by Nancy Osa
Frida felt oddly light-hearted as she moved silently toward the agreed coordinates to start her survival exercise. Relying only upon herself brought back the balance of control and vulnerability she knew so well. She had missed it. She pushed aside the haunting memory of the mistake she’d made during her freedom test and tuned her senses to the jungle.
Removing her shoes, she felt the cool earth buckle beneath her feet. While her eyes adjusted to the fading light, she sniffed the air. An aroma of dampness accompanied the sound of rushing water. Somewhere nearby was a waterfall, which meant that a precipice might be used as a trap or an escape route. Here, the ground felt firmer and seemed to grow a furry jacket. Moss stone! When wet, it would be as slippery as ice. She fixed the spot in a mental map.
As she had done with Rob on the day they had met, she picked through the jungle gloom for useful items. Melon, cobwebs, and vines were quickly gathered. Then Frida came across a cocoa tree and collected as many of its large pods as she could carry. She whacked at some smaller trees with her fist and put aside the sticks and other items in her empty inventory.
Again, she heard water pouring from a height into a pool in the darkness below. Water had to fall from somewhere, so Frida crept in an ever-widening circle, seeking its source. She didn’t want to tumble off a ledge. She found a small river that had formed a pond in a natural stone bowl. Just the place for some night fishing.
Frida crafted a rod from her sticks and cobweb string and tried her luck. She was reeling in her third fish when she heard a twig break. Before she could turn toward the sound, she felt, and then heard, a splash. Liquid dripped down her neck. An odor of mold spread in the air.
“Ow!” Her health bar diminished slightly from the harm as she spun around. There stood a wart-nosed witch, retrieving her empty splash potion bottle.
The sorcerer gargled an indecipherable sound and reached for another bottle. She was close enough to touch, so Frida did, grabbing her vile wrist and yanking her into the water, then pushing her head under with her free hand. I hope she doesn’t have an underwater breathing potion! Even if she did, Frida’s determination might have outlasted its effects. The survivalist pressed against the struggling, foul-smelling witch until there was no fight left in her.
Frida’s reward was a small supply of spider eye, sugar, and glowstone dust dropped by the witch. With no brewing ability, she kept only the sugar to give to Ocelot and moved on through the underbrush.
Her ears searched so well for sound that Frida recognized the softest padding of a cat’s feet in the dirt. The fishing trip would pay off, she realized, as a feline ocelot slinked into view. When it saw her, it sidled up, turning its head to and fro. She tossed the begging cat one of the fish she’d caught, and the animal accepted it and ate. It purred at Frida, basically saying, I’m yours! . . . which was a good thing, because a mob of zombies now groaned somewhere behind them.
Frida circled back to the mossy area where she had located the first waterfall, her tame cat now following in her footsteps. The zombies blindly pursued them. Frida splashed some water from the source over the moss stone. Then she stood still and quieted her breathing.
“Uuuuhh . . . ooohhh . . .” The mobsters’ groans drowned out the gurgles of the waterfall and the small sounds that the cat made.
Frida had once kept a cat as a pet that had driven her crazy—not because it jumped up or was noisy, like a dog, but because it was so quiet that she had often not noticed it was there and tripped over it. Frida only switched on her super senses when she really needed them.
She put the cat’s small, but substantial, body to use now as an organic trip wire. On the zombies lumbered through the dark. Suddenly, they hit the wet moss stone, sliding. As they tried to control their clumsy limbs, one of them tripped over the unseen and unheard cat, falling heavily into its buddies.
“Ooooooohhhhhhhhh . . .”
The pack of zombies somersaulted into the waterfall, and the force of the current carried them over a cliff of undetermined height.
“. . . uuuuhh—sploosh! Sploosh! Sploosh!”
Frida heard them no more.
In the brief break, Frida dismantled her fishing rod and refashioned it into a bow. This proved an excellent forethought. From another direction, the percussion of bone on bone signaled the approach of a skelemob.
“Hide, kitty cat!” she warned her new friend. “This could get serious.”
Frida climbed the nearest tree and emptied her inventory of the cocoa pods she’d collected.
The skeletons marched into range, pointing their bows fitted with arrows in all directions but not guessing her location above them. Before they could lock onto it, Frida employed the cocoa pods as substitutes for arrows.
T-wang! Sh-ang! Thop! Thop! Thop!
The sharp-edged pods were as good as arrows when propelled by the bowstring from this height.
In no time, the ground was littered with bones, and Frida was in the clear. Her ocelot kitty emerged safely, purring.
Then a welcome greeting came from above: a ray of sunlight through the canopy. Night had become day.
Frida knew now that she would never lose the instincts that had been carefully cultivated in her as a child by her wise family. She had not only survived this night of danger—she had triumphed over it.
CHAPTER 14
THERE WAS NO POINT IN STAYING IN THE JUNGLE much longer. The clan would have to do without an extra trainer. Most of Frida’s questions had been answered . . . but a few lingered.
After a catnap next to her pet kitty, Frida approached Xanto, who sat watching the little girls spar in a clearing. This brought back vivid memories of Frida’s younger days. Had she forgotten how she’d relied on her sisters and cousins when she was young? They had all learned together.
She mentioned to Xanto her recent frustrations with group life, then waved at the girls in training. “Why does it seem so much harder for me to cooperate now than it was when I was their age?”
The old sage sighed. “Everything grows more complicated as the days pass, and it does for each person that you meet. So, of course, your dealings with adults will be more . . . intricate. But they will also be that much more satisfying.”
Frida related her doubts about the mission to defend the Overworld from the griefer army. It had seemed a vital pursuit at first. After several setbacks, though, she had longed for her old solitary jungle existence. “But with the state of the world, even that seems kind of . . . well, selfish.”
Xanto nodded. “Our way of life has its dignity but also its shortcomings. If you seek my blessing, then you shall have it. Go. Rescue the Overworld from those who would take too much from those who have little.” She smiled. “Perhaps one day you will return to assume my place.”
“Oh, I could never—”
Xanto hushed her. “Someone must.”
Now Frida raised a question that had bubbled up in her from time to time, especially since she had crossed paths with her brother Rafe. “Xanto, why are the boys in our clan sent away?”
For a moment, shouts and laughs erupted over one of the sparring matches.
Xanto’s eyes left Frida’s and returned to the young warriors. “How else would the girls learn to survive on their own? Sooner or later, we must all care for ourselves.” She clucked her tongue. “Many boys are strong enough to get by without any special training. If they were here, they would overshadow the girls. We send them away to the men’s camp across the biome, or to one of several villages where they might be of use.”
The boys’ relocation seemed to be their version of a freedom test. It was up to them to decide what to make of their lives. Rafe had chosen a less virtuous path. Frida hoped someday to meet another brother who had done more with his skills.
She hugged the elder and took her leave, the tame cat pattering behind her.
Frida found Gisel crafting arrows in her shelter.
“Mother, I’m going back to the battalion. But first, I need your advice.
. . .”
Gisel stopped her before she could say more. “Frida, dear. If you rode all this way with one thought on your mind, you already know what you must do.” She embraced her daughter, then continued. “For your own good, the clan trained you to resist trust in human nature.” Gisel’s eyes twinkled. “We never said anything about love.”
*
After giving her tamed kitty to a small girl who delighted in the friendly pet, Frida saddled Ocelot. Then, off the survivalist and her trustworthy mare went, moving too fast for danger to find them.
They passed the spot where they had crossed from the far mesa to the stone beach and continued to gallop southward, toward the western taiga. Frida noted that the griefers still had not begun to claim boundaries on this side of the extreme hills. It reminded her of how life should be, with players free to roam, explore, or settle down wherever the spirit moved them.
The spruce forest closed in as Frida combed the taiga for her friends, who would still be busy fulfilling Bluedog’s last demand. Although the occasional chickens and cows spawned near the path, there was no time to stop to collect, cook, or eat them. Frida nibbled on some cake that her family had provided, giving Ocelot a few bites, as well. Then they raced on.
The horse twisted and jumped up, down, and around terraces of cold dirt dusted with drifts from a previous snowfall. The trees were so thick that Frida couldn’t see very far in any direction. She would have to intercept the battalion based on where Bluedog had sent them. Looking for any sign of a lava lake, Frida finally spied some ore chunks and a full suit of iron armor in the distance, floating above ground level. Sometimes, the heat of a fiery lake created a slight vacuum above itself that drew solid objects.
Pushing through the trees, she witnessed that phenomenon. A bubbling expanse of red-orange lava undulated and popped as random chunks floated by above it. A dark ring of grass and dirt showed where the temperature kept snow from accumulating on the banks. Someone had tunneled into it a ways and opened up an obsidian vein.
Frida dismounted and led Ocelot to the edge of the lake, searching for marks in the bare ground. After following the shore a ways, she spied some footprints and the narrow carvings made by wagon wheels. She counted the sets. They’d been here! . . . and they’d gone.
But Frida could now ride in the direction of the prints, which became obscured by a thin layer of snow as they led away from the lake. She gulped a few breaths more of the crisp air, and she and Ocelot trotted off again swiftly into the trees.
By and by, Frida heard creaking and a man’s voice. She called ahead to announce her presence, then sprang off of Ocelot’s back and jogged up to where the battalion was slowly proceeding down a cow path.
“Vanguard!” Rob had stopped Saber at the rear of the file and was the first to see her. “You’re safe,” he said with relief that he did not try to hide.
Rob halted the battalion, and they all gathered around Frida and Ocelot, wondering how she had escaped and where she had been.
Jools gave Frida a two-fingered salute, a broad grin spreading across his face. Stormie and Kim pounded fists with her.
“A couple of us doubled back to try to spring you,” Stormie said.
“. . . but Bluedog had already taken you away,” Kim finished.
Judge Tome reached down from Norma Jean’s back to shake Frida’s hand. “Glad you could make it, Corporal.”
Turner jumped off of Duff and—to Frida’s surprise—grabbed her in a bear hug and thumped her on the back a few times. “Thought we’d lost ya, girl.”
Frida pushed him to arms’ length and studied his face a moment. “Never,” she said fiercely.
Now Frida’s heart went out to little Rat, the packhorse, who was harnessed to a wagon coupled to five more carts in succession. They were loaded down with buckets of bubbling lava. “Help me out, Kim,” she said and proceeded to undo the harness buckles. “Recycle the carts. We can leave this load right here. Bluedog won’t be needing it.”
Stormie shot her an eager look. “Did you—?”
Frida held up a hand. “There’s no time to talk. Bluedog and Rafe are still alive, but we won’t be working for them anymore. We’ve got to get back to the mesa plateau. Crash and De Vries are on the griefers’ most-wanted list. We’ve got to warn them!”
Rob had dismounted and watched her in a daze that gave away how worried he’d been. When she handed him Rat’s lead rope, he put a hand on her shoulder. “Frida, I—”
She cut him off. “Me, too, Captain. Whatever you were going to say.” With a quick grin, she motioned for him to give her a leg up onto Ocelot. “Bat Zero,” she called happily to the group. “Let’s ride!”
The horses and riders cut north, then followed the mesa plateau border eastward, leaving the snowy spruce lands behind them. Indeed, there wasn’t time to talk, as the day slipped toward dusk and they were still some distance from their old rock shelter. The players all rode with swords at the ready and were well-prepared for defense when an extraordinarily large mob of zombies blocked their path in a dry creek bed.
“Battalion: ready, charge!” Rob ordered.
By twos, they advanced on the thick mob, the riders in front chopping zombies in half and falling back to let the next two troopers attack. The maneuver worked like a charm, with only Judge Tome suffering a slight wound when he cut himself with his own blade’s follow-through. Norma Jean set to braying as though she’d been hit, and a familiar odor filled the air.
“You two have really bonded,” Kim observed, waving her hand under her nose.
The mounted battalion moved on, outrunning a few spiders and creepers, and reached the plateau camp as the moon made a bid for sovereignty in the sky.
Clattering into camp, Frida yelled for the brother and sister they had left at the shelter. No answer came. The door to the dwelling hung open, and no torches burned from within.
“Where could they have gone off to?” Rob said. “Hunting?”
“Trading in town?” the judge guessed.
“I’m afraid it might not be that simple,” Frida murmured.
The troopers bedded down the horses and dug in for the night. Once assembled in the dining and crafting hall, Frida caught them up on her escapade. She revealed the lies her brother had told.
“I knew old Rafe was a scoundrel,” Rob said, sitting on one side of Frida at the long table.
Turner, on her other side, nodded agreement. “Man don’t even deserve a fake tat.”
Kim shuddered when she heard of the false cleric’s plot to enslave De Vries and Crash to do his architectural bidding. “Reminds me of what Dr. Dirt did to my horses.”
“Mad Jack’s story about De Vries and Crash had to be phony,” Stormie put in. “I’m sure those two weren’t pawning goods. Why would they steal resources? Crash could mine near anything they’d need.”
Jools tried to connect the dots. “So, the syndicate is in cahoots with Lady Craven’s griefers. Since her army hasn’t yet spread south of the extreme hills boundaries, Bluedog was free to take protection money without providing any services. It was pure profit. Meanwhile, he and Rafe acted as conduits for whatever intel they could shovel up and sell to Lady Craven. ”
“Then she paid them off with what her people took from the villages they ransacked,” Kim added.
Judge Tome considered the legal implications of the threesome’s dealings. “Bribery, extortion, theft, human trafficking . . . they stood to lose a lot when Battalion Zero threatened their racket.”
Rob rubbed his chin. “It was lucky for Bluedog and Rafe that we surfaced in Spike City. That was the opening they were looking for. After killing Dr. Dirt and escaping from Zombie Hill, Bat Zero was wanted, big time. Information on our whereabouts was worth so much to Lady Craven that Rafe found it easy to convince her he was still an insider of Frida’s clan and could use that cover to hand us over.”
“He’s definitely my brother. But I doubt he could’ve earned the family mark—disguise or no disguise
,” the survivalist said. “No man could find our Apple Corps location, let alone infiltrate it.”
Rob raised his eyebrows. “Apple Core?”
“Corps, with a PS,” Frida clarified. “It’s our clan’s training event. The site changes every year, and it’s not released until the day of.”
“Sounds like my kinda party,” Turner said. “Women everywhere and a chance to display my manly gifts.” When Frida glared at him, he added, “My gift for taking out mobs, is all I meant. . . .”
“There’s more to it than that,” Frida said. She told them about the freedom test that every girl took before getting her tattoo and setting out into the jungle on her own. “Rafe would never have had the guts to face one of Xanto’s challenges.”
Stormie was impressed. “But you did. I’m sure glad you’re on our side.”
They caught up on the events immediately after Frida’s capture. She mentioned that Legs had appeared in the church basement and also had it in for her—because she’d duped him and Dingo by impersonating a griefer. “That must have put him in the hot seat with Lady Craven.”
Frida didn’t know what had become of Legs, but she told the others how she had left Rafe in the burning basement when she escaped. “I also managed to nab his computer,” she said, and Jools gave her two thumbs up.
Then Frida learned that Kim had saved the battalion from Bluedog’s man-eating silverfish.
“Running only makes them madder,” Kim informed her. The horse master was a student of animal behavior and knew that the arthropods could outrun a horse on the flat. Their lack of abdominal segments, though, wouldn’t allow them any vertical speed. They also couldn’t tolerate much light; that was why Bluedog had kept them covered. Sheer numbers was what made them deadly.
“We’re lucky to be alive,” Rob admitted.
Kim had led the fleeing troops up a sheer cliff, into the sunlight. The silverfish followed, bypassing little Rat, who couldn’t pull his cart on the steep terrain. When the tiny mobsters hit the wall, stunned, they baked in the sun, and all expired at once.