Path of the Hive Queen

Their guess turned out to be pretty on point; only a few hours after Regina finished healing Madris, the barrier that had held back Esemen's army crumbled.

Learning that Madris had pulled through and seemed to have suffered no lasting harm seemed to have lifted the spirits of those who'd been aware of her status and been concerned. Mostly Galatea, perhaps, although Tim also seemed relieved. That would make sense. Neither of them had much time to focus on it, though, since the battle was still being fought, and now it had reached a new tempo.

They'd settled into a bit of a rut the last few hours. The defenders had rotated in and out to give everyone a chance to catch some sleep. Even Tim had taken a few hours. They'd also eaten and made sure to be prepared. Now the barrier was falling, though, and their preparations didn't seem as great.

The magical barrier was the first to fall, of course, although the physical wall wasn't too far behind. That was inevitable, Galatea supposed; without a magical shield, a traditional stone wall wouldn't stand up against artillery fire for long, let alone other Spells and Class Skills. Of course, it wasn't the entire wall that crumbled, but sections of it. The Imperials had already started evacuating and only a few people were caught in those collapses. Their own cannon continued firing at the enemy army, and the soldiers now advancing on the city, but didn't stop them.

"Now it comes," Lianne muttered, shaking her head. "Do you ever get tired of fighting, Lady Galatea?"

Galatea glanced at her. She had not seen the psychic before just now, since she had apparently been busy on the other side of the city. She wasn't surprised to find that she'd stayed in the city, although Galatea hadn't thought to look for her. Lianne didn't seem like the type to quit, and the Esemen were attacking them; it wasn't like she would be accompanying an invasion force.

"I actually haven't done much fighting," she said. "In all my years, it rarely came up until recently." Mostly because she had been more or less stuck underground, but she wasn't going to elaborate on that point.

"Huh." Lianne cocked her head, but seemed willing to let it go without asking further questions. "How about that. Then this might be a right fun interlude for you, I suppose. Few of them are going to be able to threaten you."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Galatea said darkly. "Their Champions are not a threat I have truly faced before." She paused. "I expect you to do your best."

"Of course," the psychic assured her.

Galatea wished Madris was here. The dark elf psychic would be a major advantage in the battle. Lianne would be an asset, too, of course, but she doubted it would be the same. She should be grateful for what they had, though.

They were both standing on the flat top of a tower attached to the castle. It was a short distance back from the wall and had thus been spared so far. A few other commanders were here, too, though they'd ignored their conversation so far. Now a stir went through them and Galatea turned to see the first metal ball shot at them, being caught in front of the tower by a magical shield flickering into existence briefly. The ball thudded to the ground, probably causing more damage.

Galatea gave a last nod to Lianne and then moved. She was probably the safest person here, but there was no need to risk it and she could easily change her location. She floated a bit further down to get a better look, keeping in the shadow of the castle's fortifications without actually standing on them.

The castle had been built right up to the outer wall of the city, but it was still the most fortified at that point. Still, the Esemen seemed to focus their advance on this area, which wasn't surprising. They'd also broken through into the city nearby and were now assaulting the castle from the other direction. Once she got a bit higher, she also confirmed that they were spreading out into the city.

Of course, they faced resistance there. The Empire had prepared for street fighting and placed caches of munitions and worse throughout the city, along with preparing ambush spots and sniper nests on the taller buildings. From what Galatea could see, the fight was already raging fiercely there. Tim would have a better overview with the psychic link. This was mostly to try and channel the Esemen's advance, as she understood, and to grind down the enemy army's numbers. The more important point was probably the battle for the castle.

Galatea turned. She felt tempted to use her magic to help, but she knew she needed to conserve every bit of her mana she could. So instead she tried to find the army's commanders to put her abilities at their disposal.

Tim was easy to find, which might be because he was trying to rally the soldiers. He paced on the steps of the gateway leading up to the battlements of the outer courtyard, speaking to troops gathered below and listening from further away. She was familiar enough with his magical presence to pick up that he was probably using his Class Skill to boost them.

"And we will not give up one meter of ground that we don't make them fight for, make them bleed for!" he finished as she approached in the air. "Let's go out and show them who we are. For the Hive! For Prekan! For the Empress, and for the Empire!"

"For the Empire!" the troops chorused back at him, making a racket. It seemed to make them feel better, at least. Their officers started to call orders, hordes of Swarm Drones marched by, and the soldiers dispersed to take their positions. Others were already streaming in to get replaced.

Galatea joined Tim as he hopped down and started walking down the courtyard. "Good job motivating them," she said, even if that was mostly a guess on her part. "How's it going?"

"Badly," he said flatly. "What do you want, Galatea?"

She shrugged lightly. "To ask you where to go. I've recovered a lot of my mana, and I can use it. What do you want me doing?"

Tim slowed down, looking at her more contemplatively. "Thanks," he said after a moment. "How much can you teleport, and how far?"

She considered it for a moment, having an idea where this was going. "It depends on if I have line of sight or not. If I do too much, I'll deplete my mana and will only manage it once. But, say, several tons as long as it's within the city."

He whistled lightly. "Good. Then you can hide or fly somewhere high up and drop bombs on their army?"

"I could just do that from the air regardless," she said, not pointing out that it would have been easier without the enemy army inside the city itself. "They'll have shields."

"True, but you'll deplete the shields and it's worth a try."

"The Champions will come fight me — oh, I guess that's your plan?"

Tim managed to look slightly sheepish. "If you're okay with it. Best to distract their most dangerous fighters a little. I'd send people to help, but …"

"Few of them can fly on their own or move like I can," Galatea said. "It's fine. I'll coordinate with Iseis, though, she'll be just as useful. And make sure that you point Lianne at the most important targets, though she probably won't be able to turn their Champions themselves."

"I'll handle it," he said, then turned to another approaching drone. "Tes will coordinate with you until then."

"Alright. Good luck out there."

They worked quickly. Tes, a Drone Keeper with an evidently more martial bent than most, was clearly up to date and guided Galatea around the worst of the bustle to several storage areas, loading up with some explosive ordinance. She found Iseis waiting outside, quickly split the score (so to speak), and then they got moving.

The position they ended up in was high enough a human might have needed binoculars, but they were hovering just over a portion of the destroyed city wall that would make getting at them harder, and gave them access to both the remaining enemy army outside and those in the city, at the cost of being a little exposed.

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"I'll take the farther points, my teleportation is better," Iseis said.

"Alright," Galatea agreed. She pulled the pin on a grenade and hurled it down, watching curiously what happened. As planned, it impacted a bit off-center at the side of the wall, exploding just far enough away from any enemy soldiers that it wasn't right on top of them but close enough to send shrapnel flying at them. Their shield apparently wasn't well calibrated for shrapnel from horizontal approaches, and the squad marching to reinforce the city died quickly. It held up the flow of troops for a bit as others tried to dive for cover, but she'd already turned to a farther-away target.

They settled into a rhythm quickly, devastating the enemy army from above. At least for a while. The Esemen adapted regrettably quickly. More physical and magical shields, dispersing their soldiers, taking cover in the buildings or closing with Imperials where possible … They also sent responses up, of course. Galatea and Iseis moved away, having to teleport several times.

Finally, it looked like they'd annoyed the Esemen enough to send the big guns after them. "Here they come," Iseis muttered.

Galatea looked around. They'd managed to make the city much more ruined than it had already been by the fighting. Regrettable. The Esemen hadn't held back much, either. Now, there were several small groups ascending from different positions, almost but not quite at the same time. They were too few to attempt to defeat them with just normal soldiers, though. It had to be their heavy hitters instead.

Nine of them, she counted. That used to be a religiously significant number, Galatea mused absently, she wasn't sure if that was still the case.

"Here, let's see …" Iseis said. She raised her hand and gestured, and Galatea felt her mana twist into a new shape.

It took her a moment to realize what Iseis had done. She'd made a tiny but stable portal close to where the enemy fighters were meeting. Just enough for a bit of their mana to pass through. "Impressive," Galatea said.

"Look at their status."

A neat trick, Galatea thought as she pulled up their System notifications. Clearly, it was a bit of an exploit with interesting implications on how the System decided when one was close enough to show them someone's name. Did she learn that from Leian? For now, she focused on their opponents and tried to come up with a tactic.

They clearly had not put this group together without thought, even just going by their Class names. Three of them were frontline fighters, two could fly on their own power, three were some variety of mage, two ranged combatants, three were paladins of some kind and one might be a healer; obviously with some overlap. All of these people were lower level than her and Iseis, but their levels were still quite high.

"I'll take point, you hang back," Galatea said. "Let's focus on taking out the Acolyte of Life first, then the mages."

"Not the fliers?" She smiled slightly.

"Always drop the healer first, Iseis. But feel free to target their mounts instead."

Then the enemy were there and there was no further time for talking. Galatea took one of her remaining grenades and teleported it into the middle of the group, following up with a barrage of Magic Missiles at the suspected healer.

Unfortunately, one of them caught the grenade and crushed it with some kind of force-field before it could detonate. That should have exploded it as well, but apparently, it didn't penetrate the field. The winged reptile the healer rode (ironic, she wondered if that was someone's idea of a joke) dodged the first missiles and one of the knights, the only one flying on his own, got in front of it to tank the rest.

Galatea was no longer there for the return fire. Iseis pulled them both to the side. She adjusted on the fly, with a barrage of magical attacks aimed at their weak spots. Several of them got through, but they had annoyingly good defenses.

Then the giant eagle of the other bruiser suddenly sped up, intercepting their path. Iseis dropped down, still warping space somehow; Galatea let the eage's talons go right through her intangible form and shoved a Fireball into his face.

He got away with minor burns. And the others had used that instant to position themselves properly, trying to cut her off from her ally. Galatea dodged again, toward Iseis. She noted that it would put them facing a proper attack formation, but that was the lesser problem.

One of the mages finished an impressive air Spell that conjured a kind of whirlwind shell around the group, carrying them forward. Galatea was not affected, but Iseis had to adjust and started drifting for a few seconds. Several lances, one made of pure darkness, and several arrows came for her. Iseis teleported away.

Galatea sensed her target position, reacting slightly quicker than their enemies. She rose, summoning another barrage of magical attacks, this time aiming for the back of their shield. These attacks were all insubstantial, mostly made of pure mana, and passed through the air magic shell.

The man in the middle raised his lance (another one?) in an ironic salute, then raised his other hand and started chanting. Several of the others joined in, even as they kept advancing toward them.

A moment later, the feel of the mana in the air changed. A field effect, like a ritual but not quite — targeted around them, getting slightly weaker the further they went, but still covering the entire battlefield.

Iseis cursed, barely dodging a Fireball. "I can't teleport," she called. "This is a divine effect locking down the area."

Galatea frowned in consternation. She called up a spell of her own and felt it fail. At least Iseis' direct spatial manipulation wasn't affected — scratch that, it was clearly more mana-intensive for her.

Now they were on the back foot, and the Champions took ruthless advantage. Galatea still moved around the battlefield, but Iseis was not immaterial, and they were two against nine. Galatea was hit by a nasty spell that almost seemed to eat through her form — some kind of mana-eating effect? She purged it with more of her mana, but it drained her pool. Meanwhile, Iseis stuck close to her, but was just a bit too slow to dodge an icicle while trying to keep away from two attackers.

The Champions were also starting to encircle them, keeping the bruisers close and coming in for attacks and strafing runs. The fight was pure chaos, or would be for a human — she still knew where everyone was and how they moved, but she couldn't be everywhere.

Time for a change of tactics. "Focus on the defensive!" she called out. "And stay back, I'm gong to whittle them down!"

Iseis nodded slightly in acknowledgment and Galatea moved forward — fast, stopping on a dime, since she didn't have to worry about inertia. She caught the paladin off-guard, and before he could react, she was already under his giant bird, cutting its throat with a mage-blade.

The man shouted and tried to get her with a weirdly bending spear even as his mount started to fall. Galatea dodged by contorting her form, having learned they sometimes infused their attacks with mana to hit her, and then latched on to the wound again.

Drawing mana from a monster was unpleasant, like dragging jelly through a wet straw, but the eagle had enough mana she no longer felt she was running dangerously low.

Then she detached and darted over to the next fighter. He'd clearly seen what happened, and tried to keep her out with a multiplying barrage of knives. Galatea simply hardened a shell of air around her, barreling through them, and then caught one and threw it into his mount's eye. The chimera screamed and bucked, and the man's second attack went wide. She timed the instant he tried to pull himself straight in the saddle again and shoved a magical ice spear of her own into his throat.

They were letting the first man fall, she noted — sensing others further down — clearly trusting them to catch him. Either way, he was out of the fight now.

The second man breathed his last and she was finally ready to focus on the healer.

They'd clearly expected her to drain the chimera, and maybe even the fighter, and the healer actually flinched when she shot towards him. He managed to deflect her first attack with a small but hard shield even as she was right on top of him, then whistled for his mount to pull its wings in and fall. Galatea followed, falling faster to get under it and repeat her first trick.

But she'd miscalculated — the others didn't rush to his defense, they turned and rushed Iseis.

Mentally cursing (one picked up bad habits from organics) she gave them another barrage of sharpened mana blades aimed to hit the mount and turned, rushing back to her companion. Iseis was hard-pressed; she barely dodged the first wave of attacks, getting another projectile into her left forearm, and must have canceled her spatial warping for a bit since she started falling.

Galatea pulled more of her mana around her center, manifesting it as another shell with sharpened edges, then blurred through the group of attackers. She clipped two, sending them off-course, but not enough to kill them. The others were too far, and still focused on Iseis.

Concentrating her efforts, Galatea moved her form, insubstantial as it was, forward, opening her defense for a precise instant, to pick up Iseis, and turned, sending the construct whirling and throwing off their attacks. A couple of Mana Missiles got through and she tanked them — which was unpleasant, it felt like her body, such as it was, was trying to desert her; it took a moment her of focus to regather herself. She couldn't do that too often.

But she had Iseis and they were both battered now. They needed to retreat and regroup. So Galatea kept moving.

(At least she'd gotten the healer — she'd mostly aimed for his mount, but she could sense that she'd bypassed his directional shield and now he was dying, on his falling beast.)

Suddenly, Iseis winced. "That's — Lianne —"

"What?"

Then she sensed it, too. The psychic clearly had some trouble, or maybe she was just too exhausted; but Galatea knew her mind was harder to grasp for psychics, if you were unfamiliar with her, and she only caught the edge of the transmission.

You need to return. Prince Tim called the retreat.

"Retreat?" Iseis exclaimed. "We were winning! Mostly."

"No, he must have a reason. We need to go."

Galatea glanced at the enemies who were still pursuing them. She was moving in zigzagging lines, and flying beasts couldn't maneuver as well, being reliant on wings. It gave them just enough breathing room to try and disengage. Iseis gasped.

"Galatea, a big chunk of the castle is just missing."

She looked down. The city was significantly more on fire than the last time she'd looked.

"Well. Can you teleport already?"

"Give me a few seconds."

Well, this was just going great, wasn't it?