---
A new dawn bled across the Dune Flats, revealing a battlefield unrecognisable from the day before. Where once one million disciplined soldiers had stood, scarcely half that number remained and those survivors wore exhaustion like cracked lacquer on their carapaces.
Four hundred thousand ants soldiers had died. Over a hundred thousand ants were very badly injured. Losing a leg or arm or fatal injury. Rest of them are exhausted from the battle. The underling's of the desert ruler had retreat far far away, when the desert ruler fell in battle.
Shattered drake shells littered the sand. Wounded hornet mounts lay tethered in orderly rows, medics siphoning venom and saliva. But amid the battle ruin, jubilation thrummed: banners snapped, buglers thrilled a concise eighth-note flourish, and the Queen of the Ant-Kingdom descended from the air. Dust devils died under her eight-star aura, as though forbidden to whirl in her presence. Beside her stood other eight star ants.
