A delivery system of flesh and bone. That’s what the horde truly was. As an instrument of the dark will that controlled it, the massive gathering of enslaved monsters had been used to scour the kingdom of Liria and possibly neighbouring kingdoms as well. Here and now? That mass of bodies served a different purpose. To deliver Garralosh and her children to the target of her wrath as easily as possible.
Sloan knew that only when they had destroyed enough, thinned enough of the horde away, would the true enemy show its face. Until then, Garralosh and the Kaarmodo would be content to stay back and allow their unwitting soldiers to absorb the punishment.
"The key to this battle, is holding enough strength in reserve that we can deal with the Croca-Beasts when they come," Sloan had declared at the planning meeting.
To that end, the colony had prepared waves of tricks and schemes that they could employ. The horde would pay dearly for every inch of ground they took. The worry was, the primary reserve force of the colony still hadn’t woken up.
The Eldest was still sleeping!
Sloan couldn’t help but clean her antennae over and over again in an attempt to calm her nerves. Something her sibling couldn’t help but notice.
"Calm down," Victor advised.
"I would if I could!" Sloan snapped back.
"The Eldest will awaken in time. How could you doubt it?"
"You do realise what will happen if they don’t?"
"I suspect that we’ll all be wiped out and the colony will cease to exist," Victor replied, unruffled.
"Y-yes! That’s right!"
it change anything? Have a little faith in the Eldest. When have they
up change wherever they went, but
settled with a sigh. The two generals were positioned in the main nest in a chamber close to the surface. In a room next to them, scouts came and went at
battle is progressing," Victor suggested and
her mandibles in
don’t like it that we
sighed,
of us are the best generals in the colony. We
go that far," Sloan
the war chamber was a flurry of activity and filled with the muffled scents of a dozen different conversations. Ants crawled carefully over the map,
has done its job," Victor
Sloan proposed. "If we commit the reserves from the second wall we could hold on for
the other general countered, "and unnecessary. The outer wall wasn’t
was how the two of them did their best planning. One proposed a plan, the other tried to tear it
Time to sound
the scouts waiting
retreat from the first wall. Prepare the reserves. We want every family member to
and raced off to deliver their prepared messages whilst the two generals turned their eyes back to the map. Ants poured over it once more, making the delicate adjustments based on the event they knew were going to play out
the nest. Ants ran over the top of each other as they hastened to reach their assigned positions. The potential for devastating loss was huge. The retreat needed to be managed carefully, with precision. An orderly
this end, Proppelant had taken her place amongst the
the retreat, the spell slinging ants leapt into
ready for it!" Proppelant bellowed, "draw out every
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