Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 42

Maggie followed the dronon in a daze, stumbling through the tangle. It was not a long journey-the dronon guided her to the nearest shuttle, only a thousand meters from where she’d found Gallen, but it was a difficult journey.

Gallen couldn’t walk, even with Maggie’s help, so a single dronon Vanquisher lifted Gallen in its battle claws and carried him, while Maggie walked beside, cradling Gallen’s broken leg. He seemed so light and frail. At times a misstep jostled him, and Gallen would cry out like a child.

Maggie found no weapons beside Gallen, none but his mantle. She wore it now, knowing in all likelihood that it would avail her nothing in the battle to come. She had no hope of beating a dronon, but Maggie would not give up.

Could not give up.

As Gallen had protected her so many times, she’d struggle to protect him now. She wondered how the dronon would react to a Golden Queen who fought, instead of relying on her Lord Escort.

All through the journey, she marveled at the dronon. She saw dozens of their dead, sprawled along the road. One Vanquisher lay headless from a sfuz’s snare, another with a burning hole under his abdomen where, Maggie assumed, he took a hit from friendly fire.

Such a waste of life in this magnificent display of force. The dronon could kill Maggie anytime, could have done so months ago when she and Gallen first defeated the Lords of the Sixth Swarm, but they had to carry on their farce, had to hold to their ancient formulae for succession.

So they marched till they reached a wedge-shaped cruiser deep in the tangle. Inside, the dronon escorted Maggie to a holding bay, a veritable prison with white ceramic walls. The room had no windows; one dim light glowed red as the sun on dronon.

The Vanquisher unceremoniously dropped Gallen to the floor. Gallen landed on his side with a yelp, then curled into a ball.

Maggie knelt over him, took her canteen, and wetted the tips of her long hair, then began cleaning his face. It was a mass of bruises, his nose broken and skewed to the side. In the darkness she’d thought all his teeth missing, but saw that only two of his top teeth were knocked out. The others were darkened by blood.

Gallen winced from her ministrations, opened his eyes, stared at her, pain showing in every line of his face, in the swollen bruises. Maggie bent and tenderly kissed him. “It will all be over soon enough. Don’t worry.”

Gallen shook his head. “No,” he gasped. “It doesn’t end it just goes on without us.”

“Close your eyes,” she begged. “Rest now.”

“I’ll rest when I have to,” Gallen said. “Let me look at you.”

Maggie smiled at him, tears filling her eyes.

“So pretty,” Gallen whispered. “So pretty. The best in all County Morgan, or anywhere else I’ve been, for that matter.”

She kissed him precisely in the center of the forehead. “I needed to be. You wouldn’t settle for less.”

Maggie wondered as she kissed him. The people of Tremonthin bred him to be a Lord Protector, and Ceravanne had said his seed would spread across the galaxy on backward worlds. Maggie wondered if somewhere in a place she’d never imagined, a woman held another Gallen, a man with the same face, and kissed him with such passion as she did now. She hoped so. She hoped he’d live on in some form.

She didn’t want Felph to resurrect him. Gallen wouldn’t want to live without her. But he deserved to be treasured.

The floor of the shuttle began to quiver as it lifted gently from the tangle. Maggie got the vague floating sensation one does at liftoff.

She held Gallen’s hand. “How can I make you comfortable?”

“Escape,” Gallen said.

Maggie laughed softly, not really amused, simply wanting to humor him. “All right, I will, if you’ll come with me.’

Gallen whimpered, and closed his eyes.

“I love you,” Maggie said as he rested. “I want you to know, that lately, when I dream, sometimes I dream of the other lives that the Inhuman showed us. I dream we’re Roamers out on the veldt, squatting in the limbs of some sprawling oak tree, and I remember old mates. But in my dream, every husband I’ve ever had, when I dream of him, it’s you I think of.” Maggie knew she sounded crazy, but she wanted Gallen to know, that of all the loves she remembered, of all the mates whose presence she still craved, she loved Gallen most.

Gallen grinned, a relaxed upturning of the lips. Maggie held his hands for the twenty minutes it took to reach Felph’s palace. He fell asleep, and though Maggie yearned to wake him, she didn’t have the heart to. She merely hunched over him, her face pressed so close she could taste his breath, and she tried to memorize his face, every detail of his face. Some priests back on Tihrglas, those who recognized the Tome as canonical, said men and women could marry for eternity, so in the next life they’d still be one. Maggie wished it were true. If God had any sense of justice, she told herself, if He had the slightest notion of right and wrong, He’d make it so. He’d let them be together in the next life.

As she told herself this, it helped soothe the sting of watching Gallen sleep the last few moments of his life away.

When he was fast asleep, she took off the black robe she wore, the robe of a Lord Protector, and wrapped it around Gallen’s broken leg. Then she ripped strips from her dress, bound the thing. Perhaps it would do some good. Perhaps the robe would protect him one last time, saving him some little jarring pain when they reached the killing fields.

Gallen slept as she bandaged him, and he still slumbered when the cruiser reached Felph’s palace and landed in the great court before the gates.

The Vanquishers came for them; one lifted Gallen in its great claws. Maggie took Gallen’s hand, held it as the dronon carried him from his cell to the top of the gangplank.

Maggie wasn’t prepared for the sight before her: it was just dawn, light beginning to break over the far mountains.

In the fields before the gates of Felph’s magnificent palace of pink sandstone, the dronon warships circled. Black, squat, adorned with armaments, bristling with weapons.

Clinging to every surface of every vehicle, and scattered on every inch of ground, were dronon Vanquishers and technicians, a vast sea of black-and-tan carapaces. In many places, Vanquishers climbed atop one another’s backs creating black walls, forming a great arena made of chitin.

Yet behind them were the glorious towers of Felph’s palace, the thundering waterfalls all backlit by thousands of footlights.

The dronon had set pavilions at seven corners of the arena, pavilions of red, each covered with the evil-looking designs of various dronon Swarms. Beneath these languished the Golden Queens, with countless dwarfish workers attending, white as grubs.

Around the great circle, millions of dronon chanted, mouthfingers clacking over their voicedrums, while Vanquishers shook incendiary rifles in the air. Maggie did not know what they shouted. She was past caring.

Mustering her dignity, Maggie walked down the gangplank beside the Vanquisher who bore her husband’s limp body. Gallen roused enough to crane his neck, surveying the battlefield. When they reached the edge of the open ifeld, the Vanquisher gently set Gallen in the grass.

Maggie looked across the field for humans, anyone at all. Lord Felph was not here, but on the left side of the field, Hera and Athena broke into a run, rushing toward her, tears in their eyes, faces pale.

Athena rushed up and grabbed at Maggie’s left wrist, pawing her, shouting, “What’s happening? What are you doing?”

“Everything will be fine. Go on, now. It’s not you the dronon are after. You’ll be all right,” Maggie found herself trying to calm Athena. She wished the girl would calm herself, not force Maggie to be strong.

Maggie kept pushing at Athena, trying to I get her to leave.

Hera saw the determination in Maggie’s eyes, pulled Athena back, retreated to shadows thrown by the ship behind Maggie.

At the far side of the field, a Golden Queen began to heave herself onto the battleground, her pale attendants struggling beside her, pushing her bloated body forward. For one moment, Maggie saw the dronon queen not as an emissary of her death, but as a huge balloon being pushed and shoved on the shoulders of children, and the image seemed somehow comic and somehow painful.

Beside the Golden Queen strode her Lord Escort, the black chitin of his exoskeleton gleaming in the afternoon light. Lord Kintiniklintit was, frankly, the largest Vanquisher Maggie had ever seen. Good, she thought. At least I’ll be killed by the best.

Beside him, in a dark brown robe, walked a husky man in a golden mask. Lord Karthenor.

Maggie’s right leg shook as she walked. She halted, willed it to stop trembling, tried to show no fear.

Let them come to us, she thought. So she stood and leaned her head back, closed her eyes, trying to excise these images from her mind.

A cool dawn breeze blew; through partly opened eyes she saw clouds on the horizon.

Clouds! Here in the desert where Felph told her it had not rained in ages. Maggie wanted to taste the fresh air, to feel warm rain on her cheeks, to bask in sunlight.

She closed her eyes fully, shutting out the images, inhaled deeply. She knelt and took Gallen’s hand in her right hand, squeezed tight. “Gallen,” she whispered, “if you try, you can smell Felph’s rose gardens from here.” The aroma came, distant and sweet.

In moments, Lord Karthenor and his dronon master stood before her, their shadows falling over her.

“Closing your eyes will not make us go away,” Karthenor said.

Maggie opened her eyes. He was fatter than she remembered. The golden mask he wore, shining with its own wan light, made his face gleam like some round moon. She wished she had a gun. “The avaricious we have with us always. Just because I wish you dead, does not mean I think you will vanish.”

“I’m happy to see you again, too,” Karthenor laughed. “Who would have thought that when I captured a silly girl six months ago, it would lead here, to the green fields where you will die?”

Maggie didn’t want to speak to Karthenor. He wasn’t worth it. She found herself shaking with rage. She knew Gallen had a translator in his pack that would let her speak to the dronon, but she did not want to look foolish, digging it out now.

“Talk to your bugs,” she said, nodding toward the Lord of the Seventh Swarm, just behind Karthenor.

“Gladly,” Karthenor said, and he fumbled to switch on the translator pinned to his robe.

“Tell them,” Maggie said, recalling the words to the ancient dronon ritual, and she shouted, “You are my food, nothing more! This land is mine. All land is mine! A Great Queen comes among you. Prostrate yourselves in adoration. Prepare to do battle!”

She yelled the words so Karthenor would not say them. The translator on his lapel shouted the words in dronon, so their clicking tones carried over the field.

To her astonishment, Lord Kintiniklintit halted and bowed to her, crossing his battle arms before him in proper obeisance.

It was an unnecessary gesture, a gallant gesture. She didn’t deserve it. By dronon custom, Maggie had dishonored her entire swarm. No Golden Queen ever refused a challenge. None dared run from battle. The dronon were uncertain how to handle such behavior, thinking it madness. And on dronon, the mad were destroyed without remorse.

Maggie smiled at this Lord Escort, the greatest of all Vanquishers. Ah, I like this one, Maggie found herself thinking.

She stepped forward, shouting the ritual, “I am Maggie O’Day, Golden Queen of the Sixth Swarm. For five months I’ve ruled my swarm. Our children shall eat your corpses! Our Vanquishers shall claim your domain. Your royal children shall fertilize our fields! Your hive shall submit to us!”

Maggie shook with rage. In her nightmares, in her dreams about this confrontation, she’d never imagined being angry. But they were going to kill her, damn them!

“Your Golden Queen will submit to inspection!” she shouted.

Cintkin, Queen of the Seventh Swarm, crossed her front arms in obeisance and bowed. Maggie made a great show of walking to her so the white workers, like fat lice huddling in her shadow, scurried away.

Maggie searched the queen’s carapace, looking for scars or wounds, anything to give her an excuse to back out of this fight.

Though she played the bold one, her eyes kept straying to the dronon surrounding the fields, searching for Orickor, or anyone who might save her. Maggie looked behind her to Gallen, and involuntarily she gasped. Gallen had recognized their predicament and pushed himself to a crouching posture: He tried to stand on his good leg, precariously balancing.

Maggie turned and ran back to him, held him so he wouldn’t topple. The wind blew through his long blond hair, and Gallen balanced himself by leaning against her. It took all his strength. He grunted in pain, and his lower lip trembled.

Maggie’s heart pounded, her mouth felt dry. She looked at Gallen, at his lips purpled and bruised, and wanted to kiss him one last time, but dared not. Somehow it would be demeaning to share that one last intimacy with the dronon.

“Are you ready?” she asked Gallen.

“Yesh,” he said through swollen lips.

Maggie nodded, mind numb, and called to the dronon.

“I find your Golden Queen worthy. Let the battle begin!”

She paused as Karthenor’s translators relayed her message. She expected Lord Kintiniklintit to attack immediately.

But Karthenor’s eyes gleamed, and he shouted, “Wait! Lord Kintiniklintit must first inspect Maggie O’Day, to find if she is worthy.” Karthenor did not even try to hide the gloating tone of his voice. He stared at Maggie. Her heart pounded.

Don’t make me do this, she whined within herself. Don’t do this to me.

But Lord Kintiniklintit parroted Karthenor’ s sentiment.

“I demand right of inspection on this Golden Queen.” She did not blame the Lord Escort. He had no way to know what he asked. He didn’t understand human modesty, didn’t know the humiliation his “inspection” would cause.

The Lord Vanquisher stepped forward to remove her clothes, to inspect Maggie’s flesh for signs of scars, for any impurity that would make her unworthy to participate in combat. It was the one last rite, the way for her to prove she was truly the Golden Queen of her hive and had not lost her title.

But as the Lord Kintiniklintit approached, Karthenor stepped forward and smirked. “I’ll help you disrobe her, My Lord.”

Lord Kintiniklintit really had no gentle means of disrobing Maggie. She’d have been forced to do it herself, but as Karthenor stepped forward and grabbed her tunic, ripping it off so he exposed her breasts, Gallen came alive at Maggie’s side.

With blinding speed Gallen slammed a fist into Karthenor’s throat. Gallen’s black battle gloves, with hardened selenium chips at the knuckle of each finger, made the blow deadly.

The Lord of Aberlains staggered back, eyes flying open wide, gasping, and clutched his throat. The blow had landed squarely on his esophagus; the instant swelling of his trachea began the slow work of strangling Karthenor.

He dropped to one knee, gagging and retching, lips turning blue as his life ebbed, then recognized his dilemma.

He fumbled inside his robe, tried to pull a pistol.

Lord Kintiniklintit saw the move, slapped the human with the back of one great battle arm, dashing him backward on the ground some five meters off.

There, Karthenor lay choking until his miserable life ended.

Rage seemed to rouse Gallen. He pulled off his own pack, pulled out his translator, put it on his own lapel, then glared up at Lord Kintiniklintit.

“You object to the examination?” Lord Kintiniklintit asked Gallen. “This is your right, but in doing so, you relinquish your swarm.”

Maggie drew a breath in surprise. She wanted nothing more than to relinquish her right to control of the Sixth Swarm. She’d sought to escape her role as its leader ever since she’d won the position. But if she relinquished leadership, Kintiniklintit could simply kill her without a fight. That’s what dronon did to human leaders who succumbed. They threw them away.

But perhaps Kintiniklintit was different. Perhaps he would merely mark her, give her back her life. He seemed a noble sort.

And yet, and yet, even if he offered that boon, Maggie could not accept it. To do so would be to betray mankind.

She could not admit defeat. She needed to let the dronon know, to make them understand, that mankind would never suffer their domination.

Gallen said it for her. “No, you have the right of inspection, but I won’t let men like Karthenor touch Maggie. He was not worthy to touch the Golden. It was not his place.”

“Agreed,” Lord Kintiniklintit clicked.

The great Vanquisher stepped forward, and Gallen unfastened the back of Maggie’s dress, pulled it away for the dronon to see. Maggie wished she had some scar, some recent cut. A blemish, even the smallest one, might save her life. But her skin was flawless.

Gallen worked his way around, struggling to keep his balance on one leg, revealing her bit by bit to the Lord Escort, until Lord Kintiniklintit had verified her worthiness.

“I find this Golden Queen to be without blemish,” Lord Kintiniklintit said at last. “I find her worthy.”

It was done. There was nothing to do now but fight. Maggie still wore Gallen’s mantle, wondered if she should give it back, if he could put up any fight; he made no move to take it.

Lord Kintiniklintit backed away. He held his arms in the air, in sign of the temporary truce that would end only seconds from now, when the battle began.

Gallen didn’t move, stood leaning against Maggie, looking into her face, holding her right hand with his left. In his right hand he held up a scrap of her torn dress. She felt the warmth of his breath on her neck. He bowed his head; some of the long hairs of his head tickled her shoulders.

She looked into his blue eyes; he stared through a mask of bruises; she imagined from his eyes he would not fight, and she’d not fight. Instead, they’d die like this, holding each other.

Thirty paces across the field, Lord Kintiniklintit dropped his battle arms and buzzed his wings, taking to the air for the attack. A tide of voices rose with him, a million dronon clacking their praise in unison.

At just that moment, the sun cracked over the horizon, shining over the field. It lit Kintinikiintit so that he seemed to have risen, gleaming blackness made alive from the shadows, and it lit Gallen’s upturned face, white like a flower petal. Clouds were racing in from the North, but for a few moments, the sun would yet shine.

The Lord of the Seventh Swarm circled the huge field once, his wings rumbling. The swell of dronon voices thrilled Maggie somehow, despite the fact that they came from her enemies. Maggie looked across the field, saw the morning sunlight shining on the Golden Queen and her little white attendants.

Kintiniklintit circled the entire field, and as he passed over each Vanquisher, they each raised their incendiary rilfes in the air and shook them, so that it almost appeared as if each arm magically kept the great Vanquisher aloft.

As he circled once, he built up speed, then came round half a circle again until he lined up with the rising sun, then veered toward them.

Maggie had been watching Kintiniklintit’s progress from the corner of her eye; now she turned to Gallen. She wanted Gallen’s face to be the last thing she saw.

“My love,” he whispered.