THUNK! THUNK!
Human axes with blades the size of a palace fell onto the ice-hole trees’ gnarled trunks. Although to bees they were trees that towered high above, to humans, they were akin to grass.
Perhaps they should’ve brought scythes or knives instead.
Each axe blow cut a tree into pieces and left deep gouges in the ice that surrounded them. To my relief, the trunks weren’t harder than the steel the axes were made of.
However, after a single blow, the woodcutters had to step away from the trees again. They were shivering hard, while the surviving trees sped up their growth again!
Now they were reaching the waist-height of humans and growing beyond that...
’Workharder, have you seen this—right, you can’t. Tell our forces to start bonfires with the prepared fuel, but do it far away from the trees. The woodcutters will need to warm up a lot. Get them hot drinks, too!’
’Will do, Father. Drinks, drinks—now this is a great idea. Bees could use a warm snack, too.’
A short while later, when my orders went through, the back rows of the ergency forces moved as well. People gathered in squads, and fire-breathing bees helped humans light large fires, near which the chilled woodcutters ward themselves up.
While one squad of woodcutters was resting, another already took their place, following Workharder’s orders. They attacked the trees, not giving them a chance to rest and outgrow us.
Each young tree only needed one or two good blows to fall, but even those took an awfully long ti. When the woodcutters started, they hit the trees right near the ground. But when the last tree from this smart first grove (it only had a dozen trees) fell, these cuts were at the height of humans’ knees.
It was another mont of relief when I saw that the tree stumps didn’t grow any taller after this. With caution, a few woodcutters tried to approach them, only to let out surprised and happy cries.
I recognised the word ’Yes!’ in the Naregan language and a few others, although my knowledge of it was still abysmally low.
’Father, humans report that they stopped feeling the "otherworldly chill" near the cut trees,’ Workharder reported. ’What next? These tree stumps could probably be burned now!’
I thought the sa, but had to stop myself.
’Gather the cut trees for research. Perhaps our Physicians can find more about their properties from their wood. Or they will be good material for sothing. As for the stumps—leave them be for now. I don’t want to burn anything too close to other ice-hole trees. Instead, later our workers should tear them out of the ground and carry them away.’
’Understood, Father. Well, now that we know how to hit these trees where they hurt, you can just relax and watch us do it!’ Workharder replied.
I didn’t share her optimism, so I didn’t relax, but I watched.
After the first danger was eliminated, the clearing of the avalanche proceeded normally. The humans and the chas took shovels again and began doing the monuntal work of digging up the ground from the snow-dirt sludge.
For the first hour, nothing was out of the ordinary, and I even returned into my body for a while to do other things. After all, the Bee Empire still needed its Emperor to run it.
However, I was pulled back to the ergency area by Workharder’s ssage.
’Father, our scouts saw more ice-hole tree saplings sprout all over the avalanche!’
After this, I could only abandon my paperwork and astral project myself there again to see with my own eyes.
At first, my astral projection appeared high above the avalanche. From here, it looked like a massive light-grey spill that covered a long, narrow stretch of land over the mountain. To see all of it, I had to fly so high up that I couldn’t even distinguish human cities anymore...
Then I got closer down. With each kilotre of height, the grey sludge beca more and more detailed, and I started to see the tiny figures of human and cha workers near it.
When I was a few hundred ters above the avalanche, I saw blue specks covering it all over. And only from even closer down, I saw that these specks were tiny tree sprouts.
They were covering most of the avalanche! The closer to the mountains, the fewer of them sprouted from the snow—but I knew this was only temporary. Those farther from the mountains just had more warmth to grow on.
’Workharder, these sprouts must be cut imdiately!’ I ordered. ’If they grow into full-blown trees, it will be nearly impossible. At least at this stage, a single stomp by a human or a cha should kill them!’
’I was just about to say that I knew you were going to say this, Father. The stomping had already begun!’
I looked again and realised that Workharder was right. At the edges of the avalanche, humans and chas were crushing the sprouting trees with their feet. This wasn’t cutting, but it killed the trees just as well—they stopped growing or chilling people.
However, I saw that the trees near them were only growing faster because of this.
For each stomped tree, two had grown a few extra centitres. These trees were then stomped, too—but by then, the trees behind them had more ti to grow.
This was a race against ti, and our forces were slowed down by having to walk over the uneven ground created by the avalanche.
Just by looking at the progress of the ergency workers and the size of the avalanche, I knew that in the next five hours, they would clear at most 10% of the avalanche’s area.
And in this ti, the trees growing there will reach the height at which they will have to be cut with tools. Then, the speed of workers’ advance will beco even lower!
In this race against ti... we were dood to lose!
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