Chapter 27

The nano-arms rose into the air, all six of them. Rone swung his own arms down in a quick, sudden motion. The arms followed suit. They crashed into the ground, right into the wave of spider-things. There was a huge, booming sound and six giant sand clouds rose into the air. When Rone pulled the arms away, there were huge swaths of squashed and pulped croatoans.

Rone repeated his attack a dozen more times, taking out thousands of the things every time the arms came down. It wasn't enough, however. No matter how many of them he killed, there were still millions of them left. Not only that, but they kept pouring out of the open Blak Soldiers' mouths. He refocused his concentration and the arms slammed down in front of the spiders and merged together to create a fifteen foot high barrier over a mile long. The Terras that hadn't been taken and controlled quickly joined him, including Tarvo, Soqart, Heari, and Chibbi.

The three warlords shifted back while Heari stared at him with her milky white eyes. Her nostrils flared once or twice and then her face became stern.

"You are bleeding," she stated in a matter of fact tone.

"It's fine," Rone said. "I'm more worried about Keiara. How is she doing?"

"Without Blak pumping power into Niku, she has consistently proven herself the stronger. She is faring better than us. Time is not on our side, however. We need to break Blak's hold over Niku now before we lose our window," Heari said.

Rone looked over toward the last place he'd seen her. There was nothing in that vicinity except for large, unnatural rock columns and huge clouds of dust and sand. Vaguely, he could see dark, shadowy creatures flitting through the sand cloud. There were several bright flashes of light that went off every couple of seconds. He assumed it was Keiara blasting away at the Basilisk with fire. He wasn't able to see any more than that, but he had to hope that she was holding her own.

Right now he had to force himself not to think or worry about her. He had to keep his focus on Wilhelm. He had to keep him busy. If he sensed that the Basilisk was in trouble, then he would start pumping more power into the creature and then Keiara would be in massive trouble.

"Any ideas on how to stop those things?" Chibbi asked. Her grip tightened on her war hammer as she glared at the surging pile of spiders.

Already, some of them were plopping over the top of the wall Rone constructed.

He didn't answer her. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused for a moment.

There was a sudden vibration in the ground and the wall started moving. Both ends raced across the ground toward each other. They met and created a complete circle. The circle constricted on itself. To everyone there, it looked like one end was eating the other as the circle got taller and smaller at the same time. A vast majority of the spider-things were trapped inside with no place to go.

The wall picked up more speed the smaller it got until it completely closed and rose into the air in a giant cylindrical shape. There were faint screeching sounds and a couple of pops and cracks as the trapped spiders were squished. Rone waited a few seconds more and then let the giant cylinder disperse. Hundreds of thousands of the mutated spiders came crashing back down to the earth. They were hardly recognizable as the ugly things they used to be. They were little more than disgusting dead things.

"That answer your question?" Rone asked as he smiled confidently at Chibbi.

"Impressive," she returned. She acknowledged him with a slight nod and a tiny smile.

"Job's not done yet," Rone said. He looked at the warlords. "Take your men and go on the offensive. Don't let them crawl on you. If you do, you won't be you anymore. Make sure your men know that to." He turned to Heari next. "What can you do?"

"There is little we are not capable of when our ranks are at full strength. Unfortunately, right now we are not. We won't be able to do much, but we will do what we can." She turned and walked back toward the Terra camp. "Make sure that those creatures do not flood the camp. I'll need time," she said as she turned and glanced back at the group. "What comes next will likely end myself along with my acolytes. Do not let our deaths be in vain."

Then she turned and walked away. Rone was caught off guard by her words. He tried to run to her, to get her to stop whatever she had planned, but Tarvo held him back.

"Do not get in her way," the big Terra chief said. "She will do what she must to protect her people, like all of us. You will not be able to dissuade her."

"She can't do this," Rone yelled. "She can't just kill herself! Or the others!"

"She does what needs to be done to save us all!" Tarvo shouted.

Rone struggled some more, but there was no use. Tarvo would not let him go.

"The only thing we can do now is give her the time she needs. Give her that time so that their sacrifice will not be in vain. Give her this one last thing, Rone. It's the least we can do."

Rone had to bite down on his own anger. He could feel it rising in the pit of his stomach.

"Fine," Rone said. "Okay. We let them...let her...do what she intends."

Tarvo turned around and faced his men. "Let's buy the Callers the time they need!" He pointed at the remaining spider creatures and the new ones still pumping out of the Blak Army soldiers. "Attack!"

The Terras didn't even hesitate. They ran full out for the spiders even as the spiders raced toward them. The Terras crashed into the things with insane recklessness. The warriors shifted as they ran and pretty soon there was a herd of rampaging wild animals all over the place. The spiders were gored, trampled, bitten in half, poisoned, dropped from dizzying heights, bashed into the ground, thrown, and other, even more colorful, ways to kill them.

The Terras were holding their own for a long time. Tarvo was slashing and crushing the spiders in his huge bear form. Soqart was slicing the spiders apart with his devastatingly effective chain-scythe. Chibbi was running, roaring, and biting the spiders apart in her lioness form.

And Rone was walking calmly amidst the battle. His nanos surged around him in an ever widening cyclone. Any Terra that came in contact with them was left completely unharmed. Any spider creature, however, was completely dissolved. The nanos disassembled the things and left nothing behind.

Rone threw out both hands and then thrust them forward. The nanos flew behind him and then swirled forward as Rone thrust his hands in front of himself. The nanos connected and merged into a giant, segmented, mechanoid, snake-like machine. Its robotic mouth was open wide and inside was a churning series of gnashing metal spirals that grinded against each other. It raced across the desert and chewed through huge amounts of the spiders. The thing left a trail of black, stinking ichor that was ejected from its tail end as it slithered ahead.

Rone stood completely still as he focused on controlling his machine. Everything else got far away and unimportant. The only thing that remained was his connection to the snake-machine.

And the destruction he caused with it.

He was in tune with his nanos. His connection with them ran deeper than anything he experienced before. Dimly, he was aware of a seething pain in his head and more blood pouring from his nose. He ignored both though. Instead, he kept his mechanical snake rolling and chewing through the croatoans.

He didn't notice when the spiders got past the Terras and his machine.

He didn't notice as they swarmed directly toward him, each one coming at him and only him.