"Agreed!" replied Malcolm, "First we must see what the rest of the bugs do now that the guiding intelligence, whatever that may be, finds them missing. We have men watching the others in the town and watching the mine entrance. Second, if there's no immediate response, we need to isolate all the others that are outside the mine so we have the minimum number to deal with inside."

A man ran up then and said that the creature he was watching was moving this way. Then another did the same.

"Quickly!" said Malcolm, "Get that cage moved out of sight. Everyone leave this area - get the nets we've put spells on and go near the mine entrance. Try not to be seen but get those nets over any of the creatures you see, especially any leaving the mine or trying to get back in. Don't let them get out again, whatever you do! And watch your backs, we haven't seen how fast they can move on their own; they may even be able to fly."

Several men moved the cage into a nearby smithy and shut the door while the others melted away. Malcolm, Tintinel, Olu, the twins and I went into a building across the street. In a moment the street was deserted. Three or four minutes the first of the black-robed creatures came around the corner. Several more arrived at intervals and they all milled around in a confused sort of way. When all the black-garbed creatures that had been frequenting the town had arrived Malcolm gave a signal.

I hadn't even looked up before, but now there was movement above and a large fishing net that had been hung across the street between buildings was quickly dropped over the black robes. They collapsed just as the first one had.

"Now the fat's in the fire!" Tintinel declared, "Anything might happen to one set of creatures, but when all those sent to investigate seem to disappear, they'll know something's very wrong."

"Right! Men," shouted Malcolm to the men he had told to hide the cage, "come and secure these creatures. Don't let any escape the net and be careful not to let them touch you. Use your pitchforks to keep them at bay." Then he turned to us, "Let's get out to the mine - I think the outside part is going to be easier than we thought, inside the mine will be another story.

We hurried, cautiously, out the road toward the mine. On the way we went past two of the collapsed black figures pinned under nets that had been staked to the ground. Malcolm inspected them closely to make sure the bugs weren't trying to dig out from under. They just seemed to be lying there helplessly. "Perhaps they don't even have enough intelligence to try to get away if they're not in communication with whatever higher power leads them. I guess I didn't need to caution the men to use pitchforks to keep them away." He observed as we hurried on.

As we drew nearer the mine we began to hear men's shouts and strange creaking noises. Suddenly we were out of the woods and into a tumbled rocky area where the mine tailings had been dumped and an obvious mine entrance in a cliff. Men and undisguised bugs were fighting, with some bugs quietly lying under nets and men quietly lying in the open, probably having been stung by bugs. Others were attacking one another, the men with pitch-forks and other farm implements, the bugs with stingers. But the bugs seemed to be fighting as a team, picking off the men one at a time while just defending against the rest, and they were fast. The men weren't cooperating; they needed a leader.

"Get over here!" cried Tintinel, "Leave the fallen - we'll tend to them later, but now we've got to stop loosing men!"

The men slowly backed towards us gathering together more closely as they came. But one of the bugs rushed over to one of the fallen men and plunged its snout in to drink his blood. This caused several of the men to rush to his aid and two were beset and brought down by several bugs.

"Stop!" cried Malcolm, "If we don't work together we'll all go down!"

The men seemed to realize this and came quickly to our side. The bugs seemed to know that they now needed a new strategy and quit attacking and gathered around the mine entrance. "Whatever's directing these bugs seems fast and smart." said Malcolm.

"As fast and smart as the bugs without that direction seem to be slow and dumb." commented Tintinel.

"Does anyone know if there are other entrances to this mine?" asked Malcolm.

One old man answered, "None that the miners made, but there are natural air vents so we didn't need to cut any. I don't know if any of them are big enough for these bugs to get through all the way to the surface; we didn't explore them, we were just glad they were there."

"We'll just have to assume there's at least one they can get out through - if not, all the better. Too bad we can't just fumigate the place, but there are people in there we have to rescue if we can and quickly too.

"The overriding concern, it seems to me," said Tintinel, "is to destroy or incapacitate the intelligence behind these things. We need to determine if it communicates with the individual bugs from a certain direction or if it just pervades the air, so to speak. Maybe we can tell if there's a direction by lifting different edges of one of these nets and seeing how the bug reacts."

Excellent idea, Tintinel!" exclaimed Malcolm, "All the problems would be over if we could find the commander of this bunch and stop the communication - by whatever means. We need to do it where the other bugs can't see what we're doing; we don't want the chief bug, for want of a better term, to figure out what we're doing and make the bug we're working with act like nothing's happening. Take a couple of men over to a netted bug that's hidden from the others and test it out. The rest of us will stay here."

As Tintinel and the other men went off a large group of men arrived from the town. They had felt that the bugs there were incapacitated and we might need more help here.

As Malcolm was updating them on the situation Tintinel came back and said, "The communication does seem to be coming from one direction, but it's not the mine. I think if we move the bug and then do the uncovering again we could get a second direction and where the lines cross should be the thing we're looking for."

"Do it! Malcolm ordered. "Take someone along who knows these hills."

The old man who had known about the mine went along with Tintinel. We watched the bugs at the mine for about a half hour before Tintinel came back with the miner.

"There's a hollow in the mountain near where the two directions cross." He said, "On one side it has a large shallow cave, I'll bet that's where we'll find the cause of all this bug trouble."

"Can you lead us there in a way we're not likely to be seen? asked Malcolm.

"Sure, but if I were in charge of these bugs I'd have sentries posted."

"Of course, but we can make ourselves invisible, and if our non-communication spells work on these nets our invisibility spells should work on the bugs as well as they do on humans; let's give it a go. Read Part Twenty-Five 

Stories about dragons, centaurs, and wizards, enhanced with electronic media, for fantasy lovers; new postings monthly by Antelope E-Books.

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