Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [70]
Ten minutes later, the men paused in a grassy glade to catch their breath. The ants would reach them soon, but experience had taught them that they had a few minutes to regroup. When vines and underbrush restricted the path, an ant could press forward as fast as a man or even faster, but with a trail to follow, a running man could swiftly outdistance one of the giant insects.
“Good shooting,” Gultec announced. “We hurt them that time.”
“Bui there are so many!” protested Keesha, one of the finest archers among the Itza. “How long can we keep harassing them thus? Every time we take our lives in our hands-and we cannot stop them!”
They all knew that several dozen men haul already lost their lives in these dangerous delaying tactics. And despite! their losses, the ant army marched implacably onward, pursuing the fleeing Itza toward the north.
“By tomorrow we will reach the mountains,” explained) Gultec. “There it is my hope that we can create an ambush and trap many of the beasts at once.” He looked at Keesha) and the others sympathetically.
“We also may succeed in drawing one of their leaders ton ward the front again,” he added. “If we can attack these man-bugs, then we may begin to stop the army.”
In the face of the frequent attacks from the forest, the driders commanding the ant army had taken to following in the path of their insect horde. While this protected them from the attacks, it also considerably lessened the drive and direction of the army. The column of ants tended to veer toward whichever threat presented itself, giving a party of archers nearby a chance to strike its flank and distract it from its original target.
A scream-a very human cry of nightmarish pain-tore through the jungle, and the warriors stiffened reflexively. They were but one of several bands of archers harassing the ants. One of the other groups, they knew, had just paid the price for their tactics.
“Let’s go!” Gultec growled, leading his men in the direction of the scream. Though they had no trail to follow now, the chance to make a diversionary attack in the flank of the column was one they could not ignore.
They soon heard the crunching and rustling of the army before them, and they pressed cautiously through the brush. Soon they saw the giant red bodies, the segments glistening in the patches of sunlight that broke through the overhanging canopy of leaves. The ants advanced past them from left to right. A flash of feathers indicated their fellow Itza archers, quickly disappearing into the jungle.
PI harsh cry arose from nearby, and the ants surged forward. Gultec saw one of the man-bugs jerkily scuttling forward. The creature held a long black bow, from which it fired a slim shaft in the direction of the retreating archers. Then it barked again in its strange tongue, obviously commanding the ants to pursue.
The Jaguar Knight’s pulse raced. Here was the chance he had been waiting for! “Hold your fire until Keesha gives the command,” he told his warriors. “I’m going after that one.”
Gultec sprang upward, grasping a tree limb and pulling himself into the foliage of the jungle’s heavy canopy. His shape shifted as he crept forward, hands and feet sprouting claws, becoming soft, padded paws that conformed easily to the rough surface of the limb. His Jaguar Knight’s helm shrank over his head, and then, from between fanged feline jaws, a deep growl rumbled. The jaguar’s spotted hide blended perfectly with the verdure as Gultec squatted down to wait.
“Now!” He heard Keesha’s command, and a dozen arrows burst from the brush to land among the ants. Several of these struck the man-bug but bounced harmlessly off its black metal shirt. Once Gultec would have thought that was the creature’s skin, but his experiences with the foreigners had shown him the powers of metal armor. He knew now that the black shell was such a material.
With the new attack, the ants twisted in confusion until the man-thing commanded them