38: Surrounded

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Before Tyk can respond to the threat, Smon is dashing out of the shelter, magic light pouring from her wrist, killing tool in hand. She raises the tool toward the Hiveless woman, who immediately steps back at the sight of it.

“Hey now, you don’t want to start trouble here,” she says, reasonably. She doesn’t sound all that frightened, and with good reason; Tyk knows Smon’s senses enough to know that Smon can’t see all that much besides Tyk and the woman caught in her pool of magic light. The Hiveless man, hovering above and ready to strike the moment she tries to aim or use the tool on his hivesister, is well outside her range of hearing and sight, and would probably be outside her field of vision even in broad daylight.

Before she can puzzle out why this pair seem to know that, and indeed why they don’t look all that surprised by Smon in general, somebody else steps into view from behind the woman. Someone on two legs, covered in strange silks, and talking gently to Smon in a strange language that sounds as if it’s made entirely of names.

Smon immediately drops the weapon and dashes for the other sky person, throwing her arms around her and squeezing tight, a gesture which the other sky person returns. They converse rapidly in their tongue while Tyk, keenly aware of being in the middle of nowhere with two people from another Earth and two vicious barbarians who don’t seem intent on killing her right this second, all four of whom are ignoring her completely, just stares, bewildered.

She shouldn’t be all that surprised, really. She knew that some of the sky people had landed in the sleeplands, and everyone had just assumed that they would have died without the help of the hives. But if Smon’s right about her people possibly surviving even on the ocean, then of course they must be able to survive in the sleeplands. Perhaps this one had traded magic with this Hiveless pair for safety and protection, or something. A Hiveless pair with access to the sky people’s killing tools would be able to fend off other Hiveless easily, and hunt down traders when they started moving on the trade routes again.

The sky people’s chatter goes on long enough for Tyk to start feeling more awkward than afraid, then the Hiveless woman’s attention lands on her again and oh, yeah, there’s the fear.

“And what is your name, little hiveling?”

“T-Tyk.”

“Tyk. I am Samet. This is Kemet. And what are you two doing all the way out here, all alone?”

“We can defend ourselves!”

“Calm down. Do you expect me to dirty my mandibles with the blood of a lone child? There are tolls to be paid for your kind moving through our territory, but it doesn’t look like you have anything worth taking in toll, does it. So what would be the point in fighting; fun? You’d make poor sport.”

Samet’s tone isn’t threatening, and Tyk is hit with the sudden realisation that she’s being made fun of. This savage is mocking her! Her own indignation rises, and she tamps down on it, hard; this isn’t like fighting with Ayan. If she makes a problem here, she could be killed.

“So where are the pair of you going?” Samet asks.

“Just to Glittergem Hive.” Tyk isn’t sure it’s a great idea to mention the Rayjo Tau to these people. After seeing the extremes that the Green Hills Hive had been willing to go to, she doesn’t want to imagine how the Hiveless might react.

“Of course you are,” Samet says gently. “But that’s a long journey, and this is terrible weather. Why don’t the pair of you rest in our burrow and get your strength back?”

What? “Why?”

“You’re both clearly worn out. Dem here says that your companion is malnourished.” She gestures to the sky person she’d brought with her, who hasn’t spoken a word to her since they arrived, but is occasionally making strange gestures with her claws to Kemet. “Would you rather die out here?”

“Than die in there?” Tyk snaps, eliciting an amused rumble from Samet.

“If we wanted to kill you, Tyk, it would be more work to take you home first. At the burrow, you’d only have to worry about us; out here, you have to worry about us and everything else.”

That is true. And the Hiveless do indeed seem to have no interest in hurting or robbing them. But why would – ? Well. The answer to that is in plain sight. Smon. Maybe they want something from Smon; more sky person magic or something. Or maybe they want nothing but her company for their own sky person. If this Dem is as alone as Smon, then company is valuable for both of them, and if this Hiveless pair have some kind of deal with Dem…

Yes, they have to go. It’ll be good for Smon, to have company among her own kind; good for Tyk, to find out if Dem is giving dangerous magics to the Hiveless so that she can warn Glittergem about it; good for both of them, to rest and recover a little from the journey so far. Whether the Hiveless will allow Smon to leave again is a future problem, one that’s just as real out here as it would be in a nice warm burrow.

“We can’t abandon Smon’s farm,” Tyk says, indicating the makeshift cart.

“I can carry that, no problem,” Samet says, and indeed, the main problem seems to be getting her enormous body into the yoke. The weight of the farm is no problem for her, even as they leave the path, and while Smon continues to chatter with Dem at a rapid pace, Tyk’s full attention is on trying to make sure the wheels don’t break as Samet completely ignores any dips or stones or difficult terrain in their path.

Tyk is expecting to be led to a small hole in the ground, probably something like the semi-permanent burrows along the trade routes. Instead, after some walking, what’s revealed ahead in the light provided by the two sky people is… a hive entrance.

A proper hive entrance, all fired mortar and gemstones. Tyk is so taken aback that she almost misses a tall pointed rock under the cart and just barely shoves it aside in time to save the cart wheel. Are Samet and Kemet not Hiveless? Is there actually a secret hive out here, somehow? That’s not possible.

Then they get closer, and everything makes sense. The entrance is rundown, with the carvings crumbled and many gemstones missing. Even fired mortar, after many generations, will break down to dust, and while the occupants of this hive have done their best to maintain things with half-fired mortar, the hive entrance is clearly nearing the end of its time. Tyk is no expert, but she’d be surprised if it could hold up for more than one or two more generations without some very serious work from a proper, organised hive.

This isn’t a hive. This was a hive, long ago, the last time this land was in use, before it was left dormant to recover. And now, it’s an empty shelter for wanderers to move into, as Hiveless as its occupants.

The thing that truly surprises Tyk as they approach is the two other sky people who come out of the burrow to greet them. Smon looks happy but not surprised (Dem must have told her about them) as she jogs over to exchange hugs, claw-touches, and other little signs of welcome and intimacy and joy. So Dem’s boat fell from the sky with no deaths, huh? That’s good news.

Almost as surprising are the other people that follow them out. Tyk’s people; men, women, even a child several seasons younger than Tyk. Tyk had assumed that Samet and Kemet would be alone, but it would make sense that even the Hiveless would need to work together for survival. After all, Samet and Kemet alone wouldn’t be all that much of a threat to a prepared and trained trader caravan willing to defend themselves and their cargo.

There are six of them, not counting Samet and Kemet, most of them looking like they’d just woken up. Next to the little girl is an old-ish woman, not truly elderly but about the age where, had she been in a hive, she’d be expected to start taking on less heavy labour. Jewels glittered here and there on her carapace. They weren’t cemented in any Redstone River style (unsurprising; if anyone had been exiled from the Redstone River Hive in living memory, Tyk would surely have heard about it), and Tyk doesn’t know other hive styles well enough to guess where she’s from. Flanking those two and standing slightly ahead, like they’re ready to jump between danger and their companions, stand two more women with truebrothers on their horns, both marked with the carapace carvings of the Northern hives. One, tall and spindly, is missing an entire claw and the tip of a mandible; the other appears mostly intact, although her carapace carvings are marred with old, healed cracks and scratches too deep to leave no trace. They all look a little wary as they exit the burrow, then see Smon and Tyk and visibly relax.

Tyk would be offended, if their assessment of her as a threat wasn’t so obviously accurate.

“Everyone, this is Tyk and Smon,” Kemet announces. “Tyk, Smon; this is everyone.”

Smon does her carefully learned formal gestures and echo greeting, which is solemnly returned. But for some reason, most of the attention of the Hiveless seems to be on Tyk.

“A child,” the carved woman with a missing claw says, radiating a fury that causes Tyk to flinch back. “A child? Really?”

“I’m almost grown,” Tyk finds the courage to protest, perhaps unwisely. But the woman doesn’t retaliate to this disrespect. Instead, the older woman, encrusted in gems, steps forward.

“Of course you are, Tyk,” she says soothingly, “and you’ve clearly been on an incredibly difficult journey. But you can rest now. I’m Saima. These are Sakeya and Kekeya,” she adds, indicating the one-clawed woman and her truebrother, “Sabin and Kebin,” (the smaller carved woman and her truebrother), “and little Tama.”

“I’m not little,” the child snaps.

“Of course you’re not.”

“Tyk and Smon are travelling to the Glittergem Hive,” Samet says. There’s an edge in her tone, like it’s a joke, but a grim one, and Saima touches Tyk’s horns comfortingly. Tyk gets the distinct impression that she’s being pitied, for some reason.

“We can make it,” she says stubbornly. “We were doing fine.”

“It’s a wasted journey, kid,” Sakeya says. Her anger hasn’t faded at all, Kekeya on her horns hums a matching fury, and Tyk fights the natural urge to hide behind Saima. If she’s parsed the naming conventions of their little group correctly, then Sakeya must have been named Keya in her hive. A ke- name, a trick-name. Ke prefixes are given to girls only if they’re born under Kelennin, and usually not even then; few parents want to mark their daughter with such an obvious indication of their god. But never to anyone marked by a different god. Meaning that this angry, heavily battle-scarred exile was born under the capricious, deceitful and occasionally murderous lightning god.

Tyk will need to be very, very careful.

“Why?” she asks, in the politest tone she can manage. “Did something happen to the Glittergem Hive?”

“Not that I’m aware of. But you won’t be able to fool them. Your hive would’ve given everyone your name already through the wingsong, and even if you show up under a fake one, you’re a lone kid wandering in out of nowhere. You can’t – ”

“Sakeya!” Kebin admonishes her. “Tyk’s had a very hard journey already; you don’t need to – ”

“Don’t need to what, stop her from making a harder one that’ll only end in disappointment? You think the truth will hurt less if she learns it from people she expects to save her after taking the whole route alone? It’s better that she accepts reality now.”

And then everything clicks into place for Tyk. The anger (not directed at her, she realises) and pity (absolutely directed at her) in the demeanour of these Hiveless. The way that Samet had pulled her and Smon off the trail and to their burrow, the way that nobody’s taking her plans to go to the Glittergem Hive seriously. The reason that, while the sky people are interested in Smon, these Hiveless are more interested in her.

There is, after all, only one clear and obvious reason why somebody would be travelling through the sleeplands without a caravan.

These Hiveless think that she’s one of them. They think she’s been exiled.

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