Darkness had come over Yourz. Albie finished Chiseling the skull with runes. The mage cut his hand and summoned a bloodstone. He placed it in the shattered corpse and began channeling moonlight. The body jiggled to life like jelly. Its skull the only solid piece of its body. The creature pealed itself from the table. It looked at its master through clouded eyes.
Its legs and body shifted under its head. It crouched claws by feet.
"It's night," said Albie. "Go kill the men in orange. Leave my servants in piece."
The creature left through the window in a spiderlike fashion. Albie left the lab to the hallway. The walls were quickly being coated by beehives. The yellow bugs carnivorous and regular crawled over the walls. The large killer bees waited at the stairs.
The mob of bees followed him down the stairs. The original pail lurker stood over the charred woman. It looked at the woman then at its master before slipping out the door into the night.
Albie walked into the night with his retinue of monster bees. The clear night sky shown down on the mage. The dulled moonstones on his cloak began to sparkle. A new sound filled the night. The thump of drums beat. A chorus of boots sung to the melody.
The hungering mage walked down the street. His pains dull but growing like a rip in a piece of cloth. Soon he would need the use of his walking stick again. For the moment he could still walk without help. His bees followed him as he crept to the sound of the drums.
He approached the sound of the drumming. The wounds that killed Cat grew worse. Sweat began to bead on his pail brow. The drums grew louder, and his head started to thump with the beat. A headache like his skull was cracking from the bridge of his nose to his forehead. The pain drove him into an alley where he sat against a stone wall.
His head leaned back against the night chilled stone wall. The cool stone did little to sooth his headache as the drums approached. The bees took to the rooftops. The pounding of drum and boot marched past his hiding place.
Lines of orange clad men ten wide marched down the street. They stepped in a perfect head splitting cadence. A man with a tall black hat shouting at men not moving in time. Ten perfect lines of men and musket marching. A small orange banner carried by a man in front. Just over a hundred men marching in the street.
Albie did not think he could fight such numbers but wondered if a man in the back rank might go missing unnoticed. He called to his bees who approached the back rank the man in the tall hat noticed the bees.
"Platoon halt!" Shouted the Man. "About face!"
The mass of men stopped and turned around in unison to face the bees. The square of men Reacting to orders perfectly. The drums went silent.
"Charge bayonets," ordered the commander.
The men quickly made spears of their muskets and pointed them into the sky.
The monster bees hovered over the men unsure of how to attack. The man with the tall hat walked to the front of the coulomb and pointed his strangely fat musket at one of the bees.
The insects buzzed and darted in the air. How a man with a musket would shoot one was beyond Albie. With a smoke belching explosion one of the bees was shredded into nothing but mist. The other bees fled into the night. The solder reloaded his fat musket with a fist full of gravel and Albie understood how the man had hit his bee.
The man carried a blunderbuss. His shrapnel gun could rip his creations apart. The weapons scared Albie especially if they were to be mass produces as the old solder asked. There was only one here tonight but more of those would not be good.
The commander with the small canon ordered his men to about face again. He ordered them forward and the drums began to beat. The coulomb of men marched into the night bayonets gleaming in the moon light.
Albie waited for the men to pass and the drums to drift into the night. When they had left the starved mage limped into the street to find the bees blood stone.
"Scab," Though Albie to his servant. "Did you see that."
"Yes, its most disturbing father," responded the dead man.
"It ignites the imagination though," Albie thought. "Perhaps we should begin stealing gunpowder when we can. I think I saw something interesting in Abomination Warfare that might help with the night problem."
"As you will father," spoke the dead mind.