Virta fields outside of the frontier village, perspective of Toqlan and the invasionary force.

  The sun was just under the horizon, and the air was chilly and damp. The mist of the early morning was still hanging in the air. Toqlan had always liked early mornings such as these, just before the dawn. There was a sort of peacefulness to them, different from the night's oppressive darkness.

  Toqlan brushed his hands along the virta stalks, feeling the morning dew rub off on his fingers. Alongside him were the mushroom soldiers, quietly marching among the stalks. His mind was always slightly connected to them. If he closed his eyes, he was pretty certain he could still know where every single one of them was.

  The connection with Mafu had long since disconnected. It had been maintained for around half a day's travel outside of the territory but had then gradually disappeared. He did not like the mental connection, as it kept him on edge. When he was in the territory, every thought of his was tinged with the very being of Mafu.

  It was an unnerving feeling. It reminded him of fall and rotten things. Toqlan felt that his thoughts were of his favorite color, and the color of Mafu was the one he disliked the most.

  The ants were moving further out from his position, somewhere out of sight. Taressa was a bit further behind commanding her children.

  The frontier village had come into sight a few moments ago. The small stone wall, about as tall as an adult male, looked less daunting from the outside than it had looked to him when he was still a slave. His knowing the abilities of the ants and mushroom soldiers made the wall look downright laughable.

  A pressure informed him that Taressa was trying to reach him, and he opened his mind quickly.

  "My children have surrounded the village, it is up to you to give the signal, and we will infiltrate."

  "Understood, give me some time." Toqlan responded.

  Taressa was not going to invade with her children, she was far too big to go unnoticed. Their plan was to avoid killing as much as possible, but some guards would have to die. And the slave owner would, of course, also need to die.

  The previous plan of having Taressa block off the escape towards the Empire had to be abandoned. She was too big, and there were fewer fields and other places to hide on that side of the village. Her children would have to suffice.

  Toqlan made sure that the mushroom soldiers had set up their defensive formation. They had brought sharpened logs and placed them facing outwards in a circle. It was to protect from enemy cavalry, but according to their information, the village did not have any mounted soldiers.

  Toqlan took a deep breath. It was time. He opened his mind, found Taressa, and spoke with both his voice and his mind.

  "Begin."

  ---

  Inside the frontier village, early morning.

  Jenna washed her face with cold water from a bucket that had been left outside her front door overnight. She went inside and took out a piece of bread and some cheese from the pantry. She sat down at her kitchen table and broke apart the bread and cheese and ate them slowly.

  She had passed her 50th birthday last month, and even though her body was still strong, her mind had a harder time waking up in the morning. She was no longer young, and the sorrows of the past decades were wearing down on her. She barely remembered the happy moments of her youth anymore.

  Now only a few good ones remained. The time she met her husband, the birth of her son, and when her father let her take over the bakery. It was all overshadowed by the death of her husband, her son being taken from her, and the increasingly oppressive taxes on the bread she baked and the virta needed to bake it.

  She watched outside of her window as a pair of slaves walked by at a brisk pace. They were carrying water buckets. The slaves were the personal slaves of the slavemaster of this village. He had been a mediocre merchant before settling down on the frontier with his slaves.

  Out here in the sticks, he was basically a nobleman. She was disgusted by slavery. The holy church told them that humans were superior in all things and that the slaves were simply beasts that could talk. But from what Jenna had seen, they were the same. The slaves were even better at some things. The people in the quarry boasted strength no human would have at their level.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  She finished her bread with one final gulp and stood up. She had to open the bakery in an hour or so and had to have the first freshly baked bread ready. Most of her sales were in the morning, for the villagers who wanted fresh bread. For the evening meal, there simply was no need to bake more bread, as the sales would not make up for it. She simply sold what was left from the morning in the evening.

  As she was undoing the lock on the bakery door, she heard an unusual sound down the street and turned to look at what it was. She instinctively recoiled at the sight she saw.

  There was an ant; no, it could not be called an ant. It was the size of a dog. It looked at her, and both she and the ant were frozen in time for a few seconds. Neither made a sound.

  The ant then turned and moved on quickly. She could hear the ant's legs when it moved. The low frequent thumps as it scurried away. She ripped the door to the bakery open and locked the door quickly behind her.

  A thousand thoughts ran through her mind. After taking a few minutes to collect them together, she decided that this must be the monster that killed that slave hunter a while ago. No other monster had ever left the forest, except for those that came through the portal to the savage lands.

  Were these ants from the savage lands? She remembered the meetings they had about the portal and what to look out for. As she remembered it, the monsters from there were physical in nature. The human invasion force had only been attacked by monsters with immense strength, not magic or skills.

  On the other hand, these ants, if they were the ones who killed the slave hunters, had killed with psychic attacks. So either they were a new breed of ants from the savage lands, or they were part of some other force. She looked outside the window and stayed there for a couple of minutes.

  She saw three more ants pass by.

  After staying there watching, she realized that being in the village was probably the least safe place now. Those ants could break the door down easily if they wanted to. She quickly packed some of the bread that had not been sold yesterday into a satchel and armed herself with a knife.

  She then silently walked outside. She walked down the street, the opposite way from where she had seen the ants.

  As she turned the corner, she came face to face with another ant. The ant was three meters away from her. She froze, and the ant stood perfectly still, just looking at her.

  She then felt a presence push against her. It was overwhelming; it felt like her thoughts were no longer her own, and she could hear screaming in her mind. A brutal sound, and she thought she was going insane. Then it all cleared up, and a dignified voice echoed through her head.

  "You are not evil. If you do not oppose us, you will not be harmed. Return to your nest."

  Jenna felt small before the voice. But she had to respond.

  "Are you... the ant?"

  A laugh reverberated through her head.

  "Not the one you see, two-legs. That one is my child."

  "What do you plan on doing here?" Jenna blurted out in her mind, but some of the same words also escaped her mouth. It was a weird sensation, communicating in her head.

  The voice made an unusual sound, and even though she did not recognize the sound, she knew it was the voice thinking.

  "We are here to kill those who need to be killed and free the beast-kin. You seem to dislike the oppression of them; therefore, you do not need to be killed."

  For a few moments it was silent, as Jenna was processing this information. She made her decision then and there, she had waited for this. She knew that she could no longer continue like this.

  "If you kill any important people here, the Inquisition will come. They will read our minds and purge anyone they dislike. I have... doubts about our god. I will be killed. Can I come with the beast-kin when you free them?"

  She felt the presence once again invade her mind, and this time she felt as if she had disappeared. All her old memories came back, all the way back to her childhood. She could feel the presence inspecting all of it. Everything she was, everything she had done.

  Then it froze on a single memory. She saw a tattered, small beast-kin. The beast-kin had cat ears, and she was slim. She felt the emotions of the memory, the feelings she had felt then. Pity for the small girl, anger at this world for starving her, and hatred for the slavemaster living like a noble.

  She saw herself handing the girl a loaf of bread, one that had not been sold that day.

  The presence emitted a feeling of acceptance, of it liking this memory. Then she was pulled backward, out of the memory, and she was suddenly back in her body. She stumbled a bit, trying to remember how to stand up.

  "Yes, you can come. The king would like that. Are there any others like you?"

  "Like me?"

  "Those who do not believe in your god, those who believe beast-kin are the same as you."

  "Yes, a few, but I do not know if they have given bread to small girls..."

  Again, the laughter rang through her head.

  "The bread is not important; the feelings are what matter."

  The voice talked to her as if she were stupid, but it had gotten considerably kinder in tone after watching that memory. The voice then continued.

  "I am Queen Taressa. Bring those who are like of mind and feeling, and bring them to the western gate in an hour. We will make your way then. I will see for myself in their memories if they are worthy; otherwise, they will not be permitted to accompany us.

  Jenna instinctively bowed her head to the voice and felt the presence emanating amusement again. The ant in front of her then scurried away, and Jenna hurried to pack up her things. She would have a good few people to convince and not much time to do it.

  But she smiled; she had a feeling this would be a good memory. It had been too long since she had a new one of those.