When the witch has made it through the kill zone she climbs up to the sentinel floor and we sit down back to back and look out across the forest. Her back is shielded with thick and her spine is the gap down the centre. She is warm against me. She is old and wise and she is still straight and strong.

We watch for twenty clicks. There is no unauthorised movement out there. I lay the smallest hair flat against her own short spikes. Carefully, carefully as she breathes and takes the watch with me. Finally she pulls away, stands and reaches into one of the packs she hauled up here. She must have picked me up a drop because this is a bigger cargo than she could carry.

Sometimes I don’t see her for months. The fighting has never been intense in this sector but I eliminate many scouting parties. They are like the ants – always exploring new territory.

*****

The witch said the ants would foul my supplies. I must launch a full area cleansing. This protocol would eliminate other beneficial insects which were sustenance for my birds and worked with the locals. Spiders eat flies. Flies eat excrement. Ants have their place as well, I knew, and they have generations of belonging to this land. I include them in my defence protocol.

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To be clear, the witch only suggested the ants be dispossessed from my tower, not my zone, but I wondered if I could broker an accord with them.

Ants are not like birds. Ants are like soldiers. They follow instructions. Ants use pheromones to lay a message for the next ant.

“Follow me. Tell your friends.”

“Death this way. Turn back.”

“Make death or the hive will suffer.”

“Bring back the bodies.”

It took months to learn their ways. But I have time. They made me to last.

You can send an ant around a tower. You can send an ant to an enemy camp disguised with their scent. You can send a troupe of ants out to lay strands of hair that connect and connect and connect.

Why, in time, these small creatures can help you form an outpost. They cannot move stone but they can find a suitable tree. Once I had a roadway I sent more hair. We burrowed underground. Overhead we followed vines.

Even the smallest can be a warrior. Just like me.