He put that thought away as unworthy and scrambled up the paths and ladders that led to the biggest cave, which sat at the very top.
The biggest cave, where they held their communal meetings, presented special challenges. They couldn’t afford to leave it empty, because the population of Winten-ah would have overflowed the smaller caverns. At the same time, the mouth of the big cave was both broad and tall—big enough that birds constantly flew in and out of it and built their nests in recessed corners.
Ordinarily, that was a good thing. They could have a number of fires going and the airflow from the mouth of the cave and the cracks in the ceiling moved the smoke away perfectly.
Now, that opening presented a danger. If the cloud passed directly over Winten-ah—and that was the path it was on—tens or hundreds of thousands of zisla-ta would float in. They couldn’t harm the cave itself, but if they arrived in great enough numbers, they could smother and consume everyone inside. Then they would skitter to the edge of the cave, issue forth a new silk parachute, and float away to the next place of destination on their itinerary.
Alex’s solution to that had been the same one he had used to keep the alligator creatures away on the island on the Okrent-ah river: fire.
Earlier, they had laid dry tinder along the entire length of the cave mouth, then piled kindling on top of that, then firewood, then green branches. They piled this more than halfway up the opening, but just left an opening in the middle.
Now, with the plague of zisla-ta upon them, the majority of Winten-ah piled through that opening and into the cave. Alex, Sekun-ak, and Senta-eh were the last to hurry through, then turned and closed the barricade.
People on both ends then moved toward each other with torches, lighting the pile on fire as they went.
Even with the pitch and kindling, it took the fire time to start and Alex leaned out of the cave and looked at the oncoming cloud.
It was indeed blocking out the sky. It was mid-day, but outside it looked like dusk.
The zisla-ta arrived slowly at first, landing on top of the barrier designed to stop them, then leaping toward whatever they first saw move.
“Fan the flames,” Alex shouted to those who had lit the fire. “Get it burning hotter!” He pointed at a group of younger Winten-ah who stood on the side of the cave, holding their cudgels. “Now, go to work!”
The youth—an equal mixture of boys and girls—surged forward wielding their cudgels. As each zisla-ta first landed on the barrier then jumped, the youth swung their cudgels like Mickey Mantle. A solid hit would completely destroy the bug, leaving not much more but a brown cloud of spores and a few stray, hairy legs.
If it was less than a direct hit, the zisla-ta would be knocked spinning across the room and younger children would jump on them as if they were playing an insectoid version of hopscotch.
Both the teenagers and kids enjoyed the game, at least initially.
Eventually, the fire built up high enough that the bugs could not land on it anymore. At least not without sizzling and tumbling to the ground already dead.
Then the fire built higher still, so that flames were leaping almost to the top of the cave’s opening. That didn’t stop the zisla-ta from trying to come in. In fact, it couldn’t.
Outside the cave, the leading edge of the cloud had swept across the forest and was just hitting the field. From side to side, the mass of zisla-ta was fifteen miles wide. As it moved along on the coastal wind, it swept over everything in a fifteen-mile swath.
The zisla-ta that spun off the spinning mass were already heavier than Alex had expected to see, even at the height of the bug storm. He knew that the onslaught hadn’t even begun in earnest.
The fire was working, though. The kids were momentarily unhappy that no more spiders were entering the cave. They stood just behind the fire line, cudgels in hand, waiting.
The wall of fire was effective, but there were two unanticipated side effects. When each spider hit the flames, it exploded like a kernel of popcorn. At first it was like a rhythm—pop, pop, pop-pop, pop-pop, pop.
As the cloud moved closer, that rhythm intensified. When the front edge hit them square on, the endless popping sounded like a machine gun that didn’t stop. The popping grew into an odd cacophony that was so unpleasant that even the teens and children moved back away from the door, covering their ears.
The second side effect was even worse. It was the smell. It wasn’t noticeable at first, when it was overwhelmed by the smell of the fire and smoke itself.
As first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of the zisla-ta hit the flames and exploded, an incredibly strong, earthy smell moved through the cave.
Alex glanced down at Monda-ak. “I’ll bet this is the first time you’ve ever wished your sense of smell wasn’t so good. I wish there was something I could do for you.”
Monda-ak shook his massive head from side to side as if trying to rid himself of the horrible, cloying odor. He sneezed. Then he shook himself top to bottom and sneezed twice more. Finally, he laid as flat on the floor of the cave as he could and looked up at Alex with mournful eyes.
“I know it’s awful, but if we were out there, they would be picking our bones clean.”
The Winten-ah tried wrapping a cloth around their noses, but that didn’t seem to stop it. Alex breathed only through his mouth, but somehow that pulled the smell deep into his lungs, where it lingered. He finally decided there was nothing to do but forget it. Alex forced himself to move forward and focus on other things.
He noticed that the fire was already burning down. As soon as the flames were
