I bolted up the long, curving tunnel. The sounds of fighting were everywhere, bouncing off the walls of the honeycomb of chambers all around me. My blood screamed to charge in and attack the invaders, but I gritted my teeth against the instinct, and turned toward my chamber instead. Without a weapon, I had no chance against a Soldier. I had to get a spear.
We had forty or fifty Outcasts in our ruined Hive that would fight to the death for our Queen. Mostly Diggers and Builders, but twelve were Soldiers, mostly missing legs and one missing its stinger. Four men, plus me.
And it smelled like at least ten Yellow Soldiers. Maybe more.
The spear was with the rest of the weapons in a little chamber they called an armory.
I raced into the room and ran smack into the back of someone.
He whirled around, eyes blazing.
Gil.
I backed a step away. “You’re not dead? What are you doing here?”
His eyebrows met in a scowl of rage. “We’re here to protect our Hive.”
We. Our Hive.
In an instant I realized he didn’t mean the free humans and our perfect Blue Queen. He meant the old Hive. The sickly Yellow Hive of death. He’d run straight back to them. And he’d led them straight back here.
I cocked back my shoulder and rammed a fist right into the side of his face. He crashed to the floor and didn’t move.
“You really are an idiot,” I muttered as I grabbed a spear and dashed toward the sounds and smells of the enemy.
It was impossible to count the number of invaders in the chaos of the battle. I closed my eyes and dashed into the fray, spear held high. The Yellows were advancing through our pathetic line, tails whipping left and right to sting our peaceful Diggers. Were they dead, or just paralyzed? It hardly mattered. If the invaders fought their way down to where the Queen hung in her cocoon, they would kill her.
Mo had instructed me not to throw the spear, but to jab with it. I saw two of the other men slashing with long metal knives, jumping and dodging the Yellow stingers. One of their Soldiers went down under a pile of Diggers, and the smell as they ripped it to shreds with their huge claws made my heart sing.
We can do this. We can win.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three of the Yellow Soldiers dash from the fray and skitter toward the lower tunnels, heading for the Queen. I bolted after them.
Down they went, following the scent trails we left as we traversed the deep tunnels. They were faster than I was. They were going to get to her.
From out of a side tunnel, two Builders bowled into the Soldiers. One was stung instantly and fell, partially blocking the tunnel. As the Soldiers climbed over its still body, the other Builder hunkered down right in front of them.
The Builder’s head exploded.
In an instant the tunnel was filled with a noxious, choking gas. The stench invaded right into my brain, stopping me cold. I was blind. I couldn’t smell a thing.
The Soldiers were also blinded, and in that moment, I realized the advantage was mine.
I couldn’t smell, but I could see.
With primal scream, I flung myself onto the back of the Soldier in the rear. I buried my spear into the back of its neck, and it dropped beneath me. I wrenched out the spear, rolled away from the still-dangerous tail, and scrambled to my feet.
The other two Soldiers heard me. They couldn’t navigate well, but their feelers could surely detect my motion. One of them advanced on me.
And the other turned and resumed a much slower march down the tunnel, touching the wall to stay on course.
It’s going for her. Stop it.
But an enraged Soldier stood between me and my quarry.
It whipped its stinger around wildly, searching for me in its blindness. I dodged left, but the thick tail whizzed toward me. With another yell, I plunged the tip of my spear into the meat of the tail. It stuck there, and the strength of the Soldier ripped the haft right out of my hands. The spear clattered away as the noxious explosion smell was replaced by a stronger acid stench.
I feinted to the right, hoping to dash past it and run to defend the Queen in the lower chambers.
But the tail hit me square in the left thigh.
Numbness washed over my leg. I lunged toward the fallen Builder, hoping to crawl under its still bulk before total paralysis hit me.
The stinger hit me again, this time in the right leg. But the numbness didn’t come. I couldn’t feel anything on my left side below the hip, but the paralysis stopped there.
Another wave of the acid stench scorched my nostrils.
My spear. It ruptured the venom sac.
The Soldier was out of venom.
I groped for my fallen spear and my hands closed around something sharp. In the dim light I could barely tell what it was, but the stench told me where it came from. I was holding the huge, serrated mandible of the Builder that had somehow exploded its own head to save us.
With a feral roar, I flung myself at the Soldier. My movement was awkward, swinging my dead leg around, but the Soldier was still disoriented by all the conflicting smells in the narrow tunnel. The mandible in my hand was heavier and sharper than any of the weapons the humans here had made. I lunged right into the Soldier’s waving front legs. It closed them around me and plunged its useless tail into me again.
I swung the mandible in my hand, putting all the power of rage and terror into the swing.
The Soldier’s head flew from its thorax and splatted into the wall. We fell together into a pile of limbs and gore.