David Farland - The Golden Queen

Veriasse gasped for breath. The room was so damned hot, and his head began to spin. Lord Dinnid landed on the far side of the room, turned his back to Veriasse so that he could watch him, then Dinnid began the dronon equivalent of coughing. His right thigh convulsed rapidly, and bits of exoskeleton came flying from his air holes.

Veriasse considered rushing to attack, but he realized that Lord Dinnid would probably like him to try. The dronon would only fly away, forcing Veriasse to tire himself.

Veriasse began walking toward Dinnid. “Surrender now,” Veriasse offered. “I do not wish to destroy you!”

“I will not surrender to a soft creature like you,” the dronon answered. “You have been fortunate in this contest, and I have been incautious.”

The dronon vanquishers who circled the arena were still singing, their mouthfingers clicking softly. Dinnid shouted for silence, and they obeyed.

Dinnid turned, waved his sensor whip high, then stood tall on his hind legs. In such a position, he could not launch into flight, but he raised his battle arms overhead like vicious clubs. He stood silently, waiting for Veriasse to advance.

Veriasse watched the creature warily. The sensor whips collected information in three ways: they were chemoreceptors that the dronon used to smell with; they felt vibrations; and they acted as enormous ears. Time and again, the dronon proved to be more sensitive to sound than humans. Veriasse vowed not to be taken in by Dinnid’s apparent vulnerability.

Veriasse’s face felt as if it were on fire. He closed on Dinnid. Gallen and Maggie must have recognized the danger, and they began shouting loudly, “Get him! Kill him!” making as much noise as possible so that they could cover Veriasse’s approach. Dinnid twisted his head in frustration, slowed, then seemed to center on Veriasse and began stalking.

Veriasse waited. The air in the room was suffocating, and he had to focus, try to forget the pain in his face, the strangling air.

Lord Dinnid began coughing again, stopped to clear his air passages. Veriasse looked for a weakness. There were few places to attack. The dronon’s exoskeleton was so thick that even a heavy kick to the head would do no good. Veriasse considered the mouthfingers down beneath the mandibles. He might be able to crush its voice drum-which would have much the same effect as putting a hole in its lungs-but the mouthfingers were too close to those heavy mandibles.

There were only a few places he could strike with much effect. The air holes on the thighs were one target. The wings were another. The sensor whips were a third. Yet he looked at the huge lord, a consummate warrior, and he despaired of winning this battle. Dinnid was too powerful.

Veriasse backed away a step, gasping for air, and caught a sweet scent of flowers. He laughed as he realized that Everynne had opened the bottle of Hope he had received on Cyannesse. An adrenaline surge poured through him, filling him with light. And then Veriasse considered ways to use the dronon’s own power against it.

Dinnid stalked closer, and Veriasse jumped forward and shouted, causing the monster to swing both battle arms down, slamming into the metal floor. Veriasse leapt, kicked Dinnid’s voice drum. His foot connected with a sharp thud. Dinnid raised his battle arms protectively, hitting Veriasse in midair, knocking him away.

Even that minor touch was too much.

Veriasse hit the floor on his back. Some ribs cracked on impact. For a moment, he lay gasping in pain, unable to move. Dinnid swung his head from side to side, biting down with his mandibles in case Veriasse tried to kick his voice drum again.

Veriasse didn’t move, didn’t stir a muscle, forced himself to still his breathing. Lord Dinnid was so fond of pointing out the weaknesses of the human’s soft body that Veriasse decided to let the creature think he’d done some damage.

Dinnid shouted, “Human? Human?” His voice garbled. Of the dozens of voice fingers under Dinnid’s mandibles, half were crushed.

Veriasse didn’t answer, and the dronon decided that now was his opportunity to strike. He leapt forward, waving his sensor whip and chopping down with his right battle leg. In that moment, Veriasse leapt up, grabbed the sensor whip, and pulled it in front of the swinging leg.

The serrated chitin of the foreleg sliced through the whip. Dinnid groaned in pain, spun away so that his back eye was on Veriasse, then buzzed his wings, lifted off in flight.

Veriasse picked up the sensor whip. It was over two meters long and very heavy. Veriasse snapped it overhead as if it were a bullwhip, cracking the air. Everywhere, the dronon in the audience hummed in disapproval.

Veriasse imagined how he would feel if a dronon were to pull the leg off a human and use it as a weapon. He imagined how it would anger him and hoped that Dinnid too would be appalled. Perhaps it would break his concentration. Dinnid buzzed forward, hit the far wall and fell. He turned, leapt into the air again and rushed toward Veriasse. Veriasse cracked the sensor whip, and Dinnid veered toward him.

Veriasse crouched low, and Dinnid swooped over. Veriasse dodged and swung the whip with deadly ferocity, hoping to get the creature’s back leg. Instead, the whip cracked against the stub of Dinnid’s damaged sensor. The dronon flapped his wings so rapidly that they buzzed, creating a keening that was the equivalent of a dronon scream of pain. He doubled his speed and crashed into the far wall with a tremendous smack.

Dinnid fell to the ground, tried to get up, but his legs wobbled. He turned in a semicircle as if dazed, and Veriasse watched in horror. Dinnid’s skull had cracked. White ooze seeped from the wound.

Somehow, even though Veriasse had struggled from the outset for a clean kill, now that the moment was upon him, he was repulsed at the task.

He ran to Dinnid, and the dronon vanquisher wobbled about feebly, trying to prop his massive battle arms so that he could support his own weight. Dinnid was not thinking of fighting now, only of crawling to safety.

Veriasse leapt into the air, aimed a flying kick at the crack in the dronon’s skull. He hit with a thud, managed to open the crack a bit wider. Dinnid wobbled feebly on his front legs, and Veriasse leapt again, was forced to kick a third time. His foot entered the skull, and he pulled it away in disgust.

Lord Dinnid shuddered and fell. For a moment there was silence. Veriasse crawled back a pace and sat, gasping, horrified by what he had done.

All around him, the dronon began thrumming their mouthfingers against their voice drums loudly, creating a deafening roar.

Veriasse turned, looked across the room to the young queen of the hive. She was little more than a bloated sac for laying eggs. Her battle arms were small, unformed, and with her great egg-filled abdomen she could not fly, could hardly walk. Yet by dronon law she could defend herself against his attack.

Veriasse walked to the queen, panting. He was exhausted, ready to faint, and could not take any more of the hot air. “I do not want your death, Great Queen,” Veriasse said. “We came here seeking only the Right of Charn. We wish to pass through your land, so that we might do battle with your Golden.”

“You have earned Charn,” the queen said. “If you promise not to kill me, you may mark me. I will not resist.”

Veriasse could not escape this symbolic act, the maiming of the queen. He went to her side, made a fist and swung into her egg sac with all his might. The queen’s abdomen did not burst, nor did it break, but the metal studs in Veriasse’s gloves left a long gouge in her carapace.

A great hissing noise of displeasure rose from the dronon. All around the arena, dronon put their battle arms over their heads, crossing them in token of surrender. Yet they were not looking at Veriasse. Instead, they turned to face Everynne to do obeisance, their drumming voices crying out over the translator, “Behold the Golden! Behold our queen!”