Dragon Apocalypse (The Berserker and the Pedant Book 2) (18 page)

Maximina put a hand over her heart; it was beating rapidly.
 
She closed her eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath, then let it out.
 
She opened her eyes and looked.
 
She was still in a tunnel of some kind.
 
She’d apparently been engaged in a battle with the ants after the Phage had taken her.
 
And the ants had saved her.
 
Even after she had killed so many.
 
She felt a stab of guilt.

She looked at the crude club in her hand and tossed it aside, frowning.
 
She raised a hand to her mouth and winced as her fingers touched her tongue.
 
It was painfully shredded, but still there.
 
The tentacle hadn’t replaced her tongue, it had merely held on for the ride.

“Thain you, ser an,” Maximina said, addressing the ant that had pulled the tentacle out of her mouth.
 
Maximina walked over to the tentacle and stepped on it. It gave a satisfying squish, like stepping on a grub.
 
Green goop shot out the side and the tentacle stopped moving.
 
She reached tentatively down toward the ant and it allowed her to stroke a tuft of hair behind its head.

Maximina felt around for her magic sack and found it still attached to her belt.
 
She smiled, took it, and reached a hand inside.
 
She pulled out a potion. The first potion was a blue potion that fizzed and overflowed as soon as she pulled the stopper off.
 
She quickly sucked up the bubbles and drank the potion down.
 
The wounds on her tongue stitched back together and her tongue was whole again.

Next, she reached into the bag and pulled out a scroll.
 
She unrolled it, looked at it a moment as if to set the words in her mind, and said “Loqui ad Animalia.”
 
The room was suddenly filled with a light, rainbow-colored fog.
 
It didn’t come rushing into the room; it was more like she had suddenly become aware of something she had been unaware of before. The fog around her was blue, that around the ants was purple, and around the tentacle it was green.

The ant twitched its head and the fog swirled and intensified and Maximina heard, though not with her ears, the ant say, “What in the name of the queen is wrong with you?
 
Letting yourself get captured like that.
 
Useless off-world alien scum.
 
Now you’re playing with your pretty potions and paper while the Phage need killin’.”

Maximina’s eyes flew wide, her mouth gaped.
 
The mist around her swirled and the pattern changed slightly.
 
It felt as if she were talking, but no words came from her mouth. “I’m sorry, what?”

The other ants took a step back, the purple mist around them froze in place. “It scents!” they seemed to say.

“Sir!” one ant said, “It seems that they’re intelligent, sir!”

“I can smell her perfectly well!” the ant that had saved her said in a mist.
 
“Dead goblins! I always suspected they were intelligent.”

“Sir, yessir!”

“Um.
 
Yes, we’re intelligent,” Maximina said.

“The one I took for a pet always seemed so.
 
Never could convince anyone else though.”

“The one you took for a pet?”

“I called him Squishy.
 
Poor queenless grub kept dying all the time.
 
Squishy kept coming back though, resilient fellow.
 
At least, until the Phage got ‘em.”
 
The ant sighed.

“Do you mean Arthur?” Maximina said.
 
The ant looked puzzled.
 
“Had two friends with him? Gurken and Pellonia.”
 

“It’s possible.
 
He did have two colony mates with him.
 
A warrior and a worker.
 
Not terribly effective most of the time.
 
Had to get help to bail them out of trouble.”

“Gurken and Pellonia were with me earlier, before the Phage took me.
 
I think the Phage took them as well.”

“Well, fry the queen!
 
Why didn’t you say so? Dickie, Frog, Beetle, Maggot!
 
Spread out and find them.
 
Take a big sniff of, uh, say what do you scent yourself?” the ant asked Maximina.
 

“Scent myself?
 
Oh, my name is Maximina,” she said.

The ant shook its head.
 
“I knew quadraworms would scent themselves something weird.
 
Sniff Maximina and get the others’ scent.
 
Report back when you’ve found them. Do not engage.
 
Re-scent.
 
DO NOT ENGAGE.”
 
The ants crawled over to Maximina and sniffed at her.
 
Bluish mist drifted off her and settled over the ants’ antennae.
 
The mist drifted down to the ground and spread down the tunnels.
 
The ants skittered off, following the trails.

“Quadraworms,” Maximina said.
 
“That’s a weird name.
 
We call ourselves humans, or elves.
 
I’m half-elven.
 
Half-underelven to be precise.”

“Who the dead queen decided to scent you that?
 
Those are terrible scents, not descriptive at all.”

“What do you call yourselves?”

“Armored terrorpods. What do you scent us?”
 
The ant seemed to glare at her.

Maximina swallowed.
 
“Same thing.”

“Well, I’ll be a wasp’s uncle.
 
A quadraworm got something right.
 
First time I ever caught scent of that happening!”

The world came rushing back to Gurken with a thundering snap.
 
His tongue stretched and ached as the tentacle was ripped out of his mouth.
 
He opened his eyes and saw two huge black orbs staring back at him.
 
In front of the orbs, chitinous pincers twitched.
 
Air blew into his nose as the creature sniffed at him.

“Antic!” Gurken bellowed.
 
“Good to see you.”
 
He reached out and stroked the ant just behind its head, where soft tufts of fur stuck out in the joint between its head and neck carapace.
 
Antic purred and quivered under his hand.
 
“Have you been here, in the Phage ship, all this time?”

Antic twitched one pincer and cocked his head to the left.
 
Maximina stood beside Antic, crushing the tentacle under her heel.

Maximina said, “You call him Antic?”
 
She scratched her head.

“I didn’t name him that, Arthur did.
 
Why?”

Maximina looked at Antic. Antic twitched his antennae and a strange odor suffused the air.
 
Then she looked back at Gurken.
 
“No reason,” she said.

“What’s that smell?” Gurken asked.
 
“It smells musty.”

Maximina shrugged.
 
“Let’s go get Pellonia.”

Antic tore the Phage out of Pellonia’s mouth.
 
It did not come easily.
 
He tossed it to the ground, where Maximina stepped on it.

“Gah,” Antic scented.
 
“I think I pulled my thorax.”

Pellonia’s eyes widened and she bared her teeth in ritual challenge.
 
These quadraworms were very aggressive, especially this one. One had to know how to handle them.
 
Antic growled and opened his pincers to answer her challenge.

“Surrender, worm,” Antic scented.
 
“You try and try again, but you will never defeat me.
 
I have no trouble sending you to an early grave.”

Maximina put off an undecipherable scent as she looked back and forth between Pellonia and Antic.

Pellonia stood, picked Antic up, and attempted to crush him against her chest.
 
Antic heaved against her and set his pincers against her arm.

“Put me down, or by the eggs of the queen, I will end you!” Antic scented.

Pellonia set Antic on the ground, and showed deference by cleaning the hair behind his head and presenting an offering of food.
 
Antic growled and took the food.

“You best not forget this, worm,” Antic scented.
 
“We’ve located your colony mates, a dragon and an unusual quadraworm that seems immune to the Phage.
 
They’ve been taken to the queen, and you will accompany us.
 
If you refuse, or cause any more trouble, we will sever your limbs and leave you out for the birds.”

Maximina looked at Antic.
 
She gulped and seemed to sweat a little.
 
She looked back at Pellonia and said, “Antic says they found Apocalypse and Clem and would be happy to take us to them.”

“That’s great,” Pellonia said in a pitch one octave higher than usual.
 
“Oh, I’m so happy to have found you,” she said to the ant.
 
Antic purred and his pincers quivered in excitement.

Pellonia reached down and stroked his soft fur once more.
 
Antic purred with contentment.
 
She picked him up and rubbed her face against him.
 
“Who’s a cuddly-wuddly little ant?
 
You are.
 
That’s who.”
 
Antic gently pressed his pincers against her neck.
 
“Awww, a little ant kiss.” She pulled him off of her neck, kissed him on the head, and set him on the ground.

Maximina’s eyes darted back and forth between the two.
 
“We should really get going,” she said.
 
Antic skittered off down the tunnel, Pellonia and Gurken following close behind.
 
Maximina followed, after allowing a respectable distance to accumulate between them.