Chapter 2

P-Ten clung fast with four tarsi to the back of a desperately bucking chiron. Her fore and mid-right limbs were devoted to thrusting a spear at the neck of the creature. V-Naia kept an eye on her first lieutenant as she, the captain, faced radar ears, great nearly blind eyes and razor-sharp canines. The chiron screeched, lunging at her, but she feinted, knocking it on the side of its skull with her weapon. Twice as big, and at least four times as massive as the Aeshnida, the chiron were potentially formidable predators. Luckily, they were also loners and predictable, hunting primarily at dusk. They flew on cumbersome membranous wings, and they could generally be outmaneuvered by a standard seven-member squadron.

This particular chiron dodged to the left, into the spear of a flanking officer. It pulled right again reflexively, and into the spear point that gave the formation symmetry. The officer on the behind that spear stumbled backwards, absorbing the force of the chiron and turning to fight gravity. The second lieutenant, who covered the back of the formation, noted that it was time to finish the skirmish. "Take it down," he signaled to the two officers waiting above, and P-Ten, who still stuck to the back of the chiron. A-Pol, the second lieutenant, dove after the dazed right flanker as the rest of the squadron chased the creature into the lush grasses and ferns below.

"Good work," V-Naia approved, allowing P-Ten to take the finishing stab and the first morsel. "By the lore." The rest of the squadron followed P-Ten's lead, taking bits of meat from the muscular area just behind the chiron's wings. These they would carry impaled on spear point to those of the tribe who could not hunt for themselves. The rest they left to the dipter and other scavengers, a signal to other chiron that the northern borders of Epepreo land were not safe.

Just as V-Naia took the seventh morsel, a flash of yellow and deep brown appeared over head. "Who goes?" demanded copper-tinged A-Pol.

"M-Bene of the Epepreo, Southern Fern-Shaded Pool," the dancer replied with her learned flourish. "M-Nev bids your squadron meet at the Sunset Cycad. It is a Gathering. Make haste!"

She did not stay for conversation, flying off instead to find the next nearest sentries on chiron patrol, looking not unlike a vespin with the bands of alternating color along her abdomen.

--

B-Leon, another dancer, navigated the southeast vespin hive field. A dry night breeze rustled through the thick, tall grasses, and the ruby male was a bundle of nerves. So close to the border, he fretted to himself. Most keepers and sentries had been evacuated from this area already, leaving a skeleton crew to patrol in the temporary calm before more strategic security could be devised. But B-Leon had two more individuals to locate before he could call his assignment complete. "Have you seen M-Ela and Z-Geph?" he called out to a distant keeper.

"Sunward a few beats," the keeper replied.

"Thank you!" B-Leon took a sharp turn westerly, and soon realized how he'd missed the pair. Z-Geph, a pale yellow keeper and M-Ela, a dull orange hunter, were deep in conversation amongst a thick swarm of vespin returning to hive for the night.

"Where have you been?" B-Leon asked, flying headlong into the swarm and dispersing confused vespin left and right.

"Would you be careful? How'd a klutz like you get to be a dancer, of all things?" retorted the hunter.

"Stop. He's just excited," Z-Geph admonished. "I was just relinquishing a weak one for feed," she explained to the dancer. As if to confirm this, she corralled a lone vespin that tumbled through the air. B-Leon's charge had apparently been its last straw.

"I see," answered the dancer. He let the other male put the vespin out of its misery before passing along his message. "What I am here to say," he gathered himself, "is that the Elder Council bids you meet at the Sunset Cycad. It is a gathering, and you're late, so hurry!"

--

Its base was a brilliant reddish-orange, inside and out, and this vivid color extended to the its male cone. Its leaves were black at their tips and lightened in an irregular gradient as they broadened nearer the center and ground. The effect was indeed that of a sun sinking into the horizon, and that the Sunset Cycad was rooted deeply in a steep western hill was probably just coincidence. The Elder Council perched staid on its crown of leaves, and a flock of dancers hovered around them, waiting to remember history. One stranger, red and brown, hung poised above the cone. All around the rise, in innumerable restless strata, were Epepreo of all castes.

Satisfied that quorum had been reached, M-Nev, the Elder Sentry, rose from her perch. The bright twin moons illuminated her striped orange and green form in spite of the new night. "The Gomphid have sent to us, in their Elder Sentry's stead, a herald. C-Fas," she turned to him, "you have the honor of the message."

C-Fas obediently rose so that all could see him. "In the name of S-Fon, Elder Sentry of the Pool of the Gingko, and in the name of my people, I C-Fas of the Double Moon Pool declare war upon you the Epepreo who have but cannot spare the stuff of life."

"Will there be parley?" questioned M-Nev.

"The time is past. There will be no parley," replied C-Fas.

"No parley," repeated the Elder, for the benefit of those gathered. "Then we take you into custody, first prisoner of war C-Fas." She signaled in Tribal to a pair of nearby sentries, who approached the Gomphid in the center of the cycad. "Take him to the west magnolia grove and keep him there. Treat him well." The sentries did as they were told, flanking the dancer and escorting him to a distant cluster of red-leaved trees full of fragrant white flowers.

When C-Fas was out of sight, M-Nev continued her duties as Commander in Chief, sending perhaps half of her sentries to the battle lines, and to the vespin hive fields as security detail. She kept a reserve force in the vicinity of her pools. The other Elders distributed their respective castes accordingly. R-Tem sent many of her hunters to the borderlands to watch for chiron and other creatures who would take advantage of war if they could. F-Uan sent contingents of his keepers to aid in protecting their vespin. A-Sclep and H-Mes assigned certain healers and dancers to accompany the sentries, to act as field medics and heralds and historians respectively. V-Sta kept her nurturers at home.

Almost as an afterthought, M-Nev summoned an unassigned dancer forward. "M-Bene of the Southern Fern-Shaded Pool," she asked, "are you willing to go in trade to the Gomphid, to confirm Epepreo acceptance of war and no parley?"

M-Bene hesitated, thinking of her pool and her people. "I am willing," she finally replied.

"Go then, M-Bene, and Fate be with you."

"Fate be with us all." M-Bene sped off into the east, in the direction of the sentry force, the battle lines and the Gomphid.

"Indeed. Fate be with us at sunrise."

Chapter 1

Dipter, aerialists in their own right, swarmed. Their pale, veined wings and halteres carried them in unlikely bounds and barrel rolls; what this meant to the dipter, nobody quite knew. Their round multi-faceted eyes glinted blood-red in the sunlight, betraying no hint of intelligence. The small, dark creatures swam the currents of the air, dodging misty raindrops and predatory Aeshnida.

A youthful female, variegated in emerald and violet, was less interested in the scavengers than the carrion they consumed. All around her, fellow Gomphid Nurturers gently added their limp young to makeshift tombs. N-Argi had not been a part of the preparation of the graves. The deep depressions in the soil had been carved, with great care and over many long cycles, by industrious platinum coleo (all of whom had been forcibly evicted by Gomphid Hunters.)

"N-Argi, come away from there." A large silvery male sidled up to her, his wings frayed but functional. Focused as she was on the dead, she saw him without seeing him. He continued, trying to grab her attention. "This isn't healthy. Come on, you need a break."

He finally registered. "S-Pehn," she replied limply. "Go where?"

"Anywhere but here. Come on." He dipped away from the proceedings and on towards a pool. It would be a better place. Not by much, but it would be better. N-Argi trailed behind him, ignoring the other traffic between the pool and the vacated coleo nests.

The pair finally hovered over the Double Moon Pool, and S-Pehn considered that, maybe, this hadn't been his best idea. Raindrops hit the surface of the water with punctuated splashes, radially pushing aside a crowd of white dipter larvae who quickly moved to fill the vacancy again. The surface was thick with them.

The vespin had started dying a long cycle ago, possibly more. Without them, and the benefit of pollination, the riparian flora dependent on sexual reproduction died off in the cool season only to have no new growth to offer in the warm. Nymphs of the pool lost the respite of the shade the leaves provided, and the extra oxygen the foliage exhaled. They could not survive. The dipter, however, thrived. The imagos feasted on scavenged flesh, and used the extra energy to produce aquatic eggs in quantity. The maggots, for their part, loved the heat.

"We couldn't save them," N-Argi muttered. "There was no place else."

"No," S-Pehn agreed. "The Pool of the Ginkgo is almost as squalid."

"And other tribes, with better pools, they couldn't help. Or wouldn't."

"They're probably afraid."

N-Argi considered that, her attention on a reddish gold female who dove to pull a first instar hatchling from the water.

"They're probably afraid, but D-Proi was not, and neither am I."

S-Pehn noted that some of the old vigor had returned to N-Argi's motion. Mission accomplished, he thought to himself before replying, "Whatever happened to your mate, anyway?"

"Scouting mission," she clipped. "He went forward with two others, and never did come back." With that, she charged away from the stagnant place, nearly colliding with three other tribemates in quick succession. By the time they recovered, she was out of view, and they joined S-Pehn, continuing in that grimmest of recovery efforts.

--

A great cycad grew, deeply rooted, at the top of an escarpment. From there it overlooked the territory of the Gomphid and beyond. The fronds were black as midnight with the exception of the deep ruby veins that cut through them. At over four feet at their broadest points, and with nearly three times that in length, the leaves curved gently out. The resulting platforms were perfectly proportioned to Aeshnida landing platforms. It was there, at the Dying Star Cycad, that the Gomphid Elder Council met.

All six of the Council were convened, facing the brilliantly scarlet male cone in the center of the plant, when the young Nurturer arrived unannounced in front of them. The Elder Healer, olive-green and world-weary, saw her first and rose to attention. "N-Argi, what is the emergency?" asked the Healer.

"Emergency? Have you not seen the pools?"

"Of course I've seen the pools, N-Argi. We've all seen the pools," she answered. L-Ydia, a minute creature with red-striped wings, was patient as always.

"And we know how you feel," added the Elder Dancer, S-Vul. Her brilliant orange whipped through the air with the eloquence only Dancers came to achieve. "You fed them lore as well as meat. You knew them."

"We all knew them," N-Argi protested. "Story time or not, we all knew them. And without them we are nothing."

A third Elder, the color of an overcast sky, answered now. His left forewing had long since been crippled, and so he used a limited form of Common Alighted, moving his other three wings as best he could. One attendant, another Dancer, translated. "Do you believe we are doing nothing? Did we not bid the Gomphid stop circling over water when we saw the vespin start to fall? Have we not sent scouts into Epepreo skies to find new life?"

"And has that worked? D-Proi is not back. Nobody is back," N-Argi replied.

"D-Proi is your mate, correct?" asked the third Elder, who was in fact the Council Sentry and knew the caste under his command.

"That is correct, S-Fon, sir. Will you be sending somebody to look for him?"

"No," he answered after a moment. "N-Argi, we are convened here today..."

The Elder Hunter, A-Cya, interrupted. "With all due respect, sir, is this the wisest time to announce?" She hung in the air with her question.

"The ire of even the gentlest of Nurturers is risen. What better time? We have convened here today," he repeated, "to take the most drastic of actions. We declare war upon the Epepreo, who have but cannot willingly spare the stuff of life."

N-Argi let that sink in. "About time," she finally replied.