I’m going to be in so much trouble. Nipper thought for the hundredth time as he slunk down the tunnel. There was no light, as the tunnel was deep beneath the ground. They navigated by scent and sound in these narrow passages between the larger caverns. His whiskers brushed up against a root that stuck out from one wall, worn smooth over time by the passage of bodies.

I should have stayed home. As he walked, Nipper’s claws clacked a steady rhythm on the hard packed dirt. His bites had scabbed over, and the sting’s ache had faded to an annoying itch.

It’s not too late. I could still turn back. Pretend to be asleep. The monotony of the passage was broken from time to time by intersections that brought new scents. At one juncture, Nipper thought he caught a whiff of honey; that cursed prize that Silverfur had returned with.

He swallowed a thick glob of saliva at the thought.

I wonder who is eating it. Can they taste the blood we shed for it? Would they even care?

Nipper had been offered a small comb for his participation in the raid. He had declined.

Stupid.

He regretted that rash decision now. It had been 3 days since they returned from the grove. 3 days spent recovering; 3 days of being a burden to his family as he survived off morsels his elder siblings brought back from their own less-than-successful raids.

The passage emerged into a larger tunnel. As soon as Nipper reached it, he realized there was something wrong.

Unlike the darkness of the narrow passages, these core tunnels were dimly lit by a bioluminescent fungus, and its blue glow revealed a river of bodies flowing towards the grand cavern. It was never half this busy for the usual clan meeting.

The meetings, held every 5 days, were a time to debrief on significant happenings and plan raids for the days ahead. Only those actively raiding or with other important duties usually turned up. What’s going on?

Nipper allowed himself to be pulled along by the flow, and soon arrived at the end of the tunnel.

It opened onto the upper section of a huge cavern. The ground descended via a series of tiered steps, which also served as seating for the audience. If a human had been there to see it, they would have called it an Amphitheatre.

Nipper pushed through the crowd. Voices were hushed, tails tensed in anticipation. He circled the top ring, eyes seeking his teammates. As the survivors from a failed raid, they would be expected to make a formal debrief. Nipper would rather face down the shining-death.

‘No… you wouldn’t’ another part of his mind interjected. Nipper wanted to believe he was brave, but recently, he was realizing he was a coward.

 

‘If I’d spoken up…If I’d been more firm in raising my concerns… then maybe Poison Bite…’ a knot of guilt tied tighter in his stomach, and tears threatened to spill out, but then he spotted his teammates a few tiers down, and he made his way towards Grimclaw, Silverfur and Five-Claws.

“What’s going on?” he asked upon reaching them.

 

“What’s going on, the little raider asks!” Five-Claws chuckled.

 

“Ain’t you heard, lad?” Grimclaw grinned at him, the blue light glinting ominously off his pointed teeth. “Today, we decide the fate of the clan”.

/ / / /

Blood spills from a hundred tiny holes as my delicate roots burrow their way beneath skin. Penetrating the epidermis, they seek out entry points into blood vessels. Specialized vascular tissues that I have spent these past days refining seamlessly integrate with the circulatory system.

Inside one internode of a nearby culm, pump-like structures contract and relax, mimicking the rhythm of a beating heart.

As the creature’s blood flows into me, other cells act as filters, selectively removing toxins and metabolic waste. I cleanse and restore the life-giving fluid, infusing it with oxygen, glucose, and electrolytes from my own sap.

My soldier’s stingers have done their work too well; I taste myoglobin and other toxic proteins that have leaked out from damaged muscles. These too must be removed to avoid further overloading the creature’s vital organs.

It is an agonizingly slow process. Even after days of preparation, hours more pass in this way as I attempt to restore damaged tissue bit by bit, laying down new muscle fibers and guiding stem cells to differentiate into the appropriate forms.

But, at last, the heart begins to beat of its own accord.

The creature’s chest rises and falls…but something is missing.

Its eyes are open, but it takes no action. Was the brain starved of oxygen for too long? Swaddled in the timeless embrace of my qi, it should not have degraded so far…

I extend roots finer yet, infinitesimal filaments akin to a mushroom’s mycelium, that wind their way up the spinal cord and into the brain. I only dare to skitter along the surface of this labyrinthine organ, but already I notice something is amiss.

From the brainstem, a bright stream of information flows down the spine, controlling the autonomic functions of the body, but the complex outer parts of the brain remain dim and sluggish.

Perhaps, a small stimulation would set processes moving in the right direction? First, I decide, I will experiment on a less delicate part of the nervous system.

I initiate a change in my mycelium tendrils, causing their surfaces to develop a thin coating of fat that insulates the shaft. Precision is key. I build up a small electrical charge, and release it. It flows down the length of the tendril and discharges through the tip and into the spinal cord.

The body jerks, and I panic as it almost pulls free from the delicate roots and tendrils that sustain it. Too strong. I adjust, and the experimentation continues.

—

Time passes. I have grown deft at manipulating these new tendrils to target specific clusters of nerves. The movements I induce are still unrefined. With practice, I believe I could make the body move more naturally, but such is not my purpose today.

I turn my attention back to the brain proper, and the real work begins.

—

Failure. All attempts to rouse the creature to wakefulness have fallen flat. Each spark of activity rings out only a single note and then fades. It does not trigger further thought. It does not resonate.

The conclusion has slowly dawned on me that something else is missing.

I recall the flush of Qi that flowed from the creature in the moment of its death. Perhaps, if I restored it?

I search within myself, trying to find that small spark I took, but it is gone, already converted to my own distinct qi and dispersed among a thousand branches and leaves.

Perhaps, the precise timbre of the qi is not important?

I begin to push power into the defiler’s body. I feel resistance, and pause.

‘Life is harmony’. The thought strikes a chord of truth. As it was for the insects, the solution here is not force, but adaptation.

I tune my Qi, searching for a pitch that fits. It is a tricky task; I must maintain my own melody, but find a frequency that rings in harmony with the beast as well. Our paths in life, our dao, are very different. So too then, is our Qi.

I seek common ground. I emphasize our shared experience of the earth; my questing rhizomes, and the digger’s branching tunnels. The desire to survive and grow, shared by all living things. Other concepts I quiet, relegating them to a subordinate role. As I do this, I feel subtle changes within myself too. It troubles me, but this is a cost I must pay to right my wrong.

Finally, I feel my Qi align, and it slides in unobstructed. As it does, I feel a resonance from somewhere else.

I pull on it, and It moves an infinitesimal amount.

‘No. It should not be elsewhere.’ A sudden urgency grips me and I pull harder.

‘It is meant to be here.’

My thoughts blur as I reach into that somewhere, expending Qi at a frightening rate. The resonance is growing closer… Just a little more…

It feels as though my consciousness is being squished through the eye of a needle.

And then with a sudden “pop” I am somewhere else, my perception expanding into a black void.

/ / / /

“I call this meeting of the clan to order, '' The speaker announces from center stage, “We have gathered today to discuss the two-leg threat. You have all felt the effects these last cycles. Each raid returns with less food, or does not return at all,”

 

Murmurs of agreement from the crowd. The speaker allows it to die down before resuming.

“The notion has been raised that we migrate to the east. ”

Jeers this time, but only from some. The silence of so many others speaks volumes.

“You’d ask us to abandon our home!?” someone calls.

“There is another who would speak on this.” the speaker replies. He gestures to an old scarred raider who rests on the lowest tier.

“Redpaw, you have raised this notion. What do you have to say?”

“The two-legs wage war on us” Redpaw begins, “They will not stop, and we do not have the strength to resist them.”

The crowd jeers again.

“You reckon us weak, do ya!?”

“Ol’ Redpaw’s gone soft!”

“Order!” the speaker calls. ”Order!” he repeats again as the crowd continues to grumble.

“Make no mistake!” Redpaw forges on.

“Any one of us might slay a hundred of their drones,” he continues, baring teeth in a savage grin.

Quiet agreement from the crowd.

“But, we have killed them before, and what did it gain us? Only that they returned in greater numbers, with warriors that set the heavens and earth itself against us” He looks around at the gathered clan. “Enough, I say! I no longer wish to watch as my family and friend’s grow thin and weak from hunger. Let us go east. There are burrows there who would welcome more strong claws, and whose hunting grounds are yet untouched by the two-legs!”

There were a few jeers at the idea, but fewer now than before. Instead, a quiet chatter of discussion rises.

“You are wrong” a white-furred female calls, as she stands unannounced. “There is nowhere safe. We may run to another clan, we may survive for a time, but they will come."

“Thresillis would speak to us staying” the speaker announces belatedly.

Her name marks her as a Wiseone; one who aids in the treatment of wounds, offers advice, and counsels on spiritual matters.

“They are coming for all the north,” she continues “and even if they were not, I would stay here,” she gestures around at the grand cavern “This is my home, and yours! It was the work of generations to dig these tunnels, to carve these steps. Our ancestors have lived and died here for a thousand cycles. This is our home, and I will not abandon it!”

A cheer at this. Nipper can sense the crowd’s mood turning. Of the two speakers, it is clear the Wiseone is the better orator.

“And who will fight them? You? It is easy to suggest war when you will not die bleeding on the battlefield!” Redpaw barks back.

Muttering at Redpaw’s statement. The accusation has struck a chord with some of the crowd.

It’s clear to Nipper that each side has a core of strong believers, but the majority of the crowd seems undecided, their loyalties swaying side to side as the two debate.

“I… am no fighter…” Thresillis starts haltingly.

“And when they flood our warrens?” Redpaw presses, seizing on her moment of hesitation. "When they set fire to the forest, or the shining-death makes the earth itself collapse around us?” He was taking ground, and the speaker seemed disinclined to interrupt either side.

“I am no fighter…!” Thresillis repeats against a rising tide of murmurs “Even so, I will fight. I will defend our home to the death, and I will aid each and every soldier who stands with me. We will not give in to cowardice!”

Cheers at this.

“We will not flee!” she continues. “We will defend our home, whatever the cost may be!”

They are roaring now.

"We will fight the two-legs. If they flood our home, we will fight them in the forests.”

Someone begins to banging a paw in a steady beat.

“If they burn the forests, we will fight them in the grasslands!”

The rhythm is taken up by others. It is the drum of war.

“We will repel these invaders!”

With each line, a roar of approval.

“And, we will not fight alone,” she continues, “This threat concerns all the north. We must unite the clans. I call for Karav Kadosh”

The crowd cheers again, swept along by the momentum she has built.

Karav Kadosh; Holy War. A pact established generations ago that if the clans ever faced an existential threat, they would unite against it. In practice, it had never been invoked, and Nipper wondered if the other clans would really come if called.

“This all sounds grand, but how will you feed this war effort, Wiseone?” Redpaw mocks, “We are starving now. We do not have weeks to wait while the clans assemble, if they even agree that the threat is as dire as you say”.

At this, Thresillis grins. “To that, I have good news” The Wiseone turns to look at Nipper's group.

Oh no…

“Uncle,” the white-furred Wiseone continues, her gaze locked on Silverfur “Tell us of The Bamboo.”

 

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