Chapter 361: Aim and *fire*!
The gunpowder was already brought closer to the cannons, since the Vardish soldiers were preparing to load them and shoot at the Naregan army earlier. It would be an easy target for our Warriors.
‘Father, General Gresch wants to tell his soldiers to advance and help yours in battle,’ an Agent ssaged telepathically from the Naregan army. ‘Although this was against your plans, he still insists. Should I stop this idiot?’
I paused in the air for a mont. A couple hundred ters away from , giants were fighting, fleeing and dying, but my imdiate vicinity was a safe place to be thanks to my bodyguards and my stinger-gun.
‘Tell him to sit tight. His soldiers will just be a target for enemy guns,’ I replied to the Agent. ‘Besides, they might be needed later.’
Then I sent a ssage to Bloodimina.
‘I want a few hundred bees with crossbows near . Imdiately! And make sure other bees aren’t anywhere near the cannons.’
‘Yes, Father. I will make sure the crossbow-bees have fire-breathers who still have lots of fuel in them.’
I nodded to myself, although right now Bloodimina was fighting too far away to see it.
‘What’s the situation with fuel, by the way? For how much longer can we fight?’
‘Just half an hour if we don’t change pace, Father. With breaks to catch our breaths, we can continue fighting afterward using our knives and stingers.’
But this would be far less effective.
‘Then we definitely need to blow up these cannons!’
‘I’m on it, Father. The crossbow-bees are almost at your position.’
I saw them a mont later—an entire thousand of Warrior Bees with crossbows in their arms. They were also all owners of the fire breathing gene, and in their system statuses I could see the amount of fuel they had left.
Most were above 50%, which was pretty good—this ant around five more good spits.
“Reporting for duty, Father!” the squad’s Chief shouted.
“Follow , everyone!” I shouted back. “And make ignition bolts ready!”
The eyes of the Warriors sparkled with excitent as they hurriedly reached for their equipnt. I turned away from them, but could still catch their internal gushing.
‘Oh, we are going to use *that*? Finally!’
‘Kill our enemies with fire! With more fire!’
‘And Father is going to lead us personally… Oh, this is the best day of my life!’
The ignition bolts were another type of special ammo. Unlike venom-tipped ones, they were made from living stone and had a tip that was barely sharp enough to stick into anything. However, around this tip was a cover of wax.
When a fire breathing bee spat so of her natural napalm onto wax, the tip of the arrow burned hot and steady, almost like a torch. This let bees ignite things from a safer distance than usual fire-spitting.
I wasn’t about to send anyone on a suicide mission today.
I flew higher to a good half a kiloter above, so the humans below couldn’t touch even if they raised their heads, and went right toward the cannons. Their crews have largely abandoned them in the blind panic, but a few dozen people had enough presence of mind to at least try securing all the gunpowder.
Too late.
Like I told Bloodimina, there weren’t any bees fighting below, which ant that plenty of humans tried to retreat from their death in this direction, not knowing that they were just going from a fire into a frying pan.
“There! And there and there,” I pointed at several sacks lying near the cannons. My antennae could catch hints of gunpowder’s sharp scent even from here. “From how far above can you shoot, girls?”
The Chief Warrior looked below and squinted, then waved her antennae.
“With this wind? Our fire breath will splatter all over the place, but a crossbow bolt could fly farther. Perhaps… Two kiloters from the ground?”
I estimated the size of the gunpowder sacks and the explosion that might follow.
“This should work. Then do it! Light the targets whenever you are ready.”
“Yes, Father!” The Chief saluted and flew higher up.
I watched as the thousand crossbow-bees lit their ignition bolts and aid below, carefully accounting for wind and dispersing over a large area to hit all the marked targets.
There were too many gunpowder sacks spread over too large a distance to ignite them all at once with just a thousand bees, but by my calculation if the sacks I marked exploded, they would start a chain reaction that would take out most of the gunpowder (and everything near it).
“FIRE!” Chief Warrior shouted.
There was a simultaneous “thunk!” of a thousand bolts leaving their crossbows. I watched them fall like a rain of shooting stars…
At a range of a kiloter and a half, one “star” went out, then another and another. By the ti they hit the targets, almost all bolts were extinguished by headwind, and the rest wasn’t enough to set the thick coarse fabric of the gunpowder sacks on fire!
Hell, this wasn’t enough that more than a few humans have noticed us at all.
“Dammit! Soldiers, AIM!” Chief Warrior shouted again. “Father, permission to fly closer. We need… Five hundred more ters!”
I winced, but…
“Granted. But be careful! Fly up after the shot!”
‘How good that Father didn’t want to fly closer to the future explosion,’ Destroyed thought behind . ‘I don’t like reminding him to protect his own life. This should be *our* job!’
I glanced behind , and my ever-dutiful bodyguards. Like always, they were watching for danger from every direction, even from above. I looked there too, but today the skies were free from dragons—there were only so clouds.
anwhile, the Warrior Bees flew 500 ters down. At this distance, I couldn’t hear what they were shouting, but I saw them aiming below.
But we’ve already attracted so attention. And with the bees being so close, several dozen humans in the vicinity turned to us—and so of them were reaching for muskets and pistols!
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