The Bees. Laline Paull

earth and trees raced past below, she saw foragers streaming back through the orchard, racing for the landing board. A new scent mixed with the homecoming scent, and as Flora began her descent her venom sac swelled hard in her belly and her dagger unsheathed.

      The code was alarm: the hive was under attack.

Nine

      Laid at close intervals along the length of the landing board, the alarm pheromone flashed its message across the orchard air. The last foragers rushed to get in as a foul alien scent mingled with it, sweet and corrupt like rotting fruit. It came from the lurid straggle of wasps hovering near the hive, drunk and jeering. Flora could hear her sisters yelling at her to hurry, but as she descended through the smeary marker trails the wasps littered in their wake, they turned their black gazes on her and sizzled their stings in welcome.

      Flora curved up again on a blade of air and the wasps shrieked with laughter at her cowardice – before she hurtled at one of them and knocked the vile creature out of the air into the apple leaves. The touch of the wasp’s body against hers enraged her and she drove herself up higher, looking for another. But the wasps were already above her, buzzing high and furious as they swayed on their points of air, not to be taken like that again.

      ‘Dirty fiends!’ shouted one of the Thistle guards to the wasps. ‘Infidel!’ But her trembling antennae gave lie to her brave words.

      Flora dropped down onto the landing board between the sentries. She smelled their flaring war-glands and knew her own streamed as strong, but a wave of fear came from within the hive.

      ‘What did we expect,’ muttered another guard in a low voice, ‘leaving honey on the board? Advertising our wealth to the Myriad, no one to clean it, everyone rushing out crazed as soon as the sun shines—’

      She sprayed a great jet of her war scent into the air and the wasps laughed shrilly. They flung back the challenge with a hard gust of their own harsh smell and its oily particles settled on the landing board.

      ‘Closer!’ yelled the first Thistle who had spoken, her antennae rigid with rage. ‘I cannot smell you until I stick my dagger between your filthy plates.’ She too buzzed a blast of her war-gland at them.

      ‘Oh, you fat and useless creature,’ called back one of the wasps, pirouetting to show her tiny waist. ‘What pale squirt was that? I doubt you can even fly.’ Her friends reeled in the air, hissing with laughter.

      ‘Stay!’ A new Thistle held back her colleague. ‘They try to draw us.’ She motioned to Flora. ‘You’re big and brave – get inside and hold the line.’

      * * *

      Sisters stood densely packed and silent, their battle glands flaring and weapons at the ready. The smell of fear trickled up here and there, but every sister pointed her antennae forward and none gave way to it. Flora waited in the vanguard as the Thistle pumped out wave after wave of war scent, but the orchard was silent.

      The bees waited. Murmurs began. Perhaps the wasps had gone. Wings crushed, the heat was rising, and a tide of irritation seeped through the crowd. And then – a wave of acid air rushed in and every sister’s feet felt the heavy alien vibration as a great wasp settled on the landing board. There was the sound of a hard scuffle and then a cracking sound. A Thistle guard screamed, then another. Standing right at the front, Flora saw it all.

      The wasp was a huge female with bands of acid yellow and glossy black. Her head was as large as three sisters’ and she used her slashing claws to catch the guards one by one, killing each one with a snap of her heavy jaws. Then she flattened her long antennae, crouched down and peered inside the hive.

      Spasms of fear shot through all the bees at the sight of her glittering malevolent eyes, but not one of them moved. Flora stared back at the wasp and felt her dagger slide out. The wasp smiled at her.

      ‘Pretty pretty …’ She drove a whip of her acid scent down the passageway, wrapping round the antennae of dozens of bees so that they yelped in anger and disgust. She pushed her huge face closer, blocking the light.

      ‘Greetings,’ she hissed softly, ‘my sweet, juicy cousins.’ Her claw flashed into the hive, close enough for Flora to see the entrails on its tip and smell the Thistle’s blood. To stop herself running, she dug her claws harder into the comb. Deep within the hive, a faint vibration pulsed towards her. It spoke in her mind.

       Keep still. Hold firm and wait.

      Flora gripped harder into the wax and held the wasp’s stare. The wasp gazed softly into her eyes, willing her closer. The scent of its malice rose stronger.

      Draw her in, spoke the thought in Flora’s mind. Lure her, lure her …

      Flora stepped backwards and all her sisters moved with her. The vibration in the comb came stronger and they felt it too. She kept her gaze locked with the wasp’s.

       Lure her. Draw her.

      Flora let her antennae tremble and the wasp pushed in closer.

      ‘Are you the one, shall it be you?’ Her voice had a soft sing-song cadence, but her gaze was hard and calculating. ‘What a fat feast you will make, little cousin …’ The wasp eased herself deeper into the hive entrance, and Flora could not hold in her fear, for with her sisters so dense behind her there was no retreat from mortal combat.

      The wasp’s body rasped on the hive floor. Four of her six elbows were in, the only light 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