The first alarm wasn't sound.
It was feel.
A pressure rolled through Haven like a fist pressed into the earth and dragged slowly beneath the walls. Lanterns shivered. Water in barrels rippled into rings. The memorial wall gave a quiet, pained groan.
"Positions!" Marcus's voice cracked across the yard. "South line—brace!"
No one asked why. Ropes snapped tight on the gate. Ballista crews cranked in practiced silence. Sofia's archers took the towers; Darren's spear line formed two ranks in the yard—points low, eyes steady.
Ellie whistled twice. Her bear thundered to the central square, metallic pelt catching firelight. The husky paced the parapet, frost steaming at its paws. The Alsatian took the south steps, jaw breathing faint red.
Ravi slapped a slate onto a barrel, already calling stations. "West watch—up! North—hold! Healers to the central ring!"
Maria dropped her satchel onto the table and spilled its contents—rods capped with glass crystals, braided wire, half scrap and half miracle. "Resonance spikes ready," she said, breath tight. "If it talks to the ground, we'll listen—and answer."
Keith emerged from the river steps, lion pacing at his side, serpent Vyre gliding behind him like a living shadow. "I'll hold water," he said simply. "If it tests the bank, it'll regret it."
Another tremor came—closer—then three deliberate taps, like a giant knuckle testing stone.
Aria flinched. "The Queen says tunnels are collapsing. She's pulling the nursery deeper."
"Do it," Ethan said. "Keep her listening. Keep a line to me."
The spider skittered along the inner wall, already weaving silk across the south stair. The crystalline mantis stepped onto the parapet, edges catching light like cut ice.
Maria planted the first spike near the south gate. It thrummed—a low note you felt in your teeth. Two more followed—west tower base, east stair.
"Triangulating," she muttered.
The ground answered.
The yard dipped. A hairline crack crawled toward the gate stones, then stopped—as if reconsidering.
"Steady," Ethan said, to the wall, to himself.
Something beneath them inhaled.
The earth split.
A blade of black chitin punched upward, then another—mandibles the size of cartwheels, obsidian plates reflecting torchlight. The burrower erupted from the ground, half worm, half centipede, more engine than animal. Plates layered its back like kiln-fired armor, seams glowing with dull internal heat. Where it moved, soil glazed into glass.
Sofia loosed. The arrow struck a joint seam and sparked uselessly away.
"Hard shell!" she called. "Look for soft!"
Riley raised his hands. Lightning lashed down in tight arcs. The energy crawled the plating and bled off with a hiss.
"It's venting it!" he shouted.
"Hit it anyway!" Marcus roared.
The spear line surged.
Darren slid forward, Reaver's Arc spinning. The crescent blades rang along a plate, slid, then bit into a hinge. The creature flinched. The seam brightened.
Maria's spikes screamed. "It's pulsing back at us!" she yelled. "I can invert—Ethan, I need a carrier!"
Ravi was already there. "You can take it. Thread it."
Ethan felt it—the tremor-song, not heard but imposed. He flung his hand toward Maria's rig and unfurled a lattice of green threads, linking spike to spike, then anchoring through his chest.
"On my count," Maria said. "In on three—out on one."
He inhaled.
She threw the switch.
The pressure hit like gravity leaning sideways. Intent pressed into him—separate, unmake, divide. Ethan pushed back, exhaling pulse into pulse. The threads burned bright.
The yard steadied.
The burrower stuttered.
"Now!" Marcus bellowed.
Darren carved again, momentum carrying him through. The husky frosted the lower plates; ice webbed across seams. The Alsatian barked and exhaled a short, molten cone into the iced joint.
Thermal shock split it.
Sofia buried an arrow to the fletching. The burrower convulsed.
"Aria!" Ethan shouted.
The mantis leapt—one flash of glass. It landed on the softened seam, forelegs biting deep. The spider anchored it with silk. The mantis pulled.
The seam opened.
Marcus hit it like a battering ram. His hammer found flesh beneath armor. Darren jammed a blade into a snapping mandible. Riley drove a needle-thin bolt of lightning into the exposed core.
The burrower screamed—no sound, all vibration.
Ethan felt his threads fray. The pressure returned stronger, found his ribs and leaned.
"Again!" he gasped.
Maria inverted the phase.
For three seconds, the world froze.
"Finish!" Marcus roared.
The spear line struck. The mantis tore. Sofia sent two more shafts into the gap. The Alsatian flashed heat; the husky answered with frost.
The burrower didn't fall.
It folded.
Its front third collapsed inward, plates overlapping into a single surface—then split along its own seam. Two halves wrenched free, coiled, and plunged into the ground like knives into water. The earth sealed behind them with a hiss.
Silence.
Sofia lowered her bow slowly. "It ran?"
Maria shook her head. "It replicated."
Riley stared. "That's worse."
Golden text cut across every vision—sharp, not gentle.
SYSTEM ALERT
Subterranean Propagation Detected
Designation: Brood Entity — Activity Rising
Core Source: Queen-Class (Dormant)
Estimated Swarm Emergence: 36–48 Hours
Advisory: Surface Fortifications Insufficient
Recommended Action: Core Disruption
"Core," Marcus said quietly.
Maria swallowed. "What we saw at the ridge—that cocoon—that wasn't a child. It's a heart."
Aria listened, eyes unfocused. "The Queen says she wants to stay under us. She says we're… warm." A pause. "She also says the other Queen tastes wrong."
A breath of grim laughter passed the line and vanished.
"No civilian losses," Ravi reported. "Four injured. Minor."
"Good," Marcus said. "We're learning."
Ethan looked over the yard—silk re-spun, beasts resetting, ants already repairing.
"Orders," he said.
And Haven moved.