There it was.

As the ship turned slightly to port, Bron could see two enormous hills looming in the distance, set against a great ridge on the other side of a lake.

Hive.

Once, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, this great city had been a place of fabulous opulence and wealth for all. Goblins from every single one of the thousands of tribes in the Deepwoods had settled in this spectacular city. What was more, Hive had been a place of justice, of fairness and equality. When the High Clan Chief, Kulltuft Warhammer, had oppressed his people and unilaterally declared war on Great Glade, the downtrodden of Hive had risen up and formed a new Council. Things had been looking brighter than ever for this mighty settlement.

Then the Empire came. And now, Hive was all but unrecognizable.

The ship began its descent, heading for the Docks. Sprawling beneath Bron lay a mass of prisons, concentration camps, and crematoriums with towering smokestacks belching black clouds. At the top of the Hive Waterfall stood hundreds upon hundreds of barrelling cranes which, when in use, would drop the condemned prisoners into the seething, rushing water below.

The hills, on the other hand, were covered in shryke architecture: stilts and vast, circular platforms reminiscent of the ancient Eastern Roost, and suspended walkways reminiscent of the even more ancient Great Shryke Slave Market. Atop these great roost levels stood elegant palaces and mansions for the few remaining affluent citizens of Hive—the colonels of the New Hemtuft Battleaxe Legion, the Shryke Sisterhood, Mother Muleclaw, and, at the top of it all, the castle of Bloodhem Spikeflail, the Warden General himself.

There was a sudden clunk, and the glistership stopped moving. Bron knew that a dock had been attached to the ship, and that they would shortly be unloaded. Sure enough, the door to the cabin banged open to reveal a long-haired goblin, dressed in an intimidating uniform of black and green.

"Get up!" he roared. Durix, Celestia, and Raziel sat bolt upright, looking confused.

"Welcome to Hive, scum," sneered the goblin, raising his glistergun. "Come out of this cabin with your hands in plain view."

Holding up their hands, the four of them obeyed. Instantly, four screeching shrykes were upon them. Bron was slammed to the wall of the corridor, and felt sharp talons probing his back. Then, he felt a pair of leadwood handcuffs being forced onto his wrists.

"Follow us," barked the goblin. "Don't lag behind, don't speak to the guards, and don't try to run away. According to this report…" he scanned a barkscroll clutched in his hand, "The four of you were factory slaves who attacked your supervisor made a run for it. Well, you're not gonna get the same comforts and flexibility here that you got from your overseers in East Glade. There's a million ways to step out of line here in Hive…and a million different punishments."

The shrykes cackled.

"March!" roared the goblin. The shrykes set off at a trot, and Bron, Durix, Celestia, and Raziel followed quickly. After a few staircases and hallways, they emerged on the deck. The shrykes and the goblin led them up a dock, down a long set of wooden stairs, and into the streets.

The sky was overcast, and a light, chilly rain was falling. It was difficult to tell where the plumes of ash ended and the clouds began. Now that they were on the ground, the buildings looked much bigger. They towered above Bron, the gray bricks and rusting black metal making everything appear washed out. There was a slight fog, but it was different from the thick, foul smog of Great Glade. That city had felt like a dying world, whereas here…here, it looked as if the world had died long ago.

The traffic on the streets was different too. In Great Glade, there had been a bustling throng by day, with glistercraft speeding along in the middle of the streets. Here in Hive, there were no vehicles, and no commotion. Phalanxes of goblins marched in perfect, rigid formation. Here and there, shrykes were striding up and down the boulevards and avenues, less stiff than the goblins, but traveling in much smaller groups.

Bron shivered. He was soaked with frigid rain which ran down his arms and legs. Glancing to the right, he saw that the other three looked as cold and miserable as he felt.

At long last, they were led through a pair of spiked ironwood gates and led into a large, dark building. After walking through the vast foyer, which was lined with statues of various goblin and shryke officers, they found themselves in an enormous, flat courtyard with high brick walls and guard towers looming overhead. The ground was muddy and bare, and the place was dotted with prisoners in varying states of starvation and illness.

Without another word, the shrykes undid the handcuffs, and marched away with the goblin, closing the gates to the courtyard with a loud metallic clang.

There was complete silence, except for the whistle of a slight breeze.

"What happens now?" whispered Bron.

"We'll be kept here," said Raziel, her voice betraying no emotion. "The labor camps and crematoriums are on the other side of the city. We've been placed in a Lot."

"A lot of what?" said Celestia, confused.

"The Lots are prison camps where individuals are taken and left to die."

"Oh," said Durix.

"We may get lucky," said Raziel grimly. "Not everyone here starves to death. Sometimes certain prisoners are removed and executed…but the method varies. The New Hemtuft Battleaxe Legion usually sends prisoners to the barrelling cranes, whereas the shrykes prefer to tear them apart."

Durix looked sick. Celestia stood up, angry tears in her eyes.

"It's just not FAIR!" she screamed. "To have come this far…to have been enslaved, and escaped, only to be captured again and sent to this place of death!"

"Death will come sooner if the guards hear you," said Raziel urgently.

Celestia quieted down at once, but Bron didn't really care at this point. What did it matter? They were going to die anyway.

A few days passed. Bron had been starving when he had arrived. Now, his hunger and thirst tore at his insides like monstrous beasts determined to rip him to shreds. He didn't move around much anymore…what was the point? It was so much easier to simply lie down in the cool mud.

Every few hours, a goblin guard or shryke sister would open the gates and drag out one of the prisoners. Some of them made no effort to resist. Other struggled and screamed, pleading desperately for their lives, to no avail. The worst time had been when that mobgnome had thrashed and fought so violently that the shryke holding him simply fell upon him then and there. Mercifully, his screams had ended quickly. Since then, Bron hadn't dared to cast his gaze toward the spot from which he had heard the terrible noises.

Then, on the fourth day, a troop of goblins came marching into the Lot. "Everyone on your feet!" bellowed the leader of the group. "We're transferring you to a labor camp on the other side of town.

A labor camp? Bron felt his blood beginning to boil. They had been confined here with no food or water for three days, and now they were expected to work?

He rose shakily to his feet, now barely registering the agonizing hunger pangs and his dry, burning throat. About half of the other prisoners rose too, along with Durix, Celestia, and Raziel. Several more of the prisoners, however, remained on the ground, apparently either dead or else too weak to move. The troop took no notice of this; apparently they had not been expecting anything more.

All three of his friends looked emaciated and weak. Bron knew he must be little better, but his fury seemed to be blocking out all other sensations. He had to do something. He no longer cared whether he lived or died.

After ages of trudging on through the streets of Hive, Bron suddenly noticed they were passing the Docks once more. And he could not help noticing that one of the glisterships did not seem to be under much guard. A pair of shrykes were standing on the dock, but there was no other security.

Bron knew it was the best chance he would get.

He broke free of the group and sprinted as fast as he could for the dock. A quick look back told him that Durix, Celestia, and Raziel were following.

CRACK! BANG! POW!

A volley of leadwood bullets were flying towards him. He threw himself aside and kept running. The shrykes had only just looked around, startled by the sound of glistergun fire.

Suddenly, a long-haired goblin appeared from the side and hurled himself at Bron's ankles. He sidestepped and aimed a kick at the soldier's back which sent him crashing to the dock. Quick as a flash, Bron tugged a glistergun out of his belt and ran for it.

"Stay close to me!" he yelled to his friends. They caught up with him, and kept running.

An earsplitting roar and an intense wall of heat alerted Bron to the phraxfire globes which had just been tossed in his direction. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that the white-hot flames were eating away at the planks of the dock, preventing the half-dozen goblin soldiers from chasing them.

"Down!" shouted Bron as the soldiers took aim with their glisterguns once more. With a series of sharp cracks, more bullets came their way, but all of them missed. The mass of flames had made it impossible for them to see. The shrykes had long since fled as the flames traveled up the dock.

"Hurry!" said Bron. "The fire!"

The flames were gaining on them as they ran, and a splintering sound told them it was only a matter of time before the dock collapsed. The floor lurched, and the cracking grew more intense as the blistering heat intensified.

"Jump!" said Bron, as the dock lurched again, and began to buckle. As one, the four of them took a bounding leap into the air, and landed on the deck of the glistership.

"Captain Tollinix, we've got to get this thing off the ground NOW!" said Durix, springing to his feet.

Raziel rose, and dashed off towards the control tower. Bron stared back out over the side of the deck. Now that the flaming, splintering mass had collapsed, the mass of goblins had a clear line of sight.

"Incoming!" yelled Bron, as a fresh wave of leadwood bullets were fired. He and Durix leapt to the side, and Celestia dived to the deck.

Suddenly, there came a great roaring sound, and the deck began to rumble and shake. Looking to one of the twin jet chambers on either side of the ship, he saw that the glister within was flashing and sparking as a red light began to glow within the tube. With a rushing sound, white hot flames poured out of the propulsion ducts on the control tower, and the ship began to rise.

"Phraxfire!" screamed Durix, pointing at the ground as it fell away. The goblin soldiers were taking aim and hurling the small white globes at the ascending glistership.

The next moment, they all breathed a sigh of relief. They were now too high up for the phraxfire globes to hit. A few seconds later, the orbs fell back to the ground, sparking a volley of fiery explosions.

"Nice job, Captain!" Bron shouted up to the control tower. Then he remembered that the cockpits of glisterships were enclosed, and it was thus impossible for Raziel to hear him. He dashed over to the doors of the tower, which slid open as he approached, and sprinted up the stairs to the cockpit.

"Nice job!" repeated Bron as he entered the cockpit, where Raziel was standing with her back to him.

She turned around, and Bron noticed that she was grimacing. He remembered what she had said about how repulsive it was to fly a glistership.

"Well, I guess we're the commanders of the…uh…what's the name of this vessel?" said Bron.

"It's called the Mollus Leddix," said Raziel softly. "I read the inscription on the side."

"The Mollus Leddix," repeated Bron.

"This is an evil ship," she shuddered. "Worse than the other one I had to fly. Can you feel it, Bron? Can you feel the energy draining from the glisters? And by my own hand?"

"I don't like it either," Bron admitted. "But we don't have a choice, do we?"

"No, we don't," agreed Raziel. "Still…I can't wait to get off this thing."

"One day," said Bron confidently, "Vartolius Xax will fall from power, and when that day comes, every one of these vessels will be dismantled, and every glister liberated. The skies will be open again for old-fashioned sky galleons, and sumpwood skycraft…and the occasional phraxship too, I suppose."

"That is the dream, Bron," said Raziel, stepping from the controls. "I've set it to autopilot. I don't want to sit at these controls longer than I have to."

"So, it's straight to Omniphrax, then?" asked Bron eagerly. "Still got the skyflare?"

"Yes," said Raziel, pulling a small red rocket from under her shirt. "I have my tricks. Nobody ever noticed I had it, though there were times when I almost revealed it by accident."

She sighed. "We're not flying directly to Omniphrax. The more time we spend above the Deepwoods, the more settlements we'll pass over. Besides the two great settlements of Great Glade and Hive, and the half a dozen other large cities, there's hundreds of small towns and villages, each of them tightly controlled by the Phraxguardians. They'll all want to make an example of us."

"So where do we go?" said Bron.

"We're sailing north right now, to the Edgelands," said Raziel. Once we're flying directly over the Edgeland pavement, we start flying east. Eventually we'll reach Twilight's Edge."

Back in the city of Hive, Bloodhem Spikeflail pounded his hairy fist on the table, glaring at Mother Muleclaw. "And those shryke sisters…they simply ran away?"

"I'm afraid so, Warden General," clucked Mother Muleclaw, sounding agitated. "They will be dealt with. Tomorrow, I'll have them sent to the barrelling cranes."

"We've lost the Mollus Leddix," snarled Bloodhem. "A real beauty of a convict-runner. And the worst of it is, this escape won't be the last. More are sure to try now. When the Glorious Leader hears about this…"

"What must be done now, then?" squawked Mother Muleclaw.

"Well, for starters, we can greatly tighten security in the Docks," said Bloodhem. "For too long, we've relied simply on breaking the prisoners' spirits to ensure no bids for freedom. It was a disaster waiting to happen."

Mother Muleclaw nodded approvingly.

"But we also need to capture those hijackers," growled Bloodhem. "Even censorship may not keep the news of this incident quiet, but if it is immediately followed by the news that they have been caught…"

"Ah, excellent!" cackled Mother Muleclaw.

"They seemed to be heading in the direction of the Edgelands," said Bloodhem. "If we can circle around and meet them from the front, we'll make short work of them!"