Free Hive III by Griffin Hayes Page B

when they’re attacked by a group of Zees, rushing along the battlements, hissing, their eyes glowing white hot.
    Before me, Dhal is taking out dozens of them at a time with giant sweeps of his arm. Others he’s crushing under the heel s of his metallic feet. I see one Zee jump on him and begin scaling his back. Then another and, soon after that, a third. It’s almost as if they know Dhal’s in there. Swinging the shotgun around, I blast them off, but I see more of them coming.
    “We need to get out of here,” I shout. “Before we’re overrun.”
    Dhal’s still pounding away, oblivious to the six Zees climbing up the Titan’s back. That’s when I spot a Hive leader and realize their organized behavior isn’t just by random chance. This guy’s big, his skin red with black patches. That can only mean he isn’t just one of Skuld’s sergeants. This guy’s something more and he’s marshalling all of his resources to take us out.
    I level my shotgun and blast a few rounds but the bastard doesn’t do anything more than smile. He isn’t stupid, that much is certain. He knows I don’t have the range. Although I know someone who does. I tap Bron’s right side and he swings around.
    “ Hive leader, on the roof of that food depot,” I shout over the hail of fire. “Two o’clock.”
    Bron growls and lobs three grenades in his direction. The explosions send up a cloud of concrete dust and debris and, when it settles, the Hive leader is gone. Splattered on the roof tiles I hope, although I’m certainly not counting on it.
    It’s only when I glance behind us that I realize the least of our troubles. That horde of Zees in the hills is coming back and our only hope is to close the city gates before they reach us.

- 18-
     
    Skuld
     
    Slowly the air clears and a room begins to take shape, a room human eyes would find too dark to see, but seeing without light is one of many benefits to being a Zee. We’re in a wing of the old prison. A battered sign on the wall in the old language advises: ‘No warning shots fired.’
    A signal from Krall informs me that a handful of mercenaries, accompanied by one of Goliath’s predecessors, have breached the main city gate. I direct him to pull together all surrounding forces to annihilate them. But the truth is I can’t be bothered to care. Not when I’m so close.
    The walls are dripping with a strange viscosity. I run my fingers along a section ringing the doorway and see a flash of the Queen’s face burst before my eyes. Her features are grotesque, without a shred of the person she once was. The mix of her unique human personality and even rarer genetics merged to produce Zee royalty, no accelerators required. But in the process, her body had morphed into something unspeakable, never meant to be seen. And that’s the point running through the nerve endings throughout my body as we make our way into her chamber. If that viscosity confirms anything, it’s that she’s in here, somewhere. The fibre of her being is woven into these very walls and the closer we draw, the more intensely I can feel her presence. Plak and the other councillors feel it too, but the thought of meeting her isn’t nearly as exciting for them.
    This was the place where the ancient Keeper documents describe her last stand. The place she was finally cornered and sealed away. Solitary confinement was what they called this wing. How fitting. The air inside is humid and thick. If I still had pores on my body , they’d be open and producing buckets of sweat.
    But why hadn’t she been killed? I’ve often wondered the same thing myself and the truth is beginning to reveal itself. Perhaps they didn’t think they could defeat her. Perhaps her ability to tap into Zee central itself had begun a mutation of sorts. One that allowed her a foothold into the human brain. An explanation that seemed to make sense, given that every squad sent in to finish her seemed to suddenly turn on each other. Not unlike the way