Taken by the Swarm King

by Fiona Sweet

  Varyx raised his leg and heaved his boot directly into the chest of Rathum, pushing him to the ground with a heavy thump a few yards away. Varyx wasted no time in gaining the upper hand. He hastily got to his feet and brushed the dirt and sand off his knees.

  He loomed over Rathum. Both men were panting hard and giving each other death stares. I didn’t move a single muscle. I was paralyzed with fear and as much as I hated to admit it—a little excitement too. What if one killed the other? Judging by the first impressions I had of the pair, I hoped that Rathum would be the one to go down.

  Varyx towered over Rathum, his fists curled into tight balls. “I will allow you one final chance to fall in line,” he bellowed. “This is only because I had great respect for your father and because unlike the two of us, our fathers were such good friends that they were practically brothers. I feel the need to honor them in that respect.”

  Rathum growled spitefully and wiped his nose with the back of his giant hand. He sat up straight and regressed right back to his combative behavior.

  “These humans are parasites. One of this whore’s—this is where he paused and pointed to me—own villagers killed your father. Why don’t you want to seek revenge?”

  Without warning, Varyx drew his sword. He sliced Rathum across the chest before Rathum had a chance to react and defend himself. It was one clean swiping motion.

  If anything, Rathum’s pride was probably wounded more than his flesh.

  “I already told you, you get one more chance,” Varyx chastised. “Next time, the cut will be deeper.”

  He spun on a heel and mounted his gwarn. The tension among these savages hung like a heavy cloak over the already sweltering desert.

  Just like that, the travel returned and we pressed on. This time Rathum did not ride in the front with Varyx. I remained stoically quiet and kept my guard up in case another random brawl popped up out of nowhere between the barbarian men.

  Even though I was still watching my back and afraid of the future, I began to realize that Varyx might be the only one in this swarm who would be able to protect me. More worryingly, maybe he was the only one who wanted to protect me.

  There was something different about him. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. I felt flustered. I needed to work up the courage to talk to Varyx. He was smart, strong, and sharp. I saw potential for kindness hiding in that heart of his somewhere. Even if it was just for self-preservation, I needed to stay on his good side.

  Varyx cut through the silence. He glanced at me briefly before setting his focus back on the endless horizon of orange desert all around us.

  “Our next stop is another oasis. We’ll get there in two days,” Varyx informed.

  “I’ve never been to an oasis,” I admitted.

  If I could take one token of positivity away from this ordeal—it would be that after nineteen years on this planet—I would finally realize my dream of visiting an oasis. I just wished it was with my people and not with a barbarian swarm.

  Varyx studied me a moment or two. “You will enjoy it there.”

  The conversation was becoming too casual for comfort. “The human’s, myself and my family included, find less and less water each year. We need access to the various oases scattered around the planet or we’ll die.”

  Varyx was quiet for several minutes.

  “Not that you would care or anything … but I just thought I would mention it—”

  He cut me a pained look. His horns pointed at the edges, but there was a flicker of vulnerability to him in that precise moment that made him appear less daunting.

  “My swarm grows smaller and smaller each year. Not enough children are born into our communities. The journey is cruel. Mother nature is vicious and relentless—shows no mercy on our kind.”

  “Why do you do it, then?” I asked, squinting at him through the brutal sunlight that burned my back and shoulders.

  Varyx jaw tightened impatiently. He stared straight ahead, but he answered me.

  “It’s a nomadic tradition to find our fate-marked. We have no other choice, or our race will die off completely.”

  “It sounds like we both have our own set of problems then,” I said and chuckled at the irony, but Varyx didn’t laugh. His lips didn’t even crack into a tiny hint of a smile.

  He looked at me and inhaled deeply. “We must keep moving. It will be a long road ahead but if we can manage to make it to the oasis, we will get the rest and physical refueling we desperately need.”

  If we make it to the oasis? Why did he phrase it like that? How much danger was I really in, not including being a barbarian fate-marked. I tried to keep myself calm on the surface, but the fear of the unknown was building its webs of destruction inside my mind.

  6

  Varyx

  I rubbed my eyes. It’s folklore that if you are tired, thirsty, and hot in the desert an oasis will look simply like a mirage, but it’s just your mind playing a cruel trick on you.

  I knew that this oasis wasn’t a mirage. It was real, and by the grace of the gods above we had navigated accurately to reach its glorious existence.

  It had been a grueling two days and my swarm was in rough shape. Even Cherish, who had finally revealed her name to me, hung limply on her gwarn. Her eyes had dark circles under them, and her flaxen hair was not as silky and shiny as it was a couple days ago, now relatively stringy. Her fingernails were caked with grime. Her shoulders were red and blistering from burns caused by the savage sun.

  “I can see the oasis on the horizon,” I said, giving her a look of encouragement.

  She stared straight ahead. “I have eyes to see exactly what you see.”

  She was being snarky, but I let it go, for now. Everyone would feel better once they had some food in their stomachs, Cherish included.

  As we narrowed the gap between us and the oasis, its breathtaking beauty came into clearer view. My throat was scratchy and burned to drink from the waterfalls gushing over the rocks. I yearned to bathe with Cherish in the refreshing water and could practically feel the crisp water cascading down my skin.

  I couldn’t wait to wade with Cherish, our first time it would be us completely naked together. It was a fantasy that would soon be realized.

  Gigantic palm trees stretched to the sky, encircling the enormous lake. The lake itself resembled reflective glass. The surface was so smooth and serene, untouched.

  My mouth watered as my eyes panned to the fruit trees, abundant with the production of juicy looking gourds, melons, berries, and other delicacies that I couldn’t wait to taste and relish in the explosion of flavor that was soon to burst into my mouth as soon as I took a meaty bite.

  I glanced over at Cherish. She was practically salivating. Her eyes had a flicker of longing in them—the same insatiable hunger that I felt in my own pounding heart.

  We were almost there—and I knew the men in my swarm could use the rest and relaxation for a few days while we regrouped and restocked our water and food supply.

  Unfortunately, however, there was a new problem coming to light that was going to be a bit of a challenge for us, and I feared it wouldn’t have a happy ending.

  A cluster of humans were huddled together on the east side of the oasis rim, walking around the perimeter on the hunt for fruit and water.

  Their arms were outstretched as they maneuvered heavy baskets to carry their stolen oasis supplies back to their village.

  Their eyes scanned the area with justified paranoia, but they had yet to discover the swarm rapidly approaching them from the east. It wouldn’t matter, even if they did. They wouldn’t be fast enough to escape. They had no gwarns to accommodate their travel. They were trapped.

  A few of my captains approached me cautiously.

  “Sir, do we have your permission to execute the humans?” One of them asked.

  It was customary that if we found humans at an oasis where they weren’t allowed to be, then the tradition to kill them was—exactly that—a tradition. It was an act tha
t I didn’t particularly enjoy—but respected, nonetheless.

  I looked at Cherish out of the corner of my eye. She had a horrified expression on her face, her lips agape with shock.

  “You aren’t going to say yes, are you?” Cherish’s voice came out as a nervous squeak.

  I turned back to my men and nodded my consent, even though deep down, I would rather spare the Earthlings. I knew that if I did that—however—then my respect as Swarm King would take a nosedive. I needed these men to understand who was in charge here.

  “No, please.” Cherish croaked, adamantly shaking her head with fear. “I’ll do anything … just … please let them go.”

  Translucent tears ran down her cheeks and her chin quivered.

  “I cannot show them mercy,” I said, even though it ripped my heart into pieces to see Cherish so upset on account of my actions.

  “Why not? They aren’t hurting you. They aren’t trying to fight you. They have no weapons. They are starving and thirsty and dying.” Her voice cracked with fresh heartbreak.

  I cringed. Cherish’s words were harsh and true, but it didn’t matter. I had to make an example out of them, or the humans would get too brave and before we knew it, more and more of them would continue to ransack the oases around the planet.

  There would be nothing left for us as Byromians to pick from at the remaining oases. It was a selfish excuse, I knew, but I had to protect my own race and their wellbeing above the humans.

  “Varyx…” Cherish trailed off, the first time she said my name.

  The desperation in her voice and the way she was counting on me to make the right decision made me ache from head to toe.

  “My decision is final,” I said, swallowing down the suffocating guilt.

  I looked away from her, not because I viewed myself a coward, but because her pain crushed me on the inside and I wasn’t used to having emotions like these and it was becoming a nuisance.

  “No,” she whimpered. Her shoulders shook with sobs of despair.

  “My hands are tied, Cherish,” I said, aiming to console her but I was failing miserably. “It’s Byromian tradition. The Earthlings—your kind, should know better than to encroach on territory that doesn’t belong to them.”

  “But they’re starving,” Cherish argued, wailing now. I couldn’t bear to watch her go through this emotional torment.

  I ignored her pleas and turned a blind eye.

  Before I knew it, Cherish had unmounted her lizard and was hurtling toward the humans. She threw herself in front of them, protectively extending her arms out by her sides. The human’s around her looked disturbed. Their eyes were wide with fright and their knobby knees visibly trembled.

  “Kill me too, then,” she said with a defiant glare directed at me.

  “You don’t understand, these are human thieves. They are taking what doesn’t belong to them,” I protested.

  “So are you,” Cherish fired back, panting hard.

  “Watch your mouth in front of your Swarm King,” one of my men roared. He drew his whip and, raised his arm over his head, and brought a snapping strike down on Cherish’s arms.

  She cried in agony and instantly collapsed to her knees, clutching the injured area as she silently cried.

  I couldn’t bear to see her hurt like this. The irrational side of my brain ignited and took over the rest of my body. In an instant, I plunged from my gwarn and charged at the culprit, wielding my sword high above my head.

  The man knew what was coming. He didn’t even put up a fight as I plunged the sword deep into his chest cavity, hearing the sound of his rib cage cracking in the process.

  His mouth pooled with blood and his eyes grew wide with horror. He fell in a heap on the sand and took his final breath. I removed my sword from his heart and wiped the blood on his boots.

  Adrenaline surged through my veins. I spun in a slow circle, glowering at the rest of the men in my swarm.

  “Are there any other Byromians here who dare to defy me? If so, I challenge them to a fight, but just be aware, it will be a battle to the death.”

  All eyes were locked on me, staring at me with dissolution as if they couldn’t believe that I would kill one of my own. It was rare, almost never happened for a Swarm King to murder one of his own soldiers, especially when our masses had declined as rapidly as they had already.

  Rathum’s behavior was peculiar during this time of trial and circumstance. He hung back in the belly of the swarm, blending in with the other men without making a single remark or contesting me in any capacity.

  I wondered if he was secretly scheming his revenge on me, but for now I didn’t have time to worry about it. I did, however, make eye contact with him. His eyes darkened as he intently watched the scene unfold. I studied Rathum.

  There was a hint of a callous smile on his face, almost as if he had been the one to give the orders to the killed man to ambush Cherish.

  Was this Rathum’s way of testing my reaction to see what happened first before he defied me himself? He lurked in the shadows trying to play innocent, but part of me knew that this probably wasn’t the case at all. Rathum had a sick and twisted mind and he was up to something.

  There was tension in the air, but my swarm remained stoically quiet. No one wanted to go up against me directly—at least not yet.

  7

  Cherish

  I stood stiff as a board, afraid to move, not daring to speak. I couldn’t even flinch. Varyx just killed one of his own men to prevent the man from further injuring me or worse—killing me.

  I knew I had been fate-marked with Varyx, but why was he willing to slaughter his own kind on account of me, for me? We barely even knew each other, and over the course of the last two days, we had hardly spoken a single word to each other either.

  I was exponentially confused, but part of me hung on to a tiny sliver of hope that maybe things were finally going to take a turn for the better.

  I wouldn’t hold my breath over it of course. But Varyx’s behavior was both honorable, at least from my human perspective, and puzzling at the same time. Did he have a darker agenda yet to be revealed?

  He roared in anger at the men in his swarm who were slowly unraveling. His voice bellowed through the dense and humid air. The other humans behind me were frozen in terror. Their lives literally hung in the balance. They were teetering on the edge of life and death and they knew it with every precious breath that released from their lungs.

  I didn’t recognize these particular villagers. Perhaps they were from a different section of the planet from mine but either way, I kept my hands raised by my sides. I wouldn’t let up and vowed to protectively shield them at any cost.

  Varyx seemed like a loose cannon, quick to anger, but maybe I shouldn’t complain. It seemed like so far, his rage was for my benefit.

  Varyx stood stately in front of his swarm. His shoulders squared with pride. His posture was the token of dominance.

  I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side, that was for sure. I counted my blessings that I wasn’t on the other end of his menacing sword. Judging by the looks of dread on his swarm men’s faces—they didn’t want to collapse into the same fate as their fallen brother just had.

  Varyx was giving them all a look of doom as if he was asking who wanted to be next on his shit list.

  “I’ve had enough of the insubordinate behavior,” Varyx thundered. “I won’t stand for it—not another minute. You are either with me or against me. We must band together. I hate what I had to take matters into my own hands with one of our own but believe me when I say—accountability is going to count from now on.”

  He took a deep breath. The world around us went silent. I doubted that the stars in the universe even blinked at this precise moment in time and space. Even nature seemed to be listening intently to the honesty pouring from Varyx’s soul—the true intentions of that soul yet to be revealed.

  Not being met with protest, Varyx continued. “There is an infectious spread of anger and h
ostility weaving its way through our swarm and I won’t stand for it. It’s time for change and enlightenment. A new era must dawn on our horizon if any of us hope to survive on this treacherous and unforgiving planet. Nature will not help us, unless we help each other.”

  Varyx turned around and held my gaze with such fierce passion that I felt a burning in my soul.

  “We will not be slaughtering these humans today,” he informed.

  There were mixed emotions buzzing through both the swarm and the people behind me. I didn’t want to relax, but at the same time—I had to give praise to Varyx for his bravery. Sure, he was the Swarm King, but he was risking his own skin by defying the rules and traditions of the Byromian’s that came in the generations before him.

  Murmurs of contempt drifted through the air. Varyx was given glares from his men that were etched in scowls of protest. Others smirked at him in ridicule and even laughed, telling him that his new ‘era’ would never carry enough weight to make a lasting difference.

  A few men marched toward him with combative demeanors, but Varyx stood his ground like a statue, waiting for a battle with his kind that never came.

  “You need to trust me as your Swarm King and see it through,” Varyx persisted. His voice boomed through the oasis. “It’s time for a change.”

  I certainly didn’t mind being part of his revolution if it meant me and the rest of the people living in fear in the villages could keep our lives.

  We already had enough to worry about. We had predators of a different kind sweeping through the villages at night—lurking in the shadows. The temperatures on this planet were unpredictable and unforgiving. At night, they would plunge so violently that you might freeze to death without shelter.

  Then as soon as the sun rose high in the sky, the blazing temperatures returned. With sparse water and food, we as humans were backed into a corner and still had to worry about being kidnapped as a fate-marked. Times were tough, but it was clear that we weren’t the only race suffering miserably on the planet of Byroma. Options were limited for all of us living and breathing souls.