Path of the Hive Queen

Regina felt like she was watching ants crawl across a large patch of land with little progress being made. Which wasn’t fair to her drones, their new allies, or probably even the enemy soldiers. But she tended to watch the various groups from on high through the eyes of Winged Drones, and it felt like it took forever for the two armies to advance towards each other so they would actually meet on a battlefield.

Regina wasn’t idle during that time, though. The skirmish Tim’s group had won against some strike force or whatever from the other side had pushed her to level 31. She was hopeful that a proper battle would gain her a lot more experience, especially if she managed to decisively crush invaders into her territory, despite the heavy losses to her drones it would risk. But even so, her newest level had unlocked another sapient drone Template for her, finally.

Their combined army of drones and allied human soldiers was moving relatively slowly, taking their time. Some of them had been marching a lot recently, and there was no point in arriving too tired to fight effectively. The enemy army was marching a bit more quickly, but Regina still didn’t find it easy to predict where the actual battle would occur. They should try to choose the terrain if they could, but that much was probably obvious to everyone. In the meantime, Regina returned her attention to her surroundings and checked on things one more time, mostly to settle her nerves.

The atmosphere in the village was tense. For the first time in a while, there weren’t lots of Swarm Drones around, and everyone knew why. Regina didn’t linger, but only looked in on the baron briefly and then checked on her eggs. They had added further dividers to the large ground floor room they were using to store them. Regina stopped to look at the newest eggs. They took three days to hatch, so they weren’t going to be ready quickly. She tried to examine them with her mana senses, but there wasn’t really anything different from other eggs.

Drone Witches. She assumed the name would be used for both genders, like sorcerer or warlock or something like that might have been. It definitely implied they would be casters, and probably more along the lines of combat magic, if the pattern held true, unlike the Attendants.

Regina shook her head and left. She’d sent three of the Drone Attendants along with the other drones, by now. Their support would simply be too valuable, so she’d just have to do without them here, even if she disliked it. She had hatched two more Drone Attendants recently, but they were still very young and growing into their job. They hadn’t even learned any Spells yet, so sending them along would be pointless. She’d kept Ira here because of that, too.

Regina returned to the house she was currently living in and settled on a fur rug, sitting cross-legged. She noticed Ira coming into the other room, but didn’t pay her much attention. Instead, she pulled up her Hive status screen one more time before she turned her attention to the coming battle.

The majority of those drones, especially the Swarm Drones, were currently away from the village. It and the castle still housed some as a garrison, but there were currently more sapient drones compared to Swarm Drones here than there had been in a while. Mostly because some of the former were still young and she didn’t want them gone on this campaign right away. She also left many of the Workers and Production Drones here, although she also sent some of them with the deployed warriors. Many Winged Drones were currently out scouting, though Regina had worked out a rotation with Ada to use them most efficiently.

“Is there anything else I should know?” Regina asked without looking up.

“Not that I can think of, my Queen,” Ira replied promptly. “You should have been informed of everything relevant here.”

“Good. Then I’ll be focused on the fight. Please make sure I won’t be disturbed.”

“Of course, my Queen.”

Regina breathed out and dove into the psychic link. She cast her awareness out towards the drones in the distance, coasting towards their minds and skimming their surface thoughts. She had never connected to so many at once, but right now, she tried to split her awareness between Tim, Ada, Tia, Janis and a scattering of Swarm Drones.

Janis was sticking close to Kiara, who Regina suspected had some pre-battle jitters. She hid any nervousness well, but her face was just a bit too blank, her posture too stiff. Janis herself didn’t feel too different than usual, although Regina could sense a slowly building anticipation sprinkled over some irritation and boredom. Tim was also close to the human leaders, so she got a pretty good view of them. Their lords and nobles were at the front, common soldiers marching behind, with knights scattered around, but most of them in a group, as well.

Her own drones’ formation was both more scattered and more precise. The Swarm Drones marched in previously assigned units, keeping step with each other easily. Winged Drones circled overhead in predefined patterns, while a few War Drones and Scouts ranged ahead. Regina caught a bit of psychic noise from the sapient drones like Ada intermittently giving orders to the Swarm Drones. When she looked in on the others, she noticed that Ben and Dan had also started a silent telepathic conversation. They seemed to be debating the merits of various weapons they’d seen among the humans. Regina left them to it, turning her attention away.

She focused on what she could see of the enemy army. After a few seconds of studying it, she figured out what she thought was its basic structure. It was organized in several columns, and she picked out what seemed to be various leaders. They had their supplies in the back, along with what seemed to be honest-to-goodness camp followers. Seriously. Are they expecting to win with that much certainty?

Finally, the allied army stopped. Regina thought that they had chosen a good location, although she didn’t actually voice that thought to any of the others. They were at the top of two low hills, with the drones taking one side and the humans the others. In principle, it would have probably been good to intermix them, or even to have the drones act as skirmishers and put them on the flanks while the humans formed a core of heavier units. But they didn’t have time to train together, so trying something like that was just an invitation for failure. And it’s not like I actually know anything about it. For that matter, even if I was familiar with military history and medieval battles, the existence of magic and Classes would change everything.

Regina sighed to herself. She hadn’t been able to provide them with as many explosives as she would have preferred, but they still had some. She just didn’t want to rely on that tactic. Their opponents must have at least heard about it by now, so she had to assume that they had something that they thought could counter it. Probably.

As the armies lined up and the one from the south crested another hill and spread out to face them, Regina diverted her attention to her scouts and the Winged Drones circling further out again.

She couldn’t see anything suspicious, at least from up there. Although the area had a few small woods, and the tree cover might hide something. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough Winged Drones to send them down and properly scout all of those. She needed to keep most of them with the army for the battle. This is probably something I should have done before, she reflected. But there are limits to what I could do given the situation.

Regina returned her focus to the battlefield just in time to see the start of the battle, or what she assumed would be that. She’d wondered if there was going to be some kind of parley, but apparently not. Now, she focused on the input she got from Tim’s mind, settling in behind his eyes, while she also tried to maintain some secondary connection to other drones. She was getting a lot better at multitasking, at least when it came to the psychic link. She resolved to keep quiet and try not to distract them, though.

Tim was buzzing with tension and anticipation. He stood close to the front of the Hive’s forces, although in Regina’s opinion, he was not really a front-line melee combatant. He was focusing on directing the packs of War Drones, who would hopefully be doing most of the actual fighting. Besides the Winged Drones, at least.

The real battle started even before the fighters met. Sporadically, magic and what had to be the effects of Class Skills being used clashed in the middle of the battlefield and in the air above it. Long walls of earth rose on both sides, only to scatter back to dust soon after. Gouts of flame, gusts of wind and even rains of icicles shot towards enemy fighters. Regina felt a few Swarm Drones die, but she buried the feeling beneath her focus on the unfolding battle.

Now, she felt Tim think at the other drones. Ben echoed the command, and other sapient drones did as well. Regina quietly nudged part of the flock of Winged Drones.

The flying drones descended, like a wave of oversized birds. Some of them died to arrows, bolts or even magic from the enemy soldiers. A few lost what they were carrying, but most of those with cargo managed to drop them in a coordinated wave while they dove under the others providing them with cover for just a moment.

The improvised bombs fell onto the enemy soldiers … and landed among them to cause mayhem. Some were deflected by glowing shields of magic or hurled away with the use of Skills or supernatural reflexes. A few even struck her own army. But most of them detonated where they had been launched, and through her drones’ senses, Regina felt the earth shake. She heard the screams of people caught in the explosions and saw their lines falter.

The allied army quickly took advantage of it. The War Drones surged forward in a wave, small packs targeting specific links in the enemy formation. A few Shooters and War Drones armed with projectile weapons positioned further back supported them. From above, she could also see that her human allies did likewise, their frontline combatants surging to meet and crush the enemy with other soldiers supporting them.

Regina was a little displeased to realize that the humans were more effective and managed to ‘roll up’ the enemy lines first, but she quashed that feeling in favor of being pleased that everything went so well. She kept her focus on the battle, watching and trying to see if there were any knots of resistance or any indications that the southern army might still turn things around. It didn’t seem like it, though. Their men died, sometimes loudly and usually messily, and her own fighters advanced.

Regina ignored the level-up notification, focused on the battle. She had still lost dozens of Swarm Drones, and they kept dying in a continuous trickle, but she was happy to note that none of the sapient drones, who had hung back, seemed to be in true danger. Via and the other Attendants around healed the injuries they sustained, and Tim and the other warriors directed the Swarm.

Well, that was a bit anticlimactic, she commented to Tim.

I guess I have to agree, he responded. He swept his gaze over the battlefield. This was my first real field battle, but it did go pretty quickly. He sighed. I feel like we might have missed something.

Regina quickly turned her attention to other drones and checked in with them. She felt the same relief and maybe faint concern or apprehension from them. Via and the other Attendants were still going through their ranks and healing whoever needed it, although she could tell that their mana was getting low.

Janis was talking to Kiara and the other human nobles. Regina listened in for a short while, then decided to let her handle it.

Instead, she turned her attention further north, or rather northwest, to the drones remaining near her. Everything was quiet at the village. She touched base with Max, who was waiting for news, leaning against the doorframe of her room. Then Regina looked through her scouts, the occasional War Drone and some Winged Drones in the sky.

That was where she finally found it.

The army she had last seen encamped in their neighbor’s territory a few kilometers from the border had moved. It was still moving, in fact, just short of the border, which it would cross very soon. The seemingly long-term camp was broken down and deserted.

Regina immediately sent more Winged Drones to observe them, biting down on a curse. Maybe I was too preoccupied watching the other armies and the coming battle. I really need to figure out a system for Swarm Drones to get my attention. Although they had to have started this just recently.

She shook her head and quickly filled Max in, before she returned her attention to the southern army. She connected to Tim and the other drones to relay what she’d found, then focused on Janis.

The mage waited until Tim had made his way through the hive’s forces to join her before she informed the human leaders of what had happened. Unsurprisingly, they were not happy about the news.

“This is quite the fiasco,” John Cern blustered. “I thought you people had the other borders under observation!”

“We did, which is why we noticed what is happening,” Tim answered with a small flash of irritation.

“They pulled us out of position,” Kiara noted more calmly. “Even if we marched north as quickly as we could, we might not be in time to defend Neralt Village or Fort Forest’s Watch.”

Regina agreed, at least in principle, although she wasn’t quite as worried. She shared her sentiments with Tim and Janis.

“We realize that,” Janis said. “However, a not insubstantial part of the Hive’s strength is still there, and we are confident in our capabilities.”

“What I’d like to know,” Sir Richard spoke up, “is how they managed to get Lord Relains to agree to any such plan. Even if an enemy army to the north manages to catch us out of position and raid our territory, that does nothing to help the army he has just lost.”

The assembled humans shared a look. Privately, Regina thought that was a good question, although it might not matter too much right now.

“Maybe they didn’t keep him informed and only shared incomplete information, making him believe he had a much better chance,” Kiara said. “Maybe Earl Whitor didn’t have any plan, but simply decided to take an opportunity he saw. The result is much the same.”

“Well,” Tim spoke up. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to just abandon the progress we have gained here. This march’s defense is gutted, we have to have just defeated most of its military strength.”

“The boy has a point,” John Cern said. “It would be a shame not to follow up on this victory.”

“Maybe we can afford to split our forces,” Janis suggested.

Regina mentally took a step back and watched as the discussion continued. But she kept feeling her attention drawn to the threat from the opposite direction, and she sent out another small flock of Winged Drones to scout their surroundings in all directions more thoroughly.