“A hydra!” Verran continued. “What if it was a hydra? The only way to kill one is to cut off all of its heads. Did you know that?”
“If we run into a hydra, I’m going to kill you, Harp,” Boult said.
“If we run into a hydra, I’m going to kill myself,” Harp told him.
They had just reached the other side of the depression when Kitto turned around and looked behind them with a puzzled expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Harp asked him.
“What’s that noise?” Kitto asked. “Is that the water?”
Harp heard it too, and it wasn’t water. It was a punctuated clicking that sounded like something he’d heard before, but he couldn’t quite remember when. Before his mind could settle on what it was, it grew louder. A large ant appeared at the top of the slope on the other side of the depression. About the size of a dog, with curved tusks like a boar, and a segmented body. The ant hesitated for a moment. Its beaked jaw clicked together rapidly, sending an almost metallic sound ringing through the trees.
“Why is everything huge in the jungle?” Boult asked.
“At least there’s just one,” Harp pointed out. He was disconcerted by the enormity of insect too. But before his words were fully formed, another ant appeared on the horizon followed by two more. Boult glared at Harp accusingly.
“You can’t hold me responsible … ” Harp began as a flood of the shiny black insects surged over the slope and skittered across the ground. Before the men could make a move, the ants engulfed the lizard’s corpse until none of the yellow and black skin could be seen through the writhing ants’ bodies.
“We’re all right,” Harp said in relief. “They just want the meat.”
“Look at that!” Verran gasped as a much larger ant made its way down the slope and into the depression. The size of a small horse, the ant’s reddish shell was the shade of rusted metal. Like the smaller ants, the queen ant had an armored body and spindly legs that looked too skinny to hold up the bulk of her body. Unlike her soldiers, she had the tattered remains of papery wings. The queen didn’t participate in the feasting frenzy but instead skirted the edges of the swarm as her bent antennae quivered rapidly.
Flashes of white appeared through the swarming mass of black, and Harp studied it curiously for a few moments. Then he understood exactly what he was seeing-the white was the lizard’s bones picked clean by the ants. Looking at the horrified faces of his companions, they had all reached the same conclusion. Even a lizard that large wasn’t going to satisfy the ants, not when there was something else available, namely three men and a dwarf. As they turned to run, the queen ant swung her head in their direction with her beaked mouth clicking open and closed. As if of one mind, the army of ants skittered across the clearing toward the crewmates, leaving only a pile of bare bones in their wake.
“To the river!” Harp shouted as they sprinted across the uneven ground toward the sound of rushing water.
But when they came closer, they saw the river was far below them at the bottom of a narrow ravine. The fast-flowing water had carved a channel deep into the earth, and there was no obvious route down the dirt banks. Jumping was possible, but it would be easy to break a leg on the narrow lip of dry ground at the edge of the water, or get swept into the rushing current of the river. They ran north along the ravine with Kitto leading the way as he leaped effortlessly over the clumps of ferns and rocks scattered on the ground. The ant soldiers seemed to have fallen back.
“The bastards are flanking us,” Boult shouted. Through the gaps in the trees on their left side, Harp could see that Boult was right. A line of ants had moved ahead of them on their left, forming a half-circle around them. Once the ants overtook them, they would be trapped against the edge of the river with no means of escape.
“Since when are ants so smart?” Verran gasped as he ran beside Harp. Harp was equally shocked that the ants could execute such a trap, but he was breathing too hard to respond. As they ran, Harp saw a tree with vines dangling down to the ground. Up a tree was better than over the edge of the ravine, he thought. At least it would give them time to come up with a strategy of their own.
“Climb!” Harp shouted, grabbing a vine and pulling himself up as his feet scrabbled for traction against the bark. Boult was close behind him, while Kitto and Verran scurried up another tree that was across the clearing.
“Can ants climb trees?” Verran called from the other tree.
“Not sure,” Harp gasped, as he perched on one of the branches and surveyed the ground below. These trees weren’t as tall as the ones they’d slept in the night before, and the vines weren’t as thick. At the moment, the ants weren’t climbing; they were just milling around the bases of the trees. Boult and Harp climbed to the widest branch and waited to see what the ants would do. In the moment of calm, Harp realized he was trembling, not only from fatigue but from fear as well. As a younger man, he’d been stronger and faster than most men his size and went into battle with no hesitation. There had been too much comfort in his life in recent years. His body didn’t remember how to react to danger.
“Look at the big ant, Harp,” Boult said after a moment. “I think it’s giving orders to the smaller ants.”
“How can you tell?” Harp asked. The red queen paced back and forth across the clearing below them, moving between the two trees where the crewmates had taken refuge.
“Just watch,” Boult said impatiently.
The queen moved through the swarm, its jaws clicking loudly. It would pause, change directions, and resume the rhythmic noise again. Harp recognized a pattern in the clicks-Boult was right. The queen was telling the soldiers what to do. The smaller ants began to methodically move up the trees. They didn’t climb quickly, but in answer to Verran’s question, they could definitely climb trees.
“Kill the big ant,” Harp urged.
Boult pulled his crossbow off his back, loaded a bolt, and fired it at the queen. The bolt hit square at the base of her neck, but it bounced off her shell harmlessly. Boult tried two more times, and while his aim was dead on, the shell was too thick to penetrate.
“She’s got to have a weak spot,” Boult said in frustration. “But I’m not hitting it from this angle.”
“What do you need?” Harp asked.
“The underbelly,” Boult said. Immediately Harp began to move down the trunk and grabbed the longest vine.
“Don’t you dare!” Boult shouted when he realized what Harp was intending to do.
But Harp was already sliding down the vine. “If I can’t flip the big one over, then I’ll lead her to the cliff,” he called. “All of you fire at once, and we’ll knock her over the edge.”
“Get back here!” Boult shouted. “The small ones will eat you first!”
But when Harp dropped to the ground, it was the queen ant that charged him while her troops continued their methodical climb up the trees. The queen was so fast that Harp had to scramble backward to get away from her, tripping over the underbrush and falling on his back. The ant lunged at him, her tusks slicing through the air and her beaked mouth easily capable of snapping his head off his neck. Harp twisted out of the way, scraping his chin against a rock and getting a face full of mud. Pushing himself to his feet, he pulled out his sword and ran to the edge of the ravine.
“Maybe flipping her isn’t such a good idea!” Harp yelled.
“Get her between you and the cliff,” Boult shouted.
But that was easier said than done, and the ant seemed to have the same idea about knocking Harp into the river. Every time Harp tried to switch their positions, the ant lunged, forcing him to go on the defensive. Harp got the unsettling impression that she was toying with him, and as soon as she tired of the game, he was going to be the one squished on the ground.
“Last try!” Harp yelled. “When I go down on the ground, shoot at the same time!”