Below me, the trees were a black and gray blur. Against the complaints and advice of Beatrice, I was flying with speed towards Yiwi, intent on reaching it before nightfall. Bedivere, who didn’t dare disobey me, had stayed behind as the hive’s main protector. The only bees traveling with me were over a hundred Linker bees. 105 to be specific, a swarm that would’ve dwarfed the one in Yiwi if not for the fact that Linker bees were tiny.
Why was I rushing to Yiwi, one might ask? Well, certainly not just because I wanted to. No no, certainly not. In fact, I had business there.
As I flew, propelled to an insane pace by my Mind, I looked through Toh’s eyes. That situation had almost been insultingly simple. The City Lord and the few guards he trusted enough to hide with him barely put up a fight against the team of twenty mercenaries (and Ben). All it took was a bit of bruising, and the City Lord plus his escort team were on their knees with their hands behind their backs. I didn’t even need to do a sneaky maneuver as with certain other people in order to attach the Linkers. It was when the City Lord got Linked that I immediately decide to depart for Yiwi.
Speaking of those people I had to be sneaky with. Two old farts were currently in a heated discussion about me and my conquest. Or rather, their own responses and failure to avoid it.
“It’s really not that simple, you old bag. The mercenary girl had already Linked Yafoot, and as if that weren’t enough, I had no idea the invasion was even happening. Much less that the Queen had Mind-controlling bees.”
“Ha! Perhaps you’re losing your touch, grandpa. Why, I feel positively young and capable in comparison. What happened to your scary reputation over the years?”
“Like I said! I had no information. In fact, you seem like the incompetent one. Weren’t you fully aware that the invasion in the shadows was taking place? And even knew about the bees and their capabilities? Hah!”
The bickering continued, all relegated to a connection I had specifically allowed. I sighed, contemplating if cutting off the line between Jill Yemonto and Harven was actually a better idea. But no. They were working together to figure out how to proceed with the proper conquering of the city.
Not that the war was necessarily over. A few key players were still giving it their all, not content with the circumstances. Jill Yemonto was sitting cross-legged on the ground, in the same spot she got Linked, dead-center of an ongoing battle. A battle that was winding down, sure, but still a battle.
It baffled the mind. The Fighters were so riled up that they wanted blood, and they likely wouldn’t be sated until they had the City Lord in their grasp. Most of the mercenaries, upon seeing Jill seemingly surrender, had either ran, stopped fighting, or become even more blood lusted.
In all honesty, the situation was fine for now. As soon as the people came to their senses, devoid of the emotional manipulation from Belphegora, they would begin to ask questions. I needed Toh to arrive with the City Lord, and fast. That distraction would be enough for more key players to get Linked, and for my now diminished swarm to sneak out stage right.
Thankfully, the number of key players was dwindling. Yelah and friends had switched tactics, trying to calm and otherwise disarm the frenzied citizens with little success. They absolutely needed to be Linked, for several reasons. It was only a matter of time, though. There were still available Linkers, and I had a few reserved specially for them.
For all intents and purposes, we were in clean-up mode. Hence my rush to arrive. At minimum, every mercenary who was still alive in the city center had to be Linked, no matter what. People who had fought directly against bees? Who were now intimately familiar with the monsters in the shadows? No thanks, no so-called freedom for you. Couldn’t have them sneaking off to their buddies, spreading word of the new monsters in the Vultuous Forest.
Unfortunately, on that end, I was at a loss. Was there any realistic way to control the information? People would come and go from Yiwi eventually. News would spread somehow. If there was one thing I could confidently say about humans, it would be that a secret was just common knowledge that hadn’t been whispered loud enough yet.
One point of concern on that front was the farmers. See, from my investigations and Ben’s looking, I realized that my perception and knowledge of fantasy cities was complete bunk. The main city of Yiwi was a cap-shaped cluster of building enclosed by a wall, but that wasn’t the entire city, far from it.
As the river exited the city in the west, sort of north-westish, it flowed into sprawling farmland. I hadn’t investigated exactly what sorts of crops they were growing out there, considering the supposedly annoying soil and such. In fact, I had some knowledge telling me that the ‘crops’ they grow out there aren’t even real plants. But the point was that there were plenty of people who couldn’t be practically contained in the walls. And sure, the farmland was there, but most of the fields had been casualties of the Burning. Even though Ben had seen full fields, that didn’t mean the crop was ready for harvest, which led to the next concern.
Yiwi is a big, wealthy, important city. The whole reason all this shit was happening in the first place was because the people never wanted for resources before, and the merchants had taken advantage of that change in the status quo. So besides the fields, there were, of course, those dang merchants. The ones in Yiwi were powerful for a reason, and completely cutting the city off would be highly suspect. And the mercenaries? Oh bee, the mercenaries. These were international organizations, for fuck’s sake. Hayrey’s headquarters here was one of three. Three! Who knew what avenues of communication they had with the outside world?
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
All of these headaches were actually welcome, weirdly enough. It was a nice change of pace for those sorts of things to be at the front of my mind, rather than mercenary bullshit and civil urban warfare.
“I’m sure you’re glad to wash your hands of all this, but I don’t like it. For every problem to flow into each other is highly annoying. Until the fighting in the city is completely done, I won’t feel comfortable planning for other things. Though I do commend your foresight.”
Yeah. The burdens of a leader. Forget the fact that a solid chunk of that stuff actually came from a B-mail Beatrice had sent right before I left, maybe to distract me. Speaking of distracting…
“I knew it! Monsters at my doorstep, oh that mercenary girl is going to feel the full force of my wrath. Unhand me, man! I can walk on my own. What do you mean, you need to provoke an image of control? The monsters are already controlling me, you damn fool mercenary! For the people? Unbelievable! Say, you wouldn’t be so kind as to kill me, would you?”
“Shut up. Please, shut the fuck up,” I groaned. This City Lord was an exhausting man to have in my Link. If he wasn’t so important, I would relegate him to some dark corner of my Mind and just leave him there to scream in the darkness.
“Ah. I am terribly sorry, lord monster, I only meant-“
“I wasn’t making a request. It was an order.”
“…”
Blessed silence. I was pointedly ignoring the dozens of new humans that had been added to my Link, but Yemonto, Harven, and the City Lord (whose name, nobody bothered to mention, was fucking Soipo? Soipo?) were important figures for the times to come. And so, I had to listen to two of them argue and one of them complain.
And complain the City Lord did. From the moment we found him in the hidden cellar, he had been shouting at some guard to escort him out of the city because he had a bad feeling. Should’ve listened to that bad feeling a bit earlier, buddy, because he got really freaked out when Toh dropped through the hatch. From there, his mouth hadn’t stopped moving, and his thoughts were no different. The man was a true coward, or maybe survivor might be a more apt description? As soon as he got Linked, I witnessed dozens of thoughts and plans pass through his noggin, analyzing a way to escape.
Not that it mattered to my Mind.
Now that I had some real room to think, I considered Queen’s words. In the end, the fact that she was right once again couldn’t be avoided. The future was important, but there was still plenty to think of and do right now. Focus on the present.
________
Shouting. Screaming. Was that my voice, or the civilians? At this point, I wasn’t sure.
Grehn and Vlugh stood alongside me, trying to get the Fighters and mercenaries to stop shedding each other’s blood. Our emotions had taken hold of us, dooming my city. How ironic. My emotions were the thing that let me oppose the queen bee near the end of my Linker’s lifespan, and now they had betrayed me.
With Dip’s strength enhancing my senses, I hadn’t missed the solid form of Miss Jill Yemonto suddenly stop fighting and sit down. What little I knew of that woman meant her actions indicated one thing.
She had gotten Linked.
Any hope I had practically drained out of me when I saw that. One of the strongest, smartest, most capable people in the city was gone. Maybe we could try to kill the Linker that stung her, but….
No, it was impossible. Even if she didn’t defend herself, the swarm of bees was still hovering nearby. And as if that wasn’t enough, mercenaries and Fighters were still locked in combat around her, making the path treacherous.
We had failed. And I didn’t even get to give my life up.
“Yelah. Look!”
Vlugh pointed to the swarm. What a good friend. It was because of him that I was even standing right now, trying to stop the war; he had shaken my shoulder and shouted in my ear, trying to snap me out of my stupor. Even now, he was doing the same thing.
Oh, shit.
“Something changed,” I said. Absolutely brilliant observation, me.
It wasn’t wrong, though. The battle, though more subdued, hadn’t changed. It was the swarm that was being unusual. It was almost like they were drawing away, trying to leave the city center unnoticed. Actually, that was probably exactly what they were doing.
Which meant the queen had something up her sleeve.
“We need to get to Yemonto. But we also need to prevent the bee swarm from trying anything…”
“Yelah,” Grehn interrupted. “The bees are a lost cause. The four of us can’t take Belphegora. Forget adding Belial to the mix.”
He was right. Damn it, he was right. It just wasn’t fair. How did bees that had just been born surpass all four of us in fighting power? That shit makes no sense.
“You’re right. Head for Jill,” I managed to get out. All the tension and will that had been pushing me forward felt spent, burned to nothing. The only thing keeping me going was Dip’s indomitable strength making me stand, the power coursing through me forcing me to continue despite my body’s protestations.
And so, the three of us waded through the constantly diminishing battle. One after the other, Fighters stopped their charge, only to be replaced with another of their comrades. Mercenaries fled the battle in droves, disappearing into alleys and now-abandoned buildings. People still fought, but it was slowing to a crawl now that the bees were moving away.
“Miss Yemonto!” Vlugh shouted as we neared the circle of calm surrounding the old woman. She didn’t acknowledge us, seemingly lost in thought. Our approach went mostly unhindered after a point, the people who had been closest to the swarm being far more docile. Who could possibly know why?
I knew why. I also knew the fate that awaited us in that eye of the storm of battle. Jill Yemonto had been Linked, of that I was now certain. Most of the surrounding people too, most likely. The bees wouldn’t want those who had fought them to go blabbing or anything. So, I stopped my friends before we broke through the crowd and entered the empty circle.
“Guys, listen here. If we go in there, we’re going to get Linked. Its unavoidable. We can fight, but eventually, they’ll come for us. So here’s your choice. Come in there with me and confront them, or live freely. Go get Rette and flee the city, somehow. Maybe go to the king. I don’t know. I won’t ask you to come in there with me, because you deserve better.”
My three friends stood there, mushed up against merc and Fighter alike in the dense crowd surrounding the Yemonto Co. boss. My mind was made up. If I gave myself up to the queen, maybe she would spare the others for our betrayal. We could try to run, try to alert the king or hide, but I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to leave my city behind unless I got killed.
Grehn averted his eyes. The big guy had come to Yiwi specifically in search of freedom, and he found it for a while. I knew he was the most inclined to choose to leave, and I could only hope he would. He was a nice guy who deserved to live as he pleased.
Dip just squawked. I really didn’t want him to come with me. My Dip was my life. There was no way I could accept him coming with me, but I could feel his resolve to stay with me. Loyal to a fault.
And Vlugh? I knew Vlugh would make the right choice. Although he wasn’t overly religious, his values would never accept-
“Of course I’m coming with you. I’m done running and abandoning you guys. So I won’t let you abandon us either.”
“I agree with Vlugh. I can’t allow our leader to throw herself to the wolves, or rather, bees, as she pleases. At least not on her own. If you want us to live freely, then you better accept our decision.”
“Squawk.”
All three of them were completely resolute. I could feel it. My shoulders slumped, but with my heart hardened, I nodded. With the resolve of my friends behind me, I pushed through the last wall of people into the mostly empty circle, coming face to face with Miss Yemonto.
“Greetings, child. I hope you are ready for what’s coming,” she said, arm already raised. I didn’t know much about her Ability, but I was already in its path. No, wait. My friends were the ones in its path. Of course. The queen knew me better than anyone. She knew I would retaliate even if my life were on the line, but with the lives of my friends in direct danger?
All I could do was nod and turn around, lifting my hair. I heard a little buzz and felt a little prick, and suddenly everything went dark.