Catalyst

Chapter 28: The Infested

"Bane, what you suggest is nothing less than suicide," Firenze said. "We have already lost many brave warriors to their fangs, and you propose to send more?"

"We must answer fire with fire, Firenze! The acromantulas must pay for what they have done, and there is no time like the present!" Bane replied. The two centaurs stood in a middle of a crowd. The survivors of the initial attack huddled together.

"You have seen the results of trying to fight those monstrosities with your own eyes. Those are not the acromantulas we are used to dealing with," Firenze countered. "We cannot afford another loss like that."

"Would you rather let the acromantulas have free reign? Yes, I saw what the acromantulas, I saw the bodies. We all did. We need to prevent them from growing stronger, now, while they're weakened," Bane continued to argue. "Can you not see that Firenze, or have the humans infected you with their blindness?"

"Blindness? Look around you, Bane," Firenze gestured at the injured and shell shocked survivors clustered around them. They had hollow expressions. Families huddled together, futilely attempting to comfort each other. "Do you really think they are ready to attack them head on?"

"Attacking is better than leaving them to their own devices," Bane maintained. "At this very moment, they could be taking advantage of our lack of action to expand, to-"

"They aren't going to be expanding," A voice from the crowd interrupted Bane mid-sentence.

"He won't go a centimeter past his borders until every last one of us is dead," Milano said. The last few words were said in a disturbingly cheerful tone, as if he was reciting a children's poem.

"How do you know that?" Bane asked. "They have already attacked us, what's the next-"

"I know because he said so. He didn't lie to us at all," Milano said in the same cheerful time.

"Who didn't lie?" Firenze asked, eyes narrowed.

"Why, the leader of the acromantulas of course. Who else?" Milano answered with a giggle. "He said he wouldn't expand while we forbid it."

"And look how that turned out! He has already broken his word, and even now, he is likely weaving his webs across the entire forest," Bane interrupted.

"No!" Milano shouted, hysterical. Every eye was on him in an instant. "We're still living! He won't do that. Not while even a single centaur lives. He's keeping his word."

"How can you say that, while we hide from his colonies gaze even now?" Firenze said. "Have you gone mad?"

"I say this because I know! We banned him from expanding, and we're certainly not going to change our minds. So the Mind's going to kill us all, just to make sure we can never oppose it!"

"The Mind?" Firenze asked, puzzled.

"We're just ants, pests, obstacles, resources, stressors. Barely worth noticing, small things that burrow underneath the skin and modify all they find..." Milano trailed off, stopping his rant. He stared at his hands as if he had never seen them before. "Oh. So that's what happened. A shame. For a moment, it was all so clear."

Milano suddenly drew his blade. The other centaurs, already on a short fuse, drew and nocked their own bows. Milano found himself staring down a bristling wall of arrows. He stood still, looking carefully over the bows and the faces of the centaurs holding them. He burst out into laughter.

"You can't kill me anymore. What's a few extra pokes to a walking corpse?" Milano addressed his audience. Then he stabbed his knife straight into his forehead. Milano's last sight was his friends, his family, watching him bleed out. Their shock was plain to see, despite everything.