Chapter 11

With practised ease, five bees landed right in front of us in a straight line. I was already sweating like mad, my eyes darting among the, frankly, unnatural creatures.

Bugs shouldn't be this big man!

A normal bee might look cute with all it’s buzzing around, but when it’s as big as a car and a few meters away from you…

I glanced at the doctor. He looked calm, but that did little to reassure me. The moment something went wrong I had to grab him and run like our lives depended on it. Because it basically would.

The one in the middle moved forward and brought its face near the syrup jar. Was it smelling the thing? Are bees even capable of doing that? Oh God, the way it moved its antenna was really disturbing. Is it talking to the other bees?

One of the other four took some sort of signal and flew off back to the hive. The other bees remained before us, completely still with the exception of a wing twitching or the small movement of their legs.

If this took any longer I was going to snap.

A few tense minutes later, the one that left returned. I didn’t know if it was the same one, but at this point I couldn’t be bothered to give a damn.

It landed right next to the, I guess, boss bee. Again, their coordination was off putting. The thing landed in perfect alignment to the other one, even their legs placement was parallel to each other.

It placed on the ground a piece of bark with some sticky, thick, substance on it, that I assumed was the honey. From the way it stuck to the wood, it tended more towards solid than liquid.

For the first time since this began, I saw Lucian move. He gently pushed the jar forwards and stood back. The boss bee took in its mandibles and they collectively flew off.

Lucian took the honey and proceeded to scrape it in another jar he took from his bag. “See Reginald? That was not so bad was it?”

“That was the most harrowing experience of my life. And that’s coming from a guy who stared a dragon in the face.”

“Oh come now, don’t tell me some innocent insects scared you.”

“Bugs have no business being that big. This isn’t Australia.”

“Never heard of this Australia before but I-”

Whatever the doctor wanted to say was quickly forgotten as a cacophony of barks and screams drowned out the buzzing. We both looked up from the honey just in time to see a horde of kobolds spilling out of the woods to the right.

“What the hell!?” The doctor swore. He quickly gathered the rest of the honey and sealed the jar. There were a few more pieces stuck to the bark, but now was not the time to bother with them.

The dog creatures easily numbered above half a thousand. Some stragglers even reached our position. Without thinking I pulled out my sword and slashed, actually decapitating one with in a single movement.

Lucian had already stored the honey jar and drawn his sword.

To our surprise though, the few kobolds running around didn’t pay us any mind at all. Some of them ran with clubs and sticks in their hands, others were on all fours barking madly. All of them had a crimson glow to their eyes, with strings of blood running down from them and staining their fur red.

They looked to be out of their minds, rabid. The few around us had already passed by and we turned towards where their main group was. Like a tidal wave, they crashed into the bee’s nest. Some began hitting and biting at its walls, while others used their claws to climb the waxy surface.

It did not take long for the swarm to respond. Hexagonal holes, previously closed, now burst open and gigantic bees began flowing out of them. The constant buzzing gained a tint of agitation and chaos.

One after another, the bees took to the sky, only to descend upon the kobolds with either their mandibles or stings. The assailants responded with mad fury, fighting while the clearing was filled with wretched screams.

The bees looked to be outnumbered, but when I saw a single bee pierce through three dogmen I realised that was not an issue for them.

“This is madness! What has gotten into these creatures? The kobolds seem to have gone completely insane!” Lucian watched stupefied, as the violent spectacle took place in front of our eyes.

I too was caught up in watching the carnage. One kobold, even after losing an arm to a bee’s mandibles, acted like he didn’t even register the fact, choosing instead to bite into the insect's body.

We were broken out of our stupor when a giant bee crash landed close to us. The creature had missing legs and parts of its body ripped off. Its desperate thrashing and hissing were nightmare inducing.

Realising that this chaos will soon reach us too, I grabbed Lucian. “We need to leave now!”

He completely agreed with me and we both ran, not looking back. We didn’t have a direction, but the horrific sounds coming from our back convinced us anywhere was better than there.

Unfortunately we didn’t manage to get far. While we were still close to the battle, a few kobolds jumped out of the foliage. I managed to dodge in time, but Lucian noticed too late and he fell on the ground with the beast on top of him.

Luckly, in our panic, we didn’t stop to sheath our weapons. I heard a scream and saw that Lucian managed to stab the kobold right through the throat. For a moment I was glad he managed to defeat it, but that didn’t last long. Even with a sword stuck in its flesh and its barks turning to violent gurgles, the kobold continued to attack Lucian as if nothing happened.

I turned to help him when I saw movement in the corner of my eye. Lifting the sword on instinct alone, I was able to save the hand holding it from being crushed in a bite. The other kobold that ambushed us missed, but managed to latch onto the blade.

It didn’t matter that the sharp weapon was cutting up the inside of its mouth, the crimson light in its eyes glowed bright and in its madness it tried to rip the sword away from me.

I had no intention of losing my weapon. With a grunt I kicked the dogman right in the chest, but it did little to push him back. With no other choice, I grounded myself, and pulled with as much force as I could.

That was enough to free the blade and push back the rabid creature. With another overhead slash It fell to the ground dead.

Wasting no more time, I ran up to the struggling doctor and kicked the bloody thing off him. Before it managed another twitch I plunged the blade in its chest.

“What the hell is wrong with these things?” I asked between heavy breaths.

The doctor was already up and wiping the blood from his face. Thankfully he seemed unharmed. “I have no idea. I never heard of kobolds being so suicidal and aggressive before.”

I carefully checked our surroundings. “We’ll figure it out later, we need to move before more of them show up!”

With that we began running one again, our eyes darting from time to time around the forest in case any more kobolds decided to ambush us. The sounds of buzzing and barking had grown faint after about fifteen minutes, but we didn’t slow down.

It was already seven in the evening and the sun was begging to set. Thankfully we didn’t meet any other creatures and managed to reach the cave exhausted, but in one piece.