Ezras set on a stone stool looking over a hastily drawn tunnel map that only he and his officers would understand. His foot tapped erratically as he traced routes crossing them out as messages came in. his free hand found its way across his facial scars repeatedly, a habit he picked up when deep in thought.
Another man entered the room and was granted only a glance from Ezra, leather armor covered in dirt. An ally, was all he thought before glancing back at his maps and preparing to cross out another potential escape route.
“Sir we have been pushed back to the third junction--”
“already” growled Ezra. “haven't the mages managed to close off the entrance yet”
the man quickly replied, “sir most of the earth mages are dead from the previous attack so we are collapsing the tunnels by hand”
“then what is the problem” interrupted Ezra once again.
Before the messenger could answer a sturdy-looking man that was in the previous meeting put a hand on Ezra's shoulder, “Ezra you need to let him finish the report before you ask questions”
Ezra paused for a moment then took a moment to breathe. He focused on the messenger and simply said, “report”
The messenger saluted and started, “Sir we have been pushed back to the third junction by the undead, pushing them back seems impossible because spears and swords have very little effect for most soldiers. These skeletons somehow have hardened bones. We have had little success with using our pics to crush their skulls but picks aren’t designed as weapons so the price is heavy in their use. We have managed to slow their advance by collapsing tunnels, however, they also have ants which can dig out the tunnels as fast as we can collapse them.”
…
during the silence, another messenger entered the room and without waiting for any ques started his report, “The earth mages say that the enemy ants are tunneling around our blockades, we are being flanked.
“SHIT!” roared Ezra as he slammed his fist on the table, “how are the escape tunnels coming along”
“the mages say the escape tunnels will be intercepted before completion”
…
silence engulfed the room. A heavyweight pressed on the chests of each of the men. Ezra ground his teeth together and forced out an order, “abandon all the escape tunnels and focus all our power on one opening”
One of the messengers snapped back into reality and grabbed the other stunned messenger, “let's go” he said then dashed into the tunnel networks as fast as he could.
The man standing next to Ezra comforted, “we have to save as many as we can and this is the only way”
Ezra slumped down onto the table while holding his head, “I’ve failed, how many will be able to get out of a single hastily built tunnel. What's worse is that the men won’t even know. They will keep holding back the undead like good soldiers while waiting their turn to retreat…”
Meanwhile, Lucifer was floating above the due while his mind focused on directing his forces. His first wave of skeletons was almost depleted and soon he would have to use zombies, the skeletons were weaker, but he liked their elemental and piercing immunities that leaving them in a mana-rich dungeon granted them.
His ants were working their way around the enemy defenses. Wherever there was a blockade of men and steel there was a tunnel being made to go around and behind it. Another group was moving towards the escape tunnels being built with a vicious speed.
Once their commander issued an order to focus on a single tunnel he thought of countermeasures. Ants aren't as tall so they don’t have to remove as much material to move through, and they can climb on walls easily which means they can dig their tunnels almost vertically. With these advantages he simply had the ants dig to the surface before the army. They were still a considerable distance from the enemy citadel so he wasn’t worried about attacks from the defending duchy.
At the third junction.
Soldiers carrying picks attacked the walls and roof and anything that supported the tunnel. This was extremely dangerous, but they had no other way of slowing the undead advance.
Then like clockwork the earth blocking the tunnel shook and black pincers pushed through the rock grasping and crushing dirt and rock alike. Groups of soldiers dashed forward with their short spears and viciously attacked the diggers. Meanwhile, the men carrying picks continued attacking the tunnels structural stability.
An older man carefully watched the cracks in the walls and roof. While the battle grew more intense. More earth was removed by black claws and mandibles and more monsters pushed their way through the gaps.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Then as the earthen barricade was almost gone the old soldier roared, “NOW!!!”. All the soldiers turned around and ran. The ants knew what was happening as they had seen it happen several times now, they too skittered after the soldiers grabbing and pinning down as many as they could.
Several of the more elaborately patterned ants didn’t bother grabbing the fleeing soldiers. They find it more efficient to just trip them over for their brethren to pin down after them
The surrounding walls creaked and groaned as dist fell on top of the fleeing soldiers, then chunks of stone came loose falling on undead human and ant alike. Dozens of soldiers didn’t make it to a stable part of the tunnel in time and were crushed, however, this was still a small victory for the humans.
A new wall of earth now blocked the undead advance and the soldiers would have time to recuperate. The old soldier grumbled under his breath about the ants being too smart.
Just as they were feeling a slight sense of relief there was yelling in the tunnel behind them, “they’ve dug around us!”. Sounds of battle commenced as ants flooded in from the tunnel roof. Soldiers struggled to bring their weapons to bear in the confined space.
The soldiers outnumbered the ants coming through and even in a cramped state they managed to kill anything coming through the hole, but dust started to fall from different sections of the roof. New holes opened up and the defenders were struggling to keep back the flood and the piles of corpses falling onto them didn’t make their movements any better.
A soldier was gritting his teeth and stabbing his spear into a smaller hole that only allowed one ant through at a time. He got lucky occasionally and managed to pin an ant in the hole opening, it would usually take 30 seconds or so for the ants behind it to wedge it free which was a welcome break.
Another corpse fell on top of him as he struggled to get out of the way, but he was practically shoulder to shoulder with the other men and didn’t have the freedom to avoid the corpse. The body soon worked its way to the ground between the moving soldier's bodies and he was forced to retake his footing. Now both of his feet were standing on the uneven surface of ant bodies and he could vaguely tell he was closer to the ceiling.
This did make hitting his enemies easier, but it also made hitting him easier. He hoped that the escape tunnels would be completed soon so they could get out of this ants nest. Or at least fall back soon.
Another ant forced is ugly head through the hole and he thrust his pointed spear straight through it with practiced ease. It felt odd.
BOOM!!. Unbeknownst to him, there was a mana gem implanted in the ant's skull and when he pierced the ants head it exploded. The immediate few meters flashed to a thousand degrees incinerating anything alive in the area, a shockwave went through the confined space sending blood gushing out of the soldier's ears. Tones of stone fell and created a new wall.
The old soldier winced in pain as all sound was replaced with a deep ringing, he rubbed the side of his head in pain and winced once more when he saw his blood covered hands. His group was on the front line so he was afforded enough room to turn around and without the years of experience under the earth, he could tell there was a catastrophic cave in.
They were trapped between two walls of earth with enemies digging towards them. Several soldiers bellowed orders expecting to have them followed but quickly figured out they weren't being heard.
They forced themselves towards the new stone wall and began picking up buckets and pointing to different men. The old soldier just shook his head and slumped against the wall.
The people giving orders soon figured out the problem with their plan of digging themselves out. Where were they going to put the earth and stone they removed? Before they were dumping it in some of the side tunnels that were made to confuse the enemy earth mages, however, they didn’t have access to them anymore.
They didn’t have the opportunity to figure that out as once again dust started falling from the ceiling, holes soon opened up revealing dark maws and black eyes staring back at the soldiers, however, they soon disappeared back into the holes they dug confusing the soldiers.
Then suddenly something shiny fell from one of the holes and made a high pitched splitting sound on a soldiers helm, he moved his helm back into a more comfortable position and cursed, “fuck was that”
“POISON!” someone yelled and people started to notice a tinge of green gas spreading from where the thing fell. Everyone scrambled for their pouches and drank a foul anti-poison concoction from small pouches they always kept close.
Another shiny thing fell, but this time a nimble man managed to swipe it out of the air before it hit something hard, “poison vials?” he absent-mindedly questioned. He lifted it into the air like a trophy and everyone seemed to understand.
Another vial fell, then another and another. With a pair of ready hands no less than two feet apart none of the vials managed to break. This deadly game of catch continued for half a minute or so until one of the carved ants poked its head into the cave.
Noone had their weapons out too preoccupied with the poison rain so the ant backed away into its tunnel unharmed.
Moments later it came back with a vial in its mandibles. Dozens of soldiers looked at the thing in a strange sort of mute horror. Then as if out of spite, it bit down. Crack. The vial in its grasp split open dousing a few soldiers underneath.
They screamed as they tried to rub the poison off which was eating away at their flesh, but they only managed to spread the poison around and their flailing poison coated hands managed to smear other soldiers during their death throws.
The antidote in the soldier's blood worked hard at neutralizing the foreign substance with a brutal efficiency, as if it was alive and aware of its purpose. Either by some arcane manipulation, some strange property of the antidote itself or a combination of both.
However, an antidote could only neutralize so much and while it may be sufficient for a poison sting or brief contact with something poisonous, it could not save the dozens of soldiers nearest to the broken vial.
Blood filled their lungs and poured from every orifice, every sphincter in the body relaxed releasing more than a foul odor. Then the men affected were reduced to a twitching mess on the floor. Anything they were holding fell from loose hands, including some of the vials they were holding themselves.
A cascade effect followed, a group would fall to poison and crack the poison vials they held during their death throes, a few quick-witted people put their vials down in an attempt to stop the domino effect, but the damage had already been done. There wasn’t even a breath of breathable air in the tunnel anymore.
Ezra slumped in his uncomfortable stone chair as he was strangely regretting not having a soldier carry around a comfortable chair just for him, a lot of other commanders did it, but he wanted to set an example for his soldier so a stone chair it is.
Another messenger came through the threshold of the room and he almost sighed out loud. More bad news he presumed, “how is the escape tunnel coming along”, he asked before the messenger could speak. At this point that escape tunnel was all he cared about.
“sir its about to be completed, I’m here to escort you out”
Ezra's eyes narrowed on the man, “how wide”
“Sir?”
“how wide is the tunnel” Ezra demanded.
…
“a bit more than a meter” the man finally answered.
Ezra sighed, “go by yourself, if anyone asks its an order”
“bu--”
“an order” Ezra restated. “tell my king that I died fighting for my men's lives and that I’m sorry”. Ezra stood up shoved a medallion into the messenger's hand and saluted with a certainty that it would get where it needed to be that wasn't quite justified.
The messenger turned and left and Ezra could swear he read eagerness in the messenger's step, he couldn’t blame him. He didn’t want this place to be his tomb either.
He collected himself donned the armor he left in a corner and stepped out of the room. Five men greeted him with a salute. They were the older soldiers that were with him earlier, only there were a few less now.
“didn’t think you would get to go down fighting by yourself did ya” one of them offhandedly remarked with a grin.
“yep kinda hoped I would” replied Ezra.
The man laughed, “finally stopped the act ay”
another suggested, “together we could get out of this tight situation, so why not”
Ezra joked, “you five are free to go if you want”
“doesn’t work like that boss,” said another man.
“why die here when you're worth so much more than the men you're protecting”
Ezra grinned and said, “I’m worth more than a single soldier that would take my turn exiting the tunnel yes, but how about two”
“your not that big stop boasting” someone laughed.
“ask your mother” Ezra joked back, “but I think I can hold off the enemies for a few more soldiers to squeeze through. So am I worth more than two, how about ten, a hundred”
A man smacked his chest and boasted, “my life could give at least two hundred soldiers enough time to escape”
“and I three hundred”
“and I would give enough time for his mom to squeeze through the escape tunnel”
The men joked and laughed for a time until it died down and a grim determination was all that was left. They hoisted their picks over their shoulders and marched down the tunnel towards the enemy catching the gazes of any soldiers they passed.