Gracemx
Serjanus gasped in awe, stumbling upon the two massive ornate doors. They had made it. The queen lay beyond this door, a bug young enough that she could be captured, and taken back to Veren. Serjanus barley believed he was this close, out of the 5000 men that assaulted the newly found bug hill a mere 300 remained.
The plan, in hindsight, was not a smart one. Assault the mound, take the queen hostage and escape. It was a simple plan, but Serjanus realized the two mistakes they didn’t account for: The barley navigable maze of dirt tunnels, and The number of Gracemex that were guarding the mound. They ignored the first issue, because of the size of the mound. He had assumed that a new mound would be much easier to navigate; he was fatally wrong. This mistake had cost them countless delay’s and many lives. The Gracemex fought for each step and made Serjanus’ men pay for each section in blood. The poor planning had caused the needless deaths as they fought their ways to dead ends and unfinished passages.
The second mistake was the assumption that hive was not well defended. Serjanus did not count on the surrounding Mound-bound Humans and Marren to leave the safety of their walled camps to meet a well armed mercenary force on the field. A staggering number of newborn Gracemex warriors augmented the Mound-Bound forces, causing a horrid engagement to take place. The battle was brief, beginning at tenth bell and ending after high sun. The fighting was brutal and the unexpected casualties did us no favors as the Gracemex retreated into their warrens.
Serjanus turned from the doors, surveying his remaining men. He did not know how much time had passed since they entered the mound, but the beleaguered mercenaries looked as if they had fought for an entire week. The adrenaline faded, and he noticed the incredible heat beating against him. The bugs must need it to be warm for their eggs, Serjanus thought to himself. The heat worried him more than wanted to admit. He did not want his soldiers to die of heatstroke so close to their aim. Serjanus motioned his elite to gather. What was left of his elites were a mix of bloody armored knights and weathered field promoted squad leaders. Most of his original staff did not survive the trip to the queen’s chamber.
Serjanus ordered his commanders to prepare the survivors for an assault on the chamber. The commanders moved, barking orders at the exhausted men. The soldiers responded to their orders, faituge clearly overtaking discipline as heat weighed on every movement.
It to the men longer to mobilize than he liked. They were on a clock, and could not risk anymore delays. As his men formed ranks Serjanus heard something, a soft thumping, like the tapping of.... Thousands of tiny feet! They were coming! By the sun! How many of them are there! Serjanus thought to himself.
Serjanus sprang to action, ordering his men to a defensive parameter as the horde of enlarged insects rushed down from the entrance. Their beetle-like frames sporting an odd mix of mammalian skeletal and inspected exo-skeletons. The horde sea of kicking mandibles and stabbing limbs. To their credit, his exhausted men gripped their spears and moved into a defensive formation. They fought valiantly by Serjanus’ account, but he did not have much time to observe. He needed to reach the queen!
Serjanus barked orders like a guard dog at a wolf, rallying his most elite warriors. These elites wore in the heaviest of armor and carried large chitin crushing hammers for Gracemex warriors. Serjanus ordered his men to open the massive doors. His men swung their hammers to bash the gate open. Instead of breaking, the doors swung open. Serjanus stood their trying to comprehend why they were not locked. Why did they leave their queen so exposed? The massive doors swung open. Serjanus saw the queen, and the unguarded chamber made horrifying sense.
The massive Gracemex stood at the end of a chamber filled to the brim with silk and eggs. Standing twice the size of a man, the Queen resembled a large Centipede with six enormous blades replacing its arms, chitin thick on every part of its body. This is where Serjanus died, the queen slicing through each of his warrior’s with brutal ease. Serjanus died last, the dread realization that this queen was a small one.
Comments