Hive Queen by Sinclair, Grayson (positive books to read .txt) 📕

“That’s a lot of them in a single group. Is that what you wanted to see?”

I grinned. “Yep, it’s absolutely perfect,” I said, tensing.

Raven tilted her head to look at me, her large, blooded eye staring at me with concern. “What are you about to do?”

“Just a little power leveling,” I said and jumped.

“Duran!” she shouted, but I was already in freefall.

Chapter 8 - The Roving Dead

I timed my jump precisely, but my landing was anything but smooth as I dropped on to the top of the largest sand dune. I sank deeper than I was expecting and fell off balance, tumbling down the hill.

“Damn it,” I cursed as I spat out a mouthful of sand, the gritty grains fouling my mouth and slipping down my throat. Ignoring the roughness in my mouth for a second, I stood up, dusted the worst of the sand from me and pulled out a waterskin, washing out the remaining sand and spitting for good measure before draining a good fourth of the water. Next time, make sure I know what I’m jumping on if I’m going to pull a stunt like that again.

Raven swooped down near me, and I shielded my face against the small dust storm she kicked up in her wake. She quickly transformed back to her human form and marched over, clearly displeased.

“That was reckless of you,” she said as she knelt beside me.

“Was fun as hell, though,” I said with a chuckle before dropping my smile and focusing on the roving dead.

We’d landed behind the moving horde, and they were brainless creatures who could barely spark enough brain cells to move, let alone think. Pure instinct and need drove them to consume the flesh of the living.

As I peered out at the hundred or so roamers, I found a mixture of soldiers, farmers, and even a few who’d once been mages. All of them in various stages of decay and rot. Black magic kept the somnambulists mobile and slowed the rate of decay, sometimes stopping it altogether if the necromancer was strong enough. I don’t see anyone leading them, so maybe this is an unbound horde. Maybe their creator is already dead.

Dead or not, I was excited to get to work. Roamers in small groups were chumps, even at high levels, but since each undead lost a quarter of their levels during the resurrection, there would never be an undead higher than level seventy-five, barring a lich or any of the spectral undead. Easy enough in small doses, but a hundred is more than I can take at once unless I do this smart.

I eyed Raven, who wasn’t much to look at. She still wore her thin black dress and had no weapons. A liability, one that would only slow me down.

“Do you have any armor at all?” I hissed at her.

She flinched and nodded. “It should be in my pack.”

I withdrew her pack and tossed it to her. “Get dressed, quickly.”

She didn’t bother responding; instead, she stripped out of her dress then and there, giving me a brief glimpse of the smooth, pale skin of her abdomen and her ample bust before I could turn my head.

I put her out of mind and focused on watching my prey.

The horde moved at a snail’s pace, and there were pockets of open areas in between some of the larger groups. Giving me plenty of room to work with. Go in from the left, where the horde is the weakest, and work my way through. I’ll only deal with a few handfuls at a time. Best plan I had, at any rate, and considering what I was up against, I wasn’t too worried.

I gave Raven a few minutes to change, and she coughed softly when she’d finished. She now wore a nearly skin-tight cotton shirt and pair of pants in mottled hues of dull black and gray under leather armor, dyed a midnight black, with thick padding over her chest and thighs. Any vital spot was covered with leather, but still allowed mobility. As she turned around to grab her bag, two slits stood out from the back of her armor. It was stitched so there was no fraying; her shoulder blades moved under the holes. Are those for her wings?

Whatever, don’t really care. She handed me back her pack, and I stowed it away. “Don’t you have a weapon?”

“Don’t need one. So why are we doing this again?” she asked.

“Because I said so. You can either help or stay here. What’ll it be?”

“I’ll help.”

“Then let’s go, follow my lead.”

I vaulted the sand hill we’d been on and slid down the steep incline. Using the built-up momentum, I hit the ground running and drew my new sword in the process. The black metal gleamed, its maiden bloodletting at hand.

My charge led me right where I wanted to go, and I plowed into a small group of five roamers. Each of them wore Alliance breastplates, and they stopped, turning as my lifeforce washed over them.

They let out haunting groans of hunger. The closest one lurched at me. Half of his face sloughed off as he whipped around and opened his rotting mouth to assault my nose with a miasma of decay. Before he could bring his arms up, I sliced my sword through his neck, and as his head sank into the sand, I stuck my blade through it, splitting the weakened skull.

One down.

The others took their time and stumbled to me in blind hunger. Rotten flesh dripped, and their milky white eyeballs told me they wanted nothing but to taste my flesh. One of them was close enough to grab my armor. His thin, bony fingers gripped as tightly as his failing muscles would allow. I severed his hand at the elbow and whipped