A Creature of War, Book 6, CH06

The large tent was cramped, with the table talking most of the space and the people around it talking loudly, pointing at areas on the multiple maps. Kal had a moment of dissonance, watching the mix of human and Furrians but expecting, Vee, MC, Rod, and his other brother and sisters arguing and ribbing one another about the coming battle.

He shook his head to clear it and focused on his generals and lieutenants. A few of them had been with him since the start. Darleen, Finn, Kamdy. The others had gone up through the ranks over a decade of war and guerrilla fightings. There was a sense of age over all of them, as if they’d aged five times the years that passed.

He’d never felt that when fighting for his creators, before the world changed, but then, no one there had expected to live long, so they hadn’t let the weight of the decisions they’d made push them down.

By the time he and his unit had understood they’d live longer than the others, they’d gotten used to the danger, the hard decisions. And he hadn’t lost enough of his brothers and sisters at once for the reality to hit solidly. He’d only lost eight of them before the world changed, no, eleven. How could he have forgotten? They’d been family.

“Sir?” one of the lieutenants drew his attention to the maps.

Kal glanced at them, all hand-drawn with scratches and notes or corrections. Asgoreth was a large city, but no maps existed of it as far as anyone had been able to find out.

Kal shook his head. “We can’t do anything until we know how the city is laid out.”

“These are the best maps we’ve been able to make,” a grizzled human general said, scared. “And they are getting better with each flier that returns.”

The scoffs some made echoed Kal’s sentiments, but he kept his voice neutral. As the commander, he couldn’t openly undercut any of his officers.

“It isn’t enough. We’ve been at it for a month now and we lost more fliers than we can afford, and the maps are incomplete, at best.” He indicated one showing the temple, a gigantic structure honoring the Celeste, and the blank space around it. “If we mount an assault now, that void here will decimate us, that’s if there’s anyone left alive from all the other places in the city where we aren’t sure if the information we have is even correct.”

“I don’t know if we’ll ever get a better map than this,” Darleen said, waving over the maps with her stump. She’d lost her hand early in the war, but had refused to be sidelined. “The temple is protected by some sort of wizard contraption that makes it impossible to see what’s around it from the air. And at the height our fliers need to be to avoid being shot down by arrows, they can’t make out details of the rest of the city.”

“The guards are too good shots,” a chimp said, his voice flat. His body had survived the war, but not his spirit. Stubbornness was the only thing that kept him going, that and the need to avenge his wife. “All we’re going dy sending fliers is giving them more practice and improving their aim.”

“And,” a human woman added, “half of what we get from the people leaving the city seems to be misinformation that contradicts what we’ve seen.” The anger in her tone wasn’t due to their current situation, Kal knew. She’d been angry from the very start, when the Keeper had her family put to the fire because of her corruption. She had no abilities, being human, but that never stopped the Keepers. She hadn’t said what had caused them to accuse her, and Kal hadn’t pressed.

His army had a marked lack of wizards, which wasn’t Kal’s doing. For all his distrust of them, he would have liked to have a group who could make something to fill in the gaps in the powers of his Furrians. Bertrand’s death had hit him harder than he’d expected. For all his eccentricities, he had been a good and gentle man.

“I take it none of the people you’ve sent to infiltrate have been of help?” Kal asked, his tone neutral. He’d been in too many wars to let frustration get to him.

Everyone shook their heads. “The few that returned can’t remember where they’ve been.” The chimp said.

“I still have some there,” a seal said, “but they aren’t doing any good. The guards are efficient. They don’t even dare take a loaf of bread off a windowsill. If there’s anything resembling a thief’s guild, it’s in hiding. They’ve confirmed there used to be one, but the guards decimated it a long time ago.” He pulled a page from a pile with what should have been a map, but the lines made no sense, didn’t connect to anything. “There has to be some magic that makes it impossible for anyone to draw a proper map.”

Finn leaned over the maps. “Kal, we may not have a choice but to go in blind. We could be here for years and still not know any more about the layout.”

Kal smiled at the glares Finn got for being so casual with their general. It didn’t matter to them Finn had known Kal before the army took shape, Kal was their leader and needed to be treated as such. He’d stop telling them he didn’t care for titles or ‘respect’; he was a soldier just like them.

“This far west we don’t have any native speakers,” Darleen said, “and everyone here is wary of strangers.”

“Our reputation is working against us,” a rat said. His right hand was missing two fingers, his left ear was ripped to the skull and one eye was clouded over.

“We knew this was going to happen.” Kal smiled sadly. “The larger the army got, the harder it was to stay in the shadows.”

“We need to recruit locals,” the rat said.

“This close to the city everyone believes in the Celeste,” Darleen replied. “True believers the lot of them.”

“And the people taking advantage of them,” the chip added

“Keepers,” Finn said, “Call them what they are.”

The chip spat on the ground. “Names have—”

“We don’t have the time for philosophy,” Kal interrupted.

The tent flap opened and a wave of dry heat entered with the aid. He didn’t keep his tent cool. He was a soldier, just like them, and wouldn’t give himself special privilege. The human handed Kal a folded paper and left. His generals waited while Kal read it. It was ripped in places, burned in others, and the writing was so smudged to be illegible. He should have had it transcribed, but this was too important.

He smiled as he read. “Robert,” he called to the chip, “I need you to get that rhino, the one who can store things in his pockets. I have a mission for him.”

The chip frowned. “He’s an elephant.”

Kal waved that aside. “Get him.” He stopped trying to keep track of who was whom not long after the first prison break. Just too many people. “He’s going to help fix this map problem we have.”

“How is he going to help?” Finn asked once the chimp left.

Kal spread the paper on the table. “Thank you for expressing an interest in my creation,” he read for those who couldn’t read, read that language, or just make out the smudges. “Yes, I still have it, unfortunately, it isn’t an item I can ship. It is sensitive and cart travel would render it unusable. I do not state this in an attempt to obtain more from you, Humble Wilma is an honest person. For the amount of money you are offering, I wish you to have a working device. Please accept my apology. Should you come to the King’s Town again please stop by, Humble Wilma will be pleased to see you again.”

“Device?” Finn asked, dubious. “She’s a wizard, isn’t she?”

Kal nodded. “Her creation can show the layout of the city in real-time. That means we can plan for changes in the terrain.” He looked the words over. “To be fair, this is more coherent than I expected. I remember her being a lot crazier than she sounds here, but I saw it work.”

“Sir,” a human general said, “with all due respect, you can’t trust wizard’s stuff. It’s more likely to blow up in our face than do anything.”

“So long as we get a proper map of the city first, it’s fine by me.”

The man shook his head. “Wizards are worse than anyone possessed. I don’t mean any of you,” he quickly added at the glares the Furrians around the table gave him. “I don’t even mean possessed in general. Powers don’t make any of you dangerous, but wizard… the lot of them are crazy and that’s dangerous. To get something of theirs here is to invite trouble, that all I’m saying.”

Kal shared the man’s reservation, but he also knew that in war, he couldn’t afford to pass up any advantages.

The chimp returned with a thin elephant. “Sir, this is officer Cartran.”

The elephant saluted, a fist to his chest and a nod. Kal had no idea where any of them had picked it up from. He hadn’t imposed it. He’d even order them to stop, to no avail.

“Is there a limit to what you can put in your pocket?” Kal asked.

“Not that I know of.” The elephant reached in his left jacket pocket and pulled out a chair. Kal winced as reality did something to allow the ornate chair out. It wasn’t the wrongness that had come with the world-changing, but it was close. Fortunately, it didn’t last, as the last of the chair left the pocket, reality snapped back into place. The elephant didn’t seem to notice the weight of the chair as he put it down and flopped on it, grinning.

“How secure is something in your pocket?”

“I’m the only one who can take things out of it, sir.”

The chimp cleared his throat, and the elephant jumped to his feet and at attention.

Kal couldn’t stop the sigh, but other than a tilted ear at the general, he didn’t contradict him. “What I meant is, how safe from damage is what’s in your pocket?”

“Oh.” The soldier reached in his pant’s pocket and pulled a clay jar. Reality snapped back in place and Kal felt the liquid slush in it, Alcohol. From another pocket he took out three eggs, placed that next to the jug and after patting his pockets, he pulled a wrapped package from a breast pocket, meat by the smell of it and still hot by the steam coming off.

“That’s a few weeks old,” he indicated the jug. “Picked it up in that town east of here. The eggs are from yesterday. I help with the chicken and get a few as payment. Helps me hold out between meals. The roast is from last night.”

“It’s still steaming,” Finn pointed out.

“Yes, sir. As far as I’ve been able to tell, whatever I put in stays the same until I pull it out.”

“And there’s no limits?” Finn asked. The elephant shrugged. “Why aren’t we having him carry all our food? Do you know how much we’ve lost to it going bad?”

“And what do we do if he dies in battle?” Kal asked.

“Then we keep him out of it.”

“No, sir!” The elephant voice was hard. “I didn’t join just to be turned into a glorified pantry.”

“That’s enough,” Kal said as Finn opened his mouth. “Everyone here has their reasons and no one will get sidelined.”

“That’s a waste of resource,” Finn glared at the lynx.

Kal smirked. “And since when has this war been based on proper management of them. We’re all in it for one form of revenge or another. When this is over we can see about finding a better way of managing everything. Cartran, is this dependent on what you’re wearing?”

The elephant looked at him, confused.

“What I mean is, if I were to burn the jacket you’re wearing, is what’s in your pockets destroyed?”

“Oh, no sir. I can always find something I’ve pocketed, whatever pocket I put it in, whatever I’m wearing, so long as it has a pocket.”

Darleen smiled. “So the way you pulled these from different pockets, that was what, showmanship?”

The elephant shrugged. “The girls seem to prefer it when it isn’t too easy to get something, so I give them a little show. Even pull out the wrong things at times. That’s always good for a giggle and a smile.”

“I’m sure it does.” Darleen looked thoughtful. She looked at Kal. “You realize that if we can get him in the city, he could bring an entire battalion with him.”

“No, Ma’am, you don’t want me to do that.”

She looked at him.

He hesitated. “I tried that, when I was younger, pocketing a friend.” He looked away.

“What happened,” she asked.

“We’re not friends anymore.”

She opened her mouth, but Kal silenced her. He didn’t care about that aspect, and from the discomfort the elephant showed, it wasn’t a pleasant memory. The way reality went weird around the pocket couldn’t be good for the mind.

“Get provisions for a trip. I’m sending you to King’s Town to pick up something and someone.”

“Sir, you did hear what I said about pocketing people, right?”

“She’s coming back the normal way, whatever will be convenient. I leave that to you. It’s her creation that’ll go in your pocket. I expect you’ll have to demonstrate that it’s safe before she’ll let you do it.”

“You want her to come here?” the human general who’d opposed the idea said.

“I need her to operate it.”

“She can explain how it works and Cartran can do it,” the chimp said.

“We can’t afford errors, and there’s no easy way to ask for help if Cartran forgets something.” Kal didn’t feel like explaining how wizard’s creations stopped working if they were too far from their creators.

“Where’s King’s Town?” the elephant asked.

“East,” Kal replied, “just go to the Strange Sea and you’ll see it.”

“That’s not helpful, sir. I never heard of that either.”

“Right.” He tried to figure out directions, but other than east and north, he couldn’t remember any of the landmarks. “Check with the quartermaster, she’s going to know someone who knows how to get there.”

“How long should I expect to be traveling?”

“I have no idea. It’s been too long since I’ve been there and I didn’t take a straight route. Months at least I expect. Whoever the quartermaster points you to will know better. You’re going to need a good horse and enough rings to buy more on the way, I’ll talk with the banker and arrange that part.” He looked at Finn. “You didn’t happen to find a teleporter during the night?”

“Sorry Kal, if there’s one hiding in the camp, he keeps vanishing before I get close enough to grab them.”

“Funny. Cartran, this is important, vital, so take care. I prefer that you come back later rather than kill yourself trying to hurry there and back. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.” The elephant saluted and left.

The chimp watched the tent’s flap close before looking at Kal. “Months? Sir, can we afford to wait?”

“We don’t have a choice. Without a proper map, we’ll be at the mercy of the Celeste’s guards, and we know he has no mercy for the likes of us.”

“What do we do until then?” Darleen asked.

“There’s plenty of things to prepare so we’ll be ready for the attack.” Kal looked at the emptiness on the maps. “And we do our best to survive.”

*

A year and six months was how long Kal had to wait.

He wished he had a Furrian with the power to jump in time so he hadn’t had to deal with the interim. It hadn’t been a pleasant wait.

Asgoreth hadn’t been content with letting them camp less than a day’s travel away. For the last year, there had been regular attacks by brigands, guards, and soldiers. At least once, all together.

The worst of the groups were the soldiers. Brigands and guards didn’t have the training and cohesiveness to fight soldiers, and they were after riches, or the bounties. When the soldiers attacked, they were only there to cause destruction.

They were always caught and dispatched, one of the advantages to using Powered Furrians, but not always in time to keep them from achieving their goals.

He’d lost a third of his soldiers during the wait, most to desertion. It was one thing to be busy hurting your enemy, but waiting around gave people time to think, to wonder if what they were doing was worthwhile, and for some to realize that in the end, they’d rather be doing something else.

Finn had wanted to go after them, as had most of his general, find them and punish them for their disloyalty, but Kal had kept them from doing it. He hadn’t argued or reasoned with them. He’d order them to let it go. He didn’t care if people left, and no one knew the plans, since none could be made until they had a map, so they couldn’t betray anything.

Of course, he didn’t tell any of them he already had his own plan, and the rest was just to ensure they were enough of a distraction he could execute it. They figured this would be an assault on the city, the destruction of the temple. They didn’t know he was going to make sure the person in charge died.

Kal managed to keep his own sanity due to the letters Cartran sent in every few months, informing them of his progress. Anytime he reached a city where he could find someone sympathetic to their cause, he would arrange to contact the camp.

Another advantage to Powered Furrians, it sped up communications.

One of the thing Kal did within weeks of Cartran leaving for King’s Town was send his own messages all over the realms, targeting specific groups with instructions. By the time the message confirming Cartran had made contact with Humble Wilma, small encampments had popped up close to the city.

When Cartran contacted them to let them know he was a month away, Kal had the army move closer, spread it around, but remain behind these new encampments.

*

The elephant entered the tent with Humble Wilma. He looked haggard, she looked like she was about to do a sales pitch. The space in the center had already been cleared. Cartran reached in a pocket and pulled a large and ornate wooden table, placing it down. He pulled a chair, set that down, then fell in it.

Wilma set to work bringing up the city, zooming in. In spite of himself, Kal was still impressed at what it could do.

“How reliable is this?” his newest general asked as she ran a hand through the image and it shuddered.

“Humble Wilma’s map is very reliable,” the wizard said, all smiles.

The general shook her head and looked through papers, taking one out and laying it down. “No, there aren’t any streets there.” She pointed to the drawn map and the hologram.

The wizard did something over the table and the image changed in subtle ways. Shapes of building changed slightly, a road appeared, another vanished.

“What are you doing?” Finn asked.

“Humble Wilma is looking at the memory of the city.”

“Cities don’t remember,” the general scoffed. She looked at Kal. “Sir, she’s crazy, this is a waste of time.”

“She’s a wizard,” Kal replied, watching the map. “It comes with the job. Insanity means they don’t know that’s what they’re doing is impossible, so they do it anyway.”

His comment gained him worried glances, but no arguments, as they all watched the map change.

“Wait,” the general said. “Stop it there.” She took the drawing and placed it under the images, turned it until they lined up. They matched almost exactly.

Wilma did something and symbols appeared. “That is the city four hundred twenty-six days ago.”

The general turned the drawing over, thought, and nodded. “It lines up with when this was drawn.”

“Wait,” the chimp said. “Are we actually believing this thing can show us how the city was?”

The question surprised Kal. The chimp was one of those in his army with the most experience working with powered Furrians. He knew what powers could do.

“It matches the drawing.”

“You had it right there. She saw it and made this thing show us what we want.”

The general looked through the papers, pulled one out and looked at it, making sure Wilma couldn’t see it. “Can you move the time forward two hundred and eight days?”

The map changed.

She put the drawing under.

“It’s not a match,” the chimp said in triumph.

Wilma didn’t react.

“Wilma, can you change this to match the drawing?” Kal asked.

“Humble Wilma doesn’t tell her creation what to show. The city does.”

“Or so you claim,” the chimp said. “It isn’t like we can verify it.”

“Robert, what’s the problem here?” Kal asked the chimp.

“She’s a wizard,” he answered in a tone that said it should be obvious what the problem was. He rubbed his face in exasperation when no one reacted. “Do you have any idea what they’re like?”

“I had a friend who was a wizard,” Finn said. “Talked to rocks like they were living people. Pretty inoffensive, unless he blew something up, but we knew to keep him away from the camp when he was in his creative mood.”

“Blow something up?” the chips said in disbelief and pointed at Wilma. “Her kind uses us like we’re just ingredients for these things.” He slammed a fist on the table and the image trembled.

“Don’t hit Humble Wilma’s creation. It is sensitive.”

“Listen to her. She’s talking like this is alive.”

“No,” Kal said, “she’s referring to the sensitivity of how it perceives the city.”

“No.” The chimp was getting more agitated. “She’s more interested in that thing’s well being than any of us.”

“Robert—”

“No, sir. You don’t know them like I did. You haven’t woken up to your mother screaming because one of them was cutting into her because he needed something inside her for his creation. The Celeste might call us monsters, but these people are the real thing.”

“No, Robert, they aren’t,” Kal stated in as calm a tone as he could. “Just as with the Powered—” the image of CM’s twisted arm came to him, something Vee had done— “some do horrible things, most don’t. You had a bad one and I’m sorry for that, but don’t make the mistake the Keepers made. Don’t lump everyone together because of a few bad ones.”

“You think it was one?” the chimp yelled. “It was a bunch of them, keeping us like we were animals!”

“Robert, it still doesn’t make all of them like that.”

“Yes, it does! Don’t you see it? Kal, she’s going to do the same thing to us!”

“No, she won’t,” Kal replied, exasperated.

“You can’t know that, she’s—”

“Yes, I can!” He hadn’t meant to shout, but they were wasting valuable time. “She doesn’t work with biology, she works with wood and metal, probably electricity of some form, but don’t ask me how, I can’t feel it. She can’t do anything with your body even if someone were to cut you open right here.”

“Kal, how do you know that?” Finn asked in the stunned silence.

“What’s biology?” Wilma asked, genuine curiosity in her voice. It confirmed what Kal said, but no one understood, because like her, they had no idea what biology was. The word didn’t even exist in this language.

“I’ve worked with plenty of wizards over the years,” Kal said. “They’re more like us than different. Each is limited in what they work with. Just like your power is limited to affecting trees, Robert, she’s limited with this kind of things. I’m not saying what you went through wasn’t horrible and that that wizard shouldn’t be found and killed, but Wilma—”

“Humble Wilma,” she corrected and Kal almost snapped at her.

“She,” he said through gritted teeth, “isn’t like those wizards.”

“I’m not working with her,” the chimp stated.

“That’s fine,” Kal said tiredly. “Then you’re dismissed.”

“Kal!”

Kal’s glare stopped anything else he was about to say. “Robert, I’m waging a war against a more powerful enemy. I need her. I need the information she can give me. I’m not going to force you to work with her, but you’re not going to force my hand, either. Go look after your people, make sure they don’t get into too much mischief, since there’s no one to direct their energy at right now.”

The chimp glared back, but he was the first to look away, giving the hind of a nod and a forced “yes, sir,” before leaving the tent.

Kal looked around the table. “Anyone else has problems working with her?”

They shook their heads, but Finn gave him a look that promised they were going to be talking about this soon.

“Good, then let’s gather as much information as we can.”

*

“Kal,” Finn called as he entered the tent.

Kal didn’t want to deal with this, but Finn wouldn’t leave him alone until it was resolved. He moved aside and motioned for the human to enter.

As their leader, he’d been given the largest tent, over his protests, yet again, so on top of his cot he had a table and a few chairs where he conducted meetings once in a while.

“What are you?” Finn asked.

“Tired.” Kal let himself fall in the plush chair, his one indulgence.

Finn stood behind the one opposite, watching him. “Kal, the way you speak at times, the stuff you know. How do you know all that? I know you don’t like wizards, so how do you know how they work? And how come you haven’t changes at all in the decades I’ve known you?”

Kal closed his eyes. “There’s a stretch of time when people don’t really change all that much. Twenty to thirty years or so.”

“How do you know that?” There was no accusation in the question.

Kal sighed. “I get your point.” He motioned for the chair. “You’re going to want to sit, this is going to take a while.”

Finn sat, wariness in his eyes. “Kamdy won’t tell me about it, but he knows. Whatever it is you’re keeping from me, from the rest of us, he knows what it is.”

Kal nodded, the mention of Kamdy bringing back their year-long arguments, back when they still talked. The war had taken its toll on the human. Had made him colder, more prone to extreme measures, and he didn’t understand why Kal, knowing everything he did, didn’t feel the same.

Kal wished Kamdy would desert, leave on his own accord, because he couldn’t get himself to force him to leave.

“He does.”

“Then don’t you think the rest of us deserve to know?”

Would Kamdy expect him to wipe away whole cities if he didn’t know everything Kal had told him? About the way things used to be, about who Kal used to be? Would the human have continued treating him like just a commander instead of someone who should take control of the entirety of the realms? Just like the Celeste was trying to do? He couldn’t know. But could he risk that again?

“I think everyone is entitled to their own secrets.”

“I’ve never kept anything from you,” Finn stated.

Kal chuckled. “I’ll grant you that one.” The human had made no secret of the animosity when they met, or the growing respect.

“Don’t you think I deserve the same courtesy?”

“Finn, if I tell you, you’re not going to look at me the same. It’s going to change a lot of things.” Had he warned Kamdy? He didn’t remember, but he expected he’d been too lonely, that the chance to be able to talk with someone without reservations was too appealing.

“A lot of things have changed in the years I’ve known you. I’d like to think I adapted well.”

“Finn, even if that’s true, if I were to tell you everything, you’d die of old age before I’m done with a quarter of it.”

The human grinned and leaned back in the chair. “Then I suggest you start now,. You’re older than I am, so you’re going first.”

Kal shook his head. “I’m going to outlive you, if this war doesn’t kill me.” Maybe he should let it kill him. Hadn’t he done on long enough?

Finn grew serious. “Are you saying I’m going to die here? That you know that?”

“No. I hope you survive this. I hope everyone does, but even if we do, I’m going to outlive you. I’m going to outline everyone here.” He forced a smile. “I’m not a decade or two older than you, Finn. I’m so far older than that, that I don’t even know how old I am anymore.”

“How is that possible?”

Kal shrugged. “A lot of people, way smarter than me, have asked that same question and never came up with an answer, so I have no idea. I do know it wasn’t planned.”

“Okay, I have no idea what that means, so I’m just going to ignore it, but there has to be a way to figure out how old you are. Major event you can point to. Like how old were you when King Herod was assassinated?”

Kal chuckled.

“What?”

“Finn, I was old when the world changed.”