Chapter 41: Chapter 41

Kai didn’t want to get in the way of her daughters so she walked a bit away from the wall and sat down on the side of the street with a sigh. Now she couldn’t really do anything more than wait for the sun to rise again.

She looked to the wall, where some of her daughters were hurriedly piling their silk together to create some kind of walkway for those with the glaives. Yeah, there was no way they would let her do that and get near the moths.

Everyone was providing silk for the building process and Kai noticed that Tiffany wasn’t part of the group. She looked around for her and discovered the girl past the tavern and the room her eggs were in, the hatchery as she liked to call it.

Her daughter had started to build the foundation of a second wall there, a much thicker wall. They had more time for this one and as long as they weren’t able to keep the moths away from the entire hive these walls would give them some sense of safety. They could deconstruct them later and use the material somewhere else when the threat was over.

Kai leaned back against the wall and listened to the sounds of fighting and eating behind the wall. The moths down the mainstreet were really noisy.

Slowly the drones began to enter the new safe area through the narrow opening in the wall and Anna and her two glaive wielding sisters stepped onto the unfinished walkway to take over from them.

Kai opened her map and zoomed as far in as she could, which left her with a close up top view of the current hive similar to the picture provided from a drone on earth. She had to change to another layer of map to actually see what was going on under the second floor.

The moth came close to the wall and her daughters slashed at it. The beast shyed back from the new unfamiliar weapon, giving the last drones the opportunity to escape from the fight.

Without any easily accessible prey the moth seemed to hesitate for a few seconds and made a series of clicking noises. Then it turned to the opening in the wall that was big enough for it and took a step forward.

Kai’s daughters immediately slashed out and the moth shyed back again. It repeated the clicking noises and stood still for a few seconds before it tried to get close to the wall once more, only to receive another slash.

This repeated itself over and over and the mouth became increasingly frustrated by the situation. 

Kai wondered if the beast had some kind of echolocation. She assumed that they had pretty bad eyesight so they had to have some kind of ability that helped them locate things or they would fly into everything.

Lena came out of the tavern with a pillow and a plate full of fruits. She offered both of the things to Kai and she took them gratefully. “Thank you dear!”

Her daughter smiled and bowed. “It’s only natural, my queen.”

Kai threw a small berry into her mouth. “You don’t need kindness to survive, Lena. It’s a choice you have to make for yourself.” And people often choose not to be kind.

Lena nodded and did another small bow before she went back into the tavern. A few minutes later she came back with more plates of fruits and distributed them to her sisters. 

Kai watched her do her thing with a smile.

A while later the moth gave up on getting past the wall with a frustrated whine and a few more wounds. It turned around and began to gather the dead drones into a pile. Then it laid down on its side and began to web the drones into its silk in a very spiderly manner. When the moth was done it picked the silk cocoon up with its mouth and walked away to leave the hive over the ramp.

Kai hoped they would get a little break, but only a few minutes later two moths rounded the corner from the mainstreet. At least the time had been enough to finish the walkway and hand the glaives over to three volunteers so Anna and the other two girls could take a break.

Then the same thing happened as with the moth before, only that this time there was a moth behind the first one and the girls had to put a lot more pressure on the first beast before it backed away into its kin.

Anna came over to Kai, who made room on her pillow for her daughter and sat down next to her on the soft thing. Kai looked at her daughter worriedly. “Are you okay?”

Anna nodded and held her arm into the air. After a few seconds it began to shake slightly. “I’m good. Repeatedly swinging the glaive is just really exhausting.”

She looked over to the wall. “We will have to switch out regularly or things could become troublesome.”

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Kai nodded and put an arm around her daughter's shoulders. Such a heavy use of a pole weapon required muscle training too.

It looked like her daughters were able to handle the defense of the first wall relatively well and with the second wall now being built, Kai decided to check in on the other group.

The first moth they had fought against was lying dead in the middle of the tunnel, surrounded by 7 drone corpses. There was an arrow in each of the beast’s eyes and a few more arrows on the rest of its body. A second moth was eating it, but as no one was looking there right now Kai didn’t have any live footage.

Further down the tunnel laid another moth with a multitude of slash wounds on its legs and an arrow in each of its eyes again. The thing was still alive though, only unable to move anymore.

Kai raised an eyebrow. Artemis’ training seemed to bear fruit already and the girl was showing that off quite well.

She moved the view of her map even further down the tunnel until she came close to the intersection, where the group was currently fighting a third moth. Kai came just in time to witness Artemis shooting her last arrow in the things right eye.

Her daughters had adopted a different style to the one Kai’s group had. Much like them they had kept their javelins until now. Artemis’ groups glaive wielders where actively attacking the moth together with the drones however and thus put a lot more pressure on the animal.

Kai did not like seeing it. She just hated seeing her daughters in such a dangerous position, but she had to admit that they were doing a lot better than her group had done. 

The scene was the perfect reminder that if her people grew larger in the future she would have to make decisions where all choices were shit in some way. It was her duty as the queen, but she didn’t know if she could do it, if she was the right person for this.

Anna gently hugged her from the side. “It’s okay mom. No matter what happens we will be there for you.” The girl had obviously smelled her mood and maybe even guessed her thoughts.

Kai looked stone faced at her daughter. She had to fight to keep the water out of her eyes, because she didn’t want to make a scene in front of her daughters in a situation like this. 

She returned the hug, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Thank you Anna.”

The rest of her words went unsaid. She knew she would need her daughters' support more than anything else in the future and Anna knew so as well.

They stayed like this for a moment before Kai went back to looking at the fight.

In the time she hadn’t looked, two javelins had been thrown at the moth and Artemis had gotten herself one of the projectiles from one of her sisters. The animal was actually retreating slowly, but her daughter seemed to be determined not to let it go.

Another round of javelins was thrown at the moth and Artemis suddenly ran towards the thing for some reason. Kai frowned. What was the girl doing?

The javelins hit the moth and it shyed backwards. Artemis continued running, entering the range of the animal's legs, but the thing was still distracted by the damage it had just received.

When the girl was only a few steps away from the moth’s face, the animal seemed to realize something had come close and kicked out at her. 

Artemis jumped up, evading the swipe and then struck home with the short spear, burying it so deep in the eye that her hand touched the organ.

She tried to use her hold on the javelin to redirect her momentum to the back of the moth, but somewhere inside of the eye the thing broke and she only ripped her part of the spear out of the eye brutally before she was sent flying through the air. A second later Artemis' face planted on the moth’s wings and fell to the ground next to the animal where she held her hands into the air in victory.

The moth stood still for a few seconds, its limbs twitching slightly. Then it simply collapsed, its legs not receiving anymore commands as the brain had shut down after the tip of a bone spear had intruded into its space.

Kai let out a breath of relief she hadn’t realized she had held the entire time. God, what was Artemis doing?

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