Civilization- Barbarians

by Tim Underwood

  And at last, after not changing in the eight years since what I still thought of as the Ewok battle, my reputation with Marcus changed. Approval. At last he really approved of me.

  Well that was nice.

  But he had still better kill that man, and bring Cassandra back.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I think that the night and morning which followed were the worst in my entire life. My memories of my human time are emotionally embodied in a way that it has become hard for me to entirely empathize with.

  I was a different sort of being as a human.

  And since then, I have followed time’s almost unwavering arrow a great distance.

  My parents died when their car skidded on black ice when they drove through the mountains to go skiing.

  That had been a terrible day, but the news had finality. I was in no way at fault for their deaths. It simply had happened.

  Then a year after that, when I woke up in the hospital missing a hand, an eye, and having become an involuntary eunuch. That felt worse than the day my parents died. Probably because the nerves in some of the burnt areas hadn’t been burned completely away.

  That day when Cassandra was kidnapped, and Marcus followed her beyond my ability to know what happened between them. That day was worse than both put together.

  Hour after hour ticked by.

  Cassandra would die. Marcus would die.

  They were both already dead.

  Without my warrior to defend us, we all would die.

  I had fucked up by not keeping all children always protected. That there was no crime, and no fear of crime in my village. I had become incautious. Children always needed to be overprotected, till they got annoyed by it. It was how you cared for children. I had fucked up by not being ready to deal with a powerful group inside the perimeter.

  I gave orders to have two groups of twenty soldiers camp about five miles away from the village, both separated by five miles. They could drill, hunt for deer, and do other useful tasks while out in the woods, and they would provide a group that could respond quickly to another force like this.

  If I’d had two forces like that in place… well I would have lost a huge amount of labor, but one of those groups would have been able to ambush the barbarians, and then there wouldn’t have been enough of them to kill the wolves and escape.

  I had fucked up in so many ways.

  It was all my fault.

  These were people I loved — I had never spoken a word to them, but I had watched Cassie and Marcus for a decade now. I loved them both.

  And I had killed them both.

  The lack of embodiment did nothing to dull the psychic pain of that day and night.

  And then.

  Then…

  Two hours after dawn the following morning, a whispering, praying voice broke into my mind.

  The words were in the elves’ language, untranslated by the system, but somehow I understood what was being said. Please help me. Please help me. Please help me.

  The wall between me and Cassandra suddenly broke down. I could hear her speak and think. She heard my voice, and she responded to it. “Cassandra, can you hear me?”

  And she, in a desperate child’s wail replied, “Help! Help! Marcus needs your help!”

  You have unlocked your prophet

  In this moment of enormous danger, far from home, Cassandra’s fear has broken the gates between you and her. This was meant to happen eventually, but usually it occurs when a prophet is older. You can now hear her voice in her thoughts, and she likewise can hear your voice. No matter how far away she goes, even to the far side of the world, or the far side of the moon, you will be connected to her, and able to see what she sees, and to hear what she hears.

  Hopefully she won’t die right after this…

  Benefits: A prophet can provide inspiration to all who follow you. You are able to speak directly to her, and her to you, thus allowing you to relay to all of your people instructions of greater subtlety and detail than you so far have been able to speak — however technological instructions will neither be passed on, nor would they be understood if they were. You don’t get to cheat like that, you naughty boy, who would definitely be thinking about that if you weren’t too worried right now. You also can control your prophet’s body, and many of the guiding spirits use their prophets as an avatar to allow themselves to live amongst their people, like a God.

  Also, once she has a little experience, you will be able to channel your blessing through Cassandra to those who are near her. Unfortunately not yet. You are going to have to save her and Marcus with a different trick.

  Time went slow.

  But I knew that Cassandra thought at the same speed as me, with nearly a hundred seconds passing for us for each that went by in the external world.

  I first looked out, and saw the situation that she saw.

  Other warriors had joined the chief once he left my borders. It was not a large group though, just five other men, all of them young of face.

  And four of them were dead.

  Marcus faced one young warrior who held a spear and shield and the chieftain who held a long spear in an easy twohanded grip.

  Marcus had no weapon.

  I could see how the spear he had carried with him was shattered, while the two axes he had carried were buried in the heads of his enemies.

  Blood from a deep cut streamed down Marcus’s shoulder, the motion of the flowing liquid was eerie in the trancelike slow motion state we were in.

  Cassandra was on her knees, with her feet tied together, but her hands were free, apparently so that she could feed herself, since there was an open pouch of jerky in front of her.

  “Help! Help! Help!”

  “Calm, Cassie. Calm.” Her voice was so real. It was different from the way I experienced other hearings. “Calm. I always watched over you. I won’t let him take you. I promise. Be calm.”

  I spoke with a confidence that I knew was absurd. But she trusted me completely. There was a deeply touching childlike sweetness in her immediate trust. I could feel her begin to calm. And I could feel her anxiety as though it was my own, radiating from my own chest and stomach.

  She was like a child entrusting herself to her parents, or even to God.

  But I wasn’t God.

  I had no idea, even now, with her thoughts able to follow mine, how to save her. How to save them.

  I didn’t think Marcus could win this fight.

  He stood with his hands wide out as he faced them. And they were both cautious of him, having seen him kill so many. But there was something in the eyes of the barbarian chief. He was waiting for the first certain opening, and then he would strike like lightning. And he would be as fast as Marcus could be.

  Marcus slowly stepped backwards as his two enemies stepped forward towards him. They both knew that even if he was unarmed, his muscles and his mind made Marcus one of the deadliest creatures in the world.

  Solve the problem I can solve.

  Even as I watched one second after another tick slowly past in the real world, I saw that this standoff seemingly could end only one way. I studied in my slowed down state everything close to Cassandra.

  The pouch of jerky. The grass. Lots of stones. Maybe she could cut the bindings on her feet with it. Or throw it at the leaders head to distract him and give Marcus a chance. Fallen bits of bark. A thick stick a foot long.

  A knife!

  The knife had fallen just a few feet from Cassandra. It gleamed and was metal.

  I thought it looked like iron, not bronze. One of the barbarians with an axe buried deep in his head had been using it to cut up the dried meat in front of him, and the weapon had then fallen out of his hand when he died.

  Cassandra followed my instructions to reach for the knife, but I saw that the knife would be just outside of the edge of her grasp.

  In front of us, with none of their attention on Cassandra, the two moved forward circling around Marcus, the chief direct
ly between Marcus and Cassandra, while the other prepared to attack Marcus at an angle away from him.

  Cassandra dug her finger into the dirt and pulled herself closer to the knife.

  The chieftain did not notice.

  She was too slow, and in my trance my desires began to merge with hers, and suddenly, I could feel as though I was her. Her small arm, now reaching for the iron knife. Her scraped knees. The distant pain in the back of her head. Her terribly pounding heart.

  But though I could feel her, and I knew I could command her body, I was not her. I was yet an adult, and I was not frozen in terror. I could feel her acceptance of my control of her body for this moment.

  I/Cassandra jerked forward desperately. We gripped the knife, and pulled it back, rolling back to bring our legs in front of us, and in a single perfectly aimed motion, striking where I’d noticed the rope strands stuck out such that they would be easiest to cut, the razor sharp knife sliced through her bonds.

  As we moved towards the back of the barbarian chieftain, he struck towards Marcus.

  Marcus had misjudged the distance, and the barbarian chief rushed forward, stabbing his spear in like a cobra.

  Even at the speed to which I had slowed the world this motion seemed fast.

  The other warrior also jumped towards Marcus, his spear moving far, far slower than the chieftain’s.

  And I could see in that moment as he rushed forward, that the chieftain would hit Marcus in the chest.

  Marcus hurled himself backwards to the ground, but the spear moved faster, piercing into Marcus’s chest, as Marcus brought his hands down towards the weapon, and…

  A loud crack sounded.

  Blood poured from Marcus’s wound, and the chieftain held a spear whose metal tip had been snapped off, and then the wood behind it splintered and split down the length.

  Almost as an afterthought the spear blow of the other warrior had gone over Marcus, but he had pulled it back instantly, getting the weapon far away from Marcus before he could grab it and rip it from the younger warrior’s hands.

  And Marcus rose to his feet, holding the six inch long spear head in the hand on the side that had not been stabbed. He held it by the remainder of its wooden haft.

  The white bone of his rib was visible in the stab wound, but clearly it had not penetrated further.

  The other warrior looked at Marcus with fear. His morale was falling.

  The chief sneered and in a single fast gesture threw aside the remnants of his shattered spear and pulled his iron sword out.

  Cassandra and I silently moved forward on all fours behind the barbarian chief.

  The chief slowly bent his knees. He was about to jump towards Marcus before we could get close enough to him to hurt him. I thought he might win this time. He held his sword menacingly low.

  Marcus did not once let his eyes turn towards Cassie, though I knew he could see her as she crawled towards the chieftain.

  Instead Marcus stepped backwards, as though he was scared.

  The barbarian chieftain laughed.

  Though I could control Cassandra’s body, it was not my body. I could ignore all of the limits for fully using a muscle that evolution has placed in us to protect us. With every fragment of Cassandra’s strength she/I stabbed him in the back of his calf, right below the knee. I had ample time in this slow motion movement of ours to map out exactly where to strike to completely sever a tendon, and ensure he would go down.

  Cassandra could not kill him, and he, though wounded, would easily be able to turn around and kill Cassie in a matter of seconds.

  But I could count on Marcus.

  I think, in the end, it was the distraction from the surprise that gave Marcus the opening almost as much as the wound. A stab to the back of the leg like that is a permanently disabling wound, and even a brilliant and experienced warrior such as the chieftain will instinctively look to see what happened, instead of keeping his eyes on the real danger.

  It was a fraction of a second, but by the time he’d flickered his eyes back towards Marcus, it was already too late. He could not move the sword back into position in time to spit Marcus as Marcus stabbed the spearhead right through his eye into his brain.

  One fast blow, and he was very, very dead.

  The other barbarian warrior threw his spear to the side. It clattered against the ground, and he loudly fled deeper into the forest, heading, by bad luck for him, back towards my lands where the group that had followed in pursuit had at last arrived and were still in place waiting to see what happened to Marcus.

  Marcus and Cassandra/I stared at each other for a minute, and then Marcus leapt forward and picked up the young girl, ignoring for the moment how he smeared his flowing blood over her. He hugged her tight, exclaiming, in words I understood without mediation, “Thank the guides. Thank the guides.”

  I withdrew from my control and partial possession of Cassandra as he did so.

  By the guides. I couldn’t thank myself. But by the guides.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Cassie sobbed.

  The instant Marcus had touched Cassandra, it was as though he once again was in my domain, and able to draw fully upon my power once more. And his status sheet marked him as wounded, but that wounded meant he hadn’t been hurt in any way which would stop his full recovery, since the status sheet would read maimed if he had a serious permanent injury.

  I whispered into Cassandra’s mind: Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.

  We just needed to bind Marcus’s wounds and get home.

  Home, sweet home. There’s no place like home. Home is where the heart is.

  A blinking message waited for me to attend to it.

  I kept time still slowed down enormously, and not ready to face anything important yet, I looked at the popup.

  Congratulations

  You have uplevelled the strength of your connection with your prophet. From now on you will not only be able to communicate with her no matter where she is, but you will be able to use her to extend your blessing to anyone near her, just as if they were near your place of power. For now this is a weak ability, only able to extend twenty yards, and an inefficient one where it takes the transmission of twice as much spiritual energy to achieve the same effect, but over time with practice and use, this ability will let you use her to command and impart your spiritual energy to great armies of conquest far from your home.

  Except you have the protective trait, so you won’t be doing much warmongering, will you?

  But sometimes surprises happen, and this may one day be useful, even to you…

  Marcus put Cassandra down in surprise. “You are awakened.” There was an instant’s pause. “He took control of you. That was the only way.” He pulled her head up, and looked deep into her eyes, much as the barbarian warrior had. And then he sighed and relaxed. “You are yet you.”

  The girl laughed. “Of course I’m me! You’re hurt.”

  Marcus glanced down. “It is not important.”

  Not important? His ribs were showing, and the muscle had been pierced right through. And there was that other deep cut in his left arm.

  Cassandra seemed to think like I did. “Don’t be silly. You are bleeding.”

  “It will heal.” There was a tone in his voice that suggested he was speaking to me more than to her. “We must return quickly, in case the fleeing one brings friends.”

  Ask him if he is certain he does not need to bind the wounds immediately.

  “The guide wants to know: Are you certain?”

  Marcus laughed as he, with efficient motions, despite only having half the use of his left arm due to the injury, collected the iron sword of the barbarian, taking its sheath made from wood and leather. He tied it to his belt, and he then retrieving the spearhead that had been left stuck in the leader’s eye socket, gruesomely pulling it out. “Tell him to not be a wet worrying blanket. I’d not say I was fine, if I wasn’t fine — be a dear girl and help me collect all of the metal blades. The
y are valuable enough to be worth a few minutes delay.”

  The blood was clotting in Marcus’s wound quickly, and the flow of blood had already decreased a lot, but it still was ridiculous that he wanted to just start running while he had an open wound gaping in his chest.

  Both of them had my blessing, which allowed them to waste absolutely no motions as they moved, and in two minutes time Marcus had gathered up all that he wanted to take, including the barbarian chief’s greaves and chest armor, slung over his back. He then picked Cassandra up in his huge right arm and said, in what had to be one of the creepiest things I have ever heard a person say, “Try to hold my wound shut as much as you can, so we’ll not leave as much of a blood trail.”

  And then he set off at a run.

  Marcus and Cassandra were a full thirty kilometers from the border.

  As it turned out, to my mild surprise, Marcus was not in fact crazy enough to try to run this entire distance in one go, while bleeding from an open wound and carrying a great deal of weight.

  Instead, after they had run for half an hour and made it at least five or six kilometers from the site of the battle, Marcus let Cassandra down and he sat on the thick grasses in a small clearing and rested his head against a fallen tree trunk.

  He closed his eyes. “It was a close run battle. In the end.”

  Cassandra smiled at him, then she looked at her hands that were now covered with blood. “Oooh gross.”

  Marcus smiled. “I shall need your help to bind my wounds.”

  Cassie nodded and immediately crouched near him. “What do you need me to do?”

  Marcus pulled a needle made from a deer bone and with some thin twine already strung through it from one of the leather pouches that he had slung on his belt.

  Everyone amongst the elves had a basic first aid kit that they carried with them everywhere. It had the material for stitching wounds together and some bandages.

  The bandages were all smeared with honey that served as an antimicrobial, though as I’ve noted before, it seemed like the elves simply didn’t get sick at all. And I was rather worried: Did they have immune systems that dealt with everything, or had the flu simply not crossed over in the transition?