Regina was pretty sure by now that armies were moving faster here than they would have in the actual Middle Ages that she had learned about in a time she couldn’t remember. It was probably because most, if not all, soldiers had high Strength and Endurance stats, making them more physically capable than normal humans without the System would be. Perhaps there were also a few buffs in play, using Skills or even magic. Whatever the reason, the army drawing closer to the core of her new territory crossed tens of kilometers in a matter of several hours. They would be here before sunset, or at least before night fell completely.

Regina told herself she didn’t mind. She was expecting them. Still, a bit more time to prepare wouldn’t have gone amiss.

She paced up and down a few steps, then made herself stop and turned to face Max. “Are you ready for this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked, fingered the hilt of the ax in his belt.

“Well, with Tim gone, you’re leading the defense, at least our part of it,” she explained with a teasing smile. “It would be perfectly acceptable to feel nervous.”

He snorted, but she knew him well enough to tell he probably was feeling a bit nervous. Or a bit worried, at least. “I thought Ben would be doing that. His Skills are definitely more suited to it than my own.”

Regina shrugged. “I guess so.” Fortunately, Ben and the other sapient drones she had recalled had arrived in time, even with some time to spare. She supposed he and Max could, and would, both command other drones.

They fell silent and Regina waited quietly for a minute until Bianorn joined them. The elvish officer’s steps were light, but still audible to Hivekind hearing.

“We are ready for the battle to begin,” he said. “Is everything prepared?”

Regina turned to him and nodded. “It is.”

Anuis would be staying at the castle and commanding its defense. Being primarily an archer, in terms of direct combat, that was probably a more suitable spot for her. Bianorn was filling in for her here. Regina quickly checked on Zoe, who was keeping close to Anuis, currently standing beside her on the castle’s battlements. They would be able to stay in contact easily.

The main entrance to the village offered a good view of the fields outside. To the sides, the settlement was capped by a newly constructed, rough palisade, placed on a mound of earth with a ditch in front of it. Everyone had pitched in to make it, although it was barely more than some rough field fortifications. A few archers waited on the houses beyond, and they had placed big barrels filled with water at various spots. Those were mostly backup precautions, though.

“I was just talking with our gnomish visitors,” Bianorn said.

Regina sighed slightly. With everything that was happening, she hadn’t had as much time for the gnomes as she’d wanted. And she had to admit that she was a bit miffed that they had categorically refused to join the defense of the settlement or castle, claiming that they were simple traders and not fighters. Although they did have a point, of course. They didn’t come here to fight in a war between foreign people.

“They were quite polite and helpful,” the elf continued. “They offered to help with healing and even a few supplies, in case we needed it.”

“That’s great to hear. I assume they’re sitting tight in the fort?”

He nodded. “Indeed. The castle has finished all of its defensive preparations, as well.”

“Good.” Regina turned to look out into the distance again. “I think our guests are arriving now.”

Max frowned, but didn’t speak up. She mostly saw them through her Winged Drones, as she switched between some of them in the air. Many of her drones still lurked on the ground, on rooftops, the palisade and even on trees, preparing to take flight later. Their endurance was still something she had to work on.

Regina looked up and nudged another drone to land on the balustrade a few meters away from her. Another followed it. She smiled as she looked at them.

Those were some nice Evolutions. Just one of each wouldn’t help much, of course, but they showed what was possible. The Carrier especially, which could work as a courier and as an organic bomber. Regina was still hoping for some long-range, scouting focused Classes or, ideally, stealth, but she was confident those could come in time, as well. And if nothing else, the Elite would do okay in that role, too.

She turned her attention to the approaching army. It was starting to advance on the village now, its soldiers spreading out more. That allowed her to get a better look at its formation and the fighters and units the enemy would bring to bear. She wasn’t surprised to see that most of them were what you might classify as ‘heavy infantry’, although there was some cavalry, as well, and a few people she found harder to place, probably specialists. There also had to be mages among them. She’d seen all of those groups previously, but she was a bit surprised to realize that the mages seemed to cluster with the leadership of the army towards the middle. Well, it made sense to keep them away from the front line. And clearly, whoever was in command over there wasn’t the ‘lead from the front’ type.

Bianorn raised a carved bone whistle to his lips and blew into it. The sharp, high tone echoed across the village and fields while Regina grimaced and covered her ears a little too late. She grumpily noted that Max had been quicker and was now giving her one of his looks.

Then she shook off the distraction and focused on the situation again. The whistle should have been enough to inform everyone, but she still darted into the minds of several drones, relaying what she was seeing and telling them to prepare.

Then she nudged the Winged Drones and watched as more of them took to the air. The flock spread out, scattering instead of clumping together as one large cloud of fliers. She had small groups of them approach the incoming army from various directions, making sure the coast was clear and inviting the attackers to take shots to test their anti-air defenses. Deliberately putting her drones out there as bait didn’t quite sit well with her - for once, probably not because of any Hive Queen instincts but her own sentimentality - but the hive had enough now that it was a reasonable strategy.

Still, the humans didn’t take the bait. They advanced further, and while she saw a few soldiers looking up as a Winged Drone flew directly above them, they maintained their discipline and no one tried to even shoot an arrow at them. Not that she thought they would have good odds of success like this.

“Interesting,” Bianorn murmured. He had pulled a spyglass out of a pocket and was watching the incoming army. After a moment, Regina realized that it must have been part of the help from the gnomes he had told her about.

“Could you lend me that for a minute?” she asked.

He nodded and handed it to her. Regina scrutinized it for a moment and then looked through it, letting her gaze sweep across the enemy soldiers. “Well, at least we know they don’t have any illusions covering them that make them look different from the front or above at various directions,” she murmured. She handed the spyglass back to him and instead focused on her Winged Drones again. She could probably get a better look through their eyes. “I think you can use that more than me.”

Then Regina glanced at Max and decided to try and share what she was seeing from a Winged Drone circling near the army. She could tell he saw something, but it was far from perfect. He winced and grimaced, but straightened up after a moment and nodded at her. This is interesting, he sent. It would be better if you could hold it for more than a few seconds, though.

Something to work on later, she responded.

Then she withdrew from his mind to focus on the larger picture again. “I’d like to send Winged Drones in now,” she said. “Unless I shouldn’t?”

She glanced at Bianorn, who shook his head. “I’d advise you to be careful, but I would like to see how well they can deal with being bombarded from above.”

Regina nodded and gave the mental command to attack. A group of sixty Winged Drones, which she had previously arranged, made their way towards the army. They split in two and approached it from two directions, at a roughly ninety-degree angle from each other.

Regina held her breath, but things seemed to start off well. The Winged Drones made their way towards the army until they were almost directly above it.

Then, suddenly, the enemy soldiers started counterattacking. Regina drew in a sharp breath as she watched a lance of fire arc upwards from the middle of the army. It hit a drone she was currently using as a viewpoint, instantly killing it. Regina focused on the others. There were several attacks shooting up simultaneously. A few more fire lances, what almost looked like a laser beam, and a cluster of what had to be enhanced arrows and crossbow bolts, which flew far quicker and higher than normal. They decimated her flock. One of the magic attacks even hit a small box a Winged Drone was carrying and made it explode.

Regina grimaced as she felt the Winged Drones being shaken by the turbulence, but none of them was close enough to the center of the explosion to get killed. She’d taken the possibility into account when designing their formation.

A few more explosives dropped as well. Half of them detonated just above their intended impact point on the ground, while the rest exploded upon impact. Of course, a few of those intercepted above the ground just sent streaks of flame everywhere, burning liquid, doing almost as much damage as the others.

Regina found herself smirking as she watched the chaos in the enemy army. It was tightly localized, since she hadn’t sent that many bombers. The army’s advance faltered, but after only a minute, they had sorted themselves out again and continued. They were pretty close now, close enough that she could see their front ranks clearly from her own position without using binoculars. They were speeding up.

“We are not going to be able to stop them just with attacks from above,” Bianorn commented softly. “Even if you had enough explosive devices for that, they are bound to come up with countermeasures.”

Regina pulled a face, but nodded. That was why they evacuated the civilians to the castle, hopefully sending them to safety.

The army advanced, while Regina sent further sorties of Winged Drones to harry them. She could tell that Bianorn was right and they were adapting even in the few minutes they had. Their defensive strikes killed more and more of her drones, until she decided to withdraw them until they could come in en masse to support the rest of the defenses.

Then the enemy army stopped, still hundreds of meters away from the village. Regina stared at them, feeling a prickling down her neck. Were a few of them moving?

“Take cover!” she shouted, sending the thought through her psychic link at the same time.

She turned and started to run, but she still kept part of her attention on her Swarm Drones. Through them, she saw a few people who’d been stepping out from the enemy army gesturing.

Then things happened very quickly. The earth rumbled and shook as deafening explosions came from all around, and the corner of her vision lit up with bright flashes. A chain of fire exploded out around the edge of the village as the defenses she had prepared blew up. At the same time, Regina staggered and felt something slam into her. She swallowed dust and coughed. It took her a moment to realize Max had pushed her down, covering her body with his. Pieces of wood and even metal stuck up all around them.

“Didn’t trust your shield?” she rasped, pushing at him to get up.

“It’s safer this way,” Max replied calmly. She felt him turn his head, then he stood up and helped pull her to her feet.

She saw a piece of wood stick out of his back. He reached back and and pulled it out, grimacing slightly. There was no blood on it, and she realized it had been stopped by his armor.

Regina blinked in an attempt to clear her view and looked around. The new palisade and ditch were completely busted, and the outer village buildings had clearly taken some damage, as well.

“What was that?” she asked.

A moment later, Bianorn stumbled out of a cloud of dust. He appeared uninjured, luckily. “Some sort of distance-based attack, probably based on fire magic. They must have used specialized Skills or maybe high-tier earth magic to map out the defensive measures you prepared. It seems like they got everything to ignite, I am not entirely sure how, and they are clearly preparing for an assault.”

She looked past him and reached for her Winged Drones’ minds again. Sure enough, the enemy soldiers were now advancing on the village, moving quickly. Regina glanced around again. She could tell that a few of her drones were injured, though, luckily, they didn’t seem to have lost any sapient ones to the attack. A few War Drones and Winged Drones had been killed, though. And the hive’s forces were mostly out of position.

“Let’s retreat to the castle,” she said, wiping at her face. “We can’t risk trying to hold the village now. If we do, casualties would be much higher. I was hoping to avoid it, but …”

“A good decision,” Bianorn replied. He blew into his whistle again, three high, sharp notes. At the same time, Regina focused on her link and quickly sent the command to withdraw to everyone she could reach in such a short time.

Not every drone made it. Regina decided not to take to the air, but instead ran on foot, guarded by Max and accompanied by Ira, the new Attendants and a steadily growing group of drones. More groups and single drones made their way to the castle on their own. She could see and hear some Swarm Drones die by arrows or magic. She even sensed one jump in front of the sapient drone with their group, Len, to take a spear of ice meant for him, following her instructions to protect them with their lives.

Then they finally reached the castle. A few elves stood outside, guarding the bridge, behind an earthen wall they had just raised with some magic or Skill. Regina hurried across it and through the open door. It started closing even before the last drone was through it.

She leaned against the wall for a moment and took a deep breath, listening to the sounds of a ballista being fired above her. Then she extended her wings and jumped, flying upwards to the battlements. She landed a few meters away from Anuis.

“Slight change in plans,” Regina said, giving her a slightly shaky grin.

The elf nodded seriously. “They will not find it easy to assault this fort.”

Regina smiled more easily and turned to watch the enemy army. Most of them made their way through the village.

She was interrupted by a familiar notification.

“Huh,” Regina mumbled. She glanced at Max, who’d just come to stand beside her. “I reached level thirty-four.”

He frowned. “Did something happen?”

She shrugged, then turned her focus to her psychic link and reached for her drones. After a moment, Regina nodded. “Our army to the south has just passed the border. They’re moving beyond my range.”

“Well, I guess that means we successfully defended our territory against one threat, at least,” Ira said, smirking.

Regina laughed. “Yeah.” She glanced at the incoming enemy. “Soon to be two. At least, on the bright side, we get to test our defenses and abilities more thoroughly.”