A powerful burst of electricity flew from my spear into the dragon's eye just as my bodyguards slamd their weapons and their stingers into the dragon's scales. On the snout they were so of the thinnest, which made it the most vulnerable part.
If electricity wasn't enough to stun or even kill the beast, the amount of venom poured into the dragon surely finished it.
The dragon's health points went to zero with the speed of my flight.
〔The hawk dies!〕
It let out a final screech and fell. The black dragons still pounced on its dead body, clearly intent on making the beast even deader.
I just hurried to get away from their way before one of them slamd into by accident.
'Good job!' I ssaged my bodyguards. 'Keep following —oh, Destroyer! You can join too, of course.'
She finally returned from her previous position, bloody and winded, but unhard and looking extrely pleased with herself.
'Ready to protect and serve, Father!' she ssaged back. 'Lead the way!'
Instead of returning to my original position in the middle of fighting bee squadron, I flew to Woe.
His dragon rider was nearby already, sitting on its neck and patting the dragon soothingly. The dragon itself was holding out an unnaturally bent foot and keening pitifully.
'Hurt… Hurt! Help! Help!' I heard its simple thoughts when I approached close enough.
It was a sign of how close the dragon's bond with bees beca that even now, when it was wounded, Woe didn't lash out at bees. At least on its dragon rider.
'Father!' she ssaged, noticing and my bodyguards. 'What are you doing here?'
'I don't know if this hawk-dragon was the last one. We might as well move our defensive position to Woe for now, so you can focus on checking out his health. At least if it's only his foot that's wounded, Woe can fly back ho after this.'
After I told the dragon rider this, I turned my attention to the rest of the bees. They already noticed that I wasn't in their formation, but for now, followed their previous orders and didn't ask for more, afraid to distract with unasked for telepathic ssages.
'Malevolence! Tell everybody to defend Woe and its surroundings,' I ordered. 'How are things going, overall?'
'Well enough! We are cutting them down like grass. Just you wait, Father. There will be rivers of blood,' she replied assuredly, without even looking in my direction.
I didn't hear her own telepathic orders, but the effect was evident imdiately. The bees gathered in squads and moved in an organized manner toward Woe, killing whoever tried to stop them.
Soon, a similar ring of defense appeared around the wounded dragon, who was gradually calming down and even tried to stand on his healthy foot.
Other dragons were still agitated, but it helped us. Instead of eating insects as they pleased, they gathered around and defended Woe from whatever smaller dragon or beast tried to approach the circle of bees. The black dragons rarely killed their enemies, but just scaring them back was enough.
I don't know for how long exactly after this I shot insects with my stinger, and for how long my soldiers mowed them down with their hamrs and spears, but it was a long while.
Eventually, when I had to take a few small breaks to catch my breath, and so did every other bee, I realized that there beca fewer and fewer hostiles around.
Then, so more ti later, things just grew… quiet.
Oh, there was still buzzing and plenty of life around, but all of it was so distance away from us. Even the dumbest insects were moving in another direction.
Around us was just a pile of dead bodies and trees that weren't burned by fire-breathers or destroyed by fighting dragons. Now that the bees landed to rest after the fight, there still were enough massive fern-like leaves and smaller trees to cover the sky from us (and us from the sky).
Smaller, way smaller creatures—the micro-fauna that was tiny even for bees—were feasting on the dead, alongside so insects that weren't hostile enough to be killed.
If a soldier wasn't covered in blood from head to toe, she was covered in soot because she was a fire-breather. Even I had blood on , none of it my own.
I let out a long, tired breath and looked at the sky. By the movent of the sun visible between the tree leaves, the entire battle must've taken a couple of hours.
"The resistance has been squashed, Father," Malevolence reported. "What are your next orders?"
I looked around.
If the rest of this area was as *lively*, then I'd rather avoid it as much as possible.
"Send scouts in all directions from here, find a sowhat peaceful place for a camp and if there are as many enemies elsewhere as in this place. We also need a source of water for washing. In the anti, have soone find the more delicious corpses out of the pile and cook them. And, of course, do all the post-battle recovery procedures."
This included first aid, cleaning, repairing the equipnt and just eating to recover lost energy. All of these beca so standard that I didn't need to ntion them separately. I probably didn't need to ntion them at all.
"Yes, Father!" Malevolence saluted and turned to several Sergeants that were nearby. "We will make our enemies pay with their at for daring to attack us, sisters!"
"Yes!"
"Fresh at!"
"Killing them wasn't enough!"
What did they want more—food, or revenge?
'Well, it doesn't matter if they will get both, anyway,' I decided. 'And Malevolence learned her lesson to only have her revenge at approved intervals. She's a good combat leader when she doesn't let her emotions lead her astray. And let her willfully misinterpret orders.'
After this, I flew back to Woe. The dragon riders were already trying to help with its wound as much as they could, but I wondered if this was sothing more that could be done…
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