RAW KINGDOM ENTERTAINMENT

                        The Ant’s Help

 Heated by the struggle, and stung by his failure to slay the serpent, Yoshi sprang to and fro about Viciousella’s dark den, seeking some cunning way by which he might draw the creature out. Long he laboured, tearing at the earth with restless paws; but the soil was hard as sun-baked clay, and the snake had burrowed deep, far beyond the reach of his grasp.
 For a while he dragged himself to and fro as the snake within shifted and coiled, yet this served him no better. At last he halted, breathless and begrimed, and knew that this toil was in vain. The ground yielded nothing, the shadowed hole no hint of movement. So he cast aside that fruitless labour, and stood pondering in the stillness, while the red-rimmed mouth of the burrow seemed to watch him in silent mockery.

“I must get her out of there!” he shouted, bristling and terrifying with his thorns.

“I will let her know how to attack sleepers and strike from shadow! I will tear her to pieces, till no trace of her remains to plague the gentle sparrows. I shall unmake her utterly, if only for the sake of the small folk who tremble at her passing. But how?

“How am I to draw her from the dark hollow where she lurks?”

He paced beneath the boughs, and the dim green glimmer of the wood trembled over him as though listening. A queer stillness lay upon the air, as if even the leaves held their breath at his fury. Yet all his bold words faltered before the simple truth: she was hidden, and her hiding-place was deep and secret, older than the oldest ivy and twice as cunning.

“How?” he whispered again, and the whisper seemed to sink into the moss at his feet.“How shall I smoke her out from the shadows?”

Suddenly he halted, as if some hidden thought had smitten him, and struck his brow with the flat of his hand.

“Hurry—to the ants!” he cried to Thumbelina.

And before she could so much as wonder what aid these tiny folk of the earth might lend, Yoshi had already darted away toward an old anthill that lay nestled at the gnarled roots of a pear tree long past its prime.
 Thumbelina followed after him, bewildered and breathless, for the place was overgrown and hushed, as though the tree itself were holding its ancient breath. The mound writhed with countless small lives, glinting darkly in the muted light; and yet Yoshi knelt before it with a strange and sudden purpose, as though he had come upon an old ally in the wild.
 At that time the ants were exceedingly busy with their labours. All along the winding paths of their little realm they toiled unceasingly, gathering the fruits of field and furrow against the creeping cold of winter. Grains gleaming pale as river-pebbles, withered straws light as old memories, and seeds of every humble kind they dragged in long patient lines toward the dark mouths of their hill-home.
 Before the chief entrance of that earthy dwelling there stood a great red ant, taller and broader than the rest, set firm upon his many-jointed legs like a sentinel carved from amber. His long quivering feelers curved outward like mustachios upon the stern countenance of a soldier long used to watching the borders of his land. Silent he stood, keeping ward over the bustling folk.

“What do you seek here?” he said, and his voice was stern as a cold wind over withered heather.

“We come as friends,” answered the hedgehog, bowing his small bristled head.“We have no intention to steal your food nor trouble your colony.”

“What do you seek?” repeated the guard, no less unyielding than before.

“We need your aid,” said Yoshi, stepping forward.“A great serpent lies upon the path behind us. We have just now fought with her, she attacked us in the small hours when we slept within that slog”

“A serpent, you say?” cried the little ant, quivering so that his tiny shadow trembled upon the root he stood upon.

“Then it could be none other than Viciousella herself! Long ago she stole that very slog from our kind.”

“Yes,” answered the hedgehog gravely, his spines rustling like dry reeds in a night-wind.

“She lies wounded now, deep in the gloom of her burrow. It is for this cause we have come beneath your boughs: to beg for your aid, that together we may see her wickedness ended at last.”

“With great pleasure,” said the guard; and turning aside he bent low to a tiny ant that toiled beneath a grain of millet. Then in a voice soft as wind in the grass he bade it hasten and bear the tidings to the deep chambers of the anthill, where many small folk dwelt and laboured unceasingly. And the little creature, though burdened, lifted its feelers bravely, as if the message were a charge of great honour, and scurried away into the dim cracks of the earth.

 After a few minutes, the battle ranks of the ants emerged, like a dark river flowing from beneath the roots of the ancient tree. Scouts, small and swift, crept ahead, their tiny antennae quivering as they sought to discern the hiding place of the serpent. Behind the last of the ants, Yoshi and Thumbelina trod with careful deliberation, their steps slow and measured, so as not to affront the martial dignity of the insect host. The forest seemed to hold its breath as the little army advanced, besides the gnarled roots and knotted branches.
 The scouts returned at last, and reported in low, urgent whispers that Viciousella had been struck and now lay wounded within her lair. Then the first ranks of the ants rushed forward into the snake’s dwelling.
 Yoshi lingered at the edge of shadow, and prepared to meet his enemy. He positioned himself so that Viciousella might not perceive his presence before the moment came to strike. The world seemed to hold its breath, and the faint rustle of leaves above and the scuttle of tiny legs below marked the slow, inevitable approach of what was to come.
 Beneath the earth, in a hollow dark and secret, the snake lay coiled in weary stillness. Her lair was a sunless chamber, hewn deep in the soil where the roots of ancient trees twisted like old, gnarled fingers. Her scales were dulled with dust and streaked with the marks of the battle; her body curled tightly, a circle of pain. From the tip of her tail, a thin line of crimson oozed, staining the earth beneath.
 Weakened and unheeding, she did not hear as the quiet footsteps of tiny intruders approached, their numbers countless in the dimness. Only when the first sharp teeth sank into her wounds did the snake awaken to the peril surrounding her. A cold dread crawled over her spine as the relentless army of ants pressed closer, their jaws clicking in a rhythm as old as the forest, and the snake understood that in the dark, deep places of the world, even the smallest creatures might hold the power of doom.
 With a vicious hiss, the serpent darted from her burrow, yet along the narrow tunnel came a tide of ants, swarming and relentless. They clung to her crimson maw, and the creature writhed, pulling back in agony. Her flat head emerged at last, and Yoshi crouched low in the grass, eyes sharp, heart steady, waiting for the whole serpentine body to emerge. Then, with a sudden spring, he struck. The red-mouthed horror was no match—the hedgehog’s spines found their mark, breaking her spine, and in moments the body was darkened and crawling with ants. Slowly, inevitably, the serpent ceased her struggle, and the quiet of the grassland reclaimed the scene.