The guards, few as they were in comparison with the oncoming horde of Black Bees, threw themselves bravely at them, and a moment after Lotta and her Amazons began issuing pell-mell from the hive entrance. They were met almost immediately by the foremost Black Bees, who had easily killed or were driving back the few guards, and were making rapid headway over the platform toward the entrance. A few even had passed in through the entrance, but they were driven out again at once by the issuing Amazons. In fact, most of the first Black Bees to gain a foothold on the platform and to push forward to the entrance or into it were killed. But that brought no terror to the others. They pressed on over the dead bodies of their comrades, lunging and striking viciously with their long lances.
But Lotta and the Amazons were fighting fiercely, too. They were making a heroic defense of the hive and its stores. The battle raged with great fury, but for a little while with no apparent advantage to either side. The Black Bees seemed, on the whole, the more expert and the more furious fighters--they are, indeed, a race of bees famous for their fighting--but Lotta's wonderful personal courage and deeds of prowess were a great inspiration to the defenders. She appeared to be everywhere at once, and her shouts of defiance to the enemy and of encouragement to her followers made up in some measure for the feebler strength and less experience of her band.
This was so obvious to the Black Bees that she was soon singled out for special attack by groups of her adversaries. Two or three Black Bees would combine to assail her from different sides, but her lightning movements and dashing bravery had so far saved her even from being touched by an enemy's lance. But just at the moment when Nuova had recovered a little from her amazement and terror at this sudden invasion, Lotta received her first wound. The fierce Black Bees were closing around her too closely. Nuova felt a violent rage rising within her as she realized that at any cost the Black Bees were going to kill the leader of the Amazons. Lotta was staggering, and a half-dozen lances were lunging at her. She stumbled, gave one final shout of defiance--and fell.