2007, March. Hive Ri’Tal

The winter assault on the second major Hive had been a test of Merasiël’s patience. The colder weather had sent the Vasar into inactivity, so the few skirmishes that had been attempted had been repelled with little effort. Unfortunately, the Crusaders could likewise gain no ground against the massively fortified colony, and instead they settled into a long siege that went on for several months. As winter melted into spring, the crusaders finally gained an advantage in the form of reinforcements and supplies. The Huallapan people who had been freed so far found new hope and bravery in the form of the soldiers from Yrth, and rallied to join the cause to drive the Vasar from their home world. Merasiël was glad of this, but not for any altruistic reason. She grew tired of the wait and wished to complete her service to the humans so she could disappear back to her homeland with Mendelel. The addition of the Huallapan to their army gave Dane the resources he needed to finally wrench the Hive from the control of the Vasar. Instead of a costly full assault, however, they opted for stealth. Three parties were sent, led by Gabriel, Merasiël and Dane to the service and ventilation tunnels beneath the hive in search of the main gate, which remained ever closed to the main army.

Splat.

Merasiël wiped her cheek with the back of her left hand once she had assured herself that the creature she fought was dead. Its eye had popped with an explosion of opaque yellow liquid when met by the point of her well-aimed dagger. She frowned deeply at the wet stains that now decorated her leather glove, but after nearly a year and a half of fighting the accursed Vasar, she no longer was disgusted by the insectoid remains that seemed to coat nearly everything she owned. She idly shook her hand, not really caring whether or not it dislodged the latest bit of scum. These creatures bled, just like orcs. It was good enough.

“What now?” Mendelel’s whisper drifted softly into her ear. She glanced over her shoulder at him and nodded once.

“We still have a gate to see open. We move.”

She lifted her hand and motioned to the remainder of the Elves that followed behind her. The bodies of the Vasar guards that had stumbled upon them were left where they fell, and Merasiël led the way deeper into the dark halls of the Vasar Hive, keeping whatever shadows she could find close at hand. The smooth, waxy walls were confusing to the senses. They all looked exactly the same, and many of them indeed circled back upon one another, leaving the raiders disoriented. It was Mendelel who saved them that day, using his dagger to carve symbols into the walls at each juncture they passed, marking the paths they took. Merasiël realized after the third time they encountered his hastily scribbled arrow, they would have been hopelessly lost inside the winding tunnels otherwise.

A few steps in front of her, Mendelel drew up short and crouched next to a corner. He held up his hand, motioning for silence, and as one, the Elves melted against whatever cover they could find. Merasiël found herself hidden beside him, and her ears soon picked up the noise he had heard, the sound of approaching stealthy footfall. Someone is trying to sneak up on us, she thought. How cute. She drew her dagger, and waited for the shape to draw nearly abreast of her hiding spot before launching herself from the shadows. Her intent was to kill, but she found nothing but steel as the shadowed figure parried her attack. She had only a moment to register this before the dagger was wrenched from her hand in a flourish of white, and the sound of soft laughter met her ears along with the clink of her dagger hitting the floor.

“Storm on the Mountain, my dear.”

Gabriel. Curse that man. Merasiël scowled as she knelt to retrieve her dagger from the ground. “What are you doing here?” she whispered harshly, as Dane and the few others who had made up the second and third parties came into view. “We were supposed to split up to ensure at least one group would make it to the gate!”

Gabriel had the decency to look somewhat chagrined. “These damned confusing halls,” he murmured in a low voice. “We’ve been going around in circles.”

Merasiel sheathed her knife with a snick. “Fool. I could have killed you you know.”

Gabriel gave her a long look. “No. No you couldn’t.”

She glowered at him, then pointed in the direction that he and the others had approached. “Back this way.”

“We just came from there…”

Merasiël stared at him. The scowl lifted slightly as her voice took on a hint of amusement. “You just admitted you were lost. Do you really wish to argue with me about this?”

Gabriel sighed in resignation.

“Exactly. This way.”

Despite their meandering path, they encountered no other guards other than dead ones that Gabriel and Dane’s group had dispatched. They quietly followed the string of Mendelel’s symbols, choosing different paths when the ones they were on circled back around on them, even backtracking a time or two as it became necessary. After an hour of walking, the light changed, growing brighter. Finally, Merasiël thought, We can be done with this place. Her hopes faded into another scowl, however, as they rounded a corner and they discovered not the main entrance to the Hive, but a brightly lit chamber instead. She realized with a start that the light was natural light; sunlight filtered through small, hexagon shaped holes high in the ceiling, leaving a hazy, honeycombed pattern on the floor. As their eyes adjusted from the dimness of the tunnels, they realized they weren’t alone. Dozens of haunted eyes stared back at them, the shafts of light casting an eerie glow over the gaunt faces of Huallapan who had been taken as slaves and put to work deep within the hive.

Great, more mouths to feed, she thought, as Gabriel approached the Halluapan, speaking haltingly in their language. At first, they seemed surprised by his speech, and some of them lifted their arms and extended skeletal fingers towards the warrior. A sharp warning from within the crowd brought them up short, and they all scuttled away to the opposite side of the chamber, whispering among themselves.

“What are they saying?” Mendelel nodded towards the prisoners.

“It’s hard to say; I’m not fluent in the language, but I think they think we are sent by the Vasar to trick them and kill them.” Gabriel once more spoke the Huallapan tongue, his words stumbling out slowly. The dissenting voice from earlier cut him off mid-sentence.

Merasiël scanned the crowd for the source of the voice, but all of the faces looked the same to her, and she eventually dismissed them. She didn’t need to understand the language to know what was being said. “These prisoners will be of no use to us,” she said sharply in Elvish. “We need to keep moving before the Northman decides to test his hammer against the main gate.”

As she turned to hunt for another tunnel out of the chamber, a wet thud and a sigh echoed from the tunnel they had come. One of the Elves that had remained there to keep watch was dangling from a Vasar spear that protruded from his chest, his already dead eyes staring at her in accusation. A crowd of Vasar guards emerged from the service tunnels behind the Vasar that had killed her kinsman.

“We are discovered! To arms!”

—~~—

Merasiël’s dagger flashed in the beams of light as one of the Vasar charged towards her. It was too late for stealth; she would have to depend on her speed and cunning to survive this. She was dimly aware of the twang of bowstrings as arrows were loosed nearby. Mendelel and Dane, perhaps others were busy peppering the twisting black mass of insects with well-aimed arrows. And still the bugs continued to flow from the tunnel.

A deep breath. Wait for it….Now.

The Vasar’s strike was more swift than she expected. She sidestepped, but the blade caught the edge of her leather sleeve, and a red haze of pain crossed her vision. She shook it off and used her foe’s over-reach against it, burying her dagger to the hilt in an area of soft flesh on its torso. She felt the flow of bloody fluid around her fingers, and the insect toppled over. She was lucky this time, but how her arm burned.

Another guard closed in, and she backpedaled away from its fury, desperately dodging several wild swings. Within a few steps she caught a glimpse of white just over her shoulder and she found herself back-to-back with Gabriel. His voice carried to her ears from beyond the ringing of swords and cries of the wounded. “When I tell you, drop!”

A pause.

“NOW!”

Merasiël fell to the ground as a sickening crunch sounded out above her. She glanced up to see that Gabriel’s foe had been wielding a rather nasty spear which was now impaled on the Vasar she had been fighting. Merasiël flipped herself around into a kneeling position and once again, buried her dagger in a chink between the chitin plates of the remaining guard. A long cut let loose a flow of ichor, and both foes lay on the ground.

Across the room, Mendelel called for help. He had been cornered by a pair of Vasar and was hard pressed to avoid their attacks. Merasiël sprinted across the room towards him, but never reached his side. A black shape reared up beside her and took a swipe at her leg, opening up her armor and a fresh haze of red overcame her vision. She fell to the ground, and her dagger flew from her grasp, skittering across the floor and out of sight.  She rolled over on her back, her head beginning to throb. A large insect loomed over her, its spear raised to impale her to the floor. Surprisingly, the creature never attacked. It merely shuddered once, and then fell over to the ground. Merasiël stared in bemusement as a much smaller figure came into focus.

Huallapan. He stood there, unarmored, barely clothed and certainly weak from malnourishment and extended captivity. But somewhere he had found the courage and strength to take one of the weapons of a fallen Vasar and fight. He offered a hand to pull her to her feet.

—~~—

A few minutes later, Merasiël looked over the last Vasar corpse. It had been battered beyond recognition, and seemed to be most decidedly dead. Still…she stabbed the creature between the eyes, just to be sure. It didn’t even twitch. As she unbent her knees and stood to her full height, she took a moment to gather her wits. The fight had been particularly rough on them. Merasiël nursed a deep cut on her arm and leg where her foes had managed to pierce through her armor, and more than one of her kin lay gravely injured on the floor. Brother Mendel will be busy this night. She assisted where she could, but she did not linger over anyone longer than necessary. Nearby, Dane checked on his injured men, readying the ones that could move or be moved while the healers that had been brought tended to those who couldn’t.

She gradually became aware of Huallapan speech from across the room, and as she sought the source she noted that one by one, everyone else turned to observe. Gabriel stood a mere foot away from the prisoner who had taken up arms and slain one of the Vasar. The prisoner still held the blackened, barbed blade in his shaking hand as he stared downward at the blood of his enemy that pooled on the floor. Gabriel spoke quietly to him, and the man tore his eyes away from the pool of blood to meet Gabriel’s intent stare. What he saw there steeled something within, and the Huallapan nodded once, his knuckles turning white as he grippped the blade more tightly. He then slowly turned towards his fellow prisoners, lifted the bloody blade and he began to speak. The words came difficult at first, raw emotion robbing his voice of power. “Huallapan. Sung….Sungunaka. Sungunaka*!” As the words flowed from his tongue over and over, they gradually gained strength and others detached from the shadows, their voices joining him in his cry. Soon all of them were there, clamoring in unison. Gabriel grinned as he looked over his shoulder at Merasiël and Dane.

“Gather the wounded, and arm as many of the Halluapan as you can from the fallen. They will lead us to the gate.”

*Sungunaka – A twist on the Shona word “Sungunuka” – it can be translated as “The prisoner has been set free”