by James Axler
DUST SWIRLED AROUND THEM, rising up the flanks of the horses, sticking to their sweaty pelts, changing white and piebald into a dusty brown that made it hard to distinguish one from the other. The men atop them also became a screaming, whirling mass of indistinguishable flesh. Sweat and blood made their battle colors run, so that the individual tribal markings became more and more blurred and indistinct, running the heaving mass into something amorphous.
Into the valley, they were now too close to use bow and arrow. Instead, fighting was hand-to-hand, grappling one another from horses to roll under the hooves, exchanging blows and ducking to avoid the feet of the frightened animals. Axes and knives scored flesh, cut to the bone, caused warriors to tumble from their horses screeching in agony.
And yet…
As the three war parties rode into the valley from their separate vantage points, they were all aware of these things: there was no smell of sweat, blood, fear and chilling, which they would have expected. For an area that was seemingly so densely packed with humanity, there was no rise in air temperature as they rode through. And again, if they had descended into a valley they would expect their horses to dip at an angle commensurate with the valley walls, forcing them to adjust their balance. Yet they had ridden straight, their sense of balance telling them that they were on the flat, even though their vision told them something else entirely.
As they moved among the warring factions, it soon became apparent that this was not a real battle. Blows that were aimed toward them, seemingly, by those who came to greet them rose and fell, cutting through without any effect. Similarly, the returned blows by the war party warriors, acting in what they believed to be self-defense, fell on empty air, despite all appearances to the contrary. That only served to unbalance the war parties, both literally and metaphorically.
The Pawnee, the Otoe and the Dakota Sioux moved across the floor of the valley, uncertain as to whether the ground beneath their feet was as it seemed, or was simply flat grassland plains. They struck at phantoms, uncertain as to whether they were real or imagined.
It was only when they caught sight of one another that they were able to define the difference between the imagined and the corporeal.
The flesh-and-blood warriors were somehow more solid than the phantoms that raged around them. Although these seemed at first glance to be solid enough, there was a translucent quality to them that made the denser mass of the real warriors appear to show through the bodies of those around them, so that from a distance it was as though there were three groups of ghosts who moved through the battling throng.
More than that, the real groups could also be defined by the strangers who moved with them. The Pawnee and Dakota Sioux were taken by surprise; the Otoe party not so. They had been forewarned. It had been Doc and Jak, on the far side of what appeared as a valley, who J.B. had seen from a distance and pointed out to Mildred before the war party had begun to move.
Although, at the back of each of their minds, the separated friends had hoped and suspected from the moment that it had been revealed to them that the other messengers from Wakan Tanka would be their missing companions, nonetheless to see them advancing on each other through a battle that didn’t, and couldn’t, touch them was an experience that none had really expected.
As the three tribes sighted one another, the warriors realizing that here was a real and living enemy, so the strangers decreed by fate or the spirits to lead them to the promised land were forgotten. Each knew that to fulfill the prophecy they had to be the only tribe to reach the sacred place and gain possession of the secrets and the power that would enable them to become triumphant.
In the face of such knowledge, all caution was forgotten. With wild yells that sounded loud above the clamor around them, ignoring the phantoms that fought on unseeing around them, the three parties of warriors charged for one another. In the midst of the ghost battle, to use a bow would beg defeat. Only hand-to-hand, ensuring that a real flesh-and-blood enemy was in your grip, would satisfy.
And yet, despite the fact that the real warriors seemed just that little more solid than the spirit forms around them, still it was hard when at full gallop to determine what was real and what was false. In the midst of such movement, it was too easy to lose sight of the enemy, and find oneself wheeling around to try to grapple with a warrior who was as air when a fist passed through him.
In the whirl of real and unreal, it was hard to keep a focus on who was the enemy, who was friend, and who really existed.
Ryan tried to keep his eye firmly on J.B. and Mildred, as they seemed to wheel the closest to him, the Otoe war party being keenest to engage with the Sioux, but it was difficult to remember who exactly the enemy might be. Particularly when one of the small groups of warring phantoms broke off as he galloped past them, stopping to turn and face him.
“Think you can best the spirits, One-eye?” asked one of the warriors.
“The Grandfather will test you,” said another.
A third feinted him, making his horse rear as he tried to pull back, to avoid any engagement; thinking even as he did so that it was absurd that these creatures from another time and place should speak to him, let alone that he should fear them causing him harm.
“Ha! Nearly got you that time.” The ghost warrior laughed. “Mebbe next time.”
Jak and Doc saw this happen as they tried to round up the Pawnee war party and pull them back. Having long since decided that an engagement under such mind-altering circumstances could be of no benefit, they were having problems in rounding up their warriors, whose lust for combat had now been inflamed by the knowledge that at least some of the enemy were real.
Watching Ryan draw back, Jak asked, “How we know Ryan and others real, not like rest of this shit?”
“We have no guarantees, but I would wager they are as real as us,” Doc replied, adding to himself, “But of our reality I could not say, right now.”
Krysty moved in on Ryan as his horse threatened to throw him. She grabbed at the reins, speaking quietly, but in an authoritative tone that could be heard even over the roar of the phantoms around them.
“Easy, lover, don’t let them get to you.”
“How the fireblasted hell can they be talking to me when they don’t exist?” he asked in return, his tone speaking of a man desperate to keep his grip on sanity and reality.
She shook her head. “Don’t question. Let’s just get our boys back to the edge of this shit, then take it from there.”
As a plan, it was as good as any. If they could disengage from the mayhem being played out around them, then at least they could take stock of the situation, form an overview and a plan of action.
It was a strategy that suited all three parties—or at least, those who were the nominal leaders. In their turn, Mildred and J.B. were also trying to pull the Otoe war party away from their desire to clash with the Sioux. At least they were assisted by this in Little Tree. The Otoe warrior had spent enough time getting to know the Armorer that he felt he could trust in his judgment.
Slowly, almost interminably, the three war parties began to pull away from the phantom battle that still raged around them. The Sioux were hastened by further bizarre occurrences: on three occasions, warriors were startled to find that the horses of their phantom enemies turned and chided them for their lack of courage.
Once it became an entrenched idea that the battle raging around them had no physical reality, pulling away from it proved to be easy. Ryan and Krysty, J.B. and Mildred, Jak and Doc now found it easy to round up their respective war parties and pull them back to the positions from which they had entered the fray.
Within a matter of minutes, each tribe found itself facing the other two across a valley that they now knew didn’t really exist. The warring tribes between them became as shadows, and it was simple now to see that each tribe faced the others with a small, but equal, number of warriors. And for the friends who had been separated for so long, it seemed that their companions were with
in reach, yet infinitely out of the same. A small distance seemed to be insurmountable.
“The spirits have been testing us,” one of the Sioux warriors said to Ryan, his eyes fixed on the opposing parties as he spoke. “The grandfather has tested us, and with your help—the help of his chosen messengers—we are now in a position where it is our courage, and ours alone, that will be tested against the others.”
Across the divide, Mildred questioned a similar statement from one of the Otoe.
“If Wakan Tanka is giving us to you as messengers, then why has he done that to the other tribes?”
Farther still across the divide, the same question from Doc elicited a response from a Pawnee warrior.
“We three tribes have kept the old ways alive. But only one of us is pure enough of heart and courage to take the ways of our people across the lands. It will be a hard road, and what better way to prove our worthiness for that road than by besting the other tribes.”
This theme was taken up, in its own manner, by a Sioux warrior who faced Ryan and Krysty.
“The spirits have tested us with things that are strange beyond imagining, and we have come through these trials. Now we face that which is real—the last obstacle to our destiny.”
The meaning for each group was clear—the road to the promised land, and a prophecy fulfilled, could only be reached at the expense of the other two tribes.
A battle was imminent.
As though the spirits had heard the words of the warriors, the valley and the battle in front of them started to fade away. Or perhaps it was just the land, and whatever controlled it, responding to the changes in their thoughts. If an intelligence was behind this, then perhaps the six friends who sat at the head of their respective war parties would need to pay heed. Right now, though, there were more pressing concerns.
The land between them reverted to the flat grassland plain that it had been before the vision of battle had formed. The three war parties could see that there was only the blank space of empty distance between them. All around was flat land, with nothing to provide shelter or a strategic point from which to hole up and mount attack or counterattack.
Nowhere to hide.
No way to delay the inevitable until the friends had worked out a way in which they could unite without becoming embroiled in combat.
There was a short pause, during which the air crackled with the tension that shot between the three war parties like ball lightning, bouncing off each in turn. A pause during which it was almost painful to draw breath, knowing that any movement could break the fragile peace that, strung between the three war parties, was like the shell of the thinnest egg, waiting to be cracked underfoot.
The moment extended to a breath that was like an infinite prayer to Wakan Tanka, each party asking the Grandfather to bless them in this moment of truth.
And then it was broken. One warrior, unable to stand the tension that built in his chest like an inflated bladder that stopped him breathing, and felt as though it would crack his ribs with the pressure, gave vent to this feeling, perhaps even to try to relieve the pressure that threatened to suffocate him.
With this, the peace was ripped apart. Spurred by the cry, the horses whinnied with excitement and fear, their eyes rolling as they bucked and broke ranks, the warriors on their backs as wild-eyed as their mounts, yelling now as loudly as they could, whipping themselves into a frenzy as they charged at one another.
The six friends, try as they each might to stay aloof from the charge, found that it was impossible. Their horses responded to the herd instinct and bolted, despite their best efforts to keep them back.
So it was that they found themselves caught up in the wild ride: before they could bring their horses under control, they had been thrust into the midst of battle. And this one was for real. The warriors from each tribe were hell-for-leather, axes and knives ready to cut, hack and slash at one another as they closed for close combat. To go face-to-face, hand-to-hand with those others who had been chosen by their respective tribes would be the only real way in which they could prove how worthy they were to gain the secrets of power for their people.
Now the dust that was kicked up was real: thick and choking as they circled one another, with barely room to move as the arena of combat grew smaller. The warpaint on each warrior was already blurred by sweat. Now it grew slicker and more indistinct as real flesh was cut, real blood was spilled. The metallic tang of fresh blood mingled with sweat from both the warriors and their horses. Fear added an undertone to the mix, driving the warriors on as each scented defeat in his opponents.
In the middle of the fight, the friends fought defensively, rather than the following the offensive stance of the warriors. They had no wish to chill those they had ridden with, nor others with whom they had no personal fight. But at the same time, they needed to stop those warriors from harming them. All the while, they kept an awareness of their surroundings. They didn’t want to be sucked into the center of the fight: to keep on the fringe was the aim, so that they may put themselves in a good position for escape at the first opportunity.
It was not long in coming. Experience in combat soon told, and while the brave but wild and unskilled tribesmen gathered in a confused melee, the six friends soon found themselves on the outer fringe of the fight, and so were able to pull themselves away from the choking clouds of dust and the scent of chilling.
It happened so suddenly that it was almost as bizarre as some of the things they had seen in the times leading up to this point: they faced each other around the fringes, as though seeing one another for the first time.
Ryan looked around for some kind of cover or shelter to which they could withdraw and regroup.
And there it lay: fringed by trees of green, orange and purple blossom, a valley that was an oasis of green in the otherwise sparse plain. Thick scrub and grasses, verdant around a stream that burbled on the center, it lay about a half mile to the east.
Ryan was sure that it hadn’t been there a short time before, when he had looked around for signs of cover when the tribesmen had faced off against one another. In truth, he was almost certain that it was another illusion. But it offered some respite; and the fact that it appeared meant that the location had some significance. For whatever reason, each illusion that had appeared in front of them had been there for a purpose.
Something—someone?—was directing them to this valley of illusion. Faced with this challenge or being sucked back into the fight from which they were disentangling, it needed little thought.
At least the valley may offer some answers.
“IT’S NOT REALLY THERE. You realize that, of course,” Doc said. They were the first words that any of the friends had uttered since they had separated themselves from the warring tribesmen and begun to ride toward the idyllic valley.
“Yeah, I know,” Ryan said simply. “But there’s something that it’s covering. That’s how this shit works, right?”
“It would appear to be so, dear boy,” Doc murmured.
The party of six rode on in silence, not even pausing to look back at the tribesmen. It was obvious that none of these would follow them to the so-called promised land until they had satisfied their honor, each by wiping out the other. At least they had the luxury of a little time until that happened. And just maybe time was all they would need.
They rode into the valley, a silence falling. Each pair figured that they would have had similar experiences leading to this point, particularly if the legends surrounding the tribes, and the way in which they lived, were similar. There would be time to discuss and compare these experiences later. For now, they had to keep alert and face the immediate future with no distractions.
Although they knew that the land was flat scrub, they had the impression of riding down a slope and into the valley. The trees hung heavily over a path that was well worn, the grass there being reduced to a bare carpet, flattened by constant use. This path took them to the brook that bubbled and flowed over a bed o
f stones, appearing from beneath the ground, running for several hundred yards, then disappearing once again into the ground. Rustling sounds on the canopy of leaves above them, and in the scrub, betrayed the presence of small animals and birds, although there were no visual clues as to what species may be in this vision.
Whatever powered this illusion didn’t quite have the strength to paint the picture with quite so much detail, Doc mused. What, he wondered, could be at the root of this strange experience?
Ryan held up his hand, gesturing them to halt. When they had gathered, he spoke.
“If this is the place we’ve been looking for—or has been looking for us—then what the hell is it? And what the fuck are we looking for?”
“Something tech, not spirits, that’s for sure,” J.B. said, uneasily eyeing the surrounding territory. He couldn’t swear to it, but he was sure that it had changed slightly…was changing every time he turned his head and then looked back. He continued, telling them in a few brief words that were punctuated by nervous glances around, about the redoubt he had seen with Little Tree, and the maps he had brought with him.
“Makes sense,” Krysty affirmed. “The Dakota Sioux had a redoubt under the caves they lived in.”
“Pawnee got one, too,” Jak added. “Never use it except as shelter, but there all the same.”
J.B. produced the maps and charts that he and Mildred had taken from the redoubt, dismounting as he did so. The others joined him, all now looking around with mixed levels of confusion and fear.
“Changing all time,” Jak murmured. “Not much, but enough. And smells fake.”
“I daresay it is, lad,” Doc murmured. “Whatever is producing this has only the most tenuous hold on reality. As I fear for myself,” he added with a grim chuckle.
“Yeah, well, we all knew that about you,” Mildred commented as she helped the Armorer to unfold the charts. As they did, she looked at the others intently. “You know the real big problem we’ve got right now? These charts may show us where all the redoubts in the area are, but do we actually know where we are?”