Wild Wastes

by Randi Darren

  A soldier ant no less. A damn Waster soldier ant wandering around in a field.

  The breastplate was flat and colorless, matching the color of the ant’s abdomen. The head was covered in a helmet that covered everything and had two holes for the antennae. Shoulders, arms, and hands were also covered.

  He’d have to work hard to get his saber through the armor. Really hard. Or find a joint.

  Then the ant was on him, thrusting forward with a spear it had kept close to it’s side.

  Flicking his saber to the side he deflected the spear and sidestepped the charging ant soldier.

  Spinning damn near in place it turned and slashed at him with the spear.

  Dodging the strike with only inches to spare Vince closed in on the bastard. Looking to lop off an arm and end this quickly he whipped his saber in a horizontal slash at the hand holding the spear.

  Only to have it deflected by said spear.

  Then the soldier ant leapt backwards, revealing Fes charging towards it’s last location.

  “Damn him, I’ll kill him!” Fes shouted turning to chase after the soldier.

  Vince flanked out to the side of the ant, keeping his saber low and out in front of himself.

  Reaching behind himself towards his abdomen, the ant dropped his spear into what looked like a holding cradle strapped to it’s body. Then withdrew a different weapon.

  Fes was on him in a heartbeat, spinning her large blade in a wickedly fast slash.

  The ant deflected it lightly and lashed out with a counter. Fes blocked it head on and stared up into the helmeted face.

  Two scythe like mandibles slid out of the helmet.

  Realizing what was happening Vince sprinted forward.

  He knew the outcome though if he failed. The ant would bite Fes, effectively locking her in place. Then Fes would die, because that’s when the stinger would come from below.

  A normal every day ant’s poison wouldn’t kill. Painful to be sure, but not lethal.

  But a Waster ant? A Waster soldier ant? If that stinger landed it’d be death.

  The mandibles came down, snatching Fes’ shoulder and the abdomen of the ant curled slightly. Then the soldier started to stretch it’s six legs, giving it additional height and room to spear Fes with it’s stinger.

  As the abdomen shot forward, Vince managed to wedge himself between it and Fes. It slammed into him with the force of a horse’s kick. The stinger embedded itself in his side and he felt the venom as it was injected.

  Fes freed herself from the ant’s bite with a blow from her hilt, the mandibles vanishing back inside the helmet. Stumbling backwards the soldier’s stinger withdrew.

  Standing up and charging forward Vince slashed left then right. Parrying both attacks the ant focused in on him even as it was pushed backwards under his attacks.

  Vince felt his heart hammer in his chest as the poison flooded his system.

  Snarling Vince went aggressively on the attack. Slashing, thrusting, and slicing at the ant he kept it moving back.

  He had to admit that the soldier was skilled. Very skilled. Vince was only a fraction faster though the ant was considerably stronger.

  Catching a lucky break the soldier mistimed a parry by only a millisecond. It gave Vince a chance to slap the blade clean out of the soldier’s hand.

  The soldier leapt towards his weapon as it bounced over the grass. Vince followed and lunged forward, looking to drive his blade into it’s abdomen.

  As if sensing his attack the ant sidestepped and surrendered it’s chance to regain it’s blade. Instead it pulled it’s spear back out and went on the defensive.

  Using the spear as a prod it kept Vince out of reach while continuously retreating.

  “Why aren’t you dead?” asked the soldier, his voice deep and hollow sounding from inside his helmet. There was a strange quality to the voice. Like the words were being forced through a mouth wired shut.

  “Welcome to your nightmare,” Vince said with a grin and swiped at the spear.

  Fes and Meliae were trailing along the sides and a bit to the rear. They were trying to outflank the soldier but the constant movement made the maneuver take longer and longer.

  One of the antennae bobbed once, the other oddly still and hanging limp.

  “This one yields,” said the soldier. In one motion it stabbed it’s spear into the ground and then held up it’s hands. With a slow motion, it lowered itself down to a height equal to Vince’s.

  “What?” Vince demanded in a heavy breath, his saber hovering point first in front of him.

  “This one yields.”

  “I heard you the first time,” Vince growled out, unsure.

  “Then why do you ask for clarification?”

  “I… because.” Vince shook his head, his anger and adrenaline rapidly cooling.

  “Because why?” the soldier asked. It settled itself down on the grass completely, it’s head now barely reaching five feet.

  “Because you don’t just yield after trying to kill me,” Vince declared.

  In his head it sounded better before he said it.

  “This one tried. Failed. This one yields.”

  Fes came stomping nearby, her sword held at her side and ready to be swung around.

  “Fes… hold. He yields. I guess,” Vince said. Not quite willing to accept it, he kept his sword out.

  Soft footsteps came up behind him. A soft hum of curiosity announced the person behind him as Meliae. “Yield? I don’t understand.”

  “Nor I but… here we are.”

  “This one yields.”

  “So you’ve said. What… what were you doing out here?” Vince asked, licking his lips.

  “Hunting.”

  “Hunting? The cow?” That didn’t seem quite right to him. A soldier ant was a ferocious thing that could tackle and eat a bear.

  “Yes.”

  “Why a cow? That seems… below the worth of a soldier ant.”

  “One antennae is damaged. This ones ability to stalk, hunt, and track are… poor due to this,” droned the soldier.

  Vince digested that bit of information. Things started to make a bit more sense to him. He’d noticed that one antennae hadn’t moved much.

  Ants relied on them a great deal. It helped them scent out other ants, the situation, and those around them.

  At least what he could attribute it to. Based on what he was hearing now and what he saw, it sounded like they did considerably more.

  “Don’t you have a nest? Couldn’t they patch you up? Pretty far afield for a single soldier ant,” Vince said. Lowering his saber to his side he watched the soldier intently.

  “Dead”

  “Dead? An ant colony? I’ve seen several. They’re not easy to exterminate.”

  “Dead. Flood. Collapsed many tunnels. Elves came. Killed all remaining and the queen.”

  “Clearly not all, you’re here,” Meliae said, stepping up beside Vince. She had her staff out in front of her, the iron shod tip pointed towards the ant.

  “Ordered to live. This one lives. This one yields to you. Likely you will kill this one. Order met, loss in battle. Death. Duty met.”

  Vince thought on that one. He was sure to the soldier it made sense.

  To him it didn’t.

  Then again, a few months ago I’d have already killed him and moved on.

  He could order it away and to harm no other humans. If it swore an oath he’d believe it. They were notoriously rigid on duty and honor.

  Such an oath would be a bit of a death sentence though. A soldier in this condition without a nest wasn’t likely to survive.

  What if I order him to follow me instead?

  This would be the test then he supposed. He couldn’t stand the thought of putting a collar around the soldier. It would stand against everything Vince believed in. Even when he simply killed Wasters he’d never liked the idea of enslaving them.

  The alternative was again a death sentence.

  “As the one w
ho defeated you, what if I requested you to serve me?” Vince queried.

  “This one would serve. You who should be dead.”

  “What, your venom? There’s very little in the way of poisons or venoms that would actually bother me. I’m sure I’ll get a pretty bad case of hives and a rash in a bit but… that’s beside the point.” Vince sheathed his sword and shook out his arms and shoulders.

  “You are skilled,” said the soldier ant.

  “That tends to be the case when you practice often and live by your sword. Meliae, can you fix his antennae?” Vince asked the dryad, turning his head to the side to regard her.

  “Easily but… is this wise?”

  Vince turned back to the soldier ant.

  “I would have you serve me. That or I’ll grant you mercy and send you on your way east, demanding that you trouble humans no more. I’ll have your decision. Now,” Vince demanded.

  The ant’s hands slowly fell to his side, the head bowing under an unforeseen weight.

  It’s options were clear and simple.

  “This one will serve you loyally in whatever way you deem fit,” whispered the ant.

  “Glad to hear that. I’d rather not send you to what I consider a death sentence so… that’s a load off my mind.”

  He meant it too. It’d be nothing short of having taken the soldier’s life himself.

  “Take your helmet off so Meliae here can fix your antennae. Can’t have you working at fifty percent. What’s your name by the way?” Vince gestured at the ant with one hand.

  Reaching up the ant soldier pulled off his helmet and wedged it under his armpit.

  Her armpit.

  “This one is Petra, master,” said the female ant soldier.

  Blonde hair cut short stuck out in nearly every direction. Plastered with sweat and tangled from the helmet it looked like threshed wheat.

  Human looking eyes watched him. Haunted and a little glazed over.

  Crystalline blue in color and utterly unreadable. Her face was remarkably human. She wouldn’t be called pretty or beautiful by anyone anytime soon. She was no Meliae.

  Her lips were slightly parted, her face slack and her eyes partially lidded.

  Before anyone could say or do anything further, Meliae had stepped up and laid a hand on the damaged antennae. They came out from the soldier’s temples and this one hung low across her brow.

  Several seconds later and the antennae started moving again.

  The lack of focus in Petra’s eyes cleared up as the antennae raised to the height of the other. Her brow smoothed and her lips pressed together in the barest of smiles.

  Huh. She’s cute when she doesn’t look like a wax statue.

  “Are you his servant?” Petra asked, her head swinging towards Meliae, the antennae dipping twice at her.

  “Second wife, actually. Fes, the Orc over there, is his first,” replied the Dryad, pointing to the warrior.

  The blonde head turned around to regard the Orc. Blue eyes scrutinized and picked apart the Orc rapidly. In return Fes gave Petra a smile that bordered on a sneer.

  Petra dismissed her almost as quickly as she’d put her focus on her. Petra turned her head back to Vince.

  “What would be your will at this time?” asked Petra.

  Vince took a moment to collect his thoughts before responding.

  “We’re on a Ranger contract right now to stop the attacks here in the farmlands. How long have you been out here?”

  “This one has been here for two weeks.”

  Vince nodded and scratched at his jaw. That left everything still up in the air with the other livestock deaths.

  “Alright. We’ll camp out for the night,” Vince said, nodding his head. Turning to Meliae he gave her a small smile. “Meliae be a dear, would you please give me your collar? We didn’t bring any extra. You’re the one most likely to be confused with a human in comparison to Fes and Petra.”

  Meliae gave him a grin in return. “Oh? Does that mean I get to play the human wife accompanying her dashing Ranger husband? Perhaps I hail from an exotic location in the far north east?”

  Reaching up she unbuckled her collar and then held it out to Vince.

  Taking it from her hands he turned to Petra again.

  The soldier ant regarded him with a strange countenance.

  Ignoring that, Vince stepped in close. With a few deft movements, and explaining as he went, he’d fit the collar around her throat.

  Lifting it once he let it fall into a normal position.

  “Keep it on whenever we’re out and about. You can pull it off when we’re at home,” Vince clarified, stepping back from the soldier ant.

  “This is a fake collar?” Petra asked, one hand raising to touch the item in question.

  “No, it’s a real collar. I’ve depowered it though,” Vince explained absently. “This location is good enough for a campsite,” Vince said, looking around them.

  Petra nodded at that.

  “This one will collect her gear. After that, this one will be ready to serve her master.” Petra said. Her legs extended and she powered straight upwards.

  Vince had to look up at her as she now stood six and a half foot tall. Petra then clapped her helmet back onto her head.

  Skirting around him, Petra quickly picked up speed and and was off and moving away from them.

  “Interesting. I hear that they have human anatomy downstairs as well,” Meliae murmured. Vince looked over to her to catch a smile spreading over her face.

  “Should kill her,” Fes muttered.

  Vince sighed and pressed a hand to the back of his neck.

  Fes hadn’t beaten Petra. If anything she lost to her. Lost to her and Vince had put himself in a position to cover for her failure. He didn’t have to think very hard on the fact that Fes probably felt angry at the situation.

  He could only imagine the soldier ant being female would complicate things further.

  “I wonder if it’s true. Do be a dear, husband, and let me know if you find out,” Meliae said with a humming noise. She lifted her staff up and lightly prodded his lower abdomen.

  Fes’ face cleared up a fraction, her eyes becoming thoughtful.

  Dismissing all of it, Vince took a seat on the grass right there. Most of their gear was stabled with the horses in the farm owner’s barn.

  Which meant they’d be sleeping under the stars with nothing but the sky for a blanket.

  Vince started to scratch at his forearm, then the backs of his hands.

  He was breaking out in hives.

  Chapter 10

  Under the light of a new day, Vince’s plan hadn’t changed.

  Vince set the map down on the grass and smoothed it out. With a grunt he settled down in front of it.

  “Removing Petra from the pattern,” Vince started. He began dropping small stones on each of the locations that attacks occurred that hadn’t been Petra. “We’re left with the following.”

  Placing the final stone in place, the pattern was now very clear. Every location that had been hit was part of the Kingdom of Portland.

  There wasn’t a single farm hit in the Kingdom of Washington. There were multiple farms hit right across the border, but nothing in Washington.

  In fact…

  “If you look at it, it’s almost as if it started at the border and worked it’s way south, then east, than back north,” Vince said aloud, turning his head one and then the other.

  A waster wouldn’t care about boundaries. Nor would any normal beast.

  “So?” Fes asked.

  Meliae pointed at the line separating the two kingdoms. “This is the border?”

  “Yeah. Portland and Washington. All part of the west but separate kingdoms. I guess you could call the whole thing an empire then,” Vince said.

  “Mother used to tell me stories of Orc clans that had problems with infighting. One warrior would fight the other for a wife, only to lose a different one to someone else. Could this be the same? Two kingdo
ms fighting without soldiers?” Meliae leaned her staff against her shoulder and turned her head, staring at the map.

  “Very possible. Rangers don’t get involved in internal affairs, but we’d have to prove it was an internal affair first. Which would probably put us directly in harms way and making us the enemy of one kingdom of the other. I mean, who really wants to get their covert operations called out on the mat. Might also explain the Ranger disappearances and failed missions.”

  Vince frowned and rubbed his finger tips against his chin.

  A long pale finger pointed at the most recent attack site. Vince followed it up to find the unarmored Petra leaning over the map.

  In direct sunlight, unarmored, and holding herself the way she did, he’d never figure her for a waster.

  She had an athlete's figure with just a hint of curve to her. Her hips were wider and her chest fuller than Fes’.

  Her face had a definite cute quality to it, especially when she smiled. You could almost mistake her for a normal human.

  Well, from the nether regions up at least.

  Below her private parts and beyond, her skin became dark, segmented, and firm. It was still warm flesh, soft, supple to the touch, but hard underneath. Hard like rock.

  Her legs were only a touch thinner than a humans though twice as long. Her ant abdomen that came out behind her by only a few feet.

  Her armor and weapons were self made. Much to his chagrin, they were things she’d made from the carcasses of fallen ant soldiers. Friend and foe alike.

  Vince didn’t know it for certain, but he got the impression she had been among the fighting elite of her race. There was no distinction in job duties from male and female in ant colonies.

  Only that there was a queen at the top.

  Looking at her species differently, she had an almost centaur look to her. Except that fact that her lady bits were human rather than a horses.

  Centaurs are strange like that.

  He hadn’t realized any of this about Petra until he’d woken up and found her splayed out on the grass, completely nude. Inadvertently giving him an easy view of her genitalia

  Then again the night previous had been mildly embarrassing for him. Smarting from her loss to Petra Fes had claimed him roughly and mounted him in front of the ant soldier.