Path of the Hive Queen

Chapter 426: Operations

There was an old saying, something about a misfortune rarely coming alone. Or more simply, 'when it rains, it pours’. It felt like it should be a truism of military strategy, too. And today, it seemed like the Westerners had set out to prove the point.Regina had mostly kept the Empire out of the battle that was currently ramping up in the Great Forest, so far. Partly, that was because she didn’t want to step on the elves’ toes, because having three cooks probably would spoil this broth, and admittedly also because she was irritated at their dithering and didn’t see the point of sending her armies to save them from their own stupidity. That didn’t mean the hive wasn’t present at all, though. Not counting their dwarven allies who were working with the elves, there were enough drones there to give her an understanding of the situation and how it was developing.

Which wasn’t good. The elves had sent some of their best on an expedition into the tunnels to secure them against a Western assault. Regina had tracked their minds establishing their base camp, from which they’d also sent out scouts. However, the Westerners seemed to use that chance to press the elves heavily above-ground. With several presumptive Champions in the lead, they had already overrun several of Ariedel’s watch posts and minor to medium-size fortifications in the forest. The dwarves had clashed with parts of their army, but then Temil seemed to have decided to withdraw for now — probably because he wasn’t confident the elves could back him up, given their position.

Regina was just about to check on and track their scouting parties, both above ground and underneath, when she got another panicked message over the psychic link.

It only took her a moment to grasp what its meaning; the message came from the garrison of one of their northern-most posts inside her range, but they actually only passed on a message from farther away. Ada was reporting enemy movements and asking for reinforcements.

Regina mentally reached out to Ben, to include him, then focused on the most senior drone in that garrison, diving deeper into their mind, to see the whole message with all of its context. Considering the psychic link didn’t reach that far, it had been impressed into the mind of a Swarm Drone — a neat trick even if doing it like that left some precision to be desired. The Winged Drone had also been injured, and the remains of a string tied around its neck, with the ends looking burned, implied it had carried a written message as well.

Ben surmised.

Regina commented.

Regina sighed mentally. Their logistics were already stretched to begin with; advancing farther into the Western Confederation was not an easy matter. Currently, they were connected by a chain of garrisons and outposts along the major roads and waterways, but Imperial control of the areas outside those was still tenuous, and the army was too concentrated to focus on controlling a wide area. Which meant that, while they had punched relatively deeply into the Western Confederation, it wasn’t exactly a straight front line.

she grumbled.

Ben said reasonably.

Regina said, not bothering to hide her unhappiness at the thought.

Scandinavia or the Baltics didn’t have a high population density, from what she knew, but they still had soldiers in large enough numbers. And her information on them was frustratingly sparse; especially for what had been the Nordic countries. Having to venture through the Western Confederation made getting any intel on them very difficult. But Regina knew there were several settled kingdoms up there, and while they tended to war among themselves, she hadn’t heard about any recent conflicts.

Ben agreed.

Regina shook her head. They were getting stretched thin.

Tim was still fighting the Esemen, and so was Sir Owin and June’s army. The dwarves were tied down fighting the Westerners’ large western army, and the Imperial forces in southern Nerlia and western Cernlia would likely be needed there sooner or later, too. And even if she decided to send some of those forces as reinforcements up north, would they even arrive soon enough to make any difference? It would have to mean basically ‘shifting’ forces northward, but even that would be dicey, she suspected.

Ben said, clearly following her thoughts.

Regina paused for a moment. She had been reluctant to ask Iseis to use her new Champion Ability to make portals — and the old elf herself had clearly felt similarly. It was a hell of a trump card to hold in reserve, for a strategic move. But this situation probably did warrant it. And the clock was ticking, anyway. If nothing else, Iseis had apparently started using her capabilities more directly, teleporting herself and others around, and had apparently developed some kind of mini-portal spell for it. Regina was dying to ask her to explain it. Hopefully, they would get an opportunity for a longer talk soon.

, she replied

Regina looked around, glancing at the documents on her desk. She’d been interrupted while working on paperwork. Luckily, none of it was extremely time-critical. She still would have liked to make a dent in it, but that would have to wait.

Instead, Regina reached out to Ira, who was currently finishing up meetings with the palace’s managers.

She felt Ira mentally riffle through her schedule.

Ira sent a mental acknowledgment, and Regina stood up, stretched, and moved to her bed, settling down cross-legged. Then she dived deeper into the psychic link, focusing on the west, where she could sense the cluster of minds that was Ariedel and the Westerner army beyond it.

It was more chaotic than she’d realized. Some of the elves’ minds were downright screaming to her senses — not those involved in the fighting to the west, that would be expected, but ones in or around the city. Regina frowned and tried to look deeper. She was getting a bad feeling about this. It was a little hard to be sure just from a surface scan like this, and she didn’t want to intrude deeper into their minds, but she was starting to get a suspicion about what was going on.

It wasn’t improved when she found Iseis herself, currently rushing to and fro in the center of the city, then heading out to the southern wall. She was riding a tamed beast, some kind of horse monster, and barely slowing as people jumped out of her way.

Tentatively, Regina reached out to her.

she answered curtly.

Regina winced slightly.

Iseis responded. She finally reached the gate and jumped from her horse, quickly tying it up somewhere and striding forward as she talked.

Regina waited for a moment while Iseis readied herself. It was easy to see that a company or so of soldiers had occupied one minor gatehouse on the wall — from her connection to Iseis’ mind, Regina could tell it was where some defensive ‘wardstones’ were kept. Other soldiers of Ariedel were already gathered to storm it. Iseis joined them quickly.

Regina kept silent, letting the events play out. It was plain to see that Iseis was a known and respected quantity here. In a remarkably short time, she was leading an assault on the gatehouse. She used spatial magic — some kind of warping effect, it looked like — to buckle the outer wall of the structure. Several other mages cleared the debris and the front-line fighters stormed in. Iseis stayed in the back, but supported them with magical shielding and a few other spells.

The battle was over relatively quickly. Regina watched silently, trying not to distract them, but she felt the deaths. Also, the building was rather worse for wear in the end. Iseis cursed slightly as she entered and looked around. Then she sighed and went back out.

she asked Regina.

Regina said. She carefully transmitted some information regarding the messages she had received and the general state of the war in both this theater and the one in the north.

Iseis visibly paused. She contemplated it for a few seconds, while Regina didn’t pry too deeply into her thoughts. Finally, she sighed again.

Regina answered.

Iseis complained a little.

Regina assured Iseis.

Regina sent another feeling of understanding and acknowledgment, then mentally withdrew from Iseis. Instead, she focused on the state of affairs in the city and the surrounding forest, before homing in on the concentration of minds underground.

It was quickly obvious that something was indeed wrong, because the Westerner forces actually seemed to be Not completely, some of them were holding position, but others seemed to be moving back. Meanwhile, the elves and dwarves (and a few Imperials) were still preparing to face them in their underground base, where they’d been throwing up fortifications and preparing to funnel an oncoming attack into killboxes with the help of the local geography.

Regina made a mental note to check on their preparations in more detail, then went to track down the individual units of enemy soldiers, looking out for Anuis’ familiar mind. It took a few minutes to find her — escorted by two squads of Westerner soldiers, heading westward in the tunnels toward an opening that would let them emerge in the forest relatively close to their army’s current positions. They were getting pretty far away from her, unfortunately.

The elf was clearly injured, but had been treated, given what Regina could sense. They’d bound and shackled her, so she had to be carried, and had blindfolded her to boot. Regina reached out carefully.

Anuis asked, surprise pulsing across her mind.

Well, at least she was still mentally on the ball, and she’d managed to stay perfectly still and give no sign of surprise to her captors.

Regina replied.

Anuis replied. She was clearly trying to focus, but still exhausted, injured, and dehydrated.

Regina had been considering that. she replied. And it ran the risk of Anuis being killed in the attempt.

the ranger replied, feeling resolved.

Regina warned her.

Anuis replied with a shrug.

Regina suppressed the urge to sigh. This should be enough time for her to finish her portal. And she had to admit it did seem like a good opportunity.

Regina clenched her teeth.

Anuis did as instructed, and Regina quickly replayed the last few moments of the man’s life. It was rather distorted and lacking in sensory details, as most memories would be, but the important parts were clear enough.

she sighed.

Regina disengaged and focused on the base again, finding its commanders. She already knew they would be reluctant to evacuate their just-established stronghol, but it was probably the safest option.

A cursory scan didn’t show any explosives, and not nearly enough people present to collapse something like a significant part of the tunnel network conventionally. The Westerners would probably use magic, maybe a Champions’s Ability, to collapse the tunnels — they might even have sent this expedition to get a map used to do it remotely — and they’d probably lured the elves into sending troops down here on purpose, to be caught in the collapse and wiped out. She just hoped the warning wasn’t too late.