Of Gods & Grunts

by Kyrell Kendrick

  Lotash looked a little confused, “Because you asked me to do it by name.”

  “Could you have not ordered a subordinate to bring me the mug?”

  “I could have, Your Divinity,” he said, still a little confused.

  “I desired a mug of grog, and you ensured I received it in my hand. Had you ordered a subordinate to do it, I would still have a mug in my hand.”

  I interjected, “This is obviously a parable. Can you spell it out for me?”

  Cloy smiled, “The fact that you identify as a parable makes me happy.”

  I rolled my eyes, “Can you just? OK? Just you know?”

  “All gods, every single one of them, is powerful. They have rules that they abide because it is more civilized that way. Pantodynomos wants something. Pantodynamos orders the gods to give Pantodynamos what Pantodynamos desires.”

  “So why don’t the gods just give it to him?” I asked.

  “It is considered not just crude, but ungodly. It is also dangerous.”

  “Dangerous to a god?” Elly asked, and then sipped on her grog.

  The entire camp, except the Three Amigos, had stopped what they were doing and listened intently to Cloy. I knew the majority could at least make out more or less of what she was saying.

  “Gods have two forms, well more like ten, but two that they use in mortal realms. They have their worshipped form, and, for lack of a better word, their fighting form.”

  “Fighting form?” I asked.

  The grog was starting to go straight to my head.

  “Their worshipped form is the form you know them as. It is the form they take the vast majority of the time.”

  “Like Brykon looking like a fucking Oompa Loompa?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “What’s an Oompa Loompa?” Elly asked.

  “I’ll explain it later,” I said. I didn’t want Cloy to stop.

  “What are their fighting forms?” Lotash asked.

  Cloy smiled, took a sip of grog, and said, “It is a form sacred to the god. They can only take the form of a creature they have seen before. It is a form they cannot change while in the mortal plain, but it is typically a powerful and large form. They literally take on all the attributes of that form,” Cloy said.

  “Like a dragon?” I asked, a little hesitation in my voice. If one of those assholes turned into a dragon, I was fucked.

  “Dragons are rare, and I doubt one of the gods has been able to touch one alive,” Cloy said, reassuring me.

  “So, it’s something they would have had to touch?” I asked.

  “So what is Bolokbal?” Elly asked.

  “I cannot say,” Cloy said, “We have rules. Revealing information about another god is strictly against the rules.

  “What happens if you break a rule?” I asked.

  “We lose status,” she said.

  “You lose status?” I asked angrily. “I’m going against a god, and you won’t give me valuable intel, because you might lose status?”

  “Gods also might be subject to unmaking,” Cloy said.

  I nodded, “Well, that sounds a little more serious.”

  The fire crackled, and I noticed the dark had fallen. Arsch left his buddies and joined us.

  “Is that grog?” he asked.

  I proffered my mug, but one of the elves beat me to it and handed him a smaller gnome sized cup.

  “What we talking about?”

  “Gods,” I said.

  “And how our foe might be more than he seems,” Lotash said.

  “No wonder Chibushka was so scared,” I noted.

  Elly nudged up against me, as a chill in the air caught hold.

  “She said gods can turn into big things,” Arsch said. “What do you turn into, Cloy?”

  We all looked at Cloy, hopefully.

  She smiled, looked into Arsch’s eyes, and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Arsch said, “Um, yes, that’s why I asked.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, and then took a much longer than necessary draw from her grog. “Once a god is defeated in its fighting form, it is under control of whoever defeated it. It is under control until the next sunset.”

  “How under control?” I asked.

  “You could order a god to do anything short of destroying itself,” she said.

  “Does this thing happen often?” I asked.

  “Often for a god,” she replied, “but a mortal would probably never see it in their lifetime.”

  “So, if I defeat Bolokbal, I could order him to leave Teletha forever?”

  “Not forever,” she said.

  “OK, why not?”

  “Forever is the domain of Pantodynamos,” she said without further explanation.

  “Then I could say for ten thousand years?” I asked.

  “Yes, but that would be fruitless,” she said.

  “OK,” I said, showing a hint of frustration, “Why?”

  “Whose years, Kevin?”

  I closed my mouth. She had a point there. Telethan years were different from Earth's years.

  “So I could say ten thousand Telethan years,” I said.

  “Then he would wait for an allied god to simply make a land, call it Teletha, and make a year less than a minute, or less.”

  “What?” I asked. This was some grade-A bullshit.

  “The gods will always find a way around their imprisonment.”

  “Gods are truly divine,” Lotash said.

  I looked at Lotash, trying to figure out if he was sucking up or not.

  He gave me another curious glance.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I judged you wrongly, human,” he said out of the blue.

  I suddenly felt awkward. Lotash was at least twice the age of Elly, which meant he was probably almost two-hundred Earth years old.

  “I should have trusted my king’s judgment,” he said.

  He was still very prideful and arrogant, so I took that to be his best apology.

  “I’m sorry I insulted you,” I replied. The grog had loosened my emotions very well.

  “I fired the first arrow,” he said.

  “It’s understandable. The humans haven’t been the greatest of neighbors,” I said.

  “Still, I insulted you first, and it was wrong,” he said.

  “And I insulted you and your lady at the naming. I am truly sorry,” I said with a little more forcefulness than was necessary.

  “Silence!” Elly said, “Both of you. Lotash has apologized, Kevin has apologized. You are both sorry. Enough!”

  I looked around and realized that everyone else had the same thought.

  “Sorry,” I said dejectedly.

  “Stop saying that!” Elly said.

  “I’m sorry too,” Lotash said, a little humor in his voice.

  Arsch began laughing hysterically.

  Elly looked me in the eyes and said, “Apologize. Say you’re sorry one more time and discover what awaits you!”

  Arsch finished laughing and stared at both of us.

  I backed down sheepishly.

  “I bet My Dude is sorry now,” he said, giggling.

  Elly threw her mug at him, missing on purpose.

  Chapter 39

  Elly and I made up that night. The woman was fierce in every way.

  We awoke the next morning to the sound of hooves and paws padding away.

  I sat up, crawled to the edge of the tent, and looked around. The menagerie was leaving us.

  Elly sat up and joined me at the tent edge. She clutched a blanket to her chest and watched in amazement at the diversity of wildlife that causally walked away.

  We were not the first ones awake, and I saw the majority of the war party was already breaking camp.

  “Finally awake?” Cloy asked.

  I nodded and then asked, “There’s no way we can keep a few of them as a ride?”

  “The animals are no
longer compelled. Their will is their’s alone,” Cloy said.

  “Damn,” I cursed. We had three trained moose, and that was it.

  “Come with me, disciple,” Cloy said.

  I looked back at Elly, who said, “I will pack up.”

  Cloy and I walked away from the camp about thirty meters. She looked on the horizon and said, “Disciple, do you understand what is at stake?”

  I looked out over the plains. There was nothing but grass and a few copses.

  “Teletha?”

  “Yes, and also no,” she said. Her voice was sturdy and serious.

  “Well, that’s super helpful.”

  She smiled. “The full moon comes soon. It will be the most spectacular moon in a thousand generations.”

  I kept quiet, hoping she would give more information.

  “I must go now. I have things to do,” she said, and then vanished.

  No adios, goodbye, or Cloy be with you. Nope just fucking vanished like a private after hearing the word zonk at six AM.

  I walked back to the war party and was greeted by Lotash, Arsch, and Elly. The other elves were all pulling security or packing up one of the moose.

  “Here is where we split,” Lotash said.

  “Here is where we split,” I acknowledged.

  We exchanged looks of mutual respect. It was possible we may never fully like each other, but there was at least respect.

  “Dusk of the ninth day,” I said.

  “Good hunting,” he replied.

  It took me a few minutes to find Elly, and once I did, I was shocked. She was in the woodline, apparently chastising or at least having a heated discussion with Bob, BAFB, and Arsch.

  I walked over to see what was happening.

  “Bob and Grr go same,” Bob said.

  “The bear is smart, and I swear Bob and him have conversations,” Arsch remarked as I approached.

  I could see that Bob and BAFB were more or less, just standing there.

  “Bob, you are kind of integral to the plan. We need you,” I pleaded.

  “The bear won’t survive outside the forest,” Elly said, “There isn’t enough food.”

  The plains surrounding Teletha weren’t teeming with vast hordes of wildebeest. They just had a bunch of oraks.

  Bob seemed to consider this and said, “Fish.”

  The forest goddess had provided a few hundred pounds of fish at every campsite. Bob, being a cave troll, delighted in the food. Grrr, or whatever his name was, ate the berries and fish alike.

  The problem was, the forest goddess, if the name was any indication, was only located in the, you guessed it, forest.

  “The bear might starve?” I asked Elly. She knew a lot more about woodland bears than me.

  Elly shrugged, “I’ve never seen such an animal.

  BAFB was fucking intimidating. We’re talking a bear that probably weighed like twenty thousand pounds. His canines or, what the hell is the fang of a bear called, ursines, were at least a foot long. In fact, there was very little I could do if BAFB decided he wanted to kill us all.

  “Fuck it,” I said, “If the bear is willing to come, then let’s go. Otherwise, you guys need to get off of him, so we can CM.”

  Bob looked at the bear and said something in trollish.

  The bear looked back into the forest and then out to the plains several times, before walking to Bob and following the giant black cave troll.

  Elly walked up to me, “You really think this is a good idea?”

  “I’d rather attack Teletha with a big ass fucking bear than not, so yeah?”

  She couldn’t dispute my wisdom.

  We parted ways, Bob, Lotash, BAFB, and the majority of the element headed straight for the river, while we took the more direct approach toward Teletha.

  The Green River, which was aptly named, snaked its way through the plains before passing through Teletha proper. It was about four times the width of the Hooch but flowed about at the same pace.

  The main force, commanded by Lotash, was to hit the docks in Teletha at sundown on the ninth day. We figured it would only take them about six days to make it near there. That gave him more than enough wiggle room.

  Our main objective at first was to rescue Dykon and Pagtooth, and I wasn’t entirely sure they were still alive. My personal objective, of which I told no one, was to kill The Voice, Bolokbal, or both.

  I split our forces into two elements; the large main assault force was to head west to the Green River, commandeer some boats, and assault the docks. The docks were the logistical center of gravity of Teletha ever since the oraks began their raids of the plains.

  Hitting the docks was almost guaranteed to cause a massive response from Bolokbal.

  Our smaller force, consisting of Arsch, Elly, Shimone, myself, and a squad, was to sneak in and find the prisoners. If we couldn’t do that, we were to cause havoc.

  I had an M4 and one frag. I also had five spears, two bows, one sword, and whatever Shimone had. Probably a big honking knife.

  We could, if we maintained surprise, cause some havoc. We could not, however, lay siege or somehow destroy any part of Teletha proper. We needed to be a scalpel, not a big fucking hammer.

  I was trained to be a grunt. Engage known, suspected, or likely enemy positions with overwhelming firepower. When that didn’t work, use the squad’s most powerful weapon, the radio, to destroy known, suspected, or likely enemy positions. The radio would allow me to call for mortars, arty, or air.

  I had none of those resources.

  I looked around and muttered, “I wish I had a Stryker.” I pictured an ICV with a big old MK19 on top. Don’t get me wrong, the Ma-Deuce is a beautiful thing, and great at saying fuck you to an asshole about two clicks away, but it only says fuck you to one asshole. The MK19, on the other hand, says fuck you to a whole douche of assholes at the same time.

  When no Stryker came, I decided it was necessary to actually do my job and make some sort of plan.

  “Shimone, do you know of any entrances into the city?” I asked through Elly.

  He shook his head.

  There were more than a dozen gates leading into the walled city. There were also a dozen spots where the walled city was not so walled. Those areas, however, were in marshy and sewagy areas. Areas that I would consider mucking through only as a last resort.

  Hey, no one likes treading through a swamp.

  We walked in a single file line the whole way south. Shimone took point, about four hundred meters ahead, while the rest stayed in mass. We had no moose, which was good because a moose bite can be pretty nasty. I had a friend whose sister was bitten by a møøse once. No realli, she was karving her initials into the side of the møøse. But I digress.

  The temperature was pleasant during the day, with occasional mild rain. It got cold at night, though, which actually made me happy. I carried a wooby, and Elly carried an oiled canvas blanket. Those two combined, and of course, me snuggling the shit out of my wife, and I was comfortable for almost the entire trip to Teletha.

  In the middle of the second day, I watched as Shimone crested an IV line, stealthily of course and immediately threw up the sign to halt.

  We all instantly got down below the level of the grass.

  “Anyone see anything?” I asked.

  Arsch, who had been staring at crotches and asses since beginning the journey, just grumbled. Poor guy was not made for plain walking.

  I checked my chamber and double-tapped my forward assist. I ensured my safety was on and brought my ACOG up to see Shimone. I’m not an idiot, so I didn’t put him in the center of the sight.

  He waved me forward with a gentle prod but made the motion that only I should go.

  I ditched my ruck and looked back at the group. I was about to issue a GOTWA but said fuck it, since half of a GOTWA is time-based, and the other half is more or less radio-based.

  I started my way forward when I heard from behind me, “If you think you are going alone, you are a fool.
”

  Elly and I made it to Shimone’s position among the tall grass and scanned the horizon. About four clicks away was a war party, three times our size.

  There were ten oraks, a pentagal, and four unigals. The pentagal was the loan man on horseback. The oraks all carried some sort of melee weapon, most of them looked like crude clubs or axes, while the unigals all carried long spears.

  “Humans and oraks?” Elly asked.

  I watched them through my ACOG. “They’re definitely patrolling together.”

  They were in strange clothing too. Each had a green hand on the chest, which I recognized, and two stripes, one black, and one purple.

  I handed my carbine to Shimone to get a better look. I watched like a hawk to make sure he didn’t accidentally pull the trigger, or at least try with the safety on.

  Shimone told Elly, who told me, “The sign of Bolokbal. The stripes represent their company and platoon.”

  I nodded. It made sense.

  The war party was crossing diagonally away from us, but they would no doubt see us if we crossed the IV line.

  “Options?” I asked.

  Shimone answered through Elly, “They will be out of sight soon, we can wait until they pass, and then continue.”

  I nodded.

  Shimone passed the carbine back to me.

  “Or we can kill them,” Elly said.

  “They’re pretty far away,” I pointed out.

  “We could draw them toward us.”

  “Baited ambush?” I asked.

  Even though Elly was ignorant of modern military terminology, she wasn’t stupid. She understood the concept immediately.

  “Two of us Thorns will scream and run with our tops off.”

  I was freshly married and didn’t like the idea of Elly being part of us. “Which two Thorns?”

  “Shinta and me,” she said.

  Just as I was about to protest, she gave me the hardest look ever, and said, “I am a queen, I will not allow others to do that which I will not.”

  “But, you’re my queen,” I said meekly.

  She put her hand to my face, “I have fought against harder odds, as have all of us. Besides, you will be ready with your M4.”

  “Wait,” I said. I needed to make a plan.

  Elly had already decided and was giving hand and arm signals to the squad.

  Within a couple of minutes, they were at the base of the IV line, about forty meters from the top. The IV line was only three meters high and had a gradual slope.