Chapter 031 The Architecture of Rot
The air up here tasted like ozone and dry static. Not the good kind of static that rubs off a cat's fur, but the bad kind. The kind that tastes like biting into aluminum foil.
Barnaby banked left, his wings a blur of translucent motion that defied physics, aerodynamics, and god.
"Easy, big guy," I muttered, patting the fuzz between his wing joints. "We're not trying to announce our presence. Yet."
Barnaby let out a low, vibrant thrum that vibrated through my chest plate and rattled my teeth. He was nervous. I was nervous. We were a grand traveling circus of anxiety cruising at two thousand feet.
Beneath us, the world was wrong. The forest looked like someone had taken a wet painting and dragged their thumb through it. Trees twisted into spirals. A river flowed uphill, water churning white against gravity. It made my compound eyes ache, the multiple facets trying to reconcile the impossibility of it.
I shouldn't be here. I should be back at camp, making bad jokes while Thalren broods and Aria tries to keep everyone alive.
But Lysandra had looked at me.
*Flashback, don't do this,* I told myself. *Focus on the mission.*
My brain, traitor that it was, did it anyway.
Two nights ago. Silverpine Hollow. She'd pulled me aside while the others were arguing over maps. Her eyes were that impossible winter frost color, the kind that makes you want to put on a coat just looking at them.
"Xyl," she'd said. She didn't look at my extra joints or the way my skin was more chitin than flesh. She just looked at me. "I need you to do something stupid."
"Stupid is my specialty, Lady Ice. I charge extra for suicidal."
She didn't smile. "I had a vision. Thrak's moving the army. He thinks he's catching the Corespire off guard. He's walking into a mouth."
"So tell him."
"He won't listen. Not to a vague feeling. He needs proof. And you..." She touched my arm. My actual arm. "You're the only one who can get close enough to see the teeth without getting chewed up."
"Why me? Thalren's got the big sword. Vorn has the muscles."
"Because you watch," she said. "You pretend you're the fool, Xyl, but you see everything. Find out what they're doing. If you don't... the Convergence ends before it starts."
So here I was. Flying a giant bumblebee toward a fortress of death because a pretty girl with scary eyes asked me to.
Classic Xyl.
"Target ahead," I whispered.
The Corespire rose out of the mist like a jagged obsidian needle. It wasn't just a fortress; it was a wound in the sky. Dark clouds swirled around the peak, tethered to the stone by arcs of purple lightning.
Barnaby shrank down, shifting his mass until he was the size of a large dog-still conspicuous, but less "flying tank" and more "flying ATV." The hum of his wings dropped an octave.
We landed on the outer ramparts, skidding behind a gargoyle that looked like it was retching.
"Stay down," I hissed. Barnaby folded his wings tight against his fuzzy back and groomed his antennae aggressively. His way of saying *I hate this.*
I peered around the stone vomiting gargoyle.
The walls weren't just stone. They were... alive? No. Undeath given masonry.
I tuned my eyes, shifting the spectrum. It was a neat trick, seeing heat, magic, and ultraviolet. What I saw made my stomach roll over.
The black stone was veined with glowing lines. But it wasn't the clean gold of the Bloom or the murky green of the Root. It was both.
They were forced together. Golden light trapped in necrotic green sludge, pulsing like an infected artery. It looked angry.
"That's not right," I whispered. "That's like mixing matter and antimatter."
Below, in the courtyard, five Bloomguard were standing around a training dummy. They weren't the mindless husks we usually fought. These ones moved with snappy precision. One of them, a captain by the glint of his pauldrons, drew a sword.
The blade was coated in that same sick mixture. Violently bright gold strangled by rot.
"Observe," the captain said. His voice carried up the wall, thin and reedy.
He tapped the training dummy. Just a tap.
The dummy didn't get cut. It shrieked. A sound of tearing wood that sounded too much like a scream. Then it dissolved. The wood turned grey, then black, then crumbled into fine ash in seconds.
"Efficiency," the captain said, sliding the blade back. "The mixture doesn't just cut. It unmakes. The channels in the walls will do the same to the Marked One. As soon as he touches the stone... drained."
I pulled back, pressed flat against the cold wall.
A battery. They turned the whole damn fortress into a vampire. If Thalren touched these walls, or Aria, or any of us carrying the Bloom... pop. Gone.
Lysandra was right. Thrak was marching two hundred and fifty rebels straight into a meat grinder that would eat their souls for fuel.
"Okay, Barnaby," I breathed. "We've seen the teeth. Now we leave."
Barnaby buzzed in agreement. He tensed his legs to launch.
I froze. A pebble skittered across the stone next to my hand.
I looked up.
A Bloomguard was standing on the parapet above us, crossbow leveled at my head.
"We have a pest," he said.
"Pest is a strong word," I said, raising my hands slowly. "I prefer 'freelance biological anomaly'."
The bolt loosed.
I didn't think; I just moved. My spine has three extra pivot points compared to a human's. I twisted backward, torso folding at an angle that would snap a normal man in half. The bolt hissed past my nose and shattered on the stone.
"Barnaby! Plan B!" I yelled.
Plan B was violence.
Barnaby expanded. The *pop-crackle* of his mass shifting was loud as a gunshot. He went from dog-sized to bear-sized in a blink, his black and yellow fur bristling. He slammed into the crossbowman, knocking him off the parapet with a dull *thud*.
"Intruders!" someone screamed from the courtyard.
"Time to go!" I scrambled up, my boots slipping on the slick stone.
Three more guards rounded the corner. Swords drawn. That nasty, unmaking slime dripping from the edges.
"Don't let them touch you!" I warned Barnaby.
He buzzed angrily-a sound like a chainsaw starting up-and spun, his stinger lashing out. He punched it through the stone battlement. The rock sizzled where the venom hit. It didn't melt; it just... gave up.
"Surrender, vermin," the captain shouted, charging up the stairs.
I stood on the ledge, striking what I hoped was a heroic pose. "I am Xyl the Magnificent! Independent contractor of chaos! And you, sir, have terrible taste in interior literal design!"
The captain lunged.
I opened my mouth and screamed.
Not a vocal scream. A sonic pulse. It hit the air like a hammer. The captain's helmet rang like a bell. He stumbled back, clutching his ears, blood trickling from his nose. The stone beneath his feet cracked.
"Now!" I grabbed Barnaby's fur.
He launched. We shot into the sky, G-force pulling at my face.
A hail of crossbow bolts chased us.
*Thwack.*
Barnaby lurched mid-air. A jagged cry ripped from his throat-a sound I'd never heard him make.
"Barnaby!"
I looked back. A bolt was lodged in his left wing, right near the base. The membrane was tearing.
We lost altitude. Fast.
"Come on, buddy. Hold it together." I flattened myself against his neck, trying to be aerodynamic. "Just get us to the trees."
He spiraled, fighting the drag. The ground rushed up-warped trees, backwards river, jagged rocks.
We hit the canopy. Branches whipped my face. Leaves exploded around us. We crashed through the gloom, tumbling, spinning, until we slammed into the soft, rotting earth of the forest floor.
Silence for a moment. Just the sound of my own wheezing breath and the frantic beating of Barnaby's remaining good wing.
"You okay?" I scrambled over to him.
He chittered weakly. The bolt was stuck deep. I put a hand on his fuzzy head. He leaned into it.
"Yeah. Me too." I looked at the wing. It was bad, but not flight-ending if he shrank down. But he couldn't carry me. Not like this.
And Thrak's army was two miles east.
"Can you walk?" I asked.
He buzzed. *Yes.*
"Good. Because we have a lot of running to do."
***
The forest was a nightmare. I mean, literally. The moss beneath our feet pulsed like a heartbeat. A squirrel-or something that used to be a squirrel-watched us from a branch with four eyes, eating rocks.
We ran. Barnaby buzzed along the ground, wings tucked, moving with surprising speed for a giant bumblebee. I vaulted over roots that tried to trip me, my extra joints aching from the crash.
We heard them before we saw them. The rebel army. Not the disciplined march of the King's legions, but the heavy, chaotic tramp of people who are angry and armed with whatever they could find.
They were coming down a ridge, heading straight for the Corespire valley.
Thrak was at the front. You couldn't miss him. Big, scarred, one working eye that looked like it wanted to murder the world. Beside him was Vera, checking a map that probably didn't show the river flowing uphill.
I skidded down the embankment, dirt flying.
"Stop!" I yelled. "Halt! Whoa!"
Thrak stopped. He didn't look surprised. He looked annoyed. His hand went to the heavy axe at his belt.
"The bug," he grunted. "Where is the rest of your circus?"
"Just me," I panted, hands on my knees. "And the bee. We're a duo act today."
Barnaby stumbled down behind me, dragging his left side. A ripple of unease went through the vanguard. They didn't like Barnaby. They didn't like me much either. We were weird. We were the freaks in an army of outcasts.
"Get out of the way, Xyl," Vera said, stepping forward. "We have a schedule. The Corespire is undefended on the western flank."
"It's not undefended," I snapped, dropping the smile. " It's a mouth, Vera. It's waiting to eat you."
Thrak narrowed his single eye. "Cowardice? From the jester?"
"Intelligence," I said. "From the scout."
I walked right up to Thrak. He towered over me. I had to crane my neck, my antennae twitching with the smell of sweat and leather and rust coming off him.
"You hit that wall," I said, keeping my voice low, "and you die. All of you. They've rigged the place. It's... it's alchemy. They mixed Root and Bloom. It dissolves matter. And it sucks energy."
Thrak frowned. "Mixed? That's impossible."
"I saw a training dummy turn to dust in three seconds. Imagine what it does to skin." I poked his chest armor. "Imagine what it does to the Bloom carriers you have in the back lines. It's a battery, Thrak. You attack the walls, you charge their weapon. You hand them the victory."
The army went quiet. Even the wind seemed to stop, listening.
Thrak looked at Vera. Vera looked at the ground, then at Barnaby's torn wing.
"He's bleeding," she said softly.
"We got close," I said. "Too close. Look, I know I'm the funny guy. I know I look like a cricket and a human had a tragic accident. But I'm telling you: turn around."
Thrak stared at me for a long, heavy minute. Then he spat on the ground.
"We can't turn around," he rumbled. "It's too late. The distraction is required. Thalren needs us to draw their eyes."
"Yeah," I said. "Distraction. Not suicide. We need noise. We need chaos. We don't need dead bodies."
"And what do you propose, insect?" Thrak crossed his thick arms.
My mind raced. I looked at Barnaby. He was grooming his injured wing, looking miserable. But as he groomed, I heard it. A low, background hum.
The forest was warped, yes. But it was still a forest. And forests have bugs.
Lots of bugs.
A grin spread across my face. Mandibles clicked.
"You want a distraction?" I asked. "You want a spectacle that keeps every eye on the Corespire looking the wrong way?"
Barnaby looked up. He tapped into the link we shared-a fuzzy, warm sensation in the back of my skull. *Hungry? No. Angry? Yes.*
"We don't attack the walls," I said, pacing. "We annoy them. We blind them. We make it impossible for them to coordinate."
"How?" Vera asked.
I pointed at Barnaby. "He's not just a big bee. He's *the* big bee."
I turned to Barnaby. "Can you do it? The pheromone call? Wide range?"
Barnaby chittered. It would hurt. It would take energy he didn't really have. But he puffed up his chest fuzz. He nodded.
I turned back to Thrak. "Give us ten minutes. Then you march to the tree line. But don't engage. Just make noise. Bang your shields. yell. Let us do the rest."
"What rest?" Thrak growled.
"The performance of our lives," I said, spreading my arms. "I'm Xyl the Magnificent, remember? And if we die... we die with style."
Barnaby began to vibrate. It wasn't a sound at first. It was a smell. Sweet, cloying, heavy like overripe peaches and summer rain. It rolled off him in waves.
Then the sound came.
From the woods. From the warped trees. From the ground.
A billion tiny wings waking up.
Thrak's eye went wide.
"You control them?"
"We ask them nicely," I corrected. "And right now, they're very, very pissed off about what the Corespire did to their flower beds."
I drew my daggers-small, curved things I rarely used for anything but cutting fruit.
"Get your people ready, Thrak. It's going to get loud."
I looked toward the black needle of the Corespire towering over the trees.
*Hold on, Lysandra,* I thought. *We'll bring the house down.*
Barnaby let out a roar-a true, insectile roar that shook the leaves. The swarm answered.
We were going to war.