[h3]The Light[/h3]

Klak stood within a sentry's balcony atop the highest spire of the Red Hive some three hundred feet above the desolate badlands or even the hive's outer minarets. An incredible vista of the twilight desert was afforded to Klak and his entourage of fellow bugmen; the reds and vermillions of the setting sun set the craggy hills ablaze, hoodoos and mesas cast long black shadows across the glowing desert. But it was not the impressive sunset that had attracted the bugmen to this perch, but an even more entrancing phenomenon in the darkening skies to the east.

Set against the faint twinkling of dusk stars was pillar of light far to the northeast. A column of pulsing white-blue lit the eastern sky with a faint glow. The bugmen watched the display in enrapt silence, their antennae quivering with in some combination of awe and trepidation. The silent undulation of the glowing pillar reflected in the eyestalks of the gathered bugmen as they watched lambent pulses travel up and down the length of the pillar. The Light in the East began nearly a fortnight ago, but a dust storm over the region had all but obscured the display until this evening, and only now could the bugmen of the Red Hive clearly view the phenomenon. Merchant caravans had already brought word of the occurrence from foreign lands, but Klak wanted to see the object of such crazed rumors for himself. Laying his own eyes on the Light had only generated more questions in the mind of Klak the Dreamer, Steward of the Red Hive.

"Akarat," Klak broke the silence at last. "Do your eyes still see? Can you see this Light?" A withered and ancient bugman nodded in affirmation. He was held upright by two strapping nymphs as his legs and right arm had been reduced to withered stalks hanging limply from his torso. Even his antennae had fallen out, but his eyestalks remained, and they were fixed upon the Light.

"Yes, Dreamer. Not much of me works anymore but my vision remains. I see the Light."

"You are the oldest and wisest of this Hive, quite probably the wisest of all our kind left in the world. In your many years, have you seen or heard of anything that even resembles [i]this[/i]?"

"I have heard pulsing lights in the lands of unending winter far to the north and south," recounted the bugman historian. "The humans call them 'aurora'. But those are transient and fast moving, lasting for an hour or so at most, not at all like this pillar of light that has shone for many days now. It is the closest thing that comes to my mind, but this Light is not an aurora; I confess that I do not know what it is."

"The humans say that the Light is an omen; that it portends the arrival of invaders," Klak continued. "World Eaters, they call them. Could this be a sign that the Ghul have returned to this world?"

"It would be unlike the Ghul to announce their arrival," said Akarat. "There was no such omen when the Ghul attacked. And even if they had, what would they return for? The Hive Mothers..." Akarat clenched his mandibles together in something of a pained grimace, as if the very thought caused him pain. "The Mothers are gone, and our kind numbers less than one three-thousandth of the population before the Great Sorrow. There is nothing left for them to gorge themselves upon on this world."

"Ghul or not, the rumors tell of invaders from beyond this world," a lithe and powerful nymph spoke up. "And if there is but a kernel of truth to these tales then this world faces a grave threat indeed. We must look to our defenses as our race has not fared well in the face of invaders from beyond the world."

"This is not our world to defend anymore, Warmaster Shkun," said Akarat. "This world belongs to humans, orcs, and elves now. If the tales are true, let them die in defense of this world. Our Hive's tunnels go deep and far, and the aquifer has never once dried. Why fight when we can simply retreat into the deepest reaches of the hive and wait?"

"Wait?" Klak asked.

"Yes," said Akarat. "If the rumors are to be believed, we must preserve ourselves and the Brood away from any conflict. Let the World Eaters come and go as the Ghul did. We cannot spare a single soul. The Brood is finite as you know; each one of us is irreplaceable. Let the World Eaters lay waste to the realms of elf and orc."

"So that we may resurface and lay claim to our doomed world? What will we do then, once the world belongs our moribund race once again? Wait some more, I suppose? Ever since the Great Sorrow, our kind has waited, waited without purpose. For thousands of years our kind has been waiting to die. We have rationed off the Brood, hatching each egg only when absolutely necessary to prolong its life. But we are only postponing the inevitable. No matter how much we conserve the Brood, no matter how much caution we take, some dark day in the distant future, the last egg will hatch, and with it goes our entire race."

"It is not entirely hopeless, Dreamer," Akarat. "I have heard rumors of a hive deep in the lands of unending winter, where their mother was preserved in ice. If she can be recovered-"

"I did not think you capable of such foolish optimism, Akarat" said Klak. "Frozen or not, the Ghul would not have left a Hive Mother uneaten. There are no mothers left, no royal brood. We, the Red Hive, are all that is left. If we continue to wait, we will die. Slowly and controlled but it will be a death all the same."

"These World Eaters are rumored to command magics that leave even the magicians of this world stupefied. If this is true, then perhaps their magic can return the Mothers to life."

"Forgive me, Dreamer, but that seems an even unlikelier possibility."

"I will not disagree, Akarat. But we must try every opportunity, no matter how remote, lest our kind continue to wait in vain. Some rumored ruin of a hive in the frozen antipodes will be going nowhere soon. But these World Eaters? They may represent an opportunity our kind will never see again."

"Warmaster Shkun, you will prepare a party to seek out these World Eaters," Klak ordered, gesturing to the pulsing light in the east. "They shall see what they are capable of. If possible, they will reach out to them and ascertain their intentions."

"As you wish, Dreamer, though I fear that I will be sending these warriors to their doom."

"So be it. If that be the case, our Hive - our race - is lost regardless."