Cutter grimaced.

Bitter gremlins danced on his tongue, and all the scraping with his teeth did nothing to alleviate the awful taste. The image of the berry lingered in his mind too, that ugly cystic excuse of a fruit. It resembled something close to a malignant growth cut out from a diseased body. He shuddered when Ira had handed him the berry. It had to be some practical joke, since neither Ira nor Pyrik ate the fruit from that ghastly looking shrub.

“The berry should last until morning, just remember to chew on it every once in a while,” Ira explained earnestly.

He looked to Pyrik, who simply shrugged. He had to trust that the arachne was speaking the truth.

It took every scrap of willpower not to retch it out.

Another chew, another caustic gush that waged a savage war on his taste buds. So be it. The berry worked. He was in the red forest, on a path that could possibly save more lives from this flesh mill. A little bitter was a small price to pay. He kept on chewing.

The forest was dark except for the hint of moonlight that filtered through the red leaves, throwing a soft crimson tint on the forest floor, even blushing the bone-white trees to a pink. Cutter followed closely, treading in Ira’s steps, stopping when she raised a hand upon hearing a series of clicking in the distance. He kept his hand on the pistol. His heart was trying to climb up his throat. The constant chatter was everywhere, like the crickets back home. It sounded so close, so all-consuming. Anywhere was preferable than being exposed in the open. It made him feel naked. It rattled the precariously built trust that Pyrik brokered between him and Ira. Fighting and loss had made him a wary man, particularly toward beasts. He studied at the back of the arachne girl, how it started off human yet ended in the body of a spider.

Monster.

Abomination.

Kill it with fire.

At this point it was an animal instinct to lash out, to shoot first. So many of his comrades had died to a snarling beast. The internalized hostility was merely a reflex. And he might have given into it too, yet when Ira divulged her ignorance to kerosene of all things, something in his mind like a wrench in the gears resisted any simple preconceived notions. When Ira waved for them to follow, he treaded carefully.

The village was unlike anything he had ever seen. High above in the canopy were interconnected shelters spun from spider silk, looking like cotton balls scattered throughout the branches. He would have stood in awe as he marveled at the feat of construction and inginuity, except the village was less than warm to outsiders. Clinging to the tree trunks with their numerous legs, arachne clad in tunics and pieces of insectoid carapice greeted Cutter with an arsenal of arrows and spears. He reckoned those to be the warriors of this village, much like Ira. Yet unlike her though, they were hardly fond of his presence in their forest. He also reckoned that Ira might have bent the truth somewhat to get his involvement. When she turned to him with a sheepish expression, it about confirmed as much as a cry of guilt.

“Quite the welcoming bunch,” Cutter said.

Pyrik shuddered. “Just wait until you get a view down from the canopy.”

Suddenly a spear was planted between his legs. Cutter raised his hands, having taken the threat to heart and glad that whoever threw it was generous enough to miss on purpose.

“Hey! That’s not how we welcome our guests!” Ira shouted at one of the warriors.

He produced another spear. “No, that’s how we treat intruders,” said with a spiteful hiss, like Cutter was lice in their hair.

“It’s the humans that brought this tragedy upon us!” one shouted.

“They’re a horrendous pest fit only for death!” shouted another.

Unanimously hated, quite a wonderful start.

Cutter looked to Ira for some context.

“Our home has shrunk considerably ever since the settlers arrived, felling our home for timber to build theirs,” Ira said.

Cutter grumbled. He stepped up, too incensed with this childish sulking. “How could the settlers have known?” he asked. “None of them knew insectoids existed in the red forest until a month ago. And to I, the existence of this village and your kind was largely an unknown until now as well. There was no malicious intent when the settlers felled your trees, they simply did not know.”

“And how is that fair?” said an older, wrinkled arachne with many long braids. An elder, most likely. “We show ourselves to the humans, and they attack us out of fear. We hide ourselves from the humans, and despite our efforts they come and destroy our homes anyways. So please, how is any of that fair?”

A chorus of arachne backed the elder’s statement, and the warrior with the spear looked a little too eager for Cutter’s comfort.

“No, that’s not fair!” Ira agreed. “But we can’t hide form the world anymore. It has arrived at our little forest, and it’s too big to fight. Please, Elder Clarice. Our bows and arrows are no match for their thunderous weapons. They have a substance called kerosene that can easily burn our home to ash if they so choose.”

“All the more reason to let the insectoids finish off the pest while they are weak!” Elder Clarice spat.

“All the more reason to help them! To help each other, because the only way for our kind to survive is to work with the world, not against it.”

“In return for your help,” Cutter piped up, “I can offer guns, powder, the know-how to create ammunition. The settlers will forever be in your debt. They can become stewards for the forest, your interface for trade with the outside world. An arrangement can be made, you have my word. The real enemy is the insectoids, we have no quarrel with the arachne.”

The elder stared at the captain, trying to pick him apart for any insidious intent. And in truth he did not. His fight was not with them. Yet the elder turned her nose up. “And how will you go about killing the insectoids? They live far underground. Going in to kill them all is tantemount to suicide.”

That was a problem. Cutter would have suggested using the kerosene, but all of it was smashed by Haldane when he and a few others went feverish with mutiny.

“I may have a way,” said a woman up in the canopy.

There was something ethereal about the woman. She glowed as though her body drank in the moonlight, and her flow of blonde hair was absolutely illuminating. Cutter wondered whether she was human or something else.

“Do you now?” The elder asked the woman.

“Anything is possible with a little alchemy and ingenuity.”

“Can you, Aella?” Ira asked, sounding so hopeful it was almost naive.

“I’ve heard about your little kerosene spill, Captain Cutter. I’m certain with the materials in this forest, I can cocot something just as fierce,” the woman, Aella, said to him.

“I’ll need gallons,” Cutter said.

“Then gallons you shall have,” she said as though it was child’s play.

Cutter looked up to the elder. “What say you? Shall we make this work?”

The old arachne simply stood there, judging.

Slowly, he allowed a lone hand to fall down and pulled out his pistol, which he held aloft for all to witness his pact.

“My word is my bond, elder. So please, take this gift. Let it show that I am a man of conviction who holds his promises to the end.”

With an increasingly aching shoulder as he held aloft the pistol, Cutter watched the elder, hoping that she would take his gift in earnesty. So did Ira as she looked to her elder. When she nodded after a tense moment of stillness, the arachne girl was practically abound with joy. In the place of the elder and the entire village, Ira accepted the gift from Cutter.

“I suppose I have to offer you something in return, huh?”

“No, you do not have to. Your help is already enough.”

“No no no. I absolutely assist.” Ira untied the belt sash around her waist, turning the tunic from form-fitting to formless, and offered that as a gift.

Cutter took it with great appreciation. The belt sash was silky smooth, pleasant to the touch. He smiled openly, feeling hopeful that everything might just work after all.

***

Somewhere in the red forest, half mad, half sane, Haldane was biting down on his leather belt as he held a torch that he lit with gunpowder close to his stump. When he felt the excruciating, cauterizing touch of flame against flesh, he chomped on the belt as he howled through the pain.