… Day eight of Month Ant, Year Sixty-Three.

  Cold rain in the evening twilight.

  Two years since the unexpected death of 'Fate Spinner' Nona, youngest of the Magicicada Witches.

  One hundred and fifty-six Ant Class Soldiers stood guard in the Grachuva Stronghold, far south of the southern end of humanity's final continent, and of them braved the colossal fungi forest before them with fear wrapped around their hearts.

  War Commander Tolani stood guard on the ramparts above the giant front gate, overlooking the straight dirt path leading from her stronghold to the dark forest far in front of her. There were three main roads people from the rest of the continent could walk to reach the Capital, and the Grachuva Stronghold was the last checkpoint standing along the northeastern road. Past the gate, past the walls, and any intruder would have unfettered access to the Salaqa Region right outside the Capital. They’d be able to barge into the Capital uninvited.

  There may have been several dozens of strongholds guarding the northeastern road to the Capital, stretching from the northeastern borders of the empire to the very south, but hers was the last.

  She wasn’t about to let her stronghold fall too.

  Tolani ignored the wind. The pitter-patter of raindrops splattering against the terracotta bricks of the ramparts, the floor, her chitin armour. Her hand was on the hilt of her obsidian-edged blade by her hip, her thumb rubbing the pommel almost without realising it. Standing alongside her on the north-facing ramparts, there were a hundred Carpenter Ant Guards wielding bolt-action rifles, manning mortars, and keeping watch on the fungi forest before them. They were soldiers. They’d fended off more waves of Swarm than almost any other stronghold within the bounds of the empire. The flattened plains outside the gate were littered with black, broken, and decaying ant carcasses, and all told, there had to be tens of thousands of them—even an invading army would take caution marching into a well-fortified stronghold like hers.

  But, despite their precautions, a stray crunch of earth under someone’s foot in the far distance shattered the uneasy silence and made rifles waver.

  Tolani lowered her head so her ant head helmet obscured more of her face. She braved the darkness. She stared straight ahead at the dark opening in the fungi forest where the straight path lined with glowing braziers led into the unknown—because was walking out of the unknown towards , and her soldiers knew it.

  He was coming.

  He was finally here.

  a man whispered, a few strides to her left.

  another man whispered, a few strides to her right.

  Four. Eight. Twelve. All twelve braziers lining the sides of the straight path extinguished at the whisper of a cold breath. Everyone silenced immediately as they raised rifles, locked in the fungi mortars, and looked to War Commander Tolani for orders. They’d shoot anyone at her behest. They’d utterly annihilate the plains in front of them with a hundred anti-chitin mortar shells if she so much as glared in their direction. She was grateful she had such loyal and well-trained soldiers—the best stronghold guards in the empire—and she wouldn’t want any other army by her side even if the Empress and Her Four Families came to her and told her to lead another.

  This once, though, she considered telling them to evacuate the stronghold and leave her alone at the top of the ramparts.

  Because the man marching out of the fungi forest a hundred metres before them, relighting pairs of extinguished braziers as he walked past, was like any horde of bugs they’d ever faced.

  Breaths quickened as the soldiers put their fingers on their triggers, the barrels of their rifles pointed down at the approaching man. He wasn’t doing much apart from marching with a steady, casual gait. The wind ruffled his hair. Rain bounced and shimmered off his bright amber cloak. If it wasn’t for the spiral-patterned wand he twirled in his right hand, left arm crossed behind his back, Tolani would’ve thought he was just a travelling merchant who’d lost his caravan and wares in the forests after lockdown protocol was called, allowing no travellers in and out of the stronghold.

  But no.

  She wouldn’t have thought that.

  Not with those amber-coloured chitin strips swirling around his arms, glowing faintly under his black sleeves.

  The rainshower in her ears became a howling torrent as the man eventually stopped halfway to the gate, fifty metres ahead, thirty metres below. A hundred rifles were trained on him, but he seemed none the wiser. Tolani’s eyesight was keen, so she curled a lip when she noticed the man’s eyes weren’t open—the rumours and reports were true after all—and she clenched her teeth when she realised the man wasn’t nervous being stared down by a hundred barrels, either.

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  A warm, polite smile was sent her way as the man looked up at her, and her fingers curled around the hilt of her blade.

  “... Open up, please?”

  A loud, candid voice. The man’s voice wasn’t deep, but it wasn’t sharp. The sing-song Sterngott accent was still recognisable with it, and Tolani would know. She’d been on a bug extermination campaign near the Mori Masif Front before.

  That was why she was unpleasantly surprised that the man was speaking the K’uhul tongue: a dialect of the K’in tongue spoken in this particular region of the empire.

  The surprise was reason enough for Tolani to draw her blade, sawtooth obsidian edges gleaming in the rain.

  “Halt your advance!” she shouted, fury crossing her eyes. “For your crimes against the Attini Empire, you will be apprehended and taken straight to the Capital to be divined by the Empress and Her Four Families! Drop your wand, put your hands behind your head, and drop to your knees!”

  The man tilted his head. “What crimes?” he asked, feigning confusion. “I don’t think I broke any empire laws on my way here.”

  “Extermination of forty-one brood nests without Capital Writ! Fifteen robbings of military point reserves! Fifteen illegal redistributions of those same reserves to untrained commoners in the northeast—”

  “—the spirit of the law is charity—”

  “Destruction of fourteen strongholds along the Northeastern Road! Eleven hijackings of heavy armament caravans that were supposed to reach our Forward Armies! Illegal redistribution of those same heavy armaments to untrained commoners in the northeast! Four thousand one hundred and ninety-one wounded soldiers, fifteen decommissioned War Commanders, one hundred and seven broken fungus mortars, and over ten thousand anti-chitin bullets expended—”

  “Okay, I do that, but I a teacher, and mine the side that concerns itself with how people who have power use it,” the man said, wagging a finger up at her. “Did you think I traipsed into empire territory two years ago intending on becoming the ‘Warlord of the Northeast’? I made no such covenant with that title. I asked the War Commander in the first stronghold I arrived at for directions to the Capital, and that lady fired on me.”

  “Because you are the man who slayed an Insect God—”

  “Because I asked a , War Commander Tolani,” he said, and his voice into the stronghold, making her flinch. How did he know her name? “I asked War Commander Sayauka for directions to the Capital, and, to her credit, she point me in a direction. Just not the right one.” Then he shrugged, tilting his head the other side as though trying to peer past the walls. “I knew where the Capital was, of course, but she tried to lead me elsewhere. Why did she do that? For what reason did she not want me to meet your Empress?”

  “I can think of a thousand and one.”

  “But there is only one,” he said sternly, staring straight up at her, and it was like his sealed eyelids were burning holes in her face. “I asked a second question, and when she heard it, blood drained from her face like an unhealthy ghost. The other soldiers in the stronghold had the same reaction.” He sent another sly, coy grin up at her. “I suppose people do say ill weeds grow apace, because they all fired on me right afterwards. I must have struck a nerve with the question, hm?”

  Tolani furrowed her brows. She had absolutely no idea what the man was talking about. War Commander Sayauka guarded the Dawrana Stronghold in the far, far northern ends of the empire. She’d never met the lady before, and she’d never been to the stronghold before, but she could hardly believe it was just a simple question that set an esteemed War Commander off the way she heard Sayauka had been set off.

  “So?” she asked, curling her lips. “What was the question?”

  “Do you want to know?”

  “Will you leave if I answer you?”

  The man thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. “I’m afraid not,” he said plainly. “The truth is, I already know where I want to go. My long march from Amadeus Academy, through the Sharaji Desert, and then into the northeastern bounds of the Attini Empire had me taking quite a number of extended sojourns in many of your outer region towns and villages. I may not have laid my roots here, but I understand the gist of the conflicts within the empire.”

  “If you understand we are already being battered by the Swarm, then you are a traitor to humanity. Knowingly destroying our strongholds, weakening our forces, forcing us to expend precious resources on you—”

  “Is all but a drop in the ocean compared to the conflicts within the empire. You can spare ten or twenty or a hundred thousand anti-chitin bullets for me, but killing me won’t change the fact that you’re all ripping yourselves apart, and have been doing so for the better part of the past decade.”

  Tolani narrowed her eyes. “What is your question, then?”

  “Do you know why the Empress and Her Four Families are poising to lock down the Capital and hoard the rest of the empire’s resources for themselves?”

  She stared at the man in silence, and, ever so slightly, she saw his lips shifting into another faint smile.

  “You don’t know,” he said curtly. “You’re not my enemy, then. I have no reason to fight you like some of the other War Commanders. Open the gate for me.”

  “No.”

  “But I’ve not killed a single man.”

  “That is beside the point,” she said, raising a fist and commanding her soldiers to take aim. “The Empress and Her Four Families have declared you as an enemy of the Attini Empire. Any War Commander, General, and Battalion Leader who assists you on your long march will be met with capital punishment.”

  “That being?”

  “Divination in the Dawn Temple.”

  “Summary execution.”

  “It is nothing as crude as that. Your words—”

  “Have power, and in the Filis, Chilo, and Lynae tongues, ‘divination’ is a cognate word for ‘death by the divine’. Both descriptions trace back to the Capital several decades ago, before the mass production and distribution of your Ant Class systems,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly. “They were strenuous times, I understand. The Swarm’s overwhelming nature demanded overwhelming leadership, and to go against the Empress’ divine orders was to bring ruin upon the empire—but those strenuous times are no more. If the Empress tells you to decapitate yourself, would you throw your life away just like that? Without question? Without hesitation?”

  “We of the Grachuva Stronghold are no mere soldiers,” she said, sneering down at him. “Even the lowest man here comes from an accomplished household with a heroic bloodline. To fail to answer the Empress’ divine orders is to fail our household and reject our bloodline—”

  “Well, you’re hardly covering yourself in glory if not disappointing your household is all you care for.” He chuckled, shaking his head in disappointment. “I’m tired, Tolani. It’s been two years since I set off from my home. This long march of mine goes only one way, and whether it’s paved with the blood of bugs or brothers…”

  He trailed off, flicking his amber cloak behind him to reveal two glassy cicada wings, and they refracted evening sunlight like nothing she’d ever seen before.

  “You are the architect of your own fate, War Commander,” he said, sending her a cordial smile as he pressed his wand to his lips. “Now, would you please open the gate?”

  “Must I keep repeating myself–”

  “Must keep repeating myself?” trembled with power. “Please. Open the gate.”

  The plains outside the stronghold rumbled. Before he could flick his wand at them, Tolani brought her fist down and gave her command to the Mortar Ant Class soldiers behind her.

  Without another word, forty fungus mortars spewed toxic clouds into the air as the volley of anti-chitin shells roared into the sky, sailing over the stronghold like a storm of arrows.

  … Day eighth of Month Ant, Year Sixty-Three.

  Cold rain in the evening twilight.

  The Thousand-Tongue reached the Grachuva Stronghold, and past the gate, he would step foot into the heart of the Attini Empire Front.

  Sound Bug Facts #44: After spending thirteen or seventeen years underground in the nymphal stage, magicicadas emergence and live for only about four to six weeks!

  The link to the Discord server is with over five hundred members, where you can get notifications for chapter updates, check out my writing progress, and read daily facts about this insect-based world. My is here, where you can read up to eight advanced chapters for this story and Unmaker and Storm Strider currently, so the highest tier will give twenty-four advanced chapters in total.

  See you guys next Wednesday for Chapter 45: The Warlord of the Northeast~