When he heard Nassata reply, her voice sounded concerned. “I…think you saw it,” Nassata said. “Their eggs are actually relatively small, and they always hide them. In their larval stage, they excrete a sticky substance and curl in on themselves, usually in groups…”
“That does sound like what I saw,” Esset confessed.
“Too bad you couldn’t tell color—the larvae are white and light grey, and the eggs camouflage with stone. It would have been easy to tell,” another of the warriors said.
“I think his description was definitive enough,” Nassata disagreed.
“So how long does this larval stage last then?” Esset asked.
“About two days, with the old Reshkin we knew,” Nassata replied.
“Well, larger organisms tend to have longer life cycles,” Esset put in.
“Yes, but we don’t know how long they’ve been there. They could hatch today, for all we know,” Nassata pointed out.
“I know,” Esset conceded. “And we don’t know whether there are even more caverns like that. There are probably more. A lot more. Reshkin in those numbers… I couldn’t hold them back, nor Toman.”
Nassata stared at Esset.
“We’d have to abandon Salithsa,” she finally said.
“Or face extinction.” Esset rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I can’t get to all of them, but want me to see if I can send a summon to do what damage I can to the first cavern?”
“From what you’ve told me, your summons will be swarmed before they can get close enough to do damage to the larvae,” Nassata said.
“True. There probably isn’t anything I can do with one of the bats, which is probably the only summon that could get there unnoticed. I can’t summon a bird underground, and both the wolves and panthers, while being fierce fighters, probably would be too outnumbered to get far enough. I wasn’t thinking of a combatant summon, however. I can summon horses, and they are very, very fast. They love to run, so if I sent one streaking down the tunnel, it might just make it to one of the caverns, and then trampling should work well enough.” There was a pause before Nassata replied.
“That might work,” she acceded.
“Worth a try, anyways,” Esset put in. At least he could find out if the eggs were particularly flammable. He sat back down with his back pressed up against the animated snake.
One incantation later, a fiery horse appeared on the other side of the barrier and immediately leapt into motion. Esset synced his senses with it on the fly. The fiery beast didn’t pause or slow but hurtled down the tunnel, leaving sooty hoof-prints on the stone floor. Reshkin scattered at first, then tried to coordinate a defense, which the horse either dodged or leapt over or bowled straight through, depending on the tactic the enemy used.
Sometimes all it took for someone to accomplish something was the absolute belief that success was the only possible outcome, and Esset always got the impression that his summons had that. The wolves and panthers believed that they were invincible warriors, the birds that they were the fastest and best hunters and fliers, and the horses that they were faster than the wind itself and completely unstoppable. It was easy to believe along with them, as Esset did with the horse as it blazed down the tunnel; the Reshkin were no more consequential than ants around its feet.
But sometimes belief was not strong enough to defeat reality.
Esset knew the cavern was close, but when he saw what lay ahead, he suddenly knew the horse wasn’t going to make it. The Reshkin had swarmed and amassed in the tunnel ahead—there was no going around or leaping over. The horse tried to plow right through, but the Reshkin slashed at it and clung to its legs. They pulled the summon down before it could get halfway through. Esset banished the horse before they could climb all over it and force it out of existence. The summoner snapped back to himself with a sharp intake of breath.
“Sorry,” he said immediately. “It couldn’t get there. It was close, but… not close enough.” And a second attempt would only see them better prepared.
“You did what you could,” Nassata reassured him. “At least we have a better idea of what we’re up against.”
“But now they know we know,” Esset said. He kicked himself mentally—he should have left well enough alone. Half the advantage from intelligence came from your enemy not knowing you had it, and he’d blown that.
“I think it makes little difference,” Nassata said, dismissing his unspoken feeling. “Come, we’ve done enough here.”
“I guess,” Esset said with a gusty sigh, not feeling much better. He got to his feet again, using the wall to steady himself. It was all up to Toman and his stone army now. They had two days at most before the larvae hatched. Two days until the evacuation of Salithsa—or the extinction of the Nadra.
By noon the next day, Toman had finished creating an army of approximately two hundred and fifty soldiers. An hour later, they were standing by to attack. Toman and Esset were part of a squad with Nassata, Tseka, four other Nadra, and a large beast-of-burden-like animation with a massive Nadran lantern on its back—the more they could see, the better they could attack, and the lantern flooded the tunnel with light.
A variety of animations stood with them. Most were two-legged soldiers, but some were Nadra-like. They also had a few animated chains and ropes; the Nadra had come through with all the rope and chain they could find or make, and it had taken only a matter of minutes for Toman to animate the whole lot, since he didn’t have to shape anything.
A Nadran messenger slithered up to them and thumped her spear-butt on the ground.
“All points of attack are in position. Unit leaders are ready to give orders to animations if needed, but we await your order to begin, Animator Toman.”
“Thank you,” Nassata said with a nod.
Toman and Esset’s squad waited just before the tunnel seal leading to the larvae’s cavern. Esset sat on the floor, his mind far away inside a summoned bat.
“How is it that you can control so much at once?” Nassata asked Toman as they waited for Esset to finish scouting.
“Because I’m not consciously controlling it all at once,” Toman replied. “When I animate something, I give it a set of instructions, and the animation will follow those instructions to the best of its ability until it’s told to stop or do something else. Animations are most efficient if I can see them and direct them individually, to respond to individual circumstances, but they can still act and fight without direct guidance. Especially if I key them to particular orders, like ‘stand,’ ‘attack,’ and ‘retreat.’ It takes more time to prepare, but it makes them easier to control later.”
“That…is a frightening amount of power.”
Toman nodded grimly just as Esset opened his eyes.
“The good news is, the larvae are still larvae. The bad news is, a few are starting to wiggle. We can’t afford to wait any longer, so it’s a good thing we’re attacking now,” he reported.
“I’ll give the order,” Toman said, and the tunnel seals opened, and all his animations attacked simultaneously. The stone Nadra led the assault. Esset was impressed with his brother’s ingenuity—the Reshkin on the other side were crushed when the Nadra began thrashing their snake-like bodies when they reached their foes. It was a maneuver that wasn’t realistic for a real snake-person—any Nadra trying it would end up too bruised and battered for it to be effective, never mind the risk of sustaining a bite from the deadly Reshkin—but for the animations, it was very effective indeed. Behind the wave of stone Nadran warriors came a few rows of humanoid stone soldiers with clubs—they filled in the gaps left by the Nadran animations. Those that they missed were immediately devoured by a pair of Esset’s fiery wolves.
Their initial pace was faster than Esset had anticipated, but then the bugs rallied, and the attack party had quite a bit more to do. The statues bore the brunt of the attack, but it wasn’t long before Reshkin were slipping by them by skittering along the walls. The Nadra worked with Esset’s wolves. T
seka swiped at a Reshkin with her spear, caught it under the carapace, and swung it right into the waiting jaws of one of Esset’s fiery wolves. A second wolf leapt right at the wall, a flickering blur as it cracked and melted holes in the carapace of its victim, leaving a scorched and stinking carcass behind. Another warrior, wielding a club, crushed the head of a Reshkin that got within range.
Before long, the ground grew treacherously slick beneath their feet, but fortunately the Nadra were unhindered. Reshkin carcasses were shoved unceremoniously up against one wall as they progressed through the tunnel, some of them still twitching in death.
Esset fought through his creatures, the rational, human part of his mind detached and distant while his animal side, his instinctive being, was in full control. There was nothing beautiful about war, nothing glorious, but Esset—and every other warrior in those tunnels—was consumed by it. There was something horribly marvelous about engaging in battle; the heightened senses, the rush, the exhilaration, the satisfaction of seeing those who would do you pain instead have pain done upon them. The self became a distant third person as the senses were enveloped in the madness.
The Reshkin were like the drops of water in the sea—a single drop was nothing to worry about, but a tidal wave could wipe a coastal town off the map. Even after all the scouting forays and skirmishes, it was shocking to come up against the full force of the Reshkin. To one side, a terrible scream rose from the throat of one of the Nadra—he had been bitten by one of the Reshkin. As Nassata had told them upon their arrival, the Nadran warrior was doomed. Esset felt a cold shock when the scream suddenly cut off—Tseka had slit her comrade’s throat to end his suffering. Esset had to force the brutality from his mind—if he became fully conscious of everything going on around himself, he knew he would freeze up. It was a lesson he’d learned long ago—even though he’d pay for it later, he had to block everything out and embrace that terrible joy of battle until there was no fighting left to be done.
The shadows were surprisingly stable for a tunnel illuminated by a giant lantern on the back of a stone beast, but the light still sometimes shifted. Nassata stabbed at a movement in the shadows, but her spear met nothing but air.
Esset flinched, but Nassata didn’t pause; she swung her spear around again, thrusting at an advancing Reshkin. The attack failed to pierce its carapace, but it did shove the creature back long enough to facilitate a second, more accurate thrust into its eye.
Another movement in the shadows; Nassata thrust at it, and the shock was even greater when her weapon made contact. How many times had she stabbed at shadows when nothing was there? Every unneeded thrust was made worthwhile when this one destroyed the enemy that could have taken a life unseen.
Toman and Esset mostly had to trust the Nadra to keep them safe. Both of them were dealing huge damage to the enemy as a whole, but individually, they were ill-equipped to defend themselves. Esset’s wolves lunged back and forth behind the rows of stone soldiers, decimating most of those that managed to pass their lines, but too often they were too far away to directly defend the summoner or the animator, so the two young men kept themselves within a circle of Nadran guardians. Esset directed the summons where needed and summoned and dismissed extra summons as they were needed.
A slight flicker of movement overhead caught his attention, and Esset looked up just in time to see a Reshkin directly above the silver Nadran warrior next to him. The warrior hadn’t seen it yet; the incantation was already finishing in Esset’s mind as the Reshkin let go of the ceiling and dropped towards the warrior. Halfway there, a fiery wolf materialized in the air between the warrior and the deadly bug. Molten jaws closed around the Reshkin’s head, but the mass of the wolf pulled it earthwards, and it landed atop the Nadra. Scorching paws hit the warrior’s shoulders, burning scale and skin before Esset could banish the creature again. The warrior cried out in pain, and Esset stepped forward, catching the warrior’s spear as the silver Nadra thrashed before getting a hold on himself.
“I’m so sorry!” Esset was apologizing as he dug bandages out of his side bag with one hand. A scaled hand on his stopped him.
“Thank you. You saved my life. Do not worry about me—concentrate on the battle,” the warrior hissed, his voice thick with pain. “I will fight on.” He wrapped his fingers around the haft of his spear.
“No,” Esset objected. “I know burns, and yours are too bad—they’ll get infected in this place, and you’ll die. Go back to the city—we need reinforcements anyways. Get them for us?” Silver eyes looked at him for a moment—the warrior knew exactly what Esset was doing…and he was grateful for it. Besides, the summoner’s words were true. The Nadra nodded and focused on the tunnel behind them for a moment before slipping through the battle back the way they’d come.
“Esset!” It was Nassata, at the forefront of their mortal group. “Larvae ahead!”
“Good,” Esset growled. He knew what was coming now. The stone soldiers bashed aside the Reshkin swarm and created a narrow passage through their ranks. One incantation later, a panther ripped up the pathway and into the cavern.
As it turned out, the larvae were somewhat flammable. All it took was a brief touch from the intense heat of the panther to set them on fire. The fire spread slowly between larvae on its own, but the cat ran through the area, swiftly dealing with any opposition it met. Several Reshkin attacked to defend their young, but they fell to its claws immediately. Then the cat went after the few that tried to interpose themselves between the flames and the unscorched larvae.
The roar of battle drowned out the sickening snaps, flutters, and sizzles of flames burning the soft, sticky coating of the larvae. Esset’s mind was so consumed by the task at hand that he didn’t feel the sick sensation in his stomach or the burning in his chest; he simply fought and destroyed as the Reshkin roiled in the cavern. They didn’t seem to realize that they’d already lost. About half kept attacking, but the other half futilely tried to stamp the fire out by dropping their bellies to the floor. The fire had gained momentum and was yet encouraged by the fiery panther; the Reshkins’ attempts to save their young were in vain.
Soon the ceiling of the cavern was completely obscured with smoke, and even below it was smoky. Esset coughed a few times before grabbing his handkerchief from his pocket and tying it around his neck so he could pull it up over his nose and mouth. Toman didn’t even have to free a hand—his handkerchief retrieved itself, tied itself around his neck, and provided a screen all on its own. The Nadra ignored the stench and smoke in the area and simply continued fighting grimly.
The group held off their position while the larvae burned out. Only once all the larvae were dead did the Reshkin retreat, granting their party a moment for rest. Although it made everyone restless and uneasy to wait on the battlefield, they needed the breather.
Esset was glad when they started moving again; standing still gave him too much time to think about this massacre as what it was: genocide. In order for this to work, they had to kill every single Reshkin—the bugs had to be forced into extinction. Esset didn’t like that, so he had to force from his mind what they were doing so he could just do it. The longer they remained idle, the more his mind tried to make him face the horror of what he was doing; worse, it tried to make him remember every sickening sight, sound, smell, and sensation of this underground nightmare. He couldn’t face it now—not if he wanted to continue. But they were moving now, and he could focus on the present again and hold the horror at bay.
The eternal night of the tunnels made it difficult to tell how long they had been fighting, but after forcing their way down innumerable tunnels and destroying two more caverns full of larvae, Toman, Esset, and the warriors were beginning to feel weary. By the time they found and destroyed the contents of that last cavern, Esset was beginning to feel like he was going to be ill. That sick exhilaration that battle brought was beginning to wear thin, and he had to wonder what position the sun was in aboveground. Then he realized that it had to be wel
l past sunset—how long have we been at this? he wondered.
Their group had covered more ground than any of the others, since the others couldn’t take care of the larvae caverns; even had they gone back for torches or built other fires, only Esset’s summons burned hot enough and spread the flames fast enough to destroy a cavern of larvae before the Reshkin could rally.
In fact, Esset’s group had passed through territory that other groups had traveled through in their circuitous search for the caverns. But hours upon hours in the underground battle had long since begun to get to him, and once the last cavern was taken care of, Esset wanted nothing more than to call it a day. A glance at his brother told him that he felt the same, despite the poker face that Toman was so good at maintaining.
“Okay, warriors! Formation change, we’re going back to the city!” Nassata called to the group. With a feeling of great relief, the statues redistributed themselves around their group and they began the long trudge home.
“We have made good headway today,” Nassata said as she came up between the two young men and clapped them on the shoulders. Esset stifled a wince as she hit a forgotten bruise. “Successive days should be easier, but I look forward to this all being over.”
“Likewise,” Esset replied. Toman just nodded his agreement.
Leaving enemy territory was always dangerous, especially after a successful day—the tendency to let one’s guard down was great. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and the heightened senses brought by battle instead began to dull. It was far, far too easy to make a mistake, to miss something at a critical moment when heading back to safe territory. It was all too easy to feel that impending safety was safety itself.
That was one reason why Toman’s animations were useful—they didn’t suffer from distraction or inattention. In fact, as soon as all Nadran warriors had been delivered safely home, they would be going back into the tunnels to hunt Reshkin all night long. Still, the statues couldn’t replace real warriors completely—they didn’t always know how to react in a given situation, so the warriors needed to stay sharp until they were past the seal in the tunnel and safely within the city.
Calling On Fire (Book 1) Page 21
