I led our people out into the light. At the entrance to the Hive, I paused a moment, breathing in the fresh air. Everything smelled so vibrant. I remembered the scent of the ocean from what seemed like ages ago when I last stood under the open sky. But there were so many layers to it. Dry sand, baking in the sun. Clear water on top, and deeper turmoil below. Something dead far out of sight, some sea creature washed up on the shore.
“Chen?” My sister Glenna took my arm, her baby in the other. “He said to go to the mountains. The messenger.”
I grinned. “He’s not a messenger from the sky. He’s Noah. My best friend.” I glanced back at the Hive. The scent Noah had carried on his skin had awakened me like never before. The Hive behind was dying, wretched. Our time here was finished. “But he’s come to save us, that’s for sure.”
We turned and filed around the Hive, leaving the ocean behind us. Noah had told me to go through the field toward the Forbidden Zone, then skirt around it toward a pass in the mountains. Someone would be there to meet us and lead us higher into the hills where we would be safe. I wasn’t certain if this was the moment all the mothers had been waiting for, but I knew I was never setting foot in that Hive again. Wherever Noah was sending us, we were going.
The smell of battle reached me long before the sound. The glorious blue scent Noah had carried, that I’d been tasting without knowing it for weeks, drifted across the grassland. With it came the sick, yellow stench of the Soldiers I’d once thought of as my own. There was blood and death, venom and pollen, and a strange, hot smell I had never encountered before.
I led our people across the plain and up onto the edge of the big canyon of the Forbidden Zone. The mothers went crazy when we reached the edge, pointing at the huge, hulking shapes that now swarmed with Masters and feral humans.
“There!” Shari cried. She was supported by two of the men, heavy with her impending delivery. “It’s the place! We have to go down there to get our wings!”
I looked down the hill. Battle raged, and the confusing sounds and sights warred in my brain. “No way. Noah said to go around.” I pointed to the mountains in the distance. “He said to go there.”
“But this is the place from the story,” she said, panting with excitement and the long walk. “That’s where we have to go.”
An explosion of light and heat filled the air between the giant shapes with pollen and flying bits of metal. The death smell filled the air, and the feral humans charged into the chaos.
“If anyone goes down there right now, they’re not coming back up,” I said.
I turned to the people behind me. I loved their story, but like the rest of the men who had spent their childhoods away from it, the words didn’t carry the same power over me as they did for the women who were steeped in it from birth and never left to forget it. Maybe we were angels. Maybe somehow we would learn to fly. But not down there, and not today.
“Look,” I said, and pointed up to the mountains again. “That’s where the messenger said to go. He told us to go up that mountain pass, and another messenger would lead us higher. That’s got to be the right thing. From way up there, we’ll be able to look straight down over the Forbidden Zone, and when we get our wings, we’ll be able to fly right over it. I’m sure that’s what the story meant.”
After long moments of murmuring, the people began to nod.
“I think we need to go down there,” Shari said. “But not yet. I think there’s more we must do to prove our worth. The messenger said to go up. So we’ll go up.”
I relieved one of the men helping her, slinging an arm under her shoulder. We trooped away from the edge where the battle raged below.
So many Ferals. I’d had no idea. And Noah had said the new Queen was out here. I smelled her, far across the war zone, and longed to run to her. But even if I made it, the women and children behind me never would.
One day, I’ll come to you. And even if I never fly, I’ll be content to see you just once.
Our progress was slow, but the people were strong. We took turns supporting the women who were heavy with babies, and carried the toddlers on our hips. Most of the younger boys had joined us, the unranked, along with most of the Ranked men of the Hive. There were plenty of strong backs to share the load. The men and boys didn’t know the women’s truth, and had no idea where we were going, or why. But one sniff of the glorious smell on Noah, and they would follow his directions.
The fighting in the Forbidden Zone fell away below us as we climbed. Just around a bend, out of sight of the valley, a Feral woman stepped out of the shadows.
“You made it out!” she said, and looked over our number. “Oh, my. You’re exhausted, poor thing. Let’s get you somewhere safe.” She was talking to my pregnant sister Shari, who looked about to drop.
Two Diggers skittered out from behind the Feral woman. They all shared Noah’s Queen’s smell. The Masters were each missing their giant claws, but their hind legs were intact. They weren’t from our Hive. The Feral woman helped us push Shari and one of the other women onto the backs of the Masters where they clung, shivering.
“The ‘Mites can’t take us all the way up,” the woman said. “Too cold for them. But we’ll get you as high as we can. Rest and hang on, and let’s get you somewhere safe.”
I waited until the last of my people had filed up the narrow path, and followed the last child up into the clouds.