[Warning: the first section has some rather lewd stuff in it. I think it's an important scene for the characters, but it's not important for the plot, so you can skip it if you must and you should be alright.]
Gabriela blinked the sleep from her eyes, her vision slowly sharpening to reveal a view of a ceiling that was still somewhat new to her but getting more familiar by the day. Slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb her still-slumbering partner, she reached up with her free left hand and brushed away the hair plastered to her face with sweat. Her whole body was covered with the stickiness of a busy night’s sweat compounded by early morning humidity. She needed a bath.
Unfortunately, getting up at that moment was out of the question, as her entire right side was currently busy acting as a makeshift pillow for a certain former Ubran. The Batranala had draped herself over Gabriela at some point in the night, likely aided by the way the mattress had sunk to the floor in the middle, squeezing them together.
She sighed internally. This was what, the fourth bed frame they’d broken in a week? This one they’d cracked right in two, straight down the middle, though the others had been pulverized in other ways. She imagined that replacing them so often had to be expensive, though Chitra would just laugh it off and tease her when she brought it up. For the moment, though, her partner remained largely silent, the only noise she made being the sound of her soft breathing into Gabriela’s shoulder.
Gabby turned her head and studied her lover’s face just millimeters away. Chitra’s cheek smushed up against Gabby’s shoulder, the pressure forcing her soft lips open so that she drooled all over Gabby’s collarbone.
Gabby couldn’t help but smile. In some ways, this was the view of Chitra that she loved the most, as it was the only time the other woman ever lacked that aura of dignity and competence, the one that said that broadcast to everybody around that she was always in control no matter the situation. Gabby felt as if she were witnessing something secret, something only she got to see.
The sleeping woman’s eyes fluttered and slowly opened. She moved her head off Gabriela’s shoulder and placed it higher on their shared pillow, the tip of her chin now just barely touching the top of Gabby’s shoulder. She smiled, and Gabby felt her heart flutter. Gabby turned her gaze back to the ceiling, unready for such feelings so soon after waking.
“Sleep well?” Chitra asked.
“Well enough,” Gabby allowed.
“I can see that,” Chitra hummed. She pulled herself in against Gabriela’s neck and inhaled deeply. “Mmmmm... you smell wonderful.”
“I stink. I need to wash.”
“Why wash, when you will just get sweaty again right after?”
“What are you—?”
A small nibble on her neck answered her question before she could even get it out. Her pulse quickened and her face grew hot. “Already?”
“You know I can never get enough of you.” Chitra’s hand caressed Gabriela’s flank, slowly sliding up Gabriela’s side before moving up and in to fondle her breast, her smooth fingertips running over the many teeth marks left during the night’s escapades.
“I really should have known you’d be a biter,” Gabby sighed.
“How else am I supposed to let all those trollops out there know that you’re already spoken for?”
She bit down harder, eliciting a soft moan when she sent an equal mix of pleasure and pain cascading through Gabby’s body and mind.
“You know full well that nobody out there covets me except you,” Gabby told her. “They all just see something to fear, or maybe just a plain, ordinary woman at best.”
“Then they are blind—blind to all that makes you the most wonderful thing I’ve ever known. But...” Chitra reached out and gently turned Gabby’s head back towards her, then leaned in again, lips meeting lips. The kiss was deep, passionate, and seemed to go on and on forever. When it finally did end, Gabby found herself panting, her heart racing and her body flush with heat and yearning. “...that suits me just fine.”
Chitra slid an arm beneath Gabriela and rolled her up and atop herself, their two naked forms pressing against each other with unrestricted intimacy. She reached up to the edge of the mattress and grabbed an item, then pulled it down and slid it into Gabby’s hand. Gabby didn’t have to look at it to know what it was; the feeling of the hard length and the smooth straps against her palm told her all she needed to know.
“Now,” Chitra purred, her gaze overflowing with fervent desire, “do what you do best and plant my hips into this mattress so hard that I fear my pelvis will shatter.”
“But...” Gabby hesitated, “...we already broke the bed again...”
“Then we’ll just have to break the floor this time.”
She leaned upward for another kiss, and this time Gabby leaned in as well, meeting her halfway. Their lips touched, and—
BZZZZZZT! BZZZZZZT! BZZT! BZZT! BZZT!
BZZZZZZT! BZZZZZZT! BZZT! BZZT! BZZT!
Chitra’s head plopped back down listlessly and she rolled her eyes. “I thought you got rid of that thing.”
“He asked me to keep it in case we went out again,” Gabby explained as she climbed out of the wreckage that was their sleeping area, walked over to a small end table nearby, and pulled open the thin drawer where she kept most of her assorted knick-knacks. Within, she found the chip Blake had given her, the one that had summoned them back from Gustil what seemed like ages ago. It trembled and quaked with the same manic urgency as before, crying out to her that she was needed oh so desperately.
“They could have just sent a runner. We’re not nations away this time. We can see them from the window.”
“I don’t know, maybe he wants it kept secret,” Gabby theorized as she hurriedly threw on some clothes. “I’d better go see what’s going on.”
“Weren’t you going to wash up?”
“No time,” Gabriela griped as she grabbed her sword and slid her feet into a pair of tough leather boots. She returned to Chitra, who was still sitting on the remains of their bed, and leaned in for a final kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Chitra replied when their lips finally parted.
And then, Gabby was out the door.
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Gabriela found Blake in the large room with the circular table, which she mentally thought of as the ‘main conference room’. Only Blake was present at the moment.
The man had his helmet off, a rarity for when he was anywhere but his most private areas of the fortress, and he looked tired and stressed. To be fair, the man always appeared tired and stressed, especially since the day he’d come upon his whole ‘we’re all going to explode’ theory, but today he looked even a step or two beyond that. The bags under his eyes were like black pits and his face looked pallid and clammy. Gabriela wondered how much he’d slept recently.
Still, fatigue and stress never seemed to stop Blake from being himself. His gaze swept over her unkempt form before landing on the side of her neck.
“Are there some giant mosquitoes plaguing the city that I don’t know about?” he deadpanned as she walked in.
Gabby instinctively slapped her hand over the mark, flushing with embarrassment. “Shut up.”
The action drew a small, wry grin from the man and he chuckled like a big brother sensing weakness in a younger sibling.
She fished the chip out from a pocket, still buzzing away, and slapped it down upon the table. “You going to explain why you set off this thing?”
“You weren’t in your rooms and we couldn’t find you when we needed to get a hold of you earlier. Eventually, we just gave up and adjusted the plan without you here. Maybe it’s just because I’m so tired, but I forgot all about you still having that thing until a little while ago. Better late than never, I suppose.”
“Wait, who’s ‘we’? And what plan?”
“Me, Sofie, and Arlette, mostly. They’re out preparing stuff right now, but they should be back soon, I imagine. And the plan is the whole Stragma plan.” He sighed. “We gotta move it up and change some things around. We need you heading out on the ship before the day is over. You need to get ready ASAP.”
“What? But... I just... Blake, what’s going on?”
He sighed again and took a moment to rub his face with both hands before answering.
“Kutrad’s gone.”
“What?! What do you mean, gone?!” She
“Every Many we have with Kutrad died suddenly last night. I’ve checked in with other nations and theirs also died all around the same time.”
“So, something happened in their capital? What was it called again?”
“Xoginia, and no, it was more than just the capital. I just got word from the Eterians, what ones still remain in power I suppose, that people are streaming across the border from southern Kutrad, all with tales of massive flying lizards and fire.”
“Oh, no... no, no, no...” Gabriela felt like she was going to be sick. She sank into the closest seat and put her head in her hands. “This all just keeps getting worse.”
“Yep,” Blake replied matter-of-factly. “So yeah, as I said, waiting is a luxury we don’t have anymore. We have to act now, while the dragons are still busy consolidating their new territory and whatnot.”
“I understand,” she said with a nod.
Blake leaned forward, hands flat against the table top. “Alright, then, here’s the plan...”
Together they discussed the newly revised plan of action, from the moment she embarked to what to do once she succeeded.
“When do I have to leave?” she asked at the end.
“The sooner the better, I should think. Sorry it’s so sudden, but what can we do?”
“Alright, I’m going to need a few hours at least. Have to pack and say goodbye.” She rose to her feet. “But before any of that, I need a shower.”
Blake snorted, that sadistic smile returning. “Oh, I’m sure you do, after all that exercise.”
“Oh, be quiet and go take a nap.”
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As she lay on the floor of her cabin, letting the drone of the propellers wash over her like so much white noise, Gabriela reflected on her recent life. So much had changed—so much about her, her feelings, and her relationships. One thing that remained the same, however, was how much she hated traveling in this thing.
It would have been so much easier to just run there—faster, too. Unfortunately, the specifics of the mission—and what followed after even moreso—meant that running wasn’t an option. Instead, she was stuck on this infernal contraption, miserable as always.
The worst part was the swaying. It was subtle, just strong and varied enough to constantly remind her, as she lay there in her fully enclosed cabin with no windows trying to pretend that she was in a normal room on solid ground, that she was instead suspended hundreds of meters into the air by a few pieces of metal. The knowledge gnawed at her insides, threatening to give her ulcers.
Already she’d been in this infernal contraption for half a day, but that meant there were still many, many hours left to go before she got to her destination. Perhaps only as a way to distract herself, she mentally went through her conversation with Blake about the plan one more time.
“Alright, so in a lot of aspects, we want to keep this as simple as it can be—a quick smash and grab,” Blake began. “Get in, grab him, and go. It’s not that simple, of course, but that’s the general idea.”
“Sounds good. Who is coming with me?”
He shook his head. “Just you.”
“Just me?”
“The rest of us have our plates full here, and speed is the priority anyway. We can’t even send a Many along; it would slow the trip down too much, and the Many handlers aren’t in a state to travel anywhere with the sudden deaths and whatnot, anyway.”
“But what if I need somebody? What if I need help?”
“We’re rounding up a bunch of tools for you, don’t worry. Sofie’s out right now getting the brat to make you plenty of explosives and whatever else you might need to take along. You’ll be fine.”
“But how will we communicate?”
“Well, you have the buzzer, don’t you?” he replied, pushing the chip back towards her. “If for some reason we need you back in a flash, we’ll buzz you.”
Gabby raised her head off the cold metal, her eyes scanning the room. What was that? She thought she’d heard something, a new sound amidst the ever-present drone, but she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t just imagined it. Stilling her breath, she closed her eyes and focused on her hearing as much as she could.
There! It was barely audible over everything else, but she swore she’d heard the sound of something banging against metal. She paled. If this machine were to come apart now, when Blake wasn’t around to fix it, she’d be in serious trouble.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled out of her cabin. Slowly, she made her way around the ship, trying her best to locate the noise, but finding little success. She hadn’t been able to tell which direction the noise had come from, so she had little choice but to survey the entire craft—a terrible fate indeed.
The living quarters were as empty as ever. The front of the airship as well; the cockpit vacant as it had been from the start of her journey, the instruments moving on their own as the craft followed some sort of autopilot routine. It wasn’t until she neared the rear that she heard another noise, a trio of three soft, low clangs of metal on metal.
Gabriela tensed. Normally, such a sound might be explained by a skitter somehow getting loose from its moorings slightly, enough to sway and tap against its neighbor. However, Blake had been very clear that they’d be leaving the normal skitter contingent behind this time to lighten the ship and increase speed.
Several possible explanations crossed Gabriela’s mind, some worse than others. With some trepidation, she opened the door to the skitter bay, looked inside, and let out a groan. On her list of possible explanations, this was quite likely the worst of them.
“Pari Clansnarl,” she snapped, “what are you doing on the airship?”
Pari Clansnarl paused mid-scribble, her hand clutching some sort of waxy red crayon she’d been using to doodle on the skitter bay’s walls. The child turned around and beamed when she sighted Gabriela, letting out a delighted chirp of “Gabby-friend! Pari miss Gabby-friend lots!” She rushed towards Gabriela with both arms reaching her way, ready to pounce into a warm embrace.
Gabby crouched down and stuck her arm out, blocking the child and keeping her at arm’s length. Confused, the child pushed against her limb to no avail. With her other hand, Gabby reached out and grasped the top of Pari’s head gently but firmly, tilting it back so that they looked each other square in the eyes. “Pari, answer the question,” she said with as much motherly firmness as she could manage.
“Pari playing hide and seek with Sammy-friend!” the child told her with a wide grin. She giggled. “Pari hide super great this time! Sammy-friend never find Pari now!”
Gabriela let out a groan and pulled the rambunctious girl in for her desired hug, a litany of curses she didn’t dare speak aloud running through her mind. What was she supposed to do now?
“Listen up, Pari,” she said with as much seriousness as she could. “I’m currently heading out on a dangerous task, you understand? It’s too dangerous for you to come along. We’re going to have to turn back and...” She let out a groan and clutched at her temple with one hand. “But that would cost a day and we might not have... crud. Crud crud crud.” She blew out a long exhalation from her nose. “Okay... here’s what we’re going to do. Pari, you can come along with me to Stragma, but you have to stay on the ship always. Got it? Always. No leaving the ship until we’ve left. This is for your safety.”
The child’s ears perked up at the mention of Stragma, then wilted in disappointment as Gabriela continued.
“But Pari want go play in forest!” she whined.
“Sorry, but no means no.”
Pari’s cheeks puffed out in indignation. “Why Pari listen to Gabby-friend, anyway? Gabby-friend not sister or grandfather, just friend!”
Gabriela would have pinched the catgirl’s cheeks—even her pouting was adorable—had the situation not been so important. Instead, she looked Pari in the eyes and spoke from the heart.
“Because I am an adult, and the most important job of adults is to keep children safe. And, because Sofie, and your grandfather, and me, and everybody else all worked really hard to bring you back after that terrible day, and if we were to lose you again, we’d all be heartbroken and sad for a very long time.”
The girl took on a stricken expression, her eyes wide and quickly filling with tears. “R-Really? P-P-Pari sorry...” she sniffled.
Gabby pulled the child in so fast she nearly blurred. “Shhh! Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay. We’re going to keep you nice and safe in here and everything will be just fine,” she assured the tearful girl.
“R-Really?”
“Yes. Now, come. Let’s move elsewhere. This place wasn’t meant for people to be in for very long. It’s too cold.”
Gabriela stood back up just as a gust of wind rocked the ship, sending her stumbling and her stomach lurching. She quickly leaned against the nearby wall, panting and struggling to hold her lunch down. She’d been too distracted by Pari’s unexpected presence to remember where she was for a few moments, but now, her problematic circumstances had reasserted their hold over her.
“Ah!” Pari gasped, her expression one of somebody coming to a sudden realization. Bouncing back to the doodle-covered side of the chamber, she ruffled through her sack—Gabby couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the girl without it somewhere nearby. With a triumphant grin, she pulled out a handful of small candles and skipped back over. “Pari make candles to help Gabby-friend after last time, but Pari forget to give to Gabby-friend until now!”
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“Thank you, Pari, that’s very sweet of you,” Gabby said, unsure whether to feel relieved or terrified.
“Come, come!” the girl bade, tugging on Gabby’s pants. “Pari show Gabby-friend!”
And that was how Gabriela ended up back in her cabin, in the same prone position as before, except now the air smelled like lilacs. The twisting in her gut remained, but ever since she’d started breathing in the thin mist emanating from the candle, it no longer seemed like the world’s most pressing and immediate concern. Mere existence was once again... well, not great, but at least tolerable. Gabby idly wondered just how much money Pari would have been able to make developing pharmaceuticals on Earth.
A yawn escaped her, unbidden—it seemed that the child’s creation was not without some side effects.
Pari stretched her arms toward the sky and returned her yawn. “Sleepy Gabby-friend make Pari sleepy too.”
Just like that, the child plopped down, draping her upper body onto Gabriela’s torso and snuggling against her, eyes closed and a blissful smile on her face. As if by instinct, Gabby reached out to pat her head and scratch behind her delightful little ears and was rewarded by the soft rumble of purring against her ribcage.
With her other arm, Gabriela reached out and just barely snagged the blanket from the cabin’s nearby cot with her fingertips. Pulling it off the bed, she tossed it out, letting it unfurl and fall to cover her and Pari’s lower bodies. She breathed deep, letting the floral scent permeate her lungs, and felt her body relax just a bit more. Things still didn’t feel great, but for the first time, every moment up here in the air didn’t feel like sandpaper scraping across her mind. There were worse ways to travel, she supposed.
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“Once you’re over there, the first thing you’ll need to do is rendezvous with Yamanaka-san,” Blake continued. “I already put the meeting location in as the ship’s first destination. She’ll meet up with you here.”
He pointed to a spot on the map in what was formerly Gustil directly north of the forest and past the smaller mountain range that lined the border between the two countries.
“Her sightseeing trip will have been regrettably short, but she’ll still be able to give you the most up-to-date information we can get on the Stragmans and how much longer before they’re ready to migrate north for the summer.”
Three people—Gabriela, Mizuko, and Mizuko’s dour elven companion Vura—sat on a verdant hillside north of Stragma, engaged in conversation, while a fourth person darted about the area, collecting samples from the local ecology. Nearby stood one of the largest skitters Gabriela had ever seen. Bulky and square, with a multi-storied cabin complete with windows, a door, and even what appeared to be a sun umbrella on the top floor, it reminded her almost of a house with legs rather than the usual transports or weapons of war. Meanwhile, the Flying Toaster hovered overhead, its drone reduced to a barely audible hum.
Circumstances had conspired to prevent Gabriela from ever meeting the Japanese elder until now. Though she’d been told, Gabriela still found herself caught unprepared for just how ancient the woman appeared, though she got over it quickly. Mizuko seemed like a pleasant old grandmother to Gabby and even reminded her of the nice old lady who’d lived next door back when... well, she didn’t want to get sucked into that again. There was a time and place for remembrance, and this was not it. After a few minutes of introductory small talk between them, they got down to business.
“What can you tell me about the Stragmans? Have they started the final preparations for their migration?” Gabby inquired.
“Oh, I’m sorry to tell you, dear, but they’re already migrating. They have been for several days now.”
“What?”
“They decided to embark early this year, I understand. Had to cut the visit short, sadly, though I must confess that the insects were wearing on me. Perhaps it’s for the best.”
“They’re—they’re already moving?!”
“That’s what I said. I sure hope my presence wasn’t what caused this. That large polar bear woman allowed me in, but I don’t think she trusted me too much.”
“Once you’ve checked in with her and made sure everything’s not on fire, head south over the border and into the forest. I’ve talked with the others and we’ve marked down on this map the approximate route their migration will take, along with estimates on how far they’ll be after each day. The goal is for you to get to the ambush point here—” He pointed to a small circled area on the map about a third of the way up from the southern end of the migration route. “—before they do. Both Tehlmar and Sofie say they’ve heard about this area. There’s a crapload of huge-ass roots sticking up from the ground with lots of little nooks and crannies to hide in. You get there, find a place to hide, and wait for them to come by. The sentries can’t waste their time checking. It’s also just around where they’ll likely set up camp, so you can strike from there.”
“Crud crud crud,” Gabby muttered to herself as she pulled out the map. “How many days, exactly?”
“Two, I believe.”
“Alright, I imagine that would put them around... here...”
Gabby let out a breath of relief. “Alright, that’s not that bad. If I head straight south and really book it, I can still make it in time, barely.”
The elf woman let out a skeptical hum. “I would not be so sure. You are here to free the man they have locked away, am I correct?” she asked, speaking for the first time. Her voice sounded youthful but serious, and her gaze carried the steel of someone who’s seen many things, much of them less than pleasant.
Gabby nodded.
“How important is it that they don’t know you’re in the forest?”
“Fairly important,” Gabby answered. “They might try to hide him or something if they knew. It would make it all far more difficult, and maybe far more bloody.”
“In that case, entering the forest from the north would be a mistake.”
“You know something, Vura?” the elder inquired.
“I overheard several Stragmans talking as they escorted us north. The savages didn’t think that I could hear them, but underestimating us is a national pastime of theirs. There was mention of their leader ordering a large increase in scouts monitoring the northern border. The odds of you entering from that direction are low.”
“Oh dear, it seems that we truly stoked her suspicions after all,” Mizuko sighed. “My deepest apologies.”
“It’s fine,” Gabriela lied. She let out a grunt of frustration and consulted the map once more. “Crud. I guess I’ll have to go in from the east...”
“Also a poor choice,” Vura informed her. “Did you forget who lives to the east? I remember my father once mentioned that the savages kept a heavy watch on the forest’s eastern edge.”
“Did you talk like that in Stragma?” Gabby couldn’t help but wonder.
The elf sniffed. “I know how to hold my tongue when the situation requires it, but we are thankfully no longer within that overgrown thicket.”
Gabriela sighed. “So I guess that leaves...” She looked at the map, then up at the horizon. A row of sharp, jagged teeth stabbed at the sky from the western horizon, from south to north as far as she could see. That oh-so-familiar tangle in her gut reappeared. “...the Divide.”
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Entering from the western edge of the forest by foot had ended up being almost as much of a nightmare as Gabriela had feared. To get west and south enough that she felt confident that nobody would notice her entrance, she’d had to travel through Gustil to the Divide, then clamber along the Divide’s edge across the sides of seven massive, treacherous mountains. She’d hated every minute of it, but she knew it could have been worse. She’d experienced the true terror of the Divide when she’d had to cross it, and this was a lit match compared to that bonfire.
Once she felt that she’d traveled far enough south to avoid detection, Gabriela turned eastward. She had no way of knowing for sure, which bothered her, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. If some Stragman hiding in the trees saw her, she had no way of knowing, but really, who would spend resources to monitor a mountain range so deadly and impassible that it was literally called the Divide?
Now came the hardest part: finding her way. Gabriela carried a rather modern-looking backpack strapped to her back, its pockets filled with various devices to help her. The one that mattered most right now was the simple compass, which she needed to prevent herself from running in a circle, as past events suggested she was wont to do. Other than that, the only semi-reliable way she had to navigate was to climb to the top of the nearest tree, get through the forest canopy, and look for her relative position to Ruresni and specific mountains in the Divide. If she were to be honest, neither tactic gave her too much confidence. This forest especially wasn’t like a prairie or a wooded hillside. Foliage grew absolutely everywhere, the forest floor was a chaotic mess of roots and other obstacles that threatened to trip you or worse, and you constantly had to navigate around massive trees ten meters thick.
It didn’t help that she was majorly behind schedule. The detour and the Stragmans’ early departure meant that the migration was likely at least a day past the planned ambush location. She was playing catch-up. After she located the moving city—a stressful and dubious task on its own—she’d then have to start to truly improvise. Things could get very... messy, and she didn’t want that for plenty of reasons.
Eventually, after several trips and stumbles left her sprawling over roots and ferns, she decided she needed to stop for a bit. Night was falling, and the light in the forest had dimmed to a level that she couldn’t see the ground well enough to move quickly. She set down her pack, pulled out a canteen, and drank several gulps of water.
Where even was she? She wanted to believe she was in the general area of her goal judging by the position of Ruresni, but she had little confidence. Navigating at night would be a nightmare in this place where everything looked the same and you usually couldn’t see more than a few meters ahead. The only gap in the forest she could see right now was a small patch of sky south of her, where the giant leaves of Ruresni twinkled in the twilight.
Still, she had little choice. Even without considering the plan, she had a self-imposed time limit hanging over her head. Mizuko had graciously agreed to mind the child for a day—Gabby could imagine them now, enjoying a pleasant stroll through the Gustilian countryside as the little tyke rushed this way and that, pouncing on bugs and uprooting innocent flowers—but after a day she had to move on. That left an easily bored kitty child prone to concocting explosives all alone and unsupervised in a delicate—at least according to Blake—flying craft. How long before Pari blew a hole in the thing? A day? Maybe two? Gabby had to work quickly.
Still, she allowed herself a moment to rest, catch her breath, and let her thoughts catch up to her.
This had all happened too quickly. The idea that an entire country could fall in a single day... the Ubrans could only dream of such power. What did this all mean? Were the dragons launching a campaign of conquest upon the entire world as she and the others feared, or was this something else?
The world was in trouble. She was one of the few people who knew just how terrifyingly strong dragons were. Now that the rest of the world was learning about their existence, there would be some sort of response, but just what hope did ordinary people have facing such terrors?
Her thoughts turned to the King of Kutrad, that fearful, silent man she’d played a part in coercing. The man was almost certainly dead now, never having recovered his voice. She couldn’t help but imagine how he’d likely died—terrified, powerless, and without a voice; almost as if he was a slave in his own nation. Though she could empathize with his plight, she wouldn’t exactly mourn his death.
The sky to the south was starting to brighten. Looking through the trees, she watched as Ruresni’s glow slowly grew in strength, seemingly in time with the setting sun. The view brought back Mizuko’s parting words.
“While you’re in there, don’t be afraid to take a moment and truly take it in,” she’d said.
“The tree, you mean?” Gabby had asked.
“Yes,” she’d replied. “Such things are impossible where we came from. We should appreciate what makes this place wondrous while we have the chance. Don’t you agree?”
Gabriela had to admit, the old woman had a point. Even though she’d seen it before, and from a far better vantage point, the image had lost none of its enchanting beauty. Putting aside her current problems, she let herself take in the sight of the forest basking in the great tree’s pale blue glow; the scents of the trees and the myriad different plants growing in, on, and around them; and the sounds of life all around her, be it the dozens of birds tweeting out for their mates, or calls of various other animals calling out their territory, or the rattling of insects buzzing all around her. The insects, in particular, were so numerous that it almost sounded like a symphony surrounding her, from the high-pitched chirps of crickets to what sounded like the rumble of a thousand low baritones far off in the distance—doubtless the chirps of some of the more massive bugs found in this place.
Gabriela froze, her mind rewinding. She closed her eyes and listened again, doing her best to filter out the other noises bombarding her ears. The low sound was just on the edge of her hearing, but she strained her ears, hoping to hear more. With each passing second, her heartbeat quickened. The longer she listened, the more she became sure: that wasn’t the sound of insects. That was the sound of people, a whole lot of people.
Perhaps she’d done a better job navigating than she’d thought.
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How does one sneak into and search a camp of several million people? It was a question Gabriela did not quite have the answer to. It didn’t help that she was only making things harder for herself by bringing her massive and eye-catching sword along, but she would not be caught without it ever again.
Thankfully, she had several items that could help her. The first was an oversized cloak to conceal her and her weapon as much as possible. Basically just a large cloak with extra cloth sewn on by Sofie, it was big enough now that she could wear it over both her sword and pack. The pack’s lumpy shape would alter her silhouette enough that it would hopefully not be so clear to observers that she had a giant blade under there. Cloaks were fairly common all over the world, including Stragma, and people carried all sorts of large things around, like the leg of a huge slain and butchered beast, for example.
Along with that cloak, Gabby possessed a set of powerful binoculars. A strong as they were, however, they would not magically provide answers on their own. Looking through them, she studied the encampment from afar.
This wouldn’t be easy. Just in this one area, she could see dozens of soldiers a few dozen meters out from the edge, all fiercely watching the forest. Or maybe they were hunters, as they each carried a bow as well as a melee weapon, and held their bows in hand as if they expected somebody to try to sneak through. Did they know she was coming?
According to Sofie, Arlette, and Tehlmar—the three people closest to Stragma experts they had—she wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting anywhere near the city unseen if the city had not been migrating. The Stragmans were just too good with scouting out their territory normally, and Gabby was not exactly the pinnacle of stealth. During a migration, however, they handled their scouting differently. Those that watched the borders remained, of course, but the other scouts were largely sent out on specific mission to monitor certain more dangerous aspects of the forest. That was one of the reasons that Gabby needed to move so hurriedly; the mission would be far, far harder when the migration completed.
Gabriela mentally ran through several scenarios, but so far, she didn’t see a clear way through that wasn’t likely to get her caught. They could sound an alarm if she tried brute force. She’d considered trying to sneak through from above but scrapped that idea when she realized there were more hunters in the trees as well. There was a large amount of ground vegetation she could use to obscure herself and try to sneak through, but her pack and sword were not exactly made for stealth, and if she were honest, neither was she. Zipping through with great speed, on the other hand, she could do. If she knew exactly where her fellow Earthling was, then that would have been an option. Unfortunately, a city on the move was still a city.
Before she was able to find a solution, however, a solution presented itself to her. A loud barking howl from up in the trees to her right was quickly answered by what sounded like hundreds more that seemed to shake the forest. The hunters started hollering to each other and moved en masse in the direction of the clamor, their attention no longer anywhere near her.
The reason for this became clear when one of the hunters in the trees loosed an arrow. A cry of pain added to the noise and a shape fell from another tree further away. As it passed through a spot of light from the city shining through the trees, Gabby saw what looked like a huge, four-armed, saber-toothed orangutan plummeting to its death. The mass of apes, if that was what they were, howled even louder and attacked.
So, that was why the hunters were on the lookout, Gabby realized. The Stragmans were moving their city through territories, and the owners of those territories would not take that lying down. She wondered how many apes would have to die before they turned tail. Still, she wasn’t about to waste this opportunity. Darting forward, she weaved her way toward the city, keeping the trees and other growth between her and the hunters as much as possible. It might not have even been necessary. None of them noticed her streak behind them, so focused were they on beating back the furious pack. Now she just had to find a single person among millions. How hard could it be?
Shockingly easy, it turned out. The Stragmans had decided on a strategy of maximum security and minimum duplicity. They hadn’t bothered trying to hide the cell the man was kept in one bit, instead focusing on isolating it from the rest of the city via a buffer of troops by the hundreds to keep anybody from getting any bright ideas. Stuck directly in the center of the encampment, it hadn’t taken Gabriela long to find it as soon as she’d noticed that the Shells were all discretely glancing in the same direction. It made sense, she supposed, that the imprisonment of the most famous member of their caste would be flaunted in their collective face. The Chos wanted to use it as a demonstration to reinforce their powerlessness.
That was about to change. There had been some stumbles and a few unexpected detours, sure, but in the end, she’d overcome those obstacles to make it to this point. Now, all that remained was the simple and easy part. The part she was good at.
“Once you find him, wait until they bring his girlfriend or whatever. We need to snatch both of them—a two-for-one deal—and that’s the one time they’ll bring the keys to the cell. Sofie’s off getting Pari to make some knockout gas bombs for you to use against whoever is around. There’s also going to be an... antidote bomb, I guess you could call it. The knockout gas will probably hit our friends as well as everybody else, so throw that in the cell to wake them back up while you’re searching for the keys. Do you think your powers will be able to fight off the knockout gas or should we get her to make something for you as well?”
“Let’s not take chances.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll let them know.”
The city had settled down for the night in a large valley that was still dense with trees and undergrowth but had a much more level floor than most of the forest, making it a better site than most for settling down. Like everywhere else, the trees grew seemingly at random, but the city still somehow managed a somewhat organized layout even with the scattered obstacles. There were streets of a sort, for example. The Stragmans set up their tents and camps in such a way that there were straight-ish ‘avenues’ running through the city. These ‘avenues’ were filled with underbrush, of course, but people were slowly chopping it down as they went.
One nice thing about being stupidly strong was that Gabby could begin preparations for her attack from such a distance that no observer would connect her to her target. Finding a spot three football field lengths, more or less, from the cell and soldiers that miraculously didn’t have any trees in between, she took off her pack and calmly removed four large candles, each so thick that she could just barely wrap her fingers around half of the cylinder. Placing them on the ground beside her, she then pulled out a single small candle and a set of three cloth and set them down as well. Lastly, she retrieved from the pack a special lighter that Blake had made just for this mission and tossed it with the rest. Sliding her sword into a large clump of ferns, she settled down to wait.
She did not go unnoticed throughout this time of course, but nobody seemed to think anything was off enough to say or do anything. She nodded to passersby, smiled to the occasional child, and otherwise just sat and waited, taking subtle glances in the cell’s direction in the meantime. The secret, Arlette had stressed to her before she’d left, was to act like you belonged there. If you projected that there was nothing wrong with your presence, especially in a massive city where it was impossible to know everybody there, people would just assume that nothing was wrong. The cloak also helped hide the lack of ears or tail—though there were enough humans in Stragma for that to be a believable explanation—and nobody would guess that the weapons she was going to use were the harmless-looking candles sitting beside her.
The night wore on, and then the time for action arrived. Funnily enough, she ended up not having to watch the cell at all, as the procession to escort her fellow Earthling’s friend to the cell passed right by her on its way. She took a swig from her canteen to hide her eyes as she searched for the man with the keys. She didn’t see them hanging from anybody’s hip or anything, so she instead memorized the face of the woman leading the procession. Gabby guessed that she was the one most likely to have it on her somewhere.
Gabriela waited for the guards to arrive at their destination before she stood up. First, she tied one of the cloths around her face so that it covered her nose and mouth, tucking the other two into a pocket. The cloth smelled like burnt hair, but Sofie had assured her that it would neutralize the sleeping gas—for a while, at least. After she strapped her sword back onto her back, she picked up the candles and the lighter and waited.
As soon as she saw the cell door open, she launched herself forward and up, arcing through the air towards the cell and its gaggle of guards. In three bounds, she was there, landing with a loud thump atop the wooden prison just as the door clicked back shut. Everybody turned to look in her direction, but she was already tossing out freshly lit candles into the crowd surrounding her. The candles, each made with incredibly short wicks to speed up activation times, burst into clouds of white smoke before anybody could react, blanketing the entire area in thick fumes and fog. She heard hundreds of voices cough and gag, followed quickly by the thumps of unconscious bodies hitting the ground.
Gabriela hopped down into the smoke, hoping that Sofie’s promises about the cloth held true. They did, at least for the moment, and she quickly lit the small other candle and tossed it through the bars of the cell. An orange smoke began to fill the cell’s interior and she turned away to search for the keys. She found the key bearer not far away, having stepped away from the cell just before she’d landed atop it. Luckily for Gabby, the keys were still in the woman’s hand, rather than in some inner pocket or something. Unluckily for her, they were on a large key ring with hundreds of keys, and she had no idea which one was the one she needed.
Gabby could hear all manner of shouts from outside the cloud, from cries of alarm to calls for reinforcements, though for now, the smog protected her. None could enter without falling asleep as long as the candles continued to spout their noxious haze. A pair of hacking coughs, one strong and loud and another much quieter and weaker, greeted her from within the cell as she began to fiddle with the keys. She tried one to no success, then another, also to no success.
Out of the orange gloom within the cell appeared a man, almost making Gabby jump. She recognized the massive, muscled man as her rescuee, of course, though judging from the look in his single eye, he didn’t recognize her quite so quickly—perhaps because of the cloth over her face. She fished the other two out of her pocket and handed it to him.
“Tie these over your faces. It will keep the gas out,” she instructed him.
The man seized the offered textiles and did as he was told, still looking at her with confusion. It wasn’t until he noticed the sword on her back that he seemed to put it all together.
“You’re that woman, the one who fought Palebane,” he said as he tied the second clothe over the face of a trembling and coughing woman with pale white ears and a drooping white tail.
“I’m here to rescue you. Both of you,” she informed them as she continued to cycle through key after key. “Just need to get this door open...”
The man reached out a hand. “Give it to me. I know which key it is; I’ve seen it a hundred times.”
Grateful for the help, she passed the key ring into his palm and he pulled it through the bars. He stepped back into the orange-white smoke, his figure slightly blurred and out of reach, and held the keys at his side with one hand while pulling the wolf woman against his other side protectively.
“What are you doing?” Gabby asked as the man made seemingly no effort to find the needed key. “Come on, we need to get out of here before the smoke fades and things start to get messy!”
The man responded with a single word.
“Then you take them and run. That’s that. No way anybody in Stragma can catch you once you get going. You can use this to call the airship to you,” he told her, handing her another one of his doodads, this one a small box with a single button on it. “Twist it clockwise three full rotations until it clicks, then press it. You can keep moving; the ship will hone in on your location. Once you’re scot-free, you can move on to that thing we talked about in Gustil, then after that, come home. Sound good?”
“What if they don’t want to go, or something?” she idly wondered.
Blake stared at her like she’d just declared that the Earth was flat. “You serious?” he scoffed. “He’s been locked in a cell and treated horribly for months. What’s he going to do, say no?”
Gabriela stared in disbelief at the huge man cradling the comparatively tiny wolf woman against his broad chest. “What do you mean, no?!”