(This is the story text from the corresponding Radio Cataclysm podcast episode. If you prefer audio, you can subscribe here. Read and listen early on Patreon.)

The Sun rose softly, a spreading stain on the volcanic shroud. The bruised light seeped onto a small crop of potatoes and cabbages, the biggest patch of green for miles. There was no cock to crow, but a scrawny goat raised an eyelid and lowered it again. Another one slept on nearby. It was no farm, but a good garden, well kept. The house was a dab of order in a landscape of chaos. No other buildings stood in that ruined place. None of the roads ran straight and smooth, but the house stood square, a cement walkway leading down from the door to the shattered asphalt. Nearby, a team of robotic horses stood patiently, guarded by a dark form. Nobody stirred inside the house. A short distance away and twenty feet under the ground, a hatch slid open.

“It's too dark without a flashlight,” said the boy.

“Your eyes will adjust,” said the girl. She looked at her watch. “Sun's coming up. That'll be enough light to make our way by.”

“Mom and Dad said to stay in the shelter.”

“Then stay. You make too much noise, anyway.” The boy's face crumpled. The girl sighed. “I didn't mean that, Chuckles. It's just safer here. I'll be back in a minute. Sit tight.” She crawled into the tunnel. Once she got away from the dim light of the shelter, it was darker than having her eyes closed. She made her way on her hands and knees along the rough planks that lined the floor.

“Meg, wait. I'm coming,” said Chuck. Meg Jr. didn't answer, but she stopped to let Chuck catch up.

The tunnel was a quarter of a mile long, but it seemed longer. Meg was sure they'd been crawling for an hour when they finally reached the door.

“How do you know they're still asleep?” said Chuck.

“They got here late,” said Meg. “And they need lots of sleep. Ten hours, every night. Grampa said.” Their grandfather had never said such a thing, but Chuck was too young to remember. “Just stick close to me. Stay as far from them as you can, and you'll be fine. They have sensors that wake them if they're ambushed, but not if an animal or something creeps by. Or else they'd never get any sleep.”

Grampa Chuck really had told her that one, along with a thousand other things. “So you're ready when they come for you,” he'd said. Meg had always thought he was just trying to scare her. But now they really had come.

“You have to be quiet if you're going to come along,” said Meg. “Not a peep.”

“What about your whistle?” said Chuck.

“They can't hear it on the other side of the door,” she said, and hoped it was true. “Promise to be quiet as a cloud.”

“Promise,” he whispered.

The penny whistle hung on a string inside Meg's shirt, and she pulled it out now. She fiddled with the mouthpiece. She could just give it a twist, draw a porting circle and whisk herself and Chuckles to safety. But what about their parents? No. Grampa wouldn't abandon them. Wouldn't abandon their home. She played a quick three notes. The door shimmered faintly, the only light in the tunnel. From somewhere inside the lock, the same three notes played back in reverse order. A moment later, a snippet of song played out from a hidden speaker. Meg had practiced this a thousand times, and she knew exactly what to do. As soon as the music ended, she played the next few bars on her penny whistle. She played as softly as she could, blowing just hard enough to produce a note.

Chuck sat and listened, keeping his promise not to make a sound. He'd heard the song before, though he couldn't remember all the words. It was one of Grampa Chuck's favorites, something about starting a fire, or not starting a fire. Their parents played it on the turntable whenever they had electricity.

The song ended. The click of the lock sounded like a gunshot to Meg's ears. The door swung open, bringing a cool draft from the cellar. She held her breath and listened. Nothing. She tapped Chuck on the shoulder, and he followed her through the root cellar and into the open area of the basement. After a moment's deliberation, she went back and closed the small door into the tunnel. It latched with another click and vanished into its cloak spell.

There wasn't much light, but Meg had been right; there was enough to make their way by. Bulbous white sacs hung from the ceiling, hammock-like pouches made of spiderwebs. Inside each sac, Meg knew, was a soldier from the Sparassa. “You'll never see their faces,” Grampa had said. “They wear masks like spider's heads. They've got fangs that drip poison. They can almost see behind their heads with all those eyes.”

There were four sleeping sacs, but no other webs. No tightly wrapped body-shaped packages. Their parents weren't down here. Meg held her breath and hurried to the stairs as fast as she dared. Chuck was right behind. Neither of them noticed the pair of eyes that followed them across the room.

In the kitchen, Meg slid a chef's knife out of the block on the counter. She heard the squeak of the stove opening and spun around. Chuck had pulled out the log from inside, and was holding it like a club. Meg shook her head. Chuck nodded. Meg shook her head again. Chuck stood there with the log, defiant. Meg sighed and moved on. “If he has to use it, it's too late anyway,” she thought. “Better to go out fighting.”

They stood in the doorway of the living room for a minute, straining their eyes for any sign of movement, listening for the smallest sound. Meg's heartbeat thundered in her ears. Finally, she went in.

Meg had never been a good sleeper. Not since Grampa died, at least. She got tired of lying awake for hours at night, so she'd get up and do her chores early. Or she'd sneak out to the field and lie on the skeleton rock and imagine she could see the stars through the shroud. Or she'd crawl out through the tunnel to the shelter and pretend the Churls were invading. Years of insomnia had given her a map of every squeak and creak in the house, and all the places you could step to avoid them. She turned to Chuck and pointed at her feet, then mouthed the words, “Follow me,” and hoped he saw. Hoped he understood to step exactly where she did.

The stairs were all the way across the room from the kitchen door. Meg took each step slower than she normally would have, exaggerating each one so her brother could follow. To his credit, Chuck didn't step on a single squeaky board. He didn't drop his log. He didn't say a word. They were as quiet as a cloud, until Meg put her foot down in a pile of something that crunched like dead leaves. She felt it on her bare foot, but there was no way to avoid it without throwing off her balance and falling, which would be much louder than a soft crunch, so she put her foot down.

Meg knew she should just keep going. She had an inkling of what she'd stepped in, and she knew she didn't want to touch it. Maybe it was just dried leaves the Churls had tracked in. Sometimes they blew in from the Slumping Wood, but it was weeks too early for that. She couldn't help it. She had to know for sure. She stooped down and scooped up a handful of the stuff.

They were almost weightless in her hand. They looked the same color as the floor in the scarce light. Each one was a tiny bead, hugged by eight legs lifelessly curled about its form. “Bred for one purpose,” Grampa had said, “and that's to wrap you up. You'll think you're faster than them, but you're not. You'll try to brush them off, but there's more spiders in that egg sac than you can imagine. More than you'd think possible. They'll hatch, and swarm all over you, and weave their web sac around you before you know what's happening. They wrap you up, and then they just drop dead.”

Meg shuddered and dropped the spiders. There was another pile of the tiny corpses at the foot of the stairs. Two piles. One for Mom, one for Dad. She wondered if Chuck knew what they were, or what they meant. He dutifully crunched through after her.

The stairs were easy for Meg, but Chuck had shorter legs. Most of the way up, you only had to skip a step at a time, or put your weight in just the right spot. The top two steps were different. No matter where you set your foot, no matter how careful you were, the top two steps made a sound every single time.

Meg took a giant step straight from the third stair to the landing. She turned and looked down at Chuck. Her heart leapt. A tall figure stood by the front door, glaring at her. Her blood turned to ice. She started to gasp, then caught herself. She blinked. Of course, there was nobody there. It was only the hat rack, with all of their coats hanging from it. The weather was starting to chill, and they'd gotten their Autumn gear out of the attic last week. But hadn't that shadow moved? Meg shook her head and put it out of her mind.

Chuck was eying the landing, trying to calculate whether he could stretch his leg far enough to cover both stairs at once. Meg set her knife down on the floor. She pointed at Chuck's club and held out her hand. He gave it to her. She set it next to the knife, then descended back to the third step. She knelt down and patted herself on the back. It had been years since she'd given Chuck a piggyback ride, but he remembered the gesture all the same. It was a little tricky on a single step in a dark stairwell, but he put his arms around her neck and she grabbed his legs and stood up.

Meg couldn't help but grunt with the effort. Chuck had not only been shorter, but tens of pounds lighter last time. Still, she'd lifted plenty of potato sacks. She could carry her kid brother. All she had to do was breathe. All she had to do was take one step.

Taking the step was the easy part. She hadn't known how much harder it would be to pull herself up to the landing with the strength of one leg, with no free hand to brace against the wall, with nothing to grab to pull herself up. It took every ounce of strength, and she was sure that their combined weight would be too much and the creak of the floor would be enough to wake to whole house. But it didn't. She put her other foot down, and they were there at the top of the stairs. She set her brother down. They picked up their weapons.

The hallway looked a mile long. All of the doors were ajar, except the linen closet. The first room they passed had been Grampa Chuck's. Now it was Meg's. Grampa had always told her to stay low when sneaking by a doorway. She crouched as low as she could and crept forward. She risked a peek inside. It was her room; she had to.

Two people shared the small bed. Another slept on the floor next to it, and a fourth slept on the rug at the foot of the bed. The one on the rug wore tight-fitting black pajamas and a fancy-looking wristwatch. The plated mail uniform of an Imperial Guard was neatly arranged on the floor close by.

The other three all wore different outfits, but they were each fitted with helms attached to pauldrons and rerebraces, ivory-colored plates that covered their shoulders and upper arms. Training yokes. Those three were either prisoners or new recruits. Or both. Grampa had a broken yoke he'd kept after the Sack of Roanoke. The Churls had captured his unit and put them in a work camp. “The yokes keep you in line, all right,” he'd told her. “But there's limits to what they can do. They control the body, but not the mind. They can make you dig a ditch, but they can't make you cast a spell. The worst part is that you get used to them after a while. They're not comfortable, sure, but it's just like wearing a few pieces of armor. They're not even active most of the time. Just kind of there. But then, if you try to do something you're not supposed to, or if you don't do something they tell you to, the yoke kicks in. It hijacks your nerves, takes over your muscles. It has its limits, but like I said, they can make you dig a ditch.” Meg thought they must be horrible to sleep in.

She glanced to make sure Chuck was still behind her. He gave her a nod. They crept on. Chuck's room was next, and she peeked in there, too. Chuck still had a pair of bunk beds, left over from when they used to share the room. She only saw two people in there, one in each bunk. Their armor was piled neatly on the toy chest. The plates glistened with a dull red, like embers in an old fire. These two were Tephran soldiers. Grampa didn't like the Sparassa, but he absolutely hated the Tephra. “Brutes. All they do is burn and wreck things. Broke through the ground up by the hot springs. They have submarines that can go through lava. If there's no lava where they want to go, they make their own.” Meg wondered briefly why there were only two of them, and what they were doing here. She decided she didn't care, and crept on.

Chuck paused to peek into his room, but only for a second. He stuck close to his sister. Their parent's bedroom was at the end of the hallway. The door was only open an inch. She'd have to push it open. Not much. Only enough to slip through. But doors were not the same as floorboards. You couldn't just avoid the squeaky parts. She tried to remember the sound of her parent's door. She'd heard it every day of her life, except for the two weeks when she was eight and they all went with the caravan to buy livestock. Now, when it really mattered, she couldn't remember how it creaked, or if it even made a sound at all.

She sighed. She could spend the whole night trying to remember all the squeaks of all the doors, but it didn't matter. She didn't have any other choice. She pushed the door open just far enough to slip through. Chuck followed right behind.

On the bed were two off-white bundles, each about six feet long. One was Mom, and the other was Dad. They weren't alone. The closet door was open. Sitting on the steps that led to the attic was a man with the face of a spider. He wore a full suit of armor, with copper-colored plates that shone even in the gloom. “Copper,” Meg remembered. “The color of a Churlish Colonel. They're the worst of all.” The spaces between the armor plates were filled by something that shimmered black and red like the Tephran armor. The eight eyes on his helmet seemed to stare right into the two of them. His chelicerae moved when he spoke. The fangs looked wet. “Children!” he said. “I've been expecting you.”

* * *

Lieutenant Sheryl Teymore was awake. She'd slept fitfully for an hour or so and then jolted out of sleep. It was how her nights went more often than not, ever since the Plumwine incident. She lay in her hammock, suspended in the fetal position. Sometimes she managed to lull herself back to sleep if her mind would consent to wander. Mostly, she stared and waited for morning to come.

The click of a door drew her attention. She stayed still, feigning sleep. She'd had her suspicions about their host couple's story, but she'd hoped she was wrong. They'd insisted their children had died of Ashen Plague, but that rarely affected those under fifty. Sheryl suspected the children had been secreted away in some hidden shelter. Her suspicions were confirmed when they tiptoed out of the root cellar. She watched them cross the room and creep up the basement stairs. Then she slipped out of her hammock and followed them.

She kept her distance, keeping to the shadows and staying as quiet as all Sparassa were trained to. She watched them cross the living room, avoiding all the squeaky boards in the house they'd grown up in. Were still growing up in. They were far from silent, but they were almost as quiet as Sheryl, until they crunched through the spent weaver husks. The girl picked up a handful of weavers and examined them.

It hadn't taken long for the Colonel to wrap their parents. When they spotted the house late last night, Sheryl had offered to speak to the owners. The Colonel had insisted he do it. He was brusque. “We are soldiers of the Empire, in need of room and board. We will take what supplies we need, and you will be duly compensated.”

“This isn't wartime, and we don't owe you shit,” said the father, and grabbed for the Colonel's sword. He was lucky to still be in one piece. The weavers wrapped him quickly and he hit the floor with a thud.

“There's a new war,” said the Colonel. “Less than a fortnight old. But the law applies, all the same. If you refuse us, we're free to take what we need by force. And without compensation.”

“Of course,” said the mother. “We didn't know. We don't get news very often down here. Please forgive us; we just lost our children. Ashen Plague. We weren't thinking clearly. Of course, you'll stay the night. And we'll share whatever we can.”

That was when the Colonel had wrapped her. “Search the house, top to bottom,” he'd commanded. “Find those children. Look for any signs of collusion with the Arterians. But do be tidy about it.”

The girl dropped the husks and continued tiptoeing. “What are they doing?” Sheryl thought. “Looking for their parents, probably. Trying to save them from us. I should stop them. Wrap them up and take them outside. Before the Colonel finds them. And then what? Send them out alone into the night? There's nowhere to take them. There's nothing around for miles.” They were halfway up the stairs. Sheryl crept after them, nearly blowing her cover when the girl turned back to help her brother up the final steps. She managed to hide at the last second, and watched the girl carry her brother on her back past the final two steps, barely making it without falling over. “They haven't creaked a single board, but if the Colonel is listening, they're being far too loud,” she thought.

She caught up with them in the upstairs hallway. This would be her last chance. She was fairly sure the Colonel wouldn't harm them physically, but there was so much else he could do to them. To their family. The children were nearing the master bedroom, no doubt in search of their parents. The Colonel had stationed himself in the attic for the night, just up the closet stairs. They were pushing the door open; she had to act. She rushed forward, quiet as a whisper. She was right behind the boy, ready to wrap them both up and carry them away.

Of course, the Colonel was already there, waiting for them.

* * *

“Good work, Lieutenant,” said the Colonel. His voice was thirsty and metallic through the speaker in his mouthpiece. “I had a feeling you'd root them out.”

Meg spun around. “You'll never see their faces.” But this soldier's mask dangled from her utility belt. Meg saw her close-cropped hair. She saw every scar on her face. She saw those haunted eyes looking down at her.

Chuck swung his club at Sheryl. Reflexively, she grabbed his wrist midway through the swing. There was a soft crack. Chuck wailed. Sheryl took the club but let go of the boy's arm. Her mouth hung open. Meg stabbed at Sheryl with her knife. The tip snapped off against her armor. Sheryl snatched the knife away, almost as an afterthought.

Meg stepped back, grabbed Chuck's good arm and pulled him close.

“A little brutal, Lieutenant,” said the Colonel. “No need for breaking bones just yet.”

“It was-” she almost said 'an accident,' but stopped herself. “Let me mend his arm,” she said to Meg. “Let me help.”

“Don't you touch him!” Meg shouted.

“I'm sure they have their country medicine, Lieutenant.” The Colonel stood up and towered over the children. “Now, wherever have you been hiding on this cold night?”

“Fuck off, Churl,” said Meg, and spat at the Colonel. “Release our parents and leave our property. Now.” Chuck wept quietly at her side.

“Your parents told us you were dead,” said the Colonel. “Some cock-and-bull story about Ashen Plague.”

“They were trying to keep us safe from you spider-faced pieces of shit,” said Meg.

“Oh, yes?” said the Colonel. He took the kitchen knife from Sheryl. “They weren't planning for you to ambush us while we slept?”

“That was just to cut them loose when we found them,” said Meg. “We know all about your web sacs.”

The Colonel held the knife against the dark silk that covered his throat, between his chest plate and helm. He pressed hard and slashed. Nothing happened. The silk was unmarred. He held up the knife. “This would not have sufficed.” He raised his arm toward the bed. “This will.” A thin nozzle extended from between two fingers. A heavy mist sprayed out and settled over the websacs that contained Meg and Chuck's parents.

“Let them be alive,” Sheryl thought.

The webbing started to dissolve as soon as the spray touched it, melting away like cotton candy in water. The mother opened her eyes and gasped for air. A lot of people do that, Sheryl knew from experience. You can breathe just fine in one of those sacs, but your mind believes otherwise. Some people feel like a baby in swaddling clothes. Some feel like a corpse in a burial shroud. In either case, nearly all of them fall asleep within minutes. Removal of the silk revives them almost instantly. Suffocation is rare, but every so often somebody will have a heart attack while they are wrapped. For a moment, she thought that had happened to the father. His eyes were open, but his face was frozen in a rictus of panic.

“Oh, god, Dan,” said the woman. “Danny!” She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. She slapped his face. He gasped, sucking in a lungful of air all at once. He went straight into a coughing fit, rolling over onto his side and holding his belly.

“I'm all right,” he said after a minute. He turned to his wife. “Megan, are you okay?”

“They found the kids,” Megan whispered, staring at her children across the room.

“Oh, my god,” said Dan. “Please. Do what you want to us, but please don't hurt our children.”

“What sort of stories do you people tell each other about the Churls?” said the Colonel. “By the way you act, you'd think we were inhuman monsters. Hiding your children in some dank shelter, only for them to sneak up to us in the small hours with knives and clubs. We're simply soldiers on the road, seeking assistance. It's a shame we couldn't find a place of trust between us. Take them downstairs, Lieutenant. We might as well sort this out over breakfast.”

* * *

Corporal Bunting and Private Murkle were already awake, roused by the commotion. They watched Sheryl pass by with the host family, children first. Their transit was followed by the sound of reveille, played with a crisp precision by the Colonel's squire, Chad. Chad was still upstairs, but his bugle shook the windows from attic to cellar. Bunting and Murkle scrambled to their feet and saluted the music. Overhead, footsteps clomped around the attic.

Bunting's wrist comm crackled with static. “Respond, Corporal,” said the Colonel's voice.

“Bunting here,” he replied, stifling a yawn.

“Saddle up and prepare to leave on my command. You and Murkle are the vanguard today.”

“Aye, sir,” said Bunting.

“And leave the room neater than you found it.”

“Will do.” The comm fell silent. “I guess we'll be eating breakfast ahorse,” Bunting said to Private Murkle. “That means we'll be on horseback. Not that we'll be eating a horse for breakfast.”

“I know what it means,” said Murkle.”

“Help me buckle my armor, would you?” said Bunting. “I have trouble reaching the ones on the back. Not as flexible as I used to be.”

“Of course,” said Murkle. “Just as soon as I've done my devotion.”

“You really have to do that every morning?”

“I don't have to. I want to. It keeps me close to the Fornax.” Murkle took a long metal tine from a small case he kept in his pocket. The case contained a built in lighter, and Murkle held the tine in the flame until it was red hot. Then he touched the glowing end to the back of his hand just long enough to leave a fresh mark next to a number of older burns. He shook the tine to cool it before putting it away.

“What happens if you run out of space on your hand?” said Bunting.

“The tine marks vanish after a month or so,” said Murkle. “Not like the litany.” He gestured at the marks burnt into the skin of his head and neck. “Those are meant to stay.” The sigils of the litany covered half his face and a portion of his bare scalp. They marched on down his neck, and possibly farther. His head was completely hairless, save for his eyebrows and eyelashes. Corporal Bunting was far older, but only wore a few sigils here and there, the kind favored by Tephran soldiers.

“I just don't understand it,” said Bunting.

“It's not for everybody.” Murkle stood. “Ready to suit up?”

* * *

“We can be saddled inside of five minutes,” said Captain Bob Jaut, not at all sure it was true.

“Try to instill some order in your recruits today,” the Colonel said over the wrist comm.

“Aye, sir.”

“It really is your one job, Jaut. I don't ask anything else of you.”

“Aye, sir. I'll whip them into shape. You'll think we're a whole new squad.”

“Just keep the chatter down and crank up the resistance on their yokes. It's not complicated. Honestly, the incompetence I have to deal with-” the Colonel muttered before the comm fell silent.

Captain Jaut turned around. Zeck got to his feet, stretching to coax the stiffness out of his shoulders. “Morning, Bob,” he said. “Sleep well on the rug? The hard wood did wonders for my back.”

“If that's sarcasm, you can cut it out,” said Bob. “And jolly well call me 'Captain.'”

“Here's a serious question, then,” said Zeck. “Captain. Those were definitely children that walked by with their parents a moment ago. But we searched the house, top to bottom. No kids. The parents said they were dead.”

“That's not a question,” said Bob. “But clearly, you did not search thoroughly enough. Yet another reason you're still in the training yokes. I must say, I'm disappointed. Disappointed in the lot of you. Not one of you stood for reveille.”

Steven sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes. They'd all gotten nearly eight hours of sleep, but he didn't look rested. “You searched as well, attercop,” he said. “And it would be a lot easier to follow orders without you standing behind us, picking apart every move we make. Not to mention, these yokes are fucking horrible to sleep in.”

“I'll second that,” said John. “I'm used to sleeping rough, but I never woke up this sore, even after a night in the Hinterlands with a pile of rocks for a pillow.”

“It's for your own safety,” said Bob. “If you wandered off in the night, even for a perfectly innocent reason like waste relief, the Colonel would hold me liable. And what if something happened? We're in an unfamiliar place. Say you went to find a toilet, but instead you fell down the stairs and injured yourself? I'd carry that guilt with me, long after the Colonel reamed me out.”

“If you were really concerned for our health and safety, you'd want us all to get a good night's rest,” said John. “Especially Steven here. Teenagers need more sleep, you know.”

“Well, he can't sleep longer than the rest of us. That simply wouldn't work. We work as a team, and we move as one.” He placed his hand on Steven's shoulder. “If you need a little pick-me-up, the medihorse contains a variety of safe, legal stimulants. We all use them from time to time.”

“Trying to get me crocheted? I didn't have you pegged for a pusher,” said Steven.

“I'm not familiar with your youthful dialect,” said Bob.

“Aren't we supposed to be recruits?” said Zeck. “In training, ostensibly. These are fetters, not uniforms.”

“They are training tools,” said Bob. “And we're lucky the Colonel had some stashed away. You haven't had the benefit of eight years at the Academy. Consider this an accelerated course.”

“Aren't these the same things you make prisoners wear in your work camps?” said Steven.

“They are,” said Bob, “and they're quite effective. Restraint produces discipline. Think of the yokes as training wheels on a bicycle. After a time, you learn to ride without the training wheels ever touching land. Then, when they're finally removed, you don't even notice their absence, because you were no longer aware of their presence. You learned to live without them by learning how to live with them.”

“That is the most depressing bit of propaganda I've heard all day,” said Zeck.

“It's early yet,” said John.

“I'd still like to know where the kids came from and what the hell is going on,” said Zeck.

“Perhaps they hid in a nearby cave and sneaked in through a window,” said Bob. “Their parents probably sent them to hide when they saw us coming. A sure sign of guilt.”

“A sure sign of fear,” said John.

“You were with us at the Foke farmhouse, Bob,” said Zeck. “You can't tell me you trust the Colonel with those kids.”

“That was entirely different,” said Bob, though he didn't sound at all sure of it. He paused a moment, then picked up his uniform and started to snap it on. “Regardless of the situation or the reason for it, the Colonel wants us road ready. He has made me responsible for you three. Four, including Burts, and I take that very seriously. My job is not only to train you and integrate you into the squad, but to keep you safe. Keeping you safe means instilling a sense of discipline that will keep you prepared to face danger when you least expect it. Discipline in this context means respecting the web of command. Our job is not to question orders, our job is to follow them.”

“Told you it was early yet,” said John.

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