Nth felt the trap primed, a score of the best hunters of Mother’s Brood hiding among the branches, ready for the ambush. The weavers were already retreating, broadcasting that they had done their work well.

Then the web was ringing, dancing, and he could not find words in it, just a roaring of undifferentiated noise coming to him through his belly and his feet, so that he scuttled from roost to roost, trying to rid himself of the cacophony, trying to understand.

Fire! came a word that stopped him. Fire was friend to Man, no friend to Mother’s Brood. Then another sibling had found a secure post to speak from and the message jumped and bounced to Nth: We die! They come to prey on us! Protect Mother!

Instantly Nth was moving, by web and branch, surefooted and swift, scurrying toward the source of the disturbance. His very tread told those nearest him, I am coming, and the same words came from all around. Mother’s Brood was mobilizing to crush these intruders, these Men.

As he ran he felt the quick, fierce words rattle beneath him:

They have severed the web. They have destroyed the trees.

Many?

Few. But they have much Fire, and a light that burns worse than the sun. They can strike from afar.

Destroy them! Protect Mother!

Protect Mother!

And a dawning horror even as Nth crept and reached from tree to tree, stop-start, stop-start, because the Men were pressing deeper into the forest; because they were slaying many of the Brood. Because they were headed straight for Mother.

Ahead of him another swathe of web crackled and parted, shriveling to nothing in a sudden burst of heat. His clustered eyes caught the glare of it, little more, but he changed course. The Men were traveling faster than word could keep up, leaving the Brood constantly off-balance. Every time their fire flared they were striking Nth’s siblings dumb by destroying the lines and nets that they spoke through.

Then he was close to them, seeing only the pattern of their movement, the knot of Men like a single many-limbed entity to his weak eyes. At the fore it had metal claws, and those of the Brood that attacked them, mad with their fear for Mother, were pierced and cut, limbs hacked from their bodies, innards spilled and strewn and trampled as the Man-creature moved on.