Regina jerked upright, her heart hammering. Blinking, she looked around, trying to see what had woken her up. After a moment, she realized that Tim had been shaking her. He was withdrawing his hand now and taking a step back.

She stood up, rubbing her eyes and trying to brush the last dregs of sleep away. It was still dark out, at least mostly. The moon was nearly full, and the eastern horizon might have been just a touch brighter than the west. It still felt like the middle of the night. She’d been too restless after the encounter with the elf to go to bed early, and she couldn’t have been asleep very long.

“What’s up?” she asked, looking around.

“Sorry to wake you, my Queen.” Tim sounded tense. He kept glancing to the side. “I think you need to see this.”

Regina frowned, following his gaze and looking south. Then she stiffened. There were a few dark blots in the sky, and she heard a howl echoing over a great distance. Then the wind turned, and she faintly caught a spicy scent.

“Wake the others,” she told Tim. “Then gather our weapons.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

He moved off. Regina crawled out of her shelter and grabbed her spear, which she’d left leaning against its wall. She stepped away from the trees to get a better look, rolling her shoulders. The sense of an impending threat helped her disperse the last of her sleepiness.

The drones worked quickly. Max and Tim grabbed their weapons, while Tia and Mia took what tools they had lying around that could double as weapons in a pinch. They also took anything important and put them into the slings and belts they’d made out of the vines they’d gathered. Regina glanced at the shelter where the eggs were waiting. They should be ready to hatch soon, but in the meantime, they were far too large and heavy to easily carry.

A bellowing sound turned her attention back to the forest. Max stepped beside her, his ax and shield clutched tightly. Regina didn’t take her eyes off the shadows. After a moment, she could make out the shape of the monster approaching them. It looked like an oversized fox.

Before she even got a System notification, Tim jumped at it with a shrill warcry. Regina blinked. He’d moved far quicker than normal and his lunge even pushed the beast back a little.

Then she refocused and cast a Magic Missile. The magical projectile hit the fox in the face, causing it to jerk back. Tim took advantage, slashing with his left blade-arm at the same time as he swung his ax. The fox stumbled back, evading the swing, but the blade caught him in the throat. Its fur stood up, suddenly bristling with spikes. But then a thrown stone from Max caught the monster again in the eye and the ability seemed to melt off its fur.

Tim dodged an errant swipe of its paws, then stepped forward, driving his blade in deep. The fox twitched before it fell backward.

They didn’t get any time to celebrate the victory. Another roar resounded, still distant but noticeably louder. Regina inhaled sharply, and the scents she caught prickled in her nose, warning of danger.

“Tim, stay close,” she ordered him. “Defensive position.”

She didn’t really know what a good defensive position would be, but apparently Tim had a better idea than her. He and Max moved to flank her a few steps out, leaving all of them enough room to swing their weapons, with the Drone Workers behind them. That also put her in the middle of a rectangle with the warriors at the front and the workers at the back.

Another monster crested the top of the nearest hill, halting and hissing at them. It was some sort of big cat, looking like a cross between a lion and a jaguar.

Lionit — Level ?

A moment later, another monster broke through the treeline into the cleared area around the hills. This one looked like a giant snake with red streaks across its body.

Red-Striped Snake — Level ?

Regina cursed and launched another Magic Missile. She aimed for the snake on the theory that it would be slower to dodge. Her guess seemed to pan out, as the snake started slithering away, but still got its tail caught by the attack. It drew back, hissing at them again. Regina hissed back.

The cat used that moment to pounce. Tim activated his Charge ability again, meeting it a few steps out from her position. Max quickly stepped forward and bashed it with his shield, giving his fellow Warrior long enough to regain sure footing.

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Regina hesitated, then decided not to risk another missile. She had to conserve her mana, anyway.

The warriors and the cat tussled for a few seconds. It looked more like a shoving match than a proper fight. The hive drones had the advantage of being able to take cover behind their shields while at the same time menacing it with multiple weapons.

After a bit of back and forth, during which Tim only suffered a scratch down his left leg and the cat got a few shallow cuts along its flanks, it backed away. Regina glared at it, trying to project threat. After a moment, the monster clearly decided that this food wasn’t worth the fight and withdrew.

That left them with the snake, which had approached by now. They’d all stepped forward a little, fighting right at the edge of the treeline, not far from their shelters. Regina prepared a Magic Missile, just to be safe, but hesitated. She felt a prickly feeling, like an itch on the back of her neck.

She raised her head and glanced at the sky, which nearly made her step back on reflex. There were several flying monsters in the sky now. Most of them were still a good distance away, except for a falcon that was circling above the hill. But her attention was drawn to the largest creature, which was quickly nearing their position. Even the snake seemed to sense it, freezing in its tracks for a moment.

“Is that a dragon?” Max asked, sounding a little incredulous.

“Technically a wyvern, I think,” Regina answered, still staring. “It only has four limbs and its forelimbs are its wings.”

The monster looked unmistakably lizard-like, with scaly dark green skin. It was long and sinuous, but she could tell that fact only hid how much bulk it had. Its head was ringed by small spikes, and its elongated snout fit large, sharp teeth, as she saw when it opened it to roar. The sound made Tia flinch.

Regina stared at it for a long moment, but for once, the System refused to provide a description. It approached rapidly, showing it was even larger than she thought, at least the size of an elephant. In fact, was it accelerating?

“Fuck! Duck! Get out of the way!” Regina yelled.

She suited actions to words and dove to the side, jumping into the forest and rolling behind a tree. Its leaves stirred in the wind caused by the wyvern’s passage. Regina blinked some spraying pieces of bark out of her eyes and scuttled backwards.

The monster must have had its eye on the snake. It was hard to make out what was going on, the details lost in the quickness of its descent and the way it crashed through the forest. Trees toppled or bowed and groaned with stress, twigs and leaves raining down all around.

Regina hopped back further, trying to get distance, then froze. The wyvern had come down where they’d been, at the forest’s edge. Now its thick, scaly tail lashed through the air, shaking off a tree’s branches, and crashed to the ground right atop two of their shelters. They crumbled like they were made of cardboard.

Regina winced, then shook herself free of her paralysis. “Boys, girls,” she called. “Flee! Regroup by the berry bush!”

She didn’t wait around to see if they would follow her order, but turned and ran into the forest. There was no way they’d be able to fight that wyvern, and they needed to be gone before it noticed them.

There were no monsters in their immediate surroundings, probably because none of them wanted to get too close to the wyvern, either. Regina didn’t look back at what had become of their camp. Behind her, she heard the lizard roar again, a deep thrumming that seemed to shake the forest itself.

After a heart-pounding minute of frantic running, thanking whatever determined her biology for her low-light vision, she reached the rendezvous point she’d set. A dark shadow flitted away behind the tree trunks. Regina clutched onto her spear and slowed.

She took a deep breath when she saw that the others had made it. The boys and Tia were already there, and Mia was just emerging from behind a bush. They all turned to her with obvious expressions of relief.

“Alright, we don’t have the time to dawdle,” Regina said. “Let’s go. It clearly isn’t safe here anymore. Are any of you injured?”

“Just a scratch, it won’t slow me down,” Tim said.

“I twisted my right work-limb,” Mia said. “But I’m fine otherwise. I can still run.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Max hurried forward to put himself in the lead, while Tim fell back to put the workers ahead of him. Regina walked after Max. She hesitated for a moment, glancing back, but there was nothing to see but the darkness of the forest. Shaking her head, she went.

They hurried, but didn’t run. She didn’t want anyone to twist an ankle in these conditions.

“Where are we going?” Tim asked quietly.

Regina ran a hand through the stubble of her hair, trying to think quickly. “Let’s head towards the river, then follow it downstream, but in the cover of the forest. I don’t think we should attempt a crossing right now. There will probably be other monsters, so stay sharp.”

They fell silent for a minute. Regina listened to the forest around her, her nerves wound tightly and her claws tapping against the shaft of her spear. The others were probably the same.

Then Max broke the silence. “What is going on?” He glanced back at her for a moment. “It’s just after we met that elf.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think the elves sicced a horde of beasts on us. They’d probably have better ways to make sure we die, if that’s what they wanted. But this is weird.”

They were quiet for a few more seconds, until Max cleared his throat. He sounded hesitant when he spoke again. “My Queen, when that wyvern came down … I saw it demolish the newest shelter.”

Regina didn’t turn to look at him, but kept scanning the forest. She could smell more beasts again. The main horde was probably behind them, but there would be others ranging ahead of the bulk. “Yes, that was the shelter with the eggs. They’re gone.”

“Are you sure?” Mia asked.

Regina sighed. She took her attention from her surroundings for a moment to try and chase down the mana sense she got of her hive. “I can’t sense them, so yes, I’m pretty sure. Actually …” She called up her status. “Yes, my mana regeneration is back up to a higher value. At least I’ll be able to fight more effectively. I have a feeling we’re going to need that.”

It was a shame. But the eggs had still been in development, not actual people. And there was no way they could have protected them.

The hive walked the rest of the way to the river in silence, on the alert for more beasts. The closer they got, the more signs of monsters Regina heard and saw.

This was not going to be an easy trip.