Darin took it all in, then shouted over the gathering chaos.
"Battle teams, eyes sharp! Formation sweep across the western ridge. We march in five!"
Even amid the rising roar of the ant swarm, his voice carried strength.
He dropped down into the wedge between two fireteams, motioning to a nearby messenger. "Tell all Stage Threes, when the warriors arrive, they're on us. Keep them busy so our Stage Ones and grunts can mop up the rest."
The messenger nodded and ran off.
All around him, the camp moved.
Grumble darted past again, this time dragging a corpse twice his size by the tongue.
Steve roared triumphantly as he swooped down to pick up an ant head, tossing it in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth like a dog with a ball. He missed. The head splattered onto a tent, setting it on fire.
No one even yelled.
They were used to him.
The fedora-wearing scout looked up from his map and calmly said, "Tunnels are shifting again. Faster. They're collapsing unused paths. Consolidating for a push."
The Sorceress's eyes narrowed. "Then they're committing. We need to push through now."
"Right," Darin said, warhammer sliding into his grip. "Full march. We don't stop until we see daylight."
The horns sounded. Shadows moved.
The storm of movement continued. Knights, retired soldiers and merc leaders barked orders, squadrons assembled, enchanted armor shimmered in the torchlight, and Steve, having finally caught the ant head in midair—tossed it up again like it was the best game ever invented.
Darin turned to march toward the front wedge when the Sorceress stepped up beside him, cloak billowing with arcane energy still clinging to her shoulders like smoke.
"You've changed," she said, loud enough to be heard over the organized chaos.
Darin blinked. "Is that… good?"
A faint smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. "You used to grumble and stall, complain every time you were asked to lead anything more complicated that includes you being mistaken for the reincarnated evil overlord."
Darin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well. You fight enough tree monsters and acid ants and wake up with a teenage dragon licking your face, you learn a few things."
She stepped in closer, her tone softening slightly. "It's not just that. The way you direct the squads, the coordination, it's instinctive. Knightly. Looks like whatever ghost of a sword-swinger you were in a past life didn't get erased after all."
Darin gave a half-grin, then shrugged. "If I start speaking in 'thee's and 'thou's, stab me."
"I'll consider it," she said with a smirk, before turning and lifting a hand to reinforce another layered ward on the perimeter.
Suddenly, a shriek cut across the field, not of pain, but pure unfiltered devotion.
A young cultist with his hood half-fallen stood atop a shattered supply crate, ant blood splattered across his chest, arms raised toward the sky like he was about to ascend.
"We shall not fall!" he bellowed, voice cracking but filled with raw fire. "For the Overlord walks with us!"
The cultists around him echoed the cry in unison.
"THE OVERLORD IS WITH US!"
"THE OVERLORD IS WITH US!"
"THE OVERLORD IS WITH US!"
"THE OVERLORD IS WITH US!"
Another voice joined in, a woman this time, robes scorched at the hem, holding a twin-bladed sickle slick with black ichor. "His presence burns the weakness from our souls!"
"His will is ours!" another cultist screamed, hurling an arcane blade of bone-pale flame that speared through an ant scout mid-pounce.
The cultists surged, a coordinated tide of madness. Their spells weren't elegant or flashy like the wizards or witches, but brutal, old, strange. Glyphs seared into the air with their bare hands. One reached into a pouch, whispered to a chunk of obsidian, and it exploded into hundreds of burning fangs that tore into an ant's legs and collapsed it instantly.
Another cultist leapt straight into an ant drone's mandibles and drove both blades upward into its head from beneath, impaling it through its own skull before landing and pivoting into another target like a blur of divine madness.
The cultist leader screamed again, louder this time, voice carrying through the battle:
"By the will of the True Overlord, tear them from the earth!"
The wave of them advanced, hooded figures, faces painted in chalk and blood, eyes glowing with that strange conviction that made even seasoned knights step aside when they passed.
They weren't clean. They weren't safe.
But gods, were they effective.
Darin stood watching it for a moment, jaw slightly slack. He turned to the Sorceress again. "Now that I properly saw them fight seriously, are they always like this?"
She gave a nonchalant shrug. "They believe you're the reincarnation of an ancient overlord, ofcoures they'll fight like that, all cults are the same."
"I'm getting tired of it."
"And yet," she said, motioning to the battlefield, "they kill like you're watching."
As if on cue, Grumble zipped past Darin's legs, dragging a twitching half-corpse behind him, its chitin crumbling into rot. He stopped briefly to cough up something smoky, then vanished into shadow again.
A second later, Steve crash-landed beside Darin in a rush of wings and cocky dragonling pride, tail thumping the ground twice.
"Having fun?" Darin muttered.
Steve burped. A small puff of smoke escaped, followed by a crunch as he snapped a chitinous mandible between his teeth like a biscuit.
Darin shook his head, then glanced up toward the distant line of towering ant guards.
They hadn't moved yet.
But the swarm was pressing in.
And with his people, the cultists, the knights, the mercenaries, the mad, the brave, and the bizarre—all standing shoulder to shoulder...
He had a feeling they might just make it out.
Maybe.
He hefted his hammer again and bellowed across the field.
"STAGE THREE TEAMS—ON ME! WE PUSH FORWARD WHILE THEY CLEAN UP THE ANTS APPEASRING ON THE TUNNELS!"
And then he ran, hammer in hand, into the storm.