Battle of Zoboru

In the city of Zoboru, the beauty of the mountains is inescapable. High spires of unflinching grey rock capped with snow. The white flurries of snow rarely made it down into the plains this time of year. Unbeknownst to the citizens of Zoboru there was another inescapable factor soon to be at work. Inella’s witches had shown themselves to the South East of Zoboru. Shouting guards were hustling around a defensive network of towers and running up and down the internal stairs of the twenty foot walls with no discernable pattern. It was all frantic and preparatory. Pietro had made sure that the guards and soldiers, calvary, canonists, and court wizards were ready to attack Inella and her witch conclave.

This played perfectly into Inella’s strategy. By showing to the South East, all attention was drawn away from the North, where Chief Tufenahei and his raiding party were approaching the city. Left unguarded, the war party from Cullah would tear through the city. Tufenahei kept a quick pace, his soldiers followed suit. Running, running, and then up to the walls and climbing. The bricks of the northern wall had deep grooves between them and tools for scaling- rope with metal hooks. There was not a single guard to see the spectacle of 200 warriors from Cullah climbing the wind chipped walls. Half the citizens of Zoboru were dead before the battle had even started.

Chief Tufenahei wiped the blood from one of his blades. He looked to Lyrani, who was in the same liberated house as him. She had already wiped the blood off of her knife. “To attain justice is to forcibly wipe away the old systems of oppression and install the solution. This solution is not to oppress a different group, but rather to establish self-sufficient communities.” Chief Tufenahei continued to look at Lyrani as he spoke. “Let the cycle of violence that we have maintained with our oppressors end here.”

Meanwhile, Inella and her coven stepped backwards over planted traps on the unknowing battlefield. Pietro insisted that his mobilized forces attack the witches outside of the city, so that there would be no damage inside the walls. King Pietro himself was stationed in the tower on the wall with the most direct viewing angle of the medium length grasses on a slightly sloping hill. The space around and between two armies. Grass that flicked left and right by the guiding wind’s blow- grass that would be trampled and smeared with blood.

“Hm.” King Pietro smirked to himself. “This battle should be over in an instant!” All of his cabinet stooges nodded in eager agreement to his self aggrandizing words.

Inella stuck her arm out and a falcon landed on it. That same falcon hopped down gracefully and transformed into Dremeira. Dremeira began speaking in a hurried tone. “Those from Cullah are within the city. If we retreat one more line backwards the wizards of Zoboru will be ours alone, leaving Tufenahei undefended. This will also give the women who are infiltrating the city via the river time to establish themselves. There is a small unit of archers posted on the walls, and we can expect the king to have at least one guard. Otherwise, it would seem all the other soldiers are on the field.” Dremeira started panting as she finished speaking; she was out of breath.

Inella nodded and gave an understanding response. “Well, we will retreat back one more line, and then the fun will begin.” In response, Lyndross and Nehaynosh ordered the present witches to collectively move back another hundred feet.

“I will be leaving now. I’m going to lead the river party.” Dremeira turned back into a falcon and flew towards the river.

Feathers spread wide, pumping wings, picking through the currents, poking the clouds, diving. Rapidly. Speed, flattening out. Landing. Dremeira did not wait a second to begin her speech. “Alright ladies, Inella is moving back one more line. It’s time to get in the water. We all know what we have to do. Be brave, swim fast. We will recollect once we are inside the walls.” And with her quick encouragement the twenty women transformed into sea life (if they didn’t use the air bubble spell that June had taught them).

Aquatic breathing, filtering. Frills on fins fuddled out, motion. The river engulfed in shadow, running underground, barely any space between the surface of the rushing water and the packed brown dirt of the tunnel ceiling. Swimming, swimming. And out on the other side. The sunlight glared in the eyes of the transforming druids. Bubbled. Popped. Breathing mechanisms changed.

“Alright…” Dremeira whispered to the huddle of sopping women, rags and robes dripping onto the grey concrete lattices of ground decoration. “Our goal is to attack the archers posted above us.” Dremeira pointed towards two sets of stairs. Then, she set the women into two teams- one to scale each stair.

Well worn shoes thudded up the rock stairs. The archers heard the sound, but did not think to look behind. All the enemies were within their sight, out on the grass of the battlefield. Or so they thought. A crispy wave of fire magic conjoined from multiple casters can prove ignorant archers so wrong.

Zoboru’s cavalry whinnied nervously. Inella had never fought horses before. The thought passed through her mind and was gone in an instant, unconsidered. Inella led the charge of witches, sprinting towards the enemy forces. The Zoboruan cavalry charged in response. Zoboruan foot soldiers marched forward behind them with wizards interspersed between them.

Just as the two inevitably colliding forces were to meet, the first trap was triggered.

The ground opened up beneath everyone in the middle of the two armies. The witches had made a pitfall of spears, swords, javelins, and other menacing spikes. The pained shrieks of men and horses combined into an audible horror. Men and horses were impaled: falling, bleeding, dying (slow and fast). The witches had no such fall. June and Lyndross had stayed behind the charge and combined their powers to lift all the women before them up above the battlefield on controlled currents of air.

Before too many of the foot soldiers could fall into the trap the Zoboruan wizards lifted them up on blue nets of solid energy that had the shape of a glassy spider webs. Wherever this saving energy was displayed, Inella rained bolts of fire down. So high up above the battlefield, Inella simultaneously rose on a personal current of air and dispatched a nasty volley of heat missiles that struck at the pockets of Zoboruan wizards. Few wizards had the ability to counter Inella’s spell at the same time as they levitated above the pitfall.

Crashing.

Dying.

The second trap was a play into the first. As the battlefield was now, there were two grassy plateaus on either side of a large pitfall. As the second trap activated, the plateau that the Zoboruan forces stood on collapsed into a slope that led down to the pitfall. Men in heavy armor fell down on the shifted ground.

The witches then worked together to flood the slope. A downpour of rain. A tidal wave. A rapid river. All summoned to slick and muck up the ground. Men in heavy armor were drowning as they were pushed towards the pitfall. Sliding, floating, tumbling. A majority of Pietro’s forces were sliced, cut, or impaled. They had fallen, drowned, been crushed, been minced in a vicious, unrelenting current of water as the water flowed into a meat grinder of swords, spears, and javelins. The water turned red and spilled out of the pitfall. It reached lifeless tentacles outwards in all directions until finally absorbing into the grass.

All that remained of Pietro’s army was a scant few wizards who levitated above the river of a battlefield inside spheres of blue energy. They shot lightning through holes in their vehicles. Inella countered their magic by making the air so dense that the lightning could not move through it. It was a surreal sight, seeing lightning frozen in place, looking as if it had struck a mirror mid flight. The water beneath evaporated, and the flesh of the fallen soldiers went with it. The wizards lowered back onto the ground in front of the pitfall. A graveyard of bleached bones and empty sets of armor. Well, not empty; but a skeleton always struggles in filling out armor.

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The wizards of Zoboru wound into tight circles and started defensively countering spells and sending out attacks in a trading cycle. The witches attacked from the sky and from the ground. The Zoboruan wizards were overwhelmed, and like a line of lighted candles, each of their lives were extinguished in a gradual, calculated, and concise exhalation.

Pietro looked through the stained glass panel of the window in horror. He thought he was safe up in the tower. He thought his army would win. He had lied twice. His army was now fully dead, and Chief Tufenahei had killed everyone in the room besides Pietro. The two of them stood in silence. Pietro continued to look out the window, shocked.

“Die knowing that the indigenous of Zoboru have been rightfully returned with the help of your national enemy.” Chief Tufenahei said. He did not wait for Pietro to twist his head around. The king panted and died. Pietro only caught a glance of the chief before his eyes closed forever.

After the fighting had resolved, the people from Cullah began to move into the city. As this was happening, Chief Tufenahei and Inella met once more to congratulate mutual success.

“Thank you for your help here today, Chief Tufenhaei. Thank you and all of your people.” Inella made the formal gesture to show respect. Tufenahei smiled and used his hands to wave downward.

“There is no need for that, Inella. Your witches did all the work. Thank you for fighting for justice.” Tufenahei took one of his necklaces off and gave it to Inella. “This is a relic from before the diaspora. Now that my people have been restored to their indigenous lands, bonds can be restored. I have no need for this symbol anymore, now that I have returned. It is yours to keep, and my hope is that it will assist you in your liberation.” Inella left and began to put on the necklace. Before she could get it fully on she was socially cornered. Addimar and an unfamiliar woman were approaching Inella.

“Congratulations on your victory, Inella.” Addimar said. His straggling grey hair framed a sharply smiling face. Wrinkles were under his eyes and on his forehead.

“You are the man from back West.” Inella said, making the connection of where she had seen Addimar before. His face was burned into her memory from the moment she saw him. “I thought you wanted no part in this fight?”

“On the contrary. I very much do want a part in this fight. In your fight. Perhaps I will join you after you defeat Baz.” Addimar’s robes blew in the wind, billowing to the side, shifting across his body. He smiled. It was a stale smile. Bread crumbs. Days old. “In the meantime, I’ll answer your third question.”

“What?” Inella said, unknowingly asking a second question. “Who is she?” Inella pointed to the woman Addimar stood with.

“Her name is Kotsi, and she is a voodoo prodigy.” Kotsi smiled at Inella. Kotsi had long black braids, dark black skin, soft hands, electric brown eyes, and a Luzan accent. She was average height, and wearing a grey hessian shift with a brown hood. Kotsi’s left shoulder hoisted a black leather bag with magical supplies. “She was already on her way to find you, I just guided her to you. She was walking all the way from Luzan- The deep South. But, I’ll let her speak for herself. Kotsi.”

“Hello, Inella.” Kotsi said. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard many things about you. I want to do my part in this fight that you are beginning. I have some specific strategies for attacking Luzan, but I would love to help in all the battles forthcoming.” Kotsi pulled a voodoo doll out of her bag so that Inella could see it. “I made this myself, and could easily make one for a king, general, you name it. My voodoo was unmatched in Luzan, so I hope that I will assimilate smoothly into the ranks of your coven. I come from the deep South as Addimar mentioned. Food was scarce, housing scarcer, the swamps were filled with bugs, alligators, birds, and frogs. You couldn’t be too surprised if you woke up with a snake in your bed- snakes twelve feet long, or bigger. Yes, it was a difficult place to grow up, but I believe I am stronger because of it. I’m not sure if there is some sort of test you make girls take before they join your ranks, but if there is, I am ready.”

“If there were a test, you would have already passed, Kotsi.” Inella said with a rare smile. “I’ll introduce you to Kota and Nestelle. Kota is also from Luzan, and she is our most skilled voodoo witch. Nestelle is the current voodoo teacher. The two of them will be your friends, I hope. You certainly will have a lot to talk about.”

“Goodbye for now, Inella.” Addimar said as the two women walked away from him.

Kings Reconvene

“It’s simply ludicrous!” King Sidregar of Hokurr said. “How can such a small group of girls tear through two different kingdoms?” Sidregar and three other kings were seated at a white marble table. King Borundu had been invited back in place of Pietro. There was a new big four, now that Zoboru had fallen. Josofu shifted, smoothing his pants as King Edobe began to speak.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we stop her.” King Edobe began to stroke his beard with his thick black fingers. For what Edobe said next, his eyes were down, his shoulder was turned to the side. He pushed the words through the veil of life into the realm of death so that Pietro could hear him. “Pietro was a fool, he had the opportunity to ask for help and decided against it. We cannot make the same mistakes in the coming battles.”

“If Hokurr was to help Ko’fell fight against our enemies from the South we could bring all our forces up into Baz in time to crush Inella. We have to deal with the islanders attacking us from the South before we can help anyone else.” King Borundu proposed.

King Sidregar laughed. “Are you really having that much trouble with a couple of bow and arrows from The Tufula Islands? How many agitators could there possibly be? Twenty?” King Sidregar’s comment was contextualized best by the fact that very few people were presumed to have survived the diaspora from Ko’fell and Luzan to The Tufula Islands. It had been a gruesome slaughter, they ran indigenous people out of their land and towards the sea. History has a way of repeating itself. The greedy consumption and the profit in imperialist kingdoms could not be sated; not until everything around it had been eaten. Imperialism dies by biting into its own flesh and eating itself. For the imperialist state is a bonfire fed by stolen resources and lives; a corrupt thing that cannot burn forever. The eyes of privileged men are lit with reflecting fires that cause them to eternally chase ambition. They run towards their goals of expansion and exploitation. And in running they have a torch tied to their pajama tails, and they drag that torch through a field of dry hay, and everything behind them is consumed by fire, while everything in front of them is ‘taking candy from a baby.’ Imperialism is destined to fail. For the man runs all the way to a cliff, turns around and sees for the first time the damage he has done, and realizes it is too late, he has nowhere in the world to run, for his actions have ruined the world. He must choose to camp in the inedible ashes of the bridges he burned or turn and face the exile of the sea.

“Unfortunately, we are greatly troubled. We have caught four Tufulans so far. We believe there is only one left in the forest, but this one is clearly the most skilled. There have been no reported sightings, not from soldiers or citizens. That one archer has killed over 80 of my best men so far. There is no implication that they are losing any momentum either. For all I know their goal could be to kill everyone on the continent the way that they are working day and night to disrupt Ko’fell.” King Borundu looked down in shame for a moment. “King Sidregar, what do you say? Will you help me catch the last archer?”

“Blood and ashes, you expect me to help you catch one damned person in a forest? It would be a complete waste of time to send help South. Inella may mobilize towards Baz quickly, we don’t know. We must get reinforcements to Baz as soon as possible.”

“I agree.” King Josofu said. “That is why I will mobilize 20 cavalry and 3 wizards to join the battle in Baz.”

“Well, I cannot afford to send any men North.” King Borundu said in a poorly hidden bitterness.

“That’s fine.” King Edobe said. “I will pledge 100 cavalry, half of my soldiers, and a third of my wizards.” King Edobe’s proposal shocked the table. Josofu had pledged a grain of rice in comparison to Edobe’s offer of support. Inspired by Edobe’s selflessness, Sidregar spoke next.

“I will bring all of my forces to Baz. We can assume that Fa’tal will also send support to Baz, since they are sister cities. Based on what we all contribute, that should be more than enough to extinguish Inella’s genocide.”

“Yes, by my calculations as well, that should be sufficient.” Edobe smirked, the whole time knowing that Sidregar would try to one up his proposal.

The kings sat together drinking, eating meals in double digit courses. The oil, grease, and salt smacked on the edge of their chewing lips. It was a pasty decadence that few knew. 99% of the continent would never eat so lavishly, so wastefully. And the four kings sat there, not thinking about their duty, subjects, or trouble in any package or parcel.

It was a privilege to be able to stop thinking about Inella, distracted by wine and professional catering. News of Celith and Zoboru falling had reached the other kingdoms.

People were scared.

Living in fear.

Waiting to be swept under a tidal wave of revolution.

But the kings did not care, they were not even aware.