A Promise Made to Be Broken

"What… what the hell?"

A chill crawled down Durek's spine. It was the bone-deep wrongness of another voice inside his skull — as if someone had slipped into his thoughts and started speaking from behind his eyes.

"Who's there? What the hell is this…"

What kind of bullshit is that?

Still, he caught the last word.

"Queen? Don't tell me… an ant."

A conversation with the Ant Queen, in a darkness he could not place. That settled it. He had been taken.

"How the hell are we even talking?"

She really does talk in the most godawful fragments.

Durek worked to stitch the broken thoughts into something he could follow.

He thought he understood his situation now. The Queen had gone out of her way to keep him alive. Him, specifically.

But why?

"Why? Why go through all that trouble just to talk to me? Couldn't you just eat me and be done with it?"

Even her laugh is fucked up.

It was the kind of delight a child showed after drawing a rare prize.

"Kahaha. What, looking to hire a private tutor? That's a classic pulp-novel plot if I ever heard one."

What the hell is this crazy bitch talking about. Can't she even tell a joke?

She had answered him in complete earnest, and that, somehow, was worse.

"Shut up. If you're going to kill me, then kill me already! The idea of a monster trying to use a human — that's rich."

"…What?"

The rage inside Durek vanished as if someone had snuffed a candle.

"I'm going to lose my mind… What is it you want to know about humans? How we mate?"

"Stop! Can you not even tell when someone's being sarcastic?!"

The apology was sincere. Then the Queen's thoughts pressed on.

"Hah. The Ant Tunnels just happened to be the path that came up for getting through the Forest of Resentment in one piece. Your luck was bad. But once we actually went at it, we were going to be wiped out in no time. Turns out our luck was worse."

"You're taking losses?"

That couldn't be right. The ants ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he had fought were countless, and nothing you could put down easily. His people barely had the means to scratch them. Was it the knights, then?

Hmm. An attractive offer, he had to admit. Durek decided then and there to pick the side that let him live.

If he came out as the sole survivor, he could return to the Red Fox Mercenary Group and blackmail Noas — or else tell the rest of the Red Foxes about Noas's betrayal and break away on his own. He was already laying the plans.

"All you have to do is give them a path. From what I heard, they were going to take the princess hostage just to get through the Ant Tunnels."

The Queen's thoughts trembled. Was she angry?

All the better, Durek decided. If her rage got the rest of them killed, he could walk back alone without having to get his story straight with anyone.

Might as well help her along. Get her good and furious.

"The plan, as I understand it, is to use her as a hostage to escape the Ant Tunnels and then kill her the moment they're out. Chop her up miserable. I hear your kind's fluids are delicious. They'll probably suck the brain matter right out of her, too."

"It is!"

Say it like that, and it would be an endless slaughter — kill and be killed until nothing was left. The ruler of an empire had her pride. She would never simply let them go.

The answer that came back was not the one he expected.

"…What? Did you just insert the wrong thought?"

Durek stared. Then shouldn't she be protecting her heir? Cherishing her?

Oh, hell. She was a power-mad old crone.

Only then did Durek realize he had read her completely wrong. At this rate she looked ready to roll out a path straight to the princess's door.

"W-wait…"

"Dispose? Hey. Hey! That word doesn't sit right. Did you just insert the wrong thought again?"

"No, you fucking—! That's not how it works!"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"You goddamn bitch! You think I'm just going to die here? If I slit my own wrist, the blood-scent will bring every monster in the forest down on this place!"

The laugh came again. This time, there was no mistaking the mockery in it.

"You… you…!!"

Krrrrrmmm.

Dirt trickled down onto his face, grain by grain. In the darkness, Durek understood his future.

"Fuck."

The earth came down.

On the third day in the Ant Tunnels, Messi noticed that the ants had, at some point, grown cautious.

It was not that their wariness had sharpened, nor that they were guarding a weakness. If anything, it was a stroke of luck. The gaps in the fighting had grown longer. They were getting more rest.

It was not a sound strategic choice for the ants. So why?

"Messi. Doesn't something feel off to you?"

Leto looked wrecked. That was what came of throwing himself into the fighting, insisting he could lend a hand. Even he, sitting out a rest, had caught the shift — he tipped his head, frowning.

"What's so off about it?! Aigoo, those monster bastards… how long are they planning to keep coming?!"

The Village Chief, who had not swung a sword once, was the one raising his voice. He would have been perfectly happy if a single ant snuck in and dragged him off, so long as it was someone else's problem.

"Hey, Messi. They're hanging back. What the hell is going on?"

If even Ereb had noticed, the knights fighting at the front already knew.

Not that the ants had stopped coming altogether. They kept circling, treating the party like an island floating on an open sea.

Their intent became clear at a fork. Two passages. One packed so tight with ants there was no room to set a foot; the other spaced out sparse, the way it was now.

"They're herding us."

"You've got to be kidding me. Ants using tactics was already insane. Now they're herding us?"

Ereb looked like he could not decide whether to laugh or swear.

"It's a trap, isn't it? We can't just walk into a herding this obvious."

"Except… the drag marks from the horses match the direction they're pushing us. They'll have taken the horses to the Food Warehouse to dispose of them, and the Food Warehouse connects to the Central Plaza."

Messi had found the scored trails along the passage floor and laid it out. His master had said the Food Warehouse sat near the plaza.

"…They may be planning to hit us from all sides near the plaza. Widest space they've got. Best place to come at us all at once."

Ereb's read and Messi's lined up. There was nothing for it. They had to break through the plaza to reach the Princess's Chamber regardless — and at least the two were not far apart.

Following the ants' herding, they arrived at the Food Warehouse. It was a vast chamber in its own right. Dozens of giant ants, each looking about six feet long, clung to the ceiling.

"Did they lure us here to fight those?"

"No, Sir Ramang. Those are Blood-Sac Ants. They drain a prey's blood without opening a wound and store it in sacs in their bodies. The rest of the colony drives their mouthparts into those sacs and drinks."

"Ghastly things."

Aside from the Blood-Sac Ants, there was not a single other ant in the warehouse. Even so, no one let their guard down as they crossed — until the mercenaries began to murmur.

"What is it?"

"Over there… that…"

Messi followed the pointing finger. Animal carcasses. Monster remains. And, piled among them, faces he knew. Men who had once been mercenaries.

Den was among them — the one who had picked a fight with Messi.

He glanced at Ayla, but she did not waver. She looked at the bodies and kept walking. She was probably crying on the inside.

"…Let's move."

It was rare for Messi to hurry them. The mercenaries put their feet in motion.

Every ant they met on the path to the plaza was bristling with wariness, mandibles clacking and nothing more. Mercenaries who had been bitten by those pincers hundreds of times — thousands — threw themselves forward as if they had had the fear beaten clean out of them, and the ants actually gave ground.

At last the party reached the Central Plaza. The moment they stepped out of the passage, every one of them felt it. Ah. So this was the plaza. Light was coming in from the ceiling.

The space ran endlessly high, and endlessly deep. That such a cavern could exist beneath the earth was astonishing in itself.

Hundreds — thousands — of earthen pillars crossed the void, and upon them ants beyond counting stood in ranks, looking down.

The mercenaries' mouths hung open and would not shut. Ereb was the first to put on a knowing face.

"This reminds me of something. Among the other races, there's supposed to be a short, stout people who love digging the earth and working ore… I hear the world they live in looks like this."

Dwarves, was it? The Lord of the Rings came to mind.

They left the passage and followed a path cut along the wall, descending by degrees toward the plaza floor. Even then the ants only watched. They did not attack.

"These bastards — when the hell are they going to make a move?"

Gaston boiled over, sick of being sized up. He was speaking for all of them.

Messi decided to move fast instead. He knew the way; when he broke into a run at the head of the column, everyone followed.

The sudden sprint made the ants flinch. Then they began to yield — and a path opened through the swarm.

Are they just going to let us through?

Messi's thought was right, but only half right.

They were not simply letting them go. Any passage that led outside, they would not yield at all. They kept herding the party toward a different path.

This path leads to the Princess's Chamber, I'm sure of it… so why are they opening the way to the princess?

For once, even Messi could not follow the ants' reasoning. Had they already evacuated her and turned the chamber into a trap?

They reached the Princess's Chamber without a single hand raised against them. The first time he had come here with his master, they had only looked as far as the entrance.

And with that, his master had gone straight in and kicked down the door to the Queen's chambers. Thinking back on it, hadn't that been the greater imposition?

There might still be a trap. Messi went in first, careful.

The Princess's Chamber, seen from the inside for the first time, was snug. A space that size had no room for a trap. Not everyone could fit; only a few of them entered.

Messi, Ereb, Ramang, Ayla, Gaston, Leto, and the Village Chief — the last of whom refused, under any circumstances, to stray from Ereb's side. They gathered around the something in the center of the chamber and looked down.

"So this is the 'princess,' Messi?"

"I've never actually seen the princess myself, so…"

"Young master, we're in the Princess's Chamber either way. It has to be her, doesn't it?"

"It's… strangely cute."

"Captain… snap out of it. This is…"

Leto settled it.

"It's a larva."

It wriggled.

A grub no bigger than a man's forearm tipped its head.