Victim of Fate (6 page)

"A hundred of them," Alto whispered,
remembering what Evan had said.

"A hundred seems like a lot," Kar reasoned.
"Considering the size of these bugs, even that one seemed fearsome.
Filling the sky would only take a dozen or two if they were close
enough to you."

Alto nodded, but still the man had claimed
there were more.

"Exaggeration is the tool man uses to justify
their fears," Kar went on. "It's easier to accept a decision when
we know it's inevitable. A hundred of those bugs would be
unstoppable. Ten or twenty? Daunting and fearsome, but we've shown
they can be killed. I expect we'll do better each time now that we
know what to look for."

"I just hope we don't have to do it a hundred
more times," Tristam growled. "Now stop gabbing and let's search
the next house."

Kar thumbed his nose at Tristam when the man
turned his back. Alto shook his head, trying not to smile, and
hurried ahead to catch up with Tristam so they could enter the
house first. They both wore chain mail and stood the best chance of
surviving an attack, let alone fighting back against it.

"Hey, what did one wasp say when another wasp
asked him what he was doing?" Namitus asked.

"What?" Karthor asked him, not understanding
the question.

"Buzz off!" Namitus said with a one-handed
flourish.

"I hope you get stung again," Kar
muttered.

Tristam silenced them all with a glare as
they reached the house. He motioned to Alto. Alto nodded and threw
the door open so Tristam could rush in to the building. Alto was
hot on his heels, sword drawn in case another insect lay in wait
for them. Instead, they found the house deserted.

"A few more and then we'll set off for this
forest," Tristam said when they'd finished searching.

"We should probably leave it alone," Namitus
suggested. "After all, it's really none of our beeswax."

"I see the poison has damaged your sense of
humor," Karthor said.

Namitus grinned and followed them as they
made their way to the general store. Bad jokes and poor timing were
nothing new for his friend, but he worried that the rogue might be
hurt worse than he let on. These jokes were even worse than
usual!

* * * *

"What hope do they have?" Therion asked his
captive. "One has been stung already and they've only faced two
wasps. Hundreds remain! The season is nearly over but the new queen
larva are beginning to hatch. The drones will be anxious to bring
in fresh meat to feed the larvae."

Rosalyn said nothing. She watched the mirror,
hoping that the man with the bejeweled sword would find her and
shut Therion up. If he couldn't do it, then she'd be forced to do
whatever she had to in order to survive. Her town was all but
destroyed. She hoped her family was all right still, but their farm
was near the forest. The wasps would have found them first. They
had a cellar; maybe they'd taken refuge there?

"A pity the wasps will die off soon. The
queen will die and they'll run out of food. Then the new queens
being hatched now won't find other wasps to mate with. That's the
problem of trying to improve nature; it's a balanced system and
nothing we can create will be able to perpetuate itself." Therion
turned to stare at her, his eyes dropping to admire her body.
Rosalyn had long stopped caring about the indecency his eyes
promised. "This is why we must make the most of our time while we
are here, don't you think?"

She knew he didn't expect Rosalyn to answer
his question. Or maybe he did and she wasn't ready to answer it.
Maybe that's what he was looking for, her to answer one of his
questions that justified his cruelties and his existence. Maybe if
she did, he'd accept her. Or he'd punish her. Rosalyn shivered in
spite of herself. She hadn't been punished since she'd forgotten to
address him properly. She didn't want to ruin the streak.

"No? Pity. Perhaps you'll realize otherwise
soon," Therion said. He turned away. "I must tend to some affairs.
Enjoy the show. I'll want to know if I miss anything exciting."

She stared at him as he walked away, wishing
she knew just enough magic to send a dagger into his spine with her
eyes. Maybe being a witch wouldn't be such a bad thing after
all.

"That peasant might have been better at
counting than we thought," Tristam grumbled. He wiped the wasp gore
off his sword and sheathed it. This was the fourth wasp that had
attacked them as they followed the stream to the west, where it
flowed through the forest the villagers feared so much. To their
credit, each of the wasps had been headed east, towards them.

"Evan," Alto said. "His name was Evan."

"What?" Tristam asked, turning to glance at
him.

"That's his name, Evan."

"I don't care," he pointed out.

Alto furrowed his brow at the gruff
attitude.

"He's worried," Kar offered in a hushed voice
to the young warrior.

"No, you're right," Tristam said. "Details
such as that will endear you to people. It spreads goodwill and
good word for us. Out here it doesn't much matter; they're little
better than the crops they tend. Their gold will feed us as well as
those same crops will."

Alto scowled. "Why not just kill them and
steal their goods?" All of the others turned to look at him in
surprise in spite of his sarcastic tone.

"A good question," Tristam admitted. "First,
if you were like that I wouldn't have you as one of my men. Second,
it does us no good to butcher the innocent. I'll take the chance of
being paid time and again versus a single purse any time. Then
there's the reputation and the threat of having a price on our
heads. No, lad, we play the role of the good guys. It's both the
safe and the smart way to get by."

"I don't suppose these demonic wasps care
much whether we're good or bad," Namitus muttered. He pointed with
his good arm into the sky to the west. "Here comes another
one."

Tristam cursed and drew his sword. "We're
making no progress with these damned wasps and the way this stream
winds back and forth. Can't you do something, wizard?"

"Smoke!" Alto said.

"Where?" Tristam spoke but they all turned
and looked about.

"No, I mean I remember my father using smoke
to pacify a bee's nest so he could move it away from our barn one
year."

"You're going to need to burn the entire
forest," Namitus quipped.

"Following this river does us no good. The
hills are low but there are too many; we can't see very far," Kar
mused. "Let's deal with this and climb a hill to see the lay of the
land."

Alto hopped off Sebas and readied his bow.
The wasp had seen them and was closing fast. He drew back and let
the arrow fly, missing the body but tearing through one of its
wings. The wasp spiraled to the ground and thrashed about.

"Fascinating," Kar observed. "Think about it:
a normal wasp can fall quite a distance and not be harmed. These
large variants fall harder and don't recover as well. I wonder why
that is?"

"I don't care why it is!" Tristam snapped. "I
just want them dead. Alto's the only one with a bow and they're no
easy target to hit."

"Only took me one arrow," Alto boasted.

"And now you're down an arrow. You've only
got so many and we've not seen the end of these bugs."

Alto frowned. His mentor had a good
point.

"Come, up the hill," Kar said. He turned his
horse and guided it up the grade of the hill. They'd already
followed the winding stream around several of the rolling swells.
The difficult terrain explained why no farms or houses were built
near the stream.

"By the saints," Tristam muttered when they
neared the apex of the hill. The forest was another half a mile to
the west but that wasn't what had Tristam swearing. It was the
wasps that flew to and from the edge of the woods. They'd seen
several that had flown past them but that had only served to grow
their concerns. Now they knew they were right to be worried.

"That's a large hive," Alto stated.

"That's a poor joke," Karthor reminded
him.

Alto stared at him until he realized what
he'd said. "I don't mean the size of it; I mean that's a lot of
wasps!"

Karthor offered him a smile. "Both are true,
I suspect."

"Some of the wasps seem larger than the
others," Kar said as he squinted at the flying insects.

"Aren't they large enough?" Tristam muttered.
"Got another of those balls of fire like you used to open the gates
of Highpeak?"

"That nearly consumed me!" Kar muttered. "And
if these things came from that forest, there's going to be other
things that won't take kindly to having their home burned
down."

"Well, what then, wizard! How do we fight so
many of these things?"

"Do I look like a beekeeper?" Kar snapped
back. "Alto seems to know the most about these things. What say
you?"

Alto felt the weight of their expectant gazes
on him. "These aren't normal wasps," he stated the obvious. "A hive
dies off in the late fall. About this time, usually."

"What kills them, the cold?"

Alto shrugged. "They feed on flowers and
insects; there are few of them left this time of year."

"That explains why they've been taking
people," Kar reasoned.

"Lucky us," Tristam muttered.

"Seems we're drawing attention; perhaps a
hilltop wasn't the best idea," Karthor pointed out. A few of the
wasps buzzing through the air turned towards them.

"Why do others ignore us?" Kar asked. "The
larger ones, at that."

Namitus snorted. "I'd say these are big
enough!"

"We can outrun them on our horses," Alto
reasoned. He'd raced away from normal-sized wasps often enough as a
child, and that was just by running on his own feet.

"That won't solve the problem and earn us our
reward," Tristam said. "Besides, it's too late, make ready!"

"Wait, over there I see smoke!" Karthor
pointed to the north.

"They'll be more dormant at night," Alto
suggested.

Tristam nodded. "All right, let's go then.
Kar, slow them down!"

Kar muttered something about using Tristam as
bait while he turned and pulled out something from one of his
pockets. Alto frowned when he saw it was a feather. Was he going to
summon his raven familiar, Blackwing? Alto had seen the bird a few
times but never had Kar used a feather before to bring it to
him.

Kar began to chant and wave the feather in
the air. After a moment, Alto realized the wizard wasn't just
waving: he was drawing a picture, even if no one could see it. A
moment later, Kar uttered the final word of his spell. A massive
black feathered bird appeared on the ground in front of him. It
flapped its wings and took to the sky, lifting up and heading
towards the incoming wasps. The insects veered away and headed back
towards the forest.

"Why didn't you do that before?" Tristam
snapped. "A giant wasp deserves a giant bird to gobble it up."

"We'd best hurry or you'll find out why," Kar
said. When he was greeted with nothing but blank stares, he scowled
and explained, "It's nothing but an illusion! I was bluffing and
hoping they'd be frightened away by the sight of it. It worked, but
if the bird had to try to eat one, they'd know it was fake. Once
the illusion loses its believability, the magic breaks apart."

Alto shook his head, confused. Magic was not
the stuff normal men had any right to dabble with.

"Come, let's ride! And hope it's not just a
brush fire Karthor's spotted." Tristam led the way to the north,
guiding his horse as fast as he dared down the hill and then
fording the river.

Alto glanced behind as they rode. The magical
bird continued to circle in the sky and drive the wasps away. It
looked real enough to him; he was glad it wasn't coming after him.
It would take four of him laying head to foot to equal the bird's
wingspan!

After Alto crossed the stream, he looked back
and saw the wasps were rallying. They came out in a swarm and
attacked, overwhelming the bird and thrusting their stingers into
it. They met with nothing but air, confusing them as they ran into
one another. The bird disappeared, the magic undoing and making it
dissipate into thin air.

"That's what I mean," Kar said beside
him.

"Magic makes no sense," Alto said while
shaking his head.

Kar chuckled. "It makes perfect sense; you
just don't understand it."

Alto nodded. "I hope to keep it that
way!"

"You'd best learn something about it if you
hope to live a long and fruitful life."

"Why's that? My father knows next to nothing
about it and he does just fine."

"Your fate is not that of your father's, my
boy," Kar said with a warm smile. "You've a keen mind, a strong
arm, and a good heart. I don't need to be an old woman reading tea
leaves in a cup to see that you've an impressive future ahead of
you. Supposing you don't get yourself killed first, that is."

"There is that," Alto laughed.

"Keep quiet," Tristam snapped back at them.
"Ride on. If Kar's magic has riled those bees to the point of
wanting revenge, they'll come for us!"

Alto sobered at the thought of a swarm of
giant wasps on their trail. He glanced behind them and saw the
swarm buzzing about in air, still confused by the bird's
disappearance. He turned ahead and put his heels to Sebas, urging
the horse on.

They rode up around two more hills and then
up and over a third before the ground leveled into fields filled
with crops that looked to have gone untended. Weeds were growing
amongst the wheat and cornstalks, threatening to overtake them.
Alto frowned; no farmer would knowingly let this happen. Ahead of
them, they saw the smoke coming out of the chimney of a
farmhouse.