PART II - WAR CHANT
“Well … shit …” Callie said glumly, running her hand over her head. “That’s a lot of zombie animals.”
“Out of range, too,” Reynard said. “I had hoped we might be able to take a few out from here with Sniper Shot, but at this distance there’s no way. It must be at least six-hundred meters to the dead zone. Even if I could get a shot that far, I’d have almost no accuracy or damage in it.”
Everyone was standing on the ridge overlooking the swamp, trying to take in the scene in front of them. They had found the huge fallen tree with the help of the tracker/beacon combo, and true to Rowani’s word there was a way down the hill to the flat ground below. It was steep, but the ropes would make going down and back easy enough. From there, it looked like it would be a quick, but likely marshy, hike towards a copse of blackened and rotting trees. Reynard, with his better Eagle Eye, was able to zoom in enough to make out what he was sure would be the Bogwump dome and the area around it.
The problem was that all around the nest were at least a couple dozen decently-sized animals, including what looked like a couple wolf and at least three bear-shaped ones. Even with only Bronze Eagle Eye, Callie and the other Ranger Recruits could make out streaks of dark reds flowing from their eyes and mouths as they simply stood there, silently waiting to die and become food for the new brood of hatchlings.
“It’s kinda sad,” Jesca said, a melancholy tone in her voice.
“I hate this,” Thucax added, angrily turning from the sight, kicking a stone as he walked towards where everyone had dropped their packs.
Reynard turned, watching the Gnoll for a moment and sighed. “Remember, if they are infected to the point that their eyes and mouth are bleeding, we can’t save them. I honestly don’t know if they can feel anything at this point, but if they can, we will be helping to end their suffering.”
Overhead, at least eight Drakelings circled, and a quick zoomed inspection showed no sign of infection on their faces. Reynard reasoned that if a lot of their usual prey was infected, they may not be eating, and that would likely explain why they went after Rowani so aggressively. Periodically, one would disappear into rock crevices on the hill below the team, with others then flying out as a replacement. There was no way to tell how many of the flyers were nesting in the rocky hill, but it had to be dozens of them. Tazrok was warned to avoid his weasel and kitty forms, and even Pixyl was wary, as the larger Drakelings were pretty close to her size.
“Should we eat maybe?” Lhawni asked, breaking the awkwardness as she turned from the hillside overlook.
Callie instinctively looked up at Reynard for his opinion, and just as instinctively he nodded. “Yeah, let’s do that,” Callie sighed, turning away from the scene of death glumly. “Twenty minutes to rest, eat, use the bushes if you need to, and drink the potions while we figure out the plan. Rangers, we might as well pull out our bows now so our storage can start getting its third charge back.”
After calling them into existence, each of the Rangers leaned their respective bows against the fallen tree and everyone settled into a circle, pulling their meals from their backpacks and trying to relax. It really wasn’t possible. Their stomachs were queasy with nervousness, and it made eating difficult.
Finally, to fill the void in the conversation, Major Celeste took some time to review sword safety. On its surface, it was for the Rangers, and to a lesser extent, Pixyl. Things like fighting back-to-back and knowing where the others were so you don’t step into their swing. But the message also was aimed for the others, too, specifically reminding Lhawni and Ambria to announce their presence before stepping too close to someone. The Major kept the instructions remarkably light, adding jokes and even a couple stories, which helped ease the dread they were all feeling, while at the same time making sure everyone had their safety knowledge refreshed. The hope still was that none of the Rangers would need to even draw their blades, their bows eliminating the dangers before anything got close.
True to Callie’s suggestion, everyone took their own moment to disappear into the woods and do their business, with Jesca accompanying Pixyl, lest a Drakeling make use of an opportune moment. None had deemed to fly down from circling overhead, but Pixyl was pretty sure they’d try to come at her if she were alone and had an opening, given how hungry they looked and her proclamation that she was ‘probably tender and delicious’.
Callie picked up a stick on her way back to the rest of the group. Upon arriving, she offered it to Reynard. “You got a better look at the nest than we did. Draw out what we’re dealing with.” She almost added an instinctive ‘Sir’, and surprised herself when she didn’t.
Reynard nodded, put the last bite of his sausage into his mouth, and took the stick from Callie. He started by drawing a circle to use as a reference, then added a line that ran roughly through the circle. “So, if this is the nest, it appears to be close to the shoreline, or at least what looks like more-solid ground, that runs east to west.” He gestured to the line. “Some of the nest juts out into the water to the south.” He then drew another circle around the first. “This is a dead area around it. In our direction, for maybe twenty or thirty meters, all the plants have withered away, which is good, because we’ll be able to see whatever is coming for us. Watch the water side, though, as something could sneak close underneath the surface. There’s things that can charge you fast from there.”
Lhawni knelt down and drew a wiggly line with her finger out and away from the twin circles to the north, which was the direction the group was now sitting. “This game path goes from here all the way to the water’s edge, exiting not far from the nest, so the ground is solid or shallow enough that the bigger animals are able to get to the water. It hasn’t been raining much, so the water is down. That’s actually good. Hopefully we won’t have to fight in deep muck.”
Reynard looked at the Goblin with a surprised expression. “You got all that from here?”
Lhawni rolled her eyes. “I’m a Goblin. We know swamps better than anyone.”
“Oh, right,” Reynard nodded before continuing with his overview. “About twenty meters from the nest, along here,” he gestured south and east of the Bogwump dome, “is the start of denser trees out in the water, most of them looking fairly rotted, I’d guess with the parasite. That may cut down visibility from those directions a bit.”
“Those reeds are pretty tall,” Major Celeste said, gesturing along the trail line on the ground. “It’s going to be hard to see until we get to the dead area.”
“It will,” Reynard confirmed. He gestured to the four shorter ones. “Especially for them. We’ll want to move as quickly as we can to get into the clearing by the nest.”
“What’s the plan when we get there?” Shul’an asked.
Reynard looked at Callie. “Sergeant?”
Callie almost defensively deferred back to the trainer, before remembering it was her show. She blew out her cheeks. She could do this. If she was wrong, Reynard or the Major would correct her, right? “We brought Pixyl here so we can do this fast. We get in and the Rangers can set up a perimeter like we’ve been working on this past week, and she can slice into the thing quickly. We just need to be sure nothing approaches, and call for the Major or Tazrok if we think something might get through. As soon as she has the top opened, someone drops in the oil stuff and we get the hell out of there. I don’t want to overthink this.” Callie looked up at Reynard, seeking at minimum some kind of concurrence.
Reynard studied the battle plan on the ground for a long, hard moment. “You have the basics down,” he finally said. He then looked up. “Piercing shots when you can, if you have the time. Otherwise use Rapid Fire, or if that’s out, Multishot. They all help with fast takedowns.”
“Have egg bomb,” Tazrok pointed out, gesturing to his backpack lying a few meters away.”
“That’s right,” Reynard said. “If this starts to get overwhelming, throw one of those. Hopefully the noise will draw things away and give us a moment to regroup.” The Foxkin gestured to Tazrok. “You’ll have to drop form, though.”
“Can change fast,” Tazrok grunted. “Have practiced.”
Callie looked up from the drawing on the ground, seeing the faces around her. Most were studying what Reynard had drawn, but Ambria was looking at her worriedly, soon joined by Lhawni. Callie cleared her throat. “If you get hurt, fall back if you can or call for help.” She gestured towards the two Healers. “Anything we need to know.”
“I have a few different types of healing spells,” Ambria said. “I can heal at range, but it’s a general heal, so not very strong and uses a lot of mana, so I try not to use it. I also have a generalized one that is better, but I need to touch your skin; good for smaller, numerous or unreachable wounds. The last I have is a focused one, for bigger wounds, that is slower. I need to touch the injury for that one, or the skin over it if it’s internal damage. Oh, and I can easily block pain or stop any major bleeding with a Coagulate spell.”
“Almost the same for me, but the two general ones both heal over several seconds,” Lhawni added, reviewing her repertoire. “My touch heal for larger wounds is slower than Ambria’s, but not too bad. I also have my deep Repair Wound like I used on Trainer Rowani, but that’s far too slow to use in the heat of battle, and gobbles mana for most injuries. Oh, I also have the Healing Pulse from my Totem for smaller wounds, which will also dull some pain. That could heal whatever is attacking us, though.”
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“If they are infected, they can’t be healed,” Callie pointed out. “Remember what happened to Trainer Rowani. It’s probably okay to use it.”
Callie then reached to her side, slipping the green potion from its pouch. She held it up with her thumb and forefinger. “Time to drink up, everyone.”
A general groan went up around the group as everyone pulled their own potions from their belt. Callie popped the stopper off with her thumb, and held it up as if it was a toast. “To saving Juniper.” The toast was echoed, almost reluctantly, by everyone as they tilted back the liquid together. The potion tasted like rancid meat, soaked with sour milk, that had been left in the sunlight for several hours.
“That’s revolting,” Celeste coughed out. There was a universal concurrence in the form of groans, coughs, and attempts to spit the taste out of their mouths.
“This will keep us safe, at least,” Reynard pointed out, his face scrunched up.
“Not worth it!” Lhawni snapped in retort, still nearly gagging.
Jesca fetched the bundle of summoned rags from her backpack, separating and handing them out to the other Ranger recruits, before slipping her pack on. Everyone else also donned their backpacks, stretching their shoulders and arms to make sure everything was settled comfortably into place.
Callie retrieved her bow from next to the tree, and then walked over to the side of the hill, looking out over the swamp towards the far off dead area. Almost mechanically she sat down in the tall grass, wetting the cloth with her remaining Resist Disease potion, before wiping it along her bow, making sure not to miss any of the surface. Behind her, the other Rangers each retrieved their own bows before returning to the circle to get them ready. She didn’t notice Reynard approaching until he squatted down next to her.
“How are you doing?” he asked, almost in a sub-vocal whisper.
“I think everyone is ready,” Callie replied, adding a half-hearted smile.
“That wasn’t what I asked. How are you doing?”
Callie realized his question. “A little worried,” Callie said with a shrug.
“About?”
“People getting hurt, mostly. Maybe of it being my screwup that causes it.”
“I’m not going to give you any grand words of inspiration, Callie,” Reynard said quietly. “I am honestly not very good at it. But I will tell you this. Neither I, nor the Major, nor anyone else would have let you lead this if we didn’t believe you could do it. You’ve done a great job so far.”
“Thanks,” Callie said, smiling again. “It means a lot that you said that. But, don’t be afraid to take over if you think you need to, even if I resist.”
Reynard patted Callie’s shoulder, and rose, turning to walk back to the group where Lhawni and Ambria were relaying to Shul’an and Thucax the story of the sudden and temporary engagement of Jesca and the Faun, much to everyone’s amusement and the utter embarrassment of the Cheetakin.
“Sir?” Callie said, looking up and back.
“Yes?”
“I realized a couple days ago I forgot to tell you something, and I haven’t had a good moment since. But before we start this thing, I want to make sure I do.”
“What’s that?”
“I forgive you.”
A confused look appeared on Reynard’s face. “For what?”
“For what you did to me and said to me that first day.”
It took several moments for Reynard to recall what Callie was talking about, and then his face softened. “I suppose I did, indeed, admit you are a Ranger.”
“Thank you for that, too,” Callie said. “Thank you for everything.”
Reynard nodded his head, touching his paw to his chest in a small bow of acknowledgement.
Callie and Reynard, as well as the others, had been so engrossed in their conversations, they hadn’t noticed that Tazrok had started to sing. He had walked over to the downed tree, and then climbed up on top of the huge fallen trunk. Now he was standing far above them and looking out over the swampy valley, eyes closed and making some of the most unique sounds. It was a steady chanting of a repeating series of differently pitched grunts, feeling tribal in nature, that seemed to call out from the Ogre. But it wasn’t a single voice. For every sound that Tazrok made, a second, or maybe even a third harmonized note seemed to come from him as well. It was like a pulse, the notes changing in a perfect, clear sequence, producing a beat without percussion.
As Tazrok sang, slowly everyone stopped whatever they were doing, seeming to be both confused and enraptured by the music. It reached out to touch them somehow, saying they knew not what.
“Whoa, Mongolian throat singing! Cool!” Callie gasped in a whisper. She’d taken an easy music appreciation class her freshman year of college, and one of the modules covered tribal musics, including a sub-section specific to this type of harmonized singing. She’d never heard it in real life, though, only the few videos the instructor had prepared.
“What’s that?” Reynard asked quietly.
“It’s a vocal technique. You can sing more than one note at the same time,” Callie casually answered in a whisper, eyes focused on the Ogre standing above them all.
Tazrok continued to sing, his low voice steady and strong, seeming to call out to not only the rest of the team, but increasingly to the valley below. The grunted notes, eleven of them in total, repeated over and over. Then the Ogre picked up his foot, stomping it hard on the tree, causing a slight thump to be felt by everyone. The notes of the song rose minutely in pitch, and seemed to grow in intensity as well.
Everyone stood, now totally engrossed in what the Druid was doing, and they gathered close, joining Callie and Reynard.
“He’s using that skill again,” Major Celeste whispered in Reynard’s ear. “That ‘Chieftain's Inspiration’ skill of his.”
“I … I can feel it,” the Foxkin replied just as quietly.
The music continued, the ever-repeating pattern of eleven notes. Again his foot stomped down and again the force of the impact vibrated through the tree and the ground, before flowing up the legs of the nine standing below. As before, the pitch of each note rose a tiny amount, and the intensity of the power was dialed up another notch.
Having heard Celeste’s whisper about Tazrok using a skill, Callie looked inward, past the sounds, past the scene of her huge friend singing. She couldn’t tell what she was feeling, but she was feeling … something. Somewhere, deep inside her, it was as if her soul had started to dance and spin to the pulse of Tazrok’s call.
*stomp*
Again, Tazrok stomped his foot on the tree below him. It seemed even stronger this time, and Callie could feel her heart starting to beat in time with the repetition of the sung notes. Next to her, Shul’an opened their lips and started to sing the same sequence along with Tazrok. They couldn’t harmonize multiple notes like the Ogre could, but the Salamanderkin’s voice seemed to merge into the song, adding another to the chorus.
*stomp*
The pitch rose again, and this time Thucax joined, followed almost immediately by Jesca. Her feminine voice was naturally higher pitched, but nonetheless seemed to harmonize into the song.
*stomp*
Tazrok stomped his foot again, and the pace of his thumps seemed to be increasing, with fewer repetitions of the eleven-note sequence. Now all of them could really feel the effects of Tazrok’s magic. They didn’t understand what it was, or really what it was doing, but it was all around them. Callie unconsciously shaped her lips into an ‘o’ shape and joined in singing out the song of the Ogres, following the same eleven angry notes.
*stomp*
This time, the sequence of sounds only played out a single time before Tazrok again called for the increase in pitch; called for an increase in their combined power. Ambria, Lhawni and even the tiny Pixyl shaped their mouths and added their call.
*stomp*
The pattern somehow changed. Now, Tazrok would call out the sequence of notes, and those singing would echo the same sequence back. The notes seemed to grow even angrier, no longer a simple slow, steady chant. The Ogre only sang ten notes this time, then waited for the echo from the rest, before bringing his massive foot down, the tree resonating the sound around them.
*stomp*
Nine notes, rising in pitch yet again, getting angrier in tone. Major Celeste, bewildered, did the only thing she could, and opened her mouth to sing the response with the others.
*stomp*
The sequence was getting shorter, this time rising after only an eight-note call and response. Reynard, the last holdout for this wild call of the Ogres, finally surrendered and threw his voice into the chorus. They could feel their blood starting to heat with warlike excitement.
*stomp*
Seven notes, the intensity and power somehow continuing to increase along with a hissing rage forming in their voices.
*stomp*
Six notes …
*stomp*
Five notes …
*stomp*
*stomp*
*stomp*
Four notes. Three. Two.
Tazrok raised both arms towards the sky, his eyes still closed. Now he would call out the last two notes, and his found tribe of nine on the ground repeated them back, before doing it again. The two note call and response continued as the group moved as one to the edge of the ridge, facing out and joining Tazrok’s roar to the valley and the feral sentinels below. The rage in their combined voices had turned into fury!
*stomp*
And now there was only one note left. Tazrok roared it out, and the rest joined. Everyone’s hearts pounded in synchronicity with each other, and they fixated together on this last single note, growling it out in harmonized primalness. They locked their stares to the zone of death that was their target. Their blood pumped in unison and senses tightened. Their confidence soared and roars served to deliver only one single warning. They! Were! Coming!
Tazrok made fists with his gigantic hands, and then brought his arms crashing to his side. Somehow everyone knew what to do, and without being told, they all ceased their howls in unison. Through the woods around them, across the valley and from the very skies above, their voices circled and reflected back to them. The sounds echoed like rolling thunder, an ever shortening call and response, finally collapsing to a single, final, savage note. And then the echoes ceased, the last reflected cry abruptly cut off.
They stood in a group, all panting and gasping for breath as they stared to the south. Everyone looked up at Tazrok, unsure what to say or do next, like they were seeking guidance from the conductor of this primal symphony. The Ogre cracked his neck before sliding down off the giant tree trunk, almost mockingly making another heavy thump as his feet hit the ground. He took a step and stopped, looking at his other nine team members, perplexed by their expressions.
“So … that just happened,” Callie said, her breathing still heavy.
“What … what the hell was that?” Celeste asked, pointing up to where Tazrok had been leading the call.
The Ogre looked up to where he had been standing, cocked his head quizzically, and then shrugged. “That was an Ogre war chant, my good Major. We are stronger now, and they are afraid.”
Still stunned, they watched Tazrok lumber past them and towards the edge of the ridge where the trail began down the side of the hill. He turned and looked back, nodding his giant head sharply a single time. “Come, my friends, let’s go be heroes.”
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