Once I had learned the basics of horseback riding, I sped up to join the rest of the party. Gil rode side by side with Makenna, while Adam and Evelyn were leading the group from the front. I had no idea the direction we were heading, but at least they did. Gil turned in his saddle to look at me when I had caught up with them.
"Hey, look, who finally joined the group."
Makenna let out a snort of laughter but spared me a smile and a look of solidarity.
"It’s okay, took me a few good tries before I got the hang of it, so don't let it bother you."
I nodded my thanks to her. I’d spent most of my attention on learning the ropes of riding by myself and making sure the children weren't going to fall off, and I had neglected to notice that we had been heading in a different direction than the one Sam and I took to the Compass Kingdom.
We’d passed out of the green plains and hills that surrounded the castle and were now in unfamiliar territory for me. There were still plenty of trees and green grass blowing in the wind, but it seemed like with every passing mile, there was a little less life around us.
It took me quite some time to notice, but after three or four hours of mostly silent riding, I had to speak up.
"What's going on with the surroundings?" I asked Gil.
He took a look around as if he didn't understand my meaning.
"Oh, this is your first time being out this way, so I guess it would be a bit of a shock if you've never been here before." He pointed northwest. "’Bout five days ride is the South Kingdom. A brutish place, but home to the largest salt mine on Nexus."
"Why does that matter?"
"Well, the mine is important for a number of reasons. There are a few other salt mines dotted around, but nothing compared to the size of this one." Gil stretched his arms out for emphasis. "I'm talking hundreds upon hundreds of feet deep, with miners working around the clock to haul as much as they can. It's undeniably a profitable business, and it’s made King Sykes one of the most influential of the five kings.” He gestured to the land around us, a little sadness in his eyes. "But that profit comes at a cost. The salt mined over the decades bled into the ground, into the water, and pretty much everywhere else. Turned the land sour."
Makenna sighed in agreement with Gil. "Welcome to the Salted Mire. Nothing but salt-soaked marshlands for a hundred miles."
I sniffed at the air. It was slight, but hints of salt lingered in the air.
Gil laughed bitterly when I pointed it out. "Get used to it. It only gets worse the further we go."
I frowned at his back. The smell doesn't bother me now, but if it gets more intense, I may have to cover my nose. Salt wasn't my favorite; it burned my nose in high doses, and I hoped it would at least be bearable for me. We lapsed into silence once more, though I didn't mind. It let me enjoy the greenery while I still had the chance. I daydreamed as we rode.
My thoughts briefly thought of home, but mostly I thought of Sam. I couldn’t banish the worry in my chest, so I wished it would leave me be. It did nothing but ache.
With my heart so low, I tried to focus on other things, but the long stretches of silence left me with little to occupy my time. Gil and Makenna chatted happily to one another, and Adam and Evelyn were engrossed in some form of hushed conversation, but that left me with no one to talk to.
I suppose I could have woken up Tegen and Cheira, who had fallen asleep about half an hour after we'd left, but that would have been selfish of me. Both of them were sleeping comfortably, and I refused to ruin that just for the sake of alleviating my boredom.
The others were oblivious to my agitation, and I couldn't even be mad at them. They weren't excluding me on purpose, so I just kept riding along as the green landscape slowly died to make way to wet and muggy scrubland. The ground squelched underfoot, and water pooled in the tracks we left. The air became stifling and heavy with each passing step we took. The stench of salt grew more pronounced.
My already dwindling happiness was soundly ruined as we got closer to the salt ridden marshes.
I loved nature, every living aspect of it, and after a thousand years of the pitch-black void, I had reveled in nature once more, but this wasn't natural. The poisoned earth sickened me to my very core. To destroy the environment for the sake of money is abhorrent. The greed of humans disgusts me. Life was more important than wealth or power.
This lesson, I learned the hard way.
The entomancer race paid the highest price for our greed. If humans aren't careful, they'll have to pay for their sins someday. The last of the greenery fell away to gray, and so sunk my spirits.
With nothing else to do, I resorted to opening up my Hive Mind. I kept one hand on Lacuna's reins while I let the other rest on her flank, allowing a trickle of magic dribble out of my fingers to drift to the muddy road.
I plunged myself into the small amount of life that lingered here—pockets of resistance to humanity's intrusions. There were very few spiders or ants anywhere near. They clung to the last remaining trees; scorpions and cockroaches seemed to be the majority of the holdouts. However, the scorpions were unhappy at the salt-rich land, and yet, they still survived in the heavy moisture that sunk through the ground. The cockroaches were indifferent to everything and carried on unhindered by the salt. I poured a trickle of my consciousness into them all.
All my little ones, going about their lives. They, too, acknowledged my presence and rejoiced for their queen. I poured as much love as I could into our connection and spent a little time with them while we rode. Having used this particular spell more than the others, it drained my mana the slowest.
I still had to be careful of my mana usage, but I could handle using it better now. The more creatures I touched with the Hive Mind, the more mana it cost me, but as we went deeper into the Mire, fewer and fewer could stay with me. I bid them farewell and was about to sever the connection when I noticed a strange bird on one of the trees.
One of my little spiders watched it from its home in the deadwood. It was afraid of the bird, and though it looked right at my spider, it made no attempt to eat it.
All birds were the enemy of my little ones. My goddess loves to pit her creatures against each other. So why isn't it eating the spider? I pooled more of my power into the little spider, trying to get a better look at the bird.
It was clearly a bird, but it wasn't like any I had ever seen before. It was large, black, and menacing. Its beak was a striking blood red. As it looked at the spider, it shifted. Its whole body flickered for a second, like a mirage. The singular bird leaked shadows, bleeding ink out into the world, before it faded for a second.
It was there, then it was gone, replaced by three identical copies.
Each of them looked not at each other, but out in the distance, where we happened to be riding by. The three birds shifted themselves, creating more and more of them as I watched. Dozens of them appeared before one flickered on top of the spider I was controlling and crushed it underfoot.
With the death of the spider, my mind flooded back to my body in a rush and left me with a pounding migraine. I gasped as I came back to myself, jerking in the saddle and managing to wake up both of the children. I looked up from them to find the others looking at me with mixed emotions, from concern and confusion to bored curiosity.
Gil spoke up first. "What's wrong, Eris?"
I didn't know how to explain what had happened. It was confusing to me, and I knew I would just muddle things if I tried to explain what I saw, but I tried my best anyway.
I paused over my words before I spoke. "Um, I'm not entirely sure myself." I shifted in my saddle to point at the tree a few hundred feet away, where even now the birds kept shifting and multiplying. "But there are some strange birds in the trees over there."
Gil and Makenna laughed off my explanation, I guess thinking I was enamored over the wildlife, but Evelyn frowned, drawing a firm line with her pale lips.
"What did they look like?"
I tried to recount their a
ppearance. "Large and black, with really red beaks…and odd. They kept shifting, like an illusion."
Both Gil and Makenna stopped chuckling, and they turned to face me with anxiety on their faces.
"How many were there?" Makenna asked.
I told her. "Just one at first, then they multiplied."
"Oh, shit," Adam cursed.
The others reacted in a similar manner, their relaxed attitudes shattering as they drew arms and climbed down off their horses. I was utterly lost at this point, but I stopped Lacuna and followed suit, dropping to the ground and sinking about a foot into the swamp. The mud and wet earth slid between my toes and covered my feet.
While I had no trouble navigating through the muck, the others were hobbling and taking concerted steps. I went over to Gil, who seemed to be having some difficulty standing upright on the uneven and soft road.
"What is going on?" I asked him.
He looked off in the distance, his face solemn and firm. "We've been marked."
Am I supposed to know what that means? "What?" I asked.
Evelyn inclined her head to the tree line, where over a hundred of the birds perched, staring us down. "Shades."
Adam barked a laugh. "It’s about to get exciting."
As if by command, the flock of shades rose in unison from the trees, taking to the skies and unleashing a horrendous caw.
It sent shivers of fear through me and made me want to do nothing but flee and never look back. Their echo reverberated through my skull, and all I wanted to was curl into a ball from the pain. Gil reached me and hauled me to my feet.
"Stand firm. Don't let their mind games affect you. It'll get worse if you don't fight it."
"Here they come!" Makenna shouted.
They sent another debilitating screech at us, and a wave of death descended on us.
Hundreds of the shades swept from the trees to assault us, and with every passing moment, more appeared. Each of them dripped shadows like ink from a giant squid in the water. They blotted out the sky with their shifting darkness, and as they dove down, I jumped out of the way, finding ample footing through the damp muck.
"Tegen, Cheira, hide. I'll find you when this is over!" I yelled at them.
Without a second’s hesitation, they bolted from Lacuna and took off into the marsh, sprinting through the reeds out of sight. I regrouped with the guild, who were having a much worse time navigating in the sticky marsh, their feet sunk deep into the soft earth.
Even though they were having difficulty moving, they were far more deadly than I. Each time the birds swooped down to attempt to claw us apart, they died.
Gil swung his glowing axe and slaughtered dozens with ease. Each time his giant black axe struck, sparks flew out and set the birds alight. With a horrendous screech, they burst into flames before withering and turning to shadows.
Even though I was having an easier time moving, I still wasn't faster than the shades. They showed an animalistic cunning, catching me off guard and raking their sharp claws over my exposed arms. I cried out as sharp talons ripped through my skin. Blood ran from the deep gashes to drop down my arm.
By the void, that burns!
Their claws left shadows to stick to my wound, eating away at my exposed blood. I need to protect myself. I couldn't enter the Hive Mind in the heat of battle, but I accessed the two spells I had on the top of my tongue: Chitin Armor and Chitin Sword. More and more of them kept coming, and the five of us had separated in the wetlands.
"Quick, regroup in the trees!" Evelyn shouted and headed into the largest mass of birds.
Something happened to her—a translucent shimmer formed just off her skin. As if controlled by a gust of wind, it blew out in a circle around her. As soon as it touched one of the birds, they simply dissolved, cracking and turning to black mist as they died by the hundreds. Enough to give us an opening to run to the copse of dead trees a couple dozen yards in front of us.
"What are you waiting for? Get moving!"
Gill followed through the hole Evelyn made for us.
I took off after the giant, quickly gaining ground on both of the Gloom Knights as I ran through the mud. I kept pace with Evelyn as we reached the trees. A random dead branch from a tree snagged at my cloak but didn't tear through as we dove behind cover.
It was a short run, but I was panting as if I had run for miles. My nerves screamed at me, and my beating heart drowned out the world around me. The shades circled overhead, screeching in unison. Fear welled in my stomach and my hands shook, and I fought the desire to turn and run. To escape.
Evelyn smiled at me, even though her eyes watched the rest of the guild and the incoming swarm. "You can move, I'll give you that. Now let's see how you fight.”
I nodded breathlessly and called upon my magic. Evelyn's eyes rose by a fraction as green smoke flowed from my hands, and black chitin appeared from my skin. I shrugged off my backpack and cloak before the sharp chitin tore through the leather. It crawled up my skin in seconds and covered me from head to toe.
As the chitin slithered over my head, I lost the ability to breathe until it hardened and allowed two small slits under my nose. Chitin didn't have a smell itself, but it carried with it the scent of the forest, and when it formed over my eyes, my vision swirled with green light. In the bright day, it faded, but in the low light of the salt-soaked mire, everything was clear as day.
Coating my entire body with chitin took a massive amount of mana, and when I used it in tandem with Chitin Sword, my limited mana pool dropped even lower. With two simple spells, I was down to less than half, which fell by the minute as I kept both spells going. I doubt I have enough to last five minutes. By the void, I'm weak.
I’d gained a little bit of control over my magic while traveling with Sam, but I would still be considered a novice when compared to any other member of the Hive. Even the apocritans and mantearians could use more magic than what I'm able to muster right now. And I'm supposed to be the Hive Queen; the other races would’ve laughed me right off the throne.
Makenna lagged behind Gil as they charged over the soggy ground. The squelching mud was overshadowed by the cacophonous sound of hundreds of feathers flapping in unison. The shades gained on the pair quickly; it was apparent that they wouldn't reach the tree line before the birds were on them.
Makenna stopped, drew nearly a dozen long needles from seemingly out of nowhere, each of them tipped with a glossy, dark liquid. With pinpoint accuracy, she flung her hands in the air, and each needle pierced through a shade, killing them instantly.
What was strange was one of the ones she hit was higher than the others, and when it died, nearly a dozen others followed it in death, ones she hadn't touched.
"Go for the puppeteers! They're the controllers!" Evelyn shouted next to me.
"Yeah, we know! But how the hell are we supposed to tell them apart?" Gil asked, swinging his ax.
The shades attacked en masse, but they couldn't do more than superficial wounds as Gil and Makenna were both wearing thick leather armor that held up to the birds' sharp beaks and claws. Gil had donned a full-faced helmet, and Makenna pulled her hood taut over her head, leaving the shades no way to inflict more than scratches.
As before, they showed more intelligence than any bird should have, and when they couldn't swarm their prey, they cawed in unison a grating shriek that sent panic through my body. I wanted to run screaming, but I stood my ground and tried to fight through their tricks.
The others were far less affected by the shades’ shout than I was, and Evelyn ran from the trees to join her friends. "Wait for me!" I called and ran after her, not knowing what I was going to contribute to the fight.
When I reached Gil and Makenna, the shades changed. In a fraction of a second, they backed into the sky and shifted again, but this time they folded back into one another, forming five large rolling shadows suspended in the air.
"What are they doing?" I asked.
"Morphing. Shades can take the shape of any
thing they've seen before. I expect they realized a flock of birds wasn't getting the job done," Gil said.
"What are they going to change into?" I asked as we all waited for the shadows to take shape.
Before anyone could respond, five humanoid shapes dropped from the endless darkness to attack us, and the shadows overhead disappeared to allow some of the muted sunlight to stream in from the overcast. Each of the five shades looked human; in fact, they looked exactly like the five of us, albeit without any concrete facial features, just more twisting shadows. Without a word, we began fighting our doppelgängers.
My shade swung at me with a facsimile of my chitin sword, but it wasn't made of actual chitin, so when I brought my sword up to block, it bit into my rival's shadow blade.
It hissed at me and let out a cry of pain. Is it using its own body as a weapon? The answer didn't matter as I pressed forward, stabbing and slashing with all the finesse of a child wielding a toy. I knew I lacked skill with the sword, but I didn't need to be a master to hit a single target.
My sword wouldn't cut through the shade's, but with each landed attack, the shade screamed, and droplets of shadows trickled to the ground. For all the intelligence of the creature, it had no skill with the sword but still landed a couple of good hits.
They glanced off my armor, causing only superficial damage and chipping. Least it can't get through my armor. I'm safe as long as I can keep it up. It had been only a handful of minutes since I cast them, but already both spells were wearing me out. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and my arms grew heavy with each attack I made. If its weapon can't get through my armor, I don't even need my sword; I can just hold it off while the others deal with theirs.
The rest of the Gloom Knights had a much better time in dealing with their shades. Evelyn was the first to destroy hers. All she had to do was touch the thing, and it disintegrated. Once hers was dead, she just stood back and watched, even though her friends were in danger.
Adam tossed a single crystal onto the ground and easily ducked his shadow’s attack. He spoke two words, and before the shade could react, a massive black and silver wolf appeared from the crystal and ate half of the darkness with a single bite. The rest of its lifeless body fell and scattered in the wind.
Hive Queen Page 10