Out on the horizon, the great city would drop, then rise on its legs and shudder forward, like a hive mother dragging her egg sac behind her. The earth protested under its weight, and a cloud of dust and heated exhaust poured from behind. Light glowed from the archways above the forward turrets.
Veriasse looked at Everynne. She was tense, standing with arms folded, her face pale. Orick stood beside her on all fours, the hair on his neck raised, his fangs showing as he gazed on.
Gallen and Maggie shouted as they climbed down rungs built into the dead city’s huge legs. In less than four minutes, they made it down. Gallen shouted, “Veriasse, watch out! There’s a sea of dronon warriors swarming out of that thing!”
“I know,” Veriasse said calmly. “They will come inspect us to make sure that their hive queen is not in jeopardy. Then I will battle them for Right of Charn. If we win Right of Charn, then they will lead us to the Lords of the Swarm, so that I can battle one last time. I can only hope their queen grants us the opportunity to battle.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Maggie asked, coming up behind him.
“Then likely we’ll all be killed,” Veriasse answered calmly. He glanced back. In the golden light thrown by the holo he saw the stricken look on Maggie’s face. “I kept trying to warn you,” Veriasse said. “The dronon are highly territorial. If we lose any step of the way, by their own law, the dronon may kill us all.” He didn’t want to have to tell them this, but knew that he had to tell them how to save themselves. “If I’m killed, fall on your knees and lay your arms out in front of you, with your wrists crossed and your head facing the ground. This is the dronon pose of ritual oblation. A dronon who assumes that posture is both defenseless and unable to see the leaders before him. The dronon vanquishers may spare your life if you maintain that pose, although they might strike you lightly with their battle arms. Given our thin skins, even a light blow might kill us. Still, it is your best chance.”
“Are you sure it will work?” Maggie asked.
“It is a part of the order,” Veriasse answered. “The dronon crave order. Yes, I believe it will work.”
The hive city had approached to within two kilometers now, and by its lights, Veriasse could see the black shining carapaces of countless dronon vanquishers scurrying like cockroaches before the great city. At anyone time, dozens of them would rise up on their back legs, sensor whips lashing as they gazed forward and tasted the air. Beneath the rumbling and squeaking sounds of the moving city, a dull roar arose, the clacking of arms and legs slapping against the carapaces of the dronon, the clicking of mouthfingers against the dronon vocal drums as they spoke amongst themselves. The city and its racing warriors moved far faster than Veriasse had imagined.
Veriasse took out his incendiary rifle, fired two shots in the ground in order to give them more light. The chemical fire burned in white-hot pillars, and Veriasse threw off his cloak, stepped forward between the pillars of light, raised his arms over his head and crossed them at the wrists, signaling that he wished to engage in ritual combat. He was dressed all in black-shining black boots, supple black gloves, a vest of black battle armor. Even his mantle was a glossy black, and he hoped that in this light he would look enough like a Lord Escort that the dronon would recognize him as such.
The dronon hive lurched its last few steps, then squatted. The saucer section of this hive was perhaps twelve stories tall and seven hundred meters wide. Each of its eight legs towered a hundred meters in the air before reaching the first of its three hinged joints. The lights from the city showed dronon vanquishers at the gun emplacements, and smaller white workers rushed around them, bringing food and drink. Veriasse wondered if the dronon frequently fed during battle, or if perhaps the dronon were assuming some brave pose.
A dark wave of vanquishers swarmed forward to within a hundred meters of Veriasse’s small band, then climbed one atop another, forming a wall of bodies that bristled with incendiary rifles. The thrumming of their voices rose, sounding like a vast sea of reeds rustling in the wind. The translator speaker plugged into Veriasse’s ear was so overwhelmed by their derisive shouts that it seldom attempted to translate, and Veriasse silently cursed his luck, fearing that he would not be able to hear anything a single dronon might say to him.
Veriasse shouted the formal words of challenge, praying that his translator would phrase them correctly. “This land is ours! All land is ours! A Great Queen comes among you. Prostrate yourselves in adoration, or prepare to do battle!” He waited a moment, and his translator began clicking loudly.
Every dronon suddenly fell silent, and from the top of the wall of living bodies, a single dronon vanquisher raised on its back legs, crossed its battle arms overhead and shouted: “You dishonor us! This is no true Golden Queen before us, merely a projection! Are your minds so simple that you think to trick us?” In the darkness, Veriasse could not see if this dronon wore the facial tattoos of a Lord Escort, but the creature spit acid, as if to say, “You are food.” Veriasse guessed that only a Lord Escort would dare offer such an insult.
Obviously, this would not go as smoothly as Veriasse had hoped. His stomach knotted. “This holograph is only a banner that we carry,” Veriasse shouted. “Our Golden Queen stands behind me! She is not a dronon like you, but all among us humans worship her form. She is flawless and worthy of adoration. A Great Queen comes among you! Prostrate yourselves in adoration, or prepare to do battle!” Veriasse threw his arms out forward in a battle pose and spit on the ground.
The dronon cringed at his insult.
Silently, Veriasse looked backward at Everynne. She held her hands knotted in a fist, and he saw a faint light shining golden between her fingers, showing that she held the Terror in her hand. If these dronon attacked, she would have only a portion of a second to activate the weapon and begin destroying this world. Almost, he hoped that she would activate it now.
The Lord Escort shouted, “I will perform a rite of inspection on this Golden!” Suddenly its wings unfolded and it leapt from the wall, landing within an arm’s length of Everynne. Veriasse could see tattoos on its face—golden waves like rods of lightning striking from each eye. The Lord Escort’s sensor whips waved over Everynne’s head, flashed around her hips. It hesitated a long moment. Veriasse prayed that it would not make her strip, search for flaws.
The Lord Escort pulled at her clothes, but did not remove them. Apparently, it seemed more pleased by the color and texture of the golden material than by Everynne’s pale skin. At last the dronon clicked, “I do not find this one worthy of adoration.”
“She is worthy,” Veriasse said. “She is Golden among mankind, perfect in form, without blemish.”
“She is soft, like a larvae. She is disgusting, unworthy of adoration.”
“All humans are soft,” Veriasse said. “And we find your bodies to be disgusting, unworthy of adoration. Yet we honor your Great Queen despite the differences in our forms. We ask you to do the same. I assure you that you will never see a more perfect human than this Golden Queen, and I challenge you to battle for Right of Charn.”
By battling only for the Right of Charn, Veriasse felt that he was making the decision easier for the creature. If Veriasse should win, there would be a second inspection by and her Lord Escort. In effect, Veriasse was asking for a small thing. The dronon said, “I reject your right to challenge. This is not a Golden.”
“If you reject our right to challenge,” Veriasse said, “then you will dishonor of our kind. If you will not honor our Goldens, then all mankind on all worlds will reject your queen’s right to rule over us. You will start a war unlike any that you have ever known.”
“You threaten us?” the Lord Escort asked. He looked at Everynne, at the Terror glowing in her hands.
“I do not want to be forced into threatening you,” Veriasse said. “But you know what we carry. You’ve chased us across the worlds. If you do not let humans battle for the right of succession, you leave us no alternatives.”
The
dronon hesitated. “I speak the truth,” Veriasse said. “Let us battle for the Right of Charn.”
The dronon studied Everynne a moment longer, backed off two steps. “I will go and consult with our queen.” It turned, flew up to the hive city and entered. By now the chemical fires from the incendiary rifles were beginning to die, and in the light thrown from the twisting flames, it almost seemed that the wall of dronon bodies wavered.
Neither Gallen, Orick, nor Maggie moved or spoke, and Veriasse was silently thankful for their good sense. The negotiations were at a critical point. If the queen ruled against them, the dronon would attack in a great wave. If she decided to grant the Right of Charn, Veriasse assumed she would come out with her Lord Escort to do battle.
Ten minutes passed, twelve, and then the Lord Escort flew from the battlements of his hive city, landed on the bodies of his own men.
The Lord Escort raised high on his hind legs, crossed his battle arms over his head. “We have consulted with our Golden. She instructs us to honor you by letting you battle for Right of Charn. I am Dinnid of the Endless Rocks Hive. For ten thousand years we have ruled this plain. Our larvae shall eat your corpses. Our vanquishers shall claim your domain. Your hive shall submit to us!”
As one, a hundred thousand dronon vanquishers raised their battle arms and slammed them together with great clashing sounds.
Veriasse shrugged, tried not to show his concern. Until now, he’d had no idea where on Dronon he might be, but the name of the Endless Rocks Hive was known throughout the worlds of mankind. Dinnid was relatively young and powerful, a son of and her Lord Escort. Rumor named him “The Cunning” for his prowess in battle. It was said that he was the finest strategist among the Lord Escorts, and many claimed that he and his queen would become successors to the current Golden. It was said that Dinnid was only biding his time until his nemesis grew older and more feeble.
Dinnid’s wings flashed, and he darted high into the air, entered the maw of the hive. Ahead of Veriasse, the dronon vanquishers began clacking and mumbling, readjusting their bodies so that an opening appeared in the wall. Veriasse looked back at Everynne, telling her with his eyes to follow. Gallen, Maggie, and Orick followed, too, and they walked through a tunnel formed by the black bodies of dronon warriors.
When they reached the saucer-shaped belly of the hive, the dronon lowered a ladder much like any that a human might use, except that the rungs were spaced inconveniently far apart. Veriasse climbed, noted the thin gray powder of dried dronon stomach acids on the rungs but decided that his gloves would be ample protection. Only poor Orick among the group did not have gloves, and Veriasse hoped that the padding on the bear’s paws would prove adequate insulation.
When they reached the lowest level of the hive city, they came to a security station where strange, gleaming, three-eyed cameras photographed them. Message pods, like tiny balls, whizzed through the air, flying between various levels with a hiss. Small white female dronon workers scurried through the hallways like lice, infecting him with their tremendous energy. They seemed incapable of moving at anything less than breakneck speed.
The group climbed more ladders, and everywhere were tan dronon technicians with green tattoos and long segmented fingers growing from small battle arms. Vanquishers lined the halls. When they reached the mid-level of the hive, Veriasse glanced down one corridor, saw a vast incubation chamber. Thousands of white workers scurried among eggs, adjusting heating devices, catching the grublike newborns as they hatched, regurgitating acidified food into the gullets of grubs.
At last Veriasse climbed to the highest level of the great city, stopped to catch his breath. Dronon vanquishers lined the passage. He stared down the dimly lit hall for a moment, waited for the others to catch up with him. The air here was thick with the acrid scent of dronon, warmed uncomfortably by the heat of hundreds of thousands of bodies. Everynne breathed heavily but tried to stand tall and regal. Orick was panting from the effort of climbing, and Maggie was drenched with sweat when she reached the landing platform. Veriasse let them catch their breaths, then led the way down a long corridor lighted dimly by golden globes.
Some dronon vanquishers raised their battle arms over their heads, crossing them as a sign of respect for Everynne and her retinue, but most of the vanquishers refused that honor.
The air grew hot and fetid as they neared the belly of the city, until at last they came to a wide, circular room two hundred meters across.
Around the room, thousands of dronon lined the walls. Black Lord Vanquishers with their enlarged forelegs and flashing wings seemed to make up the majority of the audience, but as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Veriasse saw that they were really outnumbered by small whitish workers, plump as lice, who ran about under the feet of the warriors. Dozens of the large tan technicians with their green facial tattoos had also come.
At the far end of the arena, the Lord Escort Dinnid sat beneath the lights beside an enormous young queen. She was a light cream in color, but gold highlights on her upper thighs and battle legs indicated that she would soon develop into a Golden. The queen was perhaps six meters long and three meters tall. Her saucer-shaped egg sac looked as if it were ready to burst, and indeed as he watched, a translucent egg about two decimeters across fell from her sac. A white worker rushed forward and carried it away.
Dinnid raised his battle arms over his head, crossing them as a sign of a temporary truce. Veriasse stopped at his side of the arena and raised his arms in the same token, crossing his wrists.
“You stay here,” he whispered to Everynne and the others, indicating a red box drawn on the floor.
As one, he and Dinnid advanced to the center of the arena.
Veriasse studied the battleground—the light in the room was diffuse and came from yellow globes set in the walls all around the arena. The metal floors seemed to be of heavy steel and were uneven, curving slightly like a bowl until they reached a low point in the center of the room. The ceiling was perhaps fifteen meters high—enough so that if Veriasse were the Lord Escort from another hive, he and Dinnid would be able to fly about the room, engaging in aerial combat. Indeed, it was the preferred method among dronon. The males flew at tremendous speeds, batting one another with their heavy forearms, lashing out with their hind legs, grabbing with their sensor whips. The battles tended to be fast-paced and ended quickly.
As Dinnid marched forward, Veriasse studied him. The big male was perhaps two meters tall as he walked, and he bore scars from a recent fight. His right sensor whip had been ripped off near the mandible and had not yet grown back. The right front array of eyes had been damaged. Of the seven faceted eyes of various sizes, two of the larger ones were broken. An ugly white ooze dripped from one mandible.
Yet the dronon lord had impressive forearms. The serrated edges at the bottom of these arms were exceptionally well developed, so that it looked almost as if he had triangular axe heads emerging from those arms. One blow would crush the exoskeleton of nearly any dronon. To be hit with those arms would mean Veriasse’s death.
Around him, the dronon began to sing a slow dirge, their mouthfingers tapping rhythmically upon their voice drums. Veriasse looked to the far side of the room, saw that beneath the queen, several white things that he had thought to be workers were in actuality larvae—royal grubs with six small legs and poorly developed eyes.
When the two were forty paces apart, Dinnid uncrossed his battle arms, began to wave them threateningly. Veriasse knew that as soon as he uncrossed his own wrists, the battle would begin. The dronon always considered it a good strategy to strike first, and Veriasse suspected that the Lord Escort would leap into the air, try to strike while flying past. Indeed, the dronon’s superior aerial troops had always devastated humans, who relied too heavily on ground-based operations.
Veriasse took a deep breath, uncrossed his arms. Almost before he could see it happen, Dinnid leapt into the air, wings buzzing.
Veriasse dodged right. The Lord Escort twisted his
abdomen, tried to kick with a rear leg. Veriasse considered grabbing it, but elected instead to simply avoid this first blow.
Dinnid flew past, circled like a great black fly. It took him several seconds to cross the arena, then return.
Dinnid flew up near the top of the ceiling, then swooped low at the last possible second. Veriasse dodged right again, but the dronon anticipated his move, turned his head, and spat the contents of his stomach into Veriasse’s face. The acid splashed out in a wave, and Veriasse saw that he would not be able to dodge it. He leapt up in frustration, kicked the forward edge of Dinnid’s lower right wing and heard a satisfying crack.
The lord spun, crashing into the metal floor, then rolled upright. He raised his wings and flapped them madly, apparently terrified on some instinctual level at the thought of being grounded. He lifted himself in the air, but moved slower and was forced to flap his wings much harder to fly at all.
Veriasse pulled up his tunic, wiped the acid from his face. The goggles he wore were dirty with the fruits of the vanquisher’s stomach, and Veriasse only managed to smear the glasses. He threw them off in frustration, gambling that Dinnid had emptied his stomach and would not be able to spit any more acid in the course of this battle.
Dinnid circled the vast arena, building up speed, and Veriasse clenched his fists. The metal studs sewn into the fingers of his gloves felt heavy, comforting. He watched the vanquisher circle, saw that Dinnid was breathing hard. His rear thighs flexed and unflexed rapidly, the air holes expanding as he sought to draw air into his lungs.
The Golden Queen Page 31
