Free Vin of Venus by David Cranmer, Paul D. Brazill, Garnett Elliott Page B

loss of roughly half their forces. A strider had just gone down from the thrust of an obsidian lance. Most of the poisoned beetles had been spent, and the armored raiders now fought with lances of their own, tipped with sharpened chela.
    "This was supposed to be a skirmish," Hajed said. "Now we're taking casualties."
    She cupped her hands around her mouth and let loose a series of whoops. A blue-armored rider broke off from the melee and leapt his mount beside her. He'd taken a javelin through the shoulder, between a gap in his chitin. Despite the pain such a wound must cause, he saluted without a trace of discomfort.
    "We're out," Hajed said. "Tell the other
Kuars
the Blues have captured an important prisoner, and are heading back to brief the Priestess."
    The rider nodded.
    "And don't try to yank that out until we're home," she added.
    "Yes,
Kuar
." The rider stole a glance at me, before leaping back into the fray.
    "So I
am
a captive. What happened to 'guest'?"
    A tight smile lit Hajed's face. "You'd rather be a prisoner among the rotting ones?"
    "I see your point."
    Moments later a half-dozen blue armored riders assembled around her. She surveyed their wounds, clucked, and nodded her helm towards the jungle. The great spiders leapt. Warm air rushed past, and vertigo made my eyes spin. For a second I was
sideways
in relation to the ground, many yards below. The strider clung to the trunk of a huge frame tree. Then it bounded again, upwards, and we crashed through small branches and scarlet foliage to reach the highest canopy.
    From this vantage the jungle no longer seemed dark or menacing. It was beautiful: a world of tree-tops set beneath scudding ochre clouds. Insects danced in great magenta whorls. I drew an appreciative breath.
    "Stunning, isn't it?" Hajed said. "I bet you don't have vistas like this, where you're from."
    "The jungles of the north are green, rather than red," I told her. "And I've seen views from the skyward weirs of the Crimson Men that would make your heart shudder. But this place does have a certain unique beauty."
    I gave her hips an extra squeeze.
    "Flattery. How quaint." Her booted foot struck the strider's flanks and we were moving again, leaping from tree to tree at a speed I'd not thought possible. The closest comparison would be soaring atop one of Jaryk's black-furred
Xhats
.
    A tall shape appeared along the horizon. Distracted as I was, I mistook at first for a frame tree grown to cloud-scraping height. But this was no natural growth. A tower of black basalt thrust itself against the sky, the walls peeling outward at the top like the petals of an enormous stone flower. I could not judge its scale, given the distance. But I knew without a doubt I'd set eyes on the tower of Siroth Hadz. The massive structure dwarfed even Gann Lorci's domed fortress.
    Hajed must've sensed my awe. "Remember what I told you before," she said in a low voice. "Siroth Hadz is not revered among my people. Speak only to the Priestess Mother of him, and chose your words carefully."
    "The Priestess is your ruler?"
    "For all practical purposes. We're governed officially by a Council of War, but it's the Priestesses wisdom that has allowed us to domesticate insects. Without her guidance, we'd be as primitive as those Mold Men back there."
    "I was only their captive for a short time," I said, "but I didn't sense they were entirely hostile."
    Hajed shrugged armored shoulders. "What does it matter? They're diseased. Infected. We fight to thin their numbers, lest their curse spread."
    An unpleasant thought occurred to me. "How contagious are they?"
    "Don't worry. You'd have to live among them for weeks before the first patches of mold would appear."
    I nodded with relief.
    Ahead the jungle gave way to rocky terrain. What looked like ancient lava flows had cooled and cracked, forming hundreds of small canyons among the dark stone. The striders made a final leap down from the frame trees and scuttled onto the rocks. Their speed