The Oarsman

by Zubin Mathai

During the hours it took the two ants to reach the eastern wall, the worker could hear echoes of creatures calling this canyon home, but she never once heard her friend, the lion. She knew his roar had been silenced, and that silence spoke the loudest sacrifice for her she had ever witnessed. She could not comprehend it fully, so all she could do was weep for the love offered from a giant beast, letting tears fall as glisten onto the petal in her mouth.

  As they began climbing the wall, the winds intensified, and the pair gripped to the rocks for their lives. When the soldier slowed, because her legs were not as strong as the worker’s, but also because of the poison inside, her friend took the lead and helped her along. They crawled over the lip onto the eastern plain, and the worker thought she heard a buzzing beneath. She looked over the edge to clearly see six wasps trying to fly against the ferocity of winds.

  “That one will never stop,” said the soldier over the roar, “It will not stop until we or it is dead.”

  Just as suddenly as the wasps had appeared, they disappeared, and the ants stepped closer to peer down. They saw the wasps land and choose to walk up instead of fly, and with their angling heads and bodies into the wind, they were making steady progress.

  “We have to go!” yelled out the soldier.

  The ants tried running, but the winds up here were too strong, and the petal in the worker’s mouth became a burden. It flapped and twirled, aching to be set free, but the worker was not ready to let it go. Even as the soldier pulled ahead, and the worker was almost lifted off the ground, she only squeezed her pincers tighter around the pink.

  “Let it go!” shouted the soldier. “You have to let it go.”

  Home and freedom were so close that they were tinting everything before her, and the worker did not want to see the world amber and washed-out again. When she noticed her friend tumble and begin sliding past her, she had to act. She opened her jaws and grabbed her friend, using her worker strength to pull them both to a nearby rock.

  The now-free petal flew high, and in a bit of cheekiness, almost dipped back into the canyon, before arcing up over the ants towards the east. The worker whispered a goodbye in her mind, as she followed the splash of color against the awakening blue. When the pink disappeared, she caught sight of something in the distance: a line of black.

  She grabbed the soldier and pulled her along until the winds spread out across the land and the ants were able to walk easy. The line of black grew to a scurry of six-legged shapes. One of the black shapes put down a piece of a berry it was carrying and spoke. “Hello, strangers. We’d not expect to see other ants so close to that windy canyon. In any case, welcome to the great colony of the eastern plain.”

  “I only ask that we can stay here,” said the soldier. She and the worker had been brought by the ants into their nest, deep underground, and into the royal chamber. The queen of this colony towered over the guards ringing her, and she stood silent. Back to her timid ways, the worker was cowering behind her friend, staring wide-eyed with a trembling hope as the soldier made their plea.

  The queen finally spoke, and her terse sentence shattered the worker, “It is rare for ants to take in other ants into their colony.”

  Looking around at the soldiers standing guard, including a large one with a red scar down its spine, the worker didn’t care that these ants mirrored the stolid look of their queen. They were only potential sisters, the first she had seen in weeks.

  Finding courage to speak, the worker thought of the petal, and even blurred her eyes to picture it. She then stepped out from behind her friend and began retelling their adventures. She spoke of the tree with swarming beetles that helped her cross a chasm, and the coyote pup that showed her a giant, pumping ant bathed in starlight. She spoke of the lost tarantula, the dancing deer, and the canyon filled with winds and life, and when she finished speaking she noticed the queen did not look so scary anymore.

  “And I have gone through all that,” said the worker, “just to find a new home.”

  “That is fascinating,” answered the queen, taking a few steps forward to look over these two strangers. “I have never heard a tale of adventure like this before, especially from ants.”

  As her little friend was speaking, and the queen was looking them over, the soldier had crouched further and further down. The poison was winning out, and she could feel it tightening her joints and burning her abdomen. It was as if that wretched evil was seeking out her scars too, for she could feel it mocking her missing eye, the scratches on her body, and especially the place where the wasp’s stinger had grazed her.

  “We would be honored if an ant such as you, little worker, would join our colony,” the queen finally said.

  When the queen began inspecting her, the soldier averted her gaze in shame, for she knew she was not the best of specimens. She tried to stand up a little taller, but the poison inside would not let her.

  “And you, soldier,” said the queen, “one so scarred must have seen tremendous battles and survived. We would be tenfold as honored to have such an experienced soldier in our midst.”

  The worker saw her big friend smile, and she realized she had not seen her smile like that in much too long.

  Needing to be truthful, especially if these were now to be her sisters, the soldier cleared her throat and spoke up. She told the queen of the wasp and its new comrades trying to climb to the top of the canyon wall.

  The queen laughed, the first time the two visiting ants had seen her not serious, and she twirled around with legs wide, “Look at the size of this colony,” she said. “No wasp has ever bothered us in the years I have ruled, for our colony is so well-hidden that none could find us. In the impossible chance they did, we are so well protected by soldiers, tens of thousands of them, that no wasp would stand a chance.”

  “You do not know that wasp as I do,” said the soldier. “That wasp — that has now found five others for its cause — is crazed. It has a blood lust. As you said, my dear queen, I have lived through many battles. Each scar on me is a lesson learned. I only ask that you heed my warnings.”

  As the soldier persisted, the queen relented and agreed to send out a scouting party of soldiers. The soldier suggested twenty, but the queen countered with two. The soldier then offered to lead the party, but the queen refused upon seeing how weak and bent-over the solder was standing.

  “Let the scouts go and return to tell us there is no threat,” said the queen. “In the meantime, let me show you around this nest, its size, and fortifications, to put your minds at ease.”

  Apart from the long tunnels to the exits, the nest was a maze of chambers deep underground, all protected by a mass of dirt and rocks. The nest also had a top hole that exited to a space under a canopy of flat stones. The queen said she often stood there to look out over her workers gathering leaves and berries, or the soldiers training for battles that, thankfully, never came.

  “The only thing that will save us is that this colony is indeed well-hidden,” said the soldier. “But I beg you to be safe and begin preparations, just in case.”

  With wisdom and instinct convincing her, the queen agreed. The worker volunteered to lead a contingent of workers to do the tasks the soldier suggested, and when the soldier offered to help too, the queen again stepped in.

  “No,” said the queen, “use my lookout spot to observe.”

  “Yes,” said the worker, “you are tired from all our adventures. You should rest.”

  The soldier smiled at them both, but said nothing, and dropped her smile when the queen seemed so interested in the worker’s excited plans.

  With one hundred of the strongest volunteers, the worker led new sisters out into the fresh air. She made them collect dew from grasses to make mud to fortify the entrances. They piled pebbles against twigs to make traps and cut grass with pincers to create a forest of spikes that no wasp would dare fly through.

  With a lightness of step the worker commanded, fawning over sisters who, in turn, fawned over her lead. She laug
hed with some and answered questions about her adventures with others. At one point, she was so happy that she did not notice her antenna had made her go in a wayward circle. She froze in her tracks and looked around at the ants nearby.

  None laughed, none teased, they only marveled at how fun-filled and different the ways of their newest sister were. The worker relaxed and even ran in a few more circles, setting the others off into a chorus of joy. In all her time in the sun, the worker did not once look up to the sky for a petal or whisper, for she knew she had found her new home.

  When the worker returned to the nest, the soldier asked her to plan a new chamber for the queen to hide in deeper underground. Overhearing, the queen stepped up and declined in a booming voice. “I will not cower in the darkness,” she said. “I am the queen of these ants. If it came to war I would be watching over my children from my lookout, or even standing on the battlefield right next to them.”

  A day later, when the two scouts did not return, the queen began to wonder if the new soldier was indeed right. She sought the soldier out and asked her advice, but when the soldier said that they should stay put, for the nest was well-hidden, the queen refused. She gathered ten of the strongest soldiers and tasked them to find and kill any nearby wasps. The queen did not know, as she looked over the proud volunteers who had lined up before her, that none would return.

  Well into the second day of preparations, the worker and her new sisters picked up the pace, strengthening fortifications and restocking supplies. At one point, when the worker was surveying the lines, she spotted something in the distance. There, on the winds, was not the familiar pink, but a blurred line of yellow and black. She focused and stilled, and could make out six wasps zig-zagging over mounds of dirt next to the canyon.

  She told nearby workers to look, but none had eyesight as sharp as hers. She told them then to get quiet, to feel vibrations of the buzzing hit the ground and travel up their legs, but they only looked at her confused. No sister even wanted to scurry back to the nest when she implored them to run.

  Desperately jumping over piled leaves and pieces of berries, the worker dove into the nest and darted through tunnels to the queen’s chambers. A line of soldiers blocked her as she barged in, but the queen told them to let her through. The worker spat out what she had seen, and the queen, seeing the agitation in this little ant’s face, knew the sighting was true.

  The queen turned to the soldier and asked her advice, and one of the queen’s own guards, a grizzled commander standing next to her, the largest of the lower ants, with a red scar down its spine, looked away in disgust.

  The soldier was about to answer the queen, but when she opened her mouth the room started spinning. Something was grabbing at her from the insides, a prickly numbness, and her vision faded to black before she fainted. The worker ran over and tried to lift her up, and even the commander reluctantly offered a leg, but the soldier was fully unconscious.

  “She is tired and stressed!” yelled out the worker, trying to revive her friend.

  “Then she can rest, but I still need to make a decision,” said the queen, before turning to her commander. “What is your advice?”

  “I say we send out an army of one thousand of my soldiers to find and destroy those wasps — if they really are out there.”

  The worker, still holding on to her fallen friend, piped out in a panic, “My queen. You do not know me well, but I know my soldier friend, for we have been through so much together. She fought with this wasp before, so she knows its skill and tactics, and she has repeatedly said that this nest’s strength is in it being hidden.”

  “Then, little worker,” said the queen, “what do you think your soldier friend would advise?”

  “Send one hundred ants to the north,” answered the worker. “Send workers, and send them to a mound and tell them to gather food and look busy. They can trick the wasps into thinking that that is where the nest is. I know this wasp. I know it only wishes to battle soldiers, and it will leave those workers alone.”

  The queen looked over at her commander, and the commander seemed impressed, nodding faintly in agreement.

  “Fine,” said the queen. “We will try your plan. Now, go take your friend to an empty chamber where she can rest and recuperate.”

  Slowly returning to consciousness, the soldier had a half-waking dream. She was commander of a huge ant army, a force that was feared by its enemies and could easily win all battles for its queen. They were heavily decorated and praised, and when ants of the colony spoke of honor, they used those words interchangeably with the soldier herself.

  “Oh my, it good to see you awake, and even smiling,” said the worker.

  The soldier shook her head to clear remnants of the dream, and as she did, the waiting pain of the poison raced in to wipe her smile.

  “I fed you when you were out, nectar pressed from the berries of these fields,” said the worker. She made up for the soldier’s missing smile with a huge one of her own. “You were talking a lot in your sleep. I have never seen you so animated ever!”

  “There is a poison in me, and I do not know if I will recover from it,” said the soldier bluntly. She said it and then looked away at the dirt walls of the chamber.

  For a full two seconds, silence was the only answer, and so the soldier looked to the ceiling too.

  The worker had an intelligence, a creativity more so than any other ant, and she immediately knew what the soldier was talking about. She flashed back to that day on the sea of flat stones, the last day of their previous home. She remembered when she slapped a drop of poison from the soldier’s mouth, and even back then, wondered if any of it had passed her friend’s pincers.

  “We can get you help. We can cure you!” yelled the worker, as she frantically began pacing the room.

  “Help me by keeping my mind on important things,” said the soldier. She forced herself to stand, trying to show her friend that she still had plenty of strength and time. “How goes it with the queen? What is the situation with the wasps?”

  The worker knew that the best help, for now, was to let her friend be a soldier, and so she told her of the current plan. Quite proudly, she informed the soldier how she told the queen to send workers to the north as a diversion.

  “You fool-” shouted the soldier, and then stopped herself when she saw her little friend’s expression. “You smart fool,” said the soldier in a softer tone, “you do not know that wasp like I do. These soldiers here don’t know that wasp either. You sent workers out there, and the wasp does not care. It will kill them without a second thought, and even worse, it will torture them for the location of this nest. Soldiers would rather die than talk, but workers will spill.”

  The soldier took a few steps to the door but then collapsed. She struggled to her feet and motioned to the worker to help. “Quick. Get me to the queen, so that we can right this before it is too late.”

  They checked the royal chambers, but the queen was not there, so they went up to her lookout spot. They got there just in time — and yet a time still too late. As the queen was watching a line of workers collecting berries, the first attack came. Six wasps flew in, and their buzzing shook the pebbles and stones around.

  They flew in low and slow, and onto the line of ants they dropped their sisters, curled and pierced dead bodies of workers tortured exactly as the soldier had predicted. After the sick bombing run was finished, the wasps did not wait a second before stabbing every last panicked ant out there.

  The queen gasped and fell to her knees, and the soldier was right there to help her up.

  “Our hand is dealt,” said the soldier. “We have no choice, the battle has to begin now, my highness.”

  Looking at the soldier, the queen only saw a strong specimen, no hints of the soldier that had collapsed before, and both she and the worker did not know that the poison was letting her have this moment.

  An alarm vibration spread through the nest like lightning, passing from ant to ant, until th
e workers near the exits moved dirt and pebbles to seal them up. The queen gathered the troops in the vast network of chambers at the base of the nest, and she stood at front booming out words, telling soldiers that a battle was upon them and that they would soon earn their roles.

  Most of these soldiers had never seen fighting, and those that did had never seen a full-blown war like this. Whispers spread through the ranks, about not one wasp being out there, but six of them, with five being giants and the smaller one being crazed. It was understandable, when the queen asked for one thousand volunteers, that no one stepped forward.

  The commander with the red scar along her back moved next to the queen and tried next, calling on her generals and troops by name. While a few stepped forward, it was not nearly enough.

  Asking the worker for help, the soldier limped forward to the other side of the queen. When she was finally able to stand on her own she waved the worker away, and it took all her strength to summon a voice loud enough for the room.

  “Fellow ants,” said the soldier with a wince, “most of you do not know me for I am new here. Where I came from, the drought-stricken lands where food and water are scarce, we unfortunately knew too many battles. In my years I fought spiders and wasps, and even other ant colonies. I want each of you to look to your sisters to your left and right. I want each of you to know that when we fought, we never fought for ourselves, but for our comrades, for the weak workers who did their duty to keep us fed, but most importantly, for our queen.”

  The soldier looked to the queen, nodding at her smile, and then looked to the commander. The commander had a frown on her face, but, seeing that her troops were responding to this outsider, she stepped back into the ranks to give the soldier her time.

  “I also want you to know,” continued the soldier, “that from what I know of this wasp, you are not fighting a battle for fighting’s sake. You are fighting to survive!”

  It took some doing, but when the ants saw this brave soldier, barely able to stand on her own, willing to fight for this colony she had only just joined, they began stepping forward. Ant after ant, each one feeding on the courage from the last, took a step up and raised a leg, saluting the fearless soldier and their queen.

  The commander with the scar saw this unfold, watching it with her permanent frown. She stared not at the new soldier with the rousing words, but at her queen, and how she had such a look of admiration.

  “Death,” whispered the commander to the generals who stood near her. “This stranger will bring death to us. She will get us all killed.” And the generals nodded in agreement.

  The worker was at the front exit, supervising as other workers cleared dirt and reopened the way. She could see the wasps resting on the ground far away, their wings primed and their stingers thirsty for targets. The worker stepped aside and the soldiers marched out in single file. Their march was not boisterous, but solemn, with heads held level and not a whisper between them. They formed their lines, unable to take their eyes off the wasps’ incredible size, and held their collective breaths in unison.

  Up in the lookout, both the queen and soldier stood watch, and the soldier had her legs up in the air, directing in her mind where troops should be. She felt so powerless, resigned to waving legs in the wind instead of being down there, but the queen had forbidden her from fighting in her weakened state.

  They witnessed the wasps make the first move, as the enemy took to the air in a furious buzzing. Their wings excited dust and parted grasses, and they shot up towards the sun so that the lined-up soldiers couldn’t see them. The attacks were relentless, dive after buzzing dive, with stingers splitting bodies in two. Ants would have the advantage in tunnels and nests, but out here on these plains, with the sky the domain of the wasp, they had no chance.

  The worker peered out of the entrance, even as other workers begged her to let them close it up. She only stood numb, seeing the hope of a new home fade with every death. Bodies piled up and shrieks filled the air, as stingers pierced the bravest of the brave. As quickly as it had started, it was over, and the first battle was lost.

  Hearing of their sisters so heartlessly cut down, the second set of volunteers was easy to raise. They ached to go out and fight, somehow thinking that their rage and blood lust would now give them the advantage. The soldier insisted she go out too, and the queen relented when she saw how hopeless the tide looked. Even the scarred commander was out there with her generals, and she and the soldier stood at the front of a legion of five thousand charged and ready ants.

  When the battle resumed, the wasps were just as merciless as before, and they even began to relish this slaughter. Where was the resistance and challenge, they wondered, as they stung helpless ants into writhing piles. Soon, the green field turned black with the bodies of soldiers strewn as far as the queen could see.

  In the chaos of the battle, the weakened soldier was overwhelmed by the noise and stress, and the poison in her came back with a vengeance. Her head swirled, and she wasn’t even sure where on the battlefield she stood. The commander saw her state and ignored her, and even offered a faint smile when it looked like one of the larger wasps was diving for her. Soon, the commander thought, that outsider whispering poison in the queen’s ear would be gone.

  At the last moment, before the wasp could kill the soldier, it was blindsided by an attack from behind. It was not an ant that had struck it, but the small wasp, the one that had been dogging the soldier for so long. That wasp spat anger at its larger companion, saying that that soldier was hers alone. The smaller wasp then rose to dive with a fierce grin and her stinger glinting.

  With the soldier so disoriented, the wasp would have easily gotten this kill, if it were not for her sisters coming to the rescue. They surrounded their new friend and fought for her, raising up on hind legs and flailing desperately, trying to grab wasps with their pincers at every attack. Bodies continued to pile up, ants were sliced in two or pierced right through, until the soldier was the bottom of a mound of death and insulated.

  This battle was not as horrendous as the last, for one wasp had been killed. Almost five thousand ants to kill one wasp, that was how lopsided this war was. As the other wasps retreated to re-gather their strength and check their wounds, the handful of surviving ants brought the soldier inside and handed her over to the worker.

  The commander found the queen and gave her a debriefing, telling her that there was no chance they could ever win this.

  “Surrender,” said the commander, “that may be our only chance. Give them those two ants that the wasps seem intent on killing, those two who threw death and destruction on our doorstep the day they arrived.”

  When the soldier came back to her senses, once again the worker was caring for her in an empty chamber. The worker told the soldier of the queen’s intention, that she was — as they now speak — heading out to negotiate terms of surrender. The soldier jumped to her feet and gasped out in horror.

  Even with the poison curling her legs and burning her brain, the soldier tried to walk. She put on a brave face, bookended with a smile and her one eye, not wanting to show weakness even to her friend. Each of her pained steps was pumping the poison further along, but she did not care. Not another queen would die on her watch.

  When she finally could not take another step she crouched to rest and begged the worker to go help the queen. “Please, my little friend,” said the soldier, “we have been through so much together and I don’t think I’ve ever asked you for a favor. For all the times I’ve helped you, please help me this one time. Please go and make sure our new queen is safe, and this new home of ours does not crumble.”

  Out on the plain in front of the nest, the queen inched cautiously towards the wasps. She had her show of force behind her, ten thousand soldiers lined up and standing with their bravest faces. The four remaining wasps of the canyon, so giant and scary looking even to the large queen, stood motionless behind the smaller wasp as it walked forward.

  In the middle
they met, and the queen did not even wait for pleasantries. “We know you seek two ants in our midst,” said the queen. “Those ants are now part of our colony, and their sisters are ready to fight for them. We have twenty-thousand more soldiers in this colony, and you are only five wasps. Consider that when you tell me what it would take for you to leave.”

  The wasp smiled at this queen that only came up to its legs. She was brave at least, thought the wasp. It knew it could easily jump up and come down on her stinger-first, and then this colony would be disoriented and ruined.

  But, thought the wasp, there’d be no fun in that until I hear her vainly plead her case.

  “I may have come here chasing those ants,” said the wasp with a sneer, “but now I am here for everyone. You do not know me, your highness, and you will probably not live long enough to get to know me. I hate ants, all of them, workers, soldiers, and even queens.”

  The queen tried again to strike a bargain, and each time the wasp gave no accommodation or compromise, only its smirk. With each sentence back, the queen softened her tone, until she was on her knees, pleading for any solution that did not involve more fighting. To the end, she refused to give up the two new ants under her charge.

  The wasp was growing tired of this conversation and ached to kill more ants. In the midst of one of the queen’s pleas, without even a warning, the wasp thought now was the time. It churned its wings, shooting itself up into the sky, and curled its body so that its stinger pointed right at the queen’s head.

  Before it could impale her, a flash of black ran in, and the queen was snatched up into the air. The worker had run out, through the lines of soldiers and over the spongy grasses, right up to the queen to lift her above her head. Most any other worker would not have been so strong, but this special worker was protecting her new home and keeping a promise to a sick friend.

  Before the worker turned to run back to the nest, she made eye contact with the hovering wasp. The wasp recognized this silly little ant, with its lone antenna and eyes that seemed a shade brighter than the rest. The wasp knew that this bug was the best friend of that horrid soldier, and so it smiled at her. The worker saw that sick smile, and felt the energy behind it, knowing it contained a promise to never stop chasing until both she and the soldier were gone.

  The wasp did not even give chase. It only watched the worker run with the queen, back through the lines of soldiers and into the nest. Offering a happy cackle to the sky, the wasp waited for its four comrades behind it to take off. Ten thousand more bodies about to be piled up, the wasp thought, as it started dive bombing the charging soldiers below. This battle lasted longer, as the ants fought more fiercely, for they knew each battle was bringing them closer to either victory or colony-death. An hour later, one more of the fat wasps was dead, and so was every last soldier.

  The three remaining big wasps stood around the smaller one, as it started barking orders and suggestions. It said it was only a matter of time before the ants came out again from their nest, and that they should rest and regain their strength for when they do.

  “But,” said one of the other wasps, “did you not know that we wasps of the canyon can burrow? Why should we wait?”

  The small wasp froze when it heard this. It ran a leg over the now fully-healed scar on its wing, then turned to the dirt mound before it and smiled.

  “How is the pain?” asked the worker.

  “It comes and goes,” said the soldier, limping towards the door of the chamber they were in. “Thank you for saving the queen. I’d like to go check on her now.”

  “Once this battle is over, we will get you help. We will cure you.”

  The soldier stopped and turned to her friend, and she saw the little one’s innocent face, with her antenna curled over her eyes tinted wet with sadness. The soldier put on her biggest grin and patted the worker on the head. “Sure,” said the soldier, “we can do that.”

  The two ants just managed to reach the queen in her chamber when chaos exploded in the nest. The alarm was sounded, vibrations spreading through like wildfire, for the wasps had breached the colony. Guards around the queen ran to fight, and the soldier yelled at the worker to go too. After a flurry of scurrying, it was only the soldier left to protect her new queen.

  The worker ran through tunnels and around corners, racing to set off traps. She did not yet see the wasps, but she could see their trail, for dead and wounded ants were everywhere. Even when other workers finally caught up and helped, the worker still pushed herself to exhaustion. Water was mixed with clay to create mire-traps, and pebbles loaded into holes to create crushing traps. Even when her legs and pincers ached, she kept going, and when a sister told her to pace herself, the worker only turned with tears in her eyes.

  “I — we — cannot lose this home,” she said.

  The traps and fighting soldiers worked, for one more of the large wasps was killed. When the worker saw the soldiers chase the wasp and get it stuck in some clay, and then pebbles roll out from the wall to crush it, she did not rejoice like those around her. She only sighed out from exhaustion and picked up the wasp, bringing it to a chamber deep below, and then mumbling to her sisters that they must keep their nest clean.

  In the queen’s chamber, the soldier and queen huddled in the corner and listened to the thumps and screams of battle all around. As ants, they could feel the pounding vibrations speaking as clearly as language. They knew that those vibrations were twenty soldiers falling along a corridor three levels above them and that those thumps were a trap sprung of pebbles and spikes. They also knew that all the vibrations were getting closer.

  It was only a matter a time before the fateful moment. The soldier was relieved, letting out her breath as she steadied herself against the wall, that it was one of the large canyon wasps — instead of the crazed one — that entered the chamber. The soldier limped forward to put herself between the queen and wasp, but the wasp ignored that dying smudge of black and focused on the queen.

  The ceiling was too close for it to fly, so it tried darting to the left and right, but the soldier blocked it at every turn. Even as the poison ate her insides, the soldier found her strength, fighting for her honor and queen more than her own life.

  Scurrying vibrations came from the hallway, and the soldier knew help was on its way. Just as the wasp tried to curl its abdomen to sting the soldier, the red-scarred commander burst into the room. She took a second to scan the situation, seeing the cursed soldier trying to defend, and seeing the queen’s look of terror as she crouched in the corner.

  The commander ran forward and pounced on the back of the wasp, and her strength and surprise gave her the advantage. Her pincers found the neck of the wasp, and five powerful bites severed head from body. The wasp fell with a few convulsive buzzes, and the only thought that flashed through the soldier’s mind, before even relief that the wasp was dead, was that why could it not have been her that had been the hero.

  Stepping over the wasp’s body, the queen did not even acknowledge the soldier, but ran straight to her commander and gave thanks. The commander told the queen that it was time to sound the final alarm, that it was time to abandon the nest. The queen did not hesitate, knowing that this advice from her trusted, right-hand sister was the only recourse. She tapped out vibrations along the wall and floor, and the ants in the colony, those fighting in darkened hallways or cowering in corners, all knew that their queen was telling them to flee.

  The queen ran from the room, and when the soldier tried to limp after her, the commander blocked the way. “You stupid ant,” said the commander, now looking with pity at the spent and gnarled body before it. “Do you think you are worthy enough to follow my queen?”

  Straightening up, ironing out the pain from each joint by standing as tall as the commander, the soldier readied for a fight. She even managed a smile, for a part of her craved a battle, for fighting wasps or ants was easier than fighting the thing eating her from the inside.

  The commander only
laughed, looking at the one-eyed and beaten half-soldier in front of her, then turned to scurry away after her queen.

  At the back exit of the colony, there was chaos and death, as the final two wasps lay in wait. Workers were the first to flee and die, but when the soldiers emerged they were able to put up a better fight. They drove the wasps to a safe distance, to engage them there, while giving the rest of the workers and queen a chance to escape.

  The last to leave the nest were the soldier and worker, for the soldier was slow and the worker wished to wait until all her sisters were out. Taking a look at her home, a home now crumbled, the worker fell to her knees and began crying. It was a ghost home now, no lives or sisters inside, and it had come and gone just as easily as those petals on the winds.

  Seeing her sisters running towards the bushes at the edge of the plain, the worker grabbed the soldier, leaning her up against her own body, and began limping after the ants. “Wait for us!” cried out the worker, but her plea was lost in the sound of the buzzing and fighting behind them. She waved after her sisters, the ones she worked beside the last two days, and yet none of them turned around.

  The queen was the only one who had heard the tiny voice, and she stopped, along with the ring of one hundred guards that were surrounding her. Even as the commander to her left was begging her to keep moving, the queen stayed put, letting the worker and soldier catch up.

  “Please,” said the worker, “we are still a part of this colony, aren’t we? Can we not come with you.”

  The queen stayed silent for a moment and then stepped forward, reaching the pair and putting a comforting leg on the head of each. Both the worker and soldier knelt before their queen.

  “My little sisters,” said the queen in her soothing voice, “my only responsibility is to the remnants of this colony, and the hope that we can start anew somewhere. I am afraid I cannot let you come with us, and if you try to follow I will ask these soldiers to kill you.”

  The worker began crying, and her body retched at this news, at the universe giving and taking away a home and sisters so easily. The queen glanced at the worker, never before seeing water drop from an ant’s eyes like this, but she was more interested in the soldier. She stroked the soldier’s head softly, waiting for her to say anything, and when only a trembling silence was returned, the queen spoke.

  “What is on your mind, soldier?”

  The soldier looked up, no tears were in her lone eye, and she spoke faintly through the wincing pain, “My queen, I helped rouse and command your army. I sent my friend out to save you when you tried to negotiate. I tried to fight this enemy for you. I only ask — I only beg to know — in your eyes, do I have my honor.”

  The queen spun to look behind her, at her fallen colony to her right, the fleeing workers beyond, and the wasps and shrinking contingent of soldiers fighting to her left, and she said nothing for a while. Instincts in her, roiling up, were taking in the scene and screaming at her to run and restart the colony. She fought them to answer this broken soldier.

  “You are a soldier. You will always be one. You should be proud of that.”

  The queen then turned to leave, escorted by the commander and guards, but the soldier on the ground piped up. She bowed her head and spoke feebly, and her words were hands reaching out for others to hold. “But, my highness,” she said, “you did not answer my question.”

  The queen’s frown was replaced by a sigh of sadness, but she said nothing. She only fled with her guards, not even once looking back at the pair. The soldier collapsed to the ground and let out a wail, and it was the first time the worker had ever heard her friend cry like this.

  Two ants now lay crumpled in the dirt, one crushed and homeless and the other crushed with no honor. It was the soldier who stood up first, against the hole inside, and lifted her friend to her feet. She put two legs over the worker’s shoulder and begged her to help her walk. They needed to escape this place; they needed to live, to continue their mission, for it was all they had left.

  As they limped in the other direction, away from the dying battle and former sisters, the crazed wasp noticed them. Those two ants stood out, against the green of the field and layer of dead bodies scattered around, and even stood out against the fleeing queen and her guards.

  “You go end the queen, end the remnants of this colony,” said the wasp to the canyon wasp fighting beside it. “I have to go end a battle that started weeks ago.”

  sixteen

  Friends