BURNING RING OF FIRE
The men devastated the nearby forest for firewood, piling it in a ring surrounding the clearing. They placed incendiary charges among the lumber, thus negating the issue of whether the wood was too green to burn. Setting things on fire was not a problem for Christopher’s army.
Ironically, Christopher grew more disturbed as the defenses took shape. Where was the trap? He watched the men raise his command tent with dismay. The idea of taking off his armor and laying down for a nap struck him as absurd.
“They’re probably waiting for nightfall,” Gregor said. “I mean, doesn’t everybody?”
It was true. So many of the monsters seemed able to operate in darkness. Christopher still hadn’t succeeded in refining white phosphorous, so his dream of parachute flares lighting up the night was as empty as wishing for search lights or night-vision goggles. All of those things could be had with magic, of course, but magic was something you gave to individuals, not armies.
A principle apparently belied by the hundred magical lightstones scattered throughout his army. Each was the size of a ping-pong ball and gave off as much light as a torch. These were the cheapest of all magical items, yet six of them still cost as much as a human soul. They were also ridiculous, in that they flickered exactly like real torches. What possible point was there in such fidelity? Nonetheless, their convenience was undeniable. Electricity would have to wait for this world’s Edison because what Christopher knew about it wouldn’t light a Christmas tree bulb.
As the sun set over his camp, the men began to light real torches at the perimeter. The lightstones were reserved for the interior of the camp, where the wagons full of black powder were gathered. Christopher’s one secret weapon was explosives. He had brought a lot of them.
The tension thrummed along his spine. He looked over to Cannan, whose instincts were generally reliable in these situations. The man had his huge sword in both hands and looked like he was about to hit someone. Cannan often looked like that, but he usually kept the sword sheathed when he wasn’t actually hitting people. Gregor seemed wary, although that might only have been because of the proximity of Cannan’s blade. The red knight’s sword was ridiculously sharp. Christopher had seen it cut an anvil in half.
Einar and Istvan joined them, both men strolling calmly as though they were at a picnic.
“Can’t you tell something’s wrong?” Christopher asked them.
“We will be attacked soon, yes. So much is obvious, although I am not sure it is wrong,” Einar answered.
“Sooner would be better,” grumbled Istvar. “While we are awake, armed, and gathered together.”
It was true. All of the principals of the camp were here now, save for the two bards and the Prelate Disa. The bards would participate in any battle from behind the lines, where their spells could achieve the most effect. Christopher and Istvar would use their magic to win the fight; Disa would use hers afterward, along with the dozen young priests and priestesses accompanying the army. Injuries were only temporary in a camp with so many priests.
“We should not be so convenient a target,” Cannan grumbled. This was odd for several reasons, first of which was that normally the man complained that Christopher’s ranks were too dispersed. Concentrating everything into a single powerful blow was standard military doctrine here. The other reason it was odd was that Cannan seemed to actually rumble while he grumbled, quivering enough to jingle the overlapping scales of his armor.
Christopher realized the ground was shaking. He had time enough for one word, and that was spent starting a spell. Then the earth opened up and swallowed them all.
He fell into darkness, surrounded by dirt and tent poles and his companions. It seemed like forever, but before he could finish his flight spell, the ground slammed into him. Detritus from above clattered on his head.
Light flared. Istvar, shaking off a pile of dirt, raising a lightstone over his head with one hand and a sword with the other. This collapse would have killed any mortal man, but none of Christopher’s retinue was mortal anymore. It would take more than this.
More was apparently on the menu. The light revealed them to be in the center of a shaft, perhaps forty feet deep and twenty wide, with three narrow but tall tunnels opening onto it at the bottom. From these tunnels crawled giant black shapes, ants flowing forth from an anthill.
Which was not a metaphor. They were ants, the size of cows, with mandibles like scythes. Already one latched onto Christopher’s thigh, squeezing like a vise. Instinctively, he smacked it with his sword, knocking off one of its legs. It kept squeezing.
Then it broke in half, the head spasming as it fell away, mandibles clicking at random. Cannan, roaring, his massive sword flashing, spun in a circle, chopping up ants. Christopher paused long enough to cast a blessing on his sword and then joined him. Now his blade bit with more effect, although not nearly as much as Cannan’s.
As his hearing recovered, he realized Cannan was trying to communicate something.
“Get out of here!” The man paused long enough to jab upward; an ant took the opportunity to bite him on the ankle. It held on while three more crawled over themselves to lunge at Cannan, now unable to move out of the way.
The situation was not as bad as it appeared. Christopher had three entirely separate ways to escape this trap. He could fly, he could enchant his feet so that he could walk on air, or he could turn to mist and blow out like steam. Unfortunately, all of these would leave some of his companions behind.
Instead, he cast the strength spell on Cannan. Empowered, the man sliced through all three lunging insects and kicked the one attached to him so hard it fell over and waved its legs in the air. Christopher moved into the center of the shaft and looked for someone else to help.
It was mildly humiliating. Despite his armor and sword, he spent most of the battle throwing spells. The other men all had varying ranks of the warrior profession. Casting strength on them, and then healing, and then endurance when they began to flag, was a better use of his time. Dead ants began to pile up. His men climbed on top of the bodies and fought from there. Eventually, they would reach the surface on a stack of corpses.
Then Christopher noticed that the queen was coming in by crawling on the roof of the tunnels, while dead ants were being dragged out along the floors. The pile stopped growing. The ants could cycle an infinite number of attackers through this chamber. Eventually, Christopher would run out of spells, and then the swordsmen would fall to attrition.
Flying out seemed like the better part of wisdom after all. The battle had bought them time and space. Christopher, protected from interruption, put the air-walking spell on Cannan, Istvar, and Einar while they fought.
“Carry Gregor,” he shouted to Cannan. Then he cast the flight spell on himself. Only once his feet left the ground did the other men take off. Christopher could float, whereas the others had to stomp up, like climbing a flight of stairs, and that in heavy armor. Cannan had Gregor hanging off his back by one arm, huffing like a draft horse. Gregor slashed at the ants that crawled up the walls after them.
Christopher began to worry about all of these ants boiling up into his camp. He flew faster, moving to the edge. Men rushed to him as he pointed into the hole.
“Fire!” he shouted. The ants were actually gaining on the airclimbing men. They were as fast on the walls as on the ground. Riflemen leaned over and blazed away. A layer of ants tumbled back to the ground.
The next wave replaced them, but now Christopher’s retinue had cleared the surface.
He spent his speech on a spell. Fortunately Istvar recognized which one it was and started bodily pulling men away from the edge of the hole. They got the message in time, and when the column of flame filled the shaft, it caught none of his men. The ants, however, burned with an acidic tang and a horrible crackling.
Still flying, Christopher hovered over the shaft and looked down. Nothing moved. Either the ants had learned their lesson or they were preparing something new.
In the distance, he heard a rifle shot. He couldn’t sit here and babysit a hole in the ground while his army was under attack.
Captain Kennet appeared at the edge of the hole, rolling a barrel of powder. He called orders to several other men, who were manhandling more barrels. Behind him stood Quartermaster Charles with a lit torch. Kennet had taken to dynamite from the very beginning. He could handle this. Christopher flew off to find Karl and learn what other dangers had struck while he was burning ants.
He was relieved to see there were no more sinkholes. Instead, the ants had made a rush at the edges of the camp. These ants were half the size of the others; Einar declared them to be workers, not soldiers. Apparently they were only a diversion. Once the strike against the principals failed, they withdrew, having inflicted little damage, held off by rifles and fire.
The casualties came from flying ants spitting globs of acid several hundred yards. Christopher was horrified at the results. The men were not just dead; they were disfigured, some missing hands or chunks of their torso, some with half their faces eaten away. He could bring them back from the dead, but he could not fix this. The Saint’s ability to regenerate flesh was still denied to him for another rank, and even then it was frightfully expensive.
There had only been half a dozen of the fliers, most of which had been shot down. Presumably they were the ant’s spell-casters, thus expensive, and therefore limited. If the ants had a hundred more in reserve, Christopher would have to retreat. His men had signed up for death, not a lifetime as hideous cripples.
The men did not seem to understand this yet. They kept looking at the ground, terrified of being swallowed up.
“Fill bowls with water,” Christopher told Charles, his quartermaster. “Spread them around the camp. If the ants are tunneling under us, the water will shake.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said. As part of his salute, he threw a concerned glance at one of the acid-burned corpses.
Christopher turned away before his face could betray him. Charles was smart; Charles had also been the recipient of the Saint’s magic. The young soldier understood the problem. Christopher could not lie to him, could not even order him to lie to the men, so for the sake of morale, he simply did not answer the unasked question. This was a kind of dishonesty, of course, but just another one of the many diplomatic silences sitting on a throne compelled. He had never lied so much in his life and all without saying a word.
Also unsaid was what the soldiers should do if the bowls did start shaking. Christopher didn’t have a plan for that. He just wanted to stop them from feeling helpless. He returned to his new command tent, trying not to feel helpless himself.
“An unsatisfactory engagement,” Istvar complained. “Although our casualties were light, our winnings were lighter. The vast majority of the enemy’s tael has returned to them.” The fliers had been shot down outside the ring, and the soldier ants had drug away their fallen, leaving only a few hundred peasants to harvest.
“Not entirely without merit,” Einar replied. “Our lord has perhaps learned something of great worth.” The Ranger knew his audience reasonably well. He followed up with a necessary hint. “Namely, the value of tradition.”
Christopher paused to think. The obvious inference was that he should have honored the Ranger’s law and not come here in the first place. That didn’t make a lot of sense, though. The Rangers had brought him here. Peasants and livestock had gone missing from the border, and no one the wiser, despite the Ranger’s formidable tracking skills. This was a problem that had to be solved before panic set in. If the peasants refused to go into their fields the realm would starve. So what tradition was he supposed to be valuing?
“Are you so keen for adventure, my lord Einar?” Friea smiled seductively, which seemed about the only affect she could achieve dressed as she was. “Do you long to serve your lord in battle, side by side, through epic journeys into unknown realms?” Then, with a salty glance, she ruined it all. “Or do you merely think he’ll share the tael with his retinue?”
“He doesn’t do that,” Gregor said. “We all know that. None of us expects a promotion until the great work is finished.”
“Not entirely true,” Einar said, still looking like a cat on a particularly warm rug. “He promotes his priests.”
Christopher defended himself. “We need their magic.” The priests provided justice, healing, and fertilizer, which was an interesting but exceedingly useful combination.
“As you now need our strength. Surely you see there are no other options. Now we understand the danger. No wild magic or deranged wizard created Joaden’s ants. They were bred and born that size. We are faced with a threat that our lore places among the greatest to any realm: a Formian nest. There are only two possible reactions. One is to run away, abandon our fields and farms, and flee as far and fast as possible.”
The Ranger paused rhetorically. That was only an option for his own people, and even then only in theory. As much as the druids played at living in harmony with the land, their people’s health and prosperity would be decimated by becoming nomads. Meanwhile, the peasant farmers and townsmen of the rest of the realm would simply die on the march.
Einar shrugged gently, acknowledging these truths without speaking them. “The other is to form up, shoulder to shoulder and rank to rank, march into that hole, and extirpate the queen. Nothing less will end this infestation. Your commoners and their tricks cannot help you here.”
Istvar’s face brightened, which Christopher thought was an insane reaction to the proposition of crawling into a giant anthill. “For once you will see the need of our profession. Steel and tael will see you through. Mere flesh and blood cannot stand here, no matter how brave.”
They were right. In the dark and close confines of the tunnels, all that mattered was density. Like a bodkin-point arrow piercing mail, the concentrated power of rank would succeed where a hailstorm could not. His men would die faster than they could reload.
“At least it will be better than the goblin keep,” Cannan said.
“How so?” Gregor looked at the red knight curiously.
“We can start killing right away.”