41.

  “Those aren’t beetles, Daniel,” Santi said, turning to stare at his scout. The other man shrugged as they stood on a small hill looking down to the gulley. It had taken them almost three hours to find the nest and now that they were looking at it, Santi was reconsidering some of his earlier thoughts.

  “They’re bugs. Right?”

  “Why do you sound unsure if they’re bugs? Of course they’re fucking bugs. It’s just that they’re termites!” Santi said with exasperation.

  “What’s the difference? A bug is a bug,” Daniel tried to defend himself as he waved a hand at the mound in the gulley.

  The large mound. That looked more like a hill. That was covered in low-level Acolyte termites.

  “There’s a big ass hive of termites here Daniel. Not a bunch of random bugs that were just hanging out. The difference is in numbers. And they probably have a queen and king.”

  “Huh?”

  “They’re a colony bug, with separate types of orders, soldiers, workers, and escalating to a queen and king. Which will likely be much higher level than the workers down there,” Santi said, pointing at the alabaster termites.

  “So the; lure the bugs to the party to create chaos plan isn’t going to work?”

  “Ohhh, it’s going to work. Might work too well though. We’re also going to have to do something to lure them away from their colony. If it was just a few of them it wouldn’t have been that hard. Beetles could be incentivized through lures or something. A colony like that, the most we will get is a handful coming to investigate. Unless…” Santi trailed off as he looked at the massive mound that formed the entrance to the colony.

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless we destroy the hive the colony is around,” Santi looked at Daniel and the other man’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Aside from you, I don’t know if anyone has the power to get that done,” Daniel said after a moment.

  “I don’t have the power to destroy a hive like that. Kill them individually, yeah I could do that. Destroy the infrastructure or threaten it enough that we provoke a killing response as the entire colony comes after us? Naw, don’t have the juice. But I know how to do it,” Santi said.

  “Yessenia?” Daniel guessed.

  “She could with enough time and ingredients. Which we don’t have. We do have a lot of cars and half full gas tanks around though.”

  “Firebomb?”

  “Firebomb,” Santi confirmed.

  “And they’ll know it’s us?” Daniel asked, sounding even more confused now.

  “They will when someone is standing out here when they come boiling out,” Santi said.

  “Sounds dangerous,” Daniel said suspiciously.

  “Very dangerous. But I do have someone who specializes in escaping and evading. The perfect person for the job really.”

  “Shit,” Daniel hung his head and said with a heavy sigh. Santi patted him on the shoulder and forced some cheer into his voice as he looked at the scout.

  “Everything we’re going to be doing is dangerous. Would you rather do this or be in the middle of a bloody melee?”

  “This,” Daniel admitted.

  “I’ll have Hana on the outskirts watching for you to come in. Out of the worst of the danger,” Santi said.

  “Thanks. So, time to go and siphon gas out of cars?”

  “Yeah. Time to siphon gas out of cars. We’re running a bit low on labor really. Rayleigh’s team has all been conscripted to help Yesi and everyone else has their own projects. You have any of your rangers close by?” Santi asked, already knowing the answer.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “A couple teams have drifted up this way. Didn’t ask them too, but they know we’re over here and they have been slowly forming up over the last day or so,” Daniel said.

  “Alright, get them on it then. Salvage gas, diesel, anything that will burn. Then when the signal goes up, you burn it down,” Santi said.

  “And then lead them right into the fight?”

  “Yup.”

  “What’s the signal going to be?” Daniel said as they slunk away from the nest of termites.

  “Will it be cliche for me to say, you’ll know it when you see it?” Santi asked.

  “Very cliched. What will it be?”

  “A red flare. That works?”

  “Yeah. Alright, let me head off and go find my teams then we can start building a firebomb. Or two,” Daniel said the last part with a bit of a smirk before slipping away. Santi watched the quiet scout fade away into the brush and nodded to himself. The man was becoming more and more competent and reliable. Santi didn’t think he had what it took to become a Champion, but a Disciple easily enough. In truth the organization he was building could be more helpful than a single Champion could be.

  A few hundred trained and skilled scouts and rangers who patrolled the wastes between cities would have been a godsend back in the first timeline. It had taken too long to organize the first time, too few people had survived and leveled to build a semi-autonomous fighting force that was used to clear monsters or mutated animals in the wild areas. Every single person was needed for the war effort.

  It was a nice sign. A sign of a better world. A hopefully more tame and protected world. As long as it didn’t spiral out of control again. With Mercy’s and Duncan’s deaths this entire region would be free of any type of organization that could oppose him and his plans of settling and pacifying the region. Trade routes, communities, shelters, rangers, and so many more ideas that would help make rebuilding a peaceful society possible.

  And it was all coming down to this fight. Santi could feel the weight of it, the thought of everything being decided on whether or not he could kill them. Then again, everything had been boiling down to whether or not he kept his guts in his insides long enough to establish this safe haven. It was close to being done, the momentum building to the point that even if he was to die, that they could continue on.

  Or if it was time to move on. To leave the nest and find the other Apostates before they came and found him. Before they could drag their armies across the country and leave nothing but a trail of ruin and death behind them. With the Pillars built around his home, he could find a new one and take it with him as he traveled. He was sure that most of the team would go with him, or at least be willing to hear him out.

  Santi pushed the ideas of the future away. Having you head up in the clouds and visions of a future you could make was sure to get you killed in the present. He needed to be focused to ensure the fight went his way.

  “So, the bugs huh?” Duncan said, snapping into reality only a few feet away from Santi. It was enough to send an icy spear of fear radiating through him, though he managed to not showcase anything visible. The nondescript man just smiled slowly, no joy in his dead eyes as he looked Santi in the eyes.

  “Do you think that will tip the tide so much in your favor?” Duncan asked and Santi had a moment of horror as he thought the illusive scout had figured out the real plans. Then it passed as Duncan didn’t elaborate more on the work Yesi was doing.

  “They have the numbers advantage. I’m creating an anvil in that town, you’re the hammer. The bugs are the coup-de-grace.”

  “If you think Mercy’s people are going to fall over and die to some bugs, you’re sorely mistaken about her strength. They’ve been destroying every settlement they’ve found from Oregon to Nevada. We’re not the only strong people around either. The strongest probably, but not the only ones with strength. They’ve been reaping levels from other humans, slaughtering monsters and animals and they’ve conquered every monster den they’ve come across.” A flicker of true emotion passed the assassin's face, so fleeting that Santi almost didn’t believe he’d seen it. Fear.

  “I went up North, close to the mountains and the border and there’s nothing alive Santi. It’s just charred ground and skeletons. Even the damn monsters haven’t come back. These people are a scourge and they must be eradicated to the last person.” There was a conviction to his voice, a fervor that bordered on religious zealotry.

  Santi was looking at the man and really seeing him. He was a cold blooded murderer. A psychopath who looked at people like they were no more than bags of experience to further his own goals. And he was scared. He hid the fear in his rage and conviction, but it was there. And it made Santi nervous.

  “You do your part and I’ll do mine. How much time do we have?”

  “Another day, maybe two. They’re coming this way, finished off Reno and their celebrations have ended. Nearly a thousand of them, but most of them are low level trash. None of my scouts have seen the inner core. I’m going to go and look at them myself, see if I can clear out some of their Acolytes.” Duncan spoke as if infiltrating a camp filled with curse afflicted soldiers was an easy thing.

  “If we can get a more accurate time for arrival and numbers the sooner the better.” Santi said.

  “I’m going up there to investigate tonight and will be back tomorrow morning. Your defenses in the camp are looking fairly decent, enough to keep me out. Well…I have to exert some effort to get through it at least.” Duncan flashed a smile that did nothing to assure Santi.

  The thought of Duncan making his way through the defenses and his surprises being discovered was unpleasant to think about. None of the spell forms were complex and would be easy enough to figure out if Duncan could get enough perspective to understand the town wide formations.

  “I don’t know whether to wish you good luck, or hope that you’re caught and ripped limb from limb,” Santi said, leaning on one leg and looking at Duncan. The other man laughed, a dry, harsh bark.

  “You want me alive until the killing is done.”