by Unknown
“Believe me, you can’t be as annoyed as we are,” Brianna said, sighing heavily as she sat back in her chair. “We thought this would be nice and quiet, and it sounds like we aren’t done yet. This Lord Alethus is really irritating me.”
“Oh? What do you mean? I didn’t hear anything,” Joy asked eagerly, sitting up, and Brianna and Stella exchanged looks.
“You know how we were planning to go to find iron ore? Well, the best source of it in the duchy is from a dwarven-run mine outside Clarion,” Brianna said unhappily, and Joy nodded quickly. She opened her mouth, then forced herself to stop, since Brianna was probably getting to the explanation. “Problem is, that’s where Silverhoof is going after Irador, as it appears the last chunk of the seal is in that area. They’re expecting a full invasion force from Skyfish Valley to hit the border any day now.”
“That sucks,” Helen said, looking at Brianna in sympathy. “You could go somewhere else, couldn’t you? I know James’s family has mines, right?”
“Ah, yes? But they supply the Royal Guard and army back at the capital,” James interjected hesitantly. “Sure, I know they have ore that they sell at the markets, but… how much ore are you needing?”
“One thousand four hundred and two chunks,” Joy said promptly. “I have about four months to get it to the hive.”
“Oof, yeah, I don’t think you’d be able to get it from my family. That’s a huge amount, and I think they only keep a hundred pieces in stock at a time,” James said, shaking his head. “They might be able to get you the ore in that amount of time, but delivering it… no, your best bet is Clarion, as much as I hate to admit it. My family would really like the business, but that kind of order is too much. Now, if you were after iron ingots, it’d be an entirely different story.”
“I’m afraid not. The apis use the raw ore to upgrade their equipment, so ingots wouldn’t do them much good,” Stella said, shaking her head and letting out a sigh. “Sounds like we’re going to be butting heads with Alethus whether we like it or not. Hopefully we can avoid getting stuck against him on our own, this time.”
“Hm, well… from what I’ve heard, Silverhoof is a level forty-five Wardancer. I’m sure that with some help he can take on Alethus,” James mused, and looked at the others, raising an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
“I think we’re way too low-level to get involved in a battle like that,” Jean said dryly, shaking her head. “We’re probably going to get dragged into the main battle, though. I don’t know how many troops Skyfish Valley can muster, but they’ve probably concentrated more soldiers in one place than the duke can get to Clarion in time.”
“Well, I… wait, is that…” Joy paused in mid-sentence, her antennae perking up as she caught the scent of another apis. The one who’d coordinated the attack on Bearton, based on the scent. “I’ll be right back!”
Joy got up abruptly, and Cora straightened, asking, “Joy, where’re you going?”
“An attendant wants to chat!” Joy replied, bounding out the door, nearly knocking over a knight as she passed, and she grinned at him as her wings snapped out and she took flight.
Bearton wasn’t very well-lit at night, with only the guild house and church having much in the way of light, but Joy could see well enough for the moment, since it wasn’t overcast. More importantly, she could easily smell the attendant, and quickly flew upward, to find that the attendant was waiting on the roof of the inn.
“Hi!” Joy said, landing next to the attendant, and had to stabilize herself as the shingle she stepped on moved.
“Hello, Joy,” the attendant said, smiling broadly. “We’d like to hire you to guide us to Irador.”
“Oh? How many of you?” Joy asked, gathering some of what hadn’t been said from the attendant’s pheromones. Obviously the queen had ordered them to go to Irador, and from some of the other aspects of her scent… they were probably going to be heading to other apis hives.
“About a hundred. The exact number hasn’t been decided, yet. We need to send some apis to the Tulip Hive with a few drones, a group to the Shimmerwood, and a group to wherever the king is,” the attendant explained, shrugging. “Mostly, we want to go with you because you answer questions better. We understand you, and you understand us. We can pay you coins, if you need them.”
“Oh, okay! I can’t say yes right now; I need to go ask the others,” Joy replied, thinking rapidly. “Is that alright?”
“Sure!” the attendant said, and Joy grinned and hopped off the roof, her wings beating again.
This time she didn’t head for the door, instead guiding her fall to an awning she’d seen earlier, one made of wood, and she perched on it, cramming her feet into a couple of useful crevices and leaning over the edge while hanging on with her hands so she could look in through the window.
“Hi! Sorry, I need to ask my friends something,” Joy said to the startled pair of merchants sitting just inside the window, and looked past them at the table with her friends. “Bri, Cora, Stella? The attendant wants to hire us to guide them to Irador. She says that there’ll be about a hundred of them, and they can pay us coin for it. What should I say?”
“Um…” Brianna began, looking at Cora and Stella for a moment.
A moment later Cora sighed softly and shook her head, sounding slightly amused. “When are they needing to go, Joy? We’re planning to leave pretty soon, remember?”
“Right, I’ll ask!” Joy said, popping back upward, and adjusted to being on her feet before jumping upward to hold on to the edge of the roof. She nearly head-butted the attendant in the process, as the woman had been starting to lean forward, and they both jerked back slightly. “Sorry! They want to know when you were planning to leave, since we were leaving in the next few days.”
“That would work fine,” the attendant assured her, smiling broadly. “We just need to make sure you’d guide us.”
“Okay!” Joy said, letting go and landing on the awning again. When she popped into sight, this time the merchants looked amused rather than startled, and she explained. “They’ll be ready whenever we want to leave!”
“In that case, we can do it,” Cora said, shaking her head slowly. “We’ll charge, say… five hundred coins for the trip. You know she could’ve come inside to ask us, right?”
“She doesn’t like the smell of your food,” Joy replied bluntly. “I’ll let her know!”
Joy heard laughter as she stood again and paused as she grew slightly dizzy, but she overcame it after a moment and hopped up again.
“I heard her,” the attendant said, smiling broadly as Joy popped over the edge of the roof. “I’ll organize the workers and drones, so we’re ready to leave whenever you want to leave. I’ll have a worker stationed in the apple orchard south of town.”
“Sounds good! See you then!” Joy said, waving as the apis took flight.
Then she let go and flew around toward the front door. Joy didn’t entirely understand why people objected to her using windows to enter buildings, when they didn’t have anything blocking the way.
Chapter 6
“This is chaos,” Cora murmured, her eyes wide as they flicked back and forth, barely able to keep track of the apis around them.
That morning they’d left Bearton to head to Irador, and they’d stopped at the apple orchard to meet the apis, which had been a startling experience even after her previous experience with the hive. A hundred apis had been waiting for them, scattered about and chatting enthusiastically, with eight male apis among them. A pair of attendants was with them, and they’d enthusiastically greeted Joy, handing over a bag of coins without a second thought. When Joy had handed it to Cora, she’d found that it had five hundred coins for each of them, which flustered Cora a little, but she hadn’t bothered arguing. She’d just told the attendants that they’d meant five hundred coins total, not each. They hadn’t seemed to care, and told them to keep the coins.
Now they were traveling along the road, and even the knights from Irado
r had slowed as they passed Cora’s group, staring at their company in shock. It wasn’t that there were apis, Cora knew. It was what the apis were doing.
The male apis and the attendants were the only ones following the road like Cora had expected them to. The other ninety apis were flying every direction, almost swarming above the road as they darted to and fro, examining every plant, rock, and other bit of the landscape that they passed. Cora saw an apis delicately gathering nectar from a dandelion, while another had viciously cut a wasp out of the air. It was impossible to keep track of all of them, and the one time that a pack of wild dogs had tried to ambush them, well… the apis had wiped out the dogs before Cora could even point her staff at them.
“You said it,” Helen murmured, her eyes wide as she looked around. “I thought they’d be all orderly, marching along the road or something. Instead… well, I have to wonder why they aren’t?”
“We’re looking at the things outside the jungle! We don’t know what will be useful, and what won’t be, so we need to check all of it,” the attendant interjected cheerfully from a half-dozen paces ahead of them. “Plus, we do need to eat, so they’re gathering nectar along the way. We have to be careful, though. We don’t want the bees to starve!”
“Oh. I’m surprised you could hear me over all of this,” Helen said, flushing slowly as she glanced at Cora and Joy.
Joy laughed, grinning broadly as she spoke. “We don’t talk much, so words stand out. We use pheromones to tell each other basic things… it’s how we know what needs to be done!”
“In a general sense, at least,” the attendant added, looking over her shoulder at them. “It doesn’t convey much detail, more general ideas of what needs to be done, but that’s enough for us.”
Cora nodded, glancing at Joy in amusement as she asked, “In that case… I’m curious why you haven’t been flying all over like that, at least not the other times we’ve been traveling.”
“Because I’m not in charge of a hive! I have all the food I need for a while, and I have the things I need, mostly,” Joy said, looking at her empty sheath as she shrugged. “I should be able to finish making a new rapier tonight, so that won’t be a worry. I just don’t see the need to look at everything. Just the things that I think are neat!”
“Of course you do,” Stella said, grinning slightly as she nodded toward a group of apis who were clustered off the road somewhere ahead of them. “So, what are they paying attention to?”
“They smell a bumblebee hive underground,” Joy said promptly, pausing to sniff, then shrugged. “They think they’re cute.”
That startled a laugh out of Cora, and beside her Helen chuckled, which spread to Eda, James, Jean, and Marilyn, before Brianna and Stella joined them. Cora wasn’t sure why she found it so funny, but for some reason the sheer ridiculousness of the idea entertained her.
“You think they’re cute? I wonder if you’ll think the same thing about giant bumblebees. They’re even bigger than a horse, and generally ill-tempered,” Cora said, prompting Joy to clap her hands together, her eyes going wide.
“They come that size? They sound adorable!” Joy exclaimed, her smile huge.
Cora laughed again, this time more warmth rushing through her. No matter what else happened, Joy could always brighten her day.
“Chain Lightning!” Alethus said, gesturing at the outpost ahead of the army, and mana surged out of him in a torrent.
A blast of purple lightning lanced outward from his hand, splitting into dozens of tiny streamers that struck every exposed soldier in the outpost. Their magi tried to block the spell, but only one of their shields held, and the other magi fell to the ground, heavily scorched, as did half of the other soldiers he’d hit. Even those who’d survived were staggered, and that was a deadly disadvantage under the circumstances.
His soldiers cut down most of those who’d been staggered in a handful of seconds, and Alethus let out the faintest sigh of regret as a pretty knight was beheaded. While he’d love to take the woman captive and turn her to his faction, it wasn’t worth the risk when waging war. Raids were an entirely different story, but he wasn’t on a raid. This was a focused strike, and they couldn’t afford to keep many captives, not until he was certain they’d succeeded.
The one enemy mage who’d survived looked around frantically, the dwarf’s face pale, and Alethus watched pitilessly as the man missed the soldier who’d slipped up behind him, and the man cut down the mage before he could throw another attack.
“It looks like we’re about done, Milord,” Minna observed, the brunette’s eyes bright with eagerness, which prompted a soft laugh from Alethus.
“Hardly done, not when this was just the start,” Alethus replied, shaking his head as he glanced around. The border fort wasn’t large, and he had to wonder why Duke Dorma hadn’t replaced the palisade with a proper wall and watchtower, but he supposed the man did have rather large borders to watch. This wasn’t one of his more heavily threatened borders, so that likely had contributed to how shoddily it’d been built. It had only taken six boulders from his giants to break the wall, which he’d hardly believed.
“Of course not, but I doubt the defenders will last more than a few more minutes,” Minna said, which prompted Alethus to nod in agreement.
Alethus’s army had dealt with three patrols in their approach, showing that Duke Dorma had learned about the attack, and the fort had been on guard when they’d reached it, which made Alethus suspect they’d missed some scouts. He wasn’t going to get upset over that, not when it hadn’t mattered in the end. Maybe if the duke had managed to reinforce the fort before they’d gotten there he’d have been upset, but he hadn’t.
Instead, the fort was practically his, and the path to Clarion was wide open. While there were a few places reinforcements could be dispatched from, there were ways to deal with that. Which meant he really should start giving orders.
“Right. Once the fort has been fully swept for defenders, I want Adran’s task force to set up shop here. He’s not to spend too much effort on repairing the wall, since we’re going to torch it when we leave, but I’ll leave the decision to him, since he’s holding the door open for us,” Alethus said, glancing over at his runners. “Let Drana know that she has permission to go north. I want the road from the northern forts demolished as soon as she can manage it. Gort has the western roads, and he’s to thin reinforcements as much as he can without getting mauled. I want him to stay alive, damn it. We’ve lost enough people in the debacle around Bearton as it is.”
“Yes, sir!” a trio of runners chorused, saluting before they rushed off to deliver their messages. Alethus watched them go, then looked back at the fort, where the fighting was dying down. There were a few survivors, despite not giving orders to spare anyone, but he wasn’t going to be upset with that. The only issue was whether he should order them to finish them off or not, and he wasn’t sure which made more sense.
“Why do you consider the losses so bad, Milord?” Minna asked quietly after a moment. “Last I heard, we only lost three of the regulars permanently, which is below average for so many deaths. I’d understand if we lost any of the captains, or even Damaris or Velk, but…”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted that they succeeded, but the cost was more than just a few soldiers and far more coin than I’m comfortable thinking about,” Alethus said, wincing as he considered the amount of coin that the soldiers had lost resurrecting. Over half a million coins had gone into resurrecting them all, and even if most of that had been personal funds of the soldiers, it was enough to make his heart bleed. He continued after a few seconds, a touch more reluctantly. “No, we also lost all of their support in the campaign, Minna. The soldiers would’ve been helpful, if only to shore up our flanks, but we lost the assistance of a half-dozen people over level twenty. That’s going to hurt in the bigger battles, no matter how much of a number advantage I think we have.”
“True… how many people do you think we’ll be up a
gainst?” Minna asked, starting to walk forward beside them as they advanced on the fort.
“Duke Dorma’s regular soldiers are all about level eight or nine at most. Those higher level than that often want higher pay, so go to other regions if there aren’t any positions for them to fill. Based on what I’ve learned, he has around a thousand level fifteen to twenty knights, and about four thousand soldiers of various types,” Alethus explained, rubbing his chin. “However, half of those are usually tied up in garrisons, so I suspect we’ll run into twenty-five hundred of his solders or so. The Adventurers Guild will complicate matters, but I’d guess they’ll add no more than two hundred people to the fight, but they’re going to be higher level, and better coordinated.”
“Ah. That will make Clarion a tough nut to crack, Milord,” Minna warned, frowning. “Even with our siege monsters and engines, their walls will help even the odds.”
“The goal isn’t to take Clarion, though. They can’t move the last fragment of the seal without risking the release of the beast, and neither the fragment nor the shrine are located inside the walls,” Alethus said confidently, and smiled broadly at her. “No, if they want to stop us, it’ll have to be in the field, and there we have the advantage.”
Minna visibly relaxed and nodded, her smile growing once more. “That will make an enormous difference, Milord. If we outnumber them by that much, even their knights won’t be able to make up the difference in that case. I’m sorry for making you explain it.”
“It’s fine, Minna. You’ve been focused on preparing the army, not on the specifics of how it’s to be used,” Alethus assured her, grinning broadly. “Now, if it were Adran, Drana, or Gort who didn’t know what they were supposed to do, then I’d be angry. I’ve discussed their roles extensively, after all.”
“True enough. So you’re not planning to occupy Dorma or Astonia afterward?” Minna asked, prompting another laugh from Alethus.
