The storage chamber ceiling was a disaster waiting to happen. The main entrance looked weakened, inviting. Bait for ferals too damaged to recognize the danger. And Bruk had identified the resonance point where a single strike would bring it all crashing down.
I stood at the entrance to the main chamber and looked at what we'd built. Not just a trap. A system. A defensive network designed by a structural engineer and implemented by a builder who'd spent twenty cycles mastering his craft.
"They'll come tonight," Bruk said. "Or tomorrow. The gathering is almost complete. Fifteen of them now."
Fifteen. More than we'd planned for. The ceiling collapse might kill five, maybe six. The other traps another three or four. That still left at least five ferals that Bruk would have to fight directly.
"Can you take five?" I asked.
"I can take five." His voice was certain. "Especially if they're already damaged. Panicked. Confused."
"The collapse will disorient them. The dust, the noise, the loss of their pack members. They won't be thinking clearly."
"They don't think clearly now. After the collapse, they'll be animals. Easy to pick off."
I wanted to believe him and trust that we'd planned for every contingency, that the system would work, that we'd survive this attack and raise our offspring in the Keep he'd built.
But I was an engineer. I knew that systems failed. That calculations had margins of error. That even the best designs couldn't account for every variable.
"If something goes wrong," I said. "If they break through..."
"They won't."
"But if they do." I grabbed his hand, pressed it against my belly. "Promise me you'll get the offspring out. Promise me you'll protect what we've built, even if..."
"Nothing is going to happen to you." His voice was fierce. Final. "I've waited twenty cycles for you. I'm not losing you to ferals. Not tonight. Not ever."
He pulled me against him. Held me while the sun rose over the Ossuary, painting the bone formations in shades of gold and pink.
"We survive this," he said. "We protect our offspring. We build a future. Together."
I let myself believe him.
What else could I do?
The ferals were coming. Our traps were set. And somewhere deep inside me, our offspring was growing, unaware of the violence about to unfold around it.
I rested my hand on my belly and made a silent promise.
Whatever it took. Whatever I had to sacrifice. I would protect this future.
KERRIS
They came at nightfall.
I heard them before I saw them. The grinding of bone against bone as fifteen ferals moved through the maze toward the Keep. Their coordination was wrong, fractured, each one operating on instinct rather than strategy. But there were so many of them. So many broken hunters, driven by need, converging on the home Bruk had spent twenty cycles building.
"They're approaching the main entrance," Bruk said. He stood at the resonance point we'd identified, his body coiled with tension. "Eight of them. The others are circling toward the secondary approaches."
"The pit trap will catch some of them."
"If they're careless enough to trigger it."
I was positioned in the inner chamber, behind the reinforced archway that would protect me from the ceiling collapse. My hand rested on my belly, where our offspring grew, oblivious to the violence about to unfold.
"Remember," I said. "Wait until at least six are inside before you trigger it."
"I remember."
