This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

They didn't wait.

Zareth spun his mount around and flew rapidly out of the bounds of the light curtain. Lina followed, clutching the moth supporting her even as it flickered in the air.

Kain turned with them, heart pounding. Malzahir and Serena kept pace.

As they burst through the barrier again, a wave of cold relief hit him.

Zareth and Lina groaned again—but this time, it was more breath than pain. They didn't collapse. The colour returned to their faces. Their creatures steadied.

Kain blinked rapidly, rechecking every link he had.

Bea?—fine. Aegis?—stable. Queen?—present. Vauleth?—napping without a care.

"It seems like as long as they remain in the star space it should be fine," Kain murmured to himself in relief.

The Vespid guards being used as mounts?

The bonds felt thinner like threads stretched taut over too long a distance. Kain wouldn't have noticed it at first, not without the others reacting.

They hadn't cried out, hadn't weakened. But the already thin connection he had with the Vespid guards looked like it would snap in around a minute.

"My links to the Vespids are affected as well but I don't really suffer any pain from their loss. The dissolving of the contract is also not as fast as for you two," he muttered.

Kain suspected it was because it was only a tertiary link—via secondarily linked Queen who was bonded to him via his primary contract, the microscopic Eve—and so whatever force was acting to sever bonds was less aggressively targeting him.

Zareth wiped the sweat from his brow, face grim. "It was definitely not slow for us. My bond was coming apart second by second."

Lina nodded. "If we'd stayed another 10 seconds, I think… I think the contract would've broken entirely."

Pete shivered. "But why? There's no enemy. No attack. It's just light."

Kain turned back to the barrier.

Silent. Unmoving. That same fireless white glow, like a frozen curtain of sunlight.

The glow had an almost holy, indifferent quality. But that cold holiness made him reluctant to re-enter.

After the horrifying soul-deep pain they experienced, Kain could also see that Lina and Zareth were also reluctant to re-enter.

"Wait," Lina said sharply while pausing. "Do you hear that?"

The air trembled. A rhythmic chitter, faint but rising in pitch, echoed from the collapsed tunnel behind them.

Pete gasped, pointing. "Up there—look!"

Long spindly limbs originating from the abomination chasing them had reached the cavern ceiling. It was no longer content to sit and watch them get away. Long, clawed limbs extended outward, testing the stone above like a spider examining web strands. The unnatural creature began to ascend the walls of the underground ruins and then crawl on the ceiling—upside down.

This was probably the clearest image they'd gotten of the horrifying creature since they'd first encountered it—and more of its massive body was still exiting the tunnel behind. Its limbs ended in rusted scissor-like pincers, and in its open mouth were rows of millions of needle-like teeth resembling a leech and 4 bulbous purple eyes.

Veins of seething, black and violet crystal pulsed where its spine should have been, and its underbelly was a patchwork of mechanical tubing and exposed ribs, as if it had been stitched together from a mechanical wreckage and corpses. Thick cables trailed like intestines beneath it, dragging against the stone. Every motion was slow and deliberate like a predator savouring the chase.

'That is something straight out of a nightmare…'

"It's coming," Zareth said, voice more tense than Kain had ever heard it. "It's going to try and crawl across the ceiling…to reach us."

"It'll be above us within a minute."

Kain's mouth was dry. They had seconds to choose. Forward through the soul-severing light, or back into the waiting jaws of a nightmare.

"We don't have a choice, we use my contracts," Kain said at last, voice flat. "Zareth and Lina can't bring their partners through without risking irreversible damage to their souls due to the broken contract. Heck, the pain from the broken bond may cause your contracts to be unable to finish the flight across. But the Vespids don't have that issue and should still be able to carry us across."

Lina glanced at him. "You're sure they can finish the trip? They'll listen to you?"

"Not 100% sure," Kain admitted. "But I'm confident. They're different. Hive-minded. Not individual contracts. They aren't separate entities given names and power—they're Queen's children. Extensions of her will. Extensions of mine now too. So even if our already tenuous bond is broken, they should still listen to me…for a period. Not to mention because the nature of our contract is different, it does not hurt me nor them when it is broken."

He exhaled slowly, expression tightening. "They'll get us across. I'll just… have to give up most of them."

He didn't delay. One by one, Kain summoned six fresh Vespid guards, sending his currently weakened mount back to the star space.

Then after a careful balancing act reminiscent of a show belonging in the circus, each person carefully hopped onto their new temporary partner.

"Are you sure about this Kain? What if there is some harm to you, that you just can't sense yet?" Zareth asked.

"Your contracts are too valuable to risk. If those bonds break completely, you're defenseless." He gestured to the trembling insectoids. "These are expendable."

The word tasted bitter. But it was true.

Kain couldn't help but look around at them, knowing that if Queen couldn't re-establish a connection with them, not a single one was likely to remain.

He felt a pang of sadness at the thought.

These were not mindless tools. He remembered each one. Although they looked remarkably similar, there were slight differences in appearance and personality.

He remembered how long each one had survived since hatching. The ones who'd carried him out of the crumbling tunnels, across caverns, to escape too-strong enemies, who had sacrificed their own bodies at critical moments to block an attack for him.

Yes, technically they were 'expendable' and more will be born to replenish their numbers with time, but it won't be the same ones.

Before entering the curtain of light again, Kain reached out and rubbed the head of each one; some clicked their mandibles, others wiggled their large abdomens, and some shook their antennae up and down.

They'd never spoken. Never protested the often dangerous tasks assigned to them. But they knew him and had bonded with him over time.

Kain swallowed hard.

"Queen," he murmured, "I'll try to recover them. But if I don't… thank you."

A distant hum echoed in his thoughts. Sad. Accepting.

The group began to shift. The Vespids closed ranks, wings beating with purpose. Now atop a newly summoned guard, Zareth and Lina dismissed their partners.

Kain kept 4 Vespids not carrying anyone around the group, flying in a supportive ring—just in case.

Kain took the lead since the guards were most used to following him. "Keep tight. We go fast, and we don't stop."

Crash

A portion of the ceiling behind them caved in to remind them of their relentless pursuer.

"Move!"

They plunged into the light.