Path of the Hive Queen

In the end, their planned attack on the pass and the city beyond it proceeded almost without a hitch.

It was enough to make Regina suspicious, though she knew it shouldn’t be. It wasn’t like they hadn’t prepared for it extensively. Still, the gnomes were clearly not as dedicated to the defense as she’d thought. Maybe the negotiations really had been a desperate attempt to avoid this battle?

The Imperial forces started with artillery bombardment of the fortifications the gnomes had built. The geography of the pass limited the effectiveness of that tactic, but it still demolished any walls they could reach. The hive’s artillery had improved quite a bit since their start.

The gnomes responded in kind, their own cannons and big guns raining fire down on the army from their elevated positions. Their artillery had improved as well, though not as drastically, she supposed. But her commanders were keeping most of their soldiers out of the field of fire until the artillery duel had already proceeded for a while.

Unlike a purely conventional engagement would have, she guessed, they didn’t manage to destroy all of the gnomes’ artillery. Some of the pieces were being protected by magic or defensive Classed people with high levels. Janis judged that trying to batter them down would only lead to a drawn-out exchange with no result.

Instead, Janis used their Winged Drones judiciously, having them drop explosives on spots that were harder to reach from farther away on the ground and harass the enemy soldiers. Regina had expected them not to accomplish much, since the gnomes knew how to defend against flying drones by now, but they still managed to tie down and distract the gnomish soldiers.

Under the cover of further artillery fire and the Winged Drones, the Empire’s army finally advanced on the pass. They were moving as quickly as they could to get through the killing field of the gnomish artillery, but Regina still felt many drones die as they were caught in it. She winced and hoped they’d be able to overrun their positions soon.

The army was mainly composed of War Drones in the first few waves, with only scattered groups of human, higher-leveled fighters. Their mages and others with similar Skills used their Abilities to make shields over the army to weather the gnomish guns. They didn’t have enough to cover everything, not against artillery as well as muskets, so some of the War Drones had to charge ahead without that protection.

Of course, being Swarm Drones, they didn’t balk at running straight into the teeth of a fortification bristling with cannons. They just kept on coming.

And by the time the army reached the gates of the lower wall spanning the entrance to the pass, it had taken such a beating from their artillery that little of the real fortification was left. The rubble made it even easier for the War Drones to swarm the stronghold, climbing up the walls and falling on the soldiers defending the spot.

The gnomes retreated as soon as the hive managed to send drones up in larger numbers, running to the next line of defense. At the same time, archers, gunners and artillery rained fire down on them, trying to kill the drones caught in the limited space and halt the Empire’s push.

Their own officers had expect it, of course. Regina remembered they’d discussed several responses to such a scenario, either rushing ahead and trying to overrun the gnomes in a quick sweep or digging in and letting the army catch up properly, working their way forward.

Focus on securing this part of the fortifications, Janis told her officers as Regina listened in — apparently, she thought it had to be the second option. She spread her attention further and gave orders to the War Drones at the front to consolidate and defend their new territory.

After that, the rest of the assault proceeded in a similar manner. It got worse as they moved forward, due to the incline of the terrain and the narrow space offered by the mountain walls forming the pass. But the gnomes had been harassed for a while and were losing a lot of soldiers, too. They’d already had to give up their initial emplacements and their artillery pieces were limited, as well. Some were dug in and impossible to move.

Regina watched, trying not to flinch every time a larger group of Swarm Drones was killed. She’d had enough time to get used to it, but on some level she didn’t think one could ever get used to feeling death in the psychic link. She could ignore it, consciously at least, but if many drones were dying at the same time that was no longer really an option. She didn’t even want it to get easier. How would I end up if I could just send swarms of drones to die against my enemies and not feel a thing? she contemplated.

Of course, that didn’t stop her from letting them fight. Instead of interfering, Regina watched as the battle continued. Ben was watching intently as well and she noticed him giving a few suggestions and orders to various drones a few times, but the battle was mainly commanded by Janis. Several drones relayed her orders to the human contingent of the army.

It took hours to advance through the pass, under fire from the gnomes the whole way. The Winged Drones were a lifesaver, but the army still suffered casualties. However, the numbers’ game was in their favor: the gnomes just didn’t have the means to take them all out before the Imperial army overran their positions. As they proceeded, the artillery became less important and it was more of a grind of steel and Abilities, hemmed in by rock and elemental magic use.

Regina was really glad her Swarm Drones could climb. The fortifications the gnomes used were all heavily damaged, but they’d prepared extensively for this assault. Presumably, the gnomes had used the truce afforded by the negotiations to reinforce and extend them. Layers of walls and battlements guarded the climb up the pass. The War Drones managed to take most of them by storm in the end, though, climbing up the stone even as entire units of them were swept off by the defenders. In addition to walls, the gnomes had also used various other kinds of defenses, besides artillery emplacements; spiked pits and caltrops, ditches filled with water or flammable liquids, rock faces rigged to produce rockfalls — they even had primitive landmines.

The last one wasn’t really a surprise. Even if their flying drone scouts hadn’t caught glimpses of them, it was only a matter of time until the gnomes would copy the hive’s tactics and use them on a large scale. Their bombs were worse than the hive’s, but they had expertise that Cernlia or Nerlia wouldn’t have had.

The hive also had one of the best measures against minefields if you were cynical: expendable troops to send into them to scout out paths or try and set them off in a controlled way.

In the end, no matter what the gnomes tried, they couldn’t stop the Imperial army’s advance. They could only slow it down, and even then not for very long.

This is a microcosm of the war, Max said when she pulled out of watching the battle in the psychic link for a short break.

Regina raised an eyebrow, but shrugged. “I suppose,” she said, her voice coming out a bit raspy. “Go get some sleep later, Max, you don’t need to keep standing around my door.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Once your focus is back here, I will.”

Regina sighed but didn’t insist, and instead sat down on her bed to continue her vigil. She dwelled on Max’s earlier comment for a bit before shelving her ruminations to focus on the end of the battle. He wasn’t wrong, the tactics employed and the means available to both sides were representative of the entire conflict.

Which also showed that they were going to win this war. There was little hope for the gnomes. Trying to look at it objectively, with the hive’s natural advantages and growth, the Empire’s growing technological options and the international geopolitical landscape, she didn’t see a realistic way for them out of it. At the start of the war, the gnomes had a decisive advantage in their comparatively much larger population than the hive, but that disparity had been canceled out and even flipped now. With its human nations, the Empire had a larger population than the Gnomish Confederation, so if she absolutely had to, she could call up many more men to fight.

Of course, that analysis neglected several factors, and Regina didn’t just need to win the war, she wanted to do it in a way that didn’t screw everything up in the long term.

For now, the momentum of the battle carried it onward. The Imperial forces advanced through each defensive position prepared by the gnomes, destroying or capturing almost all of their artillery in the process. The fortifications already looked like a ruin, and small craters and rifts in the landscape dotted the pass. Little remained of the road that had originally wound its way up here. But the other side of the ridge was much less damaged, and as the first drone troops climbed the apex of the pass, they had a clear view down into the city.

Clearly, the gnomes had known that if their enemy made it this far, there was little left to do, and they’d focused their efforts on fortifying the approach to and the way through the pass, leaving its reverse side with little more than token defenses.

Their army didn’t advance across it yet, instead taking the time to gather and regroup. They had taken considerable losses forcing the pass, and many of their drones and soldiers had been fighting for hours. Regina listened in as the commanders discussed what to do next. Some were arguing for a longer break, but Janis decided to press on once they were ready, to maintain their momentum and not give the gnomes in the city more time to act. Regina kept out of it, willing to leave the military decisions to the experts, although she would have given their soldiers some time to sleep.

Janis’ decision might have been for the better, though, as they continued on down the other side of the ridge and into the city. The gnomish defenders were clearly still scrambling to reorganize. They must have lost a lot of soldiers and probably many officers as well. With her psychic senses, Regina caught some gnomes that seemed to be deserting, leaving the army and hiding in the city or running away from it. Either way, they didn’t manage to put up much of a resistance.

Regina again had that feeling like there was something she was missing. It wasn’t a big thing, she didn’t think, or at least it didn’t seem like she had overlooked anything really important for this battle. It was more about the attitude and emotional state of the gnomes she could sense, as she focused on a broad sweep of their minds.

The army advanced down the other side of the ridge, into the suburbs of the city, and then into its central part. The road had been trapped again, but with Winged Drones and War Drones leading the charge, those were quickly dealt with. Civilians seemed to have smartly fled the path of the advancing army, and Regina could sense clusters of them further on. She passed the information on to her commanders with strict instructions to leave the civilians alone. Some gnomish soldiers still tried to slow them down, but there weren’t many and they avoided direct confrontation, instead focusing on harassing the Imperial forces.

It seemed like whoever was in charge on their side, probably that general the new regime had promoted, had decided to cut their losses and consider the city a lost cause but preserve their forces for the next battles. A wise decision, or at least Ben agreed with it when she asked him.

Regina stood up and started pacing through her room as she watched the army advance into and through the city. If it was still counted as the same battle, it had dragged on for quite a while now. Her soldiers were getting tired, even the drones, but it had to be worse for the gnomes. And still there was no trap or other turnaround for them that she could see.

It made her feel like she’d missed something again, but not necessarily in a negative way. Maybe the gnomes really hadn’t had any better options than the negotiations, even if they didn’t exactly put all their effort into succeeding at them. But that could be put down to partisan politics and internal strife within the ruling regime. If she knew anything about those, it was that they were rarely very stable. This one didn’t even seem to have a clear leader, at least not that she’d heard of. It was entirely possible that some strong faction had opposed the negotiations either out of genuine fervor or for some goal of their own, and had set boundaries on which concessions they would allow and then torpedoed the negotiations. They’re not exactly resistant to shooting themselves in the foot so far, she noted. The other option would be that the gnomes were using a lot of soldiers for another task, somewhere else. Maybe they were just distracted. But what could be more important than this battle? She couldn’t think of anything.

Regina decided to sleep on it, since it didn’t seem immediately relevant for now, and laid down for a nap. She woke a few hours later and checked in with Janis again, then their higher-up commanders. Everything was proceeding as planned, and they were effectively in control of the city already.

The assault on the other two cities was about to start, now that the way here was open.

Regina took a deep breath and then focused on other areas of the psychic link. She wanted a better feel for the situation on the whole, not just this battle or this city. After considering for a bit, she decided to search for any further information the contacts they’d cultivated might have.

In the end, she got an answer before they had the chance to respond to her request with any information. Instead, it was just a few hidden drones trying to eavesdrop on settlements further within the Gnomish Confederation, mostly stealthy variants of Winged Drones. They were enough to catch rumors spreading widely, even if details were scarce. It was hard to know exactly what had happened, but Regina wasn’t sure what to think about what she did hear.

She hadn’t been wrong about regimes like this, but she could perhaps have paid it more attention; they weren’t just prone to communication failures or shooting themselves in the foot, but also to internal instability.