This is my (last minute!) entry for the Nanomancer creative writing competition being run by 
You can find the contest here.
For those that are following, this scene is taken at a very early point, when the Nanomancer is still unknown, and the Goblins are trying to understand the impact of the nanobots.
She follows. Swift as the spring river, quiet as the falling snow, her movements are a blur between the trees. Still, she remains wary. This is not her terrain. The forest is not the mountain. She is grey, not green.
The insect darts ahead. She sees it despite the gloom of the forest; silver movements across the foliage. Yet she feels in it no spirit. It has the energy of a rock; granite with the occasional spark drawn by a flint. The lack of life is unsettling. It should not be able to move, let alone fly.
The path descends. Three leaps across a stream. Sure footed; trusting the feel of the stones beneath the water. A vault over a fallen log. Then upwards, with purpose. A clearing in the trees.
The insect slows, drifting into the sunlight. Its body sparkles. Scales, like a fish. It drops towards the forest floor. She crouches in the undergrowth. She waits.
When Xanni arrives she is already standing in the clearing, peering at a patch of sunlight from which smoke has started to rise. He fights his way through the undergrowth, hacking with a machete and cursing. He is half her height and blue, of the lake, not of the mountain. Still, he belongs in the forest as much as she does. More so, given his expertise.
‘Keep well away from that,’ he says. ‘If you get some on your toes, I’ll have to cut off your feet.’
‘You don’t have to tell me. I’ll not forget the village in a hurry.’
‘It didn’t spray you?’
‘It didn’t see me. It landed here, in the sunlight. The plague is already taking hold. Whatever it is, it’s quick.’
‘But you caught it?’ He bends double, puffing out his cheeks. ‘Please, tell me you caught it. I cannot run any further.’
‘When it took off again I brought it down with the sling.’ She nods at the metal mesh hanging from the nearest tree. Tightly bound within it, the insect hums angrily. ‘I almost lost it a couple of times,’ she says. ‘It has some sort of camouflage around its energy. Like one of those fish.’
‘A mirror fish. Casts back your own energy as well as its own. Tricky things to catch. Tasty though. Worth the effort.’ He stares at the net then holds his hand out wide feeling the air. ‘Different. Very different. I think our little friend here is something else entirely.’
‘Not camouflage?’
‘Not an insect. Not even alive.’
‘Then how is it moving? An energy carry? Over the distance we just covered? Even if it were possible you’d feel the currents a mile away.’
‘I think it’s some kind of machine.’
‘A machine? That flies? That carries plague?’
‘Let’s run the tests and get everything back to the lab. Then we’ll see what we’re up against.’
Thanks for reading. Steem On!
