The setup of the siege proceeded smoothly.
The massive imperial army spread out, circling the hornets’ nest with several camps. Each camp was rapidly built by Builder Bees from locally cut wood, wax, and animal hides we brought with us. The camps gave just enough shelter for bees to rest at night, but it was far from comfortable.
Especially compared to my soft fur bed in the Hive Supremo, and the soft warm chest of Ambrosia at my side…
I helped Bloodimina to organize patrols that would guard their sisters day and night, and the patrols that would look out for the hornets that tried to leave or enter their nest. Several teams were going to wait in turns, ready to intercept every hornet.
This work took the rest of the day, but didn’t stop on the next one.
Builder Bees kept building better, sturdier, more comfortable lodgings for the bees; Foragers and Foremen gathered nectar from flowers nearby; more Foragers with armed escort were bringing daily supplies from the nearest supply fort.
Among those haulers was a messenger for me, bringing a letter from Tabletina.
[Fazer I cant give what yu asked for. All the poison plant samples hav roted alredy. I sent all the sleep stuff we had but there less than yu asked for. Materials are luking for mor but they say it doesnt grow anywhere they look anymore. In our teritory at least. Write if yu need anything else, Fazer. Tabletina.]
All the spelling errors aside, the contents of the message made me grimace.
Yesterday, I sent the fastest messenger to ask for poison against any more dragons. Although these creatures didn’t seem very aggressive, I didn’t want them nearby, watching for a good moment to attack, or plucking lone bees.
Now it turned out that we were out of poison… And even sleeping draught!
’No wonder. While we were fighting mites, the Material Foragers must’ve plucked every single blade of the sleeping grass in our territory. Damn… Now it won’t even grow there next year. That was not farsighted. I will have to build a herb garden in the future.’
For now, I just had a single small jug of dried sleeping herb, brought with the daily supplies.
"When you go back, tell Tabletina I got the message. And the herbs."
"I will, Father," the messenger said with an eager nod.
I smiled at her.
"Keep doing the good work, girl."
After she left, I carried the jug to the field hospital, where the Physicians tended to the badly wounded.
There weren’t too many of them. The attacks of hornets usually either left the bees mobile, or killed them in minutes, but there were still a couple dozen who were neither here nor there. Broken bones, contusions, deep lacerations… Those bees who were less wounded moved to the nearest fort to recover, but the ones left here were too weak to jostle.
As I entered, I had to walk past the rows of simple bed pallets where bees were lying. Some were unconscious, others, while clearly pained and often feverish from their infected wounds, lit up at my appearance.
"Father!"
"Father came to visit us!"
"I can already feel myself becoming healthier. He’s like ten well wishes!"
The last line made me chuckle despite the gloomy atmosphere of the place and smile at my girls.
"I’m glad you think so!" I said, beaming. "I wish you all to get healthy soon, live to fight in many heroic battles, and make your father proud!"
The wounded bees, and the Physicians that gathered in the hospital, cheered at that. I walked around, giving more smiles and patting heads of my girls, especially those who felt the worst.
Although I was putting on a brave face for them, inwardly, I was just tired.
I wasn’t going to question myself now—the decisions have been made already. But it took strength to hold on and not fall into melancholy.
Seeing my Warrior Bees happy about their victory gave me some of that strength back, though.
Finally, I went to the Lieutenant Physician in charge of the place and gave her the jug of sleeping herb.
"You can give this to bees who are in pain so they could at least rest without it. This way, the herb will be put to use before it gets stale."
"What a good idea, Father! They will all heal faster if we can just make them toss and turn less."
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"Yeah, that too."
Outside, the mood was much better. The cordon patrols had killed several more hornets while suffering no losses, and bees in the siege camps were trying out hornet steak.
Since hornets, despite their size, were mostly humanoid, it all felt a bit too close to cannibalism for me to try it myself. But logically, it wasn’t cannibalism, so I let my daughters do it.
’Hm, but hornets are full of venom. I should just use it!’
With that thought, I went to the cooks. The stingers of dead hornets were a trophy that Craftsmen Bees would later use; but their venom sacks were usually thrown out. I planned to get them and arrange a better, more venomous bait.
But before I could, I was intercepted by a Commando Bee scout.
"Father, there’s a dragon again! Three dragons!"
"What?! Shit, I *knew* it! That crow—I mean, that dragon called its friends! Where is it?"
The scout pointed in a direction where I left the bait the last time. The section of the siege cordon I was just close enough that I could see two black silhouettes towering over the sparse forest. A third dragon was circling above the spot and the siege.
Then, one of the first two dragons joined it, circling closer to the hornets’ nest—and to the bees besieging it.
"Don’t tell me they want to be fed again…" I muttered, scowling. "They are too smart for their own good! And our, especially *our* good!"
Then a grin bloomed over my face.
I was suddenly struck by a brilliant, brilliant idea about how to deal with those majestic, dangerous pests…