Root and Branch

by Tripp Greyson

  I made sure the Waykans were aware we were coming. I had delivered a series of messages, air-dropped by Buzzard Riders, as I didn’t trust the Scholars not to murder my messengers. The messages we dropped condemned their cannibalism, told the Waykans we were preparing to end them, and asked them specifically to sequester their non-Scholar children away from the rest of the population.

  They had replied via a homing dove message in which they basically told us to go comfort ourselves. I immediately set my Cobber grandsons to finding some rock doves of our own to enhance our Coney Express Service, but that had proven difficult, as rock doves were mostly city dwellers and we were still rustic. They experimented with the plentiful mourning doves they had access to; but those doves, though elegant, were the very definition of the term "birdbrain" and proved impossible to train.

  (So we farmed them instead. Even the smallest mourning dove was equivalent to a large turkey for a Cobber family, and made for a big meal for a Memmie, Pixie, or Fairy. I have to admit I'm fond of them myself.)

  Our day of departure — or what Old-Father Trent insisted on calling "D-Day" — fell on October 10, A.R. 25. It was a Tuesday, and we assembled in the foggy semi-dark of a cool fall morning. The grumbling was more subdued than I would have expected; but then, we were on a mission from a Goddess. For the first time, I wished we had working automobiles, because the trek to Wayko would take us a good week at a rate of ten miles a day. Some of us would be on horses, and some on birds; they would serve as scouts. So would the Dixies and Imps. Because I didn't trust the little hellions with Dawn blades or gas-bombs, the Pixies planned to drop bricksies and the sharpened stone kinetic projectiles they called "kicksies" from on high; by the time they hit, the kicksies would be traveling almost as fast as an old-time bullet. Anyone not wearing a helmet in the Waykan army could get a nasty surprise.

  The rest of us would have to walk for close to 65 miles, though some were driving horse- and ox-drawn wagons filled with supplies ranging from food and arrows to the aforementioned kicksies and bricksies. I knew it wouldn't do any good to push the army to much more than ten miles a day on foot, though we could probably make more if we didn't encounter any delays and the good weather held.

  I had no idea how boring a march to war could be. I'd been on long marches before, sure: my original post-exile trip along the Trinidad to first the Goddess, then on to Scarborough Faire; the trip to Hamiltown, and the return home… but the first had been full of terror, adventure, and sex, the second was a homecoming with my boys and two of my wives, and the third I spent getting reacquainted with my birth family. Now I walked at the head of my legion, or ventured ahead with the scouts a-horse. Nights were spent planning and brainstorming with my war-chiefs and, of course, fathering, since I had to take care of those urges one way or another.

  The most exasperating thing about doing the war-planning was convincing Acheron and the other Hellspawn that just letting them sweep in and burn it all down was a really bad idea. They had no idea that we had arranged to save the children… at first. When I finally pulled Achy aside and told him, after swearing him to secrecy in Little Magic's presence, he looked at me for a long moment, looked at Little Magic nearly as long, then sighed hugely and straightened like an enormous weight had been lifted off his shoulders. I hadn't realized that it had been weighing him down, knowing our stated intent was to exterminate the Waykans.

  "Thank the Wold," he blurted. "None of us are happy about that 'root and branch' thing. So the poison won't kill them all?"

  "No. Anyone who hasn't eaten human in the last year or so will be spared."

  He deflated a little. "But… some of the Waykans become Scholars as young as 12 or 13!"

  I looked at him grimly. "I know. But it's the best we can do in the time we have without risking our entire land army. Even then, we couldn't be sure we'd win."

  "And the Provost's family? Can we save them?"

  I shook my head slowly. "I'm hoping they're all Scholars. And anyway… I'll take care of that myself."

  He looked at me silently, then glanced at his demigod brother. "You're not going to tell us if any of them aren't, are you." It wasn't a question.

  "If anyone's soul has to be stained, it will be mine alone," I replied, avoiding directly answering his question. But he knew the answer. "None of them can survive to lead a rebellion later, do you understand?"

  "I do," he said tightly. Then he saluted, and went back to his Special Forces company. If things went pear-shaped, or if the poison failed to work, he knew that it was he and the Alepthovers who would end up killing the Waykan leadership, especially those who tried to escape our net.

  After Little Magic and I chatted for a moment — we were finally talking again — I stepped out of my command tent and gazed out over the camp, which covered a good 10 hectares of ground. The campfires were small and shielded, but they were still easily visible. As I recalled, Wayko was supposed be at least partly within a river valley, but I wasn't sure whether or not the University itself was on higher ground. Probably. The landscape was still mostly post-oak savanna, and we were following the large, open trail that was all that remained of an old eyeway called Interstate 35. I-35 went straight through Wayko. They would surely be able to see us no later than the night before we arrived at their borders. I wondered if they would send skirmishers ahead to test our mettle.

  They did… kind of. In a way so cowardly and evil it still angers me today.

  On the fourth day, the good weather broke and we woke to a light rain. We ate cold rations of canned beans and jerky, donned our oilskins, and moved on down the eyeway. We were still at three days out of Wayko, and I was praising the Goddess that it had been a relatively dry summer, and the sod was quite solid and showed no sign of breaking down into mud. Our wagons wouldn't have been able to handle it, though frankly, if necessary, the Giants and Tauras probably would have been able to pick them up and carry them, with the help of the Faunlets.

  I was trudging along carrying my pack, head down, when a little voice shouted in my ear. "Daddykins!"

  I damn near leaped out of my boots as Michelangelo landed on one shoulder and Glorfindel on the other, both with their Dawn blades in their hands, looking fierce in their war-paint. And wet. Glorfindel added, "People, sir! Lots and lots of people ahead!"

  "They're armed!" Mikey squeaked excitedly.

  "Mostly with clubs," Glorfindel reported. "Though I did see some axes and pitchforks and sling blades, and the occasional sturdy garden rake!"

  I stopped in my tracks, lifting a fist, and the army stopped behind me. Seeing the earth-bound stop, the fliers dipped down and settled on shoulders, heads, and wagons.

  "Who are they?" I asked the Newdies.

  "They're the Waykan Army!" Glory moaned with excitement.

  "How do you know?"

  Azrael came roaring in, his hands surrounded by halos of fire. "Because the little dummies just asked them, Papi!"

  I looked skeptically at Mikey, who was wringing water out of his long blue hair. "Seriously? You just flew up and asked? Weren't even worried about, oh, letting on that we were coming, or maybe getting killed?"

  My ornery little son rolled his eyes. "They didn't mind! They already knew we were comin'! You told 'em, remember? Plus, they saw us flyin' around. And they couldn't hit an easy lob in a slow-pitch softball game! They call whiffle-bats weapons? Bwahahaha!"

  I had no idea what half of Mikey had just said meant, and I was opening my mouth to protest when Glorfindel chimed in, "You have to admit the Lexington Slugger with all the nails in it was pretty cool."

  "Ooooh yeah," Oz agreed, "that one would hurt if it ever connected. Good thing the guy carrying it can barely lift it."

  "Yeah, Daddykins, they're all, like, pencil-neck geeks and little old ladies and stuff! They're so scared they can barely even stand up!"

  That seemed… odd, to say the least. I thanked the boys, sent them on their way, then turned back to the main body of the army to speak with m
y advisors.

  According to our maps, we were hallway between two small towns called Abbott and West. We'd found a few intact stone buildings near the edges of the eyeway where Abbott had been, including several large pole barns with wooden and composite shingle roofs, supported by wooden and solid fieldstone columns. In the old pre-Ruin days, the area had been settled by Teutons who preferred to build Elder World style. Dad had mentioned that the ground was so rocky they had to use all the fieldstone for something, so the original settlers had built houses and fences and such with it. No nails or rebar meant the buildings had survived the bitty-swarms. One day, we would repopulate the area… once we took care of everyone who wanted to kill us first.

  I sent Mikey to fetch Shakira, the head Buzzard Rider. Part of her sentence was to investigate potentially out dangerous situations. A few minutes later, her turkey buzzard, Chance, alighted on the ground nearby and looked up at me with evil eyes, red wattles trembling, infuriated at me for making him fly in the rain. Shakira was so swaddled in rain gear all I could see of her was her bright eyes beneath her upturned rain hat. She saluted with a tiny hand and stated, "Buzzard Rider One reporting, sir!"

  "At ease," I muttered. I hunkered down so that I'd be closer to her. "There's a mass of people a mile or so ahead of us," I told her. "The scouts tell me they're a bunch of scared old people and, um, geeks. Not physically impressive. I don't think it's really the Waykan army, but we can't take any chances. I want you to take your group of Buzzard Riders and Buzzards, and bomb them with Cyclone at strategic points. And find out for sure if they're Waykan."

  "Oh boy! Action at last!" she said, rubbing her hands together. "Then what? Can the boys carve a swath through them?" By "the boys" she meant the Air Force, those Dixies who were allowed to use Dawn blades, which her people were not. Because they tended to stick each other with them.

  "I don't think we'll need to do any carving," I said, "Not yet. I have a suspicion about these folks." And if I was right, the Scholars were scummier than I expected. As it turned out, I was far too easy on them.

  I watched the Buzzard Riders and the Buzzards (as the more troublesome Newdies called themselves) as they each hefted a Cyclone bomb and took off with it. The ragtag Waykan gang — I refused to think of them as an army — was too far away to make out as more than a smudge on the horizon, but I was able to see when the smoke bloomed around them and settled out.

  I watched apprehensively, wondering how many people I had just murdered.

  Shakira was back in fifteen minutes. "Not one."

  My eyes widened. "No deaths?"

  She shrugged. "No sir, not one. All they did was complain about how bad it smelled. They haven't been eating people, I guess." She looked almost disappointed. I suppose she was looking forward to watching some swath-carving. She really was a vicious little beast. (But she was my vicious little beast.)

  Lifting an eyebrow, I asked Shakira, "And are we sure they're Waykans?"

  "They said so. We asked, politely," she emphasized. "They said they're cornless."

  "Cornless? What does that mean?"

  She shrugged expressively, lifting her hands and spreading her fingers. "I dunno! I guess they got hungry or something. They're all real skinny. And most of 'em are old."

  "No, they said they was cormless!" yelled Giancarlo, one of Michelangelo's blue-haired older brothers, stabbing the air with a tiny finger to make a point. If he'd been allowed a Dawn blade, he would have flourished it.

  "Were cormless," I corrected automatically. "And what the hell's a corm?"

  A corm is something like a flower bulb, Little Magic informed me mentally. Remember when you planted the canna lilies at Ebon's gravesite?

  "Oh. Those." I scrunched up my forehead. "Are they edible?"

  No, Dadday. I have no idea what this is about either. And I can't exactly ask Mother about it. He sounded a little irked; he'd had to spend Quintessence to hide the bomb-drops from the Goddess.

  "Huh." I looked back at the main army and made a beckoning gesture; Puck's platoon broke off and trotted up. "Have your people fall in, Shakira," I told my head Buzzard Rider. "We're going to see what manner of people these 'cornless' Waykans are." All I knew so far was that while they were Waykans, they weren't Scholars, so they weren't cannibals. You couldn't hide that from a nerve agent specially designed to kill cannibals. That didn't mean they weren't complicit in the slaughter of the Taura and the other so-called Beastkind, but it didn't mean they were, either.

  I suspected the Waykans had thrown their elderly undesirables in our way to slow us down. I was only partly correct. It was hard for the Waykans to lower themselves further in my estimation, but they managed it.

  It took us about ten minutes to cover the mile or so between our armies. As we approached, I saw that Mikey was right: this "army" was composed mostly of the elderly, the lame, and the weak. To my amazement and fury, I also saw crippled children teetering on crutches among them! How they had made it this far, I had no idea.

  When we were 20 yards away, too far for any of their pathetic weapons to reach us, I sent Michelangelo and Glorfindel to bring forward the elderly but dignified graybeard standing at the front of their column. "Gently," I warned them. "Politely. No slapping or poking."

  "Awwww," Mikey whined, but they zipped ahead, cut him out of the herd, and asked him politely to meet with me. I waited, the Faunlets behind me, their weapons at the ready but not aimed at the Waykans.

  My eyes narrowed as I realized that the old man was clothed in what appeared to be patched, frayed, and ragged scholarly robes. His clothing was so old and threadbare it was barely decent. When he was five yards away, I held up my hand for him to stop, and he did. Glorfindel lit on his right shoulder and gave him a big smile, while Mikey buzzed over and lit on mine. "Who are you?" I demanded.

  "Great lord, I am Marcus Tremblay, former Professor of Archaeology at Baylor University before the Fall," the elderly Waykan said. "I assume you are Fell Tobias, All-Father of the Commonwealth of Icarus?"

  I rolled my eyes. "Yes, that's what they've been calling me lately. It happens when you're literally the father of a significant percentage of your population."

  What the old man did next astonished me. He fell to his knees, shocking Glorfindel loose and back into the air. Arms held wide in supplication, Tremblay cried, "Save us, All-Father! Save the Gormless! They threatened our families!"

  Little Magic, what's a Gormless? I asked my son, sensing that the term was capitalized.

  Little Magic materialized beside me in his young Elf persona, and tossed his loose, long hair back in that little head-jerk that comes naturally to teenaged girls and long-haired pretty-boys. If I thought Old Man Tremblay's eyes couldn't get any wider, I found out I was wrong when he saw Little Magic. So wrong. It looked like he might faint when my eldest appeared.

  The people in the horde of ragged Waykans gasped when he materialized, and fell back in waves. At least the boy was wearing buckskin trousers this time, instead of the scant loincloth the Elves and their lady-friends preferred. Little Magic glanced at me sidelong, then, looking at Tremblay, said flatly, "The term 'gormless' is an old, little-used Old Anglic word that means stupid, dull, or lacking in vitality and intelligence. Trust the Waykan Scholars to come up with an obscure but offensive term for the people who are essentially their slaves."

  Tremblay bowed his head, looking defeated. I looked closer at him and his poor, defenseless army. The deadliest weapon I saw anyone carrying was the bespiked Lexington Slugger, and just like Mikey and Glory had said, the kid — who had just one leg — could barely lift the damn thing. "Slaves?" I shouted. "The Waykans keep slaves? Why didn't I know about this before!"

  "We didn't know," my son said. "Even Mother didn't know."

  "To be fair," old Marcus said in a low voice, barely audible at his distance, "we are not slaves per se, but … second class citizens."

  "WHY!" I shouted. Slavery was almost as bad as cannibalism.

  Marcus mumbl
ed something, and I said in a sharp voice, "Stand up, Marcus Tremblay, formerly of the Gormless! You need live on your knees no longer! Stand straight and tall as a free man, and tell me why."

  The old man rose slowly to his feet. Then he lifted his head and said, "Because we refuse to hunt and partake of the flesh of the Beastkind peoples."

  Fire flared through me. Enraged, I shouted loudly enough for both armies to hear (no doubt amplified by Little Magic), "In a few days' time, the nest of cannibals in Wayko shall be no more! Everyone who was Gormless is Gormless no longer! You are now free citizens of the Commonwealth of Icarus, to make of your lives what you will!"

  Every one of the Gormless fell to his or her knees, eyes shining.

  I lifted the Dawn Sword over my head, and lightning forked down from a clear sky to strike it and bedazzle us all. "SO IT IS!" I shouted.

  And everyone, even the former Gormless who knew nothing of our rituals, screamed in response, "SO MOTE IT BE!"