Webs & Wards (Beesong Chronicles Book 2)

by Benjamin Medrano

  “What do you mean, Guildmaster?” a man who was wearing heavy plate asked, and with a couple of scars barely visible around his neck.

  “They came here for a seal hidden in the region. One of a set, which I’m told that a demon lord stole from the Blackstone Mines near Seldrim recently,” Abigail said, her gaze drifting up to meet Cora’s eyes, and the elf’s stomach tightened, feeling almost like the floor had dropped out from under her. The Guildmaster continued without pausing. “There are three seals in total, and with any taken, the barrier they’re maintaining will slowly degrade and eventually break. That would be catastrophic. The more that’re missing, the faster it’ll fail. We need to stop them from taking the stone if at all possible.”

  “Uh-oh,” Joy muttered beside Cora, and the elf closed her eyes, frustration and disbelief rushing through her.

  “You have got to be kidding me! If the same guy we ran into last time is here, we don’t have a chance,” Brianna exclaimed loudly, drawing the gazes of the other adventurers to her.

  “What do you mean?” a human woman asked, adjusting her armor, a suit of light plate ornamented with the symbol of Xinra. “You know these people? I mean, we lost last time, but there were hundreds of them, and they attacked in the middle of the night. If we hit one small group of them at a time, I think we can do some serious damage.”

  “We were part of the group at the Blackstone Mines. We barely got out alive,” Stella said, her voice relatively clear as her gaze rose to meet Abigail’s. “The question is, who’s their leader? Is it a male demon named Alethus?”

  “What? Alethus, Lord of Skyfish Valley?” Abigail asked, her voice suddenly sharp, and Cora couldn’t help blinking.

  “Um, possibly? We didn’t exactly get an introduction. If I recall correctly, he was level forty-eight and nearly killed us all,” Cora said, her voice a bit hesitant as she looked around the room, and saw the adventurers pale. “If Joy hadn’t lured him into a den of flower minks, we’d have died.”

  “Gods preserve us,” a man muttered, pulling out a holy symbol and kissing it.

  “Fortunately for us all, it is not Alethus, nor any high-level demon in command here. What we have is bad enough, but not utterly hopeless,” Abigail said, prompting Cora to relax slightly, at least for a moment. “No, we have two major threats. The leader of the invaders is a human woman named Damaris, and she’s a level twenty-eight Demonic Knight. Her second-in-command is an orc named Velk, and he’s a level twenty-six Demonic Berserker. I didn’t have time to figure out what level the other captains were, but they all felt about as powerful as Leah, the captain we defeated, and she was a level twenty-three Ranger.”

  “Hellfire,” Brianna muttered, taking a deep breath, then let it out. “Well, at least it isn’t likely that they’ll have taken strength potions. She wouldn’t have done nearly as much damage without that to ruin our day.”

  “Oh, that’s what she drank?” Joy murmured, then looked at Cora. “Um, what should we do? I think we should help stop them from getting the seal-thing. I don’t like the idea of Irador getting squished by something big and ugly.”

  “I don’t think anyone does,” Cora replied, and glanced at Abigail as she asked, “Do you have a plan, Guildmaster? While I’m happy to help, we are rather low level to take on an entire army like this.”

  “That’s the one thing that may work in our favor. From what I’ve learned from the apis, the area around the seal has been overrun by army ants, and that means they aren’t going to have an easy time getting to it,” Abigail explained, her expression hardening. “They’re almost certainly going to have to spread out their soldiers to hold open an escape route, and they’ll be worn down by the time they can get there. Not to mention there are potent traps over the seal chamber, ones that’ll injure even level thirty adventurers, let alone them.

  “The one fortunate thing about the invaders looting the guild is that they moved almost everything valuable from the storeroom before it was inadvertently blown to bits,” Abigail continued, and Cora suppressed a laugh at how Joy’s cheeks colored. “That means we have the guild supplies, and I’m going to be generous with them under the circumstances. I can give each of you several healing, mana, and stamina potions, a couple of different strength or magic boosting potions, and I have a crystal with an imbued spell of Meteor Strike I can use three times. That should allow us to overpower the common soldiers of their army, and to match their leaders if we’re careful.”

  Cora nodded at that, feeling far more at ease at the idea of them having multiple potions for healing and the like to help. It still wasn’t good, but it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as trying to fight a small army when they were almost all lower level than their opponents.

  After a moment, Abigail asked, “Any objections?”

  One of the men raised a hand and spoke up. “Is there any way I could take back my retirement and get back to actively adventuring? I don’t know about you, but that seems a lot less dangerous than a guild position right now.”

  Laughter rippled through the room at his joking request, and Cora couldn’t help joining it, as even the Guildmaster cracked a smile.

  “You aren’t the only one thinking about that right now, but as we have adventurers in company, I don’t think that’d save you, Carl,” Abigail said, looking at the attendant hesitantly before she asked, “Is there any way that you could assist us with this? While I know your task was just to help the town, if your people could even guide us through the forest, that would be immensely helpful.”

  “Guide you, definitely! Fight the soldiers, though, with the army ants right there… I don’t know,” the attendant said, looking at the map thoughtfully. “I don’t really know how to read the map. Don’t have time to learn, either. But I can send a message to the queen and ask for instructions. We should get a reply before you reach the ants, if you move like most wingless people do.”

  “Thank you,” Abigail said, and glanced at Cora and the others as she asked, “Are you four coming with us?”

  “I will!” Joy said instantly, then blushed as she looked at Cora, then Brianna and Stella as she added, “Well, if you’re okay with it?”

  Cora hesitated, looking at the humans curiously. Brianna shrugged and sheathed her sword, looking at Stella as well, and the Acolyte nodded slightly.

  “While I’m not happy about going into such a dangerous area, we can’t just ignore what’s happening. I still think it should be your decision, though. You’re the one in the most danger, Cora,” Stella said, standing up on her toes for a few seconds.

  “Oh?” a nearby adventurer asked, looking at Cora closely. “Is something wrong?”

  “I died shortly before we ran into the demon, which made things… dangerous. I still have about a week before I’m confident I can resurrect,” Cora said, wrinkling her nose unhappily as she thought. Part of her hated the idea of putting herself in danger again so soon, but at the same time, part of her took what the demon lord was doing quite personally at this point. His influence kept showing up near them, and if they could wreck his plans, she’d take distinct satisfaction in it, since he was indirectly responsible for Joy losing her pure royal jelly. After a few seconds she nodded slowly, looking back at Abigail. “We’ll come with, Guildmaster. I’m afraid that I need to be a bit more cautious, however.”

  “Good, since we won’t be useful to anyone if we’re dead. Go get ready, I’ll distribute the potions at the southern gate in ten minutes,” Abigail said bluntly, glancing around the room. “Make it fast, people. I hope we aren’t too late.”

  Chapter 39

  Damaris beheaded one of the army ants with a single blow, resisting the urge to curse as she kicked another hard, sending it flying backward, its exoskeleton cracked where she’d hit it. The ant she’d beheaded didn’t let go even after it’d died, though, its mandibles clamped tight around her leg, and it cost a few precious moments to cut it free, allowing her to move freely.

  Beside her, Velk roared as his
axe tore through three of the ants in a single blow, scattering them across the jungle floor and the ants behind them. Not that it was comforting, with the horrifying sight before Damaris.

  A fireball detonated in the jungle ahead of her, scorching dozens of army ants to crisps instantly, but their bodies were buried as dozens more ants swarmed over the bodies of their predecessors. Each ant was five feet long, with a spindly body, wire-like legs, and oversized mandibles, but there were just so many of them that it had to be seen to be believed. Worse, they came at Damaris like a nearly silent living tide. The only sounds were from her soldiers and the occasional chirp from the horrifying mass of insects.

  Damaris, Velk, Egan, Ovlin, and Thomas were spearheading the attack, with the squad leaders backing them up and the common soldiers cleaning up the stragglers. They were fortunate that the ants were so low-level, as their mandibles couldn’t pierce the armor of any of them over level fifteen, but that was only usually. Ovlin had been forced to fall back when an ant had launched itself into her face, nearly managing to cut her throat before the dark elf had killed it. A priest had healed Ovlin and she’d returned to the fight, but it had been far closer than Damaris liked. It wasn’t as thought they’d been as lucky in all cases, either, as a few of the soldiers had fallen so far.

  The only good thing, such as it were, was that the majority of the ants were attacking Damaris and the commanders as well. She had to assume they had some way of communicating that the biggest threat was with her, or maybe they were just going after the largest food source, but it meant that the sentries trying to protect their path back out of the hellscape were only encountering a handful of ants, by comparison.

  “Ye gods, is there no end to them?” Egan demanded at last, hammering an ant’s skull, then exclaimed, “Tornado Throw!”

  The dwarf threw his hammer, which spun through the air like a top, crushing ant after ant in a broad arc before returning to his hand, dripping with ichor. The action gave the dwarf a brief reprieve, but only for a few moments before still more ants surged into the gap.

  “They’re army ants! What do you expect?” Thomas replied, whipping his sword back and forth as he cut his way into his opponents. “They’re practically countless!”

  “Less talking, more killing,” Damaris interrupted, glowering at the ants since she couldn’t spare the time to look at the other soldiers. She did hesitate, then said, “Velk and I will clear the area, so keep it open.”

  “Yes, sir!” Thomas and Egan chorused.

  “Which side, sir?” Velk asked, calmly splattering a few more ants across the desolate jungle floor.

  “You’re on my right,” Damaris said simply, and saw him nod in the corner of her vision, adjusting his stance. She adjusted as well, drawing on her mana as she inhaled, then exclaimed, “Hellfire Eruption!”

  She reversed her sword and stabbed it into the earth as she activated the ability, and Velk used the same ability a heartbeat later, though instead he slammed his axe blade into the dirt like it was his opponent. Mana surged and boiled through Damaris, rushing into her sword rapidly as a large portion of her reserves vanished.

  The ground shredded in front of her as an eruption of red-black flames exploded out and upward in a rapidly expanding cone that obliterated all the army ants in its path, a cone which she’d deliberately angled to the left, since Velk’s cone had been angled to the right so that they just barely overlapped.

  Trees creaked and groaned, then fell as they were toppled by the attacks, crashing down on the remnants of the ants, and a swath of the creatures thirty yards long had been annihilated, giving them precious breathing room.

  Before Damaris could finish standing, the others rushed into the gap. She retrieved her sword and followed them quickly, trying to catch her breath as she nodded at Velk. He grinned as well, hurrying forward. She knew he was a little winded too, though, since the ability took a lot out of her.

  It’d been worth it, though. Even if the ants were swarming back into the gap they’d opened, the largest concentration had been immediately in front of Damaris, so they were far fewer in number, at least for the moment.

  “Keep pushing! We’re almost there!” Damaris called out, rushing into the fray once more.

  She just hoped that the traps around the seal weren’t as bad as she feared they might be.

  * * *

  “My queen, we bear news,” an apis warrior said, bowing her head before the queen, and she paused, looking at the apis curiously.

  “Speak, then,” the queen said, studying the pair that were in her presence as she set down the cup of lemonade she’d been enjoying. She’d have to thank Joy for the gift if she got the chance, since it was quite pleasant.

  Both of the apis showed faint signs of combat, mostly hints of smoke and a couple of cracks in their armor, though the one not speaking had lost a finger-width of her left antenna. At least that much would heal over the course of a few days, unlike limbs.

  “The town has been freed of invaders, and we lost just over sixty apis, mostly from one of the leaders. There weren’t as many invaders as we expected, either,” the apis reported rapidly, but her expression was surprisingly serious for reporting a victory. “The attendant says that’s because they’re here in the jungle, trying to get into an area the ants have taken. They’re trying to get some type of rock called a seal, and if they get it, it could release a horrible monster that’s trapped somewhere in the duchy.”

  It was obvious from the way the apis spoke that she only had the vaguest idea of what a duchy was, and the queen made a mental note to have one of the attendants explain the idea of nations to the workers. While Joy’s stories had expanded the knowledge of the common members of the hive immensely, they’d lacked the details to allow the apis to fully understand, especially when not all the apis were able to hear the full explanations.

  “That is a bit scary. If they’re having to deal with the ants, it won’t be easy, though… it might explain why reports from the front lines said that the ants haven’t been as aggressive today,” the queen said, looking at them patiently, considering their pheromones before she continued. “Is there more?”

  “Yes. The Gu-gul… the fire lady said that it’s in a ravine near the termite nest and the weird giant tree,” the apis explained, changing the word after stumbling over it a couple of times. “She asked if we could help stop them. The attendant sent us to ask you, and is leading them to the edge of the ant territory nearest it.”

  The queen was a little perplexed about who the ‘fire lady’ might be, but from the context, she suspected she was one of the leaders in the town. The request, though… it was another risk, and one she was hesitant to take, if she were being honest with herself. Yet she’d already risked the apis to rescue the town, and that sacrifice might be wasted if the monster was freed. Besides, the ants had been less aggressive that day, which meant that they hadn’t taken as many losses.

  Glancing over at the lemonade, the queen made a decision and nodded. “Tell the attendant that she can assist if she believes it will help them succeed. If you lose more than half your numbers, I expect you to retreat.”

  “Yes, my queen!” the two apis chorused, and they turned to rush out of the room.

  The queen watched them go, then shrugged, turning back to her lemonade as the attendants brought her another cell for the next egg, murmuring, “I hope they succeed.”

  “As do we all, my queen,” an attendant agreed.

  Chapter 40

  “This looks bad,” Brianna said, pausing for a moment while the other adventurers cleaned up after the fight.

  They’d run into a small detachment of the invaders just outside of the Teeming Jungle who’d been guarding the mounts of the other soldiers, and that would have given Joy a good idea of how many enemies they were up against, even if Abigail hadn’t been able to give them some information. They’d dealt with the guards, and a few of the horses had fled during the battle, though Joy wasn’t entirely sure why
they’d panicked.

  Still, going into the forest hadn’t been a challenge, and they’d just run into another group of soldiers, only eight of them, and the fight had been short and brutal. Joy and the others had killed a pair of soldiers without injury, but not all of the adventurers had been quite that lucky. Still, it looked like things had gone well to her, which was why she looked up.

  “What’s wrong?” Joy asked, looking around intently, watching for danger.

  “There aren’t any monsters, Joy. We haven’t run into a single leopard, spider, beetle, or even giant mouse,” Cora said, looking around in concern. “That means they probably cleared out the area… or scared everything so much that the creatures ran. Either way, it isn’t good. Even if we do catch them while they’re weak.”

  “Oh. Um, well… yeah, you’re right about there not being many creatures,” Joy said, looking around and blinking again. She just wasn’t used to the Teeming Jungle, so she didn’t have any idea how often they should be running into enemies. She thought about asking, but Abigail spoke first.

  “Alright, we’d better move! We’re obviously catching up with them, and we’re getting near the territory the ants have infested,” Abigail said, her voice carrying to everyone as the mage looked around at them, a grim look on her face. “Keep an eye out for danger, as we don’t know that the ants haven’t invaded even further.”

  “Yes, Guildmaster,” Cora replied, glancing at Joy as she lowered her voice. “And that means you, Joy. You’ve been jumping headfirst into danger at every opportunity, it seems like.”

  “I don’t mean to!” Joy protested, flushing as she shifted from one foot to another. “I just want to help! You warned me earlier, too!”

  “You can help by not giving me a heart attack every time you dive forward,” Brianna interjected, starting forward, her hand on the hilt of her sword, and testing a shield she’d taken from one of the soldiers. “I swear you have no sense of self-preservation.”