“There must be some protection over the city, too,” Kade said in a low voice beside him, sounding worried. “Otherwise they’d be here, too. We need to be careful leaving.”
“Yeah,” Florian replied faintly. If the swarm was some kind of hostile stinging or biting insect, getting out of the city would be a challenge.
“Why do you think they want in, though?” Rune asked. “Why are they swarming right on the edge of the city? What’s in here that they want more than whatever’s out there?”
Florian thought of all the mosquitoes in the summer: the way they could home in on his body heat as he walked, no matter how much he tried to swat them away.
“I wonder if they’re always there,” he said. “Or if they just came when we got here.”
Kade shook his head. “I doubt they’re after us. If they’re blood suckers, what are they eating out there?”
“That’s true,” Florian agreed.
“Maybe they eat magic instead,” Koji offered. He still seemed a little subdued; but his wound had mostly healed over now, and he had perked up quite a bit since yesterday. “That’s why they want into the city. All the magic coming from the seal. Maybe that’s what they use to stay alive in the Blight, too.”
Florian nodded. That made sense. Plus, even from this distance, they looked too big to be mosquitoes—more like the size of locusts, from what Florian could make out. Not that they would know for sure until they got closer.
“Only one way to find out,” he sighed, hopping down from the wall. “Let’s go.”
They followed the wall until they found a gate through, then descended to the lower part of the city. He focused his attention on the still, silent air—anything to avoid thinking of the dust.
The closer they got to the edge of the city, the more aware he became of a faint, droning background noise. The swarm, he realized, was making the noise: countless tiny wings buzzing rapidly, sending a low thrum of vibration through the air.
“Sounds like beetles,” Kade muttered, a hint of disgust crossing his face. Florian stared at him, surprised at the normally stoic man’s visible reaction.
“Not a fan of bugs?” Florian asked, biting back a chuckle, and Kade shook his head.
“I hate bugs,” he replied quietly. “That’s one good thing about all the snow back home. No bugs.”
“Seems like you’re gonna have a bad time then,” Rune chimed in, a few steps behind them. Kade sighed, glancing at Florian wearily.
“I’ll be fine,” he said; but his tone was clipped, and Florian could tell he was dreading having to deal with the insects.
Now that they were closer, Florian was certain they were beetles, but they didn’t look like any beetles he’d ever seen before. So close to the ocean, the only beetles that he ever encountered were June bugs, which could startle with their loud buzzing, but were harmless and kind of neat-looking with their iridescent sheen. Occasionally, he’d come across stink bugs, or roaches on the boardwalk, and the local zoo had a few exotic beetles. Then there had been those enormous bug monsters during one of their first trips into the Blight, but they were well and truly monsters by that point.
These were not like that. They were very large for beetles, even bigger than the giant horned beetles at the zoo. They looked to range in size from a baseball to the full length of his hand. Strangely, other than their large size, they didn’t look especiallytouched by the Blight, at least not from here. Florian hoped they didn’t have teeth or breathed fire or something just as horrifying.
All he could see from this distance was the swarming of their black undersides as they flew and crawled all along the perimeter of the city. Once they were closer, though, he saw that their hard outer shells were a gleaming golden yellow, and they had a large protruding horn that curved downward and a smaller one that pinched upward, like a rhinoceros beetle.
“That’s... a lot of bugs,” he said, at a loss for what else to say. They were only a few blocks away from the city walls now, and the mass of bugs was right in front of them. “They know we’re here. Or they can sense us.”
“Maybe theydosuck blood,” Rune said, her voice equal parts disgusted and fascinated.
“I hope not,” Koji murmured, also sounding unhappy with the prospect.
“I’ll try and keep them away from us,” Florian said. “I’ll go out first. If they do... bite or whatever, I’ll have the best chance of getting them to leave us alone.”
“Florian,” Kade started to protest, but Florian shook his head.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I can just make them go away or leave us alone. We can’t exactly fight off bugs like this, you know?”
Kade huffed, annoyed, but he didn’t argue further. They were only about a block away from the edge of the city now. Florian looked back toward where the bugs swarmed and let out a nervous sigh, hoping he really could keep them away with his magic. When they reached the very edge of the city limits, he paused, and the others stopped beside him. Some of the beetles were flitting away from the swarm, heading further from the city rather than toward it, but he couldn’t see where they were going. Between their behavior and their glossy golden shells, he was starting to suspect what they were after.
“I want to try something first,” he said. “Let’s spread out now that we’re closer. I want to see if they’re attracted to all of us in general, or if maybe one of us has something they want.”
He started to step away from the others, moving to the left along the wide, empty street. Kade followed him slowly, keeping some distance, while Rune and Koji moved more to the right. Florian watched the swarm of bugs closely, waiting to see if they would react to how they were spreading out.
For a moment, the swarm of beetles remained just where it was, a dark clump blotting out the light of the Blight beyond. But then they did start to move, slowly reaching out and moving left along the invisible barrier.
