The Eldest had laid down the challenge and Solant could feel the pressure immediately. Someone like her, not even a full graduate of the Antcademy, was to be put in charge of a battlefield during a wave. Only the authority of the Eldest made something like this possible, the defenders of the nest put their faith in their strongest member and trusted that Solant would not fail them.
The pressure was immense.
Clearly, the Eldest intended to put her and her broodmates directly into the fire, the only place the strongest steel could be forged. The weight of responsibility settled on her carapace immediately, a crushing weight that threatened to drive even the mana from her core.
She welcomed it. More than that, she relished it.
“I am grateful to the Eldest,” she told her precious sisters as they gathered in their chamber after torpor. “Either we are right in what we do and how we do it, or we are wrong. If we are wrong, let us fail now, before too much damage can be done. If we are right, then let us succeed, and lead the family to victory.”
The others listened solemnly, fully aware of what was riding on their performance in battle that day.
“We’re with you,” Leonidant assured her. “All the way.”
“Of course. There’s no such thing as a general, unless there is an army.”
Two parts of a single whole.
When they emerged from the chamber, they found the Eldest and the three guardians waiting for them.
“Ready for the big day?” the Eldest asked, looming over them without trying to.
“Of course,” Solant confirmed, no hint of wavering in her scent.
“Good. You’re in charge, lead the way.”
A little taken aback at the thought of leading the Eldest anywhere in the nest, Solant nevertheless stepped forward and marched to the centre of the enormous staging chamber, in which the gathered generals administered the never ending defensive battle.
Hordes of ants swarmed everywhere, rushing in and out of the dozens of tunnels that led from this one central hub. Some were returning to rest, others shifting from one field of engagement to another. The priorities under the nest changed from minute to minute, depending on what dreadful creatures emerged from the depths.
Luckily, Vibrant and her army were still in attendance. With their unmatched speed, they could leap from one hotspot to another, the best relief force in the entire Colony.
“I will take command of the A3 tunnel for the next twelve hours,” Solant announced to the frazzled Victor, who sat surrounded by messengers and generals on all sides.
“What?!” the general shouted, then noticed the Eldest looming in the back. “Oh. Fine. Go quickly and don’t make any mistakes. We’re hard pressed down here and it’ll be tough to cover for you.”
“Don’t worry. We will achieve victory.”
After announcing this, the little general turned and led her procession to the tunnel scent-marked as A3. She had led the troops in this segment before and hopefully they remembered her preferred arrangements.
When she arrived, she immediately made contact with the general in charge of the tunnel.
“I’ve been instructed to take command of the tunnel for the next twelve hours,” she announced to the far larger and more experienced general.
The ant sized her up in an instant.
“I remember you. The changeover is happening in two hours. I’ll inform the other generals, you should go talk to the troops.”
“Thank you,” Solant snapped out a quick salute with her antennae which was returned before the two generals went their separate ways.
Seemingly uninterested by the minutiae of leadership, the Eldest moved to one side of the tunnel and flopped down with the three guardians beside them. It hurt her heart to see the strongest fighting force of the Colony doing nothing, but then she shook her head.
The Eldest is here for you, she reminded herself, if they don’t think it’s a waste of time, then it isn’t.
With her broodmates around her, Solant took the time to speak to all of the troops waiting for their turn on the frontline. She needed to check in with the healers, the soldiers, the scouts, the mages and the core shapers and cover her ideas in detail, especially since there would be changes this time around.
“You mean the Eldest isn’t going to let the monsters attack their carapace?” one of the larger and stronger soldiers asked.
“That’s right,” Solant nodded, before she stepped forward and prodded the tier six soldier with one antenna, “which means we are going to get some work out of you this time.”
“Good! I was starting to worry I was getting lazy.”
“We have formation practice in an hour,” she informed them, “we need to go over the rapid rotation and the new manoeuvre, which I call tea and biscuits.”
“Sounds… delicious?”
“It’s meant to.”
With the authority of the Eldest and the certain knowledge that nothing could go too wrong so long as the strongest ant in the Colony was standing behind them, the ants were more than happy to go along with whatever Solant had to say.
Well before they were due to fight, she had them running exhausting drills, doing everything she could to prepare her troops for the trials to come. She was everywhere, picking up on every tiny mistake and correcting it on the spot. If a soldier put a leg out of place, or a mage mistimed their spell, or a healer was too slow to rotate, Solant would appear like magic, patiently explaining what had gone wrong and what the result would be in battle were the error to be replicated.
Battles were won on the training ground.
This was another core tenet of Solant’s philosophy, and she wished she had far more time to ingrain even these simple formations into her troops, but that wasn’t how things had shaken out and she made her peace with that. Before too long, it was time to rotate and replace the troops battling hard on the frontline. With her excitement bottled tightly deep within her thorax, Solant led her first army to the battlefield, nothing but victory in her eyes.
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