by M. C. Planck
“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.”
5
JOURNEY TO THE CENTEROF THE EARTH
Christopher had done a great many stupid things as a young man. He had done a great many dangerous things since coming to this world. Standing in front of the dark hole in the ground, he reflected that this was surely the stupidest and most dangerous of them all.
Gregor was apoplectic. “Not even the dragon would be so foolish. What if they collapse the roof on your head? Does your rank let you breathe dirt?”
“The Lyre of Varelous can dig a tunnel as easily as it can build a fort. I will accompany my lord, as is my right.” Lalania was hiding her fear well. Christopher doubted anyone else could see it. Yet she was correct. No one else could use the lyre.
“Speed will be our defense,” Lord Istvar said. “We will not remain in one spot long enough for such a simple snare. We have here the greatest swordsmen in the realm. Ser Cannan, by virtue of the blade he bears, and myself, by virtue of the fact that the Saint has shot anyone who could challenge me.” At the end, Istvar remembered to be polite and turned to Christopher. “And yourself, of course.”
Cannan was having none of it. “Saint Christopher only defeated you by magic. He will have better use of it than sword-slinging today.”
The red knight was right. Backed by healing spells, the two warriors could destroy an army, as they had demonstrated at the bottom of the sinkhole. Christopher healing the two men was a better use of resources than Christopher turning himself into one of them for a short while.
“My bow would be of limited use,” Einar said, “yet you may find my skills helpful. I will accompany you, with your permission.” The Ranger wore a pair of short swords and was seventh rank. He was almost as dangerous as Istvar.
“I don’t want to strip the camp of all rank,” Christopher said.
“Why not?” Karl shrugged. “They will concentrate their attacks wherever you go. They will not turn on us until you are dead. We are only treasure to them, not a threat.”
So simply had they deprived Christopher of his greatest asset. A few tunnels under the earth and his scientific revolution was reduced to a side-show.
Friea shook her head. “You underestimate yourself, Goodman. Their champions remain underground out of fear of your fire sticks. Were Christopher interested in a war of attrition, you might well win it for him.”
“The price of occupation would be paid in corpses,” Istvar growled. “I am not willing to bleed my counties for such an end.”
Nor was Christopher. If he spent all his tael raising dead soldiers, he’d never gain in rank.
The Skald acquiesced gracefully. “By your leave, my lord, I will remain above and put my talents at your General’s disposal. If nothing else, I will be able to communicate with you through Lalania.”
“Okay,” Christopher said. “So it’s just the five of us.”
“Six,” Gregor interrupted. “I’m coming with you.”
The man was as competent as Cannan, although he lacked the advantage of the royal sword. Still, Christopher had planned on leaving him with the army.
He started to say this but stopped at the look on Gregor’s face. The truth was that the army did not need him. Karl was their undisputed commander, and Disa was their chief healer. Gregor was as outdated and useless as the rest of the knights. He had only a single rank of priest, the rest of his ranks being in the warrior class. The army already had a dozen first-rank healers.
“Okay,” Christopher said. “The six of us.”
The Rangers had found an entrance a few hundred yards into the forest. It had the look of regular use, so they chose it instead of going back into the sinkhole. After moving aside a few bits of brush apparently intended to disguise the entrance, Christopher and his party stood facing a wide tunnel that appeared to be plastered in concrete and sloping down sharply.
Walking into the darkness of the goblin keep had been hard. This was harder. The smell of dirt was borne out of the tunnel on a surprisingly warm breeze, rising an atavistic fear of being buried alive in his throat. The scent was tinged with acid, calling to mind the clicking mandibles of impossibly sized insects. Walking forward felt like walking into a nightmare.
“Not this again,” Cannan grumbled.
“It’s not as bad as the goblin’s,” Lalania said. “This spell only bars against chaos. I presume Duke Istvar will not even notice.”
“Notice what?” the Duke asked.
Lalania did not answer. She was staring at the ground, an actress preparing for a dramatic entrance.
“The rest of us will require some degree of healing on the other side,” Einar suggested.
“Perhaps,” Cannan said, and stepped forward, crossing an invisible threshold.
Nothing happened. Cannan looked at Christopher and shrugged minimally. It was an awkw
ard moment, like walking in on a man in the bath.
Gregor grimaced and forced himself over the same edge. Golden mist wreathed over the knight for an instant. He turned around and thrust his hand back across the border.
Disa, white as a sheet, crept forward and touched his hand. She spoke a healing spell softly.
Einar strode across, suffered the same mist, and bowed in appreciation to Disa while extending his hand for healing.
Christopher steeled himself and followed. The pain was only a portion of the goblin’s version of this spell. Disa replenished his tael with a single spell.
Lalania and the Duke came across, both free of mist.
“I don’t like this,” Christopher said to Lalania. “Drop your guard and let Disa heal you. Get it over with.”
“You forget your exalted rank,” she answered with a provocative smile. “This would still slay me instantly.” Then she ignored him to fiddle with her new toy, a gift from Einar: a hooded lantern, although powered by a lightstone instead of whale oil. It cast a roughly focused beam of light sixty feet like a spotlight. Christopher felt bad for not having invented it, but he had thought of the lightstones as magical rather than physical sources of light. It had not occurred to him that their light could be reflected and directed.
Istvar and Cannan were advancing side by side into the dark, not waiting for the lantern. Cannan’s sword glowed as brightly as a torch when he wanted it to. Christopher and Lalania had to hustle to catch up with them, Einar and Gregor bringing up the rear.
Fifty feet in, they came to a branch. Cannan jerked his head and led Istvar off in the new direction. Christopher started to follow, but Einar stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Clear . . . I think,” Cannan called out.
The rest of the party followed his voice into a large room packed with black barrels and a cupboard. It took Christopher a moment to resolve what he was looking at.
Ants. Half the size of the soldiers, with mandibles no larger than his hand, stacked six deep. In the midst of them was a boxy, square-headed ant the size of a tractor. It looked like a piece of farm machinery more than an ant. A specialized creature, bred for a special purpose. If Christopher squinted, he could see it as a weird version of a combine harvester.
One of the lesser ants trembled. Its mandibles clacked once and then went silent again.
“I believe we have found their peasants,” Einar said. “I regret my earlier disregard; they look somewhat more disconcerting than I had anticipated.”
“There must be a hundred,” Gregor whispered. “Why aren’t they attacking?”
“Why bother? We would easily destroy them,” Istvar answered. “The queen acts with due regard for the lives of her subjects.”
“Then ask, why are they here?” Einar asked. “Instead of fleeing deeper into the tunnel?”
“An offering,” Lalania said. “She hopes we will take their tael and be satiated.”
Istvar frowned in disappointment. Lalania took pity on him. “It is still wise. It spares the rest of her subjects and, not incidentally, allows her time to prepare an attack. Such as this one.”
The floor trembled slightly under the weight of soldiers rushing up the tunnel.
“My comment was meant to be rhetorical,” Einar complained, letting the knights charge past him.
Istvar and Cannan threw themselves against the flood. The ants charged four abreast. Only the strength spell Christopher had cast on the two men allowed them to hold the line. Their glowing swords swung and swung, throwing up ant parts in their wake. Limbs, claws, mandibles, parts of heads, and whole heads in a spray.
“Watch the rear,” Einar said, leading Gregor past him. Lalania did something with her lantern, and now it cast in all directions, like a normal torch, although with only a normal radius. Still this was better for close-quarter sword fighting. The Ranger and the knight took up places behind the first two men, just in time. Another wave of ants came crawling on the ceiling, trying to flank the front. Einar and Gregor fended them off at sword point. One fell from the ceiling onto Cannan. The red knight shrugged, flipping it off in front of him, and then cut it in half.
Christopher forced himself to turn his head and look at the worker ants. They remained still, cowering in their hovel, like any peasant. He could not wholly quell a pang of sympathy.
Lalania looked at him and rolled her eyes. “Fear not. They will give you cause to regret your kindness soon enough.”
After a moment, it was all over. The flood vanished, leaving the hallway choked in insect corpses.
“It’s now or never,” Cannan said. “Standing here to collect our treasure will only result in worse.”
“Okay,” Christopher said. Cannan and Istvar took that as a command and ran farther down the tunnel, wading through the corpses like snowplows. Lalania focused the light forward again and followed. Christopher had to rush after her or be left in the dark.
Again Einar and Gregor brought up the rear. They traveled another hundred yards, the tunnel curving and twisting. Two more branches led off into rooms full of ants. They ran past them without stopping.
“Three, two . . . One,” Einar said, counting down on his fingers. The ground trembled above them.
“Did they . . .” Christopher asked, not really wanting an answer.
“Yes,” Lanalia said. “Do not worry. The lyre will reopen the way in but a moment when we choose to leave.”
“Assuming you are still alive,” Einar said conversationally. “No offense, Minstrel, but I would have preferred the company of the Skald.”
“A tale I have heard my entire adult life,” Lalania said sweetly. “And yet, in the clutch of darkness, one woman is much like another.”
“That’s not true . . . ,” Gregor started to argue before he thought better of it.
Another ant attack spared them all the pain of conversation. This battle was short, the swarm of ants drying up quickly. Around the next curve, they discovered why. The tunnel branched three ways, but each branch was half the width of the main tunnel. The men and ants would have to travel single file now.
“Left,” Einar called out.
Lacking any better choice, Christopher nodded his assent. Cannan moved forward, but Istvar blocked him with his steel shield. The red knight let the Duke go first.
A dozen yards on, Istvar dropped to one knee. The ants came at them on two levels again, one line crawling on the ten-foot-tall ceiling and one line on the floor. Istvar held back the press with his shield, slowly dismembering the ant in front of him. Cannan knocked them off the ceiling, the glowing sword slicing the creatures into segments.
After a moment, the tunnel was too choked with bodies and parts of bodies for any more ants to get through.
“Back out. Take the center passage this time. And run!” Einar was issuing commands like he knew what he was doing. Christopher was grateful for the reprieve. However, it meant the Ranger and Gregor were now the front of the column, running single file down another tunnel. When they encountered more soldiers, Einar did the brunt of the work, chopping through the ants like a blender. Gregor, behind him, merely had to deal with the ones clinging to the top of the tunnel. Even so, Einar advanced so quickly he could not keep up. Several ants slipped past the blue knight’s blade. Lalania ducked and squealed, bouncing the light crazily, while Christopher hacked desperately. Finally, he realized all he had to do was keep them off the woman. Once they slipped past, Cannan and Istvar easily plucked the ants from the ceiling.
Their impetuous advance paused when the tunnel opened up again to wider dimensions.
“If you don’t mind,” Einar said politely. His leather armor was rent in a dozen places, marking where ants had bitten, stung, or clawed him. The man had fought without thought to defense. Christopher consumed several small spells restoring the Ranger’s tael.
“What next?” Istvar asked, reclaiming the front of the party.
“They have lost at every martial encounter.” Einar answ
ered. “They will try magic soon.”
The tunnel had a gentle slope. The party followed it down, ignoring the smaller tunnels branching off the sides and occasionally the ceiling, moving at a fast trot. Their armor jingled, a cacophony of bells. At one point, Gregor tried to quiet his metal scales with one free hand, but Einar shook his head. “Don’t bother. The ants are deaf.”
“So they don’t know we’re coming?” Gregor asked hopefully.
Einar almost laughed. “They feel your movement through the ground. Every step you take is a clarion trumpet.”
Suddenly they were engaged; ants swarmed from every tunnel on all sides.
“Keep moving,” Einar warned. “To stand is to die.” Then he turned around and jogged backward, his twin swords already engaging ants. Gregor had to do the same.
Explosions rang Christopher’s ears. Lalania was shooting ants off the ceiling with her pistol. In the close confines of the tunnel, the sound reverberated, damped only when it washed over the mass of ants.
“If they can’t hear us,” she shouted, and then shrugged, reloading while juggling the lantern and jogging.
Christopher waved the smoke out of his face and tried to decide what to do. Einar had emphasized the importance of momentum. The party was moving slowly, the men in front fighting fiercely to advance, while behind Einar fought defensively, merely trying to hold the ants at bay.
“Hold up,” Christopher ordered. Istvar sheltered behind his shield while Cannan took a half-step back, the better to use the big sword for cover. A breath later, a column of flame roared down, filling the tunnel but not spilling out along the confined space as real flame would.
As soon as it vanished, the men rushed forward, crunching over burnt shells to claim the twenty feet of cleared space, and threw themselves against the ants behind.
Christopher thought about doing it again, but the battle was over. A few ants stood their ground and died to Istvar’s and Cannan’s blades while the rest fled back into the side tunnels. The swordsmen let them flee, jogging down the tunnel as fast as their armor would allow.