By now, however, they were convinced. Or convinced enough to follow me. We were ready, and we were at war.
I had been reunited with Butch, and though it may well have been my imagination, I felt certain that the beast recognized me, and was glad to see me. I know I was glad to see him . . . or she . . . or it. I made a mental note to ask Choona at some point what Butch’s sex actually was.
There were a number of our warriors who bore cloaks made from the web of the spider. Since these spiders were not the approachable sort, and lived deep within the forests, only those who had ventured out in search of food, or singular adventure—which was far more prized here than accomplishments in packs—ever came across them and their webs. So there was very little of this material available. But there were at least a hundred of these cloaks, and Choona, Booloo, and myself each possessed one. It would have been better, of course, if everyone in my army had one, for it goes without saying that being invisible is a great boon in battle. But this was not an option.
Although I had taught the warriors how to work as a unit, I began to realize there was a reason these kinds of tactics had not been used before. On this world, to travel, one must move up and down and all around. A path for one was not always a path fit for two, let alone thousands. It occurred to me then why the idea of individuality, except as part of the city, was so important. On this world it was difficult to work as a unit; the world worked against you.
The environment dictated our route. We were a unit, but a unit not always in sight or position of one another. The plan, of course, was to fight on a solid limb, some broad space surrounded by jungle. A cavalry charge followed by foot soldiers. Before that, I planned to use the invisible one hundred to wreak havoc on the enemy, to have them in a state of flux before the main attack occurred.
If we failed, our city and its small clutch of defenders would be at the mercy of their enemies. It was an all-out assault, and it was up to us to hit our foes hard and finish it.
In my head it was simple, but I realized, though I had studied strategy from Jack Rimbauld, read and reread The Art of War, and The Book of Five Rings, Caesar’s memoirs, reading strategy and experiencing war first hand were two different things.
There’s no point in telling you about all the problems we ran up against, but suffice it to say there were numerous encounters with wild creatures, great gaps to traverse by natural vine webbings, as well as a number of warriors lost to accident. But we persisted. At night we would camp, and I would meditate. I could see the place where our enemy was gathered by astral travel, and in the morning, as if by instinct, I could lead us in that direction.
Each time I drifted out of my body in my astral state, I could sense and feel the power of the Dargats, and most specifically the power of The One.
“Are we close?” Choona asked from time to time.
“Closer,” I would say.
“We will defeat them,” she would say.
“Yes,” I would say.
And each night we would repeat this, like a mantra. It was akin to boxers working themselves up before a fight.
When we were within a day’s march, and could arrive there by midday, I halted our party, had them camp. My plan was to come at them on the fringe of the morrow. Sleep during the day, then move the last bit of distance to where they waited, and just before morning, come at them like the flames of hell.
I slept uncomfortably. I did not try to meditate. I knew where we were. I knew how close we were, and the path to arrive at our destination. But The One reached out for me. It was probing my mind. I could sense it, and I didn’t want to give anything away. I built brick walls in my brain, and I would see its tentacles grab at them and move them aside. I would rebuild. It would probe again, cracking through.
I sat up and shook Choona awake.
“What is it, Brax?”
“Talk to me,” I said.
“What?”
“About anything.”
She saw the look on my face, nodded. She began to talk. She talked for an hour, telling me all manner of information about her world, her city, her parents and brother, and herself. She talked until I felt The One’s mental tentacles retreat in defeat from my thoughts. When it was over, I explained to Choona what had happened.
“Does that mean they know we are coming?”
“It means he knows that I have been prying at its thoughts. It has known that from the first time I touched its mind. As for the other, I cannot say. I hope not.”
“Should we pull back?”
I shook my head. “No. We have come this far, and even if they know we are coming, they still have to defeat us. If we go home, then all we are doing is waiting for them to come to us, same as before.”
“To the death,” she said.
“Let us hope things are not that severe, though I fear that tomorrow many warriors will fall.”
“They know their duty,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “Soldiers always do. But the leaders, they are a little less certain.”
I said this knowing I had put fuel to their pride, and that I was pushing them toward battle. On Earth I had seen it many times. Wars fought for political gain. Wars fought for pride. I hoped my war, the one I had created, my self-defense war, was worth it, and that in the end, Goshon would have peace.
We, The Invisible One Hundred, left our mounts among the main body of the army. Wearing our cloaks of invisibility, I led our undercover band of warriors into position for an advance attack. Among the one hundred were, of course, Booloo and Choona, and Tallo.
Choona is a warrior, but the idea of having the woman you love exposed to danger is a hard concept to swallow. Choona, however, did not give me a choice.
We crept through the woods where water gathered around the roots. Though we blended in quite well in our cloaks, showing our heads so that we could stay in contact with one another, we had to be careful not to make too much noise; our feet sloshing in the water would give us away in an instant. Therefore, our progress was slow and tedious.
Along the way, I left some of the warriors behind to form a kind of relay. When it was time for the beetle-backed cavalry to ride forward, they would be informed by one of our cloaked runners. The cavalry would ride down the middle, where it was clear. This would happen after our advance attack, where we would hit our targets clandestinely, hidden behind our cloaks of invisibility. We would dent them, the cavalry would tear them, and our foot soldiers would come from all sides and break them completely apart.
As the open field became visible through the trees, I halted our group, handed my cloak to Choona, and climbed up a thin tree, nimble as a monkey, if I say so myself, and I do. I positioned myself on a high limb, peeled back the leaves and took a look.
There were great fires all over the field, and the field was many acres wide and many acres deep. I could see the giants squatting by the fires, and as
before, many were partaking of horrible meals made of humans. I could see the strange, treelike growths clutched to the backs of their heads, tentacles, thrashing at the air as if in enjoyment of the meals the giants ate. As before, the mantises lurked outside the circle, just within firelight, hoping for scraps. Nearby, in a kind of makeshift corral of vines and sticks, were the beetles that made up the mantis cavalry. There were thousands of the beasts.
I closed my eyes briefly, tried to remember what I had seen when I had traveled in my astral body. I knew that at the far end of the field, in the shadows, The One waited. I could sense it, and I could visualize it, but not in a complete way. It was akin to reaching down in dark water and clutching at something loathsome, something you could not quite describe in shape or size, but something that squirmed and touched a place in the soul that made you weak and afraid.
I made it a point to make The One my mission. Maybe I could even attack and destroy it before our enemy knew we were among them. I had a feeling that with The One gone, it might not end the battle, but it would certainly cause problems for
the enemy. For without The One, I knew from my astral sensations that the tree creatures and their hosts, as well as the scavenger mantises, would be less willful. The One was the master of the hive, and they were the drones.
When I was on the ground, Choona returned my cloak.
I gathered my band around me. I said, “We will go silently among them. We will leave a trail of warriors here, so we can carry our messages to the others. But the bulk of us, we will split up in threes, and we will go in and do our damage under the cover of the cloaks. Once they know to look for us, though they will have some trouble seeing us, it won’t be the same as when we’re not expected. We cannot use the swords without revealing ourselves to some degree. So mind your attacks. Make them quick. Make them simple.”
“It will be done,” Tallo said.
“Good,” I said. “Tallo, you are with me.”
“And so am I,” Booloo said.
“No,” said Choona, “he is my man, and it is right that I should go with him.”
I didn’t say it, but I was glad of this. The idea of Choona being out of my sight was a terrible thought, especially during battle. Yet, it was not a suggestion I would have made. Now that it was made by her, I accepted it gladly.
“Booloo,” I said. “You will break the others into groups. Do it now. We must be ready to move forward in moments.”
“It is done,” he said, and moved away, the cloak wrapped around his shoulders, only his head visible, floating among the trees and undergrowth.
Chapter Twelve
The Great Battle
We wrapped our cloaks around our bodies and our heads, tied them close around our faces with straps so that only our eyes were visible. Our swords were inside our cloaks, our hands near their hilts. Under the light of The Warrior Star, we moved to the outskirts of the fires, toward the mantises, and moving like apparitions, we attacked the creatures with their backs to us. We came upon them slowly and with great precision. A half-dozen were dead before any of the others realized something was wrong.
All along the outer circle, the mantises fell dead. One after another, swords seemingly reaching out from another dimension brought them down. By the time they realized something was amiss—and I must state that these creatures are not the sharpest knives in the drawer—a good fifty or so were dead.
I revealed my face to Choona and Tallo, beckoned with my head for them to follow me. I pulled the cloak tight around my face again, charged toward where the beetles were kept in a corral.
As we approached, one of the guards, a blue giant, retched his meal, his stomach most likely soured by some sort of crude alcoholic drink. He paused, shook his head, and looked in our direction. I knew what he saw. The light of the moons and The Warrior Star were revealing our footprints in the soft bed of needles and rotting leaves.
By the time he realized what was going on, it was too late.
The giant bellowed and drew his sword. I raced toward him, but not as fast as Tallo, who flung back his cloak and revealed himself, causing the giant to lurch after him. The giant’s huge sword came crashing down with a tremendous chop. Tallo deftly sidestepped and stuck the giant’s hand with his own sword, causing the colossus to bellow loud enough to cause the other giants by the fires to stir.
Tallo dodged a swing of the giant’s sword, darted between his legs, jabbed up with the sword, finding a most delicate target. The giant slashed down between his own legs, trying to nail Tallo, but in his haste, he managed to cut off a portion of his own foot.
By this time, Choona and I had arrived to Tallo’s aid. He didn’t need us. The giant had dropped to one knee, and grasped his ruined foot. With a deft leap, Tallo thrust his blade deep within the giant’s liver.
The giant wobbled and fell.
I grabbed up Tallo’s cloak and shoved it at him. “Your bravery is appreciated. But your survival is even more needed.”
Grinning, he slung the cloak over his shoulders. When I looked up, the corral gate was opening, and I could hear the invisible Choona yelling inside. She was stampeding the beetles. The startled creatures thundered out of the enclosure, filling the open gap until they were pushing against the railings, knocking the whole thing down.
Mantises and giants were surging toward the corral. Our invisible guerrilla team was engaging them, and for the moment, the battle was one-sided in our favor.
I pulled from my belt pack a bit of the igniting plant, got it to flame to life. I waved it above my head. I knew that from the protection of the woods our relay team could only see a bit of fire moving back and forth in the dark, and I hoped they were alert enough to notice. If they saw my warning, the relay was already being carried, and soon our cavalry would appear, riding down the middle of the plain, hitting our adversaries while they were engaged with invisible fighters and escaping beetles.
Since we could not see one another without revealing ourselves, I made no effort to let Choona or Tallo know what I was doing next. We, the invisible, were all on our own. Our job was to harass and confuse the enemy until the real action started. I ran as fast as I could across the field, engaging panicked mantises along the way, cutting them down with what seemed to them a disembodied sword.
I glanced back to see the giants slashing at the night, trying to score on my invisible warriors. I saw at least two of my soldiers cut from their cloaks by great broadswords, sent to the ground and pinned there by blades.
It was all I could do not to turn back and engage the giants, but I knew I had a bigger goal, and I could not be deterred from it. As I moved away from the lights of the fire, the darkness enveloped me. I went more by instinct than design.
And then I felt it.
The One. It was like being hit by a lightning bolt. I dropped to my knees, losing my sword, grabbing my head.
The One had caught me off guard.
It had sensed me.
It was nearby, and being this near, its power was strong.
Inside my skull the thing moved and twisted and sought the core of my being. I fought back. I built walls, but the walls were torn down. I put up a forest, swamp water around the trunks. But that was not enough. The water was sucked away, as if by a vacuum, and the trees were felled by an invisible axe.
Before, I had been able to hold it at bay. My powers were stronger at a distance. But mind against mind I could feel that The One was superior. I was growing weaker. Roots broke up from a dark surface and wound themselves around me. Vines drooped down and enveloped my head. I felt as if I were being crushed. My lungs were shutting down.
It’s all in your mind, I told myself.
But that was cold comfort. In my head or not, The One was slowly killing me.
I imagined the light at daybreak, pushing away the darkness like an anxious child tossing off covers.
I imagined Choona, in our bedroom, back in the city of Goshon. I could see her smile. I could hear her voice and her musical laugh. Her naked body was a delight. Vines wrapped around me, dark and seeking, pushing into my imaginings, turning the day slowly black. The air filled with a stench. I could smell it as surely as if I had been dropped into a sewage pit. My head was a dark cloud. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe. I tried to concentrate on where I really was. Lying on the ground, battling The One with my mind.
But it was useless.
All I could see was that cloud, and all I could feel were those tentacles, the life slowly being crushed out of me, the deepest recesses of my thoughts being touched by something awful and polluted.
And I hadn’t so much as seen my enemy.
In the background, I heard a great clash of warriors, tremendous shouts. I concentrated on those noises, and they brought me back a little. The cloud receded slightly. I put my thoughts back on the beautiful Choona, our most intimate moments. The cloud pulled back, the tentacles recoiled. The positive thoughts in my brain had repulsed it.
Now I was breathing again, rising, taking up my sword, moving in the direction from which I felt the power.
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br /> It tried to stop me with another mental push.
I threw up a wall of light, not bricks, and I felt the tentacles recoil and retreat at a savage pace. I began to run.
Still, it wasn’t easy. There were moments when I felt I was trying to swim through an ocean of peanut butter. Each step made me grunt with exertion. Each breath made my lungs burn as if they were stuffed with hot coals. The One’s foul smell stuffed up my head and made me pause to throw up. It projected heat, like something that had been set on fire and smoldered down to coals and ash and wafts of fetid smoke. But that was alright. I followed the stink, the heat.
Into the shadows I went, and then the shadows began to move, and they were not shadows at all. They were The One. Sight of it almost made me drop my sword. It was shrouded in darkness, but, wearing my cloak, so was I. But neither mattered. The One’s darkness or my invisibility. We could, in our way, see each other clearly.
It writhed and coiled on top of the great mound of flesh and bones that I had seen in my astral journey. There were bare skulls mounded up around living beings who could barely move, fluttering arms, kicking legs. Wriggling down from that thing at the top of the pile were thousands of vibrating roots; the tips of the roots were in the eyes and noses and mouths and ears of the living. When the little moons passed quickly across the sky, I could see their desperate thrashings clearly. Some of them were little more than mummified flesh.
I dropped the cloak from my shoulders for greater mobility. I climbed onto the mound, onto the skulls and bones and dying flesh, and went upwards.
Behind me the war was in full swing. I could hear the cries of warriors, both Goshon warriors and giants. The screeching and clicking of the mantises. The clashing of swords and shields and the thumping of flesh and bone. But that was not my mission. My mission was The One.
Tentacles slashed at me and knocked me back, sent me rattling down the pile of meat and bones. I got my feet under me and put my new abilities to work, leaping and bounding, until I was even with the creature, perching at the top of the mound. I stuck my sword in its body. It was like sticking a toothpick through gelatin. It did about as much damage as vile remarks.
Sojan the Swordsman ; Under the Warrior Sky Page 19