Chapter 37: First Battle

At first I couldn’t see it, but after a few seconds I felt a slight mental nudge from D'ar'Beth. The confusion of the fight clicked into focus and I started to see a pattern forming out of the chaos. The few seconds pause was sufficient, however, for the attackers of the column to charge us and while I was still processing the information, my Finger came into contact with a real enemy for the first time.

I found that while I fell instantly into the full gestalt of the Sword Dance, having D'ar'Beth joining in made me able to split my attention. I was multi-tasking on a level I had never thought possible, focusing on my own fight, managing the Finger in the fight as a group and also able to observe the broader battle and think critically about what was happening.

Our opponents were armed in almost the exact same manner as we were, with long swords, but their appearance otherwise was a little disturbing. They looked like men just like us, except that they seemed to be distorted somehow… there was something just not quite right about them. I couldn’t quite pinpoint the precise differences, I just knew that they were there.

We seemed to be very evenly matched in individual skill, but there were a lot more of them then there were of us. Within a few minutes, it became clear to me that our biggest advantage was in the fact that we were fighting as a true team, that the Sword Dance had added a qualitive advantage that was proving superior to their quantative one, and there were already a large number of our enemies who were clearly out of the fight while we had yet to sustain a single major injury.

The sounds and sights of this fight though were horrific, and I knew that the gruesome injuries that were being inflicted had the potential to haunt my dreams for a long time to come.

Those thoughts were somehow distant from my feelings though as I started to glory in the fight itself, the clash of blades, the physical exertion, the glory of the Sword Dance and the way that it was fast becoming the tightest bond that we had achieved yet.

Each member of the Finger was fighting the warrior to their immediate front,  and yet there was a constant situational awareness that allowed each one to act as the shield for their comrades to each side.

I was becoming lost in the immediate fight, until I got another nudge from D'ar'Beth, and forced myself to think about the larger picture.

The column had been ambushed from both flanks simultaneously, and now that I looked, it was obvious that they had built themselves hides by burrowing into the ground and emerging on some signal. It was still a puzzle how they had managed to avoid the mental probing that had become such an instinctive part of our Sword Dance as we built a Mind Map, but that problem would have to wait for a later time. I noticed though that the “dead spots” that S’Alor had pointed out might have been the indicators of their presence.

What had truely concerned D'ar'Beth was the fact that this battle contained an ambush within the ambush.

The column had been attacked from within its own lines and the main column had fallen back into the center where they were defending themselves fiercely, but there was an outer ring of attackers who were now emerging to press those of us who had been screening the column on the flanks, and we were about to be pinned between the two forces.

I contacted Hand Evans and Desrae and warned them about the danger, and then started trying to extricate Finger from the battle. Breaking contact was exceptionally difficult as the enemy warriors pressed us hard and moving backwards put us on the back-foot both figuratively and literally.

I started pulling the finger in from the flanks to create a circle rather than the extended line that we had been in and that seemed to help, although my Mind Map now showed me that we were definitely surrounded completely, and from what I could sense, there were very few of the other flanking Fingers who were still effective combat forces.

Our briefing during training had been that if we were ever in a hopeless situation, that we should rather surrender as the protocol was that prisoners would be stripped of their weapons and have to give their parole not to fight for a period of time. I was starting to think that this was what I was going to have to do, but at the first hint of this thought I got a very clear message of [NO!] from D'ar'Beth.

Chapter 36: Route march

Morning came too quickly. By the time the sun was visible over the horizon, we were on the move, my finger and Desrae's in the echelon left. We moved at an easy lope, although it was faster than I had thought I would be able to run before coming to War World. The support carts were left behind with a protection element to follow as fast as they could.

We ran on for a number of hours, while I examined the terrain we crossed with interest. We were moving across low rolling ground covered with grass and small bushes. Further out from the road, there was more sub-tropical vegetation with larger bushes and the occasional clump of trees. It was very difficult to see how any-one could ambush us without us knowing about it before-hand considering the way that my internal "mental map" showed me where there were people and animals anywhere within my range.

"[ D'ar'Beth]" I called.

"[Yes Rupert?]"

"[How is it possible that the rest of the Fight got ambushed?]"

"[That is the question that everyone has. Battle here is normally face-to-face with both sides knowing where the other side is. One of the reasons that I am along for this is that I need to confirm my suspicions about how that was possible.]"

"[Oh. OK. Do you think someone can hide their presence from us?]"

"[That shouldn't be possible considering the way that things were set up. If they can, then the problem is most serious.]"

"[Finger, listen.]" I broadcast to the Finger, including Desrae just for her information. "[Forget about detecting any ambush mentally. Time to think as if we were back at home. Use your eyes.]"

I got a acknowledgement from each member of the Finger and I could feel the general sense of awareness increase. S'Alor's response included a touch of 'teach your granny to suck eggs' which I just ignored.

As we ran on, I shifted into the Sword Dance state and pulled the Finger in with me. We had run like this a lot during our training and if felt almost comfortable to do so now. All of us were watching the terrain for any sign of an ambush, but the whole idea of someone being able to hide really irritated me. I had bought into the whole concept of these new mental powers, and yet the more we experienced, the less it seemed that they were going to really help. My mental map showed the column on the march and nothing except small animals in the area surrounding us, but I was now distrustful of that and watched the horizon formed by the rolling terrain as well as checking the tree-lines and looking for dead-ground.

We settled into the run at the higher level of awareness that I felt was necessary, and the miles rolled past under our feet. We paused every two hours to rest and to swap elements of the column around. My finger had rotated back into the main column, out to the right flank, back into the main column and then back onto the left as we approached what we were told would be our stopping point for the night camp.

I could feel the slackening of people's attention directed outwards as everyone started thinking ahead to resting for the night and was about to make a few pointed reminders, when something caught my attention.

Just ahead on the left of the formation, in my Finger's area of responsibility, I sensed that there was something wrong. As I focused on the general area, I called on S'Alor to see if he had noticed what I had.

"[Yes. There seems to be a dead-spot {here}]" he sent.

The area that S'Alor had indicated was right next to the trail, just short of where we were expecting to camp, and right where my Finger would have to pass. I sent out an immediate alert to the Finger and echoed it up the chain of command to Fist Ryan.

As I received an acknowledgement, all hell broke loose as a horde of some sort of creatures erupted from a covered trench and poured into our formation.

The shock seemed to trigger something in me, and I pulled the Finger mentally into a much tighter link than I had thought was possible. I was frantic at first as I thought that my people would be over-run, but as each fought their own private battles, it became clear that the attackers were aiming for the main column and essentially ignoring the screening elements as much as possible. In a few minutes, they were past my Finger and fully engaged with the main force.

I used every second of the respite that was available to me to pull my finger closer together, and once I had them all close, and had done a quick mental check on their state of health and injuries, I turned them all towards the main battle, fully intending to launch an attack into the rear of the attackers.

We were poised to attack, when I got a mental blast from D'ar'Beth, "[Stop Rupert. Wait]".

I couldn't ignore the imperative feel of that communication. It had an implicit expectation that it would be obeyed. I trusted D'ar'Beth enough that I pulled the Finger to an immediate halt and started scanning the battlefield to see what could have caused D'ar'Beth to stop us so precipitously.