Unto the Ages

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Grud jerked awake from Mita’s prodding and the ruckus outside his tent. The moment he recognized the call to arms, he did not even bother to put on his armor, he just slapped on his loincloth, grabbed his spear, and sprinted toward the commotion.

 

When he got to the watch tower, the only thing we saw was two men in the tower with throwing spears in their hands ready to throw.

 

Not wanting to break the concentration of the men on the tower, he climbed the tower himself to see what got them so worked up. When he reached the top and looked at where the two men were concentrating, he saw a giant ant with a throwing spear embedded in its thorax and head.

 

A few meters to the side of the dead ant was a trail of yellowish liquid reflecting the light of the torches on the wall, Grud recognized it as ant blood.

 

Having a rough idea of what happened, Grud asked “How many?”

 

“Six. We killed one and injured another, the moment that happened, the rest turned around and left.” one of the hunters said.

 

Grud nodded as he smelt something and something tingled in the back of his mind. It was like something was speaking to his mind, and he of all people knew what that felt like and this was not the same.

 

Grud wanted to investigate what this feeling was and had a gut feeling it had something to do with the giant ants, so he jumped out of the watch tower and over the wall. This action scared the hunters around thinking Grud would hurt himself from that height, but after a solid thud of Grud landing feet first and walking away just fine, they relaxed a bit as they watched to see what Grud was doing.

 

As he got closer to the ant carcass, the scent that invaded his nose was doing strange things to him. It was almost like he was hearing smells, which confused the hell out of Grud, he was pretty sure he was not high, unless there was a new powerful herb he never tried before.

 

Now that he was near the ant, the scents were everywhere and they were whispering things in his mind he could barely understand, the only thing he took from the whispers was their intent.

 

After sniffing around more, trying to figure out what the scents were saying, he started to pick up on the simple concepts of the scents, they were saying things like “Follow”, “Enemy”, “Food”, “Run”, and “Warn”.

 

Grud did not know if he should put the whole outpost on high alert for something he only got slight impressions of, but it was the last scent that put him on edge, the “Warn” scent led onto the woods away from the camp, that scent was especially strong along the trail of yellowish blood.

 

Not wanting to take chances, Grud put half the camp on alert with all of them being armed to the teeth, Grud included.

 

—

 

AN: I am using rectangle brackets for pheromone language [EXAMPLE].

 

The giant ant scout party was retreating along the pheromone trail they laid down on their way to Grud’s outpost when they bumped into another scout party following their pheromone trail.

 

They then did what any ant would do, they petted antennas on each other to make sure they had the same scent of the colony, and when they were satisfied with each other’s identity, the retreating scouts released pheromones to share information about what they found

 

[WARN. FOOD. DANGER. NEED BACKUP] With the explanation made, the two groups of scouts merged into one group and all of them started to put down the same pheromone message along their trail back to the nest to call for reinforcement.

 

—

 

Back at the outpost, Grud was suited up in his armor and was sitting in the watch tower and looking out onto the night where the giant ant scout group came from. Awake with him were two of the four teams also armed, armored, and milling around just in case something bad was going to happen.

 

It did not help that the worried and serious face on Grud’s face put the rest of the men on edge.

 

It was just after the first shift change of the watch that something happened. The usual night noises suddenly became silent, and for the first few minutes, nobody noticed until one of the hunters pointed it out.

 

As they were waiting for something to happen, a gentle breeze carried a scent to Grud’s nose. That scent carried the distinct scent of the giant ants he had studied, but upon that distinct scent was uncountable subtle scents, it was similar to his whole tribe having a similar distinct scent but over the years Grud was capable of recognizing people by subtle differences.

 

After taking a long sniff, his fears were confirmed, “They are here, the swarm is here.”

 

Grud turned around and shouted, “Ready your spears, wake the others, and get as many people in the towers with as many throwing spears as we can!”

 

The rest of the hunters could not sense what Grud sensed, but he was an accomplished hunter whose prowess was beyond repute, if there was something that could make Grud shout with such urgency in his voice, they knew they better accomplish what he ordered if they wanted to get out of this alive.

 

After a few more minutes, the first antennas poked out of the darkness followed by the rest of the giant ants, this was shortly followed by dozens, then over a hundred, and by the time they got into throwing spear range nobody bothered keeping track and started attacking.

 

Due to the walls being just simple wooden walls without parapets, so Grud could only order the rest of the men to stand near the walls in the extreme likelihood that the ants could scale the wall without issue like their normal and smaller ant cousins.

 

As the ants charged ever closer, the hunters in the towers were raining down throwing spears upon the giant ants without pause, even Grud was assisting by using his telekinesis and employing multiple tendrils of mana to throw more spears.

 

But even with Grud’s assist, against the tide of giant ants, it was like pissing in the wind.

 

Eventually, the giants encountered the outpost wall, Grud took the time to look down, and as he feared the ants started climbing up the wall as if they were walking on flat ground, and the worst part was that the ants were spreading to the sides of the wall and the main gate.

 

The worst-case scenario came to his mind and he started shouting commands, “Evacuate the outpost’s families we are going to be overrun! Abandon your positions and meet at the gate!”

 

By the time Grud finished issuing his order, the first ant popped its head over the wall only to receive a throwing spear through its head.

 

With his command, the hunters kicked down the doors of the families that settled at the outpost and dragged them out, and the hunters on the watch towers slid down the ladders and ran toward the encirclement of hunters at the gate.

 

By the time Grud reached the encirclement, there were already hunters and ants battling it out, and this time the hunters were ready. They may not have had time to make anything more sophisticated, but they managed to make a makeshift shield out of branches lashed together with vines and the gaps filled with plant matter.

 

This shied was not meant to block ant bites, it was meant as a disposable shield against the acid spray of the ants, and currently, they were doing a damm fine job. The shields was sizzling and smoking but the men behind it were fine, besides a few droplets that got through. A few of the men had to throw away their corroded shields, but they had prepared extras.

 

When Grud saw all the hunters and outpost families were ready to move, he shouted, “Open the gate, I will break through the line of ants, follow me!”

 

The moment the gates opened just a peep, there were already mandibles snapping and trying to get through, they were even on the surface of the gates, ‘looks like I will need to do this fast.’

 

Grud planted his spear into the ground beside him, gathered his mana, grabbed the two doors of the gate, and with all his strength swung them open. The door swing was so violent that most of the ants on the door fell to the ground, and without missing a beat, Grud released a focused and tyrannical pulse of mana in front of him.

 

That pulse of mana was so dense with power that even non-mana-sensitive people could see the mana which sent ant bodies flying in broken pieces. 

 

Grud immediately picked up his bone spear and started running while giving the order to charge.

 

At first, the blast of energy that wiped out a bunch of ants instantly stunned the ants around, but being of limited intelligence, they did not overthink things and rushed to fill the gap that was made. That was until Grud came charging out swinging his empowered spear more like a glave, cleaving any ants that got in his way and making a path for those coming up from behind him.

 

When Grud made it out of the encirclement of ants, he turned around and started butchering whatever ants came his way. “Keep running straight, the last few hunters will be the rear guard! We will do a fighting retreat!”