by J C Maynard
The Second Platoon sat in a cage of roots that was likely large enough to fit a whole other tree inside. Having been granted no time to relax for a month on end, Lekshane demonstrated a spout of confidence on the eve of the invasion by allowing his men to rest. Tayben sat across from Chent, who, more withdrawn from the circle, carved a beautiful wooden figure of a merperson out of an oak branch. Ferron, Gallien, and Thephern also sat around a tiny fire which provided little warmth. Ferron, the entertainer of the group, enjoyed sparking up conversation with the others, usually concerning his need for women in his life — a specific Vashner girl to be exact.
“Two years in this forest has burned you out this much, aye?” said Gallien.
“You’ll know the feeling, Aris. Once you’ve had it with leaping in the canopy like a- like a damn treefrog, nothin’ in the world will be better than the idea of goin’ home.”
“Home to what?” said Tayben. “. . . As far as ‘the world’ knows, we’re all dead. But I guess it’s in the name of the position . . . I don’t see a way back from this.”
“You’re just not seeing the opportunities.” replied Ferron. “After this war is over, you get’ta start fresh; you can be whoever you want . . . When we win, the government will give us loads of money to retire and live our lives — I am, of course, just talking about the four of us,” Ferron laughed, “Chent over there’s gonna become a hermit and live in this foggy mess.”
Chent rolled his eyes and smiled as he continued carving.
“He’s not the only one who’s grown fond of the forest,” said Thephern.
“You like it here?” asked Gallien.
“It’s better than civilization. Cerebrian or not, there are people I’d rather not associate with . . . And do you all think that you can hide what you are? Your power? I mean hell, Chent, you could shoot an arrow at a noxberry just by the sound of it falling through the air; and Ferron, you could track an ant in this bloody underbrush. We’re almost not human . . . do you really think we could belong with society?”
The group sat silently, listening to the bubbling brook that wrapped around their enormous tree. Creatures screeched in the dark, but the troops had become accustomed to random calls and growls from hidden places in the forest.
Thephern threw a twig on the small fire in the center of the tree. “We belong here, in the frontlines. I’ve been here long enough to know why I was chosen to be a Phantom — I don’t know if any of you do; maybe Chent does. But General Lekshane scouts each of us before we are chosen, and he always has a reason. As for me, I know that the reason for which I was chosen blocks the pathway back to civilization. Each of you may discover something different for yourself; but as for me, I’ve accepted why I’m here; I’ve accepted why I’m not going back.”
Ferron shuffled, crunching dead leaves on the ground. “But don’t you miss home?”
Thephern shrugged. “Not exactly.”
“I do,” admitted Gallien.
Tayben looked over to Gallien, and it felt strange, but a feeling of relief came over him that he wasn’t the only one who missed it. Tayben sighed. “I miss home too.”
“What about it?” said Ferron.
Tayben thought. “I- . . . well I guess I don’t really know. Just being back in Woodshore . . . maybe I just miss the people there, my parents especially. And the smell of my father’s blacksmith shop.” Tayben remembered the hot, smoky workshop and the sizzling sound of glowing metal cooled in barrels of water. “After long summer days of working metal,” he said, “my father would take me out canoeing on Lake Kiettosh as the sun set.” Tayben smiled at the memory of the orange clouds above a pale blue sky. “Yeah . . . that’s what I miss.”
“And you?” asked Thephern to Gallien as the fire in the center of them crackled on branches and leaves.
Gallien smiled and leaned his head back on a giant root of the tree. “What’s not to miss? . . .” He closed his eyes, allowing his mind to wander back to a more peaceful time. “I miss the winter holidays back in Gienn . . . I don’t know if any of you have seen it there in the winter, all tucked up next to the mountains. The city streets glow with candlelight from the houses and the moon shines on all the snow and . . . it just looks magical at night.”
“Oh don’t get sappy with us.” joked Ferron.
Gallien laughed. “I’m serious . . . that’s what I miss the most. My brothers and I would run and slide down the icy streets on our boots. I miss those warm dinners with my family on winter nights. I have two older brothers and a younger sister and we’d read all the classic tales with each other and drink cider by our fireplace.”
Ferron shook his head and chuckled. “Yeah, while you got to stay tucked away in your warm and cozy mansion, the rest of us peasants were freezing our asses off in winter.”
The group fell silent, and then seconds after, burst into laughter. Gallien grabbed his stomach as he laughed, taking it in good sport.
Chent silently chuckled to himself and joined in. “Want to build your next manor in the Taurbeir-Krons?”
The group froze in surprise, and then burst out again. Thephern burst out with laughter. “The man speaks!”
Tayben laughed. “Ferron, I think you’ve cracked Chent . . . he’s going loopy, he’s talking now!”
The group gave a round of applause to Ferron, and spent the evening joking and reminiscing about life before the army.
As the fire began to die down, steps approached the tree, and Albeire Harkil of the First Platoon called out for them; his voice was gentle and calming carrying through the forest like light. Easily the most graceful and nymph-like Phantom, he stepped through roots in the tree into the circle. “Luck,” he nodded, “Second Platoon. The General is ready for the attack. It will be five miles from here to the borders of the camp. Seeing as the camp outnumbers us five hundred to one, we will have no choice but to make this a sabotage rather than an extermination.”
“What does he want us to do then,” asked Thephern, “burn it from the inside?”
“Preferably. Although we must respect our pact with the nymphs to not harm the forest. We'll sneak into the officers’ quarters and destroy all their spies’ work, and then steal any leads that we may find.”
“And from there we wreak havoc.” said Thephern
“Controlled havoc. We target the officers first. Slay as many troops as we can. But our existence cannot be compromised, and although it is alright if Ferrs see us, they cannot know or even guess what we are. Therefore, Lekshane has ordered the Third Platoon to steal Cerebrian uniforms from a nearby battalion, from which they have just returned. We will wear those instead of our cloaks.”
Ferron raised an eyebrow. “We might as well go in banging pots and pans with that armor; they’ll hear us from a mile away.”
Thephern glared at him. “You’re capable of being silent.”
“Exactly.” said Harkil. “And we will not be wearing the full amount of protective gear to limit the restrictions it would have on our movements. Anyway, Lekshane has ordered that unless you are absolutely sure you can take down a group of men and leave no one alive, do not use your full skill. If a man escapes and tells of our powers, our secrecy will be compromised. So if you must defend yourself, and the force around you is overwhelming, act as if you are a regular soldier. Do you understand?” The Second Platoon nodded. “Come, we meet in five.”
Although he had worn it only a month prior, the armor of a regular soldier now felt light but awkward, but panels of protection had been removed so as to not cause a clamor when he jumped through trees. The light from the camp was blinding; even through the fog, Tayben could see roaring bonfires where soldiers kept watch at the gates. Unable to cut down the enormous trees of the forest, the Ferrs were forced to build a battlement under the canopy of the trees. Looking less like a fort and more like a remote forest village, the camp had a collection of barracks and training grounds, but the layout moved with the layout of the forest, including the trees and brooks. A central
building, the only one two stories high, sat in a bend of the main river that ran through the camp, and clung to a massive tree sixty feet in diameter. “That’s where we’ll need to get to first.” said Lekshane, scratching once at his reddish brown beard.
A wall of wooden pikes surrounded the camp. The Phantoms quickly took out the watchmen and guards with both bow and spear. From there, they listened for any footsteps or breathing on the other side of the wall — nothing. The First and Second Platoon jumped over the fifteen foot wall, landing in the moss on the other side, while the Third Platoon climbed into the trees to enter from the top.
Once the Phantoms successfully infiltrated the central building, it was only a matter of seconds until they were lighting on fire spy documents and leads on the Cerebrian army at the same time stuffing Ferramish information into their uniforms and boots. While Ferron and Chent were using a burning candle to light them on fire, Tayben looked at the document in his hand, something that he could easily catch on fire if he were in his body of Callenck. The power given to me by the nymphs must be similar in some way to what I have in the Evertauri . . . That last word, Evertauri, felt sour in his mind, and although he wanted to hate them, he accessed the feeling in his mind that he used to summon his Taurimous and channeled it into his hand. He jumped back as an enormous pain of an invisible electric current — or something of that nature — cracked through his hand. Almost yelling, he caught himself before making a sound.
Ferron, who saw nothing but Tayben jump back, looked at him with wide eyes and mouthed “What the hell, Tayben?”
Tayben silently mouthed back as he examined his perfectly normal hand with no flame in it, “Paper cut.”
Ferron raised an eyebrow and continued lighting documents on fire then cooling the ashes with quick puffs of air. For ten minutes, flashes of firelight lit the ground surrounding the central building, and then there was darkness. A blur of Phantoms shot out of the building and into a barracks, where the sound of unsheathing daggers, gasps, coughs, echoed out and dripping blood seeped through the floorboards. The green blurs moved into another barracks of sleeping soldiers, but the sound of the bubbling brook and croaking frogs around the building was suddenly replaced by a massive cacophony of bells chiming and shouting from Ferramish guards.
The sixteen Phantoms quickly severed the throats of the remaining men in the barracks and flew out the windows. As Tayben ran away from the barracks, carrying Ferramish mission reports under his clothes, he saw a mass of soldiers ahead. As if the soldiers ran in molasses, the nymph’s gift allowed Tayben to calculate everything happening around him, so much that he knew the angle of every sword and spear heaved at him. Knocking swords to the side, he quickly stabbed two soldiers with his spear. As they fell to the ground, he grabbed both swords from their hands, and decapitated two more soldiers on both sides of him. Holding onto a man’s shield and ducking from his sword’s swipe, he twisted his hands hard, breaking the man’s arm, allowing him to take the shield and stab him with the top spike.
Like a bee in his ear, he heard an arrow whiz past him and into the head of a soldier behind him. Chent came to his aid, loading and loosing two arrows a second. After the group of Ferrs lay dead, he ran to take back each one of his arrows, a sight that Tayben never got used to. While occupied with removing his spear from a man’s body, Tayben barely had time to duck when an arrow flew straight for his chest; and to his amazement, Chent sprung out his hand and caught the arrow, loading it onto his bow and taking out the Ferramish archer who tried to kill them. “We need to find the others.” he said. He whistled the call of a Slevvnen bird, but with one tiny rhythmic difference. Within seconds, he received the same, off-rhythm call from far off. “This way.” he said and they sprung over the mossy forest floor.
Gallien and Ferron brandished their swords against a platoon of Ferrs. Chent quickly shot the remaining soldiers as he and Tayben approached the two. “Where did everyone else go?” asked Tayben.
Gallien motioned with his body and began running. “I saw Thephern and Albeire bolt into a barracks. The rest, I don’t know.” Together, Ferron and Chent whistled the bird call and received a response to which the Phantoms ran.
◆◆◆
Albeire Harkil and Thephern Luck cleared a stream, running to the nearest tree. Ascending it slowly like a normal human, an arrow shot through Thephern’s loose sleeve which ripped from the force as it grazed his skin. He continued to climb, reaching a large branch. Arrows that did not whizz past them stuck to the underside of the branch and Harkil knelt and closed his eyes. “Harkil!” Thephern whispered. “They’re surrounding us.” A mass of scarlet troops gathered beneath the tree, fifty feet below them. “Harkil!” Albeire knelt motionless, with his fingertips touching the wet bark of the branch. Out of the forest, Thephern heard a Phantom whistle a slightly-off bird call. His heart beat fast and he whistled it back. He followed the whistle with four short clicks of his tongue, danger ahead.
◆◆◆
The four Phantoms darted through the dewy brush and screeched to a halt when they heard soldiers — a few hundred strong, including cavalry — moving in the forest. Chent pointed up, and the Phantoms jumped onto a very large and unstable boulder and ascended into a tree to scout out the enemy. They seemed to be forming ranks beneath a group of massive trees which were separated from the rest, and a steep ravine leading to a river created a crescent on the grove’s back side.
Gallien peered through the canopy and could see Thephern and Albeire on a large branch. “They’re trapped.” he said. “There are swordsmen and archers in the middle, and two large sections of cavalry on either side. They could try and run for it — I think Thephern wants to — but Harkil is kneeling. His eyes are closed . . . what is he doing?”
“We can’t take them all.” said Tayben. After a moment of silence, Ferron began to chuckle. The three raised their eyebrows.
“It’s bloody stupid,” said Ferron. “but it may work.”
Thephern cursed, and Harkil turned his head slightly. “Be patient.”
“For what!” whispered Thephern. Harkil smiled as a crash sounded through the forest. A ten foot boulder tumbled down the hillside; Ferron Grenzo and Tayben ran behind it, pushing it and speeding it up. Another crash sounded on the other side — an even larger boulder was pushed by Gallien and Chent, whose Phantom bodies were the only ones capable of pushing something so large. The two rolling mounds of rock and moss crashed and snapped branches and ferns, and as he scanned the various troops below, Thephern smiled, “They’re aiming for the horses, those brilliant bastards.”
The boulders angled inwards at two side groups of fifty cavalry each. The horses violently turned around to see what the noise was, and when they saw a boulder rolling toward them, they reared and whinnied, bucking their riders off and swinging their heads. As the boulders rolled nearer, the men began to yell — the horses began to run away from the Phantoms and trample their own troops. The Ferramish army rushed away from the stampede of horses, which converged on them like a giant V, pushing them toward the ravine on the opposite side of the grove. Screaming and neighs rang through the forest as Gallien, Chent, Ferron, and Tayben pushed the boulders with all their might, making them crash through the forest at remarkable speeds. The wave of horses crushed the chests and heads of their Ferramish troops as they tried to run away. The first men reached the ravine and turned around, only to find a crowd of five hundred soldiers trying to outrun the stampede. The soldiers cried out to warn everyone of the ravine, but slowly, they and the soldiers were pushed off the edge into the rocky rapids below.
Harkil and Thephern swung down to the forest on vines, running after the boulders, each joining one, helping the Phantoms push them. When they came within a hundred feet of the ravine, they let the boulders go and crushed a line of horses. They each unsheathed their swords, bows, and spears, ready to wipe out the troops that survived. Just as they did, a whistle rang out in the forest. The Ferrs saw a large blur of green streak th
rough the canopy, but Tayben saw Lekshane leading the First and Third Platoon down to the forest below. Lekshane shouted below, “Take them all!” The ten Phantoms jumped from the trees sixty feet down into the battalion of Ferrs.
Thephern, Gallien, and Tayben jumped over the nearest troops and landed in the throng of soldiers. Thephern, with his two longswords immediately decapitated four soldiers. Gallien snapped the neck of the nearest soldier and grabbed his scarlet shield, which he tossed to Tayben. Placing his arm through the straps and holding his heavy spear tightly, Tayben dug his feet into the ground and sprung forward as fast as he could run, knocking down Ferrs and spearing them. From above, Chent picked off Ferramish archers before they could shoot the Phantoms. Ferron grabbed a strong vine and tossed the other end to Albeire, and together they ran at a line of spearmen, hooking them under the neck and throwing them down. From the ground, a Ferr hurled a spear at Ferron which Harkil kicked away. Thephern ran his swords through the chests of the spearmen on the ground. “Harkil, the cavalry!” he shouted. A line of five horses with riders were sprinting away from the scene to warn the rest of the camp.
Tayben and Albeire took off after the horses, stepping on the corpses of dozens of Ferrs. Tayben bolted between two of the horses, and as they split around a tree, Tayben thrust his spear up and sideways, catching the tips on the riders’ armor and used the tree to stop himself, knocking the troops off. Harkil jumped on a horse, taking its rider out and twisted its reins into the row of horses, colliding with the next. The horses’ legs all caught together and they came down with a thud. Seeming to weigh less than the air around him, Harkil flipped over a soldier and split through his helmet with an iron dagger.