“Oh look. It’s Little Ivor! How’s life in the land of the tiny?”

I rolled my eyes for the umpteenth time today. It wasn’t even breakfast time, and I was already getting ribbed by my seniors for my chosen animal. I sighed and smiled. “Good morning, Culvin. Did Willem’s owl shit on you during the night? I would have thought it would slide right off someone as slimy as you.” This elicited raucous laughter from the rest of the Circle. To his credit, Culvin smiled and threw an arm around my shoulder, and gripped my neck painfully tight.

“You know, Little Ivor, I’d watch my mouth, were I you. I’d hate to see your jaw torn off by, say, an angry bear, yes?” He released me and gave me a none-too-playful shove away from him. “And watch out for your tiny friends. I might just accidentally,” he stomped hard on the ground, “step…on one of them.” The evil grin as he sauntered away floated in my mind’s eye.

I ground my teeth, and made my way to the cauldron for my morning meal. Warm gruel. Again.

Our Circle of Druids was small, and as a result, poor. We had little in the way of money, and even less in the way of talent. Sure, we had bullies and braggarts, like Culvin, aplenty, but we had little talent. No phenomenal singers, and most of us had memories that were only slightly better than the best of the peasants. Few halls wanted to request us for tales and magick. With a sigh, I sat at the table and thanked Cernunnos for the blessings of food. I ate my gruel, and left a small amount in the bowl for my chosen Companions.

I took a stroll to the edge of the forest, where I scraped the remnants out next to a mighty oak tree, the base of which sported a very large and very active anthill.

Yes. My chosen Companions were the lowly ants. They came to me in the Journey, and I had been in constant communication with all of them since. All of them. All 14,750,287 of them. And that number climbed slowly, day by day. It seemed I didn’t just befriend a local colony, but the entirety of the forest. More crept in and out of my awareness, suggesting I had a range of about two leagues whereupon I could call on my little friends. The queens had the loudest voice. I knew of nearly a thousand in my area alone. Two of which I maintained communication with. The drones were rather dull and single-minded. The soldiers were as alert as any human infantryman, and almost as expressive, if not as intelligent. The queens, however, were as intelligent as you or I, and maintained a dialogue with me. The pain of their constant birthing was only a dull ache far in the recesses of their awareness, and as a result, mine as well. I sat there for about a quarter of an hour, just sitting with them; allowing them to explore my person, and to mark me with the scent of their colony.

I was shaken out of my reverie by shouting coming from the camp. I rushed over, and took a peek from behind a large yew tree, and saw ten of the largest, ugliest and meanest brutes I’d ever laid eyes upon.

“‘Ere, now. Give us yer silver, and we’ll let ya’s go. Simple as that. No ‘arm, no more bloodshed, an no more shoutin’ an’ screamin’, yeh?”

“As I, and no doubt the rest of my brethren have told you, we are poor. We have no silver. We have no bread. Only thin gruel with which to warm our insides. You and yours are welcome to as much of that as you’d like.” Our Circle Head was affably calm in this situation. He had dealt with their kind before.

“‘An I tol’ him jus’ afore I strung one ‘o their sissy arses up, that I was knowin’ you Druids had silver. All ‘o ya’s does. ‘Erbody knows that.”

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“Brother Culvin will be missed, but he was correct. We have nothing.”

The bandits continued to argue with our Master while I crept away. My fear was palpable. It seemed the rest of my circle had been incapacitated in some way, else we would have had at least a fox or an owl come to our aid.

I sat in terror, waiting for the bandits to find me, when I heard a voice in my head calling my name.

“Ivor. Ivor! We are here. We have sensed your fear and came to aid you. My friend, how can we help?”

That was surely my queen from the colony I had just fed. Had they truly come all this way just to help? I focused my mind on her. She was just a few yards away.

“My lady, bandits have attacked our Circle. They have killed at least one of us, and somehow incapacitated the rest. I don’t know what to do, as I’m not a fighter. There are ten of them that I can see, and they’re threatening our Master.” I was assaulted by a cacophony of voices, all different, and all queens from nearby colonies.

“Leave the strategies to us. Our soldiers will direct the workers to their targets.”

“Will you be able to tell my Brethren apart from the bandits?”

“Of course, friend Ivor. We can easily discern the difference between our friend and his Circle and filthy murderers.”

“Okay, my Ladies. I will leave this in your capable claws.” I crept forward as a roiling carpet of red, brown and black ants of varying sizes rushed around me. I made it to the edge of our clearing as the first of my friends reached the bandits.

“‘Ah jes’ tol’ you to shut yer gob, and give me the silver!” The sword he thrust at my Master may have been somewhat rusty, but it looked wickedly sharp. My Master weaved to the side to avoid the blade, and the bandit started to flinch from pain.

“Ow! What the ‘ell jes bit me?” he slapped at his right leg frantically, “Geroff me leg!” He flinched in the other direction as he was bitten or stung from the other side. The rest of the bandits looked nervously at each other, and then they too began slapping at their legs as my friends went to work.

I felt each death through my link with the queens. They were by no means intense, but as the hundreds mounted, it slowly built in intensity.

“ATTAAAAAAACK! BITE THEM! STING THEM! EAT THEIR FLESH, AND BRING IT HOME!” The legion of queens echoed in my head, and I felt the urge to rush in and do as they bid. I quelled that particular urge, and watched as the roiling carpet broke over the bandits. The screams were quickly silenced as thousands of ants poured into their mouths, and began stinging, biting and eating them from the inside out.

One by one, the bandits collapsed, leaving only their leader who was frantically stomping the ground in a futile attempt to both kill the ants, and to shake them off. He lasted the longest, though not by much. My tiny friends poured into every single orifice the man had, and began to devour him.

The master took a step back, dumbstruck by the scene that unfolded before him. His eyes snapped in my direction as I stepped into the clearing.

“We are not to be trifled with. Master, with your permission, my friends would like to take this filth to the forest to dispose of it. They will bring us back anything that shines.” He shakily nodded his assent, and the roiling carpet of ants began to slowly haul the dead into the woods. The rest of my circle had mostly come to in time to watch the bandits be carried away, and the ground scrubbed clean of their blood. They all looked terrified.

“What? What did I do? Why are you all looking at me like that?”