Pit Brood-Mother

THE WILDS

Vhessa, the Coilrot Queen, chewed the first granary of the Marches into a pit, and her brood needed nursing. The Pit Brood-Mothers are her wet-nurses: swollen, patient things packed into the warren-dark, fattening the next generation of coilrot on stolen seed-grain. Each defends her clutch with a mother's arithmetic — any number of intruders is worth less than one egg. Vessarith, the brood-heir, was raised by such nurses.