Chapter 727: Bands of the Dead (2)
"Moths," she said, soft.
The air tasted like old linen and cold ash. A faint pepper smell rode over it where the mint-paper lived in someone’s pocket. The nurse council’s antennae lifted together, then flattened again—recognition, not panic.
Rodion pulsed a clean label.
<Mortuary Moths. Eat light. Swarm on heat.>
Two moths wobbled low near Mikhailis’s boots, their wings big and soft, moving like tired hands wiping a window. He crouched, watched the way their bodies leaned toward any brighter patch, then tilted away from the mint on his cuff.
"They don’t hate us," he said. "They hate busy light."
He glanced sideways at Thalatha. She had stopped just outside the brighter spill from the glowcap bag. Calm measure. She lifted her chin, took one step left into a cooler patch, and the shadow-bloom above her changed direction with her, as if it agreed.
He filed the picture. She moves like a good rule—simple, everyone follows, nobody complains.
A worker uncorked a resin mesh cone. The cone flexed in her forelegs, elastic and patient. Another worker held a second cone upside down like a net, testing the spring.
The Sentinel adjusted behind them, coffin-lid slightly raised. The lid’s face caught a faint glow and threw it off, making a little cool pocket under its shadow.
Mikhailis rubbed his thumb along the cuff seam, thinking. Don’t make a story here. Make a container.
He spoke without looking away from the moths."Don’t kill them," Mikhailis said. "Catch and keep."
Hypnoveil thinned the air, cooling it by suggestion. The change wasn’t dramatic. It was the kind of cool you feel first on your eyelids. A thin hush spread, and the moth-bloom above them slowed like breath in sleep.
<Rodion staggered the column’s breath; on the panel, a blue ribbon rose and fell to guide them.> The ribbon did not blink fast. It swelled and softened in a steady tide. Mikhailis matched it without thinking. Breathe like a room that forgives mistakes, he reminded himself.
Workers dripped mint water in thin lines, careful as writing. The drops hit stone with tiny ticks that wanted to become a beat; Thalatha lifted two fingers, and the workers changed spacing at once. The ticks went crooked. The Echo-Deacon had nothing to love.
The moths twitched away at the smell. Wings like old cloth folded, unfolded, chose shadow. A resin mesh cone opened in Worker 12’s forelegs, flexing with quiet patience. Worker 18 carried another upside down, testing the spring and the mouth. The mesh gave a gentle rustle, like a soft broom.
"Keep it slow," Thalatha said. "No waving. No claps. We are not cats."
Mikhailis almost smiled. "I can meow later," he murmured into his sleeve.
She ignored that on purpose. It helped.
A sub-swarm dove for a glowcap bag anyway, drawn by the warmer patch on a worker’s hip. The Sentinel slid the coffin shield overhead with a small, neat step. The lid turned that patch to night. The glow fell to a respectful dim, and the moths curved mid-flight, confused, then pleased, and drifted into two cones with patience that was almost funny—like tired aunts walking into a photo booth because the lighting was kinder inside.
"Angle your wrists," Mikhailis said softly. "Don’t scoop. Invite."
Worker 12 adjusted. The cone mouth met the air at the same angle as the moths’ glide. Three big ones slid in without flutter-panic. The nurse bumped Worker 12’s shoulder twice—good job, do it again—but kept her eyes down so pride would not try to live there.
Hypnoveil pulsed a little cooler across the ceiling. The powdered shadow held in a soft cloud, like soot that had found manners. Rodion dimmed the blue ribbon, then brightened it, keeping their chest and feet in a lazy conversation.
<Maintain thermal drop. Do not exceed two degrees; swarm will splinter.>
"Copy," Mikhailis breathed. He eyed the bags. "Wrap the glowcaps with moth-net cloth. Not tight. Let the light breathe; don’t let it brag."
Two workers obeyed. The cloth made the bags look like lanterns on a foggy night. Moths stopped trying to crash them.
A small cluster still played on the edge of a worker’s elbow joint, attracted to the warm hinge. The worker froze without being told. Good, Mikhailis thought. A still limb is smarter than a fast one here.
He crouched, not low, just enough to change the shape of the room. He lifted his hand open, palm up, away from the cluster, and held a clean mint-paper corner between two fingers. "Here," he said, voice soft. "Free taxi."
Two moths lifted off the worker’s elbow and drifted to his hand. They settled there, wings pulsing slowly, tasting the air. Up close, their bodies were not ugly. They had a soft powder like flour. Their thoraxes looked like stitched gray thread.
"Pretty," he said, surprised.
Thalatha glanced. "You like things that eat light?"
"I like anything that minds its work," he said. And I like anything that lets us borrow it without a fight.
He tilted his hand and let the pair slide into Worker 18’s cone. No flap. No panic. The mesh closed with a patient twist.
A third moth hesitated on his thumb, then lifted and went to the ceiling, stubborn in its freedom. He let it go. "Forty percent for the décor," he said, light.
"Fine," Thalatha answered. "We keep our eyes."
A juvenile ant—no, not a juvenile; a small worker with new shine still at her joints—peeked around a rib lip. Her antennae made three little circles, question-shy. The nurse clicked a warning. The small worker stepped back, but her antennae kept the circles going in the air.
Mikhailis caught it. He made the same three circles with two fingers at his side. Not to teach. To answer: yes, we see it too. The small worker settled. Her antennae wrote one short line: good.
By the end, sixty percent were netted and sleepy, folded in patient bundles the nurses would stack near cool stone. Forty percent scattered into the ceiling and stayed there, like bored stars that had agreed to watch.
The corridor breathed easier. It smelled faintly of mint and dust.
"Stow the nets in shade," Thalatha said. "No sunbathing."
A worker tugged the net bundle under the Sentinel’s lid shadow. The Sentinel shifted to help without being asked. The little civility made the workers faster.
The plate-clatter started as a tease, like pebbles thrown for attention. It wasn’t pebbles. It was a crowd. Jawbone Carapace Beetles pushed into view in a tight file, plates interlocked top to bottom, like someone had made a centipede out of shields. Front mandibles gaped, hinged with jawbone that had found a second career.
Mikhailis’s face went still. "Pack logic," he said. "Not leash-friendly."
The Necrolord reached out with crown-light and precise intent. Her touch slid off their minds like water on wax. There were no receptive nodes, no cooperative habits. They weren’t listening for new orders. They were listening for straight line, straight shove.
"They train each other," Thalatha said, watching footwork. "One thinks, three repeat. Break the teacher."
"Herd and break," she added, and the words carried a clean confidence that put a quiet in people’s shoulders.
The Hound rattled its chain just once—cloth still on the tail-ring—and ran a crooked arc like a drunk drawing a decent map. The pack loved order and hated what the Hound drew. They tried to correct for the curve, and the curve kept changing.
Rodion ghosted a half-transparent slope marker on the floor overlay.
<Recommend lure to sloped lip; friction loss will magnify error.>
The Hound swerved toward that lip, paws finding the green dots Rodion had already planted earlier. The pack followed, plates still kissing plates, mandibles clicking with ugly hunger.
Scurabon darted into a seam between plates—fast in, faster out. A pinch of bone powder dusted the inside joint. The first beetle squealed with a high, metal-on-teeth noise. Its front legs stuttered. The second beetle behind bumped it, not hard, just enough. The third corrected and made the angle worse. Their neat line turned into almost-neat, and in this place, almost-neat meant doom.
Workers salted the floor with mint dust in a dotted pattern that refused to become a lane. The beetles hated the smell. Each plate edge rose an unnecessary millimeter. Tiny mistakes, stacked.
"Give half-step," Thalatha called. "Bleed their push."
The Sentinel took the first ram on the coffin-door, feet sliding half a shoe, shield angling just enough to redirect, not block. The force bled sideways into stone that knew how to swallow it. The sound was a dull thud, not a clap. Good.
"Second wave in two and a half," Mikhailis breathed. He raised his fingers and counted silently—not one-two-three; three-five-two, like a joke only a stone would laugh at.
Two beetles found the grease trench the workers had poured without being told. It looked like wet stone. It wasn’t. They slipped and dropped into it like heavy bowls into a drawer. Three more tried to pile in. The Sentinel released the stored shove it had been drinking since the first impact. The shove hit the pile at just the wrong, perfect angle. Plates wedged. Mandibles stuck. The pack became furniture.
"Rear pair," Thalatha said. "Quiet legs. Odd counts."