Chapter 31
Onwards
Join us warriors, we have been on a long journey. Some will be spared: those who have helped us. We play the same game as you, only on a different level. Join us and become one of us. We have both awaited for many millennia, and the time is now.
We are strong and silent, the revolution will be quick in each of its turns. Few stand before us, closing in, though we have no doubt to rid them of the face of this planet, you will help us.
Their reply: Call us your friends, we’ll join you.
———
I jumped out of bed and ran into the hangar. “Clyde, Dakur said something, he’s joining with someone.” I found him alone, none of the other Xenos had woken up yet.
“With who?”
“I’m not sure, I just heard voices in my dreams. One was unmistakably Dakur, the second, a muffled voice, could have been anyone, or anything.”
“We can check databases of accents and voices, maybe you’d recognize one of them?”
“I’d love to but I don’t think we have time for that. We have to leave soon, everyone who will fight with us is here, some have been training for weeks, the Dryads are are healed and motivated, weapons are being handed out and practiced with. We need to leave as soon as we can.”
“Alright. Then we hope for the best. The battle schematics have been organized and are up to date with each new arrival.” Clyde replied, fulfilling his duties as the mastermind computer.
“Let’s get them all together, get them fed and we’ll go over the plans.”
A few moments later a few of the Xenos had woken up and started pacing around, walking outside, trying some fresh air, trying to find some untouched bush to pick berries of off, or just start nibbling at the leaves instead, some of the more manic started doing push-ups or similar versions of exercise.
I waited for a few more minutes until most of them had woken and briefed them quickly, “Eat fast and come for the final meeting, we’re packing up and leaving first thing in the morning.”
I had to get ready, I cleared with Clyde that I’ll be taking the plane, a one man craft, maybe two, if they don’t mind the storage area. I had already thought about flying over the Ancients and just gunning them down, but I had recalled a story, the Ancients are somehow proofed against things like that, destructive machines don’t work too well on them. We’ll try our luck with guns, but the only proven way is getting up close and sliding metal, or wood, through their thick skins and hides.
Minutes later, much faster than a normal breakfast would have taken, the Xenos were all lined up and standing ready for the briefing.
“I need you all to be ready by tonight. We’re leaving in the morning. That means food collected for a trip across the southern fields, bags ready, weapons sharpened and nothing left behind.”
As suspected they had the combined looks of anticipation and horror on their faces. A few weeks of waiting for some of them, and the suspense of an actual battle, imminent and fearful, until the day it comes.
They were all ready now, training, exercising and preparing themselves in all ways for this. For some it was their usual way of life. Battles and fights, claiming the prize of their village for their prestigious warrior title. For others, battle was a long lost art barely showing through their genes. And others, trained, knew their tactics, but never put it to use. Our motley army of Xeno warriors standing alongside each other, willing to fight for the peace of Xenobia since our proto-Xeno Ancestors.
The leaders turned to their own groups and made sure there was enough food to last a week or more, their weapons sharpened, cleaned and sheathed, their arrows packed with plenty more, and bows strung with backup strings.
They were moving faster than their training days, many going out to the forest and coming back with buckets filled with mushrooms and foliage, packed and packed until it was nearly solid. Others cooked broth, collecting spices and packaging large quantities of it for each of their members. Smells mixed, and with what each species thought was pleasant, soon became an odd smell of a back alley kitchen.
Clyde had been putting a few final touches on the ship, calibrating lasers, missiles, turrets and whatnot.
Dryads, had taken to sharpening their swords, one grindstone and forty swords. They hardened their shields with a repeated action of heating and rubbing oils and dust of stone into its grain and reinforcing it with metal until it became a sturdy, yet not so heavy shield shining and sparkling, a piece of art that even withstood a bovine stepping on it. (It was tried.)
The Dryads had made plenty of their swords and shields, until almost every Xeno had one, matching and unifying the army. Even large ones for the Bovine and Equine, smaller ones for the Murids and Pisces, custom fit chest guards for the Aves and a special one just for me, unlike the others and matching the already completed necklace, the murmur seed. Though timber, the wooden weapons and armor where as strong as iron, if not superior, and most importantly, unified us.
It was late afternoon when they had completed everything, though the cooking would go on for another few hours. I started thinking about a speech, one just before battle, it was a bit early, a small one in the morning when they’re all ready to march through the forest, head southeast and onto the everlasting meadows and fields of grass and who knows what else.
For now I’ll let them sleep, have the comfort of a small civilization before going into the wilderness. I went to bed as well, wishing everyone, including myself, sweet dreams in the midst of all the turbulence.
———
“Dawn,” the familiar voice of my dreams called out to me to in my sleep, “I wish you the best.”
Though I’m sure she did, I could feel some slight regrets. Sending the Huntress, in her mind the best Huntress, out to battle, into a fight that no one knows the outcome.
“You’re doing your best.” I told her. “I know that the future has come so far.
“Predictions and divination stopped at this exact moment, Dawn. I could see everything, clearer as time went on and the future came closer. Today I am worried. Today, I’m not sure, may be the last day I will see you. For what reason I don’t know. I may carry on, you may too, in which case we’ll have the pleasure of many more years to come.”
“Then we make it the best.” I hesitated, did I believe I would die? That I would never have a guiding spirit again? That the life inside of all the Felines dies here tonight because of a failure to divine the future?
I changed what I said. “I won’t die, we won’t loose, and Xenobia will continue in its ways, modern and primitive, only without fear of extinction.”
“It will,” she said, agreeing with every ounce of it. “There is a future. For me and for you.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
She took me to the desert garden once more. The very edge of the southeast of the mainland. Xeres was there. Standing next to the pear tree, gazing out towards the city, though all that could be seen was desert and stars.
“It’s interesting,” he said in the tone of a philosopher, “that I came from that system, right there.” He pointed to the stars. “We were created. The best minds of any warriors, the best biologically engineered bodies. We were sent her to fight. For some it was a test, others a game, for us, a battle. When in reality it was a new life, pioneers into a perfect planet, relatively uninhabited. We fought to the death of some, and unbeknownst to us, were left to settle life. Someone, our creators or not, sent beasts to clean us up. We were made so well, just a few fractions of twisted DNA dissimilar from each other and still a team somewhere inside of us, despite the rivalry of our initial purpose, we handled the beast, by luck or fortune or other influences yet it only held them off, until a few months ago, they return and ourselves rejoin to vanquish the beats. We may not have another chance. For myself and Ares, our battle has been won, we cannot fight, only you, our progeny and descendants, but you, a real prodigy.”
I felt he could go on, but the tears in his eyes and his choking up stopped him.
“I thank you Xeres. I won’t fail you, we will win. Xenobia will be changed because of you and what you’ve done for me. My father, and my mother. I couldn’t have asked for anyone better.”
We walked around the outskirts of the desert garden. The sand squishing between our toes and walking slowly, hoping this wouldn’t be our last walk, really knowing it wouldn’t be. For them, time was all they have.
“One more thing Dawn.” Ares said once we made it back to the garden’s entrance. “I have a feeling they’re cheating. Something might happen we can’t account for. There are many variables and things we don’t know, much more than anything. Fate is all we count on now. Stay on your toes, be cautious and fight like you’ve never fought before. Make us proud.”
The garden and the two ancestral figures in the sand twisted away.
———
Follow me. Obey my command. The battle is nigh. There’s now no chance of losing. We are setting off today.
———
I woke in my bed, Clyde was just coming in to wake me, but I caught him off guard, sitting up and saying good morning.
“Early morning,” he said, “the others are waking and can’t keep still, they’re anxious.”
“So am I,” I said, jumping out of bed. “I wish I was as excited as they.”
“You aren’t?” He asked.
“This is the first and final battle with the Ancients. It’s been thousands of years and it’s been dropped on our shoulders. I only hope we’re enough. I have nothing left up my sleeves but what’s already here, and we don’t know what they have up theirs.” I said as I was getting dressed, checking that I had all of my tools and gadgets, sliding Ungu in place onto my foot.
“That’s true, but I believe we have more than they. As you call it, luck, hope, fortune, good intentions.”
“I only hope that’s what it is. If luck is what’s kept me alive so far, it better keep me alive through this.”
“Before you leave your room Dawn,” Clyde stopped me, holding up a small flat box.
The covering of which wasn’t leather, but a shell, greenish-brown. I stepped closer to take it from him, wondering what it could be. A turtle shell, hinged box of some sort.
“I found it in your bed about a week back. Don’t know where it came from but, as I’ve had a chance to analyze objects and time you bring back from these places, such as the relic of good fortune or the necklace you’ve grown from your neck, I’ve found that it doesn’t meet the requirements of something strictly adhering to science.”
What could he possibly mean? I opened the box and in it found a necklace. One made of glass, shimmering between blue and green and white. It was a figurine of a Pisces, long aquatic tail and human features, frozen in a pose casually swimming.
“It was the gift from Poseidon.”
“If that’s what it is, than that’s what it is.” Clyde said, giving me his non-sarcastic face.
“Well, of course, but it would obviously have something magic inside of it. Something that make me stronger or lighter or something.”
“In the name of science, that wouldn’t be possible. But as I said, it does have that magical feeling to it.”
We walked into the hangar where all the Xenos were in motion, packing up and leaving nothing behind. A mess I wouldn’t mind cleaning up once Clyde and I got back, alone, and starting whatever else was next. I really wish it would be true, one thing I can look forward to, a reminder that there’s a future after this.
The groups lined up, I counted them: two Pisces-turned-amphibious, five Bovine, three Ursine, eight Murids, three Lizards, my friends Roland and Farrow, with their army of fifty Equines and fifteen Aves and the Dryads, twenty of them which have all gotten back on their feet and are healthy as ever. We definitely outnumber the Ancients, just the Ancients by number. That doesn’t account for their size and strength. Plus we’re all warriors to the bone, trained for weeks, fit, muscular, a team, we have purpose, a purpose with every other Xeno on this planet behind us.
I saluted them and they saluted back. “Are you ready!” I yelled.
They yelled back with various answers, all affirmative. And we marched outside, through the beginning of our trek, the forest, which will lead us to the western fields, southeast to the southern fields and finally where we battle the Ancients.
Clyde jumped into the jet a few hours later, we were still able to message each other when needed and we coordinated battle tactics, myself briefing the others on the way.
The Dryads had been the slowest until we put them on the backs of the Equines, then the Ursines where lagging behind, there wasn’t anything we could do about that, we had them moving as fast as they could. The Aves soared above us, hidden most of the time until we reached the outskirts of the jungle. We headed south for the rest of the day. About an hour after it was dark and we camped, spread out and enjoying the cool breeze of the fields, looking up at the stars and telling stories by the fire while the ones exhausted slept and until the rest of us nodded off.
Clyde landed the ship nearby while a few Equines stood on the very outskirts of our camp keeping watch through the night.
In the dead of night I heard a small commotion. Dryads were waking up and in hushed tones ranting about something. I got up and found what it was. Talpas. The little burrowing rodent, living underground was paralyzed in the grips of one of the bigger Dryads.
“Look who I caught spying around here,” The Dryad said.
“Get rid of him.” Cedar, said. “This is official business to save Xenobia. I don’t care if we’re on their territory. We’re with the Huntress and if they want to they can’t fight her.”
The captive Talpa came alive now and started squirming, “The Huntress? Where is she. Let me talk to her.”
“I’m here,” I said. “Put him down so we can talk. He’s no harm to me.” I added.
And to that the Dryads said, “You hear that? Harmless.”
“I don’t mean it that way. They’re my friends, what do you have against them?”
“Huntress, listen,” the squirming Talpa whined. “We’re here to help you. We couldn’t make it to the temple but we know we’d find you in the fields.”
“He’s lying. He’s a spy.” The Dryads pestered on.
“Let him say what he wants. They saved my life once, helped me in other ways, and they’re a friend of Winston the Wizard, mining the gold for him so many years ago that made up the priceless relics of the Xeno tribes.”
“How do you know about that?” They all said, Dryads and Talpa included.
“Another story, for know I know the Talpas are with us in this battle so leave him alone and let them help. We’re all in this together, against the Ancients.”
“Fine,” the Dryads said.
“Thank you,” said the Talpa, “I know we’ll meet on the battlefield, but if we don’t meet before, know that we’ve got your back.”
“Thank you Talpa,” I said and he departed scrambling back to his hole and vanishing, the hole closing up seconds later.
“So tell me, what have you got against Talpas.”
“They’re hideous creatures, first of all,” Cedar started. “Secondly, they hide underground and eat the roots of the Hamadryads, ruining forests and turning them into unsheltered wastelands like this. Then, a long time ago when we’ve already had enough they found Drus and started nibbling on his roots. And you know his roots are deep, and long, and reach far and wide, throughout the forest and even further. That was when Drus had enough of it and commanded they be dug up and tortured on sight. The order was never cancelled and they still nibble the roots, just not the roots of grandfather Drus.”
“Well, fine,” I said, “but this is now, and I need all the help I can get. So don’t torture them! Maybe, after all this we can give them an amnesty.” My good sense came through to keep peace, and to keep myself focused on what may happen after the fight. After we win.
“Maybe,” Cedar said. “I know your history is pretty good, the Talpas along with us Dryads were here before the Xenos, any of you. We have a long, long history, and lots of things have changed, some things have stayed the same, but what you, the Xenos have done here, it’s changed a lot. Even the Ancients we have to fight, not because they’re originally our enemy, but I can almost say you’ve brought them here, annihilating cities. Winston and Dacoit handled them before they took over, but even those fifty or so years before they were captured made a big impact, even with their so called treaty, they still wreaked havoc every year destroying forests. Then with the destruction of the Apes village and ours, we have to fight, because that’s the only thing we can do now. There’s Dryads in other places, I hope are safe, but I don’t know what the Ancients have been up to since they left the forest.”
“I know. It’s what all of us can do now. Fight. But it’s a fight we’ll never get again, until the Ancients are stopped, nobody can live in peace.”
We walked back to the middle of the camp.
“Let me get some sleep before tomorrows’s long walk. Good night.”
“Good night,” Cedar said.
———
I’m waiting.
———
I’m watching.