by Joel Babbitt
Lord Karthan nodded his head. “I have to agree. However, I do think we can form a line. But we will have to put sizable forces on our flanks, and prepare to fall back into one large circle.”
As Lord Karthan looked around the circle, he could see that there were no other ideas among them.
“Very well,” he said. “Khazak and I will form the center of the line with the thirty Kale companies. We will do it in three lines of ten companies, or about three hundred and fifty kobolds each.
“Out in the open?” Lord Krall asked, skeptical as always. “But what of the dragon?”
Lord Karthan nodded. “Aye, the dragon’s out there somewhere, but what choice do we have? The only way we can fight this many ants and have a chance of winning is if we bring our archers into the fight. We’ll have to risk the dragon reappearing suddenly, if we’re going to get those crucial volleys of arrows in.”
Lord Krall wasn’t happy with the answer, and after a moment he growled in frustration. “Lad, I hate to say it, but you’re probably right… or at least I see no other way.”
“Well, then,” Lord Karthan continued, “if you will, Lord Krall, your forces form our right side.” Lord Krall just nodded his frustrated acceptance.
“Krulak and Jominai,” he said, looking at the two Kobold Gen leaders, “your warriors with spears can form up next to my warriors, on their left side. I want your one hundred cavalry on the right flank, protecting Lord Krall and his warriors.” The two Kobold Gen leaders nodded their agreement.
“Khazak, send a messenger to tell Lord Sennak of the Deep Gen that his forces will take the left side, and to tell Durik to take the left flank, to protect the Deep Gen’s forces.”
Khazak seemed uncomfortable. “Sire, Lord Sennak is dead. It seems that they’ve decided that the outcast Kale is going to be their new leader.”
Lord Karthan stared at Khazak Mail Fist in surprise, almost as if probing him for more information. When Khazak shrugged, Lord Karthan just shook his head.
“Send a messenger to Kale, then,” he said, “and to Durik.”
“And what of… those,” Krulak of the Kobold Gen said, pointing at the orcs. “What do you intend to do with them?”
Lord Karthan thought for a moment. “We could use their strength. Krulak, as you pass by, tell them to form up in a group between my Kales and the Kralls. And Krulak, show them where that is, will you?”
The Kobold Gen leader nodded, then all leaders moved off to begin the movements necessary to make the plan happen.
Soon, as ant warriors continued to mass by the hundreds and then by the thousands at the bottom of the slope, the kobolds of the Kale, Krall, and Kobold Gens began to form up in ranks at the top of the slope with the orcs in one ill-fitting mess in the middle of them. The field was huge, however, and the entire line of kobolds and orcs barely extended from the tree-covered low hill on the right to the berm-like hill on their left, with their cavalry riding cover on both flanks.
As impressive as the almost three thousand kobolds and one hundred fifty orcs assembled there that day were, however, as the ants continued to gather into the field from their dispersion in the woods, the kobolds realized that they were far outnumbered.
Then, as if the almost ten-thousand warrior ants and the thousand or so worker ants were not enough, from the trail in the woods a massive six-legged creature larger than the dragon broke through the trees into the clearing. Its legs and segmented body were immense, its mandibles were like giant barbed scythes, and its eyes were full of hate and pent-up fury.
The ant queen had arrived.
Chapter 17 – The Ant Assault
“Drink water!” Khazak Mail Fist called as he trooped down between the first and second lines of Kale Gen companies. The call was quickly echoed by the second for each company, and all up and down the line kobolds nervously put shield and spear, bow and arrow down and unslung waterskins they had filled in the broad, shallow lake back at the Picket Line a few bowshots behind the hill they stood on.
“That’s it, suck it down!” Khazak called. “Breathe deeply now, warriors! Get ready for them! Loosen up a bit! It’s going to be a long afternoon, if the ants have anything to say about it!” As he called out to them, the kobolds on the line began to stretch and loosen up. The small break was all that several of them needed, the look in their eye changing from one of tensed stress to one of focus.
“That’s it, warriors!” Khazak called, then moved on to the next company. “Drink water!” he called, as behind him Lord Karthan and his small group of personal guards and messengers watched toward the front.
“Trallik,” Lord Karthan turned his gaze away from the slowly advancing ants for a moment.
“Yes, my lord,” the young warrior stepped forward.
“Trallik, run a message to Gorgon up on Great Bow Hill,” Lord Karthan said. “Tell him to watch our flanks, and to blow on the ram’s horn if he sees us being flanked on either side.”
“Aye, lord.”
“And Trallik,” Lord Karthan added as the young kobold was turning to leave, “tell him to see if he can pierce the armor on the ant queen.”
“Aye, sire,” Trallik answered, then turned and ran for all he was worth toward the tall stone hill.
Lord Karthan watched the ants for several moments as they reached the mid-point of the slope. They were traveling slowly up the slope, and he didn’t understand why. Then, against the foreground of the advancing tsunami of ants, the dragon chose that moment to take flight and, from not terribly far away at all, the dragon turned in mid-air and began heading toward the battle.
All up and down the line, the kobolds of all three gens saw the dragon at the same time, as did the ragged little band of orc survivors. Wailing and mutters of frustration could be heard from the line about Lord Karthan. True to form, however, the sub-leaders and seconds of each company quickly quieted the fear in their ranks. Panic was a poison that, if not dealt with, would spread quickly and kill them as surely as dragon’s fire or ants’ mandibles.
Lord Karthan looked from where he stood in the very center of the entire line to the right. The hundred orcs gathered together in a group next to his three lines of almost a thousand total kobold warriors looked out of place, as they surely were. He didn’t know what he’d do with them after the battle, whether to let them live or die. But that wasn’t a choice he had to make yet.
Beyond the orcs on the right, the Krall Gen stood with their Heavy Guard in a line to the front. Their forward-curved, heavy chopping swords rested on the shoulders of the heavy hide armor they wore. These were mine-workers, and a rather muscular lot. Directly behind them were the Border Guard with their short bows and short swords, and behind them were the numerous Archer Guard with bows that were as tall as them, and arrows that were of equally long length. Lord Karthan nodded. They would do well in the coming battle, especially with their volleys of sharp arrows.
Far to the right was the Kobold Cavalry contingent. They stood nervously milling about in the trees on the right flank where the hill bordered the broad, flat battlefield. He didn’t know these kobolds. They had the equipment, wearing chain mail, with spears, shields, bows, and swords, but whether they would stand or not, that was a different question.
On his left, the young leader caste from the Kobold Gen, Jominai by name, and his second Marbo, sat on their wolves in the midst of the four hundred levies from the northern gens. Lord Karthan shook his head. They were a hope at best, not a solid force to be relied on. Their spears were of mixed quality, and the few Kobold Gen leaders they had showed no confidence in them by staying mounted, as if to quickly run away.
Lord Karthan had had his wolf led away. It showed his warriors that he shared their fate, that he would not abandon them.
Beyond them were the five or six-hundred remaining warriors of the Deep Gen and the outcasts. Their skirmishers were out front with javelins, and the rest of them lined up in three lines behind them. They were truly a battered lot, having left hundred
s of dead on the battlefield, and having drug a couple hundred wounded up to the clearing on the crest of the hill. But for all that, it had been them who had borne the brunt of the orc horde’s assault, and they had done it without wavering.
That Lord Karthan could respect.
He hoped that, at the end of this, they would join with his gen. Warriors of that caliber would be a very valuable asset.
Far away, on the extreme left flank, Durik and his fifty or so remaining Wolf Riders stood beside their mounts. As he looked down the line, Lord Karthan could see the young leader caste, the one who had found the Kale Stone, who had been called to be a Paladin of Morgra, who had led his company through more danger than most saw in their entire lives. That was a leader if ever Lord Karthan had seen one. He would watch that one with great interest for the rest of their lives.
Which could be very short, Lord Karthan reminded himself as he looked back down the slope to the mass of ants surging up the hill now. He had not noticed it before, but the ants did not stop at any of the bodies that were strewn along the slope, orc archers mostly who had died when the Kobold Cavalry turned against them. That was strange for ants, who he had always heard would stop for food whenever it presented itself. As he looked closer at them, he thought they looked hungry yet determined, as if their queen had driven them far without much to eat.
The mass of ant warriors was probably three bow-shots away when, all of a sudden, he heard the snapping of a large machine from above him on the left, followed almost immediately by another.
Suddenly, a pair of spear-sized arrows flew through the air. Gracefully from such a distance, the two Great Bow missiles slowly arched downward, their deadly tips forward. As the entire line watched the progress of the two bolts, they slowly came down in line with the front ranks of the ant line. With swift, extreme violence, several ant warriors in a row were thrown backward leaving only a mist of red blood in the air where they had been. Behind the point of impact, one of the bolts had tumbled sideways upon impact, knocking almost fifteen ant warriors flying, breaking legs of those around the three who had been skewered as the three dead warriors flew threw the ranks of their fellow warriors. The second missile had not tumbled on impact, but had gone straight through five warriors before staying in the sixth.
The ant warriors, silent until now, began to chitter. It started at the point of impact, then spread rapidly throughout the entire ant force. Soon, the entire mass of ant warriors were surging forward with their front set of limbs raised, slashing at the air with their arm-spikes and chittering away behind mandibles that opened and closed as if lusting for the blood of those who stood before them.
On the far side of the orcs, the Kale Gen’s Archer Guard were firing already. Their long, elegant arrows arching up in one large mass, coming down to rain death upon the lead ants of the horde. The ants were so tightly packed together that well over half of the arrows hit, leaving scores of ants dead or writhing in agony on the ground.
“Arrows!” Lord Karthan raised then dropped his sword to signal, as there was no way he could yell loud enough to be heard far over the chittering of the ant horde. As he had instructed them, however, the sub-leaders of each company relayed his commands. Soon, all along the Kale Gen line warriors raised bows, all but the first two lines who stood behind spear and shield waiting to receive the ant charge. By companies the Kale Gen warriors fired off volley after volley. And with each volley scores more ant warriors went down.
By the time the ants reached the point where they could charge, the ranks in front of the Krall and Kale Gens were attritted down to a mere fraction of what had been there. Now, the outcast skirmishers in front of the Deep Gen warriors threw two volleys of javelins, and the orcs threw whatever they had, rocks mostly, before lifting axes as well. By the time the ant line charged the kobolds, thousands of arrows had been fired, and a thousand or more bodies littered the field. Though it thinned their lines, the ants marched relentlessly on, then charged.
All up and down the line, kobold warriors braced for impact. Final volleys were fired by those too close to the action, before dropping bows and picking up spear and shield. Lord Karthan looked up and down his line. Khazak Mail Fist had rejoined him during the volleys.
Like the waters of a tsunami striking the shore, the ants smashed headlong into the first lines of his warriors. Blood splattered all along the line as ant warriors were impaled on the spears of the first line. The initial shock of the spear-line did nothing to stop those behind them, however. Like frenzied berserkers, the ant warriors climbed over their dead or dying companions to get at the spears and shields of those beyond.
Most of his warriors were able to get their spears free in time to skewer the next ant in the wave, or the warrior behind them was fast enough to cover for them. But here and there a warrior’s spear was firmly stuck, and the warrior backing him wasn’t fast enough, and the ant warrior would be able to land a blow with its spiked forearms, or latch onto the kobold warrior with its mandibles.
The company of warriors that were directly in front of Lord Karthan began to be pushed backward, the sheer weight of the hundreds of ant warriors almost trampling each other to get at the kobolds was just too much for the kobold shield wall.
“Keep up the volleys!” Lord Karthan yelled. His call was echoed by sub-leaders up and down the line. Companies which had paused in wonder at the spectacle of death just to their front snapped out of their stupor to rejoin the hundreds who were pouring arrows into the mass of ants, plunging their fire just behind the front lines.
The volleys were helping tremendously. Just as the ants seemed about to push through his line in one place or another, the pressure would let up just long enough for the warriors of the shield wall to begin lining back up again. The seconds of the various shield wall companies took advantage of the slight lulls to pull wounded or dead warriors from the line, or to push new troops from companies behind them into gaps that were developing in their own companies.
Durik was glad to have Ardan’s team back with him. Though Ardan had been delirious when he’d been brought to him, Myaliae’s ministrations had brought him back and mostly to normal quickly enough. That he’d lost his right horn was a certainty, however. No healing potion would grow that back, and time wouldn’t do it either.
As they stood in the woods watching the giant mob of ant warriors slam first into their Kale brothers in the center, then the northern gen levies closer to them, and finally the right half of the Deep Gen warrior line just to the right of them, Durik looked over at Keryak, his best friend from a childhood that was only two weeks distant, yet ages ago.
“You, Tohr, and Kahn still sure you wanted to join us?” Durik asked, only half-joking.
The twins both looked at each other and shrugged. Keryak, on the other hand, shook his head. “You know Darya would never forgive me if I let you get killed,” he said.
“She’d never forgive me if I let you get killed, either!” Durik retorted.
“Well, I guess we’ll both have to live, then,” Keryak answered, as if it were a decision they could make.
After a moment of watching the ant horde begin to expand outward and closer to them, Durik began to see Deep Gen warriors going down; at a much lesser rate than the ants they were fighting, but their shield wall clearly was not proof against the ants. In this battle, as in every battle, there would be no guarantee of survival.
“You know, Keryak,” Durik spoke. “I think the ants get a vote in this one.”
Keryak turned as if stunned. “Not if I have anything to say about it!”
Durik turned to Manebrow on his other side, who was also watching the ant warriors with intense focus. Breaking his concentration for a moment, he saw the question in his leader’s eyes and nodded.
“Well, Keryak, we’ll see if we have anything to say about it or not,” Durik said then held up his spear. “Riders!” he called. “Follow me!”
The Wolf Riders dashed forward in one body, the weight of the
ir mounts adding much momentum to the weight of their charge. The mass of ants was beginning to spread out mindlessly to envelope the kobold line, a thing Durik could not allow. With spears, swords, and shields raised, the small body of wolf-riding cavalry smashed into the outer areas of the dispersed ant flank, mowing down many ant warriors in succession and causing the rest to begin to recoil back toward their companions in the main column.
The young kobold leader then led his small cavalry group back up the hill to the place where they had started, where they all pulled out bows, focusing on the several stragglers who were still attempting to go around the kobold flank and to cover the retreat of a pair of their companions whose mounts had been killed in the charge.
Before long, the flank was again secure. Durik and his little band of wolf riders had succeeded in keeping the ants attacking the main kobold line and not coming around behind their line.
He knew it was very temporary, however, and in fact could see the next group of ants begin to break out from the main group to surge toward the woods as if to come around behind the line. Lifting his spear again, Durik prepared to lead another charge to continue to shape the enemy’s attack to their advantage.
With blood on his sword, and a grin full of malice on his face, Shagra looked down the slope from where his many warriors were slaying the ants by the score. The battle was going well against these wolf-sized ants. They were easy to kill, exposing their thin necks as they tried to bite him and his orc warriors, unable to reach them with the short spikes on their arms, and charging forward without heed to their own safety.
But now, as he looked down the slope, Shagra face changed from one of dominance to one of fear; the ant queen was coming directly for his part of the line.
The earth shook as the massive creature’s spiked legs smashed whatever was in her way. Her eyes were wild with anger and malice. Her mandibles, great blades of chitin, scythed through the air as they opened and closed. Her armor was thick and covered with small spikes. It was clear to Shagra that she would instantly dominate the field wherever she went… and he didn’t know if he and his orcs could stop her, or if his warriors would even try.
