We didn't need to guess where the voice had come from. Lark, Nina, and I looked up toward the source of the rippling waves of light that washed down on us from above.

The demand had come from a figure on top of the bluffs overlooking the meadow. Whoever they were, they must have just arrived there

Although the grainy nature of my vision made it difficult for me to discern any fine details in the figure's appearance, especially from this distance, three things were absolutely clear to me.

One: he was one of the mantis-creatures, just like us.

Two: he rode on the back of an animal, something like a wolf, only… bug themed. Wings stuck up at an angle from its sides.

Three: he had two fearsome-looking sword⁠s, one in each of his upper arms' hands. And he certainly didn't seem to be holding them like a novice.

"Fudge," I muttered. My distress whispered out of my flower in meager waves.

I raised all four of my arms. Nina, Lark, and I froze stiff.

"We come in peace!" I said.

Then things got worse.

Nina cursed, softly. "Oh shit…" She angled her discouraging words at the ground, so that their light wouldn't reach the bluffs.

About a dozen other mantises had just marched into view on either side of the one on the bluff.

He pointed down at us with one of his swords. "Hold your position," he said. His words' commanding radiance rippled down at us in rings and oscillating swirls.

The group descended from the bluffs, traveling down a broad incline.

Perhaps rain had carved into the bluff's jagged cliff.

Lark skittered close to me. "Doc, they sound like military types."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I asked.

"Depends on the type of military," the singer replied.

Details resolved themselves into focus as the soldiers approached.

"Well, they don't look like the nice kind of soldiers," Nina mumbled.

It was hard to blame her. You didn't ride in on war-beasts, bearing weapons and armor and more unless you were expecting a fight.

There were more than a dozen of them, grouped together in artful symmetry. Starting from the center, there were the two riders on their hounds, side by side. Moving outwards to the left and right, a heavily armored soldier walked beside each of the riders, after which there was a diamond cluster of four more lightly armored soldiers, each of which was overseen by a robed figure walking alongside them, at either edge of the formation.

Their clothes and armor and clothing had a geisha's elegance, despite its austere practicality. They wore grayish, off-white⁠ fabric—like silk but without the sheen—roughly shaped like an overcoat, with long coattails that spilled down either side of their abdomens. The coats worn by the robed figures at either side of the group trailed even further down their abdomens, and also came up in rigid, curved collars that wound all the way around their head-flowers.

In contrast to their clothes, the armor they wore on top of it was pale green, almost like jade. The armor had been shaped into bracelets and armlets that the soldiers wrapped around their upper limbs, torsos, and abdomens, to cover up any junctions. The armlets at their wrists pinched their sleeves tight, creating a puffed-up look.

Also, all of them, to the last, wore net-like cloaks that, oddly enough, had those flying electro-potatoes woven into them, like beads along threads.

Except for the two robed figures, all of the footmen held dark, hexagonal shields in their lower hands, with the two heavies dual-wielding them. The riders had strange, stocky whips holstered to their abdomens, the business ends of which appeared to be made from living plant matter, as attested to by the silverlight traveling through them and their thorns. They looked… unnatural.

Oddly, though every one of the soldiers wore the green armor, not all of them had sleeves, and even if they did, the numbers weren't always consistent. The riders and the robed figures had a sleeve for each arm, the heavies only had sleeves for their upper arms, while the eight footmen had no sleeves at all.

Perhaps the sleeves indicated some sort of military rank?

Whatever it meant, it was clear that these beings' society was far more complex than the Treefathers' and the krummholtz'.

The group diverted to either side of us, surrounding us like an embrace—or, like a closing mouth.

It was hard not to stare.

The hounds raked their two-clawed paws over the gravelly earth. I didn't know what to call the two mounts other than hounds. It was the closest analogy I could come up with, and, even then, this was one of those cases where "closest" wasn't really close at all. Though they had the profiles of greyhounds, their bodies—like all the animal life we'd seen—were woven from bundled wires. Smooth, armored plates covered their dorsal sides. The hound's head brought to mind a lobster's, with its various signal receptors and antennae jutting out from under a roof of carapace, without the slightest trace of eyes. Their hind-limbs were wider and more thickly corded with muscle than the forelegs, though their two-clawed paws matched the ones up front. Four single-membrane wings folded against their bodies, two on each side. They jutted up at angle, as did the stinger tails at their posteriors.

The rider on the left spoke.

"Hail, traveler," he said. "I am Commander Brr't't⁠ (Berrtut), of T'kznd (Tih-Kuzoond). Please identify yourselves."

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For several seconds, I just stood there trying to process what was going on, much to the detriment of everyone involved. Just processing the Commander's⁠ speech was already taking my mind on a bender.

The Commander spoke without anything I could recognize as a voice, let alone words, yet I understood him anyway. Unlike Nina, Lark, and I, while we heard our words as spoken language, Commander Brr't't's were something completely different. I would have called it music, except it was light, rather than sound. If I had to compare it, it was the same sound as the sound words made when you read them silently in your mind.

The two names he'd given—Brr't't and T'kznd—crackled and guttered like sparks on exposed wiring. Any senses of tone, intent, or inflection came to me through the warp and weft of the luminous ripples that made up his speech. And despite how every earthly ounce of logic and sense told me that I should have been lost without a paddle, somehow, I was able to understand it all.

I figured it had to be something built into the Vyx's Archives.

"They're naked…" the second rider said. His words' languid ripple carried the unwanted weight of his disdain. He glanced at my bow-tie. "Well… almost."

Both riders straddled their hounds' backs with all four of their legs, using their lower arms to grip the mounts' silvery, chorded bodies.

The second rider's hound rustled its wings at its sides, while Commander Brr't't's mount scraped its stinger-tail through the dirt like an old record-player's needle.

It was hard to tell which was more intimidating: the hounds, or the weapons. All of them carried a pair of swords, one in each of their upper hands. The blades were thick, like butcher's knives, and with large handles that reminded of the loops on a pair of scissors, of all things.

Really, it was like someone had split a pair of scissors into two separate blades.

And then, of course, there were the two, living whips, flush with silverlight circuitry.

Those things gave me the heebie-jeebies!

Everyone but the robed figures wore a conical helmet. A pair or two of crossed bars arched over the open, upward-pointing bases, likely to keep their flower's antennae open to receive data while also providing protection from oncoming attacks.

"They might be Southerners⁠," Commander Brr't't suggested.

I couldn't tell whether his affect was one of suspicion, derision, or something else entirely.

The second rider's hound sat on its haunches; the rider adjusted his posture, making his abdomen parallel to the hound's back while holding his torso upright.

"Brr't't," he replied, "you'd have to be stoneminded to come to the Northlands without a thread of clothes!"

He let his swords sag toward the ground on either side of him, like if the Angel had been dual-wielding.

"I rest my case," Commander Brr't't replied, wisps of light rippling from his flower.

He was laughing.

Clearly, there was some kind of North-South rivalry going on. If they thought that Southerners were idiots, though, that might just be the cover we needed.

I nodded my head. "Yes, yes. We are Southerners," I said. I glanced at my companions. "We've heard so much about the Northlands⁠; we just had to come see it for ourselves."

"What, did you get sick of the rains in Kz'bvt'k'rr (Kizboovta-Kurr)?" Brr't't said. "Or was paradise getting too crowded."

"They might be Madrigal⁠ pilgrims," the second rider added. "The aurorae are intense this time of year."

Brr't't glanced at him. "Maybe so."

"What are your names?" the second rider asked.

For a moment, I paused, only to figure that the weirder our names sounded, the more credence it would lead to our being ignorant foreigners.

I pointed at myself. "I am Genneth, and these are my friends, Lark and Nina."

All of the soldiers stared at us.

Uh-oh…

I think I'd just made a boo-boo.

The second rider turned to his commander, raising his swords in alarm. "Sir, I don't trust these strangers. We should apprehend these strangers. It could be a V'vzsh (Voovzish) trap. Or bandits." He reached toward his whip with one of his lower arms.

"Dim yourself, Dk'brr (Dekburr)," Brr't't said. "Just look at them! They're clearly drunk." He pointed a scissorblade⁠ at us mockingly. "Tell me, Zhn'nt (Jinnut)—if that even is your real name—how long have you and your friends been getting off on tchn't't (Chuntut) charge?"

"Listen, we… I," I shook my arms, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Dk'brr lowered his swords. "What?"

Role-playing experience, I thought, don't fail me now!

"We're just pilgrims," I said. "It's been a long trek through these unfamiliar lands. We've got nothing like this back in Kizboovta-Kurr."

Dk'brr turned to his superior. "Sir?"

Brr't't pulled his whip out of its holster, holding it in his lower right arm. He used it to point at the flesh mound

"Whalefalls are the property of the T'dzd'ch (Tud-Dzoodche) Dominion. Your conduct here isn't just indecent, it's unlawful."

"W-What?" Nina stammered.

The Commander tugged his mount's reins. The hounds fluttered its slender wings. "Tell the truth, and I promise, your punishment will be lenient. And if you are pilgrims, as you say, you will have nothing to fear. We welcome a visit from our Southern brethren."

I took a step toward the Commander and his mount. "Please, if you'd just give me a minute, I'll—"

Drawing both his scissorblades and his whip, Dk'brr pushed up from his mount, standing on all fours, and pointed the three weapons directly at me "—Back away from Commander Brr't't, now!" Fear twitched through his words' jagged ripples twitched with fear.

I skittered back in terror, raising all four of my arms.

Brr't't glanced at his subordinate. "Subcommander, if you have concerns please, shine them."

"It's a long journey from the Southlands," Dk'brr said, "and not an easy one." He glanced at his commander. "Like I said, this could be a Vvz'zsh trap!"

"Yeah," Lark said, "it's a long journey, and we walked the whole damn way!"

Unfortunately, that wasn't the wisest choice of words. Not by a long shot.

Instantly, the troops readied what could only be battle-stances. The heavies brandished their scissorblades. The robed figures crooned softly, waving their limbs through the light of their orbiting speech. The eight shock troopers grouped together in close formation.

Subcommander Dk'brr flicked his whip in my direction, even though the weapon was nowhere near long enough to close the gap. As he swung his arm, a spark of silverlight rushed out from his limb and into the weapon, causing a small piece of the living plant to break off and fly toward me. I skittered out of the way, but the thorns on the bud's surface spun like motors and guided it toward me.

Fudge!

It hit me in the back. The fleshy plant growth's touch stung like an electric shock. The pain only grew worse. It spread rapidly.

I tried to move, but my legs weren't responding properly. They seemed to grow heavy.

No: it wasn't them, it was me.

I was getting tired.

Was the bud draining me?

As if to answer my question, the bud grew across my body, using my stolen energy to envelop me like a blob of epoxy.

Lark and Nina screamed; I screamed at them to stay back, waving my arms in a panic, only for my limbs to flop around uselessly.

In seconds, I felt so exhausted, I couldn't have moved if I tried, even if I hadn't been bound up like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

The plant growth stopped not long after it had engulfed my arms. My head, stinger tail, and hind legs were free, but immobile.

With a flick of the reins, Dk'brr brought his mount right alongside me, and then extended an arm and poised his two scissorblades on either side of my neck.

"Do you think we're idiots, Vvz'zsh?" Dk'brr said. "Southern rains alone would drown anyone who wasn't traveling by wagon. My sibling K'trr'ch (Keturch) almost died on zer trip to Kz'bvt'k'rr, before she'd even reached Szrzbvk (Jurzbvook)—not that you savages would know."

Commander Brr't't seemed shocked at the news. "K'trr'ch joined the exodus?"

Dk'brr rotated his flower toward his commander, without moving his torso, arms, or blades. "Yes, sadly. It's my shame to deal with, and no one else's."

The rider turned his head back toward me.

"Tell me why I shouldn't strike you down where you stand…"

Eh, I thought, to heck with it.

"What do you know about the Vyx?" I asked.

I chose to bring up the sapient spaceships because, at this point, I figured, why not? I was already totally helpless before him. I might as well go for broke. Best-case scenario, the mantises decided that us knowing about the Vyx made us important enough not to kill us on the spot. Worst-case scenario, it didn't, and then we'd get into a fight anyway and I'd be forced to use my mind-powers and then the AVUs would be on our tail again and the mission would be ruined and I'd have to start over from scratch.

The Subcommander pulled his blades back, but only slightly. "What do you mean, 'What do we know'? Everyone knows about—"

"—We don't!" Nina said. "We're not from here!"

"Thank you, Nina!" I said. "Tell them!"

All at once, every one of them stepped back. Dk'brr's grip failed him; he dropped one of his scissorblades.

"Are… are you… Messengers?" he said. His pauses punctuated the gaps between his word's expanding light-rings.

I rocked back and forth as best as I could. "Yes!" I yelled. "We're Messengers from the—"

—With a sudden, vicious snap, Brr't't's mount whipped its tail forward, bashing its stinger into the Commander's narrow back.

Brr't't's whip clattered to the dirt.

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