This is a story inspired by Zandar's Saga and The Ballad of Adler Young, both by  tegerio, and The Thin Line by  eocostello.

The story will, over its course, feature Mature and even Adult situations, so be patient and enjoy!

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Part Eighteen.



The column’s arrangement had altered slightly, with all four troops of Yeomanry fanned out in front of it in a broad crescent, followed by the Lancers, the infantry and the artillery. The three Regular Army units were side by side, the infantry lagging behind a bit.

The foot soldiers sang as they marched, an old song called Will She Not Come Back Again?* that was the favorite of the Regiment. The tune set a good pace for covering the ground.

The Colonel and his staff rode their ants at the head of the infantry column, the nutria smiling happily at the singing.

Ayyub’s troop of riders were on the extreme left of the column, and the fennec paused every so often to scan the hummocky terrain through his spyglass. So far, there were no signs of anyone else. As he swept the telescope around to the west, he paused.

He whistled, and Eadward rode over to him. “Yes, Aqhm?”

“Ride out in that direction, about a quarter-mile,” the fennec told the bull, pointing to the “The sand’s got an odd gleam to it.”

“Right.” Eadward chirped at his ant, and he scuttled off in the indicated direction. Ayyub watched him go, then rode on for a short distance to keep up with the rest. At this distance from the main column, he couldn’t hear the distinct voices signing, just the tune.

Eadward came riding back, something in his gloved paw. “Found something, Aqhm,” he said as he reined in alongside Ayyub. “Be careful, it’s sharp.”

“Sharp?” and the bull dropped a sliver of shiny material the width and general length of a blade of grass into the fennec’s paw. “What the Netherhell – this is glass!”

“That’s what I thought,” Eadward agreed. He took off his glove to show a bit of cloth wrapped around his thumb. The cloth was stained with blood. “Damned sharp, too. Likely rip through an ant’s foot – “

“Or a soldier’s.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell Gwillim and Guilbert to ride out and try to find out how far this extends,” Ayyub said. “Let them know that they need to be careful, and show them what to look for. You take this and deliver it to Lt. Baker.”

“Right, Aqhm.” The antelope and the rabbit rode off and split up, while the bull rode off to deliver the glass shard to the adjutant.

Other reports from other riders brought the troop to a halt as Gwillim came back. “Maybe a mile farther west than we are, Ayyub, to just about – there,” and he gestured to a point just west of the line of march. “Not very deep, though.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Maybe ten paces.” The rabbit twisted in his saddle as a Lancer came riding up from the column, followed by Eadward.

“Colonel’s compliments, Aqhm,” the feline said, touching his gloved fingers to his helmet’s bill. He pulled a slip of parchment from his glove. “Change in orders.”

“Thank you.” Ayyub read the orders, his large ears twitching back and forth a bit. “Gwillim, Eadward, pass the word. We’re going to skirt the edge of that glass. The column’s veering a bit to the east.”

“Sure thing, Aqhm.”

“Right, Aqhm.” The bull and the rabbit buck headed in opposite directions to tell the other riders.

Slowly, the Regiment started heading south-by-southeast, reckoned by the maps and the lodestones the staff used to chart their way.

Around midday horn calls announced that the column was halting. Cooking fires started by the supply train heralded the start of lunch, and the infantry broke ranks to relax.

Ayyub was munching on a plug of jerked meat from his pack as a Lancer sergeant rode up. “The staff’re meeting, Aqhm.”

“All right. Lead on, Sergeant.” Still vigorously chewing, the fennec headed for the headquarters tent.

The commander of the FAFI supply train, Commissariat Millwater, was reporting on the state of the column’s water supplies. “We expect to replenish at Tel Ostori, or at any of the oases.”

“Good,” Fenslough said, a wide smile on the nutria’s muzzle. “Since we’re all here now, the Yeomanry have been finding shards of glass to either side of our route.”

Ayyub glanced at the other three troop leaders. They were nodding.

“I’m certain that this is just a nuisance tactic by the Southerners, as these have been showing up only on the flanks of the column, and not posing a direct threat to us.” His small ears perked at the sound of gronking outside, and running feet. “What is going on out there? Baker?”

“Yes, Sir.” The stallion shouldered past the other officers and slipped out of the tent. There were voices raised, and Baker came back in followed by a Yeomanry rider from Samuel’s troop. The canine held a pouch in both paws.

The man went straight to Samuel. “We got problems, Aqhm.” He held out the pouch toward the fennec tod.

“I’ll take that,” Baker said.

Samuel gave him a contemptuous look. “He’s my rider, Lieutenant. What have you got, Henrik?”

“Take a taste, Aqhm.”

Ayyub craned his neck to see. The pouch held what looked like sand, but lighter.

Samuel dabbed a finger in the sand, touched it to his tongue, then made a face and spat. He gave the canine a jerk of his head and the man gave the pouch to Baker.

“Looks like sand,” the stallion said as he peered into the pouch.

“Doesn’t look right, though,” a Lancer officer remarked.

“That’s not the half of it,” Samuel said. “Take a taste.”

The feline complied, then made a face of his own and spat. “What the Netherhell is that?”

“Borax.”

“Borax?”

“Yes, Sir. It’s poisonous to ants.” The fennec dusted his paws off on his trousers, looking at the Colonel as he added, “some of the Southern tribes use it to keep feral ants out of their herds. We’re being herded, Colonel.”

The nutria looked up sharply as the rest of the staff started muttering. “Enough of that!” he shouted. “We are not being ‘herded!’ It’s just another nuisance tactic, and that’s all it is. You there!” and he pointed at the rider. “How far does this borax extend?”

Henrik looked a bit nervous as he fiddled with the hem of his robe. “Well, Sir, we found ‘bout a two-mile gap in it . . . between it and the glass, y’see.” He fell into an abashed silence.

Fenslough beckoned the canine closer. “Show me on the map, Trooper.”

“Mm, yessir.” After taking a moment to orient himself with the landmarks on the map, he ran a finger over the parchment. “Right to . . . here, Sir.”

“Good man. Gentlemen, there is, in fact, a gap – that takes us straight to where we want to go. As soon as the men have finished their midday meal, we march on Tel Akom. Dismissed.”

Ayyub and the other three troop leaders walked back to their lines. Talib asked the question they were all thinking.

“Marching where we want to go, or where someone wants us to be?”

Several more hours saw the hill known as Tel Akom rearing above the rolling landscape. It was a bare-topped knob of rock with a small forest of scrubby trees and bushes around it, testament to the artesian spring at its base. Several miles beyond that was the town of Tel Ostori.

The column broke ranks to set up camp just west of the hill, with other soldiers dug in on the flanks to discourage a night attack. As the FAFI started the cooking fires for dinner, the staff clambered their way up to the top of the hill to survey the surrounding ground.

“Quite a view,” the Colonel remarked, shielding his eyes and peering off into the distance. “This would be a good site for a semaphore tower, eh Major?”

“Yes, it would,” Major Dyer replied. One of the handicaps the column was facing was the fact that they relied on riders to carry messages back and forth. The semaphore (also known as ‘Vixen’s Brush’ because of the red and white paint on the semaphore paddles) was Empire-wide, but the Southern tribes had never allowed it to be set up on their side of the border.

“Colonel!” one of the infantry captains called. He had been scanning the area around Tel Ostori through his spyglass. “Riders approaching from the town!”

Ayyub aimed his own telescope in the indicated direction. The small puff of dust that had alerted the Captain resolved into the forms of three ants with riders. The middle one . . .

“Parley banner!” he said. The red flag got more and more obvious the closer the riders got. “They must want to talk.”

“Good. They want to talk, they’ll get an earful,” Colonel Fenslough said as he led the staff down the hill.

The troops were standing to, an alert having sounded as soon as scouts on the ground had spotted the approaching riders. As Ayyub passed a trio of squaddies, he could overhear their conversation.

One, a bear maybe a head taller than the fennec, observed, “I’m glad it’s a parley. I likes parley, especially in soup, I does.”

His squadmate, a mink or weasel with startling silver-gray fur, bared his teeth at the ursine and said, “That’s barley, you berk!”

“Barley what?” the bear asked, looking confused.

“Barley sentient,” said a third squaddie, a sharp-featured canine with brown and black fur. “Parley?” he asked. “Bein't that wha a fur puts onna sidea th' plate in fancy cafes?"

The mink growled, “Since when in the bloody Netherhells 'as the likes of YOU been in a fancy cafe?"

The canine, undeterred, replied, “I know a lot about parley. Me girlfriend says I talk about it all the time."

"She does?"

"Certainly. Parley Sage, says Rosemary, all the thyme."

There was a brief silence.

The bear said, “Here, Baudouin, lemme have yer helmet a moment.”

The canine swept off the stout leather and gave it to him. “Here y’are.”

“Thenks,” and the bear fetched the canine a clout over the head with the helmet. “Here y’are, Baudouin.”

“Thanks, Sigurd. Oh, by the bye – “

“Aye?”

“Ow.”

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Here's the tune, by the way.