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!"
anything? Have a little faith in the Eldest. When have they ever let us
a little hard to argue against. The Eldest was a six legged storm, stirring up change wherever they went, but to date they
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 a furious pace, passing information
Victor suggested and
her mandibles
that we are stuck here, Victor,"
sighed,
much as you. But the two of us are the
go that far," Sloan
and filled with the muffled scents of a dozen different conversations. Ants crawled carefully over the map,
done its
the reserves from the second wall we could hold on for another thirty
other general countered, "and unnecessary. The outer wall wasn’t built to hold and was
tried to tear it down. After the back and forth was done, they felt comfortable that they had the
Time to
to the scouts waiting to carry messages to
word for the retreat from the first wall. Prepare the reserves. We want
their eyes back to the map. Ants poured over
reach their assigned positions. The potential for devastating loss was huge. The retreat needed to be managed carefully, with precision. An orderly retreat back to the second wall
had taken
the word came for the retreat, the spell
ready for it!" Proppelant bellowed, "draw out every scrap
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