Best Laid Plans (58 page)

“Trying to sneak in under cover of darkness?”

“Absolutely not,”  said Silas in his most innocent voice.

“Shut it!”  the man snarled. “We ain’t stupid here, whatever you civilised types might reckon. And we ain’t rude neither, are we Venn?”

The man with the net flashed a crooked smile.

“No, we’re most hospitable, Carl. That’s why we came to greet you.”

Silas didn’t like the look in Venn’s eyes: it was calculating and full of threat, like a crocodile poking its head above the surface of a swamp. He reached into the depths of his mind clutching for some strand of magic he could use.

“You the Ant-Man?”  Nils asked in a tremulous voice.

Carl laughed, a ghastly guttural sound.

“No, I ain’t the Ant-Man, boy, and neither’s Venn here.”

Silas closed in on a black misty thread at the edges of his awareness and let its puissance start to blossom.

“That,”  said Carl, turning to look over his shoulder, “is the Ant-Man.”

Silas froze at the sight lumbering towards them. He hardly noticed the burgeoning magic slip from his grasp and disperse back into emptiness.

A hulking man lurched past Venn and Carl. Only it wasn’t a man. It stood on legs that bent backwards, with spines jutting from the shins. The torso was a thick carapace like a black breastplate, and the cuneate head was dominated by the same saucer-like eyes and clacking mandibles the ants had. Knotted muscular arms—human arms—folded over the chitinous chest.

“Shent?”  Silas whispered.

With a rush of air Venn’s net smothered Silas and something heavy crashed into his skull. As he was buried in blackness he heard pleading, as if it came from a fading dream.

“Please! I brought him to you. I’m your friend.”

Nils,
thought Silas as awareness left him.
You little—

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