The Third Expedition

The sound of splintering wood ended with a loud crash accompanied by the shattering of pottery, then angry snarls of the wounded beasts below. The stairs had given way under the combined weight of the Kurii. The inclined cases had fallen to the flagstones of the court, helped in large part because their supports had been mostly sawed through. The sound of shattered pottery had come from the terra cotta pots which had been set directly under the crashed stairs.

With the pots broken their contents poured out. Ants.

They were known as the tiny marchers in the upcountry Jungle. Over the months of the kraal's occupation, millions of ants had been collected by slaves. The Scribe Lyrissa, an expert on ants, had instructed the collectors on how to safely handle the vicious and dangerous biting insects. She had known how long the insects could live in sealed vessels. She had estimated how many it might take to rapidly overwhelm an invading army of Kurii.

I'll have to remember to give her a bonus, Rigorus thought. He drew his kisu, a wickedly curved knife from its belt-sheath and cut a rope attached to a pulley. Immediately there was a loud resounding boom emanating from the ground-level entry way.

Mai heard her Maulana chuckle again as he put away his knife and she saw him take a big swallow of his wine, nodding in satisfaction and patting his First-Sword, General Predatori, on the back.

"What'd I tell you, Warrior. Slicker than fleer shit. The tiny marchers are better than a battalion of askaris. And with the stone block now barring the kraal's only entrance, I'd say its all over but for the shouting."

"Rigorus, you must know I never doubted you," the general smiled, and drank deeply from his own cup.

"Let's just hope that extract the Scribe's prepared, the what's it--"

"Pheromone extract," Predatori said, his eyes all for the ill-matched battle waging down in the courtyard.

"Eeh. Let's hope it draws the little fucks away from the kraal, after they've feasted," Rigorus said.

Mai, shocked out of her fatalism, stared with wide eyes and open mouth at the scene down below. The floor of the courtyard was thirty feet beneath the floor of the second level. Not even the nimble Kur could jump that high. Being expert climbers, given time, they might've been able to scale the walls to the second level. But, as Mai saw in the pewter light of the rising Larger Moon, time was not on the Kurii's side.

Ants hunt. Their usual method is to first send out scavenger scouts who locate a prey item then report back to the nest with the particulars. But, with the Kurii being so near and numerous, the super-organism that was the collective army of ants needed no scouts. Not only were they enraged from being taken from their natural environment and imprisoned, they were ravenous as well.

The Kurii discovered in short-order that ants, too, eat their prey alive.

The ants swarmed over the agonized invaders like a giant roiling black fur being unfurled. The screams of the Kurii being consumed was satisfying to the humans' ears, particularly to those of the kneeling slave girl.

:.

The nightmare had become manifest. Scarside was in agony.

The ants had invaded his body, through every orifice, they were biting away his flesh from the outside down to the bones. And each separate bite was its own hot flare of fire. When he screamed they poured into his mouth. No matter how fast he snapped shut his jaws, no matter how hard he gnashed, there were always more ants. He was deaf from them chewing away his eardrums, he was blind from them eating out his eyes. He swayed drunkenly around, falling against his brethren who were in as bad a shape as himself.

His world was crystalline pain. At the very moment of their victory, defeat had come on countless tiny feet.

Scarside was still enough in his right mind to realize that he'd been drawn into a trap.

The humans had set out irresistible bait and he had eagerly grabbed at it, only to find his vaulted army was being slaughtered by insects. Insects.

A small part of his mind found it proof-positive that the Universe had a perverse sense of humor.

Then, he fell, consumed in a sea of tiny marchers.

:.

The screams of unendurable pain were pitiful and went on for quite some time.

The humans stood witness to the massacre. Mai served wine whenever the maulanas' cups ran dry. There was no fear of the ants reaching the second level. A repellent solution had been applied ten feet up on the courtyard walls. According to Lyrissa, it was a chemical barrier the ant army would not cross.

When the screaming stopped it was full dark, the three moons of Gor rode easy in the Night sky. Torches were lit. Rigorus reached into his belt wallet and withdrew a piece of rence. With two fingers he handed it to the kneeling Mai.

"You may keep this, kijakazi. I'd say its been redeemed."

Gratefully, and with tears spilling from her dark eyes, the girl took the piece of paper with the last words her Maulana Mwindu had written, clutching it tightly in her small hands. "Asante, Maulana," she whispered. "For both gifts. And Mai apologizes most fervently for her moments of doubting you."

Rigorus nodded, his expression understanding and gave Mai a wink, knowing the other gift was allowing her to see the destruction of the murderous beasts who had killed her beloved deceased master. "Eeh, haba. You're welcome."

The smiling, beaming Mai felt it diplomatic not to mention her previous thoughts of him as an egotistical fool. It would only spoil the happy mood.

-end-