-work. "Malkom ------ so long. Trash's ------ hold up?" Snatches of almost-intelligible speech from the other room. "He's ------ing. Patience." "Keep going w------out him. Just skip ------." Followed by a laugh. "Not fair, n------ fair. Maybe ------ can check in on him?" "R------, the help'll fetch 'em." Then he continued in a louder voice that carried through the house: "Hey! Yoneymums!" The freemouse perked up. "Yes, master-mine?" High-pitched, squeaky. Before her parascixion, Cipher had known freemice could be proud. This? This was affected. Embarrassing. "Malkom went out! Fetch him, see what's up!" "As you-you wish!" ---The servant is coming this way. Think you're for taking out the humans? (Cipher sent.) It was bait. '(Disgrace would say be nicer.)' ---Thinking that mouse might be too much for you? (she replied.) But they both moved, Heresy stalking rightward, back toward the entrance. This time, Cipher leapt, her claws finding purchase in the wooden walls. She climbed, weaving lines behind her, and soon found herself on the ceiling, held up by hooked claws and bound silk. She could continue down the corridor. Or... The freemouse darted forw