Over the week, as they traveled up and down the desert dunes in search of the next colony, the male drones passed away one by one. They buried and blessed each drone’s corpse to counteract any necromancy. Kesi’s mood worsened with each one that passed, and Simadger noticed it almost immediately. The edges of the desert were within visual distance. A stone’s throw away was something unexpected. A sparse scattering of trees and thin foliage marked the edge of the desert and the start of something else.
For the first time that week, Kesi’s face lit up in excitement. “Simmy! Is that what I think it is?”
Simadger spat on her hands and rubbed her face clean of sand particles. “I see trees, probably another oasis,” she said.
“No, no, no. That’s not an oasis, that’s a jungle!” She broke into a sprint shortly after laying claim to the first pool of water she found.
“Kesi!” Simadger called out, “Wait for me!” Simadger readjusted her shield strap and ran after her.
The outer edges of the jungle resembled a savannah, with a few trees and dried shrubbery. The desert heat dried out the area but not enough to kill the plant life. When Simadger finally caught up to Kesi, the dune ant slumped against the base of the tree, panting hard from dehydration.
Simadger pulled her waterskin off her belt, but it felt very light. Popping the cap, she found it to be empty. She groaned and re-affixed it to her belt. “I don’t think we’ll find a colony here, but we need water and eventually proper food.”
Kesi pointed eastward, “If we can get into the deeper parts of the jungle, we can find plenty of food. There are these dark brown beans that taste very sweet, oh, and there’s these curved yellow fruits that are soft and squishy, but don’t eat the peel. That tastes stringy.”
Simadger nodded along as Kesi started listing off various foods her colony had collected from the jungle previously. When she finally paused to breathe, Simadger spoke up, “Sounds like this jungle is chock full of food.”
Kesi nodded her head rapidly. “It really is. I’ve only heard about it, though.” She leaned over and grabbed a clump of grass and ripped it out of the ground. She ran her fingers against the blades of crispy grass, feeling the stringy textures. “This is the first time I’ve been outside of the colony. This is all so new to me. It feels like a dream.”
Simadger knelt down and rested a hand on Kesi’s knee. “It’s not a dream. Live it up, this is the real outside world.”
Kesi smiled at the reassurance. Her mandibles parted widely. Her expression quickly changed when she had a realization, “How do we find those foods and a source of water?”
Simadger turned and looked towards the horizon, where she could just barely see the treeline of what she assumed to be the thicker part of the jungle. “First, we get inside the jungle, then we look around.”
As they were discussing what to do next, Simadger saw something moving in the sands behind them. Slowly and with lumbering movements, an exhausted-looking dune ant moved toward them. Simadger drew her Khopesh. “Kesi, get behind me. I think Mother has come for revenge.”
As the lumbering dune ant got closer and closer, Simadger noticed something was very wrong about it. Its movements were unnatural and jittery. Fuzzy white webbing filled the gaps between its limbs. Then the ant fell over and from its back, a massive stalk with a bulbous red head forced itself into the open. Simadger froze.
Kesi quickly scurried behind her protector and peered over her armored shoulder. “What-” she stuttered hard, trying to find the words to express her confusion. “What is that?”
Simadger shook her head. “That can’t be what I think it is.”
Kesi took a few steps back. “Should we run?”
Simadger slowly nodded her head up and down. “I’m inclined to say yes.”
A second dune ant with a similar walking pattern appeared, then a third and a fourth. They all stumbled through the sands, only to fall over within a few feet of the first. Their exoskeletons exploded with more fungal stalks and a weird dusty cloud formed around the heads.
Simadger’s mind recalled the paintings and carvings she’d seen on the tomb’s walls. This was the infamous bio weapon of Menbyhenet. It was back, but she did not know how it escaped the tomb. “Kesi,” she asked worriedly, “Are you feeling alright?”
Kesi patted herself down, “Yeah,” she responded hesitantly, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“See those stalks?” Simadger pointed to the maimed corpses. “That’s a fungus, a really nasty one.”
“Alright.” Kesi’s voice trembled as she stared at the bodies.
“That cloud above it is how it spreads. Whatever you do, don’t go near it, don’t fucking breathe. Start walking towards the jungle. Be quick but make no wind.” Simadger warned her.
“What about you?” Kesi asked.
“I’ll be fine.” She pulled the cloak from Kesi’s back and wrapped it around her mouth. She spoke, muffled by the fabric, “I’m going to bury these and hope no others follow us.”
A strong crosswind blew the spore cloud away from the bodies and back into the desert. Simadger chuckled at seeing the wind carry off the spores. “Even nature itself doesn’t want that shit spreading.”
Simadger cautiously approached the five corpses. The fungal explosion out of their backs looked ominous, but it didn’t seem alive in the same sense she was. The depictions in the tombs made it seem as if it was just a mindless and naturally occurring fungal parasite that got weaponized. However, the motions the ants displayed had some degree of bodily control. She wondered if the ants’ movements were their own or influenced by the fungus. Either way, she began shoveling hot sand onto the bodies with the help of her carapace shield. “Where did they catch this, and why were they following us?” She pondered to herself aloud. “I killed everyone who opened that jar, so they couldn’t have spread the spores.”
Then the realization hit. “Did I spread it?” She asked, lowering her shield. Despite burying the bodies, the fungal stalks still stood above the sands. “Then why isn’t Kesi affected? Did they stumble into the tomb after we left? I didn’t see anyone heading to it.” Her mind began to race and track multiple theories about how the ants got infected. She shook off the idea that she spread it. If that were so, it would have already consumed her and so would’ve Kesi as well. “I need to find those orcs fast.”
With a few swings of the Khopesh, Simadger chopped down and buried the fungal stalks beneath the sands. Simadger raised her gaze to the western horizon and saw more infected dune ants aimlessly wandering about. She shook her head, turned and ran after Kesi.
The sparse grassland gave way to a much thicker and livelier jungle-like environment. Tall and bulky, hardened trees stretched, towering over them like giants of old. Ground cover with shrubs, saplings, and ivy was thick and some of it even stretched upward, clinging to the bark skin of the trees. Unlike the grasslands and desert, the air in and around the jungle was heavier with moisture, to an almost suffocating degree. The heat, too, felt significantly hotter, even just a handful of yards from the outer edges of it.
Kesi and Simadger eyed each other before taking a step into the jungle. The humidity-drenched heat weighed them down and slowed their movements, while the thick foliage constantly tripped them with false ground, vine snares, and above-ground roots. The entire area was hazardous to walk through, but not hostile. Not hostile on purpose, at least.
The muggy air wore them down faster, especially Simadger with her bronze plate armor. Simadger waited out the rest of the day, pulled Kesi aside, and found them a spot to camp and rest. Simadger theorized that traveling at night would be a better option as without the sun to heat the air, it’ll be easier for both of them to move about and breathe.
Simadger woke up to a snapped twig. She bolted upright but found herself inches from the tip of a steel great axe. She clutched the hilt of her Khopesh. Her tired eyes saw a dozen more figures lurking in the greenery, all armed with weapons that had reach. Examining the one in front of her, she noticed he had green skin and large, tusk-like protrusions from his lower jaw that stuck out past his lips. He wore a full sleeve of plated bronze armor with golden trims and shin guards of the same style. He wore no shirt, but his leather battle kilt had gold plates affixed to it. On his tusks were silver caps.
Simadger’s gaze drifted over to Kesi, who was very much still asleep. Simadger clicked her mandibles aggressively at the orc. The dune ant tightened her grip on the Khopesh and continuously monitored her unconscious friend. Seconds felt like hours as her mind planned for a hundred different outcomes. Her wide vision, however, couldn’t see all the orcs, only ten of them, including what she assumed to be the raid captain that was in front of her.
Hesitant to call upon the powers of the sun being in such proximity to her friend, she huffed and released the grip on her Khopesh, effectively surrendering to the orcs.
The orc in front of her cracked a wicked grin and snapped his fingers. A dozen orcs closed in on them and bound them up within seconds. The moment Kesi screamed in utter panic, an orc gagged her with a bundle of cloth and rope.
The orcs brought the pair of dune ants back to a camp about a mile south of the jungle and affixed their bindings to a prisoner pole in the center of the encampment. Scanning their surroundings, Simadger noticed that all the orcs lived in what looked to be temporary shelters of the reinforced tent variety. They stretched animal skins around shaved tree trunks and stitched them together, creating weird and uniquely shaped tents. The encampment comprised about a hundred tents, with twice as many orcs moving around.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The raid captain took a seat on the large wooden throne on the elevated platform and rested his great axe on a lone-standing weapon rack in front of the prisoner pole. He sat for a minute, then stood, holding his arms outward and upward. He spoke in the orcish tongue with a loud and booming voice, gathering the attention of nearly everyone in the camp.
After addressing the camp, he pointed down towards the two dune ants and said, in common tongue, “Trespassers. What final words do you have?”
Kesi remained gagged, emitting only muffled grunts through the thick cloth.
Simadger spoke up on her behalf, “We are travelers, not some invader.”
“Silence!” the chieftain’s voice boomed. “Warrior ants like yourself serve only one purpose and I refuse to believe that you and your nude friend here are anything but scouts.”
“Believe what you want, but let me know how well you fare when the red cap bursts out of your chest.” She scowled.
The orcish chieftain looked slightly off when she mentioned the fungus. He hopped down from the stage and approached them. Judging by the bewildered expressions on the faces of the nearby orcs, this was abnormal for their chieftain. He walked up to them non-threateningly but with a questioning side-eye. “Explain yourself. What do you know about the red cap?”
“If I’m nothing but a warrior threatening your territory, why would you listen to anything I say?” She subtly smirked beneath her snarky remark.
The orc chieftain, obviously short on patience, took a threatening stomp closer. “Tell me what you know.”
Simadger huffed and looked away from him.
“Very well,” the chieftain took a deep breath and straightened up. “If you do not want to speak, then I will simply roast the knowledge and have you for breakfast.”
Preferring to not be dead, Simadger gave an inch. “I’ll speak, but on one condition.”
It got the orc’s attention, even if making a deal annoyed him. “Speak,” he commanded.
“I want to be free of these bindings-” she began, but got cut off by loud roaring laughter.
“Set you free? So you can do what? Report our encampment to your colony and send the hordes our way?” The orcish chieftain rebuked her request and spat in her direction. “Magarath is insane but not a fool and I, as his follower, am neither.” He turned about and made his way to the makeshift throne.
“Fine,” she scoffed. “What do you know about Sadiki Kan-ta?”
The orc tensed up, his shoulders pushing upward into his neck. He slowly turned his head around with a very suspicious gaze. It spoke volumes about what he knew about that tomb. He said not a word, waiting for her to explain herself.
“So you know about Menbyhenet and whatever that red cap fungus is.” Simadger said cheekily.
Kesi wriggled in her bindings, unable to break free. She wanted Simadger to just tell them instead of playing these word games, but with the gag in her mouth, she could not express it.
“Menbyhenet and its tyrannical Pharoh are the reason we orcs steer clear of the deserts. So, dune ant, tell me what you know.” The orc chieftain was now properly invested.
“Do we have a deal?” She cocked her head and smirked.
The orc looked at the crowd of others in the encampment, looking for some sort of collective answer, but there was none to be found. With a pained groan and an unsavory roll of the eyes, he called out to a few of the armed ones, “Cut ’em free.”
The rope bindings went slack and fell to the ground, and they also removed Kesi’s gag. Simadger rested her hand upon the hilt of her Khopesh, now more than willing to spill blood if they tried it again. However, she was still an ant of her word. “Adventurers pillaged the tomb of Sadiki Kan-at that’s a few days east of here. They found a jar with the fungus sealed inside of it. They were oblivious to the writings on the walls and released it. I killed them shortly after, but it seems that an ant colony has become infected.”
The other orcs visibly expressed concern.
Simadger continued, “I dispatched five of them on our way over here and I saw a dozen more wandering the desert. I’ve come seeking a way to kill this fungus.”
The orcish chieftain climbed back onto the elevated wooden platform and pulled his great axe off its standalone mount. “Fire,” he said plainly. “Lots and lots of fire.” He raised the ax high above him in one hand. “Brothers and sisters, Silver Tusk goes to war against Menbyhenet!”
A thunderous roar erupted from the crowd as they all shouted and rushed to gather their wartime equipment. Simadger then realized that this clan almost exclusively dealt with war and had probably been waiting for a good reason to kill something.
The orc chieftain hopped down and approached the dune ants again. “You two will lead us to where those zombies are.”
“Zombies?” Simadger had never heard of the terminology. “You mean the infected ants?”
“Zombies,” the orc chieftain rolled his eyes, “I forget orcish words don’t travel. It means slow, lumbering movements. Some of our legends use this term exclusively to refer to the dead who walk a second time.”
Simadger turned to Kesi. “Here’s hoping it’s not your colony.”
Kesi quietly nodded. She looked unsettled by the whole idea of the fungus.
The chieftain placed a heavy hand on Simadger’s metallic shoulder. “Show me you are a friend of the Silver Tusks. Take us to the zombies.”
Nighttime in the desert differed greatly from the daytime. It was significantly colder, emptier, and spookier. The moonlight was almost absent, obscured by the thin cloud cover that blew by. The yellow and orange sands struggled to reflect the dim light that the moon reflected onto it. Simadger led a warband of a hundred orcs, plus the clan’s chieftain. The dunes rolled and thin sheets of dust glided across the surfaces. Sand quietly shifted beneath the heavy-footed barbarians that followed her. The element of surprise was on their side. If zombies could be surprised. That was the prayer.
Just beyond the next few dunes were a few aimless wanderers. Simadger counted four walking about, but something was different about them. She squatted to mask her silhouette and motioned for the orc chieftain. “A hundred yards forward, I count four. Something looks very off about them.”
The orc chieftain held up a spyglass and peaked through its lenses. “Stage two. Legends that my forefathers kept mentioned something about variations.” He started mumbling something in the orcish tongue that sounded similar to an old poem or stanza. “After three days, the red cap will expose itself and control the body. It will seek higher ground where it’ll consume the corpse and release spores to spread itself. When did you first notice the red caps?”
Simadger thought for a moment, “Two days ago? Had been about a week since I encountered a colony.”
The orc stated that if a few ants became infected, the entire colony would become infected. He emphasized the need to enter the colony and burn everything.
Simadger nodded. She didn’t want to think about it. She knew this was Kesi’s colony. It was the only one she’d seen the whole time either of them had been out and about. The only good part of this whole raid was that Kesi would not be there to witness it.
The four wandering zombie ants were quietly and swiftly dispatched by the more agile orcs. The raiding party continued onward. An hour passed in uneasy silence. All the orcs now knew Simadger wasn’t lying. Tension hung over all of them, thicker than day-old cooking grease.
As they approached the entrance to the colony, the number of zombie ants quadrupled. Hanging around the exterior were a dozen ants with red caps bursting out from various locations, white fuzzy webbing between joints. They stood there, swaying, waiting for something. A cocoon of moldy white webbing enveloped one dead ant, which was already locked up in rigor mortis. A spore cloud was faintly visible above it.
Simadger’s stomach sank into a pit. The sight was nothing short of nightmarish, the epitome of which she never knew to be possible, standing in front of her. She clutched the hilt of her Khopesh and mumbled a prayer beneath her breath. She reached out to lay a hand upon the orc chieftain and uttered something in Solarist.
The orc’s aura, as strong-willed as it already was, suddenly oozed more courage than before and the same wicked grin she saw in the jungles returned, but this time, it was a welcomed sight. The orc stood up and with one hand on the wooden grip of the great axe, he pointed it towards the zombie ants, and shouted, “To War!”
The mass of a hundred orcs quickly swarmed and chopped down the ants at the entrance and then began funneling down into the colony itself. Simadger stepped aside to let the orcs do their work, choosing to stay on the surface and watch for stragglers. She used her shield to bury the butchered corpses beneath the sand, burying the chopped fungal stalks and redheads deeper than the rest.
Ten minutes passed. She couldn’t hear the orcs. The tunnel led to an opening in the wall a sizable distance up. The orcs would have to find a different way out. However, twenty minutes of silence left her uneasy. She ventured down into the tunnel and glanced into the main chamber of the colony’s dig site. Thousands of sprawled ant corpses littered the floor of the chamber. Some fallen orcs were among the ants.
Something seemed even more wrong about the whole colony site. Only twenty minutes had passed and she heard only silence. She wondered if the orcs had moved deeper into the tunnel network to hunt down stragglers. She hopped out of the tunnel and slid down the wall to the ground level. Her heavy weight put her feet through the exoskeleton of a downed ant. Instead of feeling warm flesh, however, she felt the soft fabric of mold.
She took a second look around the battlefield. Hundreds of red caps lay on the floor, chopped at the neck. Kesi’s colony was gone, consumed by the wrath of a twenty-thousand-year-old weapon. Following the carnage, Simadger made her way towards the queen’s chamber. She wondered if Mother was smart enough to isolate herself from the fungus.
Simadger slipped into Mother’s chamber and saw something horrendous. The fungal parasite had ripped asunder Mother’s body. Twenty red caps burst through her carapace and covered her entirely in a thin white shroud of fuzzy webbing. The corpse was unmoving. A red cap had burst through Mother’s face, forever obscuring the likely horrified expression as she died from the inside out.
She knelt and prayed, “Down here, Solar’s light is not visible, but may you still rest in the warm rays of daylight, free of the pain and torment. I am sorry that our first and last meeting was marred by expectations and traditions. I have no ill will towards you, even as our opinions of the other soured.”
She looked upward at the veil of white that covered her head. “I will sever your soul from your body so that you may rest eternally.” She pulled from her bag a fist-sized bottle of black liquid that had a pungent oily smell to it. It weighed a few pounds, but the weight of its purpose sat heavy in her hand. It felt like an unspoken crime for her to destroy a corpse. She stood up and threw the bottle of oil at an opening into the carcass. The glass shattered, splashing the black liquid everywhere. Slowly, she raised her hand, spoke a few arcane words, and released a small blast of flame. The oil instantly lit up and cooked the mold and fungus whilst charring the rest of the corpse. The white webbing easily burned, spreading the fire to every inch of the body.
Simadger patiently waited on the surface, deep in meditation. Dawn came and a pat on the back interrupted her blissful rest. She snapped back to reality and saw the orcish chieftain standing before her. “I saw the flames,” He spoke in a more hushed and somber tone than usual.
Simadger pushed herself up onto her feet, dusting the sand off her armor. “I said my peace and put the spirit to rest. I’m out of oil now, but hopefully those spores will all burn down there.”
“Silver Tusk thanks you for your cooperation, friend.” The orc chieftain bowed his head. “It couldn’t have been easy to burn your kind.”
“You do what you must, but these ants were not mine but the family of my companion, Kesi.” Simadger said. “If I may make a request of your clan?”
The orc chieftain nodded. “Jolagh is my name.”
“Simadger,” she responded. “I ask for help.”
Jolagh pressed a fist to his chest. “Silver Tusk will help a friend.”
“I serve Oakengrove, the Father of the Forest.” She then explained the summer’s problems with the druid of Florism and Oakengrove’s subsequent trip to Basar territory.
Jolagh spent a long time deep in thought. It was a hefty request to ask of someone whose clan had just lost two dozen, if not more, to fight off a fungal parasite. “I will ponder this request, but if you are dealing with a human army, I strongly suggest that you head further southeast and speak to the Coterie.” He then outstretched his hand with the great axe. “Take this. They will recognize it as my weapon. Tell them of your struggles and there will be no hesitation.”
Simadger took his ax to hand. It was awkwardly top-heavy. She told him she lacked skill in using weapons of its size or style, but he insisted she would be safe while carrying it and therefore wouldn’t have to use it.
The next day, Simadger and Kesi departed the orcish encampment with a pack full of fresh supplies, a horse for both of them to ride on, and orcish clothes for Kesi to wear.