A Rustle in the Grass

by Robin Hawdon

  He reached the first barricade and squeezed through the gap. Black Sting was there and the two exchanged a glance that said all there was to say. The same look was in the eyes of all the defenders as Dreamer passed them on his way to his own post further down the line.

  The red ants attacked almost instantly. They waited until their leader had retreated back behind the front lines and then, at some signal that was not apparent to the onlookers, they launched themselves forward with phenomenal speed across the intervening ground.

  It was as well that Black Sting had thought out his tactics and prepared the barricades, for there was no way that his forces would ordinarily have halted such an onrush. As it was the larger ants came up against the barriers of tangled matter and for a while were vulnerable as they clawed and struggled to surmount them. The defenders were able to wait and pick them off as they tumbled down the other side in ones and twos, or clambered clumsily through the centre. In such positions they were not easily able to bring their lethal sprays of poison to bear as they were set upon by swarming parties of brown ants, and the advance ranks suffered fearful damage. However, their great size and strength, and the apparently endless reinforcement of their numbers began to tell eventually. The barriers began to crumble and break down in places and here and there small groups of the enemy broke through and came skirmishing along behind the lines, diverting the defence. The line began to disintegrate.

  Dreamer, commanding one of the major barricades across a main trail, took little part in the actual fighting at this stage. He conserved strength and poison, knowing that his turn would come in time, and he concentrated his energies on commanding his force, striding back and forth behind the barrier, encouraging here, exhorting there, ordering extra defenders to one spot or a team of workers with materials to reinforce another. Over towards the centre of the line he was aware of Black Sting doing the same, marching up and down at the back of his forces with calm, calculated authority, holding the precarious line by sheer force of will.

  Behind the first barriers was a further line, and behind that more still, but these were not of the same size and strength as the first and would only serve as temporary delaying points. Then there was only Noble and his Royal Guard, waiting patiently on the flanks of the mound itself – surveying the battle from afar – between the red hordes and the royal brood chambers, and the Queen of Queens herself. The thought did not bear considering and Dreamer shook it from his head and bent himself to his task with renewed energy.

  A fresh wave of the enemy was assaulting his barricade, shaking its structure, tumbling clumsily down from its height, and for the first time he took a part in the actual fighting, leaping upon a big red soldier who looked as if he might be getting the better of the two defenders. He clung to his limbs and bit viciously at the vulnerable joint between head and thorax with his mandibles. Still he did not employ his sting, for his supply of poison was limited and he knew he would have all too great a need of it in time. The red soldier quickly succumbed under the combined attack of all three defenders and Dreamer returned to his task of command, but the incident was indicative of the general way the battle was going and he was forced to add his own strength and speed to the defence with greater and greater frequency.

  Then there came a series of shouts and a commotion from nearby on the flank and he saw that the barrier across the trail next to his own had given way completely, the enemy soldiers swarming through in large numbers, fanning out to right and left and sweeping along behind the line in a destructive wave. Defenders from that barrier and from the grass forest in between were rushing back towards the next line in a panic and scrambling to get over, while the lofty figures of the red soldiers ran amok amongst them, picking them off and felling them with great snaps of their mandibles. Dreamer saw that the time had come to retreat himself and he ordered his contingent back to the second line. They sprinted back along the trail and scrambled over or round through the grass stems, with attackers hot on their heels. And there the fight began again: the same onslaught on the barriers, the same temporary stemming of the tide, the same gradual breaking through and overwhelming with size and numbers.

  As the defenders retreated bit by bit towards their mound, they left the relinquished ground littered with the bodies of their soldiers. Increasingly the lines had to be reinforced with workers, resolute and prepared to give their all but smaller and inexperienced in battle. The ranks were condensing now as they converged towards the hillock – they were perhaps halfway back across the clearing – and the battle became fiercer and more concentrated as the numbers compressed. The commanders, Dreamer included, were fully involved now, with all pretence at an ordered defence gone. It was every ant for himself, biting, clinging, stinging, while the blood ran and the grasses shuddered, the reeking scent of poison clogged the air and the dust rose in clouds to obscure the sunlight.

  Once more Dreamer felt as if it was all a part of one of his dreams. His mind became detached like some outside observer, aware of the pain and the exhaustion of his struggling body, yet somehow uninvolved, unaffected by the torment. It noted the fury and the madness all around; it beheld the weird, writhing shapes upon the ground, the giant figures of the enemy looming out of the dust; it was aware of his own moves, lunging, clawing, retreating; yet it remained totally cool, unmoved, objective, as if waiting for some signal that it knew would come to put an end to all this. Some indication from an outside power which would show him the simple gesture that was needed to still the insanity at an instant.

  As he fought he was aware of the general course of events around him. He caught glimpses of the gigantic shadow of The Spider towering behind his forces, roaring and goading but rarely participating directly in the fight; he was conscious of a sudden rally amongst his own side as Noble and many of the Royal Guard, unable to stand by and observe any longer, came charging into the fray; he recognized the figure of Fleet, bespattered with blood and dust yet still swift and graceful as ever, swooping upon that other personification of strength and agility, Black Sting; and he watched the two superbly matched individuals embark on a private battle in the midst of the war, which could well determine the outcome of both.

  And, in a way, it did. Dreamer only caught moments of that stupendous personal contest – quick flashes in the midst of his own desperate encounters – but he was aware, as were all in the vicinity, that the crucial hub of the whole conflict was here between these two champions. As if in recognition of this a space was cleared around them and no attempt made to interfere with their single combat. And when, after a seemingly interminable struggle in which the speed of the movements, the ferocity of the grapples, the raised flurries of dust and debris, all served to confuse the eye and even to prevent individual identification of the two opponents – when at last both lay still, entwined as if in a loving embrace, with Fleet's jaws locked about Black Sting's throat and Black Sting's pointed sting embedded deep in Fleet's underbelly – when the two ants who perhaps most of all should have been friends and accomplices in achievement, had finally succeeded in bringing about each other's death – then Dreamer knew that all hope for a just outcome to the day was gone, all attempts at a natural solution doomed, and that the only thing that could avert the final cataclysm was some supernatural stroke beyond the imagination of ordinary ants.

  He broke away from the battle which still continued – the defenders, now under Noble's leadership, determined to fight on to the death. He staggered, injured in a dozen places and so exhausted that his legs could scarcely support him, in a daze towards the only nearby landmark that he could recognize: the uneven outline of the gorse clump. He scarcely knew why – he was beyond rational thought – but some instinct directed his wavering steps, and as he went, evading the struggling bodies, scrambling over the trampled grasses, brief flashes of broken sentences drifted through his brain; voices speaking to him from out of the entangled mists of his experience.

  There was Still One's voice, saying: 'You can be sure t
here is a way, and you can be sure the brain can find it if used well enough. . . .'

  There was the Voice of his dreams, saying: 'At the last, in the midst of the greatest endeavour of all, you may find your purpose. . . .'

  There was Black Sting: 'We may have to die in the end, but we are not afraid to. For it has been a good life. . . .'

  There was the Queen of Queens: 'If one of these astounding creatures is indeed in the vicinity, then the problem of the red ants will be as a mere gust of wind in the grass. . . .'

  There was Still One again: 'The power of thought is the greatest power there is. . . .'

  There was his own Voice again: 'Think! Are they all truly your enemies? Is there no way out? Think!'

  And suddenly, out of the confusion of his mind, he knew. He knew what it was he had to do. He knew the terrible deed that was necessary to save the last vestiges of his world from the total destruction that threatened it. The knowledge did not come as some new, blinding revelation. Like all great ideas, once realized it seemed so simple, so obvious, it was as if it had always been there, always a part of his understanding – it was simply that it was too enormous a concept to grasp under ordinary circumstances.

  With calm determination now he increased his pace towards the gorse clump. There Old Five Legs, Never-Rest, Wind-Blow and several others of the older worker-ants had made their headquarters and were tending wounded and dying ants beneath the gorse fronds, while waiting calmly for the battle to engulf them. They stared as the bloody, dust-covered figure staggered out of the ferment towards them.

  'Come with me, old ones,' said Dreamer and there was no disobeying the authority in his voice. Blankly, accepting of whatever it was fate might now have in store for them, they followed.

  He led the way beneath the gorse bush and out at the side, where the line of the river bank could be seen some little way off and where the low mound of the Giant Two-Legs' mystical creation still glowed faintly, a dull, angry, red glimmer amongst the flaky grey dust that was all that remained of the vegetation it had consumed. Here the battle was sparse and intermittent – only the occasional isolated pursuit and skirmish – for the place was out of the direct line between the forest and the base-mound, and the still considerable heat emitted by the strange hill kept most of the fighting ants at a distance.

  Without hesitation Dreamer led his little band towards the tall landmark of the isolated sedge-grass stem which he had noticed on his earlier visit, standing beside the mound. Browned and withered by the Giant Two-Legs' heat, as well as by the unseasonal drought, it leaned precariously in towards the light, as if wishing too to be consumed like its brothers. Ignoring the blistering temperature, Dreamer went up to it and examined the stem. It was twice as thick as the body of an ant but the outer casing was brittle and fragile.

  He turned and gestured to the following ants with his feelers. 'Cut this down!' he ordered.

  The old workers came forward, hunched against the barrage of heat, and without questioning the command they began to gnaw at the trunk with their mandibles. Dreamer glanced round for signs of any red ants who might interfere, but all seemed preoccupied with the victorious onrush towards the base-mound.

  He commanded the two or three remaining worker-ants who could not find room at the grass stem: 'Bring straw, grass, dead leaves – anything!' – and, as they hurried to obey, turned himself to do likewise. Grasping at bits of dry grass, twigs, any thing that could be moved, he toiled with the last remains of his strength to pile them at the base of the sedge-grass stem, and from there in a jumbled line projecting into the forest of grass itself.

  As he worked two red ants suddenly appeared out of the grasses in pursuit of a stumbling brown soldier and hesitated at the sight of the little group toiling before the weird, glowing hill; but Dreamer came at them with such a display of ferocity that they turned from his wild, threatening figure – approaching as if out of the very source of the heat itself – and continued their chase towards safer parts.

  Then Five Legs called to Dreamer, 'It's about to go!'

  Dreamer turned back as the stem creaked and leaned in still further from the partly severed base of its trunk. Old Five Legs was looking at him with a questioning expression in his eyes and the other old ants too were hanging back as if waiting for his final command. Dreamer gazed at Five Legs with a calm reassurance.

  'This is the only way, Five Legs,' he said. 'I don't know what will happen, but the Giant Two-Legs' power was sent to help us, I'm sure of that. We may all have to die together in his light, but I think Our Great Mother may be saved.'

  Five Legs nodded and touched Dreamer's feelers with his own in the briefest of salutes, then turned back to the grass stem. The others joined him and together, heaving and biting, they completed their work. The stem shuddered and tottered – its heavy, feathered head outlined against the sky – and then tumbled in towards the red glow.

  There was a crash as it landed and a cloud of grey dust, a momentary, trembling pause and then a flare of whiter light, bursting out with an angry hiss. The flare grew, dazzling in its intensity, seeming to envelop the entire head of the plant. The ants drew back as it ran towards them along the stem with ferocious speed, bringing an increase in the heat with it. It struck the little pile of collected debris at the base and blazed up again, white and yellow, dancing and crackling like a living thing. It leapt along the line of dead matter, sending minor tentacles of light skirmishing out amongst the living grasses. The prevailing breeze from the river urged it on away from the bank and Dreamer and his band of workers fled instinctively round the outskirts of the mound towards the water to escape the spreading menace.

  They watched, trapped between the water and the light, as the latter ran wild amongst the grass, leapt and spread with exultant abandon, rushed at every clump and thicket like an invading army, mad with victory. An arm reached the gorse clump, jumped across empty air from the grass to the hanging fronds, hung there for a moment as if securing its grasp, and then flared jubilantly and sped along the branches towards the centre. There came a tremendous woomph! – the very air shuddered as it was sucked in from all around – and the entire bush exploded in a great blaze of light and sound, while rolling clouds of the grey mist swirled skywards, signalling the eruption to the world.

  The ants across the clearing ceased in the midst of their struggles and stared in wonder at the awe-inspiring beacon. They hesitated, wondering what it signified, until the shouts and screams of those nearest the phenomenon made them aware that a wide wall of the magical light was racing across the grass towards them. The blazing sun that had been the gorse clump leapt and roared behind, exhorting the wall forward as The Spider had done in the wake of his own forces. All turned and began to race away: towards the trees, towards the mound, towards anywhere that seemed to offer sanctuary.

  But there was no escape. Faster than any attacking wave of red ants could travel, the leaping bulwark of light swept ahead of the breeze, consuming grass, plants, ants – everything that stood in its path. The fleeing insects were overtaken, engulfed and melted like so many drops of honey-dew; the entwined bodies of Black Sting and Fleet and the crumpled corpse of Still One evaporated as though they had never been; the barriers, the trails, the nodding spring flowers, were eradicated like rain from a smooth rock surface; Noble and his Royal Guard, racing for the mound, were overtaken and consumed in an instant; and The Spider, stumbling and bellowing before his shattered army back towards the forest, was seized by huge, greedy mandibles of light, devoured, digested and vomited skywards as so many tiny particles of dust.

  The blazing wall traversed the clearing in less time than it takes an ant to climb a stem of willow-herb, and then it thundered into the forest, crackling and dwindling amongst the trees. . . .

  25

  He was the centre of a whirling sun. He was at the very heart of the leaping, living light. The light blinded his eyes with its whiteness and the heat scoured his body with its agony. But he was not afraid.r />
  And he called out: ' Are you there? Are you there in the light? Speak to me!'

  But there was nothing. Only the roaring of the light, and the dazzling whiteness, and the searing, cleansing heat. And then it was that he knew.

  And he rose up in the midst of the light; and stood triumphantly; and called out: 'I have thought the thoughts. I have ridden the waters. I have harnessed the light. I have defeated our enemies. And, in the midst of life and of death, for good or for evil, there is no other voice than mine. I am the Voice!'

  And his words echoed and re-echoed around the wild pillars of light: 'I am the Voice . . . I am the Voice . . . I am the Voice. . . .'

  Then the blazing heat of the light merged with the swirling cool of the waters and there was nothing. . . .

  26

  It had been a mild winter and the Long Sleep ended, early that year. The big mound by the marshes came to bustling life with a large proportion of its population having survived the dark months. It was therefore well equipped to send out exploration parties and extend its boundaries. The season was well advanced when a small expeditionary party, travelling further afield than most, came upon a strange region within the forest. The undergrowth was dead and blackened, twisted into gaunt shapes; the ground was charred and dormant; the very trees themselves were scorched and seared about their trunks, and their lower branches withered, as if they had been assailed by some giant, unearthly force.

  The small party of ants picked their way wonderingly over the black earth between the sparse new shoots of greenery that were striving to rise in that blighted place. Eventually they came to an open clearing in the trees, where the sound and scent of water drifted as a cleansing strain from the far side. Like the wooded region the space was a ravaged spot, blackened and charred by some fearful holocaust, but the grasses were struggling to reassert themselves, the occasional hardy shoot of bracken or hesitant cowslip rising above the desolation, and on the farther side the barren skeleton of what had once been a gorse bush was showing flashes of green around its base.