Army of the Goddess: A Bona Dea Novel (Stormflies Book 2) by Elizabeth N. Love Page B

out. The creatures were vicious and territorial. And deadly.
    The fifth patient, the fifth parasite, startled Tyrane when it spoke to him.
    “Weaklings,” a voice berated. He sought an origin, but found the source came from within the dying man. “Your species makes for easy prey. How many came? Enough to sate our appetites for now.” It knew what he knew—or at least what someone had known. These creatures were not brainless parasites driven by instinct. They absorbed the knowledge of their hosts. They strategized and planned. This was a race of sentient beings like nothing they could have imagined. But these things were not the original dwellers of this rocky home. They traveled from another world in search of nourishment.
    “What do you want from us?” he questioned, acknowledging the triteness of the inquiry, like so many books he had read.
    “Your lives. Through you, we are fed. Through you, we survive,” the voice responded. “Like so many before, we will conquer and consume you.”
    “How many do you need? Perhaps we can offer…”
    “All of you. Do not fool yourself into believing we will accept anything less.”
    “Then why are you communicating with me? There must be something else you want,” Tyrane surmised. If the only desire of the creatures was to consume, then they should remain silent in their intentions and not bring attention to their consciousness. Perhaps the creatures had a love of gloating, which seemed to be the case from the tone of the haughty, disembodied voice.
    “Only to inform you of your inferiority,” it responded. “You are the prey. We are the hunters.”
    He had to come up with a plan, quickly, before anyone else fell victim. He had to perform one more act to help his species survive.
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    When he negotiated the tenuous peace between humankind and the Stormflies, Tyrane had no clear understanding of immortality. He knew old stories, the desires of wealthy men in other times to stay young and hold onto the wealth forever. Tales of the fountain of youth swirled in his mind.
    After three hundred years of extended existence, he knew the reality to be bleak. His body had not changed in all that time. Nor did anyone else. They had no children—they were no longer capable amongst themselves. The Great Storm, the swirling mass of Stormflies, sand, mist, and lightning, saw to it that pregnancies terminated prematurely, and eventually that the Prophets were made nearly sterile. Only a few men were still capable of siring children, and insemination was only possible with a woman from outside the Storm, one unadulterated by the toxic by-products of Stormfly captivity.
    Tyrane's plan was far from simple, though some components were surprisingly simplistic. One Stormfly would be implanted within one woman, and that one soul would act as a collector for the nutrition the Stormflies required to survive. She would go out among the people, absorbing emanations from others, and she would return them to the Storm. She and her daughters and her daughter's daughters would perform this duty into the foreseeable future. By using a Prophet to father her children, they would ensure that the future generations grew stronger and able to maintain the demand.
    As a side effect of this arrangement, the people mistook the first woman to be a messenger of peace. Because of their natural aggression, humans had begun to fight each other for resources and land. Battles threatened the lives of hundreds, and there were few lives to spare among the new arrivals. It was Amelia's wish that the Prophets do something to put an end to the fighting.
    And so the office of the Protectress was born; and the First Council, elected by the people, came together to write and endorse the Covenants and guide the people into prosperous times. All the while, the Protectress was afforded enhanced abilities which were used to supply the Stormflies with an almost constant source of nourishment. And for three hundred years, the