I stared as the dirt around the enormous hive began to shake. Then like the Bifrost from a Marvel movie, white hot flames descended from the sky and smashed into the structure, it seemed to last for an eternity, as the structure smoked then disappeared, and a plume of black smoke rose from the crater being left. The ground collapsed around the structure as the underground tunnels burned, melted, and collapsed. Finally, the stream of white-hot flames raining from the sky slowed to a trickle, and then ended.
With the end of the flames came the end of… whatever had come over me.
I stood, and my head spun. I stumbled away from my sword and the world went black.
With a start I sat up, I was in bed… back in the Wild Elves’ underground hideout.
I remembered the fight, and my world going black, then immediately regretted sitting up so fast. My head felt like there was a band of a hundred children with bouncy shoes and pots and pans banging together and jumping around in my head. My stomach churned and only serious willpower kept me from vomiting.
“You’re awake!” Benavur exclaimed, making my head ring.
“… not so loud.” I groaned and gingerly laid back.
“Apologies,” Benavur whispered, “I’ll go get the others.”
The pounding in my head began to fade somewhat before the others arrived. It was good to see all my matrons and maidens were okay.
“You gave us quite the scare.” Tavorwen scolded quietly. “What was that?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I admitted. “It just… happened.”
“Describe it to me yourself.” A voice bid from the entryway.
Looking over, Opheira and Eaphra had arrived.
“I don’t know how to explain it. I heard the voice of X’Thallion in my mind, and then everything I tried to say came out like it was another language. I was filled with… energy, and my body acted on its own.” I tried to adequately explain what happened.
“Surely, he cannot be…” Eaphra whined.
“Have you heard a more plain description of an Ethvanier’s experience?” Opheira scolded.
“But he is not OF X’Thallion!” Eaphra objected.
“Is that relevant? Okthra has no children, but she has claimed Ethvanier in eons past.” Opheira pointed out.
There was a moment of silence
“The others will never believe it.” Eaphra relented.
“They don’t have to… not yet.” Opheira accepted. “The Father will let his will be known in time.”
“What is an Eth… Ethvanier?” I struggled with the word.
“An Ethvanier is one blessed to be a direct output of a God’s power,” Eaphra stated, defeated. “It is the highest honor. Though being such a conduit can be exhausting and if too much of a god’s power is pushed through their Ethvanier, the spent servant often perishes afterward.”
“It is impressive that a mere few hours later, you are able to wake. Many Ethvanier are rendered unconscious for days after channeling such power as you did…” Opheira mused.
“I’m sore as shit though.” I groaned. Now that my head was moving from the pains of hell to mere excruciating torture, I could notice the pain in every muscle and joint in my body.
“I rode out and saw the wreckage, child.” Opheira retorted. “You shouldn’t be conscious. Not for a few days.”
Tavorwen brought me some food from our rations store, and I ate reluctantly until the first bites hit my stomach and I realized I was ravenously hungry. As I ate, Tavorwen and a Wild Elf healer took position behind me and began chanting. I could feel a cool energy flowing through me, easing my aches and pains. When the stream touched my head, it was a sweet relief from the shooting pain cracking through my head.
As my thoughts really began to flow again, I came to a certain conclusion.
“If we’re gonna hit three more of those hives, we need to find a better way to do it.” I declared seriously.
“By the Host… you mean to continue?” Eaphra gaped.
“Whether or not it gets you and the rest of the Hratha to help in our fight, these kanegs need to be reined in. You explained that well enough.” I assured them.
Eaphra nodded conceding the point. “The hives do need destroyed or greatly reduced.”
“Well, you would not have to kill all of the kanegs in the hives you are destroying,” Brahim noted, looking surprised when we stared at him. “What? The only kaneg you actually have to kill are the queens.”
“What do you mean?” Opheira asked.
“Well,” Brahim murmured, “the kanegs from each hive can differentiate each other by scent. They will not take in workers, soldiers, or drones from a rival hive. Most queens seem to only bear another queen when they have reached old age, so if you kill the queen early, the workers, soldiers, and drones will lose purpose and die. If you can reach and kill three of the queens, you don’t have to destroy the entire hive.”
“Okay, but how do you sneak up on a hive like that?” I demanded.
“You could create a false reality,” Mavrin noted. “It’s pretty tough to create an illusion that tricks more than sight, but if I could cloak your sight and scent… I think you could basically walk into the hive and so long as you didn’t let them touch you, they would never know you were there.”
“You’d also have to muffle the impact of your feet on the ground,” Brahim added. “Kanegs can detect you by the ripples of the impact of your feet. It’s how they track you while they burrow.”
“Good to know,” Mavrin noted. “I don’t think I can cloak that.”
“I could add something to our master’s boots… I think.” Anbethir volunteered. “I could make him walk on the air under his boots, rather than the ground.”
“That could work!” Mavrin celebrated.
“Master, may I borrow your boots?” Anbethir asked.
It was at this moment that I realized how mostly naked I was. I was in my undergarments like I usually slept when I wasn’t naked.
“Um, sure…” I accepted, and Anbethir took my boots and sat in the corner, pulling out some awls, picks, and grooving tools.
“Okay, but I assume I’ll have to be able to kill the bitch stealthily. How do I do that?” I asked, turning to Brahim.
Realizing he had likely engaged in several of these hunts, and actually knew the foe was valuable. I should have done more research, but my foolhardy assumption that my rifle would punch holes in anything I came against had made me overconfident.
“That is difficult,” Brahim admitted. “The standard tactic is to draw them into an open area and use spear throwers, paired with the speed of a charging mount to continuously attack the weak creases between their shell plates. It can be dangerous, but that is what we do.”
“My sword seemed to work okay,” I suggested.
“Master, did you not see the blue light you and your blade were wrapped in?” Nauveir asked. “I don’t think any normal steel blade could cut their hide.”
“She is not wrong.” Brahim agreed. “A normal steel weapon would shatter before it could cut their hide.”
That was again sobering, how much of what had just happened was just me not seeing everything. If I was wrapped so fully in blue energy why hadn’t I seen it? Then I realized… Everything had been blue so my brain had compensated. It was like wearing red glasses and not realizing that something was red because you’d gotten used to wearing red sunglasses.
“Perhaps…” Brahim mused. “You only have a split second, but… what if we made you a blade-like The Father’s Blade of Light, Suiveir?”
“A blade of light?” I asked excitedly. Was he suggesting a fucking lightsaber?
“Interesting. It is possible. The blade would be incapable of damaging nonliving matter, but you could use it to harm the creatures without having to cut through their near impenetrable shell.” Eaphra mused.
Okay, not a lightsaber. A lightsaber cut through anything, but a weapon that could ignore the kanegs’ chitin, and maybe other types of armor, was still really cool.
“That’s likely beyond Anbethir’s skill,” Creadean admitted.
“You don’t have to do EVERYTHING for us.” Opheira scolded. “I’ll get some of our best mages together and see what we can make. If we are to make a weapon to bear the legacy of Suiveir, we must give nothing but our best.”
One of the Wild Elven maidens came over and began measuring my hand with a knotted rope. Once the maiden finished, Opheria and the rest of the wild elves, except the healer still tending to me, left.
“Such weapons could aid us in the future…” Brahim muttered, as he rose and. “A spear with such capabilities…”
I smiled, I was glad to help them think of new ways to fight their apparently age-old foe. I’d seen societies where ‘tradition’ was just unquestioned until a key moment, and I was happy to be in such a moment. I could hardly imagine how hard it was to overcome tradition in a society so long-lived as the elves were.
It took the better part of an hour before I was allowed to stand, and as my legs caved I fell back to my bedding. It took another half hour of Tavorwen and the Wild Elf healer ministering to me before I could actually stand.