Silver May Tarnish by Andre Norton

wishes. It can be willed from her but not stolen or destroyed. As for Neeco’s other plans, forewarned is forearmed, I thought as I lay there. I might not be such easy prey as they expected. Then despair swept over me. I was untrained in weaponry. I was a girl and only thirteen. How could I fight more than twenty trained men?
    One of the winged-warriors sensed my fear and grief. He landed on my shoulder and on the opposite shoulder a queen landed, sending me warmth and comfort, cradling me in thoughts of honey-sweetness and the affection of the hive. But from the warrior flowed a deep hunger. The queens would be my advisers, they were the females who were wise for the hives. The warriors would be my weapons. Let the despoilers of the hive keep their ignorance, soon enough they would learn how dangerous even tiny warriors could be.
    I did not know what the wing-friends had in mind, but I believed in their promises of protection and vengeance. I slept that night in a nest of heather and dried grass, woke to eat of the food I had brought with me, then drank from my flask, holding out the cap so my friends might drink in turn. Then I lay down at the edge of the valley again to watch. The fires below had burned high late into the night. I’d heard the sounds of men who became drunk and quarrelsome. That explained their slow rising on a fine clear day.
    They came lurching and grumbling to where their leader waited. Neeco stood beside him, smirking triumphantly. No doubt but that today he expected to slay the last in the dale that had exiled him. Why he hated so, I could not see. He had gone to a good home and the Lord of Merrowdale
had been well-known as a kind man. Neeco could well have returned to visit his family each Summer once the bees were in the high pastures. Yet that, by his own choosing, he had rejected. Judging from the chaos below it would be an hour or more yet before they set out. I was young, unencumbered, and I knew every inch of the path. I could beat them back to the hives easily. I did so and stood between the two which housed the new queens.
    I told the queens all I had seen, sharing in my mind the pictures as I spoke. In return a plan was unfolded, spare and elegant in its simplicity. I nodded slowly as I listened. It might work. If it did not I could always die. My mother had found no difficulty and I had the dagger taken from Lord Lanson’s house. I hid that in my bodice and went to do what my queens had shown me. There was ample time before I heard the men approaching. I could even add a few touches of my own.
    The raiders found my cave in order but empty. I had banked the fire and left my large cauldron simmering. That was the one Ithia had always used to make bee-syrup in Winter. It was of a very good size, and bronze. A prize in its own right and I had filled it with a savory well-salted stew. On a rock ledge nearby I’d set the last remaining flasks of mead, those I had taken from Ithia’s house. I had known where to look. In that, Neeco had been correct—those who’d come before me had not.
    I lay in the beelove and counted as the outlaws came straggling down the valley track. All twenty-one of them were here. No doubt any feared to stay behind lest their fellows find loot and refuse to share. And my own self would not be the least of that expected plunder. Around the rock outcrop in which lay my cave the breeze always swirled. I lay hidden to one side. The light winds would carry their words to me clearly. I listened and waited.
    â€œGirl’s not there, Garlen.”
    â€œMake less noise. She’s left all tidy. She can’t have gone back to the village else we’d have met her on the way here. Neeco, where could she be?”

    â€œLikely she’s gone to the uplands. Ithia used to. They look for flowering bushes where they can move the hives in high Summer.”
    The leader gave a satisfied grunt. “That sounds likely. All right. Look through her