Another of our clan's children starved to death in the night.

     Ours was a grim gathering in the abandoned badger sett where we made our winter home.  "We must invade the bees' colony."  My husband Ceallach pounded his hands on the dried mushroom that served as a table and buzzed his wings.  Hunger had made him so weak that neither gesture had much emphasis.  "Otherwise we shall all starve."

     Keriam, a senior member of the Council, shook her head.  "The bees are more dangerous than starvation.  They are many, and we are few.  One sting and we die writhing.  Or had you forgotten that inconvenient fact?"

     I slouched in a seat of dried moss and let the argument wash over me.  The previous spring had been arid, and this winter had brought frigid temperatures and little snow.  We'd gathered what food we could through the summer and autumn, but it hadn't been enough. 

     All of us had protruding ribs; many lacked the strength to fly.  An attack on the bees, in our sorry state, would be suicidal.  Not to mention the fact that I was pregnant.  But if we didn't have enough to eat, the pregnancy Ceallach and I kept secret from the others would perish with us.

     "Sitting here and dying by inches holds little appeal," I said.  "I'd as soon go to my death doing something, rather than puling about how little hope we have."

     "Easily said by you," Keriam sneered.  "Your father would never allow his little Princess to go to battle."

     I sat up straighter, exhaustion forgotten, and lifted an eyebrow.  "Are you challenging me?"

     Keriam dropped her eyes.  "No, Olwyna."

     "If you haven't the courage for the endeavor, none will force you to go."  I crossed my arms.  "And if I wish to help in the raid on the bees, I will do so.  My father has little say in my doings."

     "That is true enough," my father said from the head of the table, with some amusement.

     The sour mood broken, we proceeded with our planning.

#

     That night we flew, with Ceallach leading, to the bees' tree.  Eighteen of us had strength enough to make the journey, to battle hundreds or thousands of insects.  Our only advantage lay in the fact that the bees slept at night, whereas we were equally comfortable in darkness or daylight.

     We had no way of doing a reconnaissance.  The bees would kill any who invaded their nest, and that we were driven to do so was a mark of our desperation.  Our hawthorn swords gave us longer reach, but it wasn't much longer, and their numbers gave them the advantage.

     Ceallach drew me aside.  "Your father asked that I keep you in the rearguard.  If the battle goes badly, your responsibility will be to get as many out as you can."

     I cast my eyes down.  "All right."  My words came out in a half-growl, although truth to tell, I was more feeble than I let on.

     He lifted my chin and planted a burning kiss on my lips.  "Brave Olwyna.  Our bards will sing of you after this night, and Keriam will eat her words along with the honey we bring back.  She was only jealous of your daring to come, while she shivered at home."

     He turned and summoned a will-o'-the-wisp.  I blinked back sudden tears--which it would not do at all to let him see--and the wisp gave us light as we entered the hive.  No bees guarded the entrance, but the temperature was so frigid that we didn't consider this unusual.  Our mouse-leather armor barely kept us warm enough.

     The will-o'-the-wisp led us deeper, and still we encountered no bees.  The tree pressed in around us, lending an eerie air to the whole enterprise.  I shivered, and not from the cold.  We were used to open air; these walls were too close and the shadows were strange.  Bad enough that the weather had driven us underground into a large-chambered badger hole, but this tree induced a level of claustrophobia that set my teeth on edge. 

     Some of the youngsters muttered and made warning signs, and one or two of them looked as if they wanted to go back.  To cover my own trepidation, I glared.  "Are you turning tail now, Anwar?  You were as keen as any of us to come."  He mumbled something, not looking at me.  "What?" I said.  "I can't hear you."

     "I hadn't realized the tree would be so--"  Anwar gestured.  "Confining."

     "Be grateful they nest in a hollow tree rather than a paper hive," Ceallach's brother Gwylym snapped, clouting him above the ear.  Anwar subsided with tight lips, gripping his sword tighter, and we continued on.

     We finally entered the central chamber, and my heart sank to my boots.

     One tiny, pitiful comb of honey remained.  The bees were in as dire straits as we.

     Indeed, where there should have been many hundreds of bees, or thousands, in a gigantic cluster, fewer than two hundred rested there.  What little honey was left wouldn't be enough for them, either.  But although this meant we were only outnumbered ten to one rather than a hundred to one, it was still too much, and my mouth dried with fear.

     We zoomed in to attack, and the defenders of the hive rose to meet us.  Buried in bees, three warriors dropped from the air.  Their screams filled our ears as stingers found their way between joints in armor.  Those bees fell also, as their barbed stingers ripped from their bodies and the venom sacs pulsed horribly.

     The deep booming of their wings laid a counterpoint to the high hum of ours.  Our greater maneuverability was almost negated by the tight space--I nearly hit the wall twice before I was able to compensate, and I gritted my teeth.  Had we been of the clan with wings of butterflies rather than those of dragonflies, the enterprise would have been doomed from the start. 

     I struck the head from one bee, but it was replaced by two others who buzzed in my face.  I fended them off with my sword, while a third flew behind me and landed on my back, dragging me down in a panic.  Its stinger sought ingress through my armor, and I shrieked, twisting, trying to get it off before I hit the floor or it succeeded in stinging me.

     Two others of our number fell past me.  Parts of bee bodies descended like rain.  One hit my back, knocking my attacker loose and giving me a chance to spear it through the abdomen.  Shaking from reaction, I flew back up and rejoined the fray.

     Many of the bees had held back from the initial onslaught.  They swarmed about the Queen, protecting her and the remnant of honey, which still seemed a pathetic prize for such a heavy cost.  Only eight of us remained, although I hadn't seen the others fall.  Ceallach was among the missing, and my stomach lurched with grief I didn't have time to indulge.

     We'd killed over half the bees.  I decapitated another with a groan of effort and dodged four more, spinning and looping to escape and feeling myself becoming more sluggish with each passing moment.  My compatriots looked equally weary.  If we didn't take the honey and get out soon, none of us would make it home, and this battle would be for naught.

     Hovering to a stop behind Gwylym, I killed a bee with a leaden sword-arm and shouted, "To the honey!"  We gathered into a ragged formation, Gwylym at the fore, and charged.

     "Briallan, Morthwyl!" Gwylym shouted as we attacked.  "You get the honey.  The rest of us will hold off the bees."

     As we threw ourselves forward in a final assault, some of the bees changed their tactics.  Rather than trying to sting and thus die themselves, a group of them mobbed Anwar, bearing him to the ground far below and vibrating their wings to create heat.  He was cooked within his armor in a matter of seconds, and his screams echoed around us, bubbling to a gurgle as he died.  The rest of us had to repel attacks of our own, and so were unable to come to his aid.  If I'd had anything in my stomach to vomit, I'd have done so.

     However, that stratagem carried its price for the bees.  After expending so much energy, all they could do was crawl feebly about, out of the fight. 

     Briallin and Morthwyl, between them, were able to snatch the entire comb of honey, working together to wrench it from the wall.  But it was heavy and slowed them down, and a group of bees slipped past the rest of us to assail them.  I shook myself free from attackers, but not in time to aid Briallin, who was overwhelmed.  Her shrieks echoed in our ears as more than one bee managed to sting her, and she joined the dead below.

     Part of the comb broke off, plummeting down.  I started to go after it, but Gwylym stopped me.  "If they have some left, they may not pursue," he gasped.  "Go with Morthwyl; we will be the rearguard."

     I looked longingly at the honey on the ground, which represented many days' worth of food, but he was right.  I turned to follow Morthwyl--

     And a bee hit me in the back and latched on.

     My breath was knocked from my body, and I twisted and spun as I fell, trying to dislodge it.  Its mandibles clacked in my ears, and I could feel its abdomen working, hunting a weak spot in my armor.  I stabbed my sword behind me in a futile attempt to get rid of it, and managed to grip one of its legs and twist it off with my free hand.  The stinger slid into the space where my wings protruded; and, even as I grasped another leg, I thought, I'm  going to die in this place; what a foolish way to go after we captured what we came for; at least I will join Ceallach in the Hall of the Faerie King, along with our--

     A sword whistled past my head and severed the bee's neck before its stinger plunged home.  My relief was short-lived; as the bee dropped from my back, its claws caught in one of my wings, shredding the membrane and nearly tearing it from its socket.  A hiss of pain escaped my lips, and then Gwylym was at my side, bearing me up.

     A few more bees made desultory attempts to block our flight, but Gwylym was able to hold them at bay with his sword.  We burst out of the tree into the cold moonlight, breathing hard.

     Morthwyl's form was disappearing in the distance, erratically heading toward our badger sett with his burden of honey.  He was the only other of us that escaped.  Gwylym and I exchanged sorrowful glances and flew home on unsteady wings.

#

     Keriam forced a tight smile, as many of the rest of the clan greeted us as heroes.  I didn't feel much like one.  The fact that the mission had been suicide from the beginning didn't assuage the guilt I felt in bringing only three out of eighteen back home.  The expressions of grieving widows, stoic husbands, and uncomprehending babes hammered my conscience.  We had lost far too much in our raid, although the honey would sustain those of us who were left through the rest of the winter.

     The black irony was that had we not lost as many as we had, the honey wouldn't have been enough for us all, even had we managed to take every drop.  Not only that, but it wouldn't have been enough for the bees, either.  Had we not raided the nest, both our entire clan and all the bees would have perished.

     My heartache did not take such logic into consideration.  I retired to the back section of the sett and collapsed on a bed of moss.  Now that the battle was over, I yielded to the sorrow that twisted my guts into a knot and turned the honey to ash in my mouth.  Burying my face in my arms, I let the tears come.

     A little while later, a gentle hand caressed my hair, and my father's voice rumbled, "Ceallach would have deemed his sacrifice worthy, as would the others.  They knew well what lay ahead of them."

     I looked up.  The few children we had left were curled up in a pile on the floor, content and well-stuffed with honey.  "It doesn't make me miss him any less."

     "I know.  But our clan will survive."  He patted my shoulder awkwardly and left.

     My empty heart wasn't sure if survival was enough.  But it would have to be, I told myself, placing my hands on my abdomen.  "Your father died a Champion, little one," I whispered to our unborn babe.  "And we shall sing of him for generations."