The Blood Beetle's Desperate Bid
The beetle groped for a way to live.
It raked through every scrap of memory it possessed, hunting for some path forward.
But every recollection that surfaced was worthless.
Most of them were of a childhood spent beneath the earth.
It had been a time of sheer endurance.
Instinct had driven it down into the soil, and there it had waited without end for prey to come within reach. It had lived in hiding for more than a hundred years.
When the time came to pupate, it had staked its very life on the change, and at last it had taken the shape it wore now.
A hundred years of waiting...
and it cannot even outlast a single season?
Having both antennae severed was a mortal wound it had never suffered before.
Humans feel wind and vibration through their skin. For a beetle sheathed from head to claw in a hard carapace, that was a faculty it could never imitate.
That was why it had needed those long antennae—to know from where the wind blew, and where it was going. The tremors that shook the earth, too, could only be known by touching them with those feelers.
Only with them did the ground become ground, and the world function as a world.
Darkness—not the darkness of absent light, but the darkness of the senses. From that true abyss the insect floundered, then turned its head.
Even in the depths of that pit it could feel it: some vast power was drawing near.
There had been a time when he had thought that if the centaurs had possessed ambition, they might have become the masters of the Steppe.
So what of these, then?
The ones who had come out of the desert. What of a Cameltaurus mercenary company?
Thud.
Huge, thick hooves crushed the sand. Their hooves were of a special kind, built so they would not sink.
Thud.
Curly coats rippled in the sand-laden wind. Their eyes stared straight into the face of the desert.
Where a camel's neck would have been, a human-like upper body sat, and that misshapen frame was armed to the teeth. The warriors mounted on their backs were no different.
They were cavalry in the truest sense of the word.
He understood. They had traversed the desert roads more than anyone alive, and in practice they ruled them. To rule the roads was to rule the world. So they were already the desert's rightful masters.
"Don't slow down!"
And the woman who commanded those masters of the desert with a human body—the Khan's Small Falcon. Bent low over the saddle, driving the massive camel hard, Ahor shouted.
"Pin the bug's legs!"
The mercenary captain followed her order. The company split in two.
They were the first to meet the beetle. What remained of its compound eyes was enough; it lashed out with savage force.
"No."
That would not do. This was not the time. They were nothing more than the anvil meant to hold it in place.
The enemy had been set upon the anvil. Now she would bring down the hammer.
Behind her the main body formed a wedge. The mercenaries cheered. There was no fear of the beetle in them.
If this had been an ordinary camel cavalry instead of a Cameltaurus company...
They would never have moved with such imposing confidence. The camels would have trembled at the mere sight of the thing.
But Cameltaurus were not beasts. They were people, and because they were people they could be warriors. They possessed the toughness to hurl themselves at the impossible.
That, more than anything, was their greatest asset.
And at last—
The wedge ground the beetle down.
It collapsed. It wore hard armor, but what held that bulk upright were thin legs. Ahor knew that well.
"Don't worry about anything else!"
The cavalry's massive bodies smashed into the beetle's legs. Joints snapped. Limbs broke.
Uushun, watching the spectacle, let out a sigh.
"No matter how you bust your ass on two legs, it's pointless. In the end, cavalry does it all."
"I agree."
It was overwhelming violence. The beetle, which had taken the collision with its entire body, was in a truly wretched state—like a little insect crushed under a child's foot.
Even if they left it alone, it would not live long. But Ahor seemed to have no intention of leaving it.
"Company—!"
At her command the split unit became one again. The cavalry wedge looked like a giant arrowhead. That arrow settled naturally upon Ahor's bow, and she drew the string with calm precision.
"Crush the bug—!"
The arrow Ahor loosed with all her strength shattered the beetle.
"Ah, that was rough, wasn't it?"
Uushun rolled her shoulders.
"It was."
He agreed, of course. Who would have thought catching a bug would be this hard.
Uushun waved a hand as if she'd had more than enough.
"Whoa. It was even bigger than I figured."
"You said that thing was how many years old?"
"Definitely over a hundred. Not something you see every day. The caravan wasn't making a fuss for nothing."
Uushun was right. The creature had been a disaster, plain and simple—not something a merchant company could have handled on its own.
"A two-hundred-year-old larva, and a hundred-year-class adult..."
Uushun lamented their rotten luck.
"At least it wasn't a two-hundred-year-old adult. That's something."
Just imagining it was horrifying. They really ought to wipe the sandworms out somehow—root and branch.
"About that."
According to Uushun, the older a larva grew, the harder it became for it to reach adulthood.
"You have to turn that huge body into a pupa, after all."
No matter how large a sandworm was, in the pupal stage it was utterly helpless. And because of its size, it usually just became a bigger target.
"The one we fought is the kind you might see once in several decades."
The caravan just had rotten luck.
"The longer they last, the more miserable the pupal life. Nine out of ten die underground as pupae."
A sudden rain was enough to kill them, she said.
"The bigger and stronger they are, the harder it is to become an adult. That's a little ironic."
"Well, maybe it means don't get too greedy."
Hearing Uushun, Vesta looked out over the desert with a strange new expression. He could not even imagine how many cocoons slept beneath that sand. Some of them would still be alive.
A chill ran through him, and he changed the subject.
"Right. Uushun—you called me a kid earlier, didn't you?"
"...Mm."
Uushun's lips worked.
"Hey!"
She ruffled Vesta's hair with vigorous enthusiasm.
"So I did. What are you gonna do about it, huh?"
Scrub, scrub.
"Ah—why is everyone always going after my hair!"
Vesta staggered, his hair a wreck. Uushun chuckled as if telling him not to get cheeky.
"Well, you're growing up properly, aren't you?"
"Am I?"
"Yeah. When I first met you, you were about this small."
"No, I wasn't that small. Even Rahan would be bigger than that."
"Then this much? Anyway, you have grown."
Uushun pressed down on Vesta's head, then measured his height against her own body.
"Wow. One season and you've shot right up."
"Maybe because I've been eating well?"
Since coming to the Steppe, he had never gone hungry. Above all, he had eaten meat to his heart's content.
The women of the tribe have such generous hands.
Altaira. Asmur...
"Vesta, want to eat this together? No—please eat it with me."
"What is this?"
"It's, uh, something Asmur made. Dried goat testicles."
"......"
"There's too much. Help me..."
Ugh.
Among the women with generous hands was Ashtien as well. She did not cook for him. It was a little different.
"You liked the marmot dish? I see."
Then, a little time later:
"Here. Take this."
She would come back with an armful of marmots. There had been this, too:
"There are a lot of birds today. I should get some archery practice in."
She would return with armfuls of precious bird meat.
"Asmur said as much. You have to feed him a lot at this age."
Vesta did not refuse her kindness. He stuffed it down however he could. Honestly, it was practically livestock rearing.
"I've still got a long way to go compared to you, Uushun. What did you eat to get that big?"
"Oh my? No filter at all when you're talking to a lady."
"What's with the 'oh my.' Just say 'well, now!' like you always do."
"Well, now?"
Uushun snorted a laugh.
"Still, you're taller than the captain, aren't you?"
He had not expected her to compare him to Ahor.
"Come on, what are you talking about. I was already a lot taller when I first arrived. Ahor is about this..."
"Must be nice. Being taller than me."
"......"
"And I am not that short."
Vesta clamped his mouth shut. He glared at Uushun with a look of pure betrayal. There was no way she had failed to notice Ahor.
Sure enough. Uushun pulled a ridiculous face and needled him further.
How old is she, anyway?
How could a grown adult who had lived long enough still be this childish.
Ahor's expressionless face felt even sharper than usual.
"I—I wasn't talking about anything else."
"It is all right. I may be a bit short, but I am not a small person."
Vesta smiled awkwardly.
"Yes. I am a bit short. Shorter than you, Vesta."
"......"
"Slightly."