"Then we will defend you with our lives, Father," Destroyer promised, clenching her spear tighter.
After this, all conversations were over, because we were flying toward the cover, while five more dragons dove at us at once!
Spitting fire blindly became useless, so I ordered the soldiers to save their remaining fuel.
'Aim for their eyes or mouth, try to dodge otherwise! The dragons can't hover on one spot!' I messaged.
An instant later, the first dragon dove into the thick of my soldiers, trying to grab as many of them at once with its maw as it could—like a shark swimming through a school of fish.
There were screams, some of which cut off too quickly, but then a splash of fire. The dragon was the next one to cry out and plummet to the ground with a burning eye.
But it wrecked enough havoc already just by flapping its wings and throwing our ranks in all directions. And it was just one dragon out of five.
The rest attacked with similar degrees of success, and two more were forced to retreat permanently, while three others successfully escaped with whoever they managed to catch. I wasn't attacked directly, but a wind wave from one of the dragons threw me aside and almost made me smash into the flailing arms of some panicking human.
'Hold on!' I urged, flying back up again. 'Spread out, but don't scatter! Keep going!'
Despite these losses, we pushed on through a few more dragon attacks—and to safety!
Just a minute later, our swarm flew into an embrasure window of the small stone structure that held the gate closing mechanism.
On the other side was a pair of shocked guards with muskets, who staggered back from the swarm that pushed on them.
"Kill them!" I ordered and was the first to shoot my stinger. A shot to each human and they were down—then some soldiers descended to finish them with their own stingers and weapons.
Besides these two soldiers, the building was small and almost empty, except for a small horde of cockroaches that scattered into corners at our appearance. A thick-looking door conveniently separated the room from the wall outside, which meant that we had some time without interruptions.
Meanwhile, I led the bulk of our army division to the gate mechanism. It was a massive pulley with rolls of chains wrapped around it. Each link of a chain was forty meters long, and the rest of the pulley was scaled to size. Because of the moat, instead of the gate being opened by pulling it up, it was opened by pulling it down, which made it also serve as a bridge.
A single human probably couldn't turn this lever. There was no chance that bees would be able to, either—even an army of them.
But of course I knew this already! Which was why I came prepared.
'Alright, girls! Stop stinging these guys—they are already dead. Before the enemies get into this door, we must deal with the gates. Bring me the bombs!'
From the army, a thousand bees flew forth. Each of them was carrying a head-sized leather sack on her belt besides the regular equipment.
"Here, Father!" the Chief of this thousand said, saluting to me. "We've lost a few bombs to dragon attacks, but the bulk of them are here!"
I grinned and looked at the gate control mechanism.
Although pulling the gate up was hard even for humans, letting the gate fall was much easier. We only had to make gravity do the job for us.
"Great. Place them there!" I pointed to the side of the mechanism, where a single metal peg was keeping the chain from unraveling on its own.
My girls worked quickly. Before humans even realized that they should defend their gates from us, the soldiers finished setting up the gunpowder bombs and tying them up with a long fuse.
At my command, the Chief Warrior spat a spark on the end of the fuse and we all flew to the farthest end of the room while the fuse burned through.
A blast! It threw a gust of wind that ruffled my hair even from hundreds of meters away, and it was still not enough to do more than rattle the gate mechanism. Even the metal peg around which the gunpowder was placed emerged from the smoke bent, but unbroken!
For a heart-wrenching moment, I thought this was it.
Then, with a painful groan of metal, the thing bent farther and farther under the weight of the chain and the gate. Until…
It broke in two, and with deafening clangs of metal and rapid swinging of the pulley's lever, the gate chain began to unwind.
'The gates are opening, and just in time, Father!' the Gresch's Agent reported to me from outside immediately. 'General Gresch will reach them in less than a minute. The humans have begun shooting at us, but only with muskets.'
I grinned. This meant that the other army detachments were succeeding in neutralizing the cannons on the wall.
'Wonderful. I hope Gresch is ready for the carnage. And has his battering rams ready.'
After all, although we've just dealt with the main gate of the Castle Soneraht…
A fortification of that size always had more than one!
Besides the main bridge-gate, Castle Soneraht also had an iron grate gate, which opened by being pulled up, not lowered. We, bees, couldn't open it if we tried.
At this moment, the door to the gate mechanism's room opened with a bang. On the other side was a pair of soldiers with swords and pistols.
Yes, we couldn't open any more gates. But while we are here, me and my girls could make Gresch's work easier by killing more people! Then Naregan soldiers will make *our* work easier by shooting down all those damned dragons.
"To weapons, my daughter! We won't let these humans close the gates again!"