The Hunt is over. At least, this one is. There’s always another in the wings, just waiting for the mob to decide who gets to be prey this time. Are we ready to end this, or shall we wait for the arrows to turn on us?
—Red King Rising, a pamphlet distributed during the Midian Rebellions
The wind roared at this speed, and Mosk felt cold.
Cold? The coldmen do not feel cold!
Mosk tightened his grip on the antennae, and the draconfly rumbled in protest. They were high in the air, higher than the creatures were meant to fly, and Mosk knew that if he didn’t steer down into lower altitudes its breathing slits would freeze up. The draconfly would suffocate before challenging an order.
This is true of all coldmen.
Except . . . except for the Hiveking.
He could still see the crowning, couldn’t strike the image from his mind. Proximate Keq had been ready for the enzyme bath, the marks on his shoulder-plates and belly already changing from blue to purple. Two members of the serving caste had lifted Keq into the swirling depths of the bath while another perched above them, kneading the length of the Matriarch’s swollen mesothorax. Dark green oozed from the moist glands at the tip of her abdomen and slopped into the freshly dug pit. Proximate Keq immersed himself in the fluids while the servants left to inform the Arkángel. The coldmen weren’t much for ceremony.
Mosk had only spotted his Proximate being readied for kingship as he crossed the battleground to meet with Rendel.
To meet with Rendel and present my findings in Tenocht. And then to be pulled apart and fed to the maggots—the price a fallen Hiveking pays for failing his Lord . . .
So Mosk had left. He had watched Keq finish his bath, watched the newly purpled Hiveking emerge from the enzymes shiny, wet, and regal. Mosk had then turned and walked toward the draconfly grounds, mounted the largest steed he could find, and flown away. Nobody had tried to stop him. Nobody said anything. Coldmen did not flee, did not fear, and certainly did not ignore their Lord’s summons. Even to death.
But I am not coldmen. Or, I am more than coldmen. Never has a Hiveking ruled for so many generations, overseen the end of so many Pensanden. Never has a Hiveking driven so many Hunts.
The draconfly rumbled again, and Mosk could hear a rattle in the abdominal slits behind him. The creature was freezing.
It isn’t cold that I feel. It’s . . . ambition. I will not be content with death from a failure impossible to avoid. No Hiveking could have foreseen the path of this rogue Pensanden. Not even the Arkángel himself could have finished this Hunt better than I.
Mosk tilted the antennae downward and the draconfly gave a grateful hiss. It dipped its enormous head and began to descend through the milky layer of gray-white clouds beneath them. Babel was far enough behind them now, and Mosk suspected that Rendel would be more concerned with rooting the etherwalker out of his tower than he would be with dismembering a fallen Hiveking.
The draconfly broke through the clouds, and Mosk could taste something familiar in the damp air. The joints at his shoulders began to itch.
It is time I revisit the Swampmen, turn my claws more deeply. They may be the key to ending this final Hunt for good.