Antvance into the Unknown

146. Council Gathers

As I watch the disc containing Brixin and her cohort of demons fly back to Orpule, I breathe a sigh of relief. That was close, too close! We might have been able to win, but most likely only with the sacrifice of many, many lives, and that is a price I am simply not willing to tolerate.

My siblings will fight for the Colony, and in that process, some will perish. I’ve come to terms with that, somewhat… But I will never accept my sisters utilising traditional ant tactics and choking the enemy with our own dead. I’ve worked hard to make it so that would never be necessary, and I’ll be damned if I allow them to go back to it now.

Not after we’ve come so far.

Determined to move fast, I do something I usually hesitate to do and start issuing orders.

“Get this Biomass stored away and make sure the core is secured. I want to have a good, hard look at it later, and it will be valuable as heck, so make sure it isn’t lost. Secure the city, and I want to see every Council member within ten kilometres of this location before an hour is out. Just point them to wherever I happen to be.”

The ants around me all salute and rush to complete their tasks. This whole situation has put another deadline on us, and I’m not particularly happy about it. Of course, I knew we’d have to move fast, I was just hoping we could set the clock ourselves, rather than have it be set for us.

Wanting to make sure me and mine are out of the way of the individuals doing the actual work, I take my pets and Allocrix closer to the pillar and wait for the Council. As time passes, more and more ants flood down the four huge wires they constructed—how they’d managed it, I have no idea.

The city floods with healers and carvers and huge groups of core shapers and their pets who descend to the plains below and establish a perimeter around the base of the city.

The moment they arrive, the healers rush to render aid to all who’ve been injured during the fighting, ant, demon, or human. The carvers set to repairing the damage that’s been done with their usual gusto, and the city echoes with the constant rumble of Earth Magic as buildings are reset and roads smoothed out. Through it all I can see the remaining local demon population watch it all happen with somewhat bewildered faces.

[How do you think the demons will react to being managed by ants?] I ask Al, my only resident expert.

He ponders for a long moment before he replies.

[I don’t know,] he says with that odd note of hunger in his voice.

He doesn’t know, but he’s very keen to find out and slide that new brick of knowledge into his wall of obsession.

[But you can hazard a guess or two, I’m sure,] I encourage the fiery eyeball. [You must have some thoughts as to how it may go.]

[It is difficult to say because I don’t believe it has ever been done before. I have interacted with other races, and I get the impression they don’t particularly want to rule demons. They are happy to occupy territory, to trade or seize resources, but they don’t want to control demons. Why would anyone bother?]

[You guys are powerful monsters who can think for yourselves, good allies to have on your side in a scrap, surely?]

[Demons have been hired, certainly. If you understand what our obsession is, then it isn’t hard to come to an arrangement that will involve a fair exchange for a particular demon’s services. We ourselves have come to such an arrangement.]

[So, people will treat demons like particularly weird mercenaries, but won’t actually try to rule or control them. I’m going to assume because it’s just too damn hard?]

[If a slaughter demon follows its nature and kills a human, other humans tend to get upset about it. From a demon’s perspective, they did nothing wrong.]

[I can see how that’s going to be a challenge to deal with…]

Before long, the Council members start to arrive. Tungstant is here, Burke and Wills are both on the scene, along with all the soldiers and both generals. Looks like the Colony wasn’t mucking around when they decided to launch this invasion. All hands were on deck! There are others, of course. Bella is here, along with Mendant, representing their respective castes.

“How is everyone?” I greet them all. “Everyone doing well?”

“Can’t complain, I suppose,” Advant shrugs her antennae.

“WELL, I CAN!” I spray the area with outrage.

“I can only guess that the lot of you have worked yourselves until your carapaces are wearing thin to make this invasion happen, and it was successful, well done, but now you’ve got another demon city wanting a conflict within a week, and you’re going to have to work yourselves half to death again in order to stave it off!”

I glare at them all.

“It’s not sustainable!” I declare.

“Being honest with you, Eldest,” Sloan says. “We have to push hard in order to ensure our survival. If we don’t secure the resources and territory we need to fight off those who would seek us harm before they come back to do it⁠—”

I point one sharp antenna at the much smaller general.

“You think I don’t know that, Sloan? You think you’re giving me new information right now!”

I’m tempted to unleash the power of THWACK, but I restrain myself by a hair.

“Obviously, I know that, but if you are all pushing yourselves to the brink every day, then what do you think will happen when something does go wrong? We are going to be attacked at some point. A nest will be infiltrated, our defences will get tested, golgari will sneak in and destroy our brood, the Legion comes back and besieges a new nest. It WILL happen. Nothing goes right all the time. And when it does happen, what state are you going to be in? Is every single one of you going to be down here? Pushing on the front lines? Dragging the Colony to the brink of exhaustion?”

I stare at them all.

“It’s difficult, but you have to walk the fine line between going hard, fighting for our future, and holding something in reserve for when things go wrong.”

My words seem to resonate with the group as their antennae waver through the air in slow, thoughtful circles.

“Anyways,” I sigh. “What we really need to do right now is work out exactly what we’re going to do to defend ourselves against this attack from the nearby City of Orpule. If we lose, then the territory we’ve gained will be gone almost as soon as we took it!”

A discussion erupts amongst everyone, and I can tell that Vibrant in particular is talking at a million miles an hour. After a bit of back and forth, it’s Wills who puts forth an interesting suggestion.

“If I’m not mistaken,” she leads with, “this war of conquest is for control of a demon city, right?”

“I believe so,” I confirm.

“Then, if we win, don’t we gain control of their city? Orpule?”

“Ah… maybe? I mean, I guess that sounds, right?”

“So… isn’t this a way that we can gain more territory and control? Rather than just running at cities and rolling over them like we did here… we can use this… formal war, as our mechanism to gain more territory.”

I think for a minute.

“That sounds… smart?”

Just you wait, third stratum. The ants are marching in.