FanStory.com - Gima: Battle Beginsby barkingdog

Dear Reader: This is actually Fantasy-Adventure, but there is no category for it on FanStory. Thank you for reading. Enjoy.:) barking dog

Previously:

The Four rescued Gima and all of the vertant and vermel captives at Warik's Compound, wounding Warik and killing all of his guards. Jacknel, furious that Warik's Warriors never showed for a scheduled battle at The Arena, goes to Upperton, finds the carnage. Warik tells them about Trell and the others. Before he dies, Warik directs Jacknel, Rolak and Rolak's Enforcers to a tunnel that leads to Upper Earth.

CHAPTER 37

Trell and his party reach the tunnel. Hungry, they eat what little is left while Hunter lights a fire to heat several blades for cauterizing open wounds.

“We can’t stop … can’t rest.” Picar looks at those in the tunnel.

“Right,” chorts Larue, walking from one to another with a red hot blade.

“Hurry, they’re not far behind.” A wide-eyed youth shivers beside Jamie as Larue slaps iron to his lacerated shoulder and forearm.

“Who follows? There were no survivors.” Trell walks to the entrance, peering into the gloom of the murmuring underground.

Picar and Jami exchange glances, knowing they’d left Warik wounded.

“We were scheduled at Jack’s Arena,” Brita chorts.

“Jacknel?” Hunter starts and his stomach turns at the name.

“Yes, Jacknel,” Picar signs.

A mumble ripples through the group.

“He’ll follow … no doubt.” Asmel kneels to tighten a boot strap and check the ten-inch Rambo housed there. Its steel flashes affirmative. He pushes it back in place, stretches his stocky frame to stand and tightens the deer hide holding back his dark hair.

With determined Irish zeal, straightening his blood-spattered, army ranger cap and pulling up his sagging, second-hand leggings, Hunter strides toward the small fire. He adjusts the Bowie scabbard on his thigh and reaches for a torch in his quiver.

A cattail flares in the darkness, lighting the two men who stand side by side toward the silent end of the tunnel. Hunter motions the torch toward the darkness.

All agree—time to go.

Weapons in hand, lined up behind Trell and Picar, they begin an even-paced trot to the Valley. Hunter and Asmel, Beh, Blathen and Shalu, Gima and Zee trail behind with Brita and Jamie as rear guards.

Unsure of where they’re going, but more afraid of what pursues them, the Warriors and Dissidents, vertant and vermel run with Trell in the lead, directing them when to jump fall-traps. They are invisible voices in the dark.

“We’re no match for monstrous cobras and Plesacians.”

“The legend’s orb of fire will fry us like pig snacks.”

“Nonsense. Trell and Gima survived.”

"Trap," warns Trell. Hunter brings the torch forward to light it.

“And have young.” Brita smiles as she jumps the trap toward Asmel.

“Yes, that’s true,” says another female, eyeing a dark tall warrior.

“Jacknel brings death.” Several echo these three words again and again.

After miles of discussion, the last one in line clears the final trap. “Hurry.”

“Listen.” Jamie hears Vermel voices far off in the tunnel.

“I don’t hear anything,” Hunter says.

“You wouldn’t, jack ass, but they would.” Asmel points to the Vertants. They now have a veritable following of escaped, well-trained comrades. All indicate that footsteps and voices follow them.

******
After following Warik’s directions to the tunnel, Jacknel’s band picks up fresh tracks that veer to the right at a fork to a narrow passage way. Several rush ahead, competing for the first kill, wanting a Vertant trophy-head. Their blundering missteps send them sliding, terrified, down a fall-trap one after the other. Forewarned, the rest proceed with caution. They successfully hurdle the rest of the traps with the minimal light from an eerie glow of vary-colored florescent fungi.

After trudging through miles of slime and guano, they push, argumentatively, through the tunnel’s exit into Upper Earth. Sunlight hits them. They panic, scream and retreat, shielding their singular, oval eyes and cringing from even a single ray that peeks into the entrance.

In the safety of the tunnel’s shade, Jacknel flourishes his purple cape, motions for all to kneel and offers a prayer, “Gods of our fathers' fathers save us from the fire orb’s burning rays. Give us a sign that you are with us.”

Suddenly, after praying for hours, there's hope. By mid-day, black clouds fill the sky, blocking the sun.

Jacknel leads his posse to the entrance and raises his hands in glory. “The mighty gods hear our plea and shield us.”

“Come, we hunt,” Rolak roars. His men cheer, lift their weapons and march past the ominous greeter.

“Who’s that?" One looks at the skeleton.

“He’s one of us,” says another, picking his nose and flicking his findings at the remains.

“How’d he get here?” asks a third.

Jacknel ignores the questions, realizing the answers. It’s Ruel, Pike’s man.

They tromp awkwardly along. Unsure of their footing on new terrain, they trip over roots, branches, rocks, and even nuts –anything that isn’t flat. Low hanging branches hit them in the face, and brambles reach out nature’s claws to scratch, draw blood, and discourage their mission.

A blustering wind whips leaves and twigs, dust and pollen into their eyes. They choke on dry air. The hooded interlopers skulk forward. They curse and complain and break and tear vines and small trees up by their roots. Wanton destruction on the move.

Upper Earth’s inhabitants peek out, burrowed away in trees, nests and dens. They wonder at these stupid creatures that don’t seek cover with a storm churning, just over the rise. Even beetles and ants have sequestered deep in the ground. “Dumb tourists,” snits a gray, field mouse pushing her young down a hole.

The storm hangs behind them to the north, building its fury when Jacknel and Rolack’s men pass Mallard Lake and the birches. A gawky, turkey-necked fellow points to the ground. “Sir, look ... writing.”

Jacknel stoops to read. Gima, beloved wife of Trell.

“What is it?” Rolak pushes through his men.

“It's nothing,” Jacknel retorts, spits and motions for the men to move on. When they’ve gone out of sight, he obliterates the memorial’s significance by urinating on it and kicking it apart.  Absolutely meaningless. Now.

Jacknel is livid, fueled by the full realization that he had her. I had this Gima, this wife of Trell, on my table. Understanding that this was what his tattooed -cobra freak, Pike, had tried to tell him, he pounds forward, yelling, “Find them … Kill them all.” In the lead, his saber flashes as he whacks brush and bush, left and right to either side of the ready path. Unleashed fury fuels madness.

Scores of deer rush across the meadow toward the east forest to give warning that the Vermel slink into the cornfield. But Hunter and Asmel take it as confirmation of the storm front that they see building in the northwest. Meanwhile, the others bathe and rest by the stream, eating stores of food brought from Trell's cabin cellar.

The enforcers have initial advantage by surprise. While Jacknel hides and encourages them forward, Rolak’s band springs from the cornfield and rushes toward the first couple they see. Two Vertant youth, asleep, wake to see horror and die. The enforcers whoop with satisfaction, tearing the bodies limb from limb.

Gima, inside the cabin with Zee and Blathen, hears the sounds and begins bundling Zee. She looks around for Blathen. “Blathen. It’s no time for games.” She sees the door ajar and, clutching Zee, she wiggles herself back into a shadowed corner and waits with her small blade and courage.

‘Blathen, stay and protect’ were Trell’s orders when he’d left only thirty minutes earlier to fill the water skins up stream. Blathen listened but did not answer.

When Blathen had heard the first clash of swords, his curiosity got the best of him. I must see the battle, the blood. Yes, mostly the blood. Full of anticipation, he’d crept out the door and scampered toward the battle to hide and watch. I can always hurry back. No harm done.

******
By the stream, Larue jumps to his broad, flat feet, sword in hand. “Hurry, Jamie, Picar they’ve come.” He rushes to where the willows meet the meadow and stands his ground.

Rolak turns with his clumsy, short-legged street-fighters— their taste whetted by the swift kill. Bloody and whooping, they charge across the meadow. All imagine Bellow City’s celebration upon their triumphant return: The placing of fresh heads on the Arena’s Entrance pikes as they receive riches— a hundred bruicks per head—from Jacknel.

Jamie, Picar and Brita join Larue to form a stalwart line and to the surprise of the Enforcers, there’s a second line and a third as Warriors and Dissidents grab arms and join forces.

The battle begins. Rolak flies at Jamie, recognizing him from Sadie’s booths. Sadie has a high bounty on you. Jamie retaliates with skill. Rolak stumbles back.

Picar and Brita take on two others who slash haphazardly. Swords being heavy in vermels’ three-fingered hands, one loses his grip, jarred by Brita’s firm strikes against the blade. He fumbles. She relieves him of his right arm with a downward blow. When he halts, arm spurting, to reach for a dagger with his left, Brita yells—Yah!—raises her blade and swings. His frantic eye looks around while his head balances. Mouth clenched, the severed head slips off. His body staggers a step to the side, dagger in hand, and topples like a rotted stump, backwards.

Picar, a master swordsman, parries with two lesser skilled enforcers. Jamie is forced toward the stream by Rolak, once an Arena competitor, himself.

Trell, Hunter and Asmel, who were further upstream, filling water skins, finally arrive, draw their swords and join the battle. Larue nods a welcome and chorts, “It’s about time,” just as he runs through a clueless newly-recruited enforcer who dies without ever understanding what he was doing here in the first place. With a look of disbelief, holding his side, the recruit pales and falls to bleed out. Another puppet's strings cut, and it sits propped up against a tree, eye open, sputtering.

Asmel moves in to help Picar with his two attackers; they fell them, simultaneously. Asmel’s ‘way to go’ is barely audible above the continuing clash of swords.

Picar grunts something congratulatory, and Asmel shouts back, “Warrior!” Picar raises his sword.

Suddenly, there’s a scream. Rolak stands over Jamie ready to severe his head. Trell pivots. Rolak, seeing him, halts for that brief second needed for Picar to lunge forward and run the chief enforcer through the midriff. Trell plunges his sleek blade into Rolak from the other side. Rolak drops, seated, propped up by the ‘X’ through his mid-section where the swords enter and exit. He waves his weapon in a last useless attempt to strike at anything, anything at all, and screams, “Not here, not like this.” Rolak dies mouth open, seeping blood, sword slipping from his in hand.

Picar runs to Jamie, fallen in the stream—its water runs red. Picar lifts Jamie into his lap and feels his young heart slowing toward its last. He rocks his friend, his companion, his life and weeps. Jamie looks up and touches Picar’s scared face. “I love you, brother of my heart.”

“And I you, my first, my last … forever.”

“Sorry.” Jamie’s hand falls. His life stops. The blood washes away in the knowing stream that can only feign tears for past memories and unfulfilled future dreams. Picar sits. Everything he’s fought for lies quiet in his lap. Alone in a strange world, head bowed, relinquished to death, he sits.