Page 24 of The Inheritance (Breach Wars #1)

The spider herder stared after it for a long moment, climbed down, and deposited the two remaining egg sacks into their cart.

I had seen a similar scenario play out hours ago, when I first found the cavern.

I had backtracked since then, exploring as many of the tunnels around it as I could.

All of them either dead-ended or led to a narrow, bottomless chasm that ran parallel to this cave.

I returned to the ledge a while ago and have been sitting here since, observing and deciding how to proceed.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. The anchor was still straight ahead and to the left of me, radiating discomfort. I opened my eyes. I was looking right at the bend of the cavern.

If we wanted to get to the anchor, we would have to pass through this underground canyon. There was no way around it. Backtracking wasn’t an option. We were truly lost at this point.

Unfortunately, I had a feeling that the spider herders wouldn’t welcome our intrusion into their territory.

Another wasp squeezed out of the gap and dove down, aiming for the cart.

The spider herder let out a loud clicking sound.

A green spider the size of a donkey raced around the bend of the cavern and leaped into the air, knocking the wasp into the wall.

The insect and the arachnid tumbled down through the vines and rolled onto the floor.

The wasp jabbed at the spider with a stinger the size of a sword, but the spider clung to it and sank its fangs into the wasp’s neck. The insect’s head fell to the ground.

The spider herder made another clicking noise. The green spider abandoned the wasp and scuttled over to the cart. The herder pulled out a glowing yellow globe and tossed it to the spider. The arachnid caught it and ran back around the bend.

“Look, Bear, your cousin from another dimension got a treat.”

Bear tilted her head.

The spider herder leveled their stave at the wasp’s body. A moment passed. Another. A bolt of green lightning tore out of the gem and struck the carcass. The insect sizzled and broke into dust.

The activation time was a bit long. The wasps would have no trouble evading, considering the delay it took to fire, but once the beam hit, the results were devastating.

If Bear and I strolled down there, assuming we somehow got down off the ledge, trying to make our way past the herders would be impossible. Between the green spiders and that green lightning, we wouldn’t get through, not without some serious injuries.

I glanced at the fissure. There was a wasp nest behind it. Spiders were excellent wall climbers. Theoretically, the spider herders could mount a full assault against it, but there were three problems with that.

First, the fissure wasn’t wide enough. The wasps were long and narrow, and they folded their wings to get through. The white spiders would never fit. The green ones could try to squeeze in there, but they would have to enter one at a time, and the wasps would swarm them.

Second, the wasps could take flight if they detected the assault and simply wait it out. The spiders couldn’t sit by that wasp nest indefinitely, and waiting by it exposed them to the aerial assault.

And third, the entirety of the wall around the nest was sheathed in mauve flowers.

Toward the top, where my ledge met the fissure, the wall wasn’t strictly sheer.

It broke down into a series of outcroppings, and the mauve flowers clung to the rocks like some deadly African violets.

There was no way to approach the nest without going through them.

When one of the white spiders popped out of the highest flower, I had a chance to scan it. They were not immune to the pollen. It would short-circuit their nervous system. The spider herders and the wasps were at a standoff.

When I first stumbled onto the cavern, I got another vision.

A group of three spider herders, their veils shifting in the wind of an alien world with a mass of giant spiders behind them; someone with human arms offering a carved wooden box to them; the leading spider herder accepting it; the spiders parting; and a single word spoken: Bekh-razz . A gift for safe passage.

I would have to offer a gift to cross.

The spiders couldn’t get to the nest, but I could. The ledge I was on curved along the wall all the way to the nest. It was barely seven feet wide near the entrance to the hive. I wouldn’t have a lot of room to work with.

I got up and walked along the ledge toward the fissure.

Bear dropped her bone and trotted after me. I halted by the first clump of mauve blossoms and flexed .

They glowed with pale lilac. I split the glow into individual layers of light blue and pink.

The blue told me they were still mildly toxic to both me and Bear, but nothing our regeneration wouldn’t take care of, and the faint pink let me know that if properly processed, the plant could be used as contact analgesic.

Made sense. That’s why we didn’t notice the effect the pollen had on us until it was too late.

The wasps displayed hive behavior. I didn’t need a vision to clear that up for me.

It was obvious from their patterns. That meant that the moment I attacked the nest, every wasp would fight to the death to kill me.

I had no idea how large that nest was. Or how many giant wasps waited inside.

I had to be very sure, because once I started, there was no stopping.

Earth wasps were vindictive, and it was safer to assume these would be, too.

Even if I ran away, they would chase me through the caves and there was no passage narrow enough to lose them anywhere around this cave.

The nest rumbled.

I dropped to the ground. “Down.”

Bear hugged the ledge with me.

“Good girl,” I whispered.

A large wasp squeezed through the gap and took off, vanishing around the bend.

I wonder how they know when the eggs are harvested? Do the eggs emit a pulse or something…

A hoarse shriek echoed through the cavern. That was new.

The wasp zipped back toward the nest, carrying another silk-wrapped spider egg in its claws. The egg glowed with coral pink. I flexed , focusing on it, but the wasp was too fast. Half a blink, and it squeezed into the nest.

I’d seen them steal three eggs besides this one, and nobody screamed the first three times. Also, the rest of the eggs glowed with cream, not pink. There was something special about this egg.

This was my best chance. I had to act now or find a different way.

I flicked my wrist, elongating the cuff into a sharp, two-foot blade shaped like a machete. Bear let out a soft, excited whine.

“Shhh.”

I padded through the flowers, my dog trailing me.

This was a foolish plan.

Ten yards to the nest.

Five.

Three.

Something rumbled within the fissure.

I cleared the distance between me and the gap in a single jump.

A wasp thrust out of the gap. I swung the blade and lopped its head off. The blue and yellow body crashed down, and I grabbed it with my left hand, yanked it out of the fissure, and sent it flying to the ground far below.

Bear broke into barks. There goes our element of surprise.

The entire nest buzzed like a tornado spinning into life. Another wasp shot through the fissure, and I cleaved it in half, my sword cutting through the segmented thorax like it was butter.

* * *

“Sir?”

Elias’ eyes snapped open. Leo hovered in his view. Elias sat up.

“We found Jackson,” the XO said.

* * *

Two wasps tried to squeeze through the gap at the same time and got stuck one on top of the other. I twisted the sword into a spike, skewered the top one, because it was closer and let its dead weight push the second wasp down. It struggled, pinned to the ground, and I hacked at it.

The buzzing was deafening now. The walls of the fissure vibrated as the enraged hive mobilized for an all-out assault.

Next to me Bear barked her head off, flinging spit into the air.

She wasn’t just a dog, she was a guild K9, trained to alert when the breach monsters came near.

The monsters were here, and she was alerting everyone.

I grabbed the body of the top wasp, pulled it out of the fissure, and hurled it over the edge.

* * *

“He’s been detained by the authorities in Japan.”

It took Elias a moment to process that tidbit. “On what pretext?”

“They claim he entered a luxury restaurant, ordered a high-quality cut of Wagyu beef, washed it down with Yamazaki Single Malt 55-Year-Old Whisky, which retails for four hundred thousand dollars a bottle, and walked out without paying.”

“They’re saying he dined and dashed?”

Leo smiled. Technically, it was a smile, but it looked more like a predator baring his teeth.

* * *

Bodies clogged the fissure, drenched in hemolymph. I stabbed and hacked into the pileup, yanking chunks of the insects out.

Seven wasps.

Eight.

Twelve.

* * *

“Jackson? The vegetarian who drinks one beer a year and only under duress?”

“Yes, sir. Our Jackson.”

Elias hid a growl. It was a retaliation for Yosuke.

Two years ago, a star void ronin, a top-tier Talent, had a falling out with the largest guild in Japan and quit.

They blacklisted him. No other guild in the country would hire him.

The idea was that the pressure of unemployment would force him to crawl back home.

Yosuke called their bluff. Cold Chaos welcomed him into the fold eighteen months ago.

He was enroute to Elmwood now from another gate and was due to arrive tomorrow.

Publicly, Hikari no Ryu said nothing. Privately, the guild wielded a lot of power in Japan, and they were pissed.

Elias thought that they reached an understanding regarding this issue.

Apparently, he was mistaken. It didn’t matter.

Elias had never regretted the decision, and he wasn’t about to start now.

“Have they made any demands?” he asked.

“No. Most likely they will hold him and wait for us to come to them.”