Dimensional Summoner: Infinite Growth in a Leveling Apocalypse

The first scout emerged from the upper burrow before the dust settled.

Two more climbed from gaps in the collapsed bank that I hadn’t identified as openings. That was information I would have preferred to acquire from farther away.

They stood no higher than my waist, low and long beneath pale-grey plates that shed rain instead of holding it. Six needle legs drove into the slope on points rather than pads, explaining every track I had failed to find in the firmer soil. Their forelimbs ended in narrow, comb-like cutters stained with resin.

[Carrow Surface Scout — Level 12]

Individually, they were below everyone in our party.

There were seven in sight, and I didn’t believe for a moment that seven was all they had.

They didn’t charge. Two moved along the exposed concrete, keeping their feet on the resin lines, then stopped beyond easy reach. Another pair spread across the bank. One approached our left until I raised the rifle toward it. It withdrew at once, moving sideways instead of back.

As everyone’s attention followed it, another scout appeared beside the narrow strip that remained around the collapse.

"They’re not attacking," Corran said. He didn’t sound relieved.

"They’re taking the exits," I said. "Watch what they close, not what they threaten."

One scout lowered its resin comb to the concrete and tapped three times. The others changed position together.

Deyra didn’t wait for more proof. "Controlled withdrawal to the upper apron. Vasse, rear left. Corran, rear right. Keep Ivo between you. Vale, call the ground. Nobody fires unless a creature commits."

The militia moved without crowding each other. Ivo tried to look behind him once, caught his boot on broken concrete, and Vasse shoved him upright without taking his eyes off the scouts.

The nearest creatures followed but stayed outside the easy range of a knife. One darted forward whenever someone turned toward the narrow bypass, then retreated when a weapon tracked it. A second waited farther up the bank, ready to cut across the route we would choose to avoid the first.

They weren’t reading minds. They didn’t need to. Five humans on unstable ground had only so many sensible directions to move.

"Two metres right," I told Deyra. "The darker slab is tilted toward the hollow."

She shifted the line without asking me to justify it in the middle of the retreat. Corran covered the movement. A scout rushed him, stopped when his spear came level, and sprang away before he could overextend.

The next one committed for Ivo.

I fired. The round punched through the pale plate behind its front legs and threw it off the concrete. The other scouts scattered at the sound, but they didn’t flee. They changed their spacing.

Predator’s Veil broke with the shot. Recoil drove through the heel of my stitched palm like a heated wire. I changed my grip and kept moving.

Another scout came off the bank into the gap between Ivo and Vasse. I fired again and missed low to the left. The ground there had shifted under my boot, but the blood soaking through my dressing made its own contribution.

Corran stepped across the opening and caught the creature’s resin comb on the shaft of his spear. Vasse struck from the side, cracking one of its forelegs. They didn’t kill it, but they pushed it back long enough for Ivo to reach the apron.

Feline Grace kept me upright across the broken concrete. It didn’t stop the pull in my palm or make my body strong enough to ignore a bad landing. By the time we reached level ground, my breath had shortened and the scouts had learned the distance from which I could fire accurately while moving.

The upper apron was wider than the swale, open enough for all five of us to stand without touching. Behind it rose the unbroken side of the culvert. Below us, the collapse blocked the main route. The only remaining bypass ran along the outer bank.

That was when something larger forced its way out of the slumped earth beside it.

It was half again the size of the scouts, broad through the front, with flat cutting limbs held raised before its head. Mud slid from dark plates along its back. It planted itself across the narrow bypass and stopped.

It didn’t have to advance. The scouts were already tightening behind us and along both sides.

"Defensive line," Deyra said, turning as she spoke. "Backs to the sound concrete. Vasse, left. Corran, right. Keep Ivo behind you. Ivo, down and stay there."

Everyone obeyed. Vasse kept his spear low enough to catch a rush without chasing one. Corran watched the cutter instead of the smaller shapes trying to draw his eyes. Deyra placed herself where she could reinforce either side.

They were doing it properly. They might have kept most of us alive on that apron for several minutes.

I had seen the same shape of problem in a loading bay beneath Carrow Deep. Routes disappeared one at a time until the only choice left was the one the colony had prepared.

The cutter shifted whenever one of us looked toward the bypass. The scouts didn’t hurry. They only took another metre from the space around us.

I had kept a full Blind Call charge unused for six days. First there had been thirteen strangers in my yard, then eight residents beginning a trial stay. An unknown woman could arrive armed, injured, terrified, or in the middle of using an ability. Bringing her into a compound with Nell’s children nearby would have been irresponsible.

I would make that decision again.

Here, the balance had changed.

The result would still be random. The woman who arrived might be a scholar, a healer, or someone already wounded. She would be taken from her own life without warning and placed in an active fight she had never chosen. The link would let me explain the danger. It would not make her obey me.

But there were five people on a concrete apron while the colony removed every safe direction around us. Saving the charge for a hypothetical worse day would not help the bodies we might leave on this one.

"Solt."

"Busy, Vale."

"I need thirty seconds and four clear metres. My private ability can bring a real person here temporarily. The connection lets me communicate with her, but she keeps her own judgment. She may be disoriented, and she may arrive with a weapon already in her hand."

Deyra’s head turned. "You’re telling me she might refuse to help."

"Yes. That’s the honest version. The alternative is keeping the charge unused while that thing closes the last route."

She looked at the cutter, then at the scouts edging closer along the drainage side. The decision took her less than two seconds.

"Vasse, Corran—hold your line. Don’t turn around and don’t fire behind you unless I give the order." She stepped back and opened space herself. "Four metres, Vale. Make them count."

I chose the arrival point as carefully as the situation allowed: dry, level concrete three metres from the culvert wall, no one behind it, nothing overhead that had been undercut, and both possible exits visible.

I had activated Blind Call in danger before. I had watched women arrive ready to strike at threats from another world, or into a place whose rules they couldn’t possibly understand at first glance. Every second of confusion belonged to the decision I was making.

The cutter lowered its front limbs and began to advance. At the same moment, the scouts on the bank surged forward and erased the last open ground on our left.

I spent the charge.

[Blind Call activated.]

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