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by Julie Frost
Fantasy, 8 pages.
Originally Published in AfterburnSF, 2008
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Another of our clan’s children starved to death in the night.
Ours was a grim gathering in the abandoned badger sett where we made our winter home. “We must invade the bees’ colony.” My husband Ceallach pounded his hands on the dried mushroom that served as a table and buzzed his wings. Hunger had made him so weak that neither gesture had much emphasis. “Otherwise we shall all starve.”
Keriam, a senior member of the Council, shook her head. “The bees are more dangerous than starvation. They are many, and we are few. One sting, and we die writhing. Or had you forgotten that inconvenient fact?”
I slouched in a seat of dried moss and let the argument wash over me. The previous spring had been arid, and this winter had brought frigid temperatures and little snow. We’d gathered food through the summer and autumn, but it hadn’t been enough.
All of us had protruding ribs; many lacked the strength to fly. An attack on the bees, in our sorry state, would be suicidal. Not to mention the fact that I was pregnant. But if we didn’t have enough to eat, the pregnancy Ceallach and I kept secret from the others would perish with us.
“Sitting here and dying by inches holds little appeal,” I said. “I’d as soon go to my death doing something, rather than puling about how little hope we have.”
“Easily said by you,” Keriam sneered. “Your father would never allow his little Princess to go to battle.”
I sat up straighter, exhaustion forgotten, and lifted an eyebrow. “Are you challenging me?”
Keriam dropped her eyes. “No, Olwyna.”
“If you haven’t the courage for the endeavor, none will force you to go.” I crossed my arms. “And if I wish to help in the raid on the bees, I will do so. My father has little say in my doings.”
“That is true enough,” my father said from the head of the table, with some amusement.
The sour mood broken, we proceeded with our planning.
* * *
That night we flew, with Ceallach leading, to the bees’ tree. Eighteen of us had strength enough to make the journey, to battle hundreds or thousands of insects. Our only advantage lay in the fact that the bees slept at night, whereas we were equally comfortable in darkness or daylight.
We had no way of doing a reconnaissance. The bees would kill any who invaded their nest, and that we were driven to do so was a mark of our desperation. Our fire-hardened hawthorn swords gave us longer reach, but it wasn’t much longer, and their numbers gave them the advantage.
Ceallach drew me aside. “Your father asked that I keep you in the rearguard. If the battle goes badly, your responsibility will be to get as many out as you can.”
I cast my eyes down. “All right.” My words came out in a half-growl, although truth to tell, I was more feeble than I let on.
He lifted my chin and planted a burning kiss on my lips. “Brave Olwyna. Our bards will sing of you after this night, and Keriam will eat her words along with the honey we bring back. She was only jealous of your daring to come, while she shivered at home.”
He turned and summoned a will-o’-the-wisp. I blinked back sudden tears — which it would not do at all to let him see — and the wisp gave us light as we entered the hive. No bees guarded the entrance, but the temperature was so frigid that we didn’t consider this unusual. Our mouse-leather armor barely kept us warm enough.
The will-o’-the-wisp led us deeper, and still we encountered no bees. The tree pressed in around us, lending an eerie air to the whole enterprise. I shivered, and not from the cold. We were used to open air; these walls were too close and the shadows were strange. Bad enough that the weather had driven us underground into a large-chambered badger hole, but this tree induced a level of claustrophobia that set my teeth on edge.
Some of the youngsters muttered and made warding signs, and one or two of them looked as if they wanted to go back. To cover my own trepidation, I glared. “Are you turning tail now, Anwar? You were as keen as any of us to come.” He mumbled something, not looking at me. “What?” I said. “I can’t hear you.”
“I hadn’t realized the tree would be so — ” Anwar gestured. “Confining.”
“Be grateful they nest in a hollow tree rather than a paper hive,” Ceallach’s brother Gwylym snapped, clouting him above the ear. Anwar subsided with tight lips, gripping his sword tighter, and we continued on.
We finally entered the central chamber, and my heart sank to my boots.
One tiny, pitiful comb of honey remained. The bees were in as dire straits as we.
Indeed, where there should have been many hundreds of bees, or thousands, in a gigantic cluster, fewer than two hundred rested there. What little honey was left wouldn’t be enough for them, either. But alt -- [End of Preview.]