Toren Daen

“You all might have heard of beastwards,” Vaelum started. He gestured to Meera, who held one of the red-trimmed boxes. She handed it to her leader, allowing him to raise it up. Vaelum kept it close to one of the lighting artifacts the group used for illumination. “Inside of here is an artifact created by the mages in Taegrin Caelum themselves! When exposed to the air, it will ward off mana beasts for a length of time. But it also has another function!” he said, pausing momentarily. The mention of Taegrin Caelum seemed to quiet some of the tension in the non-mages. After all, the goods created by the High Sovereign’s Instillers were the best of the best.

“But if these artifacts are subjected to high enough heat, they detonate. Depending on the strength of the artifact, this can knock mana beasts out cold!” Vaelum said, holding the box high. “That’s what we will be doing today.” Vaelum gestured to another mage in the expedition, who stepped up confidently. “Our casters will be exploding several of these beastwards near the acidbeam hornet nest, hopefully knocking every one of these insectoid bastards out and dislodging their nest from the trees,” he said, lowering his hands. “After that, our mages will move in to kill their queen, which will effectively neuter any resistance they can offer!”

The plan sounded solid. What made acidbeam hornets so dangerous was their ability to work together, but that link depended on their hives’ queen. If the queen was dead, their greatest advantage was effectively null.

“That is where the non-mages come in. Your job is to get in, carve up as many slices of the nest as you can, then get out. The mages will come in after you with dimension rings to store the rest,” Vaelum finished, clapping his hands. “Any questions?”

A hesitant hand rose amidst the crowd, drawing the attention of the lead spearman. “If those explosions knock the nest down,” a woman said hesitantly, her face shadowed by the lighting artifact nearby, “Won’t us unads need to avoid the downed hornets? Even if they’re unconscious?”

Vaelum nodded in her direction. “Yes, that is something you’ve got to worry about. That’s why you’ve got weapons: to stick any mana beast that’s too close. But they will be basically braindead with their queen killed.” The spearman paused, then continued speaking. ”Also, there will no doubt be straggling worker hornets away from the nest that will make a beeline back for their home once we blow it off its perch. Because they’ll be far enough away to escape their queen’s immediate influence, they won’t be immediately damaged by her death. Those will be managed by our mages.”

When it seemed like no more questions would arise, the convoy began a slow march forward. My breathing became more rapid as we neared: despite how long I had scavenged and killed in this forest, I avoided the hornets like the plague. I knew the forest went much deeper than anywhere I had reached, but the unofficial barrier between the safer and more dangerous parts was these nasty hornets. Very few mana beasts trifled with them.

I heard the hive well before I saw it. An incessant, deep buzzing noise pressed against my ears like the grating of a saw, almost causing me to miss a jump. It grew in volume the closer I got, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise.

This plan of theirs better work, I thought nervously, Or I don’t know if I can even get out alive.

Vaelum called a halt to the convoy before long, gesturing for the group to be silent. He waved to several of the casters with his spear. Each held a box in their hand, and at the spearman’s command, they opened them.

I could barely see by the light of their artifacts, but the crystalline black spheres resting inside on small embroidered pillows rang bells in my mind. Where had I heard of these before?

Each mage quietly withdrew the black crystal sphere, and a man came forward: the sentry from before. He laid a hand on each of the mage’s shoulders, a flux of mana flaring in my senses with each touch. Then he peered toward where I heard the incessant buzzing, focusing for all he was worth.

In unison, the mages all raised the orbs, imbuing them with mana. The crystalline beastwards seemed to suck in the light around them, casting the group in further shadow. Before the men could lose any more nerve, the mages hurled the beastwards as one.

I lost sight of them immediately once they were beyond the lighting artifacts, the strange effect of almost swallowing light obscuring them from my vision.

But the sudden booms that shook the trees did not. White leaves fell from the canopy as a couple of the trees vibrated from the explosion, though no light came from the nest. I heard a deep crack as if someone had driven a wedge straight through wood, then a thunderous crash. And then more and more crashing sounds joined a symphony of nerves. The sounds continued to echo, causing me to go rigid with apprehension.

The incessant buzzing cut off abruptly, leaving a startling void of sound in its place. The convoy looked ready to bolt, even the mages. Those who had thrown the beastwards stared in shocked silence through the darkness, catching something I had clearly missed. The sentry laughed slightly, his shoulders slumping in relief.

I swallowed, my nerves settling slightly. Whatever happened, it was clear that the leader’s plan had worked.

Vaelum was the first to start moving through the underbrush once more.

I saw the carnage before anyone else. A smear of black fog hung heavy in the air around the trees, clearly the aftereffects of the beastwards bursting. I saw chunks of what looked like wasp-nest clinging to the clarwood trees, marking where it had fallen from. A slightly putrid smell permeated the forest, causing me to scrunch my nose in disgust.

But the real sight was on the forest floor. What had once been thick vegetation was flattened by enormous lumps of paperlike hornet nest, and anything underneath must have been utterly crushed. Some of the chunks were twenty feet across, and some of the piles reached up to the lowermost branches of the tree.

Jesus Christ, I thought in horrified awe. That nest must have been the size of a house.

I couldn’t see much in the low light, but here and there I noticed the reflective glimmer of lighting artifacts glance off of quivering wasp-like bodies.

The convoy approached carefully, and a few of the mages conjured fireballs hesitantly to hover over the large carcass of the nest. More of the black smog permeated the fallen nest, stretching smokey tendrils over insectoid bodies.

I could see the hornets mixed within the corpse of their home more easily now. Mottled green and brown carapace shifted in a sea of paperlike nest. Some twitched slightly, their six legs spasming intermittently. Others were outright squashed by the weight of the nest in a gruesome display of green viscera and brownish fluid.

I shuddered from my perch in the tree. Anything with more than four limbs was an abomination against all that was holy.

It seemed my aversion to the many-legged mana beasts was shared by many of the party below as I watched several men retch at the sight.

But the ‘crown jewel’ of the hive was easy to spot. A giant, wingless insect with a grotesquely enlarged abdomen was chittering piteously near the top of the pile. Where the normal worker hornets were only a couple of feet long, this one was easily larger than my entire body.

This was the queen: the nexus of the hivemind. Vaelum, wasting no time, bounded up the flaky hill the queen sat upon, his spear held steady in his hand. With a flare of mana, it erupted in a coating of orange flame. The queen had no chance to react. It was speared from head to tail, a spine-tingling chitter echoing out of the huge mandibles.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

It took a longer time to die than I would have expected, but the evidence of its destruction was clear when, all at once, the remaining hornets ceased their movements entirely. The forest held a collective breath before Vaelum turned around, hoisting his spear in the air atop the mound in a sign of triumph.

Some of the group laughed in relief, but most stayed silent. Though the hard part was over, the forest was still a deadly trap for all who made too much of a commotion.

Ever so slowly, squads of men–both unadorned and mage–began to work through the mass of destroyed hive. The nonmages used their weapons to separate chunks of the papery material, making way for the mages behind them to siphon it into their dimension rings. Whenever they came across the still bodies of acidbeam hornets, they were granted a quick death via spear or sword through the head.

The work went surprisingly quickly. Though there were many tons of material to go through, thirty people working in tandem could get a lot done. Barely five minutes in and they had already made a noticeable dent in the nest.

Soon enough, however, my enhanced ears picked up the sounds of buzzing approaching at a rapid pace. The sentry perked up a minute later, clearly noticing it as well. He gestured to several of the mages on standby, who got their weapons ready.

“Some stragglers are returning to the nest!” Vaelum called, readying his spear and adjusting his full-face helmet. “Don’t stop your work! The mages will dispatch these beasts!”

If anything, the workers became even more frantic in their harvest of the nest. It seemed the oncoming buzzing was motivation enough.

Over a score of hornets burst through the treeline, zipping erratically and buzzing with barely contained rage. Each was easily two feet long, certainly large enough to cause trouble to a normal man. Their stingers dripped with bright green fluid that almost glowed in the firelight.

The battle began without a moment to spare. One of the mages, a woman with deep auburn hair, performed a complex gesture with her hands. Panels of solid white mana flickered into existence over the heads of the workers, and not a moment too soon. Several of the hornets lashed their stingers forward, firing the glowing green liquid in a spray toward those who would dare assault their home.

The acid splashed against the shields, sizzling on contact. The white mana began to bubble and dissolve, but it held. A salvo of ice, metal, and earth answered the attack. The attacks peppered some of the hornets, dropping them to the ground. But many of the projectiles went wide, flying off into the forest with a whistle.

I had to whip my head out of the way as a large lump of rock knocked a hole in the tree I was standing on.

While some of the insectoid mana beasts had tried to assault the workers, the rest had opted for an aerial attack of the defending mages. Luckily, most of the mana users were adept enough to dodge and weave around the sprays of acid. One man did get hit by a few stray droplets, causing him to growl in pain. He returned the favor a minute later with a blade of wind, bisecting the offending hornet in midair.

The acidbeam hornets flitted around the air in a dizzying display of aerial maneuverability, spraying their acid and diving intermittently toward the crew and defending mages. But these hives were dangerous because of their extreme numbers, and there were only a little over twenty that had deigned to attack in the first place.

Their number was slowly whittled down further, each of their dives allowing strikers like Vaelum to punish them heavily. Whenever the hornets tried to bombard the mages with acid from above, a mana shield would materialize to block the dissolving fluid.

But there were bound to be some cracks. One of the hornets was moving toward the edge of the group, away from the main source of the battle. The mages had successfully turned the insect’s attention away from the outskirts, focusing their attacks on a smaller area. But this one beast broke rank, divebombing toward an unprotected flank.

My eyes widened as I saw the intended target. The sentry was surrounded by a couple of mages, but they were not ready for the swiftness of the attack. The hornets were absurdly fast, and I knew in that split-second that if I did not intervene, the sentry would die.

I beamed a rock from my dimension ring as fast as I could, hoping against hope that my aim was true. It wasn’t easy to hit something moving, especially something as erratic as a bug. But my luck pulled through.

The stoned obliterated the head of the hornet mid-flight, eviscerating the carapace in a shower of brownish goop. The body was shifted off course slightly by the impact, causing it to impact the ground near the sentry’s feet in a shower of loose dirt.

The sentry and the mages around him stared with bated breaths at the corpse. My shoulders relaxed at my success, but I nearly choked when the sentry’s head whipped toward my spot in the tree.

I ducked behind it, dampening my presence the best I could. I had avoided catching the attention of the sentry so far by limiting the attention I directed toward him, as he was obviously able to pick up when someone was watching him for too long. I hoped I hadn’t blown my cover too soon.

But the battle raged on. No attacks flew my way in the tree, allowing me to relax for a moment. I hesitantly turned my attention back to the hornet’s assault. The desperation in the hornet’s attack–if one could call it that–was clear even to my untrained eye. The beasts almost ran into each other at several points with zero coordination to be had. Where before there were nearly two dozen mana beasts, now only a handful remained.

And with ruthless efficiency, the last was blown apart by a water bullet from the caster named Meera.

Throughout the entire battle, the spare mages and workers had been hacking away at the nest, storing the chunks as fast as possible. The attack had lasted barely two minutes, but I could swear the men had already cleared a fifth of the paper with the motivation deadly stinger-armed mana beasts provided.

The mages slowly reconvened, checking injuries and making sure they hadn’t lost anyone. With the lull in attention, I hopped to a nearby tree, moving a bit closer to hear better.

Vaelum speared the jittering body of one of the last hornets before conjuring a wave of fire across his spear, burning away any refuse that clung to the metal. I couldn’t see his eyes beneath his full helmet, but I could sense his relief as he took in the rest of his group.

My guts promptly tried to exit my chest when the sentry shuffled up to Vaelum, drawing his attention. They began to talk in muffled whispers, too quiet even for my sound-attuned ears. And from the suspicious looks Vaelum gave the trees surrounding the group, I had a sinking feeling I knew what they were talking about.

Damn. I had probably given myself away by saving the sentry. If I wanted to get the drop on any of the mages for information tonight, I would have to be a lot more careful. I slumped against the branch of the tree, pulling my mana inward and thankful that I hadn’t been outright attacked yet.

But my respite was short-lived.

A slow, rhythmic buzzing began to build, coming from a far distance. My heart began to hammer in my chest, the thump thump seeming to match the pitch of the oncoming source of the noise.

And it got louder. And louder. And louder. I could tell from the staccato of wingbeats that a horde was coming for this location at rapid speed.

The mages began to panic as the noise approached like the wave of a tsunami. They hastily arranged themselves into battle formations, but the tide caused the workers to panic and rush back to the mages, throwing their preparations into disarray.

I watched with growing horror as Vaelum scrambled to maintain unity and organize a defense against whatever was coming. He yelled orders, trying to be heard over the growing cacophony of wingbeats. I clenched my dagger in my hand, the sweat greasing my palms making the leather stick to my hand.

Should I run? I thought, turning back. I was faster than this convoy: far faster. I could be out of here in an instant, leaving them to their fate. I could feel the mana fluctuations of an oncoming horde, now. They had practically zero chance to make it out of this alive.

I knew my answer before the hornets ever breached the treeline. Resignation settled through my bones. I couldn’t leave these men to their fate, regardless of their allegiance to Blood Joan.

It was something that both Toren and I would agree upon.

And so I stood up from my branch, focusing on my fireball template spell. I held my hands together, funneling a sizable portion of my mana into compacted fire mana. I added layer after layer, forcing the compression further. I was sweating as I focused, barely registering the sentry looking at me from below.

When I was done, I held a writhing ball of compacted fire, barely restrained from bursting. I heaved for breath, the effort of maintaining the spell’s cohesion taking most of my focus. But I cocked my arm back, holding the tongues of power clenched in my fist. My gloves sizzled slightly, the heat not restrained enough.

Then I hurled the fireball toward the sound just as the swarm reached the treeline. My fireball exploded on impact, detonating in a burst of flame and sound. Dozens of scorched hornets fell from the sky, smoke drifting off their blackened carapaces as they dropped. My terror renewed itself as I finally faced the horde. There was very little light in the forest, the canopy blocking most rays of sunlight from reaching the ground.

But as a solid wall of legs and eyes and wings blotted out the light, I realized how much I missed the sky.