“This is bad. It’s like an ant zombie apocalypse.”

Joseph’s voice was quiet as he looked out at the forest, Garth could see him trembling. Even though Garth hid it better, he felt the same. A loud rustling was ever-present now, with foliage being crushed beneath tens of thousands of legs. The dark chitin of the ant swarm made the forest look to be in perpetual shadow. The mutated ants were the size of a wolf, each having small fungal stalks sticking out between their joints, adding to the unease of the sight.

They shuffled around mindlessly, consuming and transporting anything they came across. A musty scent of decay and death followed them wherever they went, heralding their presence. They were slow-moving, but their territory steadily expanded. It was only a matter of time until they made it to Nierburg.

Over the past weeks, his scouting parties had encountered a handful of the ants while they were out scouting the ruined cities dotting the landscape. Individually, they posed very little threat to the seasoned scouts that Garth deployed, but as time wore on, the sightings became more and more common. Just three days ago, he got the notice of the swarm.

It was coming from Corwyn, and methodically making its way through the forest towards Nierburg. This was his first time setting eyes on it, and his hand instinctively drifted to the hilt of his sword. What can we do? Garth felt the weight of the eyes on him, his squad and advisors all waiting for him to set up their course of action.

“You know, you’re all welcome to share your thoughts.”

Garth’s voice carried a note of annoyance. I’m a soldier, dammit. I was never cut out for this crap. Still, like or not he understood that he was in a position of leadership now. At the end of the day, it would be his call to make. Thankfully, he had a good team to back him up. Joseph was the first to speak up.

“The ants should be in the forest for a while. We could get a team of Fire Mages and try to burn it down. That would probably kill off a lot of them, hopefully slow them, at least a bit.”

Joseph’s voice was shaky, but the look in his eyes was determined. The young man had grown a lot in their time together, and Garth was proud of him.

“The forest is the only thing slowing them down right now,” Mary Ellen countered, meeting Joseph’s eyes.

“I think we’d be better off using this time to build more barricades; maybe we can work on lures to get the ants away entirely? If they don’t come close to Nierburg, we won’t have to fight them at all.”

She was still an idealist, and while he appreciated the thought, he shook his head at the suggestion.

“There’s too long until the evacuation. They’ll get to us eventually, and we’d get starved out.”

One of the directors spoke up, Dr. Brock from Central Health.

“Wouldn’t it be prudent to ask our would-be saviors to come and wipe out the ants? I’m sure it would be within their capabilities.”

“I already reached out. They tell me they don’t have the numbers to handle this on their own. They also made it clear that their assistance would come at a price, which has me concerned. It’s an option, but I’m not sure it’s a good one, at least for now.”

Dr. Brock bristled at the response.

“Surely they would find some value in the carcasses at least. Scans show the fungus mutated alongside the ants, it’s a unique phenomenon!”

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“Not unique enough to make them want to deal with it, I’m afraid. Parasitic organisms are generally frowned upon, it seems.”

Dr. Brock grumbled something under his breath, and quiet settled over the group as eyes went back to the forest. A small voice broke the silence, Arianna sharing her thoughts.

“We won’t win a direct conflict. If they get to the city in full force, I’m pretty sure we lose. We also lose if we fight them out here in the open. We definitely lose if we fight them in the forest.”

Garth raised an eyebrow.

“Thanks for the encouraging words. Now if you don’t have a suggestion, I’d like to get back to the problem at hand.”

“I’m getting there,” she said. “If I had to fight you, I’d lose every time if I tried to take you head on. So I wouldn’t. I’d try to get a potshot off here and there, and disengage until you were injured enough to make a mistake.”

She says that to the wrong person and she’ll be in trouble, Garth mused. Still, a hell of an idea.

“You’re a decade too green even to get that far, kid.”

“That’s not the point. Our advantages are tactics, range, and mobility. So we use that as much as we possibly can. Any plan that involves us waiting to engage them directly means we lose. Strike out to weaken them. Grandpa calls it defanging the snake, in this case we’ll just be defanging ants instead.”

Garth paused at that and considered. There was merit to the idea of a more focused offensive campaign. It would be risky, but there was no option left to them that wasn’t. Even if, by some miracle, the ant swarm didn’t approach Nierburg, it would greatly increase the danger of anybody who set out to scavenge, to say nothing of trying to grow crops outside the walls.

“Bring me the Communication Array. I think we have the first stages of a plan.”

The next several hours were spent coordinating logistics, forming teams, and preparing to execute the plan. They would start by implementing Joseph’s plan, using a squadron of Fire Mages to start burning the forest in which most of the ants resided. There was a risk that there were still pockets of survivors inside, and there was no way to guarantee that they would get out. The odds that they would survive the systematic stripping of the forest by the fungus-infested ants was simply too low. Garth decided to green-light the plan anyway. It made him sick.

Once the forest was well and truly ablaze, they would retreat to Nierburg, leaving Ranger squads along the perimeter. Their goal would be to pick off ants as they made a slower retreat towards the city, killing where they could and crippling where they couldn’t. Central Defense was currently loading up convoys with ammunition and basic supplies, preparing the supply chain to support this consistent effort.

The last line of defense would be at Nierburg itself, where the most powerful awakened would be waiting. Initially, Garth expected resistance from DeRosa and Reynolds. They had been helpful with logistics, though to this point they had stayed entirely uninvolved from anything even remotely related to defense. Now, it seemed they were willing to step up. That honestly gave Garth a great deal of comfort; Reynolds was likely more powerful than he was, and DeRosa assuredly was. Each of them would be a major boost to combat power, saying nothing about the full might of Central Defense’s awakened being brought to bear.

Even unawakened citizens with combat training would be able to help, and many of the survivors of Duilleag and Albaum volunteered to help with triage and other basic logistics. Satisfied that everything was in motion, he walked up to Joseph.

“The Fire Mage squadron is on its way. You’ll be dealing the first strike, are you ready for it?”

“Yes, sir.”

The young man’s eyes didn’t leave the shadowed forest, darker than usual as the sun was setting.

“Get some rest, Joseph. You’ll need it.”

“Can I ask you a question, sir?”

“Absolutely. What’s on your mind?”

“Do you really think we can do this? Do you really think we’ll win?”

Garth drew in a deep breath before responding.

“I’m not sure, Joseph. This is a threat unlike anything else we’ve run into before. What I do know is that failure isn’t an option. So one way or another, I’m not going to stop fighting until we either turn back the swarm, or I’m dead. Too many people are counting on us to do anything else.”

Joseph shivered for a moment, then turned away from the forest to meet Garth’s eyes.

“You’re really okay with dying? I… I want to think I am, sir, but when I really think about it, it scares me.”

“If it didn’t scare you, you’d be an idiot. You’re young, Joseph. You’ve got a lot of life ahead of you. That’s what I want to protect. Your future, and everyone else’s. Find your ‘why’ and the idea of dying isn’t as bad. Now go, get your rest. You’ve got a big morning ahead of you.”

Joseph nodded and walked away, then paused and turned back.

“You have a future too, sir. I hope you know that.”

Garth thought about his old squad, his friends crushed under a collapsed building. He thought about Crystal, dead against a tree. When he spoke, his voice was flat.

“Have a good night, Joseph.”