The dirt tower and the brown ground became indistinguishable to my eyes. Stuck to the corpse I tumbled in freefall. A notification appeared and disappeared from my sight.
Out of some freak miracle, I managed to pull my mandible free, but couldn’t stop my free fall. The termites kissed the ground first. There were no sounds, only a small displacement of sand grains, and that’s it. Falling from height wasn’t a death sentence; an ant’s body is very light, but there are always complications. No one comes out of a fall completely unscathed.
But I fell on my feet, stumbled forward, and rubbed my face on the ground. I somehow found balance mid-fall and curled my head between my legs, rolling and scrapping my back in the process. The momentum swung me all the way around and put me up back my feet without anything broken; all in one continuous motion.
A notification colored my sight for a dazed interval before it vanished.
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Small as a pebble and light as a feather, no wonder the fall didn’t hurt you much.
You have acquired a new skill: Feather Fall.
***
You have five and a half legs, and a segmented body, actions like rolling are not made for you. You better learn your lesson now, before you break your back and end up paralyzed.
You have acquired a new skill: Roll.
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[Feather Fall][Tier-1][Lv-1/10][Active]
[It makes your body light as a feather to ensure a safe and reduces fall damage.]
[Effect: Fall damage reduced by 10% according to the skill level.]
***
[Roll][Tier-1][Lv-1/10][Passive]
[It is the knowledge of moving your body in a way impossible without the skill.]
[Reward: You gain .1 points in Agility every skill level.]
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It didn’t occur to me then —courtesy of the chemical remnants still coursing through me, and the battle high— but I wasn’t nimble enough to perform such actions.
I pulled away from the battlefield, scared and stunned. I wasn’t hurt but was truly shocked out of my senses. The scents on the ground were indistinguishable from each other. All the instructions and trails were overtaken by the emotional outlet of the soldiers and the termites dying and fighting.
A winged termite turned toward me and fell lifelessly to the ground. It succumbed to the soldier's poison and, as I later noticed, to the large rend it had suffered on the back.
The wound had leaked, but the termite’s inability to cope with poison was strange. The ones from the cave had been different.
The two castes weren’t the same, but resistance against poison wasn’t something selective. If their queen had found a way to pass the gene on to one caste then the whole colony should be resistant; that strangely wasn’t the case.
The winged royals —I noticed— acted firmly as carriers alone, none dropping into the mess that was the battlefield. Rarely ever did one pass through the poison mist raised by the soldiers on the tower, or hit a bad draft and fell down; otherwise, they seemed to have a clear plan. Such an ingenious method! Never before in the history of ant warfare had an enemy or a friend ever decided to use their royal caste as carriers. There were many stories, but none quite so exquisite. No queen would issue such an order, for it was akin to playing with their future!
This was my first true battle. And it was different, much too gruesome for a damaged worker to be a part of. I was slowly finding my feet again, but the chemical shouts and pain trails were not kind to my mental health. I always believed battles and wars were fought like the duels, against respectful and honorable opponents, where only the end result differed. But in reality, there was no respect or honor in war, only suffering, anger, and death.
The battle on the ground was just a small part of the mayhem that was the battle. The real battlefield was happening atop the tower where the termites had found a large vulnerability in our structure, and were pressing into it with unquenchable motivation. Our soldiers had already established their territory on the ground.
Most of the royal termites had dropped their passengers upon the tower and conceded the sky. Not worried about rescuing the survivors? I wondered what they were thinking! How could they do that to someone their own? Their actions only made it more convoluted to guess their aim. The termites were basically committing suicide. Or they had an objective other than simple destruction of the city and provocation?
Well, there were professionals to think about that sort of thing. For all that was worth, I had done more than should be asked of someone like me. I had gone to battle, assisted a kill, and survived. Now I could sit back and relax. I could, but I didn’t. The soldiers never thought like that.
I hadn’t yet forgotten the one who had kicked her helpers away because she didn’t want to be a burden on the city. For all my wisdom and intelligence I was very much a fool. It was a tough job to put my life back in danger, now that the battle high had worn out. I suddenly wished the high to fill me again, so I wouldn’t feel badly obligated to work my worth.
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Just do your job and stay quiet, a little voice spoke in my head. It acted only as a painful reminder of my situation and nothing else.
The field around the tower was littered with mutilated bodies of ants and termites pushed off the tower. Most were dead; while some still stirred with last sparks of life: locked in battle, mandibles holding squeamish opponent, digging deeper and deeper. Soldiers were busy putting them to rest, both the enemies and friends.
The termites were supposed to be a source of food, not invincible raiders who didn’t care for their lives!
Their behavior didn’t make any sense.
That’s when a flood of soldiers arrived at the surface from the deepest depths of the city, the headquarters. They rushed out of the colony through the various vents and exits and started scaling the tower from the ground up. Many followed them. I didn’t. I went the other way first, back inside the city, before rushing up behind them. I wasn’t giving up; I had just realized the limitations of my single mandible and my position. There was no place for me on the battlefield. But there were other ways I could help.
The tower wasn’t a small place. Its surface was large enough to hold the five hundred or so termites that had been dropped by the winged ones.
The termites were pressing into the destroyed portion of the tower, attacking it with an unseen craze. By the time we reached the initial point of collision, the battle had already moved inside the tower. The termites had already crushed our soldiers and were now busy mowing down the workers.
The workers were finding it hard to resist them. Although these hard-shelled termites were really immune to poison and didn’t succumb to the whittling of the soldiers, even their defense crashed when the new wave of soldiers joined the ones already up there. However, the giants flourished when the battle intensified. They crushed many and split even more before someone noticed that they couldn’t easily change directions. Still, the five of them alone took more than three teams of thirty soldiers before succumbing to the rush.
Robbed of their shields and outnumbered five to one, the termites couldn’t hold on for much longer. They did make an all-out attempt when they saw the jaws of death closing on them, and tried to take as many with them to the other side as they could, but failed to do so. There were losses and higher than the amount there would have been had the battle had played out in the more conventional ways. When all was said and done, the termites lost their lives and us, our prestige.
They had waged a war. Soon we would have to answer them. Soon we would have to make them pay us back for the loss of life and the damages. But for the time being, the situation was clear. Revenge could take a step back until the mess was sorted out.
They had come from the west, the unoccupied region where no ember queen had ever managed to dig her claws and stake her claim. There was a generation that had sent princesses in that direction to search for open land and untaxed resources, but none had ever sent back delegates to announce their presence and create a supply route with the kingdom. However, it wasn’t like there was no ant city in the west direction. The western front was far, with a city situated right in between.
I didn’t follow the soldiers back to the ground. I didn’t walk behind others empty-handed this time while they carried the weight.
I deigned the role of a caretaker and offered water to anyone in need. I couldn’t heal, but I cleaned the wounds of the injured with water and fed them the little honeydew I had managed to wrestle out of the pots supervised by angry workers. My title of a loud-mouthed traitor was as true as it could have been. The workers really looked at me unfavorably. And that was that. It, however, sparked a realization in me regarding the notifications. Not that the knowledge excited me.
I dragged the injured to the ground and took them to where the nurses had created a healing station. I wasn’t alone in the cause; many workers joined me once the battle was over.
It was the job a worker was supposed to handle: repair and caretaking. Fighting and wrestling were jobs best suited for the soldiers —there was a reason behind their bodily strength and larger mandibles. However, I couldn’t be a worker anymore, and neither was I a soldier. I was nothing, but I wasn’t going to let my disability hold me back anymore.
Never again, I promised myself.
The whole place was a mess.
The soldiers were done with their job, but the workers were going to have it rough. They would have to scrub the scents away and repair the damage; and I was going to be with them till the end.
I was thinking about the princess and how she would feel about a delay in the construction of her project when a foreign set of antennae touched my head. They read me with three simple taps and went forward to make a connection in a manner of precision I hadn’t felt before. My first reaction was to offer water, as I had done for so long, but that’s not what they wanted.
You surprised me. They transferred their thoughts with their chemical signature attached. You were very brave today. I never thought someone in your condition would take the arms of their own accord.
Who? I asked in surprise and jumped back upon learning that it was the winged royal, the captain of the four delinquents I had met right before the battle started.
I believe you were trying to find us?
I-I had forgotten about that part. Exhaustion and hunger didn’t help either. However, since he had found me in the middle of all the soldiers, to ask about something that may or may not matter to him, I decided to answer him with all the seriousness I could muster at that moment.
I was asked by princess Tinbuji to find the explorers. Princess might believe she needed to be reminded of her stature, but I personally didn’t want to be the one with the job. I had decided to no longer call her tiny. It didn’t suit her or me; not since I knew the reason behind the nickname.
Then it is your lucky day. He said. Obviously, I asked him to explain, ignoring his surprising merriment. I thought he knew the explorers, but I wasn’t expecting the truth.
Well, congratulations young wok-worker, for you have found us. I am the captain of the explorers. You can call me 7; And they, are the members of my team. He pointed an antenna to his left where five soldiers were gathered around one of the termite giants, all busy shredding the giant, part by part.
I grew vigilant.