Prophets of the Ghost Ants

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  Terraclon was paralyzed. What to do? If he ran, his back would be filled with arrows. If he sat, his shield would be torn to pieces and leave him vulnerable. He was praying when the shield was picked up by a barrage of arrows and blown over his head. He scrambled to a corpse to use as his shield. It soon filled with arrows and was hacked to pieces, but at least he was still alive—this was little comfort when he turned to his left and saw a small ant with a giant head. It was a brown stinger ant, and it jerked up and ran when it caught the roach oil on his skin.

  Terraclon gawked at Hulkrites and ghost ants, which were suddenly overwhelmed by thousands of the harvesters’ stinger ants gushing from the east like a mudslide. So this is what Anand wanted, he realized, to herd the ghost ants to Seed Eater country and draw them into the war! Low and agile, the stingers swarmed through the ghosts and overwhelmed the Hulkrish infantry. When the stingers attacked, they grabbed a Hulkrite by the neck with their pincers, and then bent their gasters to pierce him through his stomach or buttocks. The injection turned the victim’s blood into a paste that would not flow. Bodies of the stung Hulkrites went rigid as wood and their eyes popped from their sockets and burst.

  The ghosts attacked the brown stingers, which evaded the larger ants by crawling onto them, ten or twenty at a time. The stingers bit into the ghosts’ chitin to anchor themselves, then plunged their gasters to puncture and pump the ghosts with the fatal coagulant.

  Terraclon and his fellow survivors stood firm as a wave of brown stingers scurried near, sniffed roach scent, then raced away to attack the ghosts. As Hulkrites fell to the brown ants, Terraclon saw their chance. “Run!” he shouted, and the defenders retreated north.

  As the Hulkrites struggled to combat the stingers, the Seed Eaters released their next wave of ants. These were giant brown soldiers with formidable pincers, but their real weapon was a noxious spray from enormous gasters, which they held upright and shook. The spray carried on the south wind. Ghost ants whose ventricles absorbed it vibrated in place, then suddenly stilled. All through their ranks, Hulkrish men were dizzied and fell to the sand in coughing fits.

  The Seed Eaters’ human army appeared last. They rode magnificent brown strider ants, made even taller with the addition of stilts to their legs. Atop the ants, bowmen aimed down and picked off the Hulkrites stumbling in retreat to complete a rout.

  In the west, human blood blinded Yormu as arrows of every size flew at the line. He did not have a free hand to wipe at his face and he dropped his blowgun. As he stumbled forward, he realized his shield was no longer locked with the others. The blood that blinded him came from the headless necks of the soldiers on his right and left. Their corpses slumped to the ground to drain.

  Yormu knelt to pray when the Hulkrites advancing ahead of their ants fell to an abrupt onslaught of tridents hurled from the west. When Yormu cleared the blood from his eyes, he saw thousands of new attackers surging on his right.

  The Carpenter nation had entered the war.

  High on their massive wood beetles, Carpenter squadrons were lurching into battle to hurl their tridents, shoot their arrows, and wield their stone hammers. Hulkrites ran to mount their ghosts and retreat but the ants would not obey as they were drawn to the beetles’ scent. The beetles kept their low, almost invisible heads to the ground. The ghost ants bit into the beetles’ backs but the effort was futile as the chitin was hard and greasy and their heavy paddle-like legs rooted in the ground and prevented them from being flipped over. The men atop the beetles protected themselves with thick shields that deflected even the largest and sharpest arrows as well as the mandibles of the ghost ants.

  Smaller ghosts crawled onto the beetles to attack their riders but these ants met with stone maces that shattered their mandibles or smashed through their skulls. The larger ghost ants were targeted with tethered tridents that had reversed thorns, and when they were yanked out, the wounds they left gushed with green blood. Hulkrish soldiers met with the same fate as their chests were pierced by tridents that were yanked back to rip out their hearts and lungs and rib cages.

  The laborers were cheering the Carpenters when suddenly their tridents and arrows flew at them, too. “Retreat!” came the call across the west. Yormu and the laborers had no choice but to run from the Carpenters and let them fight the war.

  Pleckoo was giddy with ecstasy, until he received reports that his western and eastern divisions were retreating to the center. Both had suffered tremendous casualties at the hands of the Slopeites’ neighbors. The Second Prophet’s joy flipped to fury and he felt heat pounding in his face. “That roach-eating brat—he planned this! For the first time I am proud to have him as my cousin,” he muttered to himself. “After I subdue the Slope, I will destroy their neighbors.”

  When his rage subsided, Pleckoo was heartened to learn that Anand’s triumphs had come at a terrible cost. Survivors of his army were fewer and far distant. Without ants to ride, they could not regroup with the central divisions protecting the Petiole. Pleckoo smirked to remember that Tahn had defeated larger nations with fewer ants and warriors.

  Pleckoo looked to the moon and saw it had floated low to the western sky. Night was leaving. Pleckoo’s force would still be overwhelming but they would have just enough darkness to combine and attack and avoid a daylight battle. His confidence grew as confirmation of his numbers trickled in. They were facing just a puny army south of Palzhad, a force with no ants and very few roaches.

  “We will march up the Petiole and destroy what remains of these pests. Palzhad will be ours before dawn,” he shouted to his messengers. “Advance!”

  The captains saw their Prophet was smiling. Soon his glee had infected them and banished any doubts. A short time later, Pleckoo was thrilled when the tail of his column came close enough to see Palzhad, so famed for its decaying beauty. Though its crystal palaces were caked with ancient grime, it glittered prettily in the moonlight. Soon the extermination begins, thought the Second Prophet.

  Anand also checked the moon’s position, then looked down at the ragged divisions bravely waiting to meet an unbeatable force. The laborers could already hear the rumblings of the Hulkrish army as they descended from their ants to advance on foot. The laborers knew the unthinkable had happened, that Hulkrites were pouring up the Petiole and little stood in the way of their taking Palzhad. When the Hulkrites became visible, Anand saw they were still as numerous as the stars above.

  The Hulkrites’ foot soldiers approached in a spearhead formation. Their outer-line pushed the baited bow-sleds that drew out the last of the laborers’ roaches and soon destroyed them. The laborers’ darts would be depleted after taking on this front line alone.

  Anand spoke without emotion to his relayers. “Divisions twenty and twenty-one are ordered into an immediate retreat north,” he said. “All will do what they must to save their own lives.”

  As the message shot down the ladders, Anand picked up his luminescent flag again. This time he looked into the bortshu tree on his left as if appealing to his god. He waved the flag three times as the laborers ran north then dropped his head.

  The relayers stared at Anand, who was all too still. Was he praying? As the Hulkrites marched closer, they chanted all of Termite’s names in a round. Anand left his trance and turned to look at the relayers.

  “Good laborers,” he said to with a tremble in his voice they heard as cowardice. “You have been brave soldiers in this war. For your own safety, all of you on these ladders are to climb down and retreat into the weeds.”

  The ladder messengers passed these words among themselves. The two at the top were preparing to descend when they heard a faint and melodic buzzing. They looked up to see bright orange wings and enormous eyes of shining black that reflected twin moons.

  A night wasp.

  The relayers dove for the floor and muttered their prayers as they clutched the platform’s splinters. They peeked up to see Anand had not dived to the floor with them but stood with opened arms to the wasp, welco
ming his own destruction.

  When the buzzing grew faint, the boys stood and caught a glimpse of Anand’s cape as it flapped from under the flying predator. Once the boys had recovered, they descended to pass this message: the Dark-skinned Savior has given up and surrendered his life to a night wasp.

  All across the Slope, fleeing relayers passed the message that the war was lost and the Hulkrites marched on Palzhad. The ghost ants would soon be ravaging the country and no human or ant would be spared. Ants inside the border mounds had realized the war was lost and sprayed abandon-scent as they gathered eggs and larvae and pushed their ant queens out of their chambers and down to a pointless refuge.

  Evacuation of the humans followed. Hundreds of thousands fled north to risk lair spiders and tree cannibals and throw themselves on the mercy of the Dranverites. The royals set out on sand-sleds, bringing as much of their treasure as possible. Since team ants had been lost in the war, low-caste Slopeites were granted the privilege of hauling the surviving nobles to the north.

  Polexima fought with Trellana when the latter picked up a whip to lash at the humans lugging their over-packed sled. It was weighed down with chests of gowns and jewelry with which she simply couldn’t part.

  The Hulkrites had not found Anand atop his platform. Captives swore that Vof Quegdoth was last seen in the clutches of a night wasp. When Pleckoo heard the report, he rejected it. I know he’s alive. I will hunt him in the country north of here. Anand will bear the shame of revealing my next conquest to me, this place called Dranveria!

  Pleckoo and his captains were reaching the southern weeds of Palzhad when the entire procession halted. Suddenly the ghost ants clustered tightly. Their gasters were up and shaking with warning-scent as their antennae rose in unison above them. Pleckoo assumed his ants had encountered a last reserve of roaches and ordered their destruction.

  In the stillness, the Hulkrites heard a strange, almost musical buzzing from over their heads. From the front of the procession came screams of terror.

  The Second Prophet and his captains felt a light powder filter onto their hands, and when they looked to the sky, their faces were dusted with it. More and more of it was falling now. Pleckoo wiped the powder from his mask and saw that it was reddish, like powdered blood.

  The ghost ants’ antennae lashed and snapped. They were maddened by the falling powder. Trapped by their own numbers, they scraped against each other and tangled their legs. Their heads jerked in circles as their mandibles widened and stilled. They scattered from the column or knotted in masses.

  As Pleckoo’s giant ant jerked and spun, he heard a symphony of buzzing. The sky filled with a spreading blur of flame-colored wings. Those who had survived the fire of the Madricanth effigy were afraid that a second one had been unleashed. What they saw now was far more frightening.

  “Night wasps!” screamed the men.

  All along the chain of the procession, the warriors spread flat on their ants or slid under them. Pleckoo and his captains stayed seated and stared at the threat. “Hulkro tests the faithful!” he shouted as the wasp swarm lowered and circled his officers.

  Night wasps do not fly in formation! Pleckoo thought. The captains clutched at their chests as a sudden storm of darts rained down and pierced their armor. How? From whom? As the wasps whirled lower, Pleckoo’s mouth opened in shock. Every vein in his body pulsed with dread.

  Men were riding the wasps.

  The Hulkrites were horrified into silence followed by whimpering and screams. Mostly, though, they were all too stunned to act. Pleckoo’s campaign disintegrated before his eyes bulging through the holes of his mask.

  One of the wasp riders circled Pleckoo. Behind the pilot was a stripe-faced man in blue mottled robes and a cape that fluttered behind him. When Pleckoo caught the man’s eyes, he saw it was Anand, grinning as he aimed a dart that grazed Pleckoo’s shoulder. The Hulkrish captains abandoned their ants. Some clenched their teeth to stop their chattering. Others wet or fouled themselves as they were bandied between the ghosts’ legs.

  Pleckoo sniffed the red powder on his arms as the howls of his men filled the night. The red powder stank of leaf-cutter kin-scent. “That roach-shit!” he shouted. “Anand has bombed us with the scent of our ants’ enemy!”

  The Second Prophet looked out at his sea of ravening ghost ants, which identified the Hulkrites as leaf-cutter ants. Within moments, thousands of warriors were attacked by their own insects and torn to pieces or swallowed whole.

  “Remove your armor and your garments!” Pleckoo shouted to his captains. “Wipe that powder off you!”

  But it was too late. The antennae of Pleckoo’s own ant had sensed enemies were on her back. Just as he was stripping, the ant rose up and tried to shake him and his bowmen off. Pleckoo used his tunic to wipe at his skin when he saw the wasps returning.

  “Arrows!” he shouted to the archers. “Aim for the wasp riders!” At this point, Pleckoo could only hope that he still had men around to hear his commands. Most of the bowmen had left their saddles. They climbed down the hooks of the ants’ legs and fumbled to draw their bowstrings.

  Anand looked down as arrows flew, most without aim from the jumble of ghost ants, most of which were attacking each other. Pleckoo’s arrow pierced the wing of Anand’s wasp, then shattered his armor to puncture his shoulder. As a fierce pain throbbed through his arm, Anand wondered what had cut through Dranverish armor. His wasp weakened on its wounded side and soon its wing went still. It tumbled into the ants, which scattered from its scent.

  Anand rolled to the ground and found himself near his cousin’s mount, where a cluster of Hulkrites ran towards him with swords. Anand drew his own and in a singular swing of his arm, severed the head of one attacker and then sliced off the arm of a second. A third attacker ran from Anand into the legs of the largest ghost ant. Anand looked up at the giant’s head where he saw Pleckoo on top of it taking aim with a bow. Anand deflected the arrow with his sword, then stared at his cousin, their eyes locking.

  Time slowed as Anand had a strange and sudden remembrance of Pleckoo, when he had been the most hopeful and handsome boy in the midden. For a moment, Anand was crushed with pity for Pleckoo and identified with the hatred that had driven his attack. No time for this now, Anand thought, as Pleckoo reloaded his bow. The night wasps lowered and encircled Anand, forcing Pleckoo’s ant to flee.

  “Commander!” shouted a pilot to Anand, extending his hand. Pleckoo released his arrow from atop his racing ant. The arrow missed as Anand was yanked up and onto a wasp. He clung to the waist of the pilot who steered them away from a barrage of Hulkrish missiles.

  Anand plucked out the arrow from his shoulder and turned to look behind him. The giant ghost was racing south, but Pleckoo was not on it. Was he on any of the ants speeding south? Anand wondered, as the wasp rejoined the swarm.

  “Formation up,” Anand shouted. The wasps spiraled out of reach of the deadly arrows. “Head north, then turn south to assume the repelling formation!”

  Every last Hulkrite had given up the attack and most of their ghost ants were dead or occupied with killing each other. Thousands more, who had escaped the powder, were running north. The night wasps swept over them, then turned and gathered in a chevron above the ghosts’ column.

  Anand led the wasps into a low flight over the ants, driving them east, then south. Wasp-scent forced the ghosts into the poisonous waters and sticky lumps of the Tar Marsh. Other ants scattered up and over the jagged boulders in the west before re-forming into broken columns bolting south.

  The moon had grown orange and faint, just avoiding the fangs of Mother Sand. Anand knew his battle was incomplete if he did not vanquish Pleckoo and the surviving officers that might rise up and take his place. “Formation south,” Anand commanded. The squadron soared over the ghosts retreating to the Dustlands.

  Laborers hiding in the weeds emerged as the few surviving Hulkrites fled back to the south on their ghosts. Using the last of their darts and arrows, the
laborers picked off straggling riders and cheered as they ran out to stab and stomp on them.

  Above in the sky, Anand did not cheer. A grievous melancholy blew through him like cold wind in a cave. Spread below him like the bulky fibers of some rough cloth were dead insects and human corpses. None of these dead would see the New Country or the Promised World. Anand sighted a cluster of a hundred naked riders speeding on the giant ghost ants of Hulkrish officers. He sensed the Second Prophet was among them.

  We end this now, cousin.

  Pleckoo’s latest frustration was that the ants on which he and his surviving soldiers had fled were uncontrollable and frighteningly swift. They had been driven too far east, to the shores of the Great Brackish Lake. The last of the Hulkrish officers would have to detour alongside the water before going south again. He looked up in complete exasperation to see the night wasps gliding above them, herding them farther south. Why don’t they just kill me now? Pleckoo thought when he saw ahead of him a second cluster of ghosts and their riders. Pleckoo reached the tail of their parade and saw Captain Aggle. “Aggle!” Pleckoo shouted and his captain slowed his ant, his eyes wide and blinking to see the Second Prophet was still alive. “I have one last command for you, Captain,” Pleckoo shouted. “Do you still have faith?”

  Above them, the wasp pilots readied their blowguns. The last of the Hulkrites had veered left to Jatal-dozh, and were racing to its opening. Anand reached for one last dart dipped in something more awful than yellow jacket venom. As he pondered the dart’s intended target, his mind turned again to memories that sundered his already tender soul.