Chapter 23

Edited and proofread by Oldfart and 2muchdiggity

The worker perked up at the faint vibration coming from the surface. It was still far away and stopped nearly as soon as she noticed it, but it was unmistakably coming this direction. The sound reminded her of just before their last harvest, though there were far fewer of the creatures. There was little she could do at the moment, harvesting the interlopers would be impossible right now. The rest of the colony had gone deep for the upcoming cold season and it would take some time before even a small hunting party would get up here to the newest gardening chamber.

She stepped out into the tunnel and waved her gaster in the airflow leading down into the depths of the colony. The large, oblong appendage sticking out from the base of her spine worked similarly to those of regular ants, releasing a scent telling the colony there was more food to be harvested. Hopefully, they would still be around when the soldiers arrived. She was tempted to send out a little bit of the emergency pheromone just to see if a few more of the queen’s beautiful army might come as well, but punishment for such a false alarm would be harsh.

The soldiers were so pretty, standing tall and proud with their small eyes and round faces. Instead of having mandibles by their mouths, they attached to a point up by their rounded, human ears. She wished she had ears like that, they seemed much more useful than feeling sounds through her feet and antennae. The soldier’s mandibles were shaped differently from hers and closed vertically, covering the bottom of their faces and making them look deliciously dangerous. They also had long sharp blades extending from the back of one arm while above their wrist a needle-like stinger was hidden behind a tiny hole in the tough chitin. The worker loved to watch as the armor covering a soldier’s torso separated to show the smooth and soft skin beneath. And their tiny gasters were so cute! Certainly not as useful as hers but they were able to produce the scents they needed, especially when hunting or fighting.

The worker had never seen a reflection but knew from her sisters that she resembled their tiny cousins. Personally, she hated her chitin-covered, teardrop-shaped head and with its large, multi-faceted eyes on either side. The two short antennae sticking out from the top of her head were cute though. Her scissor-like mandibles next to her mouth probably bothered her most, their placement and the extra muscles needed to use them barely allowed her to speak. A hard, black carapace covered her thin body and, though it had feminine curves, she knew that there was no soft skin beneath. Her outer shell meant that her middle legs weren’t specialized into moveable armor and the insectoid limbs were instead used as an extra set of long, extremely strong arms or legs depending on what she was doing. When not in use, the middle appendages moved back and out of the way, the knees coming up behind her shoulders as the longer, lower part of the thin legs crossed behind her back.

As beautiful as the soldiers were, they were nothing compared to the gigantic queen. Her size was only matched by her beauty. She could crush a worker if she accidentally stepped on one. She needed to be big so she could carry around her large abdomen which constantly supplied the colony with new eggs. The rest of her body was smooth and soft flesh, much like the soldiers’ torsos or the occasional human that they encountered.

The only thing she didn’t like about the queen was the royal guard constantly nearby, those huge red women terrified her. That was probably a good thing. Too many of the workers, herself included, would sit and stare at the queen’s beauty until they withered away.

The royal guard was also an uncomfortable reminder of what happens when you displease the queen. Though they were the champions of the colony, they weren’t natural. Workers who displeased or disappointed the queen were simply killed, but soldiers were barricaded into a room and ... changed ... into the red women. The transformation made them mighty soldiers but reduced them to a child-like intelligence, just enough to follow the queen’s commands. The worker preferred knowing she would simply be killed if she ever did something to warrant the queen’s punishment.

Her antennae twitched as she caught a scent wafting toward her from the vent at the far end of the tunnel.

A human male was coming. No ... two males were coming, along with two females.

A sense of longing that seemed to radiate from the bottom of her torso came from wanting desperately to experience something she never could. Where the queen and soldiers had openings to take the males inside them and collect their seed, she and the other workers only had smooth pieces of black chitin.

She once watched a soldier riding a male from their last harvest and immediately understood why they did such things in private. The sight left her, and the other workers who spied on the soldier with her, wanting to know that feeling. Once the woman collected his seed, she would take it down to the queen’s chamber and share it with their matriarch. The worker had never seen this process herself but understood that the queen and soldier would rub their openings together as the soldier attempted to squeeze the man’s seed into the regent. This didn’t make much sense with the size difference. By her estimation, a soldier could nearly fit inside the queen’s opening. She dismissed the thought; that was just silly. If the queen didn’t need semen at the time, she would have the soldier press her opening to the matriarch’s mouth so she could eat it as a meal instead. This was supposed to be a very pleasant experience for the soldier.

If a worker brought the queen a male, then she would often bestow a boon upon them. Her request would be to watch one of these sharings or feedings, it sounded like an amazing sight.

The worker ran up the slope, away from the garden, until she could feel the tiny vibrations in the earth from the group above. They were moving very slowly, but her antennae and feet were extremely sensitive. She moved along the wall of the large tunnel, looking up and marking their location until they finally stopped. Three were out front but another was standing alone, away from the others. Hoping her target was a male, she quickly and quietly began burrowing up and to the side. The tips of her antennae began to glow as the soil around her hands flowed down the slope and ran out of the hole as though carried by water. She was able to dig in near silence, other than crawling forward or using her insectoid middle legs to brace herself within the tunnel.

She stopped to get a read on her prey’s position.

A foot scraped across the ground above her and the worker lunged upward. Her innate magic caused the friction holding the dirt together to vanish and effectively liquified the soil beneath the human’s feet. Grabbing the leg of her shrieking prey, she quickly dragged the human down the steep slope. When the woman fell to the floor of the larger tunnel, the ant-girl darted around and cuffed the woman’s head with a chitin-covered hand to silence her. She immediately realized from the lumps on the human’s chest that this was not a male. The worker was disappointed, but it was still an opportunity. The colony needed to eat and there was still room in the garden chamber. She drew a viscous, sticky substance with strong healing properties from where it was stored in her gaster up into her mouth. Leaning over the dazed woman, she opened her mandibles wide and placed them on either side of her prey’s thigh. The colony didn’t need its food running away.

Kal slid down the tunnel and straight into the arms of the fighter.

“Don’t look Kal. Don’t look,” she said quietly.

The mage glanced up at her face. “Why? What happened?” he said, trying to get free. The woman was extremely strong with that belt of hers.

“They took her legs off.”

Kal stared up into the Falma’s face, unbelieving of what he just heard. “Ria!” he called, gulping hard to keep his lunch down. “Store the priestess’s legs.” Ria was off to one side staring at the macabre sight and waved her hand almost as an afterthought.

“Oh!” she exclaimed as the limbs turned into specks of light. “That’s a great idea!”

“What is?” asked Falma.

“Things come out of me exactly the way they went in. Without storing them inside me, there probably wouldn’t be any chance to reattach them.” The sprite made a face as it suddenly dawned on her that she had a couple of severed legs inside her.

“Is that the plan?” asked the fighter, looking down at the mage.

“It wasn’t, but it is now,” he said, stepping around the woman as she let him go and seeing a large pool of blood on the tunnel’s hard floor. “Ria is right, we at least have a chance of restoring them if she has them.” He looked over at the sprite, “Is there any way to store the blood but leave behind anything that got into it like dirt?”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Split it in two if that’s possible.” A plan was starting to form in his mind. He wouldn’t bet a copper on its chances of success, but it was better than nothing.

Ria retrieved most of what remained on the ground, splitting it into a bunch of smaller motes instead of just the two Kal asked for.

“Come,” said the fighter as the last speck of light floated into the pouch on the mage’s hip. “Kedder has a way to find the priestess and went on ahead.”

“Keeping tabs on her?” asked Kal, raising an eyebrow.

“If she dies, we die. He was just being cautious,” she replied. Further conversation was cut short as they began jogging down the tunnel after the thief.

Kedder looked down at his hand as he approached an opening in the wall of the tunnel. A faint red line visible only to him extended from the ring on his finger toward the doorway. The brightness of the line indicated the distance to the person or thing he tagged, which was currently the priestess. It was a handy little bit of magic but didn’t work over long distances.

The gentle blue-green light emanating from the chamber beyond was welcome for the faint shadows it cast, but he was far from comfortable with the amount of noise coming from inside. A musty smell akin to moldy bread or fruit mixed with the scent of decomposing flesh assaulted his senses as he got closer. It reminded him of the times he dealt with the undead. He chose his footing carefully as the slope steepened, no sense in announcing his presence by sliding the rest of the way to the portal.

The thief carefully peered into the room, scowling at what he saw. Seven of the ant women tended to their fungal gardens inside. However, the gardens were not beds of dirt or refuse but creatures infected with the fungus. Inside, the horses used by the cavalry were held to the wall by long strands of strong, web-like material. Kedder’s scowl came from seeing the animals move. He heard stories of fungal zombies before but had never seen one, now there was a room full of horses that the ants had turned. On the other side were more of the cavalry’s horses while further down was a true fungal zombie, the unfortunate female cleric sent to find the missing company. The woman groaned loudly as she strained against her bindings, chomping her teeth and reaching for the target of Kedder’s ring. Toward the back of the chamber, one of the ant-girls held the priestess against the wall while two others regurgitated a substance that turned into the silky threads when stretched.

Seeing the priestess made Kedder’s legs ache but as he looked around the room, he noticed that she wasn’t special. The cleric and all the animals had been given the same treatment. The thief gained a small bit of relief when he saw the ant-women had healed her somehow. He feared she might die of blood loss after they took her legs but that was no longer a danger.

Seeing one of the ant-girls turn his way, he pressed his back against the tunnel wall by the opening. When he heard the insectoid woman approaching, the thief tugged his hood down and tightly closed his cloak around him. To an outsider, it looked like Kedder vanished, but the cloak’s ability only worked in shadows making him thankful for the fungi’s faint luminescence. The magical garment didn’t consider complete darkness to be ‘shadow.’

The ant-girl stuck her head out and looked around for a moment. When she was about to go back inside, she stopped and looked up the slope. Kedder could hear it too, heavy footfalls coming toward them. That woman walked like a damn oliphaunt.

It turned to signal the others of an intruder but never got the chance. Kedder slid his ornate dagger between the joints in the front of the ant-woman’s neck, blocking her airflow with the blade so she couldn’t warn those inside. Angling the dagger upward, he quickly finished his gruesome task. The thief crossed in front of the doorway, catching the body of the woman as it went limp. Now on the lower side of the chamber entrance, he placed her as quietly as possible on the ground. She was surprisingly light for something covered in natural armor.

Kedder checked if any of those inside noticed his activities. Suppressing a sigh of relief, he darted across the front of the doorway and silently ran up the slope toward the fighter, hoping he could reach her before any more ant-women noticed the noise.

Behind him, tiny drops of fluid leaked out the end of the ant-girl’s abdomen as it relaxed in death, releasing a cocktail of pheromones into the air flowing down into the colony.

Kal gripped his staff as a shadow detached itself from the darkness, only to relax when he realized it was the thief.

“Six ants in a room ahead with the priestess, one dead outside,” he reported. “Also inside are the missing horses and the woman cleric they sent, all turned into fungus zombies by the bugs. Elden’s legs are healed over, so she isn’t going to bleed out on us.”

“Six shouldn’t be hard ta deal with,” said the fighter.

Kedder looked at Kal’s staff. “That won’t be much good against ants. Their bodies are covered with armor. Do you have anything that slices or stabs?” he asked, dipping his head toward the sprite on the mage’s shoulder.

Kal moved his hand down to the middle of the staff and said, “Naginata.”

The wooden section shortened slightly as the platinum end cap extended into a short, single-edged blade with a slight curve and a circular guard at its base. The actual weapon was much longer and often used by soldiers on horseback, according to what Ikuno told him. The current size suited his fighting style better.

“Nice,” said the rogue. He turned to Falma, “Draw them out into the tunnel or take them inside the chamber?”

“How many of the zombies are likely to help ‘em?”

“None, they all got the same treatment as the priestess,” he said tapping his thigh with the edge of his hand.

The mage shared a look with Ria, cringing at the thought.

“We block ‘em in and take ‘em out before they can call their kin,” said the fighter. “Then cut the priestess free and get outta here. Any ideas about how we do that?”

“This tunnel must join up with the one we were looking at when they took Elden,” offered Kal. “But there’s no telling how deep we may go before finding the junction. Do you think there’s any way to not kill them?”

Falma looked at him in surprise and a little bit of anger, as did Kedder, but her expression softened immediately. “You’re a naïve thing, aren’t ya?” she said, shaking her head. “No. If they can take her legs off, they can take her head off the same way. We aren’t givin’ ‘em the chance. You go in there intending to kill or you make your way back to the surface. I’m not takin’ chances with mine or Kedder’s life. Understood?”

“Understood,” said Kal, thoroughly chastened.

The thief shook his head in disbelief that the young man had asked such a question before returning to their task. “Fresh air is flowing down the tunnel,” he said. “There must be an opening at the other end.”

Falma nodded, “Good enough. Let’s go get our priestess.”

“Qui-et-ly,” said Kedder through gritted teeth. “The way you walk, we may as well have brought the horses down with us.”

The swordswoman rolled her eyes but Kal noted that she tried stepping more softly as they followed the rogue back to the chamber.

The ant-girls froze in surprise as the trio burst into the room. Falma and Kedder took up defensive positions by the doorway as Kal spun around. Shoving the end of his staff into the dirt, he reached out with his magic to the bedrock just below. Seconds later a slab of stone sprung up from the floor and embedded itself in the top of the entryway as he made a lifting motion.

“Done,” said Kal, grabbing his sword-tipped staff and turning around. The ant girls were much smaller than he expected. The tallest was only the size of a young teenager. The only thing keeping him from spinning on his heel and leaving was how insect-like they were. With all the other monster girls he had met, he was expecting them to have more human features. Instead, ant heads stared back at him that sat atop thin, chitin-covered human bodies that sprouted insect legs from their torsos.

As much as Kal hated to admit it, after what they did to Elden and the other captives, it was easier to see them as monsters.

The fight was over in seconds, if you could even call it a fight. As soon Kal gave the signal, Falma exploded into action. A swipe of her sword clove two of them in half before she plunged the tip into the chest of a third.

Kal opted for the quickest means possible to dispatch the two on his side of the room. With help from the strength and speed runes, deft swipes with the blade on his staff left both of his opponents headless. As their bodies sank to the floor, the mage turned around and emptied the contents of his stomach. Daxas wasn’t there to push the spear this time, that was entirely his handiwork.

Kedder sprinted toward the back of the chamber where a lone ant-girl stood near the priestess. The thief reached for his throwing knife as the terrified worker ran, only to stop with the knife raised and ready to loose. The woman reached the back wall and dropped to the floor pressing her back against the stone as she curled up into a ball. Tucking her head behind her knees, the ant-girl covered it with her arms while crossing her middle legs in front of her defensively.

The rogue dropped the knife back into its sheath. Fucking mage. The sprite’s stories about Kal getting lovey-dovey with monster girls were getting to him. Normally, the woman would be dead already. As long as she didn’t interfere, there was no point in killing her.

Ignoring the sound of the mage retching on the other side of the cavern, Kedder turned toward the priestess, frowning at her state. Elden’s eyes stared off into the distance as she mumbled incoherently. A faint glow around her mouth and nose showed the presence of spores.

“Mage!” he yelled.

“Yes,” Kal answered weakly as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“Do you have a potion or something that cures diseases? The ants already infected her.”

“I do.”

“Don’t heal her yet,” said Falma, stepping up beside the rogue. “Carryin’ her like this will be easier than if you cure her and she panics.”

Kedder flipped the ornate dagger and caught it by the blade with his fingertips, holding it out to the swordswoman. “You cut, I carry.”

“I’m stronger, I oughta carry her.”

The thief shook his head, “If Kal drops that wall and there are more bugs on the other side, you will need to fight us out of here.”

After a moment of thought, Falma nodded. Taking the knife, she went to work on Elden’s bindings.

Once he had collected himself, Kal came over and used a simple cleansing spell to get rid of any remaining spores on the woman’s body. Cutting the last few strands, Falma let the priestess fall into Kedder’s arms. With a long leather strap from Ria, the mage helped secure Elden to the thief’s back. As he finished, he looked up worriedly at the fighter.

“I can feel it too,” said Falma, looking toward the door. Vibrations in the floor indicated a large group of the ants headed this way. She glanced over at the mage, “Are you good ta fight? You took it pretty rough earlier.”

Kal nodded, “Technically, those were my first kills. When I signed on, I thought we were coming out here to kill some beast, not monster girls. I’ll cut down a horde of ant-girls if they are trying to kill me, but no more workers just trying to do their jobs,” he said, tilting his head toward the chitin-clad woman still sitting on the floor.

“Hard to disagree with that. If you’re ready, let’s get outta here.”

By the time they got to the exit, there was no denying it. A large group of ant-women was just outside Kal’s wall.

Kal took a moment to change back to the metal staff. Kedder’s suggestion to switch weapons seemed sensible and he followed it without considering his other abilities. He was better with the staff and it could be just as deadly as a blade when combined with his strength rune.

Falma wrung the grip of her sword in anticipation. She glanced over at Kal, “Ready.”

Kal raised his staff in both hands, sending out the tendrils of magic to the top of the stone door he created earlier. The ant-women on the other side must have sensed something. The vibrations from their movement ceased a moment before he anchored himself and pushed the slab down.

The woman that sprang through the doorway was nothing like the workers they killed. Hard chitin covered her head like a tightly fitted bandana instead of hair. A thick mask of the same material covered her face from nose to chin while her eyes were like Bea’s, multi-faceted but human in shape. She also shared the butterfly-girl’s height and front covering. Kal was too busy fighting for his life to wonder if it opened up in the same manner. Unlike Bea, the hard, black chitin encased all but the front of her torso, instead of stopping at her thighs and upper arms.

A long, scythe-like blade extended from her forearm on one side while a needle protruded from behind her wrist on the other. Kal spun the staff frantically, his strength rune flaring as he released the magic holding his feet in place. This ant-girl was much more skilled than the workers and the suddenness and ferocity of her attack caught him off guard. As she pushed him back, another identical ant-woman darted out the doorway and engaged Falma. A third attempted to emerge from the other side until a throwing knife sailed past Kal’s shoulder and found purchase in the ant-woman’s neck.

The workers grabbed the soldier and pulled her back into the tunnel. One of them removed the knife and threw it away where it vanished and reappeared in the thief’s hand. Another produced some of the sticky substance with the healing properties, slathering it over the wound. Seconds later, the soldier was back on her feet and ready to jump back into the fray, only to find her sister had been pushed back and she no longer had enough room to get into the chamber.

Kal’s surprise from the woman’s initial assault passed quickly and he soon took control of the exchange again. As the strength and speed runes glowed brighter, the mage started pushing her back into the doorway, preventing her friend from coming to help. He smirked at the look of frustration in her eyes.

The other soldier in the room had Falma locked in a defensive battle. The smaller woman was extremely strong and would have quickly overwhelmed the fighter if not for her magic belt. Though the swordswoman had her beat in skill, the ant’s speed forced Falma to keep falling back, directly into one of the zombified horses. A bite wouldn’t kill her outright but if the fungus got inside her it would eventually put her into a daze, much like the priestess.

“Hey, bug-lady! Catch!” yelled Kedder.

With barely a glance, the soldier swatted the throwing knife to the ground then braced for the expected attack from her opponent.

The attack never came. Instead, she felt a tiny sting on the exposed flesh above her eye. Jerking her head away, she brought up her arm to stab the ghostly figure above her. The tip of the needle passed through empty air as her attacker faded away. The tiny dart the apparition used fell to the ground in front of her, its tip still stained with poison.

She jumped out of her opponent’s range and stumbled, her legs not responding to her commands. Dropping to her knees, she looked up at the human woman bearing down on her, unable to even raise her arms in defense.

A swipe of Falma’s sword and another head joined the two on the floor left by the mage.

“Not the way I like ta do things, but it’s better than bein’ dead,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the zombified horse still champing its teeth at her as it strained against its bonds. Turning back to the fight in the doorway, she saw the mage appeared to be faring better than she had.

Kal waited patiently for a mistake. Just defeating her would do little good as there was another waiting behind this one. He also realized that this battle wouldn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the colony. He had seen regular ants deal with prey and worried they would be overrun by sheer numbers soon. The mage had an idea, but he needed a good-sized opening in her defense for his plan. Even with his superior speed and strength, she was proving too skilled for such an opportunity.

Pumping more power into the strength rune, he batted the soldier’s blade, making it swing wide. Shifting his grip, he poured even more energy into the rune and brought the staff down across her chest. The woman stepped back and dug her clawed feet into the rock, taking the blow. The top quarter of her torso covering cracked and fell away, revealing a very human-looking breast. At the same time, Kal felt a sharp pain and saw the ant-girl’s other arm held out, the tip of its needle piercing the skin of his shoulder. Pain flared as the soldier squeezed her hand closed and began pumping poison into him.

The ant-woman’s face covering opened. Splitting down the middle, the triangular, modified mandibles rotated up and back until they looked like one of the winged helms he’d seen pictures of. Behind the mask was a very human face, aside from the faceted eyes.

“You are strong, the queen will enjoy you for a very long time,” said the woman, grinning. The mage could tell what she was saying wasn’t what he heard. Whatever language they used, it wasn’t Common. Luckily, his translation spell didn’t care.

“She might,” said Kal, “but I’m never going to meet her.”

The soldier’s face showed her surprise, she hadn’t expected him to respond in her tongue.

Kal leaned back, letting the point of the needle slip free, and brought his staff into position. The healing and cure poison runes on his back faded and the strength rune shone as he thrust forward with the end of the staff. The power matched that of the last strike, but this time he angled the staff up slightly instead of striking down. Unable to find purchase with her feet, the ant-woman sailed into the soldier behind her and they both went hurtling across the larger tunnel outside until the far wall stopped them.

The mage’s speed rune flared as he darted through the entryway. Their graceless tumble left a large swath among the workers for him to follow. Reaching the women as they tried to extricate themselves from one another, he thumped them both on the head with the end of his staff, knocking them out.

Kal turned around to see the soldiers’ entourage of workers cowering before him.

“Move over there,” he commanded, pointing further down the slope while hoping they understood him. “Any of you...” he was interrupted by the noise of twenty worker ant-girls moving to where he pointed. “Okay ... wasn’t expecting that. Any of you who try to get in our way will be killed. Do you understand?” In unison, twenty heads nodded.

Falma and Kedder emerged from the chamber a few moments later. No sooner did Kal summon Ria again then they heard an unmistakable rumble coming from the lower parts of the colony.

“We need to go, now,” said the fighter.

“Stay close,” said Kal. Stepping behind the other two, he powered the speed rune and split it among them. After a couple of steps to get acquainted with the magic and moving as one, they were off to find the source of the fresh air coming down the tunnel.

“Of course it couldn’t be that easy,” said Kedder, looking at the wall in front of them.

Holes that dotted its face expelled the air, creating the breeze on their faces. Unfortunately, the largest of the openings was barely large enough for Kal to fit an arm into. The mage immediately tried to shape the whitish material, but geomancy did not affect it, despite being hard as stone. The only one who could escape at the moment was Ria.

Falma inspected the walls around them. They appeared to have used the same substance to reinforce the dirt, which explained why the large tunnels hadn’t collapsed despite a lack of supports. It also made digging out seem unlikely.

Their speedy trip to the end of the tunnel offered them a brief respite, but they could already hear the oncoming horde.