Penthesilea led 100 soldiers to the enemy outpost. Fully armored, the Army marched through tall grass and climbed over boulders. The warriors remained silent throughout the journey. They feared alerting the enemy sentries to their presence. The foes’ encampment lay about 200 maple tree leaves’ breadths ahead. The march would take at least a day. The sun relentlessly cast seething rays of heat upon the soldiers through the cloudless, cerulean sky.
“Sing to me, O Muse,” thought Penthesilea, “sing to me of the wrath of Queen Hecuba, which brought us to this state of desperation.”
One soldier, whom Penthesilea had assigned to point guard, Cassandra, scampered back to Penthesilea. Cassandra whispered, “General, a giant tiger looms ahead of us. I advise that the Army divert—”
“I shall direct the Army’s course, if you don’t mind, Sister.”
“Of course,” said Cassandra.
“The cat is directly in front of our line of march?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Cassandra.
Penthesilea pondered for a moment. “Queen Hecuba wants this assault executed as expediently as possible to replenish our diminished workforce, and this is the shortest path. The tiger may inflict a few casualties on my sisters, but the rest can easily get around it,” she thought.
“I’ve made my decision. Get back on point, Sister.”
“No one ever believes my warnings,” thought Cassandra as she scrambled back to her position at the Army’s front. Andromache, the other soldier assigned to point, joined her. The two stood before the gaping maw of the cat. The tiger growled as it batted the tiny women around playfully. The cat’s claws pierced the armor of both soldiers. Their abdomens gushed yellow-green blood. Using the only weapons available, Cassandra chomped into the tiger’s left paw, as Andromache gnawed at the right paw. The cat yowled at the stinging pain. Andromache and Cassandra tried to race away at this respite from the onslaught. The tiger would have none of this. It lowered its face to the ground, pounced, and devoured both soldiers. Its ears laid back, the giant licked its chops as it wagged its orange tail.
Soon after, the main force met the beast. Penthesilea watched in horror as the monster disemboweled her sister, Penelope. Then the cat decapitated Clytemnestra and eviscerated Deianira. With a quiet “row,” the tiger pounced on Arachne and drilled through her heart with one steel-hard claw.
“Oh, well,” thought Penthesilea, “I never liked Arachne much. She wasn’t worth the biomass that composed her.”
With a soft “prrrt,” the beast punctured Andromeda’s thorax with razor-sharp canine teeth and slowly sucked the life juices from her. The monster, licking its lips, dropped the exsanguinated husk into the dust. Meanwhile, 10 soldiers, led by Helen and Ariadne, had flanked the giant cat and crawled from its tail to its back. Their mandibles plunged into the tiger’s spine. The creature screamed in rage. It whirled several times in an attempt to dislodge the tiny women. Helen and Ariadne lost their grasp of the cat’s fur, and the two soldiers fell to the ground. The beast trampled them and scarfed up the warriors remaining on its dorsum. In all, the creature killed and ate 30 of the royal regimental soldiers in this skirmish.
The screams of the soldiers as they met their doom haunted the general. They were all Penthesilea’s sisters. General Penthesilea called for her captain.
“Yes, general,” said Atalanta.
“Sister, you are my best warrior. Take a party of ten troops to assault the tiger directly.”
“But this attack is fruitless—”
“I’ll have none of that. Get it done. And be quick about it, my sister.”
Atalanta led ten soldiers in the attack. The beast gobbled up all ten quickly. Atalanta bit deeply into the cat’s foreleg, at which it wailed with an earthshaking volume that stunned the Army. Then the tiger, exhausted and in pain, ran away.
The odor of formic acid wafted through the air. Penthesilea had second thoughts about this raid. She had already lost more than one-third of her force, and they hadn’t yet reached the objective. She steeled herself, rationalizing, “Leaders must make life and death decisions to accomplish the mission.” Her command, conveyed via pheromones, was, “Forward, march!”
The Army advanced through the grass, tall as trees, and met the first enemy outpost. Hecuba’s Grand Army slaughtered the five guards without mercy, although the opponents incapacitated Medea and Electra by slicing off their legs.
Penthesilea again had a twinge of regret. She knew these two sisters would die after their hemolymph drained from the wounds at the base of their legs. Scratching her left antenna with her right prothoracic leg, she thought, “We must attack. The enemy has put us in this position. They killed most of our workers in their last raid on the Colony and nearly slew our mother, Hecuba.” She cried, “Into the nest, soldiers!”
As she and her troops poured into the underground lair, Penthesilea reflected on the legend that surrounded her. The myth held that she was the daughter of the drone god Ares and the ant goddess Thetis. That she was raised by the wizard ant Cheiron, the ant with a thousand legs. And supposedly, Queen Hecuba adopted her and had dipped her in the river Styx when she was but a grub, conferring invulnerability upon her. She laughed to herself, as she slashed an enemy soldier’s throat. Her mandibles dripping with gore, she thought, “Pure rubbish! My exoskeleton is simply tougher than most ants’.”
After an hour, the Army slew the few soldiers remaining and half of the workers. Penthesilea ordered, “To the nursery, Sisters. I’ll deal with the queen.”
At the heart of the colony, Penthesilea confronted Queen Jocasta. She was a grotesque blob of abdomen and oviducts. “This is retribution, Majesty!” cried Penthesilea.
“Retribution for what, my daughter?” purred Jocasta. “What have I done to incur Hecuba’s wrath?”
“I’m not your daughter! And your last raid slaughtered more than half of our workers. Your soldiers nearly killed the Queen.”
“My dear, child,” said Jocasta, “you are my daughter. Hecuba’s army stole you from my colony when you were a larva.”
“That cannot be true, Jocasta. Why do you incessantly attack us?”
“Why do you attack us, my child? It’s life. Each colony covets the other colony’s resources.”
“No!” cried Penthesilea, as she tore off the queen’s head.
Half-strong, Hecuba’s Grand Army marched back to the Colony with 50 of Jocasta’s spawn. The queen’s ant larvae, nestled in the warriors’ mandibles.
About the Author
Wade R. DeYoung was born and raised in Michigan. He has published poems in 100subtexts, Fae Corps Inc Newsletter, Bewildering Stories, Diagonals Literary Festival, Children, Churches and Daddies, Carmina, CommuterLit, and The Lorelei Signal and short stories in Diagonals Literary Festival and Altered Reality. After 28 years, he retired from the U.S. Army as a captain and served as an aircraft armament mechanic, a recruiter, an environmental science officer, and an entomologist. He has a B.A. in English (creative writing track) from the University of Central Florida (2025), an M.S. in public health (medical zoology track) from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (2015), and a B.S. in zoology from Michigan State University (1991). He has two children, Ryan and Caitlin, who will be 29 in June.
