Path of the Hive Queen

Dariketel knew she should have stayed home today.

She hadn’t thought it would be, well, like this. She’d have preferred to stay at home, but she really needed to get some new groceries; she’d run out of spices, and unless she wanted to eat nothing but rye porridge, she needed a trip to the market, or the new grocer’s shop. And she’d broken her favorite terracotta pot and needed a new one, too.

But unfortunately, having her small apartment near the center of the city was a bit of a mixed blessing at times, especially now, when the best way to the shop was straight through the old market square. The same square which was currently hosting the largest protest she’d seen in what must have been years; although it was also spilling out into neighboring streets, and from the noise, it looked like they were demonstrating at the fountain plaza, and maybe beyond, too.

Dari hesitated for a moment, but she was already too far in, she supposed. Might as well press on. She tried to skirt the edge of the square, pushing past people who were streaming through the streets into the square. Some of them looked irritated; she had a feeling it wasn’t really directed at her. They were chanting something, and she winced a little at the noise.

The atmosphere felt … charged. As she got further, Dari realized there were lines of city guard, two deep, hemming in the protesters. They were carrying large shields, and wearing full helmets. She wasn’t sure how much that would really help them if they did get violent, though — there were a lot more protesters here, so the guard were heavily outnumbered. She was hardly a soldier though, so what did she know?

At least they were just standing there and not doing anything yet, she supposed.

And all of them were gnomes. Dari shook her head and tried to speed up. It wasn’t easy going. Instead, despite herself, she focused on what the people were saying and chanting. A few had banners or flags, or signs with words scrawled on them. She winced a little at the expense that some of the bigger pieces must represent, especially the well-made cloth. Who just used that for something like this? It made her suspect more well-to-do people were involved here, not just disgruntled miners or whoever.

“Stand by our people! Chart our future!” someone shouted, almost into her ears.

“Can you be careful,” she grumbled, wincing a bit and ducking around them.

Unfortunately, in the crowded confines, that just made her bump into someone else. And the other woman looked like she’d been standing on the tips of her toes, so she almost fell at the unintentional shove. Dari quickly grabbed her.

“Sorry,” she apologized, releasing the woman and taking a step back.

“It’s fine, no harm done,” the other woman answered, then glanced at where Dari came from and in the direction she was going. “Not here to join the protest, or are you looking for friends?”

“Oh, not really,” Dari admitted. “I just wanted to get somewhere. Should have just taken a detour.”

The other woman nodded. She was kind of short, but she looked a little more intense than Dari was really comfortable with.

“Of course, I understand,” she said. “But if you’re already here, you could join in? If you have the time, of course. It’s an important issue, and we need everyone we can to get involved. That way, they have to listen to our voices.”

Dari hesitated for a moment. “I’m not sure I really get it,” she admitted.

“Why we’re protesting? It’s simple, we want our soldiers to come back, instead of dying for the Empire,” the other woman — Tekalel; she’d finally checked her System note — said, as if she was explaining something obvious. “Of course, many people here are against the Empire in general, too, but this protest is more about the war than the annexation.”

“Isn’t that a bit harsh?” Dari asked. “I mean, our soldiers are volunteers, it’s not like they’re conscripting people. And we wouldn’t want the Westerners or Esemen to win. Plus, the Empress has done a lot of good for the Gnomish Confederation. Do you think they would’ve managed to build those train lines without the Empire’s help?”

“Why wouldn’t we want the human allies to win?” Tekalel asked, crossing her arms. “This conflict shouldn’t concern us. I’m not very devout, but fighting them about the gods is just foolish, and the Empress you like so much will just drag us down. Besides, it’s not really about that. We shouldn’t let a Hivekind empress just take our sovereignty and it baffles me that so many people are just going along with it. Haven’t they learned anything?”

“Hardly just Hivekind,” Dari said, unsure where to even begin.

The other woman snorted. “It doesn’t matter if she’s an ancient human, no unelected queen should have power over our people.”

Dari paused for a moment, not quite sure what to say to that. “Our government was elected, and they’ve been handling the integration. There was a referendum and everything.”

“That’s not enough to send our soldiers to die in droves,” the protester argued heatedly. “Haven’t we lost enough of our men recently? Must the Empire demand a new blood tithe?”

Alright, maybe she had a little bit of a point, but Dari was starting to feel uncomfortable. “Well, you’re here protesting, that’s good if you want to do that, but don’t you think talking about it like this is a little harsh? Especially considering what we, our nation, did?”

As if on cue, a shout rose from the front of the crowd. Dari tried to see, but she was too far from the front of the protest to make out what was happening. She did edge a little further away, though. The crowd seemed to have gotten denser.

The other gnome crossed her arms and glared at her. “Oh, you’re one of those people who thinks it was all our soldiers’ fault and the poor little Hivekind simply fought for their lives … leagues and leagues inside our borders, occupying half our territory? Because clearly that’s reasonable for insectiles with high territoriality.”

Why had she even been drawn into this argument? She should have just left. “That’s kind of racist,” Dari muttered, looking for a path out of the press of bodies.

“Racist? That’s a stupid word anyway. I’m just calling it like I see it.” Tekalel gestured angrily. “The Hivekind will hurt us. A Tigrit doesn’t change its stripes.”

Dari had enough, and she was just about to give this woman a piece of her mind, when someone pushed her. She stumbled, and turned around, heart climbing into her throat — but it looked like it hadn’t been on purpose, after all. Instead, a wave of agitation was going through the crowd.

The shouts from up ahead had turned louder and meaner. People were starting to converge on a clearly audible slogans, though there were several chants still going strong. One was “Down with the Empire!”. Another was “Council of traitors!” She winced slightly. At least the most prominent chant was only “Save the soldiers!”.

Then the people in front of her started to move backward. Dari craned her neck, going onto her tiptoes briefly. She saw the soldiers’ helmets for a moment. They were moving forward, pushing into the crowd. Trying to disperse them? Judging by the noise, it wasn’t a peaceful process.

Dari swallowed heavily and turned right around, pushing through the people around her with less regard for getting shoved or tripped; just heading directly away from the guards and where the protest was turning heated. Or the riot? She wouldn’t be surprised if they started using combat Skills or throwing dangerous things around.

She really should not have cut through there, but taken a more circuitous path instead. Although, there were a lot of people on the streets here, too. Some were heading towards the bigger protest crowd, while others were starting to gather here, and Dari noticed that a few people had improvised clubs or what she suspected were real weapons left by the war. Maybe it was better to head straight home after all, and add the extra lock to the door.

She never did end up getting those groceries.

Steven side-eyed him, resisting the urge to wipe at his face with his sleeve again. It was far warmer than it should be, really. “I’m still not a lord,” he grumbled.

Marko smiled. “My apologies, Sir.”

Steven sighed. He should probably give that up as a lost cause and simply enjoy getting respect — or getting teased. It was still a bit unbelievable to him. Being called a lord? He was just a woodworker’s son from an unimportant town. And he was eighteen. Getting veteran soldiers’ respect, just like that, felt strange. At least these men weren’t, like, religiously weird about anyone who’d talked to the Empress. He’d encountered one or two men like that and it had sucked.

“I still haven’t found the target,” he reported, refocusing on the mission. “This safehouse is empty. The other one is probably just an actual gambling den, none of the people there remotely match his description. You can arrest them, but I think it’d be a waste of time.”

“That’s a shame,” Jae said, walking over to them.

Steven wasn’t sure why he and his group had gotten the high-ranking Star Guard officer, but it wasn’t like he disliked Jae. It just probably meant he would have to do some harder psychic stuff. Or maybe they felt he needed someone extra competent to ride herd on him? He wasn’t sure if that would be worse.

Sometimes, he wished his master would talk with them a little more. But he understood that she had to be careful with information — He’d been very new when Helen had betrayed them, but it was the kind of thing you still felt even now. Plus, the empress was obviously very busy. At least she had allowed him to participate in this operation, though!

Not that he had seen any combat personally, which was probably a good thing. Following protocol, he reached out and reported the results of his newest scan. The Keeper he talked to was brusque and clearly busy, but that was fine. He was just considering who else to ask for more news when Princess Janis contacted him.

How’s it going with you, Steve? she asked.

Despite himself, Steven stood a bit straighter. We haven’t found the target yet, he reported. I checked all the safehouses our intel indicated as possibilities. He’s not here. According to his butler, he left this morning, about ten hours before our raids started. I’m not sure if he was warned or not. It was a surprise to the servant, but the man was clearly uninformed, anyway.

They were currently standing in the main room on the ground floor of the second safehouse he had checked. The other places hadn’t needed his actual presence, since they were rather close by. This town wasn’t that large. The place was rather bare, and slightly dusty. Clearly no one had used it in a while, even if there were a few pieces of furniture scattered around.

So, this was the last of the solid leads we had, the princess sighed. Alright. That is a shame, but at least we have him on the run. We’ll make sure to put out notices. And set a bounty for tips, I think.

That might help, but if he’s gone to ground, I don’t think that will be enough? Steve ventured hesitantly. I mean, I haven’t really looked into his mind, but the man seems competent.

True. We might get lucky, though. And thanks, you’ve done good work.

Steven smiled. Getting a compliment from Janis was always nice. He felt bad about the thought, but recently she had almost seemed more like his teacher than Regina. Though that was probably only because she was stuck in the capital, as she’d complained about at length.

Although he was pretty sure she’d probably known what he had just told her already? Maybe she’d simply wanted confirmation.

Why is Terreck Destan important, by the way? he asked. Or are you really this interested in every arrest we’ve planned? Sorry, am I supposed not to ask?

It’s fine, Janis smiled slightly. He could tell since she’d opened the psychic connection between them, currently channeled through Regina’s Imitation Link, relatively wide. She was in Forest’s Haunt, but more specifically, in the Hive base beside the town. Destan is one of their leaders, as far as we could tell. He seemed important. He was also trying to worm his way into the upper reaches of the Imperial government, trying to make contacts there and gain information from them by any means.

Steve had the feeling there was another detail she wasn’t telling him, but he decided not to push. He probably didn’t need to know this much, anyway.

Well, we’re going to have to look harder to find him, he said. But he’s not the only one, is he? What about Neralt?

He wasn’t part of the psychic link — an honor he was kind of hoping to gain later, even if the prospect also made him slightly anxious — but he fancied that this was what it would be like. It was easy to find information, even without directly asking anyone specifically. Their subconscious thoughts and where their attention currently lingered just seemed to give him a sense of what was going on, painting a kind of mental map. No wonder the drones all seemed like fonts of knowledge, this probably paled in comparison to what they could get from the psychic link.

Janis’ presence in the link shifted slightly, and he realized she had focused on Jae, ensuring she had his attention as well, as she continued the conversation.

Neralt has been apprehended and we’ve sent him ahead to the capital, she said. He’s popular enough here that I didn’t want to risk someone breaking him out. I didn’t have the chance to speak much with him, but he plead his innocence, insisting that he must have been framed and that he was loyal.

Do you think there’s anything to that? Jae asked.

… No, Janis answered. After all, Regina was looking in on us, too, and she seemed confident he was lying. I think she’ll try to speak with him when he arrives.

I’ll talk to Max, Jae said. Something passed between them, though Steven felt like it was going over his head.

To distract from the feeling, he asked, Do you still have enough men there, Princess? Or are you waiting or reinforcements? I assume you tasked some of them to escort Neralt?

I only sent a single squad to escort him to the capital, she said. That should be more than enough for a single man. The rest of my men are interrogating his household and making further arrests in the town. Luckily, the local police are pretty capable.

No surprise there; Forest’s Haunt was close to the Hive’s main land and had been part of their territory for a while, he recalled. They probably made sure everything there was shipshape. Which had to make the betrayal of its baron even worse.

If we’re giving up the search for Destan for the moment, you should get some rest, Steve, Janis said. Go sleep for a bit, then join me here in Forest’s Haunt. I could use another psychic.

Yes, milady, he agreed.

Their link dissolved into the background as she moved on, and Steve cracked his neck. He wanted to make one more attempt to find his quarry before he turned in, even if he was starting to have a headache and he wasn’t optimistic about his chances. But he wanted to try.