“Rae’aln’or, you were but a boy when you last saw me and even then we have only met a few times” the Great Mother said. “Do not worry if you cannot remember me, I am just happy to have you here”.
“He said there were more lost ones out there” Faylin said. “What are we going to do about them? We need to go fight and take them back instead of hiding in the forest”.
“The enemy is hurting child” the Great Mother began. “They are dying a slow death, a death that will continue while we thrive”.
“We aren’t thriving” Faylin replied. “We are dying out just as slowly as they are, the only reason we still live is because we found a new place to hide. Our magic users are only safe because of this, we need to fight back and do it now! We have someone who knows about the Outsiders, we need to take the fight to them”.
“I will not help anyone unless Gregory is seen after and let free” Ray replied. “After that I will help you as much as I can, although I don’t know how any of the people you call the lost ones can be brought back here. They are kept deep in Holyan to prevent any of them from running away, any rescue mission will take a lot of courage”.
“Are you saying we lack courage?” Faylin asked angrily.
“I am saying talking tough to me when you have all your people around you doesn’t mean shit” Ray replied. “Go face down the enemy in his lands and act tough, until you do that stop acting like you are some kind of super warrior. Your tough talk don’t mean shit to me”.
Ray saw the blow coming and stopped the hand throwing it by grabbing it. Because of his fight with the mage he was already on guard for her next attack, a kick to the groin. Ray caught the foot, spun the woman around and tossed her towards the door. Faylin rolled into the throw, got on her two feet and spun around quickly. Ray watched her throw a punch with one hand while her other slashed out with a bone knife. If Ray had actually charged over to attack her he would be in trouble, but he did not and watched the woman attack air.
“Enough of this Faylin’nor’laya” the Great Mother said in a voice louder than what Ray thought was possible from the old woman. “Go see about his friend, we will see to it that the Outsider my great grandson brought with him is taken care of and returned to his home”.
“You are just letting them both go Great Mother?” Faylin said in surprise.
“I am not going anywhere” Ray replied. “At least not yet, Holyan is not a good place for people like us. My family though wishes to get back desperately, I want to give him that wish”.
“Do what I said child” the Great Mother said looking at Faylin. “The longer the Outsider is here, whether family or not means the more of a chance we will be detected. We will see him safely to the border and hopefully have a plan by then”.
“The Outsiders do not like Gaea women” Ray began. “Any fighting will have to be done by Gaea men unless it is right at the border. The deeper inside Holyan you go, the less welcoming the people are towards Gaea females”.
“They have found a way to combat the sterility then?” the Great Mother asked. “I figured the reason they were taking men was because they needed slaves, based on your words though, I am now not so sure”.
“They take men because we can have children” Ray replied. “But of the children they only prefer the male children to survive. The female children from a birth are forbidden from being with a male of Gaea blood which limits how many children they have. They want our immunities, their plan is to have mixed children then slowly breed the Gaea out of that population”.
“They are twisted” Faylin replied. “We have our own problems with giving birth and every day they try to take our males”.
“They are looking for magic users as well” Ray replied. “They want a way to reverse the cull”.
“The cull?” the Great Mother asked. “Is that the name they are giving their affliction? They have adequately come up with a solution none of us saw coming, but this war is still not over. We are still coming up with new ways and ideas to drive the Outsiders away”.
“Maybe this is the right time to do it” the First Father said as he walked into the hut. “Maybe it is time to make the big sacrifice”.
“No” the Great Mother replied. “It is too dangerous and we have started to flourish again”.
“What are you both talking about?” Faylin asked. “Whatever it is, it has to be better than hiding here waiting to die while the Outsiders continue to cut down our great forest”.
“It was always meant to happen” the First Father replied. “It would be more effective than what we were doing before, I have been listening in on your conversation and the Outsiders have countered our moves”.
“Then we should fight!” Faylin said angrily as the First Father shot her an angry glare.
“You will get us all killed” the First Father replied. “Our warfare is not handled the way you are thinking, we cannot go into battle with the Outsiders. What we can do is unleash the things we have been working on, using the Outsider we have now could help us tremendously”.
“Faylin you have some place to be” the Great Mother replied.
“I am the leader of our fighters” Faylin said defiantly.
“And I am the leader of our magic” the First Father replied. “This conversation has no place for bloodshed”.
“There will be blood though” the Great Mother replied. “They will not take such an attack lying down”.
“They would not know anything until it was too late to stop it” the First Father replied. “Even if they caught it in time we can release it all, it would hurt their morale”.
“We need death, not morale” Faylin replied. “But at least you are doing something instead of waiting to be slaughtered”.
“I don’t understand what is going on” Ray said looking around. “The Outsiders will never leave the great forest, there is too much money involved. They are paid handsomely for any male they capture, if they can get their hands on anyone who can use our magic, they would never have to work again. They will not stop coming, I know better than most what they are capable of”.
“Then we should do it Great Mother” the First Father replied. “We could infect more than a quarter of the population before they know what hit them. It would be more effective than anything we have done so far, we can release all of our attacks within stages. They will rip each other apart trying to find the solution before they come for us and we already have a plan in place”.
“It will target our own people who now live among the Outsiders” the Great Mother began. “They will not have access to our magic to protect themselves, it is why we did not use that method the last time”.
“Rae’aln’or” the First Father said looking at Ray. “What you call the cull, has it been splitting the Outsiders apart? Having some that can reproduce and others that can not?”
“It has” Ray replied.
“They must have already figured out a way to tell who is infected and who is not” the Great Mother replied. “They are slowly combatting our attack, in two or three hundred years it will be as if nothing happened”.
“They could end their suffering right now if they wanted to” the First Father replied. “It is not hard to have every virile male rounded up and put to use. It is what we have done for centuries and the Outsiders are slowly getting there. We need to attack now before they are able to fully defend. Right now the Outsiders are fighting amongst each other, we could let them know they are still at war. It will give them a reason to fear us”.
“What of our own people?” the Great Mother asked. “We will have to sacrifice them”.
“Great Mother, you are the one who came up with the best way for this to work” the First Father said. “We can do this and be successful, right now our people among the Outsiders are lost to us anyway. We should make their sacrifice mean something”.
CHAPTER 13
Retaliation
Ray looked over at his opponent, Faylin was graceful and a much bett
er fighter than he was, the only reason Ray had won most of their bouts was due to his physical gifts. The bouts were not easy though, the Gaea had a fighting style that seemed almost like a dance, it was hard to get a good hit on Faylin and she was always changing her fighting style.
“Give up Outsider” Faylin said as she dashed in and threw a strike which Ray barely blocked and leapt outside his reach.
“I have won the majority of our matches” Ray replied. “Just like I will win this one, now stop dancing and come fight”.
Faylin danced in again and went for Ray’s legs, Ray saw the move coming and leapt at her. Ray had his arms around Faylin when she turned around and spit something in his face. Ray let her go and coughed forcibly as his face felt like it was on fire, Ray tried wiping his face and could feel the impact of her tiny blow darts. Ray didn’t try dodging these as none of them could penetrate his skin, Faylin would have to close the distance if she wanted the win. Ray began feeling the effects wear off when Faylin used some kind of powder on him, it hung in the air and made everything hard for him to see. Faylin was raining blows down on him with her staff now, Ray tried to combat her attack but found it difficult to time her when he could barely breathe and was now blind.
“You win” Ray said clawing at his face. “Get this off of me”.
“You are not so tough now” Faylin said from somewhere to Ray’s left. “You fight like an Outsider Rae’aln’or, your size and strength will not always let you win every battle”.
“The Outsiders have fire magic” Ray replied still coughing as his vision began to clear. “You will never get close enough to them to use any of this”.
“I won't have to” Faylin replied. “You are here, I can handle the rest. Now lie down and let me get that off of you. The First Father will be here soon looking for you, I need you at your best for the upcoming battle”.
“I still think this is stupid” Ray replied. “The plan can still be successful without actually fighting in any battle”.
“We need this fight” Faylin replied. “We have never tried to fight the attackers in the method they use. It will catch them off guard and enrage them, the Great Mother is our best tactician and I believe her plan will work”.
“If it doesn’t, it will take a long time to recover from this” Ray replied. “And the Great Mother is right about enraging the enemy”.
“It doesn’t matter” Faylin replied as she poured something cool on Ray’s face. “For the first time since I can remember we are actually going to fight back instead of just hiding. This is the most excited I have ever seen this place”.
“People are going to die though Faylin” Ray replied. “You cannot meet them head on”.
“We won't have to” Faylin replied. “We are going to attack both of the main groups simultaneously, you know that. We are only after surprise attacks, just enough to bloody them and see if your magic really works. They will never see the trap coming until it is too late, by then we can hide out for a few years”.
“When will you let Gregory go?” Ray asked.
“Soon” Faylin replied. “He is not being mistreated which is better than what any Outsider deserves. It is only because of you Rae’aln’or that this is so, it pains me every time I hear you talk about your other family, you should have never been taken. You have stories I know you don’t share, I can see it in your eyes when you talk about that place and yet you want to protect them”.
“I want to protect my mother and sister” Ray replied. “There are some good people there”.
“If they are so good then why do they stand by while others defile us?” Faylin asked. “This attack though will bring the fight to all of them, it will be too late before they realize it. I just wish we didn’t have to sacrifice so much but it will be for the greater good”.
“Are you two done playing around?” the First Father asked. “Rae’aln’or I need you with the others, it is about time we enact our plan”.
“You mean to do it today First Father?” Faylin asked. “We are not ready”.
“Then get ready child” the First Father replied. “The plan has changed a little, but I think it will be even more effective. The Great Mother knows how to use our talents, once you hear everything Faylin it will not do for you to question her. We need to show the others a united front, especially since many of them may not make it back”.
Ray followed the First Father, the old man had no magic but had all of the knowledge on how to make different things. The plan they originally came up with had mutated into something sinister and sneaky, Ray would be a liar if he said it was too cruel. The main attack would be sneaky and devastating, the Holyan would get the worst of it. The attack on the Largen would be a little different, the Great Mother wanted to stop her enemies from ganging up together on her like they did in the past and had come up with a great plan.
The Gaea were not built for fighting, they did not have the technology or the manpower to physically crush their enemies. They did not have magic the way the Outsiders did and would most likely lose any straight up battle. The Great Mother knew this and although she normally thought long term, her next attack would affect people immediately. The First Father had come up with a way to grow a variant of the Gaea Fruit which Holyan called spineberry. Ray and the ten other magic users had poured their magic into changing the fruit, Ray was so shocked to see the Gaea only had ten magic users besides himself but that was another story. The fruit had been made easier to grow, it would grow almost like a weed now and would be difficult to eradicate. It would only take a week before a plant could produce edible fruit, but Ray wouldn’t dare eat this new spineberry which was slightly lighter than the normal version. This spineberry would have the normal effect on the Holyan, it was the side effects that Ray wanted nothing to do with. The fruit was made to be addicting, after someone had a sufficient amount of it in their system they would be ready for the infection to take hold. The Gaea had been working on a disease that traveled by air, the Great Mother was worried the Outsiders would recognize they have been hit with another attack and take measures to stop it. Now though the disease would be hard to stop, someone could be a carrier of the disease and not know it until they had enough spineberry in their system. The disease would then manifest and the results would be readily apparent.
The disease did not outright kill anyone, what it did do though was shrink the male organ until it was half the size of a woman’s little finger. It would make copulation almost impossible, it wouldn’t matter if someone had the ability to reproduce if they couldn’t physically do the deed. The new disease wouldn’t differentiate between Gaea or Outsider and there was no cure for it, only a vaccine. The plan was to have four males let themselves get captured, they would spread the new spineberry to every place in the kingdom. They all knew they would be affected by the disease as well, if they were vaccinated then they wouldn’t be able to spread the airborne part of it. They would be smart enough not to eat the spineberry but the greedy Outsider men would of course seek to take advantage of the new plant and doom their kingdom. The other attack on the people of Holyan was specialized, Ray was only going after two people and thought he stood a good chance in seeing it done. Gregory would be infected with another disease, this one only went after mages and was more cosmetic than anything else. The disease only reacted to those with magical energy, this disease was developed early on but was abandoned because it did not affect the enemy’s ability to wage war. The disease took three months in the body to manifest, it would cause all of the hair to fall out and turn the skin a sickly green. A new pimple would form somewhere on the body whenever the mage used magic, It was all cosmetic but Ray thought it would be exactly what the royals and even Gregory deserved, to look as bad on the outside as they were on the inside. Gregory had been kept locked away from everyone since he and Ray had been captured over two months ago and as far as Gregory knew, Ray had been given the same treatment instead of being allowed to walk the camp freely. Ray would not be a par
t of the plan to attack Holyan though, part of him thought it was because the Gaea wondered if he could be trusted. Ray would be a part of the team that attacked Largen and the diseases they spread there were not sneaky at all. In all it would be three different diseases, the only way for a human to contract one of them would be by ingesting it. Once the great mother heard about prisoners being kept in Largen and their conditions she picked out the three diseases, one of which affected livestock. There were insects in the great forest that hated feeding on humans and loved other animals, the animals would be eaten primarily by the Largen since their prisoners typically didn’t eat meat unless they were the fighters. One of the diseases would kill within a week but it was only five percent fatal, the survivors who got over the initial sickness though would be forever scarred. The first disease killed by swelling up the tongue and lower jaw and giving the infected a nasty fever, if someone survived it their face would never go back to its original dimensions and would appear stretched out. The other disease dehydrated the infected by causing vomiting and diarrhea, if someone was already sick with another disease then this could help push them over the edge. The final disease was not deadly at all but ate away at the soft areas of the face, namely the nose and lips. It had to get into the blood stream to be spread, the little blow darts the Gaea favored would be a method used. What the Great Mother wanted was to make sure the Largen and the Holyan didn’t team up, the Holyan would look at the disfigured Largen and not want whatever disease they had. The Largen would hear about the small manhood and look at the disfigured mages and also refuse to team up. All of the three diseases the Largen would be exposed to had vaccines and cures, the Gaea wouldn’t be affected by any of it. Ray thought the plans could work, the problem though would be fighting off the counterattack that was sure to come from both sides, this is what the Gaea were working on.
“Okay now that you all are here, I want to go over things with you” the First Father began. “Everyone will be depending on us to survive, we will not be together in a big group like we are now but in smaller groups. I will not be able to communicate with all of you”.
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