“Real mantises are insects, only about so tall.” One of the puppies yawned wide, indicating less than two inches.

“The mantises from the sky can be five feet at the shoulder.”

“I knew that,” said Tycoon. “But the maggots? They are the younglings of the grown monsters?”

“Indeed so.” Vendacious moved his two forward members confidingly close to the other pack. “And here is something you may not know. It makes the analogy nigh perfect. The actual invasion from the sky began almost a year before the Battle on Starship Hill.”

“Before Woodcarver marched north?”

“Yes. A much smaller craft landed secretly, thirty-five tendays earlier. And do you know what was aboard? My lord, that first lander was filled with maggot eggsacks!”

“So that will be the real invasion,” said Tycoon. “Just as insect maggots burst from their eggsacks and overrun the neighborhood, these humans will overrun the entire world—”

Chitiratifor popped in with, “They will devour us all!”

Vendacious gave his servant a stern look. “Chitiratifor takes the analogy too far. At present, the maggots are young. There is only one adult, the mantis queen, Ravna. But consider, in just the two years since Ravna and Oobii arrived, she has taken control of Woodcarver’s Domain and expanded it across all the realms of the Northwest.”

Two of Tycoon’s older members tapped idly at an addition device, flicking small beads back and forth. A bean counter indeed. “And how do the mantises—this one Ravna mantis—manage such control? Are they loud? Can they swamp another’s mindsounds with their own?”

This sounded like a testing question. “Not at all, my lord. Just like insects, the humans make no sounds when they think. None whatsoever. They might as well be walking corpses.” Vendacious paused. “My lord, I don’t mean to understate the threat, but if we work together we can prevail against these creatures. Humans are stupid! It shouldn’t be surprising since they are singletons. I estimate that the smartest of them aren’t much more clever than a mismatched foursome.”