the yellow striping of her face. Flora dug down into the wax again, but the voice in her mind had stopped. She would be the first to die, but she would fight for her sisters’ lives, for Holy Mother’s life.
She unlatched her wings and heard the sound of every sister doing the same.
‘No,’ the wasp crooned, pulling her last pair of legs into the hive. ‘We should not fight: all I want is to take you to meet the chil … dren, all the hungry … little … children—’ A claw slashed out and she laughed. ‘Forgive me, you’re too delicious.’
DRAW HER …
The voice was clear and strong in Flora’s mind. She whimpered and backed away and the wasp crawled in after her. The smell was suffocating and her soft hissing struck terror into Flora’s body. She felt that all her sisters had crept around the edges and their numbers had filled from the back. There was no more room to move. The monster gathered herself to spring.
NOW!
Flora roared it as the wasp lunged – and sprang upon the monster’s back, her claws scrabbling for purchase on the slippery armour.
The wasp hissed and writhed in a frenzy of rage, one sister after another shrieking as she snapped their heads in her jaws and ripped their bellies with her claws. Flora fought her way up to the wasp’s head and the lashing black whips of the creature’s antennae. She caught one in her mouth and bit down.
The wasp cried out and hurled herself against the walls, trying to crush her attacker against them. Flora clung on and spat the foul blood as below her sisters threw themselves at the thrashing foe. Then Flora lunged for the other antenna, cracking it off the wasp’s head so that the hole jetted pulses of green blood. Screaming in agony and rage, the blinded wasp killed sister after sister, but she was one against many and the tide of bees kept coming until the stinging biting weight of their bodies covered her and held her down unable to move.
Then they beat their wings, fast and tight with fury so that the air heated until they themselves could barely breathe. The wasp was strong and kept struggling, but she grew weaker, and then she stopped. Only when her smell changed and the bees heard the dull cracking of her shell from the heat did they cease their fanning.
The great wasp lay dead, and so did hundreds of brave sisters closest to her, killed by the colossal heat. Many others were maimed in the fight, and outside on the landing board, fallen Thistle sisters lay dead or mutilated in the sun. The air was thick with the foul scent of the wasps and the blood of bees, but the hive was saved.
* * *
The dead wasp was a horrific sight. The huge glittering black eyes were cooked white, and two green blebs of blood marked the roots of her antennae. Herself unhurt, Flora began to help her wounded sisters. More bees came running from all areas of the hive with vials of holy propolis to bind up the broken shells of any who might live, but the casualties were countless.
Flora carried fallen sisters out to the sunny landing board and laid them down gently, knowing they would not return. Many lay in agony with their limbs crushed. Flora stopped to comfort one, a sturdy little Plantain whose face was half gone. Sage priestesses moved among the dying to bless them with the Queen’s Love and ease their passing. One in particular caught Flora’s attention, the sun bright in her pale fur. The priestess turned to look, and by the power of her gaze, Flora knew they had met before. Quickly she walked back into the hive, to the group of sanitation workers gathered at the wasp’s body.
They were wild-eyed and terrified of the huge carcass, until Flora spat out a mouthful of its blood and grabbed one of its legs. It broke away from the body as she pulled it, and the sanitation workers roared in approval. No longer afraid, they fell upon the wasp, tearing what was left of her to pieces, and carrying them out. Then, because the scent of the battle was broadcast on the air far and wide, the remaining Thistle guards let them hurl the pieces over the edge of the board.
Bees of all kin scrubbed away at the landing board to rid it of the wasp’s foul smell, and as each section was cleared the priestesses passed along the edge and laid new markers to cleanse and re-consecrate the hive. Sisters looked for dead of their own kin, then the priestesses stood wing to wing and sang the Holy Chord as even the timid house-bees came forward to fly the dead to the burial area. Flora searched too, but no sanitation worker had fallen.
‘Your kin does not fight.’ It was Sister Sage, the pale priestess who had taken Flora first to the Nursery, and then the detention cell. ‘Though you did, and bravely. Why did you not run back inside?’
‘The voice in my head.’ Flora felt no fear. ‘It told me what to do.’
Sister Sage looked at her for a long time.
‘That was the Hive Mind. It has also restored your tongue.’ The priestess touched her antennae to Flora’s, and once again the divine fragrance of the Queen’s Love filled her soul. ‘You are indeed unusual.’
‘Is my Holy Mother safe?’
‘More questions … Yes, she is. And it is our ancient law that no matter what her kin, any sister who channels the Hive Mind in times of crisis may be taken to meet Her. If, of course, she survives. It appears you have.’ She clapped her hands together, and six beautiful young bees arrived at her side. All wore fresh veils of the Queen’s Love, which made their faces iridescent.
‘Behold the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Go with them, attend them well.’
The ladies spoke very prettily to Flora as they led her through the hive, in accents so refined it was hard to understand them. Outside the silent Dance Hall the lobby was busy with sisters rushing to help the wounded. From there the ladies escorted Flora up an unfamiliar staircase whose steps chimed softly in welcome. They emerged in a small hall in the mid-level of the hive, near to the hallowed Chapel of Wax.
The soothing warm smell of the Nursery drifted in the corridor and Flora hoped they should pass through it so that she might see the babies again – and so that Sister Teasel and the other nurses might see how she was honoured for her service to the hive. But the ladies took another route, down the long passageway between the worker dormitories and the Arrivals Hall, and beyond Flora’s knowledge of the hive. They stopped at elegant doors made of many different shades of gold, cream and white wax and exquisitely carved with flowers. Lady Burnet held them open.
* * *
They entered a small vaulted chamber made of immaculately plain cream wax. Three silver and three green pitchers stood on an old hexagonal table, but otherwise the room was empty. The air was so full of the Queen’s Love that it sparkled, and Flora laughed in joy as she breathed it.
‘Holy Mother is near! Am I really to meet Her?’
Lady Burnet smiled and took up one of the pitchers from the table.
‘Yes, my dear, but you are unclean, and first must be prepared.’
Then each of the ladies took a pitcher and stood around Flora, pouring ceremonially in turns, pure water then healing infusions in case of injury or disease. Flora shivered as the wasp’s blood mingled with that of her fallen sisters and ran down her legs and drained into a channel in the ground. Then the ladies encircled her and fanned her as if she were a chalice of nectar. Only when Flora’s thick russet fur stood high and dry were they satisfied
