by Charles Dean
“In fact, no matter how well you fight today, there is a real chance that a stray Arrow or bad footing will get you killed, and there simply isn’t anything I can do to stop that from happening,” he said, seeing the faces before him flatten and frown.
I’m doing what you said, woman, and it isn’t working, he wanted to say to Eve as he saw their despair. This was not the rousing burst of enthusiasm he had expected from following Eve’s formula.
“However, it’s okay,” he said, stopping his pacing a moment.
“It is?” The Minotaur asked, his face wide-eyed to show he was a little unsure of why.
“It is okay because it’s something we have to do if we want to live,” he began, trying to find the words he needed. “Even if we die here today, we won’t be gone. Our families will carry our name, our friends and lovers will carry our memory, and our people will carry our culture. Every aspect of who you are will live on for generations by those telling stories of the sacrifices we make here today. You, my tall friend, will live in the hearts and minds of the people you save here today long after you fall in battle.”
The Minotaur’s hands stopped shaking a little bit. His eyes were still wide, but, like the Humans, Satyrs and other Minotaurs around him, he looked like he was actually listening intently to what Qasin had to say, a response Qasin wasn’t used to when giving a speech, although this didn’t even feel like a speech.
“On the other hand . . . if you run, all that you are will be gone tomorrow. These foul fowl beasts--they don’t just want to kill you. They want to kill everything that made you who you are. If you turn around today and try to live your life free from danger, their wings will carry them across the sky faster than you can run, and they will have no mercy upon everything you love. They will murder your fathers and mothers. They will use and discard your women, sisters and daughters like worn out clothes. They will even butcher your sons and infants, and do you know why they will do it?”
“No, Sir,” the Minotaur said, his snout having turned red as Qasin talked. “Why?”
“Because a giant ball of fire in the sky told them it was okay,” Qasin answered. The rattled words hadn’t flowed out like he had planned, but he could feel animosity towards the birds growing. “Because they wanted to, and their imaginary friend said it was fine.”
“What?” A Human next to the Minotaur originally addressed yelled angrily.
“I kid you not: they come here to kill you in the name of a false god, and they will slay and torture everything you love because their Priests tell them to do it.”
“No!” a Black-Wing who was listening closely called down at him from the sky. “No they won’t. I’ll kill them first!”
“Will you? You know every person here will have to kill at least two of them to stop them from taking what they want?” Qasin asked the flying Incubus.
“Forget two! I’ll kill ten of the bird brains!” the Incubus yelled back.
“You can stick with ten! I’m going to kill twenty of those feathered fools!” a Vampire near the Incubus shouted over him.
“I’ll kill thirty of those things before they take me down,” a Satyr two rows behind the first Minotaur yelled at the flying pair, slamming his Staff into the ground. “If they worship fire, I’ll teach them what ice is like.”
Soldier by soldier, the fear faded, and the bragging began. The fight hadn’t even started yet, and the soldiers were already boasting of how many they would kill. For Qasin, who had killed thousands in his life, it was amusing. They thought five, ten, or even thirty was a large number to slay in a single fight.
He was about to say something to interrupt their mirth, but Eve was again beside him, stopping him by putting her hand on his shoulder. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” she said.
His heart felt light for the first time ever after giving a speech. It wasn’t hard; it had worked. They weren’t chanting his name, they weren’t inspired unto glorious victory, but they weren’t afraid anymore. They were boasting, yelling, and bragging over one another. Across the shore and the skies, one soldier after another was telling his comrades how many of the enemy he would leave dead, and how he would do it.
“No, no, it wasn’t,” he agreed, turning around. He wanted to relax, enjoy the feel of the water rushing back and forth across his feet with the waves before the fight, but the sudden shade let him know he’d lost his chance. The men’s valor and vigor were about to be tested, the enemy had arrived, and in such great numbers that their naturally white wings were mostly dark from the shade cast by fliers not even visible. The King had expected ten or twenty thousand avians to match the five thousand men he had managed to assemble, but it looked instead like fifty thousand birds were split between flying and resting on the boats that sailed towards him.
You’ll kill ten? Twenty? Thirty? You better, or else there won’t be a tomorrow for your people, he thought, pulling out and raising his sword to signal the casters hidden inside the army behind the biggest of the Minotaurs. War had come and given the enemy’s number, and it had come on a scale even he had never known before. Thousands upon thousands of men on both sides would die today. Good men would die, good men on both sides, and he was stuck with a smile he couldn’t wipe off his face.
“It’s okay to smile,” Eve said before he could muster up the will to feel guilty about his joy in the face of so much destruction. She lifted her hands from his shoulders. “It’s okay to be happy right now. It’s just who you are,” she said, blowing him a kiss before she and her black Dress simply vanished into the air.
Darwin:
“How much longer till we get there?” Kass asked for the fourth time since they had exited the cave. Darwin wasn’t even sure why she was asking. Both of them could bring up a Tipqa map and see that they were moments away from being in view of a shoreline.
Darwin rolled his eyes before finally answering. “We’re almost there, and if you ask one more time we’re not going to stop at McDonalds.”
It was the answer he had always heard on television shows. He didn’t exactly know what was so good about McDonalds that it would make a kid not want to annoy his parents, but he did know it was the appropriate cliché for the moment.
“Ewww, McDonalds? Really? That’s where you went with that?” Kass said, apparently sharing his sentiment about the fast food chain. “That would actually be a threat if it meant no Chipotle, but if it’s McDonalds I think I’m better off bugging you until you hold good on that promise of not taking me.”
“Oh, so you’re saying you want me to take you to Chipotle,” he joked again.
“Are you going to buy?” Kass asked with a smile that was a little more coy than her usual one.
“Wouldn’t that make it a date?” Darwin pressed, knowing how the subject of dating generally got a rise out of her.
“No, it’d just be you paying me back for all those times I’ve helped you. I figure by now you owe me at least twenty dinners.” She did her trademark twirl. Darwin had actually grown to quite like it when she spun around in her white Dress.
“Twenty dinners? I’m pretty sure I saved you when we first met,” he said, remembering the time she barreled out of the woods with three Minotaurs chasing her. “Shouldn’t that mean you owe me a few meals?”
“Save me?” she scoffed. “I had it completely under control! I was just doing you a favor by bringing some mobs to help you level, considering you were clearly a new player,” she said with a completely straight face that made Darwin wonder if she actually believed the lie.
“Oh, I get it. So this whole time you’ve just been helping me along and helping me level, and that’s why I owe you,” Darwin said, nodding his head.
“Mmmhmm. So you know,” she said, smiling now.
“Well, I need to take care of that as quick as possible. I can’t have the number of meals I owe get any larger,” Darwin responded.
“You should take care of it, and the sooner the better.” She nudged Darwin’s shoulder. “You d
on’t want to set a bad example as the Faction Leader, now do you?”
“Right. Alex, what powers does the ruler of a Faction have?” Darwin asked the soldier, who had been silently trailing behind the two of them.
“Milord, it’d be easier to list the powers a ruler doesn’t have,” Alex said, briskly stepping up to the left side of Darwin.
“So, can the Lord of a Faction order a member to do something like . . . buy lunch for someone else in the Faction?”
“Yes, Milord,” Alex said, his back straight like always. “In fact,” he continued unprompted, “as the acting Lord of the Faction, you wouldn’t be expected to reimburse the individual commanded to accomplish the task.”
“I see . . .” Darwin said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Well, it’s just as I expected then.”
“What? You’re not planning on ordering Alex to buy me the meals in your place, are you?” Kass said, her smile quickly turning into a frown.
“Oh no, I plan on having you buy the meals for yourself in my stead,” Darwin said, unable to stop a laugh from coming out with the words.
“What? You can’t do that! That’s cheating!” Kass said in shock.
“Oh, sure I can. You joined the Faction of your own accord,” Darwin chuckled, “and, according to the rules, that means I can order you to buy yourself lunches.”
“That is not how it works!” Kass protested. “You are not getting out of treating me to a lunch sometime.”
“Well, if you’re that insistent that I take you on a date, I suppose I could try to make it happen,” Darwin said, expecting her usual flustered reaction.
Instead of denying it and getting mad at him for insisting that an old man like him could ever date her, she just paused for a while. Then finally she said, “It better not be McDonald’s.”
“Oh, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to take anyone to McDonald’s,” he said, not sure how he was going to take her anywhere anyways given that he was trapped in a virtual reality game, and she probably wanted him to take her somewhere in real life.
“Good, but I still have something I need to ask you, Darwin,” she said, her grin back again.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Darwin asked.
“Are we there yet?” Kass said, her mischevious smile managing to grow even more.
Oh for the love of-- Darwin thought, She has a dang map too! “Why do you keep asking? You know how far away it is. Don’t you know?”
“Oh. Well, the truth is that when I first asked, I was just messing with you, but now I am just really hoping that my map is wrong and the White-Horn capital with the harbor isn’t that giant shore over there,” she said, pointing ahead of them.
It was hard to make out, but it was unmistakably the right city. In fact, even though the architecture didn’t give it away, the number of people gathered on the shore did. From the distance at which Darwin and the Stormguard Alliance stood, the people gathered looked less like people and more like the ocean to them. Their heads, bodies and weapons were tightly packed and pressed against each other tighter than sardines. The ever so slight swaying of their bodies as they waited in anticipation for an enemy Darwin could barely see created the illusion of a living wave ebbing back and forth across the sands. To top it all off, over a thousand black-winged creatures danced across the sky, casting images of shadows on the men below.
“Alex, do you recognize the army below?” Darwin asked, thinking that only the Minotaurs and their lack of Armor looked familiar.
“Yes, Milord, but I don’t like it,” he said, squinting his eyes at the force as he tried to make out details more clearly. “It appears to be the Human, Black-Wing and White-Horn capital armies all gathered together.”
“It’s a bad thing for them to be working together?” Kass asked, not catching on to the context.
“If the only three Factions on the island--that all hated each other until a month ago--are cooperating with each other to defend the beach against invaders . . . then who are the invaders?” Alex asked.
“Kass, what other islands are near here?” Darwin asked, knowing Alex and the rest of the NPCs likely wouldn’t have information extending beyond the continent they lived on. It would be the same as trying to get information about France out of a Japanese farmer before the advent of modern transportation.
Kass took a moment to think about it before answering. “The closest one I can think of would be the island with Fire-Walkers and White-Wings. It’s really the only one that would be easily reached from this coast.”
“Hmmm, well at least that solves one problem,” Darwin thought for a minute. Kass and Alex both looked at him confused.
“What?” Kass asked, voicing her confusion. “How does the fact that the harbor is covered in armies about to fight each other to the death possibly solving one of our problems?”
“There will be a lot of unoccupied boats soon,” Darwin said, his red eyes shining as he laughed. “We might be able to each take our own personal boat, and we won’t have to pay a dime for any of them.”
“Wait, are you suggesting we hijack the boats?” Kass asked.
“Lord Darwin, I’m not sure those water vessels are safe for the journey. I can’t make them out well, but they appear to be made of glass,” Alex said.
“Wait, you can see the boats from here? All I can make out is a giant blob of things approaching,” Kass complained.
“Alex, where I’m from we have an expression, ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,’” Darwin replied, ignoring Kass’s complaint and moving right past to Alex’s. “If they made it this far in those glass boats, then there must be something to the craftsmanship, something I’m not willing to dismiss when it might be our only way off this rock.”
“Yes, Lord Darwin. Then we’ll need orders on how you wish us to procure their use,” Alex said. “They all seem to be currently occupied, so how would you like us to proceed in properly liberating them, Milord?”
Darwin looked at the armies about to clash. If the boats sank, it would be bad news, but just at a glance he could tell already there was another concern.
“I wish that was the only bad news to focus on,” Darwin said, catching an unfortunate detail that the people on the ground likely would never notice. “The approaching army is stacked on the north side of the beach.”
“So?” Kass asked.
“So, when that fight starts, the Human alliance will naturally spread out a bit to make the lines match up evenly,” Darwin explained, reaching down with his Sword to draw lines in the sand before being stopped by Alex.
“Allow me to, Lord Darwin,” he said, pulling out his own Spear and masterfully tearing up the dirt to draw a perfect picture of the enemy formations that would make even the History Channel proud. It captured the block that made up the native continent drawn on one side, and the enemy birds drawn on the other. It also showed how the line for the bird men was rather thin, except on the north where it was heavily reinforced.
“That’s good artwork there, Alex,” Darwin commented, rather impressed with how perfect his lines were and how well he had grasped the dimensions of the armies.
“Thank you, Milord. I took my job as a forward Scout very seriously before joining the StormGuard Alliance,” Alex said with an inflated chest.
“It shows,” Darwin remarked, kneeling by the map. “Great job.”
“Okay, Darwin,” Kass said with a huff. “Will you explain already what this all means?”
“Of course. Sorry for dragging it out,” Darwin lied. He liked to tease Kass by building up the suspense. “You see they’ve made the middle part here,” Darwin said as he pointed to the center of the enemy’s thin line, “extra dense right here to create the illusion from a front view that it’s the thickest part of their line. The native army will spread out and try to match the enemy. It’s just how battles play out when they aren’t planned and there isn’t a solidly trained formation.”
“How do you know they aren’t trained?”
“Because the alliance, for whatever reason it began, is too new. In Emerald Gardens, it took us a month to get forty people to act properly under pressure,” Darwin explained. “There are at least five thousand down there. Can you imagine how long it would take to get them to act as a single unit?”
“Emerald Gardens?” Alex began to ask.
“A year at least,” Kass answered Darwin’s rhetorical question, brushing Alex’s question aside. While Stephanie, the Gorgon, had known well about the outside world, it was more likely that she was an exception than the rule. “So basically we have five thousand untrained soldiers pushing against ten to fifteen thousand enemies that look like more?”
