Although Milen didn’t have time to investigate the labyrinth, the open area surrounding it was another story, probably the only thing she had time to check. The roaming Royal Guard rarely went outside the labyrinth, at least in that area they didn’t have to worry, the worst possible scenario, though, would be hitting into him at the entrance. “According to Milen, that would spell immediate death”.
The torches were all positioned very high in the ceiling, whereas down at their current level there was only a fraction of it. The darkness was their ally, although the same could be said for the ants, it would be best not to alert the Queen. The moment they were discovered, it was over.
There was a small gap in-between each ant regiment that went up the hole, followed by a larger gap in which there was barely any movement. Seven and Milen stuck to the walls and slowly moved towards a safer spot, communicating their position by flashing the crystals. They couldn’t form a party, Seven knew that the Queen was capable of receiving the signal.
“It is quieter now, time to move”
In synchrony, they quickly walked into the center of the field towards the lower levels of the labyrinth, momentarily reuniting.
-I have a rough sketch of the area with me – she whispered – but it is the surface, and we can’t approach from there. In between the river there are walls allowing the passage of worker ants, and the Royal Guard also fits. Most of the time the level is low, allowing warriors to go through, but from the marks I can tell it will go higher, and I don’t think anything can pass by, unless the Royal Guard can swim...
Scribbling on the paper, Milen looked up and put a hand up her ear to better hear the movement on the inside of the walls.
-We’re at this position, then – Seven pointed – and the Royal Guard should be patrolling the river of while it is still low, correct?
-I think so.
-The information we need is the accurate mapping of the outer walls, since we don’t know of any hidden passage, and the mechanism that changes the level of the river, so that we guarantee that the Royal Guard and the rest of the warriors don’t travel by the outer walls or any passage we do not know of.
-That’s right. I’ve also thought of the possible routes it can take. If it doesn’t travel by hidden passages while inside the river, like we are assuming, three possibilities make sense for its routine. One to prioritize efficiency, scouring the entire labyrinth in the shortest time, the other prioritizing the Queen’s security, with extra rounds near a few key passages, and finally, one that takes into account the time in which worker ants head in. I have no idea how much time it would take to finish the round-up, though, so if you see it, try to get a feel for its movements and get a rough idea of its speed... You wouldn’t be able to do anything other than watch, either way.
“It should be closer to the second, but more flexible than this. A mix of the three, perhaps, but it gives me an assumption of where it will pass”
-I will go through this route – she delineated with her finger – and you go through the opposite one. There are three points of interest in your route, in particular, and I’d like you to check if they contain passages. Also, at some points we can meet up and reevaluate our efforts. If we don’t find anything uncommon, you should finish earlier than me, and we can meet at the exit.
-Good. I’ll be seeing you.
As resolution filled their eyes, it finally dawned that they were doing it, and it seemed simpler at first glance and less dangerous than it appeared to be. They nodded and left for their respective paths.
“As the saying goes, the first step is half the mile, or something like that”.
Unlike the humid, dark and funny-smelling tunnels, the golden walls were surprisingly clean and dilapidated, at least on their part, since just a few meters away there was a distasteful liquid plastered in them, and the smell of iron permeating the thick walls and seeping through the soil was ever-present. The level was low, as every half a minute there would be the muffled sounds of steps, and his body would instinctively stiffen to not let by even the smallest of sounds.
Walking while coursing his hand on the wall, he stumbled upon a spherical device. It had a few indentations that he felt could be entered by the ants’ pincers. He put his spear in one side and stuffed his bag on the other, immediately the compartment opened and he had to force both the items out as a torrent of blood came in droves to drown him.
“Great”. He took a bottle and doused himself in water to remove as much as he could of that scent. To go against the strength of the colossal blood column, an ant had to be exceptionally strong. It was not a surprise they could cut through flesh as easily as a knife cutting butter. Seven didn’t linger around the area and quickly moved towards the next, recording the passages and keeping a lookout for any obvious shortcuts that would’ve normally be missed due to the darkness.
“Could it be that the river of blood in terminal A-1 was moved here?” The purpose was not yet clear, but it seemed likely given the present information.
Every few minutes, a lone warrior ant or a platoon of workers would pass through. In that darkness it made his heart beat fast, as he had no idea whether they suspected him or not. He could tell by the movement of their antennae if they found anything suspicious, but unless they were very close by, he couldn’t see the thin antennae clearly, and if they were that close, it didn’t spell anything good. He had to rely on the pacing of their movements. If there was any slight stop or a few uncoordinated steps, he would freeze with spear in hand and prepare for the worst. Those signs were more frequent than he expected, but in the end, none came his way.
By the time he approached a dead end, one of the focal points of Milen’s plan, he backtracked and threw a pheromone bomb before running with quiet steps, using the time he bought to scan the surroundings.
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“This one is no good”, he finished the job and went his way, eventually chancing upon a helicoidal stairway.
“Yeah, there is no way that was built by an ant. It is a perfect fit for humans, ants wouldn’t need such an intricate design. But Milen mentioned the Royal Guard is humanoid... It could use this to navigate between the different levels”.
After a few minutes, he saw the familiar blue glint and met Milen.
-Anything on your side? - he asked.
-I’ve discovered a few devices that allow the ants to fill the river, but it would need thousands for hours on end to fill everything.
-I’ve found them, too, but there weren’t that many. They are most likely used to feed the ants and not the river, it is more efficient to simply dump the blood from the top.
-I also found a passage that takes me to the mid-levels, and from there many entrances to the inner walls.
-They should be for the warriors. I chanced up a set of stairs. It would be ideal to make those foreign accesses off-limits just before proceeding with the plan.
-I agree.
The second part of their route was shared. As usual, they hugged the walls and made their way past the rows of ants. Unlike the first few passages, though, this one held a constant flow of ants and the creeping possibility of them noticing something amiss weighed on Milen’s mind more than it did to Seven. Although used to reconnaissance missions from working with Kyel, she was not at all comfortable with this setup. She wanted riskier missions to test her limits, and, to a point, surpass her limits.
“Those that want to die, shall live. I hope those words ring true even to this moment”.
As luck should have it, as soon as she thought of those words, she slipped on a pool of blood that had been resting near one of the spherical devices, producing an ear-shattering sound that sent the ant waves to a standstill.
“Shit!”
Seven closed his eyes and tried not to believe in what he had just heard.
“You fucking idiot...”
Soon after, the ants swarmed the blood pool and Milen had no choice but to take action. Seven used the opportunity to throw his second and last bottle of pheromones at the center to momentarily stun them, readying his spear to end the life of a single insect.
“Fuck, I should have expected it...” with only one arm, it was very hard to maneuver around a big group. The spear got stuck and he had to propel himself on the ant to get it off, but a few times doing this would get him surrounded in an instant.
The time he bought was enough for Milen to get some distance and put her skills to use. She started with some badly thrown daggers that barely scratched the tough hide of the beasts, followed by small but precise loaded bolts buried inside their heads. She could only put an end to those she found in short range, though, and there weren’t enough for everyone.
It was a battle of attrition, and it was quite clear which side would win.
“Run”, they thought at the same time, and each of them followed a different direction due to how the ants spread and the sides they were at. Milen followed back the way they came, which was considerably safer considering it was closer to an exit, nevertheless if the ants from the entrance got the signal and close her off, it was the end. As for Seven, he didn’t possess such “luck”.
Eventually, he came to know of another secret passage by the worst way possible, as a stack of warrior ants suddenly appeared from a slit inside the wall, and he could do nothing but freeze. He couldn’t run forever as his stamina wasn’t infinite, and the more noise he caused, the more ants he would attract.
“Milen can still get out if she doesn’t fuck up. As long as she is being chased and either escapes or dies trying, the Queen won’t be alert about me... In the worst case, another round-up will be underway, more thorough and surer to find me out...”
As the slithering of the feelers sent shivers down his spine, Seven brainstormed of all the possible ways he could get out of this situation, and steadily the long and scythe-like legs of the monsters filled the narrow pathway in a way that he would sooner be impaled on accident than purposefully killed. The deployment was so inefficient that, for a split second, he doubted the instincts and survival capabilities of that wretched species, until it came to him the possibility of it being on purpose.
“Those passages are not meant to allow for a quick transition between the levels... All of the warriors are either in the rivers or atop the walls. It is a swarm tactic!”
The ants blocked the passages so that no invader could go inside the Queen’s chambers, or out of the labyrinth. Most terrifying was the shadow he saw crossing about the hindlegs of the creatures, which he immediately identified as the Royal Guard. It stepped on the hardened carapace of its peers, the legs much fatter but tinier in comparison, with hairs and feelers longer to detect the slightest differences in the air.
Its presence was enough to make his blood run cold and his heart freeze with fear. Seven tracked his movements by the same light which he used to communicate with Milen, but he knew for sure it wasn’t her, as the scrawny arm ended in a claw that hardly resembled anything human, not at all moving as if an appendix not needing after its gross evolution.
For a moment, he heard the noise of a strange convulsion of liquids in its direction, and soon after a pair of eyes was out on a mad search in every direction. The sight was cut off as another warrior almost squashed him, putting forth his unparalleled body, and as fast as he came, he was cut in two by that thin claw whose arm extended like a piece of straw, sending it tumbling away, and another part half burying Seven underneath.
The red eyes changed position on its head a few times before moving on, stepping on the carcasses of its lower brethren and forcing them down on its wake. All the way through, they never left him, always gazing at him with profound and bitter precision, as if it knew for a fact Seven was there, waiting with half hope half desperation that it would quickly leave the premises, and maybe it rejoiced on its warped mind that there was no way he was leaving the premises.
When both the red light contrasting with the blue of the crystal vanished in the distance, his stuffed chest couldn’t let out a sigh of relief, as he was still surrounded. He steadily tried to remove himself from the collapsed warrior body, but his leg had been badly injured and he couldn’t do it. He closed his eyes, accepting his fate.
“A butterfly... This is what I need. But there is no way I’ll find one”
The butterfly was a byproduct of other spells cast, from what he understood. Unless some kind of miracle happened, he would never chance upon one since he had yet to delve into magic itself.
There was nothing to be done. Of all things, the last he would expect was a failure on the side of Kyel’s follower, especially one that managed to survive thus far. The last glimmer of hope, the bag which held a few trinkets he could use to help him now, was so deep inside the body it held no hope of recovery.
Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, and in such a spectacular way that it was almost funny.
In his depression, all he wanted was some time to re-read his book and maybe write a few more chapters. The times in which he decided to follow his guts instead of his brains, did they ever work out?
“I’m so fucked...”