War Brothers (Novel)

Chapter 38: Break Out

2011-09-23T09:53:00.000+02:00

I sent D'ar'Beth a mental query, “[What now?]”.
“[There is something wrong with this whole situation. You cannot surrender,]” she answered.
S’Alor chimed in with a short “[Agreed]”.
For the first time since the battle started, I realised that I had given S’Alor no thought at all, and I felt vaguely ashamed.
“{Amusement}{Pleasure in the Hunt/Kill} [Watch for me. I will make a path for you,]” S’Alor added.
I shivered mentally at the sheer atavistic pleasure that came through the link to the large cat, and let the Finger know that they should be prepared to break out if the opportunity came.
We fought on for a few minutes, although it started to feel as if it was longer than that as our bodies started to tire. I felt a sudden lessening of the pressure from the one side and noted on my Mental Map that S’alor was approaching from that side.
A huge roar suddenly attracted the attention of the warriors facing us, and I smiled as I realised that S’Alor was making his presence felt. I pulled the Finger in tighter to me and we started moving in S’Alor’s direction.
It took some time and a lot of effort, but with S’Alor joining us, we eventually broke free of thick of the fight and started to run. There were a few individual pursuers, but we cut them down and broke completely free. Shortly afterwards, we were joined by D'ar'Beth, who emerged from behind a small ridge and fell in with the rest of the Finger.
“[Far enough,]” D'ar'Beth finally let me know. For the first time since the ambush had been sprung, I let the Sword Dance drop, and the fatigue came rushing in like the water breaking free from a collapsing dam. I managing to get the Finger to move into positions of all-round defence and then allowed my body to drop down onto the sand. I could feel that all my reserves had been burnt up and I wouldn’t be able to do anything active for some time.
D'ar'Beth examined me critically for a few seconds, then commented, “[Yes. You need the time to recover. S’Alor and I will keep watch. You rest and I will wake you in time or if anything happens.]”

Well… I’ve been away … :-)

2011-09-23T09:46:00.000+02:00

For those of you who were wondering (all 2 and a half of you) why i haven’t been writing, it’s been a long stretch for me of real life interfering!

I was in the army for a while, first two months at Infantry School doing the Battalion Mortars Specialist course, of which a fair proportion was in the bush… and then on my return I took over as Alpha Company Commander for two and a half months, specifically to prepare the company for the combat readiness evaluation for deployment.

I’ve also just had the most delightful addition to my family, my third daughter Sophiah Rosanna, who has just turned one month old.

In between all that, my cell phone got destroyed and I lost what I had been working on…

Last, and by no means least, I have been scurrying around trying to earn a living… :

I just got a new notebook though, and I’m hoping to be able to start writing again.. so watch this space!

Chapter 37: First Battle

2011-05-06T23:11:00.001+02:00

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

2011-05-06T22:35:00.000+02:00

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.

Chapter 35 - Ambush

2009-08-23T12:57:00.002+02:00

When I got to the HQ area in the center of the laager, I was very pleased to be able to greet the other Finger leaders that I knew; especially those that had been part of my training Finger.

Desrae and I stood together in companionable silence while we waited to see what was going on.

It didn't take long for all the Finger leaders to arrive, but Hand Evans was visibly impatient with the stragglers.

"All right people," Hand Evans began, "we're on the road at last. The delay in town was unfortunately necessary for us to make final preparations for the journey. I know that all of you have been wondering just what the huge rush was, and there have been all sorts of rumors flying around. The rumors have it half right. The fact is that the Fists of our Fight have been ambushed and decimated by an unexpected enemy force. Losing a tenth of their number forced them to retreat to a stronghold where they are currently besieged.

"After the initial ambush, the Fight has lost another two thirds of its strength, and they're barely holding on, waiting for the relief column, that's us, to arrive."

"The castle that they are occupying is some distance from here. At our current pace, it would take us about two weeks to get there, which we don't think is good enough, it has to be faster. We have no idea whether they can hold out long enough to wait for us and are concerned that either their food and water will run out or the defenses will be over-run."

Hand Evans paused to take a sip of water and took the time to look around the circle, meeting the gaze of each of us in turn. I got the definite impression that we were being evaluated against some internal checklist of criteria and that our taskings would be delivered as a consequence of that evaluation. I soon discovered that I wasn't far wrong.

Hand Evans continued on to explain that we would be leaving the support personnel behind with the wagons, and would move on foot as rapidly as possible. He then proceeded to issue instructions for the various fingers. I found that we were tasked with being part of the defensive screen.

The formation that Hand Evans chose was the main group marching in column of route, three abreast, with two screening formations in what I thought of as echelon left and right. This was basically two lines forming an arrow-head shape. My finger was assigned to the front left of the formation.

After Hand Evans had finished his briefing, I walked slowly back to my finger, chatting to Desrae as we walked. As it turned out, her Finger would be working with mine as the other part of the line. We decided that I would coordinate the two fingers and Desrae would keep an eye out on our back-trail. With those details sorted out, I filled Desrae in on the details of some of the strange things that had happened since we had last spoken. I didn't tell her specifically about the archery equipment, just hinted at it when I told her about D'ar'Beth's behavior.

"[What do you think she is, Rupert?]" Desrae asked, intrigued.

"[Funny you should ask it that way. What instead of Who I mean. Proves to me that you feel something along the lines of what I do about her.]"

"[Maybe I'm just picking up a {taste} from you when you talk about her?]" Desrae speculated.

"[Maybe. See what you think when you actually meet her though. What really intrigues me is that she feels as if she is much denser ... more ... than what see seems at first. On top of that, we weren't told about Dwarves or anything else like that, and there has been a serious lack of information on a lot of other important issues.]"

"[What issue is it that's really bothering you?]"

"[Well, this has all been really fun, and I've allowed myself to be swept along on the tide of events, but there are some fundamentals that have been skipped. It suddenly occurred to me during the briefing; what happens if you die?]"

"[Shit. That's true. No-one's ever told us.]"

"[That's not the only thing, but it is pretty crucial. I think we've been operating on the assumption that we were pretty much invulnerable. Reading between the lines though it seems as if those who died weren't miraculously resurrected, which is kinda what I had been imagining.]"

"[That's true. I think we need to keep concerns like that to ourselves though until we have answers we can give to our fingers, you agree?]"

"[Yes, definitely. Anyway, here we are. Let me introduce you around.]"

I called the Finger together and introduced them to Desrae before starting to brief them on what we would be doing as part of the march starting the next day. Desrae confirmed silently to me that she felt the same sense of 'more' about D'ar'Beth's mental presence.

Once I had briefed my Finger, I went with Desrae while she briefed hers. Once both were briefed, we split up again and I returned to my interrupted rest. I didn't have much time left before reveille and I wanted to get as much rest as possible.

Chapter 34: Column of Route

2009-08-02T14:31:00.003+02:00

I had, as usual, a whole lot of questions that I wanted answers to. Also as usual, circumstances forced me to have to be patient before I got them.

I was hoping and expecting to be able to question D'ar'Beth once we were back at the Inn, but when we arrived there, we found Hand Evans and a number of the other Fingers all waiting for us.

D'ar'Beth sent me a quick message of “[Later]” before we split up to fetch our kit.

No more than ten minutes later, we were formed up in a column and moving through the streets of the port town. As we wound between the buildings, other Fingers came out to join us and by the time we reached the Eastern town gate, it looked as if everyone was there.

We passed through the gate under the watchful eyes of the Town Guard, and I got the very clear impression that they were very relieved to see us go. I didn't understand that as I assumed that in the event of an external attack, they would have welcomed the support that our assistance could provide. I figured that they were probably more concerned with having to fight against us, and in the close confines of the town, I could imagine that would be a very bloody and destructive fight indeed.

Once outside the walls, I noticed a group of wagons waiting for us. The were hitched to what passed for Oxen in this place, and manned by members of the "Elves"; related to those in the training center if their facial features were anything to go by.

As we passed them by, they swung into position in the center of our column, where we split up make room for them. I was soon clear that the pace of our march would be determined by the top speed of the beasts of burden; restricted to a crawl in other words.

It didn't take long to settle into the rhythm of the march. The road was fairly good: gravel, but very well planned. It followed the natural contours of the ground, winding around natural obstacles and staying relatively flat. Not that there was much variation in the terrain at first; the coastal lowlands stretched out for what looked like at least a days travel before we would start the climb to the escarpment, just visible as foothills on the horizon.

Once we were properly settled into the march, S'Alor ranging widely to the side, and the rest of the Finger walking in two files, one on either side of the road, I decided to tackle D'ar'Beth.

“[So, do you intend keeping me in the dark, or will you do me the courtesy of explaining the contents of that pack on your back?]” I asked her, doing my best to restrict my mental sending to the most private mode possible.

“[I can explain a bit, but not all secrets are mine to tell,]” she replied.

“[Please,]” I answered, “[tell me what you can.]”

“[This world was created to act as a battleground, just as you were told, and there were certain rules put in place to ensure that the battles here were manageable. You and your kind are very recent arrivals, and as far as what your kind has dealt with so far, they have told you the truth. The problem is that there are both remnants of previous waves of warrior races, as well as individuals of other races that haven't taken an interest before, who have started getting active again.]”

“[You mean like S'Alor?]” I asked.

“[Yes. He is a very interesting addition to the mix. I'm quite certain that you have no idea as to his true nature or stature.]”

“[I'm not sure I understand what you mean about that. It seems pretty clear to me.]”

“[Well, yes. That just proves my point. Your kind has been on War World for just about five hundred of your years and about one hundred in local time. War World itself has been operating for over ten thousand local years. There are lots of old secrets here, some right in front of you.]”

I looked at her when she said that, and saw she was grinning at me. I tried to sort through the various layers of meaning that I could sense lay behind that remark, and decided to stick with the most obvious.

“[So tell me about the archery equipment...]”

“[Have you ever tested the concept of the shield against anything?]” D'ar'Beth asked nodded when she saw my head shake. “[I thought not. I must admit to being a little surprised that you didn't follow up on your doubts, but only a little. What's happened is that your kinds battles have been limited. You have all bought into the same myths. If you are facing an enemy that believes the same things you do, then it's easy to perpetuate the myths. The reality is that the shields are vulnerable, just as the people who generate them are vulnerable. There are many ways that I could think of to crack the concentration of a Finger or Hand, or to take them by surprise, and then the arrows would have no barrier to success. The largest problem is this desire for set-piece battles. I get the sense that it appeals to your human sensibilities in some way. I think it's ridiculous, mere posing, although I know it has been very effective as a means to decide issues clearly for those using War World for its intended purpose. The problem is that things are changing.]”

“[Everything you say just calls up more questions. You refer to us as 'you humans' which confirms for me that you aren't what you seem, and the way you talk, I can't help thinking you are a lot older than you look. Why are you here, with us I mean as well as why you are on War World itself?]”

“[I'm one of those remnants I was talking about, and you're correct, I am a lot older. Just how much is something I'll keep to myself a while longer. I haven't involved myself with any of the conflicts for a long time.]”

“[Why now then?]”

“[Every so often, someone gets clever. They think they can manipulate events on War World to suit themselves, or even worse, to sell guaranteed results. Something of the sort seems to be happening now. That's why I'm involved.]”

“[But why with use, with me?]”

“[You haven't realised it, but you know that mental map of yours?]”

“[Yes...]”

“[When you get to a certain level of ... skill ... then the details on the map start to show you things ... Lines of influence, centers of power and sometimes, potential. You are one of those.]”

“[I'm confused. One of which?]”

“[A potential center of power. There is also a very interesting web of lines of influence building up around you. That's unusual to say the least. You've been here hardly any time at all, and you have met very few of the people with power, but a surprisingly high number considering.]”

I kept quiet for a while, mulling over what D'ar'Beth had told me. Being on the march left a lot of time for introspection, which I found I needed a lot more of here than I had at home. That was probably because I had to find my feet within a completely new frame of reference.

As we marched, I noticed that we had covered a fair distance, and the foothills had grown to be looming mountains on the horizon. The sun setting turned it into a chocolate box scene which I simply admired.

The command came down to turn off the road and we set up camp for the night. The wagons were circled to form a laager and sentry duty assigned with the minimum of fuss.

Each Finger was assigned a portion of the circumference where we had to sleep and guard. Once those details were settled, we ate the trail rations that were distributed from the wagons. We were forbidden fires and told to maintain silence. I got the sense that these were just drills with no real reason, which I could forgive as it was good practice for when it was really necessary.

I was already settled and ready to sleep, received a call to join the other Finger leaders for an Order Group meeting, so it was with some reluctance the I got up and headed for the wagons.

Chapter 33: Market

2009-08-01T23:42:00.002+02:00

S'Alor decided that he didn't need the attention that he would receive going out into the town, so he sprawled out on the floor in front of the fire-place.

I was very curious to see what the town looked like, and to meet some of the local people. There had been no exposure to anyone other than the people we had been training with, and now the very intriguing people I had met at the Dragon's Wing Inn.

The first thing that struck me was that the town was clean. From my reading about the medieval towns in history, I expected it to really stink; with raw sewage in the streets and rubbish disposed of by dumping wherever it was convenient. The fact that this wasn't the case was a huge relief. There were a lot of very interesting smells, but these were from the various enterprises that we passed along the way. As we entered the market square, I was struck by the smell of spices and food, and our first stop was at a small stall that sold some unidentifiable meat 'in-a-bun' and I couldn't help having a quiet internal chuckle at the thought of what Terry Pratchett would say about that.

Once we all had something to eat, we started browsing through the market D'ar'Beth soon got impatient with us, and hurried us along. She led us down an alley that led off the market proper. All the shops and stalls dealt in weapons and armour in some form. I got side-tracked immediately by the various blades on display, and had to suffer D'ar'Beth's displeasure.

Suitably chastised, I hurried after her along with the rest until she turned into a dingy shop halfway down the alley.

I had to duck my head to avoid getting dinged by the various swords and maces hanging from the ceiling and it took a few minutes before my eyes could adjust to the poor light in the shop. A wizened old man was sitting behind a counter on a high stool, peering near-sightedly to see who had invaded his shop.

"Aah, D'ar'Beth So good to see you again," he exclaimed suddenly as he spotted her in the gloom. "What can I help you with today?"

"Well met Bathar. We are going journeying and my I want to set my friends here up with some of your speciality items," she replied quietly.

Bathar smiled at her then screeched at a young boy to close the door. Once he was satisfied that our privacy was assured, he clambered off his stool and a cabinet behind the counter. He reached in and pulled out something that looked like a bundle of rags. He laid it on the counter and unravelled the cloth to expose six finely crafted wood-and-sinew bows.

I was startled at the sight, as I had thought that there were no 'projectile' weapons on War World having believed what our instructors had told us.

"Those look beautiful Bathar. You have the arrows to go with them?" D'ar'Beth asked.

"Of course," Bathar replied, removing a larger bundle from his cabinet. When he unravelled that, it revealed sheaf of metal-tipped arrows.

"[Don't say anything until we are alone. Just go along with me for now, ]" D'ar'Beth sent to all of us. No-one had made any move to say a word, all of us being too shocked by this sudden revelation to know what to say.

D'ar'Beth negotiated a price quietly with Bathar, while I turned over this new development in my mind. If my guess about D'ar'Beth's nature was correct, she had been around for a long time and had a lot of experience. If she thought that we needed projectile weapons, then there must be a reason for it. I started considering how this idea fit into the information that we had received so far.

I had been uneasy with a number of the things that we had been told during training, and the concept of projectile weapons had been one of them. I had bought into the idea of the Finger generating a shield as part of the mental tools that we had learnt, but remembered being uneasy at the time about what would happen if someone did use weapons like these when we didn't have the shield operative.

D'ar'Beth finished up with Bathar and we all greeted him as we left the shop. D'ar'Beth was in much less of a hurry after that and we strolled around the market for over an hour, picking up some travel food and a few items that would make our lives more comfortable while on the road. These were mostly common sense, but one thing I hadn't considered was salt. D'ar'Beth and Greta both recommended that we each buy a large packet of salt as they said we would need it more than we thought and it wasn't easily available away from the markets on the coast. Greta pointed out that it was essential for preserving any meat that we hunted for ourselves, especially when it was not possible or wise to either stay in one place for too long or to build fires that could announce our presence in an area.

When I protested that we would be with the wagon train of the Hand, D'ar'Beth pointed out something that I should have thought of; that if we were used as scouts, we could be out of contact with the column for long periods of time. We bought the salt and a few other things and eventually made our way back to the Inn.

Chapter 32: Leaving the Dragon's Wing Inn

2009-07-11T23:22:00.000+02:00

I slept very well that night. For some reason I felt safe and secure in the Inn, and S’Alor reaffirmed my feeling but wouldn’t go into any specifics when I questioned him. I got the very definite impression though that it had to do with the presence of D’ar’Beth. She was definitely more than she seemed.

I awoke refreshed, with a new energy and a desire to see what the day would bring. I only realized when I thought about it that the previous few days a weight had been building in my mind; a foreboding about the future. I wasn’t sure how or what it had lifted, but I was glad it had.

I got cleaned up and, after making sure the others were up and in the process of getting ready, went down for breakfast.

Greta was on duty again, and after greeting me pleasantly, went bustling off to get me my morning meal. The others trickled down one by one, and each seemed content to sit in quiet contemplation once they had all finished eating.

Just as I was starting to wonder whether we would be spending another day or two in the inn, the door opened and Hand Evans entered. He looked vaguely surprised to when I greeted him, and I was curious why when I had thought that he had come to the Inn to collect us, or to task us in some way. After greeting me, he went to the counter and spoke in low tones to Greta, stood and waited for a while. In a few minutes, Daffid came out from the kitchen area and the two of them chatted for a while in quiet tones. I was watching them carefully, as I realized that Hand Evans had some other business in the Inn, and after a few minutes of conversation he looked startled, and turned to stare at me. A few minutes later he left Daffid and came to join us at our table.

“You seem to manage to always be around when important things are happening Cy,” Hand Evans commented quietly, once he had taken the first sips of his warm drink. “How does that happen, do you think?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I responded, and my puzzlement must have been convincing as he relaxed slightly and leant back in his chair.

“You have no idea?” he asked.

“No. All I know is that we were told to stay in this Inn over-night, which we did. Now I’m waiting for further orders. I thought that was why you were here, to tell the truth. Obviously that’s not the case.”

“Well, it wasn’t. That’s changed. Daffid tells me that you met with one of his other guests last night …”

“Yes. With D’ar’Beth. What about her?”

“She’s the reason I’m here. She has agreed to travel with us when we leave here. When we first requested her company, she refused point blank, but then she inexplicably changed her mind. Now I’ve been told that she will travel with you and your Finger.”

“Oh. That’s a surprise. Why with us?”

“She apparently approves of you. She’ll be accompanied by Daffid’s daughter, Greta. You are to treat them as guests, but also as part of your finger, if that makes sense.”

“No, actually, it doesn’t. I’m getting the idea that it doesn’t make any difference what I think about this though, what with you being so cagy. Isn’t there anything more you can tell me about her?”

“You can ask D’ar’Beth anything you wish. What she chooses to tell you is her business. It’s certainly none of mine. I would like to caution you though; be very careful in your dealings with her.”

“Oh, I’ll be careful all-right. I already realised that she is more than she appears.”

“More than you think,” Hand Evans replied enigmatically, then he tossed off the last of his drink and stood. “You have the rest of the day to get your stuff together. Do some shopping in the market and get what you think you need. We are getting all the logistics sorted out, and negotiating things like rights of way for our journey. We expect to be able to move out early tomorrow morning. You’ll get the call. Expect it soon after midnight. Ok?”

“Yes. That sounds fine.”

Hand Evans tuned on his heel and left, rather abruptly I thought, but then figured that he would have many arrangements to make so I suppose it was a little egocentric of me to think so.

Once he was gone, we sat around a while speculating on what we had just been told. Greta came over to our table to clear up, and I asked her whether she was ready to travel.

“I’ll have my kit packed and be ready. You won’t need to worry about me,” was her tart rejoinder.

Having been put firmly in my place by a woman, once again to S’Alor’s vast amusement, I decided that we needed to do some practice. I walked over to the counter and called Daffid to ask him if there was somewhere we could use, and he pointed me to a door to the Inn’s inner courtyard.

The Finger joined me and we started warming up. Within a few minutes, we were deeply into the Sword-Dance and I could feel that it had been a good decision, because it drew us together and energised us in a way as we flowed through the forms. After a while, I noticed that there were two others who had joined us, a little hesitantly at first, but quickly speeding up and integrating with the rest of the Finger. I noticed in an abstract way that it was Greta and D’ar’Beth. They didn’t know the exact forms that we were using, but had forms of their own, and I was able to push our forms to them easily enough.

Once we had worked through our normal forms, I picked up from great a tentative suggestion to use some of the forms she knew and I accepted gratefully, always keen to learn new things. It then became obvious that her forms were designed for a double-bladed axe, and had to be adjusted for our use with swords. It was quickly apparent why she had been a bit hesitant with our forms; she was wielding a pretty impressive axe and had been adapting our forms from the sword to the axe as she went along. I was very impressed, because that was not a trivial accomplishment, as I soon discovered trying to do the conversion in the other direction.

Greta was generous with her knowledge however, and I allowed her sense of her axe; the way it moved; what muscles she used to heft it; how she placed her feet and how she used her whole upper-body to make the axe sing through the air; suffuse the Dance and imprint itself on my memory.

D’ar’Beth was part of the Sword Dance, but she seemed to hold herself aloof. There with us, but rather as if she was an observer and not a participant. I got the feeling that she was quite amused with it all, although there was no malice; rather a sense of affection. She let nothing about herself slip into the union that we created, so we didn’t learn anything from her. If S’Alor hadn’t been so reassuring, I would have been very suspicious of her and especially of what her motives were.

Once we had wound down out of the Dance, I took the opportunity to examine Greta’s axe. It was a fearsome thing, but beautiful; beautiful in the way that good design is beautiful. The axe had absolutely no decorations on it whatsoever; it was simply a plain steel head and hasp, with a leather-wrapped handle. When I gave it a few practice swings, I could feel that it was perfectly balanced. Most of Greta’s forms were for slicing movements through the air, keeping the head of the axe moving at all times. The axe had a spike sticking out of the head though, almost an extension of the hasp, which could be used in a formidable stabbing attack.

After complimenting Greta on her axe, I turned to D’ar’Beth.

“I hear you’re accompanying us on our trip?”

“Yes, your leaders asked me to go along, and I didn’t make up my mind to join with them. I changed my mind after meeting you and your delightful companions,” D’ar’Beth answered.

I knew she was really referring to S’Alor. She didn’t seem to be too concerned about me questioning her, so I decided to push it a little.

“Why would my ‘leaders’ invite you along? I find the whole thing a little strange.”

“Oh, they know that I’ll contribute to the fighting strength I suppose,” she answered with a little smile playing over her lips.

I suspected that her reply had been a little disingenuous, but I got the sense that pushing any further wasn’t going to get me very far, and might actually cause problems that I didn’t need.

“Ok. I suppose we’ll discover more about that as we go. Is there anything that you need to do to get ready for the journey?’ I asked her.

“No. I’m ready. I would suggest though, if I may, that you ensure that you ensure you have provisions of food and water of your own and don’t rely on the Fight to provide everything for you. There are some stalls in the market which will supply you with some very good travel rations. Ask for ‘Way-Bread’. That’s good.”

“Ok, thanks for the advice. We’ll do so.”

With that, we all re-entered the Inn and I lead the Finger out through the main door to explore the town a little and search for the market-place.

Chapter 31: The Dragon's Wing Inn

2009-05-13T21:54:00.000+02:00

Pushing open the door proved to be anti-climatic. The door opened directly into a common room, with a few tables scattered around. On the left was a huge fireplace, maybe better described as a hearth, and the fire burning there was obviously intended to roast what looked like some kind of pig.

"Obelix would like this place," Bridget commented, making me wonder briefly if she had developed an ability to read my mind.

On the left of the room, running the length of the wall, was a bar counter. We stood for a few seconds, allowing our eyes to adjust to the gloom before there was a disturbance in the bead curtained doorway behind the bar, which parted to admit a heavily bearded man.

I stared at him for a few moments without speaking because something about the way he looked struck me as just wrong.

"[He's a Dwarf]," Brad interjected, making me feel relieved because I hadn't been able to place what was wrong. As soon as he said that, everything clicked into focus for me and I realised that this was not like someone from Earth suffering from 'dwarfism', but rather someone who was completely in proportion, who was in fact a heavily muscled man, but was just short.

I had to take two steps towards the bar counter before I was able to see far enough over it to realise that the entire floor behind the counter was raised. The man, dwarf that is, was about four feet tall. The platform was raised far enough so that just over a foot of his height was visible over the counter. It was obviously designed to make it comfortable for him to work the counter.

"Good Eve to you, Gentle Folk, and welcome to the Dragon's Wing," he greeted us. Then I saw a look of shock on his face as he stared past me. "What in the name of the Goddess is THAT doing here?"

I turned to look where he was pointing and saw that it was at S'Alor, who was obviously interested in the smells wafting from the roasted pig, and had wandered out from behind the rest of us to investigate. When I turned back to the dwarf, I could see that his initial shock had turned to determination. He was now holding a double-bladed axe. I paused for a moment to admire it, while I considered what a formidable weapon it might make in competent hands, and the hands holding it certainly appeared to be competent.

"Sorry to startle you, but that is just S'Alor," I tried to reassure him, "one of our companions."

"A companion, you say? One of the new terrors of the forest. You certainly pick strange companions."

"Even so, that is what he is. We are here to stay the night," I said, trying to get the conversation back on track. "I have a letter here." I stepped forward and handed the letter I had been given to the Dwarf.

The dwarf seemed reluctant to relax his vigilance, never mind the death-grip he had on his axe, and shifted his gaze to me in a manner that told me that our whole party had been evaluated as being on probation. We might have stood there in that Mexican-standoff for a long time, but just then, a voice interrupted us.

"Oh Daffid, they are fine. The beautiful cat seems friendly enough. Why not put down your toy and welcome our guests properly?"

I whipped my head around at the first sound of this voice. I was utterly captivated: I had heard the phrase 'dulcet tones' before, and never really understood it. This voice epitomised it for me.

I had to hunt for the source of the voice for a few seconds, and then saw the hem of a dark blue dress that was caught by the light from the fire. Once I had that visual clue, I was able to make out a shadowy form standing on the bottom step of a staircase that I hadn't noticed. 'The staircase must lead to the upper levels of the Inn,' I thought to myself.

"Good Evening, my lady," I greeted the woman, "I must thank you both for you timeous intervention as well as your acceptance of my companion."

"It is of no matter," she replied matter-of-factly, "not everyone relies on outer appearance to judge character."

At first, I thought she was warning me that she would have some horrible disfigurement that she was referring to, but as I thought that, she stepped down and moved out of the shadows.

My first thought was how tall she was; a total contrast to the still muttering dwarf. At a guess, she was just over six feet and five inches. Tall in any context. She had honey blond hair tied up in two braids, one on each side of her head, and reminded me of nothing less than one of Wagner's Valkries. Her face was all hard planes and sharp angles and did nothing to detract from my first impression of her as the Über warrior women. While her long flowing dress was beautiful, and complimented her figure perfectly, I couldn't suppress a touch of disappointment that she wasn't dressed in some sort of Warrior Maiden's outfit, with a steel bra and a wisp of fabric around her hips.

"I'm sure you're right, Milady," I responded once I could reign in my thoughts and find my voice. "I am Cy Peters, and these are my companions," I said and proceeded to introduce them all.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said, “you can call me D’ar’Beth.”

“[amusement]” came from S’Alor.

“[What’s tickled you, S’Alor?]” I asked him.

“[What she said about ‘outer appearance’,]” he answered cryptically.

“[Oh?]” I queried him.

“[Later,]” was all I got in response.

“I will leave you to the tender mercies of Daffid. I am sure he can settle you in quite comfortably. Maybe once you have settled and relaxed a bit, we can have a chat,” D’ar’Beth said before gliding elegantly back up the stairs.

As I watched her disappear, I belatedly decided to take notice again of my mind map. It had finally started to recover from the sensory overload that the heavily populated town had provided. I looked to see whether I could follow D’ar’Beth and was not too surprised that there was something different about the way she looked in my map. She seemed to be a denser presence than any of the other people, and I decided that I needed to take note of what S’Alor had said about appearances. She was very clearly more than what she appeared.

I turned to Daffid, who had emerged from behind the bar counter, and asked him, “Who is D’ar’Beth?”

“She is who she is. What she is, is her own business which she will tell you or not, just as she decides. If you will follow me …” he replied.

“I shrugged and picked up my kit and followed Daffid as he led the way up the stairs. The rest of my Finger followed along behind me, peeling off in twos as Daffid allocated us rooms.

Once I had dumped my kit in the room I was to share with Brad and S’Alor, I made my way to the communal bathroom at the end of the corridor, where I was delighted to find copper baths supplied with hot water. Once I had bathed and put on clean clothes, I went down to the common room below.

As I descended into the room, I noticed that a few of the tables were occupied, and realised that people were probably gathering for supper and the evening’s entertainment. I selected a table near to the fireplace that I thought would accommodate the whole Finger. S’Alor accompanied me closely and slipped under the table, out of the way.

When Daffid noticed me sitting there, he waved at me and a few minutes later I saw a short woman approaching the table. She looked like a female twin of Daffid, so I guessed she was part of his family.

“Greetings, I am Greta Daffid’son, and I will serve you this evening. You can have the house soup if you wish, but the roast pork is the main meal we are serving this evening.”

“Thank you Greta, I think I’ll have the pork,” I answered her, “and my companions all the same as they arrive, please.”

“With pleasure,” Greta said and turned and left.

Chapter 30: Entering the Fray

2009-04-30T14:39:00.001+02:00

As I gazed out at Port A'maine through the port-hole of the wooden ship, I couldn't help noticing the pall of smoke that hung over the town. The slight off-shore breeze suddenly wafted a sample of the miasma, created by bad hygene practices, past my nose.

I shuddered in disgust as the reality of a primitive city was brought home to me. I coukd hear S'alor's sardonic comments about humans who 'messed where they lived' as a subliminal refrain in the back of my head.

If it hadn't been for the bad smell, I would have thought the sight of the sprawling harbour town to be quite beautiful. The buildings shone in the late afternoon sunlight. It was the first time on War World that I had seen any evidence of buildings not created by the 'Elves', and if I had been watching a documentary, I would have thought that it was a recreation of a small European port from a millenium in the past.

The warehouses on the waterfront were prosaic enough, and the houses and other buildings that sprawled up the gentle slope of the hills surrounding the harbour were pretty much as I had imagined they might be. The one glaring ommission, however, was any form of church or temple. There didn't seem to be any evidence of religious buildings, and I decided that I would try to find out about religious practices as soon as I could.

Brooding over the town, at the summit of one hill, was a large building that I tagged in my mind as 'feudal castle'. From a distance, I could already see that there were a number of differences from the many castle remains I had seen in Europe, the most glaring of which was the glacis and ramparts which had been designed to resist attacks from cannons. Their lack told me that projectile weapons were definitely not a part of this world.

While I had been wool-gathering, the ship had been moored to the dock and the sailors now extended a gang-plank.

"In your Fingers and Hands, disembark," came the call. My first thought was to keep my Finger together, and S'Alor was part of the finger in my opinion, so I called everyone else in the finger together and we made our way up the ladders to the main deck.

Once there, I looked around for S'Alor and spotted him on the starboard gunwale, near the gangway. We moved over to join him, pushing cross-stream through the rest of the Fingers.

I felt a sense of relief to be back in physical contact with S'Alor, a feeling that he mirrored, as there had been a low-lieing anxiety that the sailor's fear of him might transform into an attempt to harm him where I wouldn't be able to jump in to assist in his defence.

We waited about ten minutes before our turn to disembark arrived, and I used the time to discuss what I had observed so far of the harbour town with the rest of my Finger. All of them agreed that the less time spent in a town, the better, if the terrible stench was any indication of the normal state of affairs.

As we walked down the gangway, I was momentarily worried that it would break under S'Alor's weight, but he sent me a quiet reassurance, which set my mind at ease.

We disembarked onto a pier that extended about four hundred meters out into the harbour, and I was very interested to see the different ships moored there as we walked past. It seemed to me that they were primarily cargo vessels, although it was difficult to make out what they might have carried. My nose was no help in this situation, having gone on strike for better working conditions, and my mental map was a bit confused with the large number of people in this new place.

As we left the pier, Hand Evans was waiting with directions for each Finger Leader. When I looked at the piece of paper he handed me, I saw that our accomodation was fairly nearby.

I followed the directions, noticing as we walked that the streets were practically deserted. I only saw three people the crossed our path in the whole time.

I finally spotted the sign of the Inn, a stylised wing, which matched the name I had been given: 'The Dragon's Wing'. A little apprehensively, as I had no idea what to expect, I pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Part Two

2009-04-30T14:36:00.001+02:00

Part One is now over. Cy and friends have completed their training and have a fairly good grasp of their abilities. They have been a little surprised with the emergency mobilisation and Cy at least is a little uncertain about whether what he has learnt is all true. There have been some hints that all is not as it appears, and questions about their taskings have been avoided or answered only superficially. As we rejoin the story, Cy's fist has just arrived at the harbour on the mainland...

Chapter 29: Mobilisation

2009-02-10T23:25:00.001+02:00

Alarm and mobilisation

I woke up to the sound of a general alarm. We had gotten to sleep very late the night before and I could feel that I hadn't had nearly enough sleep yet. I dragged myself out of bed and out of the barracks and met up with everyone else streaming onto the parade ground. It was still dark, with just the slightest touch of light to warn that dawn was approaching. By the time the entire Hand was formed up, Hand Evans was standing and waiting impatiently.

"Shut up and listen," Hand Evans shouted. Everyone got quiet very quickly. "We have just got news that the fight has run into trouble. They are besieged in a city on the mainland continent. We are going to have to cut your training short and go to their aid. The cadre and Finger Leaders will meet with me when you are dismissed, the rest of you start packing. That is all. Dismissed."

I was stunned. Our second phase had lasted just five weeks, the first three concentrating on fighting together as a Hand and then, after our three day break, we had done lots of maneuvering and drills to get us accustomed to the various possible tactical situations that we might face.

I hurried with the others to the mess where an impatient Hand Evans was already locked in furious discussion with some of the cadre.

"Right, everyone here?" Hand Evans asked. He didn't pause for the answer but just continued, "The situation is as I outlined it out there. For now ignore that, we will have some time during the journey to go into more detail. For now we have to concentrate on movement orders. You Knuckles are now officially Finger Leaders. This is no longer a pool of replacements for the Fight, but rather a Fighting Hand. I will remain as Hand Leader, the Cadre members will form part of my tactical HQ and will be available to assist you if necessary. I want you to return to your fingers and ensure that you have your kit packed and ready. We leave an hour from now. We will be heading for the transit base on the coast where we can trans-ship to the mainland. Any questions?"

There were none. Everyone could see that it would be a bad idea to waste Hand Evan's time.

Travel

Two hours later we were on the road. We were all loaded down with a full load of gear and moving at a pace somewhere faster than a walk and slower than a run. It was that heavily loaded shuffle that the British Army calls 'tabbing' although slightly faster than that. We had set out from the camp along a pathway that down-river for a short distance before crossing the river at a ford and then turning East.

Once we were settled into the journey, I had time to think about other things.

"[Desrae, how're you doing?]" I asked.

"[Fine thanks Cy. Feeling strong.]"

"[No, I didn't mean that. I was thinking that I got the strong impression that Hand Evans was panicked.]"

"[You don't say {sarcasm}]"

"[Hey. {spank} {smile}]"

"[{smile} Yes, I did find it strange that he was so ruffled. I have no idea why there was such a rush. Apparently it will take us some time to get to where the Fight is, so I am sure we could have taken a bit more time to make sure we had everything we need.]"

"[A bit of a better briefing would have been nice. I am a little concerned about how he reacted. There are to my mind two possibilities; either there is something more serious than we know so far, or he is not a good commander. One of the first lessons I learnt about that was that if you panic, the men around you panic.]"

"[He came damn close to panicing though, didn't he?]"

I could hear my doubts about Hand Evans reflected by Desrae. It didn't reassure me in the least. I reached out to all the other Finger Leaders and checked on how they were doing. They all reported that they were doing fine physically, but all were to a greater or lesser extent worried about what was happening although it was only Lian who specifically said that he was worried about a commander who couldn't hide his panic from his subordinates. We all agreed to keep checking with each other.

Transit

It took us almost two days to get to the coast. We ran all day from sun-up to sun-down, stopping to camp on the bank of a river overnight without even bothering to build temporary fortifications or latrines.

When we reached the coast just after lunch-time on the second day, it was to be greeted by the sight of a harbour built of stone. There were a few small buildings which turned out to be housing for the permanent staff at the harbour and a long low barracks-type building, which we discovered was for the use of ship's crews that were moored in the harbour. There was a small tavern which we were told was off limits to us as we would not be staying long enough to have time off.

We were directed to a field and told to wait. I took the opportunity to inspect all the members of my Finger, making sure that their feet were OK and that they still had all their kit. While I was doing that, S'Alor appeared out of the undergrowth and joined us.

After a wait of about an hour, we were called to board a large ship moored in the harbour. I was fascinated as it was the first time I had been on a fully rigged sailing ship. I didn't get much chance to rubber-neck though, as we were directed down to the lower decks pretty quickly and told to stay there, out of the way of the sailors.

Once out of the harbour, it looked as if we were going to have a problem with sea-sickness, until I managed to move my Finger into battle-mode and focus their attention away from the problem. While we were doing that, I found that two of my Finger members had problems with their inner-ears, both as a result of child-hood infections. I helped them to focus their bodies healing abilities on the problem and our sea-sickness problems disappeared.

We were at sea for about three hours. The sun was low on the horizon when we were told that we were about to enter the harbour on the mainland. It was a town called Port A'maine. All I could see out of the port-hole was what looked like warehouses that butted right up against the wharfs.

Hand Evans spoke to all of us, telling us that we would be put up in the town over-night while arrangements were made to travel the next day. There were dire warnings about what would happen to anyone who got out of hand.

Chapter 28: Doubts

2009-02-09T12:51:00.003+02:00

"Are you alright Cy?" Desrae asked.

I was a little startled. I had been so deep into my thoughts that the heightened situational awareness that I had developed since arriving on War World had deserted me.

"Sorry Des, just thinking about something."

"Yes, I can see that silly," Desrae said sitting down next to me. We were on a large rock upstream from the jetty and I had been staring out over the water. "What's got your knickers in a knot?"

"Do you think everything is coming too easily?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I was just thinking that from the time we were recruited, we have been processed like mince being fed into a sausage-maker. I get the feeling that the powers-that-be have been more surprised at the fact that we have broken the mould than at what we have actually achieved.'

"Hmm, that doesn't mean it came easily?"

"True. What I meant though is that we have no real evidence that what we are doing is the correct thing. I keep thinking of things that worry me."

"Like what?"

"Like the shields. You know we have practised with the Fingers and the Hand generating shields?"

"Yes. That was a little scary until we saw the stones the cadre threw bouncing off."

"Yes, but the mental shields are no real use in close combat. We have to rely on members of the Finger defending each other, and on the use of the parry dagger."

"What would you like to see then? Are you saying that you would prefer to have proper shields?"

"Well ... sort of. It's just that I am a bit concerned about what would happen if we had any significant casualties, what happens when the integrity of the Finger or Hand is broken?"

"Sort of like you did with the thrown dagger in our fight against Lorraine's Finger?"

"Yes. I overheard a number of comments after that fight. A lot of people seemed to think that throwing the dagger wouldn't work because the shields protected a finger from projectile weapons."

"That's just silly. They should realise that it only applies to arrows and things from further away."

"Why should they realise that Des? It's what we were told ... but it was part of the dogma, not something that seemed to occur to anyone."

"And what do you think that means?"

"I think that things are stagnated. No-One is thinking beyond what they have been taught. I should never have been able to orchestrate the defence of a Finger like Lorraine's considering that they have so much more experience of actual battle than us. What is more important for me though is that while we have been doing this training as a Hand, I keep seeing ways that we could be attacked and defeated."

"Really? But what about the comments from Hand Evans and the way that he has given us this three day break in training as an award?"

"That's just it. We have done all the drills perfectly, but I spent enough time in the army before to understand the difference between drills and combat. It is easy enough to 'win' each and every battle during training when there is no enemy to confront you, and something else completely different when you are opposed by a real opponent... in fact just having trouble with the weather or terrain can mean that you can be defeated by an inferior force. What worries me even more though is that the way that we are starting to mesh now as Fingers and as a Hand means that we are starting to think that is the only way that we can fight."

"Have you discussed this with anyone yet?"

"Only with S'Alor."

"And? What does he have to say?"

"He just appears to be vastly amused by everything, but I get the sense that he agrees with me about our vunerabilities. He just isn't really talking about them. I also think that he is willing to do stuff only up to a point, after that it seems that he expects me to figure stuff out for myself."

"Sort of like a parent hey?" Desrae said with a smile.

I looked at her and smiled back. She had an uncanny knack for knowing just how to cheer me up.

"I have been on an incredible learning curve here," Desrae continued, "I never served in the military before so all this stuff is new to me. I thought that the training was pretty fantastic and comprehensive. What am I missing?"

"Well, if I had to relate the way that our role has been described to us, I would say that it is analogous to that of shock infantry, but if I look at how we are armed and configured, I think it is more suited to that of skirmishers or for reconnaissance. Something more like the 95th Regiment of the Rifle Brigade in the Peninsular Campaign."

"Oh. I think I know something about that. You mean like Richard Sharpe?"

I laughed out loud at that. "You have read the Sharpe novels?"

Desrae looked a little sheepish. "Yes. What of it?"

"Just surprised is all. I don't know why though, I've noticed from other things you've said that you had a fairly catholic taste in books."

"Sometimes you read what is available. I must say that I didn't pay attention to everything in stories like that; I just focused on the main plot and read it for pleasure."

"Well, you are absolutely correct. Just like the Green Jackets or like the Roman Velites."

"But how do you think someone could defeat us?"

"I think we have lots of vulnerabilities. One of the most glaring to me is what would happen if the leaders were removed."

"You mean us Finger Leaders?"

"Yes. And the Hand leader."

"I'm not sure. I would have to think about it a bit, but off the cuff, I would think someone else would take over."

"Mmm. Who? That is one of my problems. I was so enamoured by the whole romance of this thing that I never thought about it properly before now. You know that there are a lot of reasons why the armies where we come from are structured the way they are with essentially a two-tiered system of Officers and NCOs. One of those reasons is so that there is a clear separation between Command and Management, but for the purposes of what I have been considering, the more important reason is so that there is someone who can hold the fort if the officer is taken out. The platoon or company can continue, at least for a while, quite happily if the officers are taken out. This structure is too flat, with very few commanders and no way for any of the subordinates to step up and take command."

"But there is a structure," Desrae protested, " the knuckles can take over the Finger and the senior Finger Leader can take over the Hand."

"No. That isn't exactly what I meant. We are training to fight as integrated units, and the implicit reasoning is that any injury is only temporary, because of the way that we heal. I learnt a very important lesson early on in my military career. We were involved in a war in a large, sparsely populated area where the Corporals were given command of their sections for long periods of time with only infrequent contact with their chain of command, and everyone knew that they could do his job if he was taken out. That extended up the chain with everyone training one or two levels above his rank. Here, if the leaders go down and are not returned to action rapidly, then the entire unit loses it's effectiveness."

"I know that my husband used to talk about the Corporal's War in Namibia so I have some idea of what you mean. I am not sure quite why that is so important though?"

"It's just an uneasiness I have. Let's do some what ifs."

"Ok. Like what?"

"Let's say that all of us Finger Leaders were to get together and have supper one night, and someone put a sleeping potion into the food, then as soon as we fell asleep, they attacked the base. What do you think would happen?"

I watched while Desrae thought about that and saw various expressions chase themselves across her face. She was silent for a long time, while I stared out at the moon shining on the water.

"I think it might be a bit disastrous" Desrae said eventually.

"Ja. We are training to be the Phalanx, the heavy infantry, so there is little need for individual thought, but we are not armed for that without shields. It also feels to me like the Russian philosophy of centralised control. Works wonderfully when it works, but tend to prefer ability and decision making, right down to the individual solider. Means you can be more flexible and adapt faster to changes when the plan inevitably dissolves in the face of the enemy..."

"What do you think needs to change?" Desrae asked with a worried frown.

"I would do it differently if I was in charge. But then I don't have experience of the wars here, so I might be completely wrong."

"Hey, how about you forget about that for now and come back to join the rest of us? We still have two days to relax before starting the next phase of training. Maybe we can discuss this a bit more and think it through."

"You're right. I suspect there is still lots I need to know. Sorry for neding your ear by the way."

"I did ask what was bothering you. There are some people who care for you you know."

"Thanks Desrae. I appreciate that more than I can tell you."

"No problem. Let's see whether there is any of that home-brew left."

"Sounds good to me."

Chapter 27: Lectures

2009-01-30T17:38:00.002+02:00

I hadn't realised juts how tired the swim had made me until we had been running for a while and I found myself flagging. It took some concentration on my body and some concerted effort before I felt my body starting to adjust again as it flushed all the toxins. I {tasted} how the rest of my Finger were doing, and when I saw that they were battling as much as I had been, I did the same for them as I had done for myself. We eventually completed the run back where we had started at the big rock, and S'Alor took himself off into the bush when we started swimming. It was a lot easier this time, both because all the warriors in my Finger now knew how to swim and because it was down-stream back to the base. When we got back to the base, Hand Evans dismissed us for brunch.

***

After brunch, all of the 'knuckles' were called aside by Hand Evans while the rest were formed up and started to practice normal sword drills in formation under the cadre's watchful eye.

***

"Knuckleheads," Hand Evans began, "we are going to start teaching new concepts, drills and formations to you, so that you can teach them to your Fingers. The schedule to start with is going to be PT in the mornings, then a lecture for you after brunch at 10h00 till about 14h30. After that you will have time to instruct your Fingers until 16h00. Supper is from 16h00 to 16h30. You will then be able to work with your Finger on drills and problems experienced during the day stopping at 20h00. After that you have personal time with lights out at 22h30.

"There will be no formal inspections of the Barracks, but be aware that you are responsible for them and that means that the punishment is yours if they aren't spick and span. I suggest you hold your own ad hoc inspections to ensure that we never have trouble about this.

"Depending on how things go, we will switch to a night program where everything will be reversed. Yes Desrae?"

"Hand Evans, how will we know that things are on schedule?" asked Desrae.

"We will tell you," Hand Evans answered. "When we determine that you are up to scratch, we will schedule a break and then start the night phase. When that is completed, we will have an evaluation and then we will look at a few possible specialisations. Please understand, our normal schedule for this first day phase is four weeks minimum. We suspect though that if you can get your 'Sword Dance' technique to work for you, you might be able to progress slightly faster. From what I saw of the hair loss earlier, I suspect that won't be any trouble at all... "

Everyone laughed at that.

"Right, lets begin with the order of march when crossing hostile country" Hand Evans launched into his lecture. I had to pay very careful attention to what he said because I had come to realise that a lot of what I 'knew' from my previous military experience could get me into trouble. I had to remember that there were no mortars, patrol or otherwise, to provide a quick response to an ambush to to assist in breaking contact. There were no fire-support missions or casevacs, no transport vehicles to handle logistics and no battle-taxis, or Infantry Combat Vehicles. Everything here was done on foot at the pace that the warriors could move. The essentials were the same, the same principles and concepts, I just had to remember that the assumptions based on motorised or mechanised infantry had to be re-evaluated and thought through in the light of the current situation.

Hand Evans introduced us to the concept of the 'Tactical Decision Exercise" and told us that as we progressed, we could be presented with a scenario at any time and have to come up with a solution on the spot. This was tied initially into the broader concept of the way that the Hand would move and fight, so there was very little scope for individual Finger decision making. The one place where this was different was in the skirmish line. When the Hand was moving tactically through hostile terrain, one of the Fingers would act as a skirmish line a short distance ahead of the Hand, and if they hit contact, their job was to delay the attack for long enough for the rest of the Hand to prepare for battle. One of the other Fingers was responsible for protection of the HQ element. The HQ element would be where any odds and sods would travel with the Hand, to ensure that they didn't interfere with its smooth running. Depending on the terrain, there were various formations that the Hand could travel in. Generally in forested or bushy areas, this would be with less seperation between individuals. Finger formations would generally be line ahead or a 2-up-T formation. Each Hand would be close enough to at least one other Hand so that they could provide support in need. For more open terrain such as desert or savannah, the formations would be a lot more open and dispersed, concentrating only for obstacle crossing and to confront a mutual threat.

With this very broad outline, we were dismissed to join the rest of the Hand for us to start working with them as Fingers.

My first priority was to teach my Finger the Sword Dance, and in the process start to bind them into a unit that would think and act together. I had readlly struggled on the swim and run to do any more than to maintain contact between the members of the Finger. There was certainly no team as there had been with my original Finger.

I started off by going up into Battle Mode and then pulling the Finger up with me, then I began on the simplest sword drills, one after another until they started to flow together into the beginnings of the Sword Dance. When we reached this point after about an hour, it was as if I had broken through a brick wall. After that it started to go a lot faster as I didn't need to do quite as much controlling, but could rather just 'show' and have the Finger members pick it up with less and less direct control from me.

By the time 16h00 rolled around, the Finger was performing pretty well. i could see that it was still going to take a lot of working together to get the fluidity and control that I had come to expect, but it was a solid start that could be built on.

I had considered dropping in instruction similar to the way that S'Alor had shown me how to push instructions to their bodies to lose their hair and modify their characteristics, but I was feeling guilty about that. S'Alors cavalier attitude had crossed over to me and had influenced me to feel the same way about it that he did. If I had thought about it first, I would never have done what I had without at the very least obtaining permission first. I thought that it smacked of mind control or domination and it was a violation of privacy that I would object to strenuously if it had been done to me without my permission. I also considered that it would be more efficient in the long run for the warriors in my Finger, and others, to learn how to take this sort of instruction with the least amount of interference with their minds on the part of the instructor.

***

After supper, I got together with the other knuckles and we decided to do a Sword Dance of our own. While we were busy with that, I explained my thinking about the mental instruction and the rest agreed that we needed to ensure that we started out on the moral high ground, so that as we developed this further those who came afterwards would have a good example to follow. We also agreed it just made good sense to act morally.

While we were busy, we also shared our impressions and memories of the lecture that we had received from Hand Evans. I found that this was extremely useful as it helped me to commit what we had learnt to memory and there were things that each of us had missed that one of the others had picked up on, so we filled in each other's blanks in this way. During the Sword Dance, S'Alor joined us mentally, and he had some pithy and pointed comments to make on the practicality of quite a few of the things that we had been taught.

***

This set the schedule for the next few weeks activities. Every day we followed Hand Evans' program and learnt like crazy from what he and others had to teach us. At the same time, we were teaching others what we had learnt which tended to force us to think about it and remember it. There is nothing that teaches you a subject like having to teach someone else. After two weeks of this, I felt that my Finger was fully competent, just having to have a few sharp corners smoothed, and I was starting to hope for something a little different and challenging.

***

Blog: War World Map

2009-01-30T10:59:00.004+02:00

I have been playing with the idea of having a map of War World. My mapping skills are a little... rudimentary to say the least. Here is a first attempt.

For those of you wondering, the reason the base is on an island is to seperate the training from the "real world" envirionment of the main continent.

If anyone wants to make a stab at doing something better, let me know and I will send you the original .psd file.

Blog: Explanations

2009-01-29T21:58:00.001+02:00

Compulsive re-readers of my story who possess an eagle eye would have noticed that S'Alor is now described as a Smilodean NOT a Simian. I NEVER intended to suggest that he had any monkey features... :-)

Some words and phrases that have been queried:

Cadre - Training team (pronounced card-ra)
Sand-Box - Normally Iraq (aka Down-range)
Paras - In this case "The Parachute Regiment"
P-Course - more properly P-Week, the parachute selection and training course in the British Army
RIFd - Reduction in Force (made a verb). i.e. made redundant/fired
IED - improvised explosive device

BoonDock

Chapter 26: Swim

2009-01-28T22:31:00.001+02:00

Once I got Brad sorted out, we could pick up the pace a bit. I could feel that the swimming was using my muscles in a completely different way to running and fighting had. I had known that being swimming fit was different to being running fit before, but with my new awareness of my body that came with the Battle Mode I was able to see the difference in detail. As we swam, I started working on adjusting my body to compensate for the strain that the swimming was putting on it. I could see though that the warriors in my Finger were not able to do anything like that. The changes to their bodies were still at the involuntary stage that I had experienced during the run on my first day on War World. I thought about that a bit and decided that I could ask for some advice.

"[S'Alor, can you hear me?]"

"[Yes Cy.]" S'Alor gave the feeling that he was sleepy and a little grumpy at being woken up.

"[Sorry to wake you, I just wanted to ask you a quick question. Is it possible for me to teach the members of my Finger how to control their bodies a little better?]"

"[No. You are their pack leader so you can do it for them. {image/explanation}. Now leave me to sleep.]"

S'Alor dumped a fairly complex concept in my mind which took some time for me to unravel. If I understood him correctly, I could guide the process in the members of my finger in the same way I had done for myself. I decided to be very, very circumspect in what I attempted with this because I didn't want to do anything that would be dangerous to them. I picked on the shaving thing as a good place to start, because even if I messed up, it was no big deal. According to S'Alor, once we were in battle mode with me leading the gestalt, I didn't even need their permission. I thought carefully about the way that I got rid of my hair, and reached out to the Finger and gave a {push} for them to lose theirs. There was an immediate chorus of confusion and shock.

"[Cy, What's happening?]" called Bridget.

That didn't surprise me at all. She had just lost her mane of blond hair after all.

"[Sorry Bridget, and the rest of you, I just got rid of your hair for you.]" I told the Finger.

"[That was the strangest thing,]" Bill chipped in, "[I could feel all of my hair falling out and washing away. Did you get rid of everything?"]

"[Yes. We are all hairless for now. It is fairly easy to speed up hair-growth later on if any of you wish, but I thought that for now it is better this way. I am going to make some other changes so don't be too surprised]"

"[{agreement}] came from all of them.

I thought carefully about the next bunch of changes I wanted to make. I started changing each of them one by one, basically slimming down all of them and optimising their bodies for both endurance and strength. By the time I had finished, we were at the rock that Hand Evans had told us about so we all climbed out of the water. I felt energised as I always did after being in battle mode, but once we were waiting at the rock, I dropped us out of battle mode. I examined all the members of the finger and I was truly amazed at what I had been able to accomplish. I had thought that being able to change myself was a rush, but this was way beyond that.I could see that a fair number of the changes had happened already, but I knew that some of them would take a bit of time to happen. One of the more obvious ones was that I had decided that we should all be the same height. I had tried to change us all to be six foot two, but that hadn't happened yet. The most obvious change was the absolute lack of hair on all of us, but the change in physique was also readily apparent.

Desrae's finger had got out of the water a few minutes before us and she had watched us arrive.

"[Do you have some sort of fetish for hairless women Cy?]" she asked me with barely suppressed mirth.

"[{amusement} I just did that as a first step and as a test. I also think it will be good for hygene.]" I was a little defensive, but took her teasing as a sign of her affection.

"[How did you do that Cy?]" Desrae asked so I explained it to her and to the others in the same way that S'Alor had explained to me, along with a few more detailed mental images.

It was hilarious to watch as suddenly all the hair started falling off the members of first Desrae's Finger and then, one by one, the rest of the Hand.

Just as this was happening, Hand Evans and the rest of the cadre arrived at the rock. I was watching Hand Evans' face and got to see his face when he noticed what was going on. It was very amusing to watch him struggle to get his face under control and try to pretend that he was completely unsurprised.

"Right," he said. "If you lot are quite finished playing silly buggers, let's take a run. This is going to be part of our routine every morning from now on. We will swim the two klicks from the jetty to here, run about twenty klicks on various different routes ending back here, then swim back to the jetty. In your fingers, by number, follow me."

I got into line directly behind Hand Evans with my Finger with me and we set out. We hadn't gone more than a klick when S'Alor was running silently next to me.

"[You gave me a fright S'Alor. I though you were sleeping?]" I greeted him.

"[I wasn't interested in swimming. I like to run.]" was his very curt reply.

"[I didn't see you on my Mind Map. How do you do that?]" I asked him. This was something that had been puzzling me for a while.

"[Practise. Like this {image/explanation}.]"

I tried to figure it out. It seemed that it was simply a technique that was an extension of the situational awareness that being in Battle Mode gave me. All I had to do though was to integrate myself so thoroughly with the envirionment that I was invisible so much as people would overlook me. I tried to do this and S'Alor just laughed at me.

"[It will take you some time to practice that. I'll tell you when you get it right.]" he told me.

I had to content myself with that. I took the Finger up into Battle Mode and I concentrated on practicing 'I am a rock, I am a bush' while we ran to the constant under-current of S'Alor's amusement.

Chapter 25: new Finger

2009-01-28T11:21:00.001+02:00

I moved my kit from the Barracks room that we had used the previous night across to the Finger One Barracks. This was a move from one side of the semi-circle to the other, from the furtherest East to the furtherest West. My new barracks was right on the bank of the river. I stood in the door and waited to see what would happen next.

After a short while the Cadre Finger Leaders started sending warriors out to the different barracks; I could hear them calling names and then see the warriors leaving the formation to return to their original barracks, collect their kit and move to their new homes, just as I had done. Three warriors came to my new barracks to collect their kit and move out before the first of my new finger arrived to join me. As he walked up to the barracks carrying his kit, I tried to guess what sort of man he was. He was tall, somewhere over six feet, and very bulky. I couldn’t tell whether this was a hold-over from his previous build or not, but he looked as if he was a typical body-builder with an extreme development of his muscles. As he came up the stairs, he looked at me without saying anything, until I realised that he was waiting for me to clear the path into the barracks. I moved aside and let him in. When he had dumped his kit, I was waiting on the ground in front of the barracks and I asked him his name.

"I’m Bradley," he grunted and came to a stop next to me. We both watched as the rest of my new finger straggled in one by one. It took about ten minutes for the rest to gather. Once the last straggler was there, I looked them over.

"My name is Cy Peters. Being appointed as a ‘knuckle’ to a new Finger has been a huge surprise for me, so I have probably just as little idea what to expect as you do. I think we should spend some time introducing ourselves while we wait for more information. I come from Durban in South Africa and I was in the Army there. I saw combat in Angola and Namibia at section level in Motorised Infantry, and then later on as part of a Mechanised Battalion Group near the Lomba river. I was a reserve force soldier for twenty three years, doing time in the army for between thirty and ninety days every year. My last deployment was as a company commander on peace keeping operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although there wasn’t all the much peace to keep up in the North East where we were. Before I joined up for War World, I was the battalion training officer. You might recognise me from the Combat Competition. Brad, what about you?"

"Bradley Commons. Called Brad, not Bradley," came the surly response. I was British Army. Got to Staff Sergeant and they kicked me out. Wouldn’t let me stay in for my thirty years cause I wasn’t a Sgt Major. Did a few tours in Ireland, one in Aden. Latest was a tour to the Sand-Box."

"Thanks Brad. Next?" I asked of a short wiry man.

"Jeremy Ellis. Jerry to my friends. Originally from Kenya. I was the son of British expatriates and I volunteered for the British Army and ended up doing the P course. I instructed for a while on secondment from the Paras. Did a combat tour in Cyprus fighting the Greeks. I got out after my five years but found I was getting bored on my Dad’s farm, so I signed up with Mad Mike Hoare. Did two contracts with him in the Congo. After that I had had enough soldiering, so I bought a farm in Rhodesia. I was in the BSAP there and did a lot of tracking. I have been retired for a long time now and was living in Mooi River."

"Interesting. Seems we have eaten some of the same dust," I said with a smile. "You didn’t live that far away from me either. Next?"

"That’ll be me." The voice came from a woman around 5’8" in height with a close-cropped head of brown hair. "I’m Shelly Booth. Grew up in Chicago. I have no military background, but I know weapons and fighting." The last was said with a touch of defiance.

"I would be interested to know where you learnt about those Shelly?" I probed gently.

"I ran with a gang," came the succinct reply.

"Ok. Makes sense. That’s Brad, Jerry and Shelly. Next please?"

"Bill Riley. I did twelve years in the US Army. My last tour was with the 10th Mountain in the Stan."

"Light Infantryman hey? Carry light, Sleep Cold." I grinned at Bill. "What rank?"

"I left as a Sgt. Up or Out got me RIFd".

I could see that there was an incredible amount of resentment there. Bill had the classic American soldier’s build; heavy in the arms and shoulders.

"OK. And you?" This was to the last member of the finger. A short, blond, Barbie type.

"I grew up on a farm in Wyoming. Lived around horses and did pulled my weight but I got sick of being the butte of Dumb Blonde jokes. I decided to take the opportunity when it came up. I lost one brother to Desert Storm and another to an IED in Iraq just last year. I figured that if they had been alive, they might have liked to take advantage of this opportunity, so I came in their place. "

"OK. You didn’t tell us your name?"

"Oh. Sorry. I am Bridget Amory. Folks were of German stock."

"Ok Bridget. Thanks. Right. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s try something else. How far did you guys get with the mental side of things?"

I watched them while I asked this question. I had been surprised to see that all the men had beards and mustaches, so I guessed that they had not got quite as far along as I had with my old Finger.

"[Can you all hear me?]" I asked when I got only a few mumbled responses. As it turned out, they could all hear me, but they could not send at all. I had to pick up their replies from their minds, rather then having them send it back to me. After a little observation, it was obvious that their mental development was sorely lacking.

"[Finger Leaders,]" I heard Hand Evans calling, "[Take your new fingers down to the Jetty. We are going to start out with a bit of a swim. When you are there, swim up-river till you reach a large rock {image} on the left bank. The rock is about two klicks upriver. Get out of the river, and wait next to the rock.]"

"[Can everyone swim?]" I asked the Finger as we walked rapidly the hundred meters or so to the jetty. All of them said they could so as soon as we were there, I dived into the water with the Finger following. Two klicks was a very long way to swim to my old way of thinking, and the last time I had swum that far was when I competed in the Midmar Mile a few years before. I had experience now though of what my body was capable of here on War World.

I started out at a very slow pace, doing an easy breast-stroke while I checked on my Finger. They were all OK except for Brad who seemed to have progressed as far as doggy-paddle before deciding that was all he needed to know about swimming. I realised that I had automatically moved into the meditation state, and I was at first surprised that the rest of the Finger hadn’t followed me in doing so. I suddenly felt the other ‘knuckles’, the members of my old Finger, as they also entered the state we had used for the Sword Dance, so I reached out to them.

"[Are you guys doing OK?]"

"[Yup,]" Desrae replied, "[although it looks as though our Finger was something special. This lot {image/taste}]"

I laughed. Desrae’s image showed a bunch of drunken slobs falling around and vomiting on each other.

"[It’s not that bad.]"

"[Almost. We need to get these guys as much up to speed as we can Cy. Interacting with them has made me realise we are already light years ahead.]" Desrae’s scathing tone came through clearly.

"[Agreed. Why not start by seeing if we can get our Fingers into the ‘battle mode’ first, then we can see if that helps us with teaching them the other stuff we know?]"

"[{Agreement}]" came back from all four of them.

I reached out to my Finger "[I want you to follow me in your minds.]"

As I got each person’s attention I started guiding them into the battle mode state. I started with Brad as it seemed to me that he had the most to benefit from learning how to do it. While I was struggling with him, we were swimming at a snail’s pace. This didn’t worry me too much as I could see in my Mind Map that there were at least three Fingers that were having problems and were proceeding slowly. It took me much longer than I had thought it would, but eventually the whole section had managed to move into battle mode. Once they were there, I started pushing swimming techniques at them. The change in Brad was startling. He learnt from this process very quickly and the section started moving at last with a fairly rapid over-hand crawl. As we swam, I started trying to confirm my initial suspicions that the warriors that I had been given had barely scratched the surface of the potential of the mental aspects of what I had found available. I checked with Desrae and the others and they were adamant in confirming my thoughts. I decided to move this up the chain a little and contact Finger Roberts. He very quickly confirmed what I had suspected. He explained to me that the real forging of a Finger normally happened in battle where the bonds between the members would be created under extreme stress. it was only after this first battle that we were supposed to really start coming into our mental abilities as we fed off the synergy from a bonded Finger. He pointed out to me that we had been an aberration, which was why they were experimenting with placing us as knuckles to see whether we could use our abilities to short-cut the process.

Chapter 24: Second Phase Training

2009-01-26T22:25:00.003+02:00

After about three hours of running, we crested a ridge and entered a small valley. The new training base was next to a broad river. It was a delightful base that reminded me of nothing less than Lothlorien in Lord of the Rings. Each Finger had a house to itself that was raised from the ground about three meters on stilts. The five Finger houses were arranged in a semi-circle around a small clearing in the forest. Off to the East side there were a number of other houses that acted as an admin area including store-rooms, a mess-hall and classrooms.

Hand Evans called us to a halt in the center of the clearing and dismissed us. Finger Roberts led us to our house which was the one closest to the admin buildings. I chose the a bed against the far wall in the corner and stowed my kit. S’Alor wasn’t interested in coming into the camp, and said that he would make himself comfortable in the forest.

Settling in took almost no time at at. We simply dumped our gear and then left the house to walk around and take a look at our new home. One of the first things I spotted was a notice board with a series of pages on it listing each Finger, their Finger Leaders, Knuckles and members. We walked towards the river and onto the jetty that stretched out into the river.I looked down and saw that there were fish visible through the clear water. We were soon joined by some of the members of the other fingers.

"Let’s go for a swim," Desrae suggested.

"Great idea" I replied, and we headed back to get our towels. On the way there, I asked Finger Roberts about showers.

"Haven’t you learnt how to warm water yet Cy?" he asked me.

"I’m on to you Finger," I replied with a smile.

Finger Roberts laughed. "Yes, I figured one day in base would expose me."

"Do we have any showers?" I asked again. I was a bit obessed with the idea by now. It was the one major luxury that I had missed during our first phase training.

"No. Maybe it’s time to re-examine that water-heating idea of yours."

"Great idea. All we need is a container for the water and some piping."

With that Finger Roberts led me off to the Admin building, all thoughts of swimming shelved. No matter how nice the scenery, this came first for me.

At the admin building, Finger Roberts introduced me to a guy I would come to depend on. "Cy, this is Mark Knoble. He acts as our quartermaster. He is part of the admin section, and not part of a Finger."

"Hi Mark," I greeted him. Finger Roberts wandered off and I was left talking to Mark.

"Hi Cy. What can I do for you?" Mark asked.

I explained what I needed to Mark and he disappeared into his store with a quiet request for me to wait for a few minutes. When he reappeared, he was carrying a length of piping.

"Will this do?’ Mark asked.

I examined the piping. "That’s perfect. What about the other things?"

"In the back" said Mark and led me around the building to where he had an outdoor shed for storage. In the shed Mark pointed out a barrel.

"What is that thing made of?" I asked him.

"I have no idea. All I know is that it is the standard barrel used to store liquids. It is very durable and can be put on the fire to heat water. We have done that before."

That was welcome news. I went to man-handle the barrel out of the store and found it was made of an extremely light material. Once I had the barrel outside, I rolled it along away from the admin building towards the river. When I got it there, I turned around and found Mark had anticipated my need; he was standing behind me with a two-handed wood saw in his hands.I gathered up a number of large stones and created two piles of them for the barrel to rest on, then I took the knife that Mark offered me at my request, and cut a hole in the top of the barrel and another on the top of the one side. I attached a pipe to the hole on the side for siphoning off hot water and got a bucket from Mark. While I was fetching water to fill the barrel, Mark started cutting wood for a fire.

It took me a while, but I eventually got the barrel filled with water. When we got the fire going I placed the pipe into one bucket and fetched another bucketful of cold water. I waited for the barrel to heat up, chatting to Mark while I did so. once I thought it was hot enough, I poured the bucket of cold water into the top of the barrel and collected the warm water that came out of the other. I would at last have some hot water in future.

Finger Roberts and I went back to our barracks room and grabbed some towels to join the others in the river.

* * *

The next morning we were woken up early as usual. It didn’t bother me; armies since the dawn of time have had to instill this habit in soldiers to be ready for the typical dawn raid, so it was something I was completely familiar with. This morning though we were in a new place and I was unsure of what the routine would involve, so I went with the others down to the river for a quick wash and got dressed. We were called shortly after that to form up in the central parade ground.

We formed up under the guidance of the Finger Leaders into a large formation, but each finger formed two rows of three, with the Finger Leader at the head of the right-hand row. Once everyone was in place, Hand Evans addressed us.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Today we will start your second phase training. We will start with a reorganisation. Your Finger Leaders will now withdraw from you and become part of the training cadre, while those of you who have been identified as potential Finger Leaders will take over in those positions. While you are learning about how to fight as a Hand, these people will be learning what is involved in being a Finger Leader. While they are under training, they will be addressed as ‘Knuckle’ but you will treat them as if they are actual Finger Leaders. Think of them as ‘Candidate Officers’ in that while they do not hold the rank yet, they will have to perform as Finger Leaders and the cadre will back up their temporary authority.

"Once that has taken place, we will start with the drills that you already know from Finger training, and how they apply to fighting together in the Hand. Finger Leaders, carry on."

Finger Roberts turned to us and called us aside. "In case you hadn’t guessed it before now, you lot are the new ‘Knuckles’ for this training Hand. Cy, you will take Finger One, Desrae two, Lian three, Elaine four and Geraint Five. Go to the barracks and move your kit to your new barracks rooms, your new Finger members will join you there shortly."

I looked around at the others and realised that they were just as surprised as I was at this latest development. I shrugged and went to do as I had been ordered.

Chapter 23: S'Alor & Second Phase

2009-01-19T22:35:00.004+02:00

I woke up the next morning in the barracks room with the rest of my Finger. Lorraine and I had spent a good three hours the previous day exploring all the various athletic options that are possible between two consenting adults, and a few that I hadn’t known were possible. I had made my way back to the barracks room and gone to sleep after having to endure the friendly joshing from Desrae and the others.

I got up and took care of my morning routine, only too happy to have access to a hot shower for a change. It was still early when I was finished and dressed. I had given some thought to how I was going to handle introducing S’Alor to the powers-that-be, so I reached out to make contact with Finger Roberts.

"[Finger, It’s Cy.]"

"[What is it Cy?]" It seems I had woken Finger Roberts for a change.

"[I need to see you as soon as possible. There is something that you need to know.]"

"[OK. I will meet you on the parade ground in 20 minutes. I just need to get myself sorted out.]"

"["No Problem, Finger.]"

I woke up the rest of my finger and once they were all firing on all cylinders, told them the story of S’Alor. Desrae told me that she had suspected that there was something going on as she had detected what she thought was a dream character on the periphery of our Sword Dances while we were training. That surprised me. I had often felt S’Alor hanging around mentally when we were busy, but I hadn’t know that anyone else had sensed him. Lian confirmed that he had also sensed something, but Geraint and Elaine claimed to have been oblivious.

I left them to get ready and walked out to find Finger Roberts.

"Over here Cy," he called me and handed me a tin mug of coffee. Ambrosia. Something else that I had missed. While we sipped coffee I told him the story. It’s one huge advantage to mental communication, you can talk while eating or drinking.

"[Remember when you detected that I was speaking to someone who wasn’t on your mind-map?]" I reminded him.

"[Yes. Are you going to tell me who he is now?]" Finger Roberts didn’t sound at all surprised.

"[How did you know?]"

"[I have sensed him since then on the fringes of the Sword Dance, and once or twice while we were on runs I felt that we weren’t alone. Nothing definite, but you forget that I have been doing this a while Cy.]"

"[Why didn’t you ask me about this?]" I asked in puzzlement.

"[{Amusement} I consulted Hand Evans about it and just watched you. I could sense that this was something that you thought was important, but we decided to wait until you felt you were prepared to tell us on your own.]"

"[Hand Evans knows?]"

"[Yes. He’s waiting for us. I suspected that you wanted to tell me about this and gave him a heads-up.]"

"[Can he meet us near the edge of the parade-ground?]"

"[Sure. I’ll let him know.]"

Once I got over my initial surprise, I realised I had been thinking like a typical recruit. The instructors often see things that the recruits think that they don’t, and just as often choose not to do anything about them for one reason or another. I had been on that side of the fence, and I should have known better. We walked on and we were joined by Hand Evans at a spot under some trees.

"[Morning.]" Hand Evans greeted us curtly. I took a careful look at his communication then realised it was simply tiredness, and not anything to do with me. It seemed that I was not the only one to have celebrated a little last night.

"[Finger Roberts. Hand Evans."] I began, "[I need to tell you about someone that I have met.]" I went on to tell them the bits of the story that I had left out before; about S’Alor and our communications. Hand Evans seemed to be most interested in S’Alor’s ability to move close to us without appearing on our mind map. I didn’t realise it, but somehow I didn’t tell them, and they didn’t realise, that S’Alor was Smilodean.

"[S’Alor is right near by. Can I call him in?]" I eventually asked.

"[Sure.]" I got back from Hand Evans.

S’Alor had been waiting. I had barely got the permission from Hand Evans when he appeared out of the shadows and came to stand at my side.

Hand Evans and Finger Roberts looked as if they were going to die from strokes. They had the most incredible looks of shock and horror on their faces that I had ever seen. I couldn’t help smiling, and my mind was full of S’Alor’s "[{Amusement}]".

"[S’Alor, this is Hand Evans {image/taste} and Finger Roberts {image/taste}.]" I introduced him.

Both men replied politely enough, although I could see that they were seriously shocked about the fact that S’Alor was a Smilodean. They had all considered the big cats to be a particular danger to humans in the forest, and I could see that they were pretty nervous about being this close to S’Alor.

Just then I spotted Marek walking up, with Shiyla in tow.

"[Good morning S’Alor,]" Marek greeted calmly.

Hand Evans swung around to stare at Marek. "[You know him? You knew the Smilodeans were sentient?]" he asked, the fury obvious in his voice.

"No need to panic Hand Leader Evans" Marek said calmly. "S’Alor specifically asked on behalf of the Smilodeans that you not be told of their nature. They have spent some time observing the operations on War World with a view to joining in. S’Alor contacted me last night to tell me that they have made the decision to test the relationship. He seems to like Cy Peters here and has chosen to be his Battle Companion. It is in the nature of a test of the relationship. If it works out, then there might be further members of his race that will decide to join."

"[{Agreement} I have watched Cy. He tasted to me like a predator, but told me that he was a cub. He was open to me and seemed more prepared than most to act like a cub in order to learn new things. This thing he calls a Sword Dance is something that I helped him to achieve. It was already within him, but I just pushed him to focus on it.]"

I was very interested by this. Not only did it seem as if S’Alor could understand our spoken language, and not just our mental communications as I had at first thought, but he was a lot more erudite than he had appeared at first. I was to discover that he was learning just as much from me as I was from him.

"You are about to start your second phase training. Might I suggest that for now you consider S’Alor to be a companion to a warrior in one of the fingers, and we can see how the relationship develops?" asked Marek.

"That sounds good to me," replied Hand Evans, "do you agree Finger?"

"Yes Hand," Finger Roberts answered. "It is going to make things interesting though!"

* * *

To say that the rest of the the warriors who had been on War World for some time were surprised would be stretching the concept of under-statement to the breaking point. The other recruits took it basically in their stride as for them it was just one more aspect of their new situation. Once Fist Ryon had stopped pissing and moaning, and the rest of the leaders had calmed down somewhat, the entire training Fist was assembled on the parade-ground.

Fist Ryon addressed us again as he had at the start of our first phase.

"Warriors," he said, "we have had some excitement the last day or so, but we need to put that behind us now and continue with the next phase of your training. To this point you have focused on individual skills and Finger formations. In the next phase we will continue to work on improving those skills, but we will now move into fighting in larger formations, the Hand and the Fist, as well as how some of the other pieces of the organisation work. The Hands that you were assigned to yesterday will be the Hands you are in for this phase of the training. We will move out as Hands to the Hand training bases where this phase will begin. I will be seeing you from time to time both as I observe your Hand training and when we finally get together as a Fist to train. I encourage you to pay attention to what you are taught and to work hard. Some of you have experienced what it is like to be defeated in battle in our Combat Training battles here yesterday, and I am sure you can attest to the fact that it is not pleasant. Keep this in mind for this next phase. During this phase we will also be confirming our evaluations of you and we will make some decisions about who will be earmarked for leadership positions. That is all. Hand Leaders, take over."

Hand Evans called his Finger Leaders to him and they spoke quietly together for a few minutes, then they all returned to their Fingers. He gave the order to move out and we started walking in finger formations behind him. Once we were off the parade-ground and on the pathway through the forest, he pushed up the pace and we started running. S’Alor found this way too restrictive and started ranging out to the side.

While we were running, I discovered that my connection to S’Alor extended the range of my mind-map. Ever since the decision had been taken that he could join me as a companion, we had started developing a connection between us that seemed to be constantly ‘on’. I couldn’t see through his eyes, but I found that the my mind-map included the normal area that I could normally cover, as well as another area that was centered on him. I mentioned this to S’Alor, and he seemed to be surprised that I thought that there was anything strange about that.

"[That is how the pack works Cy. We are each individuals, but we bond into groups very similar to the way your Fingers do, but each is boosted by the connection to the others so that we can range widely and even when we are not thinking about it, our mind maps are the sum of all the contributions from the individuals. Don’t you do that with your pack mates?]" S’Alor asked.

"[I have never tried it. We will have to experiment a little later. There is not much room to test our boundaries here.]" I replied.

Blog: Battle Diagrams

2009-01-19T21:00:00.003+02:00

In case you hadn't noticed, I have added some diagrams of the battle in Chapter 19. No-one has commented on them. Were they useful? A waste of time? Should I go back and do the same for the first battle and/or do them for future battles? Should I draw a Map of War-World? I am just wondering how important readers feel that is. All the best John

Chapter 22: In the Forest

2009-01-19T11:40:00.004+02:00

I was a little unsure where I should start. Figuring that it was best to be safe, I decided to walk Lorraine through the process I had followed to get to where I had. I started out by explaining a little bit about my background and how I had gotten to War World, just in case there was something there that was important, and then talked her through the process I had followed. Lorraine picked up on it pretty quickly. It took her four attempts, but she managed to get a Sword Dance of her own started on her fourth attempt. She didn’t keep it up for long; just long enough to be sure that she could do it.

"That’s pretty amazing Cy," Lorraine said as she flopped down onto the grass.

"Ja. I thought so too," I answered with a smile. "I really wasn’t sure that what I had done was anything really out of the ordinary, then everyone made a fuss, and now you picked it up within half an hour... so I am really not so sure."

"I had a quick mental chat to Hand Evans after your demonstration earlier and he told me that I can explain some things to you that you couldn’t know."

"That sounds intriguing?"

"Yes," she smiled, "it’s not that interesting. Just that you are comparing your abilities to the people you have interacted with the most, your finger members and the various leader types. Not everyone is as talented. You and other members of your finger were identified by Marek and his crew as having a high aptitude, which is why you were grouped together."

"An aptitude for what exactly?"

"Maybe potential is a better word. Potential or aptitude for leadership, which in this place implies mental ability more than anything else. The physical is easy enough for the Sidhe to rectify."

"OK. So what exactly does that mean?"

"Just that there are not very many leader types. Very few have the mental aptitude. You’ve been taught about the structure we use. Why do you think we have no Officers and NCOs?"

"I had wondered about that. It seemed very strange to me. The Finger/Hand/Fist leaders seem to be a strange combination of the two. Half Officer and half NCO. Finger Roberts wouldn’t go into much detail about it at all."

"Yes. In your second phase training you will learn a lot more about the practicalities of how things work at the levels above a Finger. The problem is that people with the ability to lead are scarce. Contrary to what you would know about a traditional army, we have only warriors. Everyone fights. What support we need we provide ourselves. The ‘tail’ functions are generally provided for us by the Sidhe in training, and by the local population out there in the world. You should know that everyone in your finger has been ear-marked for a leadership position. There are another two or three fingers in this group marked as well, although your finger has the members with the highest potential. The rest are most probably going to be warriors only. I think you will find that it is a lot more difficult to teach the Sword Dance to those without the same potential, and pretty much impossible to teach them what you have taught me today."

"That bears some thinking about. Do you think that someone without the mental aptitude could have the pace of their fighting training speeded up by the Sword Dance?"

"I think so. That we will have to find out."

I was thinking about this when I noticed Lorraine was looking at me slightly differently. it felt as if she had switched mental gears.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"Do you remember I made you a promise when we were in the shower?"

"Umm. Yes. You said that you would teach me about the more private aspects."

"Exactly." Lorraine stretched and it drew my attention to her body. "The finger you are in," she said, "is like family. Sex within the Finger is absolutely taboo. Worse than incest. We have found that it decreases a Finger’s effectiveness and cohesion almost without fail. Other than that, there is no limit. No taboos except ones that squick the individual." Lorraine moved closer to me and reached out to touch my leg.

I found my body was reacting involuntarily to Lorraine. I had not been with any other woman since I had married my wife over twenty years before. Before I could say or do anything about what she was doing, she kissed me. I started to relax and return the kiss and brought my one hand around to caress her back and run my fingers through her hair.

"[{Amusement}]

"What? What was that?" Lorraine shot up, looking around for a threat. She had grabbed up her sheathed sword and drawn it before I had even had time to draw breath.

"I think there is something that I haven’t told you yet Lorraine," I said, struggling past the frustration I felt at having our kiss interrupted.

"Oh?’ Lorraine managed to pack a world’s worth of sarcasm into that one syllable.

"Yes. [Lorraine, this is S’Alor {image/taste}. S’Alor, this is Lorraine {image/taste}.]"

I could see Lorraine’s shock on her face as she processed what she had just learnt.

"S’Alor? A Smilodean? Sentient?"

"[{Amusement} Why should this surprise you so much Lorraine?]" S’Alor spoke to us both again.

"[My apologies S’Alor. Nothing we have heard has suggested that your kind was anything more than what you appeared. I did not intend to offend. Will you forgive me?"]

"[Sheath your claws Lorraine. I would like to come closer.]" said S’Alor.

Lorraine sheathed her sword, then swung to glare at me. "I nearly had a heart attack. I suppose you have been chatting to S’Alor all this time?"

"Well, yes. Shortly after I discovered the Sword Dance, I discovered that S’Alor had been watching me. He has been very friendly, but I have never actually met him." As the words left my mouth they became untrue as I spotted movement in the bush at the edge of the clearing. S’Alor moved into the clearing and I was amazed at the way that he seemed to ooze out of the undergrowth as if he was some dream made real. I had a particular love for cats, and had thought that my domestic pets were a poor substitute for the large cats. My favourite character in any story when I was growing up was Bagheera from the Jungle Book, followed in short order by Shere Khan. S’Alor seemed to be a combination of both. He had the bulk of Shere Khan combined with the elegance and grace of Bagheera. He was big though, probably a meter and a half at the shoulder, and about four meters long.

"[Greetings]"

Lorraine and I almost stumbled over ourselves to return the greeting. I felt mesmerised by S’Alor’s presence. It seemed to me that he was the epitomy of steel gloved in velvet and I had an almost irresistable urge to run my hands down his coat. He had stopped about two meters away from us.

"[You can touch me Cy.]" S’Alor said.

"[Can you read my mind without me sending?]" I asked him.

"[No. Just emotions and desires.]"

I moved forward and reached out tentatively to touch him. He was covered in short fur that lay flat against his skin. His fur was coloured in green and yellow stripes that swirled all over his body. I could see that he was superbly camouflaged for the jungle. As long as he stood still, it would be impossible to see him. He was warm to the touch, and when I stroked him, I felt a deep rumble in his chest. I couldn’t believe it, he was purring.

Lorraine approach tentatively and asked "[May I?]" and waited for the affirmative before starting to stroke him on the other side. We looked at each other across his body and I could see my awe and amazement reflected in Lorraine’s expression.

"[This is very nice. Thank you. It is not why I came here though,]" said S’Alor. "[I wanted to meet you properly and talk about some other things.]"

"[Sorry S’Alor.]"

"[No need to apologise, that feels wonderful.]"

"[OK. What did you want to discuss?]"

"[As you know, I have been watching you and I have decided that I want to be a part of what you are doing. We have had enough of being treated as vermin, and I have volunteered to start a relationship with you humans to see if we can’t change that.]"

"[Ok. I am not sure how it will work, but I would be very happy to fight with you S’Alor. We will have to see how this is accepted by the guys in charge though.]"

Lorraine laughed. "[This is something I would not miss for the world. I can’t wait to see the faces when we go waltzing in to base with you S’Alor!]"

S’Alor turned his big green eyes to look at Lorraine. "[I can {taste} that you want this almost as much as you wanted to mate with Cy a short while ago... should we wait for you to do that first?]"

Lorraine and I both blushed bright red at that.

"[It might be better if we left the meeting till morning, now that you mention it]," I said.

"[{Amusement} In the morning then,]" said S’Alor and bounded off into the undergrowth.

Chapter 21: Debrief

2009-01-17T23:55:00.001+02:00

We had a great lunch. Nice and hot, steaks and potatos, salad and bread; all cooked for us and served on plates. It felt almost civilised. Finger Roberts warned us not to get too used to it because, he said, our second phase of training would be hard.

After lunch, we got called to see Fist Ryon. We were directed to a room in the main base that looked like a mini conference center, similar to but larger than the one that we had been in to receive our first briefing on arrival on War World. Sitting at a table in the front of the room was Fist Ryon, and he was flanked by Hand Evans and a couple of the other Hand Leaders that I hadn’t met yet. I was directed to the front row of seats facing the table and I sat, with the rest of the Finger following suit. It looked as if we were the last to enter the room as there were a number of other people in the ‘spectator’ seats, and after we entered the door was closed.

Once we were settled, Fist Ryon looked around the room and then called on Finger Roberts. He proceeded to grill Finger Roberts about all the aspects of the training that we had been through, with the odd question thrown in by one or the other of the Hand Leaders sitting at the table, and even a few questions from the seats behind us. Once he was finished with Finger Roberts, he moved on to me and I had to tell it all again. I explained everything that had happened to me from my perspective, although I left out any reference to S’Alor as I figured that would just cloud the waters. After that, there was some too-and-froing with questions put to us both, mostly just to clarify something that we had said. Once that was out of the way, Hand Evans took over from Fist Ryon and started on a different tack.

"Can you explain to me the tactical choices you made in the two battles you had today Cy?" he asked in a rather friendly voice. He had the ability to make it seem as if we were the only people in the room and were having a little chat over a drink, not as aggressive as Fist Ryon at all.

"Sure Hand Evans. I decided that we would have to approach the first battle as if we were in the meleé..." I started out and proceeded to go through both battles step by step, explaining exactly why I made the choices I had and being forced to think about them to answer the questions. A lot of the details of the action had happened so fast, I couldn’t believe that they had even been seen, never mind having to explain and justify them. I decided that Hand Leader Evans was an absolute master at debriefing as he wrung me completely dry without ever making me feel defensive or scared to voice an opinion or to shade what I was saying to satisfy what I thought he wanted to hear. It was impossible to tell what he thought about the things he was asking; there were no clues from his face or his voice. Each member of my Finger got a chance to answer questions from him, and then he moved on to Lorraine’s Finger and repeated the process. It was an incredible learning experience for me, as it showed me how a proper post-combat debrief should be run, and also taught me how to look at the action from all sides and extract ‘lessons learnt’.

Once Hand Evans was finished, Fist Ryon took over again. He summarised what had been discussed in the first part of the session and then thanked us all for cooperating so well in the second.

"Do you think you would be able to demonstrate your Sword Dance to us?" Fist Ryon asked.

"I would be only too happy to do so" I replied and the whole crowd of us moved outside.

Once we were all outside, Fist Ryon asked "Please demonstrate the Sword Dance and then, if possible, pull me and a few others into it."

"I will try my best Fist," I told him.

I focused on moving into the meditative state and entered it smoothly and easily. I started doing the Sword Dance and without any concious thought swept my finger up into doing it with me. Once I started, I contacted Fist Ryon mentally and went through the same process of showing him what was required as I had done with the others the first time I showed them the Dance. Fist Ryon caught on incredibly quickly. It was obvious to me that the Battle Mode I had seen in Lorraine’s Finger was pretty much the same thing that I had discovered, and that Fist Ryon knew it very well. The difference lay in how I used that state, and in how I applied it to learning. Within a minute or two Fist Ryon was moving through the forms with us and I moved on to Hand Leader Evans and the other Hand Leaders standing there. Within a very short period of time, they were all moving through the forms with us. On an impulse swept Lorraine up into it as well, and it turned out that she was only too happy that I had. Once we were all moving with the forms, I began accelerating both their speed and complexity. After a few minutes, I asked Fist Ryon "[Is there something from your experience that we don’t know that you could show me?]"

"[Sure. {image/taste}. How’s that?]"

"[Perfect.]"

I took the manoeuvre that Fist Ryon had given me and passed it out to all those involved in the Sword Dance. Once I determined that it had ‘settled’ in all the minds involved, I moved us into the sequence of forms that comprised the manoeuvre. We executed it flawlessly, almost as if it had been something that we had rehearsed. I was feeling pretty good, and a little peeved that Fist Ryon had not taken what he was told about us seriously, so I moved up the pace; getting faster and faster until I hit my limit. They were all sucked along with me. I kept it up for as long as I could, then started to wind it down and eventually stopped. I looked at Fist Ryon, and could see that I had wasted my time. he was obviously just as fit as we were.

"Dammitalltohell" exclaimed Fist Ryon. "That was incredible. Amazing to be able to teach and learn like that, and I think I like the Sword Dance. What is your limit on the number of people who can take part knuckle-head?"

It seemed like that was his way of keeping me in place. Not that I minded being called names. I was not something that had ever bothered me. More importantly, it reminded me that I had been told that there was a limit to the number of people that someone at each level could communicate with, and I had just exceeded the limit for a Finger Leader, never-mind of a knuckle-head.

"That is the most I have done Fist. I have no idea what my limit is," I answered him.

"OK. Can you teach anyone else how to do this?"

"I’ve never tried Fist."

"Try. This could make a huge difference to us. We will have to think this through. Decide what impact it could have on us."

He turned and walked away, with all the Hand Leaders following after him. Hand Leader Evans gave me a brief smile and a nod before he left.

"You did good!" Lorraine told me. "I really enjoyed that. I would like you to try and teach me how you do it. I will teach you some of the stuff you need to know in exchange. OK?"

"Sure. Do you know what we are supposed to be doing now?"

"As far as I know, all the others have been assigned barracks. You will be over-nighting here and leaving in the morning," Lorraine shrugged.

"That’s right." Finger Roberts confirmed. Your room is [here {image/map}]. You are on your own ‘till morning. Enjoy." He walked off leaving me with my Finger and Lorraine.

"Cy," said Desrae, "I’ll take the others to our room. Why don’t you spend some time with Lorraine and see if you can’t teach her what you know?"

"Ok Des. Thanks. See you later."

"Have fun," Desrae said and walked off with the others trailing her.

"Let’s get to some shade and we can try this," Lorraine said and I followed her across the parade-ground to collect my kit. We wandered between the trees for a couple of hundred meters until we came into a shaded grove.

"This ought to do it," Lorraine said and we dumped our kit and looked at each other.

Chapter 20: Luxury

2009-01-17T00:50:00.003+02:00

One of the things that had irritated me beyond belief was that in spite of all the progress we had made in the more esoteric arts of meditation and mind communication, I still could not get water heated up to have a decent bath or shower. I had spent three weeks bathing every day in an ice-cold stream, and I was sick of it. Every time I queried Finger Roberts on the issue, he just grinned at me and told me that it was still an important lesson for me to learn.

As we walked away from the infirmary, I decided to ask Lorraine about it.

She burst out laughing. "I cannot believe that they are still doing that." she gasped out.

"Doing what?"

"It’s a game. The Finger Leaders who act as instructors during first phase training always pick up on something practical and say it is only possible to do it using ‘magic’ of some sort. They have learnt that it introduces a wild-card element. If you think that it must be possible, then you will strive to get it right and often find you can do some other things that others haven’t thought possible. Obviously it worked with you."

"Damn! You mean you can’t heat water?"

"Nope. If you think about it, you will realise that everything you can do is bound up in how you can affect your own body and mind. There is nothing external that you can do. No telekinesis, no levitation. Although, that jump and twist thing you did in your first fight today almost looked like it."

"Dammit. That’s true. I guess if I had thought about it properly, I would have realised that! How do I get a hot shower or bath then?"

"You mean you haven’t been shown? Follow me."

I turned to give Desrae a rueful grin as we walked along with Lorraine. She knew how much I had bitched about the lack of hot water. She just shrugged at me and smiled.

"Oh, by the way, there is something that you can do about the cold now that I think of it." said Lorraine.

"What’s that?"

"It is possible to raise the temperature of your skin slightly if you have enough control. If you are in still water, that does have the effect of warming a tiny layer of water close to your skin, sort of like a wetsuit. It also works for water trapped in your clothing. It doesn’t help much for bathing, but if you are hiding in a wet, muddy marsh or something, you can stop yourself freezing to death."

"Excellent. That is something I will definitely practice. Thanks Lorraine."

"No problem. You should know that once you have joined the Fight, and been accepted by the veterans, you will pick up a lot of the little tricks like that.."

"Yeah, sounds like the art of soldiering in general; experience counts for a lot."

"Yup. Here we are."

We were standing outside one of the doors in the main base building. Lorraine pushed open the door and we followed her inside. As I walked through the door, I could feel that we were in some sort of of ‘bath-house’. There were long lines of wire lockers with place to keep your clothes.

"Pick a spot." Lorraine said as she started to strip out of her clothes. "You are going to enjoy this."

I wasted no time and was soon joined by the rest of the finger. We picked up towels from a stack on a table and walked through another door. I walked behind Lorraine and couldn’t help admiring the view. She turned her head to talk to me and smiled slightly as she told me "There are showers here to get the bulk of the muck off you. The hot baths are in the next room."

I blushed when I realised she had caught me looking.

Lorraine laughed. "I don’t mind you looking. I think you need some education in more private aspects of life in a combat Hand though. We can chat about that later, maybe tonight?"

I mumbled a faint affirmative and climbed under a shower, grateful both for the warm water and for the fact that I could hide my embarrassment.

The water felt glorious on my skin. I looked down and say that the water was running red from the blood I had got all over me in the battles. There was a dispenser on the wall that I figured out was liquid soap from watching Lorraine use it. I turned to check on the other members of my finger and saw that they were also luxurating under the hot water. Desrae had a funny smile on her face when I looked at her, but she just shrugged and shook her head when I raised an eyebrow at her in query. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but I was still unsure about just how private the mental communication was, so I decided to leave that discussion for later.

After we had all showered, Lorraine took us through another set of doors to the the bathing room. There we found a series of pools filled with water. Lorraine explained that they started at the one end with extremely hot water and then the water got progressively colder from pool to pool. The idea was to start in the hottest pool and work your way, by floating, from pool to pool until you got to the cold one and got out. The pools were arranged in a circle and you ended back where you started.

We all eased ourselves into the hottest pool and then spent the next hour or so soaking ourselves as we moved around.

Once we were finished with that, we got dressed and went looking for food.

Chapter 19: Veteran Finger Battle

2009-01-15T23:49:00.009+02:00

I looked away from Lorraine at the guy who was watching her back. His eyes were completely flat and I realised that he was dangerous in a different way. There is no-one more dangerous than someone who doesn’t care about the consequences, and that is the feeling I got from him.

"[Listen guys, watch out. These guys are doing this in earnest. This is not a game for them,"] I sent to my finger members.

I took a few steps away and rejoined my finger. I noticed that Lorraine and her companion took care not to take their eyes off me as they did the same. Well, at least we had respect from them; now to test just how capable we really were.

Fist Ryon asked "Everyone ready?"

When he had received an affirmative response from Lorraine and I, he gave the command "Fight".

For a few moments no-one moved, then Lorraine’s finger shifted into the three-up/two-back formation, with her in the centre. Pretty much what I expected, and for the same reasons that I would have chosen that formation in their place. They had sufficient strength up front to hold off any attack, two in reserve to reinforce the front and to guard their flanks. They were also sufficiently far back that my up-and-over trick from the fight before would not work. They held still, obviously quite happy to initially hold a defensive pose until they had determined what we intended to do.

I shifted my finger into a two-up formation. We were one short, having only five warriors to their six, so we ended up like the five on a dice, two-up, two back and me in the centre. Geraint was front left and Elaine, now slim, fit and strong, was on the right. They were paired as they had the strong bond between them of lovers and, I suspected, soul-mates. Lian was to my right and Desrae to my left.

"[Advance to contact.]" I ordered.

We moved forward and Elaine and Geraint started dueling with the front three. I watched them for a few seconds. They were both extremely fast and I saw that they were holding their own. Their speed and skill allowed them to fight against the three that they were confronting, but more than that, coordinating two people was definitely easier to do than three. The outside two were also not able to pay one hundred percent attention to the fight as they knew that they could be threatened by Lian and Desrae as they had seen us go around the flanks before and I knew that Lorraine would expect us to try something similar against her. Geraint was left-handed and Elaine right, so that we had swords on the outside and parry daggers on the inside. To start with, they were fighting conventionally; essentially keeping the parry-daggers unused and concentrating on using their swords. I closed up on the line to support the centre with my sword, but they were fighting so well that I was not needed.

It didn’t take long though to see that they would be able to hold us like this for as long as they needed and that if I didn’t act soon, we would surrender the initiative. I knew that if I allowed Lorraine to dictate the course of the fight, she would soon move to the attack.

"[Ok, ready {image/schematic}. Steady. Steady. Attack!]"

I moved as fast as I was able. The plan was that I would run straight through the centre, throwing my parry-dagger at the man in the middle to get his sword off-line was he tried to deflect the dagger, and try to use that gap to run him through and breach their line. It work better than I had expected. The centre man had just extended himself in a lunge at Elaine when I threw my parry-dagger and it went right past his guard and pierced his chest, he was down and I was through their line and engaging Lorraine in a flash. The momentary surprise that this caused Lorraine worked entirely to our advantage as it caused the rest of her finger to lose focus for the tiniest amount of time, just long enough for Geraint and Elaine to move around their outside opponents to attack the pair in the rear at the same time as Lian and Desrae moved up to take over their battles with the front pair. As Geraint and Elaine made their moves, it pulled their opponents around to the outside to follow them, and created opportunities for Desrae and Lian to put their new opponents down. They quickly joined up to gang up in pairs against the back pair, while I was left fighting Lorraine in the centre. Desrae quickly saw that Geraint was going to be able to handle his opponent without help and turned to help me out, and I needed it.

Lorraine was a brilliant swordsman. I was finding myself hard-pressed to match her, and now that I had thrown away my parry-dagger, I had no way to shield myself. Her watchdog was no slouch either. He was managing to both keep Geraint occupied and assist Lorraine’s defence. When Desrae joined me, we were pretty evenly matched. It took Lian and Elaine getting rid of their opponent and moving to join us to finally tip the battle our way, and all of a sudden it was over. The watchdog went down and Lorraine stepped back and out up her sword in an admission of defeat.

It took me a few minutes to wind down from the fight and confirm that everyone in the finger was OK and then I slowly relaxed. It felt as though I had been fighting for hours, but as I found out a bit later it had only been about three or four minutes.

"Hell! Where did you guys come from?" Lorraine asked.

"What do you mean?" I replied, puzzled.

"You are recruits. We were supposed to walk all over you and yet that was one of the hardest fights that I have had in years. I cannot believe you have only been here for three weeks!"

I grinned at her. "That was a hard fight. If we hadn’t surprised you, we would have struggled to beat you."

"You don’t understand. We are the best, not just in the War Brothers Fight, but we have been undefeated as a finger for the three years we have been together. Not in any competition within the Fight or in any battle with other fights. Not ever. This is the first time. What has made you guys so good in such a short time?"

"Good training." I grinned at her.

"Bullshit! There is more to it than that."

I could see that Lorraine was actually pissed off. She obviously thought that she had been cheated somehow and that we weren’t actually recruits.

"Are you from some other Fight?" she confimed my guess.

"No. I was serious about good training. It is just that we discovered a slightly different technique to assist us and it sped up our ability to learn."

"OK." I could see she had accepted what I said reluctantly, almost as if she was reserving judgement until she could confirm it for herself.

"I will happily show you what we did and how if you like."

"Thank You. That would be a very good idea I think." Fist Ryon interjected. "Let’s clean up here then I think we need to get together so that we can talk about this. We need to do a proper debrief."

I saw that all the Hand Leaders were standing in a group just behind Fist Ryon. They were easy enough to identify as they looked the same to me on my mental map as Hand Evans.

We all helped the downed members of Lorraine’s finger to get to the infirmary. It was the first time that I had gotten to see it, so I was very interested in how it looked and worked. It turned out to be a simple barracks room with about thirty beds in it. The warriors who had been wounded had been carried in and laid in the beds where they were given the pretty rough-and-ready first aid that was all that was needed to kick-start their self-healing. I asked about the warriors who had bee n more seriously hurt, such as the Finger Leader I had run through with my sword, and was told that they were handled by the support staff, Malek’s cronies, who took them off and sorted out their major wounds before returning them to the infirmary for a short rest before they were able to rejoin their Fingers.

Once we had finished at the infirmary, Finger Roberts told us that we would be fed our lunch, then after lunch we were scheduled for a comprehensive debrief session. I was a bit nervous that it would be more along the lines of an interrogation, but I kept my own council on that.

Chapter 18: Battle Ready

2009-01-15T18:26:00.001+02:00

I moved away from the scene of our fight and was joined by the rest of my finger.

"Wooo that was intense." said Desrae.

"Damn right, but a walk-over. I don’t think it will be quite as easy next time."

"Don’t be too sure. I have been watching just as closely as you and I think that we are a lot better than you realise."

"Maybe. Let’s see what happens. We have definitely lost the element of surprise though."

"Not necessarily. I suspect that even the veteran finger leaders are a little surprised, and they have experience of the real thing. If we keep changing our tactics, I think we will keep them on edge. I also think that our speed is going to be very, very difficult for them to counter."

"Agreed. I think we have just proven though that the use of shields could be an advantage. We couldn’t have broken them as fast if they had been using shields, although if we have to fight a finger that is experienced in the meleé with the parry-dagger, then we might have more of a problem."

"I think you are still underestimating how far we have come. Looks like there is some discussion going on..."

I looked over at Fist Ryon. He had walked off to the side and was involved in an animated conversation with hand Evans and Finger Roberts. The other Finger Leaders had also all congregated in a clump and I saw some arm-waving going on. I grinned at Desrae and the others. Finger Roberts had warned us that we were about to set the cat amoungst the pidgeons.

After about 10 minutes, Finger Roberts left the other two and walked over to us.

"Any pidgeons left alive Finger?" I asked him with a smile.

"Not many!" he smiled back.. "There was some discussion about what you guys did, and whether there was anything that you had done wrong, but mostly they were concerned about what would happen to anyone else that they sent up against you. They are going to consult the other finger leaders and find out if there are any of them that think that their fingers could stand up against you. If not, then they are going to set you against the veteran finger straight away. The whole concept of the competition is essentially scrapped.

"I had to face a few hard questions about what was up with you lot, but Hand Evans supported me. I suspect he is going to have some words with Fist Ryon about believing reports that are passed up through the chain of command. He was hanging around here expecting to see some fireworks. It turns out that he, at least, believed what I told him about you guys. The other hand Leaders have also been called so that they can watch you in your next battle."

"Do you think we will have any trouble with the veteran finger?"

"No. I think that at the very worst, you will find the fight a little more even than your last one, but even then, I think that you have gone beyond what anyone has done before; at least after the first phase of training. Let’s see how it pans out."

We waited for a little while longer until I saw Fist Ryon turn away from Hand Evans and walk over to a bunch of guys sitting under a tree. I had them mapped on my mind-map, but I had paid no particular attention to them up to this point. When I noticed Fist Ryon speaking to them, I realised that they must be the veteran finger that we would have to fight. They were not any brighter on my mind-map than any of the other fingers, but when I focused on them, they seemed to be more intense somehow. As I watched them, both with my eyes and on my mind-map, I saw them get up and start to walk onto the parade-ground. As they started moving, the mind-map images of them seemed to blur slightly and for a moment I had trouble distinguishing the individual warriors. After a few seconds I managed to compensate. I realised that what I had seen was a seasoned finger that had just gone into battle mode by entering the meditative state similar to what we did.

* * *

"[Here comes trouble guys,{image]]" I announced to the rest of my finger.

They all turned to look at the veteran finger, and I could feel them all adjusting their mind-maps in the same way that I had.

I moved back up into battle-mode myself and the rest of the finger followed shortly behind me.

"[Watch out for these guys,] "Finger Roberts warned us, "[they are very very good. The original idea was to put the fear of god into all of you by having the best fingers not only beaten, but wiped out by the best fighting finger of the War Brothers Fight. We were supposed to let you build up a false sense of security and think that you were the best. Once you were all cocky, you were supposed to be taken down a peg or two by them. I suspect that Fist Ryon is personally embarrassed by the way that he ignored what he was told about you and has told this finger to really wipe you out.]

"[Don’t worry. We are anything but cocky. I was just telling with Desrae that we have to be careful; that the next lot won’t be such easy meat.]" I reassured him.

"[OK. Just as long as you know.]

Fist Ryon was standing in the centre of the parade-ground again. "[Join me.]" I heard in my head.

We started walking over to stand near him and as we moved I took the opportunity to evaluate these new opponents.

This new finger looked lean and hard. There were no bearded faces here. All the eyes were wary and very, very aware, and I was sure that we were being evaluated just as closely. Each of the warriors in the finger moved like a velvet coated steel spring; sort of casual movements, but you could see that they were prepared to snap instantly into action at any sign of provocation. I decided right then that the finger leaders we had had for training, including Finger Roberts, must have been away from battle for too long. They didn’t compare to the warriors that I was facing now. They were standing grouped loosely in a square; almost as if there was one tasked with watching each corner. The finger leader, a tall ginger-haired woman, was standing outside the square next to Fist Ryon, and at her back was a flaxen-haired man of about my height.

I started giving instructions to my finger as we arrived, "[Desrae, the flaxen-haired guy is yours, I’ll take the woman. The rest of you pick a corner each. Remember the variations that we have wargamed; I suspect that we will have to try the option that breaks the finger’s unity so that we can defeat them in detail {image/schematic}.]"

"Knuckle Cy Peters, this is Finger Leader Lorraine Jeffry. She leads the veteran finger selected to fight the winners of the battle competition here today. After your win over the last finger, we decided to move directly to a battle between your two fingers. Are you prepared to do this?" Fist Ryon asked.

"Sure Fist." I answered him. I then stuck out my hand "Nice to meet you Lorraine."

"Likewise." Lorraine answered looking slightly startled. She hadn’t been expecting me to greet her. I could see that she was already completely focused and my greeting had thrown her slightly off stride. That was exactly what I was aiming for. Unless I was completely mistaken, Lorraine’s finger was a very tight unit and they would fight that way. I thought that we would need to make every effort that we could to attempt to break that cohesion.

Chapter 17: Combat Competition

2009-01-15T12:20:00.002+02:00

As I watched Finger Roberts walk away, I felt a frisson of excitement. I knew that the combat competition wasn’t ‘real’ in the sense that we were fighting real battles, but it was as close as I had been to real combat in a long time. Describing the atavistic thrill to someone who hasn’t experienced it is impossible, but while combat is the most terrible thing that I had ever experienced, at the same time it was the most exciting. When I was honest with myself, the lure of combat was what had drawn me to War World in the first place. I had needed no other reason. I had searched for the adrenaline high in other places; skydiving, base jumping, para-gliding, riding a super-bike insanely fast and various other risky undertakings, but none had provided quite the same level of fear and excitement.

Finger Roberts had explained the rules of engagement to us a few days before, so we knew what to expect. We would essentially be fighting each other full out, but the swords and daggers we were using would be blunted so that the only injuries that we could inflict or sustain would be a lot less serious than could be expected in normal combat. We had already experienced, on an almost daily basis, the ability of our bodies to heal almost any injury, so that wasn’t as much of a worry as it would have been under what were previously normal circumstances.

All around me people were busy warming up. I placed my kit in a pile on the ground and the rest of the finger lined theirs up next to mine. We sat on our kit, ready to watch the action.

Each Finger from the hand was numbered. We were number five, so would go last.

Finger one from our hand moved out into the center of the parade-ground and stood waiting. A few minutes later a finger from one of the other hands moved out to join them. Both fingers had six warriors so I guessed that their finger leaders would be fighting with them. Finger Roberts had discussed this with us and told us that he thought that we had progressed far enough to be able to fight as a unit without him leading us. He had told us that he thought that if he fought with us, there might be some question of where our ability was coming from, whereas if we did it on our own, there would be no doubt that it was our own abilities.

The two fingers had formed up in formation facing each other. Fist leader Ryon was acting as the referee, and he inspected all the weapons and then told them to begin.

I watched the fight with great interest. It was my first chance to see someone else in action. It was immediately apparent to me that neither of the two fingers had truly bonded as units as they were not fully coordinated. More importantly, they were slow. Both fingers started out the fight with the five ‘novices’ on each side in line abreast with their finger leader standing behind them and coordinating the battle.

Watching the fingers fight made me quite nervous; not that I thought that we would have any trouble though, in fact, quite the opposite!

"[Finger Roberts?] I called.

"[Yes Cy?]"

"[Finger, I think there is going to be trouble. We are going to blow these guys away!]"

"[Yes. Be careful when you fight. Expect the unexpected. OK?]"

"[OK.]"

I mulled over that for a while. Eventually I decided that it meant that once they saw how capable we were, they might throw some curve balls at us. I figured that was OK; I thought we should be able to handle whatever happened one way or another. We had discussed and war-gamed a whole host of scenarios for what could happen to a finger in combat, and we had practised our immediate action drills to counter each scenario.

From the look of the battle going on at the moment, neither finger leader was willing to risk anything out of the ordinary. Maybe they thought it best to just let the two sides get some feeling for fighting against live opponents.

The morning passed slowly, with the various combinations of fingers called up to fight. The system was that the finger that won the battle got to stay in the center and fight the next finger to be sent out, so some fingers were getting to stay out for three or four fights. None stayed for longer that that; mostly because they had lost members who were busy recovering from injuries.

All of a sudden it was our turn up. I walked out onto the parade ground with my finger to a murmur from the spectators as we had no finger leader with us.

When we got to the center, Fist Ryon asked "Are you sure you want to fight without a finger leader?"

"Sure Fist." I replied.

"Are you the knuckle-head?" Fist Ryon asked with a smile.

"Yes Fist. We’re Battle Ready."

As I spoke out loud to Fist Ryon, I directed the rest of the finger to deploy in a ‘2-up, three back’ formation.

Walking onto the parade ground we had moved into the ‘mental zone’ so it wasn’t necessary for me to even think about formulating words or commands, I simply thought about the formation in my head and the finger moved as one to take up position. We were all intensely focused, but at the same time, because of being in the zone, we were all completely relaxed. I could feel my apprehension and the butterflies in my stomach, but they weren’t mine alone. My feelings were reflected and amplified by the other members of the finger, and at the same time they seemed to wash through me and leave me behind; calm and focused. Fist Ryon’s joking tone registered with me but it didn’t distract me from focusing on what was important.

As we moved closer I was evaluating our opponents. Each detail was registered and catalogued. I saw the beards on two members of the finger and marked them as vulnerable. The finger leader I saw had muscles that I thought were a bit too bulky, so I marked him as slow, and possibly too concerned with appearances rather that what was tactically important.

They moved into the same line-abreast formation that most of the fingers had taken up so far that day for their battles and I smiled quietly to myself. I had decided that most of the fingers were thinking of this as if they were in some imaginary extended line of battle, and they were forgetting one of the fundamental principles of warfare: protect your flanks.

In the instant that I heard Fist Ryon give the command to start fighting, we started moving. I was in the center of the three at the back. Desrae was to my left. She dashed in front of me and crouched down. I took three steps then used her as a spring-board to jump straight over the line, twisted in mid air, and landed behind the Finger Leader. The two in the front of the formation attacked the line directly, and Desrae and the person on her right ran around the two flanks and attacked from the sides. It was obvious that this was unexpected. We were fighting as if we were in the meleé and not in the line, and even then we were ‘breaking’ doctrine by not forming a ‘square’. I had felt though that the ‘square’ was only really designed as a defence, and not for the attack.

I focused on my fight with the Finger Leader but I remained aware of how the rest were doing. I had landed facing his back and I immediately ran him through with my sword. He was out of the fight within a few seconds. I then attacked the two warriors who had been in front of him. They were engaged to their front and I was able to disable them both while they were parrying blows from the front. By this time the three others had been taken down by the rest of my finger and we were left standing as the victors. No more then twenty-five seconds had passed from the time we got the command to start the fight.

Fist Ryon was standing with a gobsmacked expression on his face. The battles so far on the day had all lasted at least five to ten minutes and the injuries had been very limited. We had wiped out this finger in less that a minute, and if it hadn’t been for their ‘enhancements’, they would all have been dead. As it was, most of them would require some assistance to start healing. It seems that the fingers up to then had focused on their drills, and had used the blunted edges of their weapons to engage each other; ignoring the training to go for damage rather than to worry about sword drill and the clashing of swords.

I looked at Fist Ryon and asked "Victory?"

"Yes." he replied softly, then louder, "Yes. Stand back so we can get them some attention."

Blog: Sword Dance

2009-01-15T11:31:00.000+02:00

Well, I think that chapter 15 is probably the most important one so far. It certainly is the longest, and it has without a doubt prompted the largest number of comments. What has been particularly gratifying has been that they have all been complimentary! The term "Sword Dance" came to me out of the blue, and I like it so much I have been thinking of using it as a subtitle for the story... I decided that I had dragged out the first few days for long enough, and it was time to move the story along a bit. I think that I have spent enough time now on establishing the groundwork, so in Chap 16 we move back to the base and I am working on Chap 17 which will have some 'mock' combat... which I hope I can make immersive and exciting, as well as fairly believable. I am stuck on that at the moment which is why I am wasting time writing this blog entry :-) Anyway, thanks to all those who have sent positive comments and especially those with suggestions and pointing out errors. BoonDock

Blog: Muse

2009-01-15T11:30:00.000+02:00

For some reason the Muse was dancing in my head this evening. I wrote chap 14 in half an hour or so and I think it has been the chapter I have enjoyed writing most so far. Slipped a little foreshadowing in and started developing skills.. I would like to get comments on this chapter... ATB

Chapter 16: Back to base

2009-01-15T11:24:00.002+02:00

After an early breakfast on braai leftovers the next morning, we were treated to a new piece of kit. Finger Roberts woke us up as usual and when we gathered outside the barracks, he had a pile of back-packs stacked in front of him.

"Good morning all." Finger Roberts greeted us. "We are going to move back to the main base in combat order. Please get dressed in your chain-mail and load all the rest of your kit into these back-packs. Report march-ready in 30 minutes and I will do a final inspection."

I collected one of the back-packs and tried it on. It was, like all the other kit we had received so far, a brilliant piece of equipment. It was lightweight and obviously strong. The shoulder straps fitted comfortably and the waist strap supported the weight of the pack perfectly just above the hips. I was a little concerned that the pack would constrict my movement, especially when I was running, but a little experimentation showed that while there was a slight reduction my arm’s freedom of movement, it was a lot less than I thought it would be. There was also a very efficient quick-release system for dumping the pack in the case of an ambush.

I returned to the barracks room and started packing the kit from the storage chest into the back-pack. Finger Roberts was there already, and he showed us what and how to pack. The bedding rolled up and attached nicely to the bottom of the pack, and the rest of the items that we had received packed away to leave the pack still half empty. That felt about right to me as I knew from prior experience that the bulk of what I would need to carry would be food and water. That was true even taking into account the possibility of living partially off the land.

We were all outside and waiting before the thirty minutes was up.

"March Ready Finger Leader" I reported formally to Finger Roberts. He had appointed me as an acting Finger Leader. The affectionate term for the position was ‘knuckle’, which generated much hilarity and good-natured teasing from the others. Knuckle-Head was about the mildest of the variations on the term that was used.

"Carry on ‘knuckle’" Finger Roberts now ordered me.

"Formation - Arrow-head, Direction - South-East along the pathway, Speed - best speed, Separation - 50 meters. Move out.’ I gave the order to move according to the formal standardised pattern. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In every army there is an Army Way and the the wrong way. At first it seems confusing and a waste of time, but once you become used to it, it becomes second nature and knowing the format of the various commands it makes it a lot easier to ensure that messages aren’t garbled.

We set out towards the base camp that we had left just over three weeks before and within a few hundred meters we had moved into the mental ‘zone’ and were moving smoothly as a tightly integrated team. We had already learnt the folly of moving on the pathways for tactical reasons as they provided the perfect opportunity for ambush or booby-traps, but in this instance Finger Roberts insisted on it. He had told us that in fact most of the other fingers would be running back in single file, in the same way that we had left the base before, but he felt, and I agreed wholeheartedly, that it was important to start thinking and acting as if we were already operational. Tactical movement reinforced the correct mindset.

* * *

The trip over the five klicks back to the training based took us a lot less time than the outward journey had done. I felt as if we had barely gotten warmed up and we were arriving. Finger Roberts called for a change of formation to a line-ahead and we slowed down to a brisk walk as we came out of the bush and onto the large parade ground. We were not the first finger to arrive; it looked as if there were six or seven fingers there ahead of us. We followed Finger Roberts over to where the other fingers were waiting and he dismissed us with the injunction to remain together and in the area. Finger Roberts then went off to report to Fist Leader Ryon.

While we were standing and waiting, I realised that there had been a huge change in all of us. Looking around at the others, both in our finger and in the other fingers, I could see that there was not a single fat person. Everyone looked reasonably young, and exceptionally fit. I did notice that there were still lots of faces that carried beards and it make me proud of the fact that our entire finger had faces as smooth as babies’ bums. After my initial body-hair accident, I had decided that it was easier, not to mention more hygienic, to keep myself essentially hairless, and most of the others had followed my example. Desrae had to be different of course. She had gotten rid of all her hair, except what was on her head. She had encouraged the growth there so that her hair now fell to midway down her back. Some of the members of other fingers looked something like the ‘Wild man of Borneo’ with big busy beards and long tangled hair. I noticed that those with the facial hair seemed to be less ‘aware’ than those without, so it reinforced the idea for me that a clean-shaven face was a pretty good indicator of mental control.

Over the next hour or so the rest of the fingers arrived until it looked as if everyone was there. This was confirmed when the Finger Leaders all suddenly walked off to the side and formed up in a little squad of their own, and Fist Ryon walked out to stand in front of us.

There was no need for him to call us to attention. I suspect that the situational awareness that we all had would have been sufficient to make us notice him irrespective of who he might have been, but it was clear to me suddenly how much I had changed from the recruit of a few short weeks before. My mental-map of the area had been automatically updated and I had tagged all the leader-types that I could identify on that map. This was made easier by the fact that all of the leader types seemed to have an extra ‘glow’ to them, and Fist Leader Ryon brighter than the Finger Leaders. Off to one side I had another person with a brighter glow than the Finger Leaders, but not as bright as Fist Ryon, and I was pretty sure that it was Hand Leader Evans whom I had met before.

"[Good Morning ladies and gentlemen]" I heard in my head. It was instantly obvious that this was Fist Ryon talking to us on ‘broad-cast mode’.

"[It is good to see you all back here at the completion of the first phase of your training. I am pleased to be able to tell you that of the original 160 of you, 128 remain with us. The rest have been found unsuitable for one reason or another and have either been returned to their homes, or shifted to assisting with various tasks in support of the Fight. We are going to move without delay into the second phase of your training. Your Finger Leaders have been given the administrative arrangements and will guide you to your Hand training bases. However, before we get to that, we will be evaluating your progress in both individual and finger based skills. This will run as a competition and will enable us to as start getting a better appreciation of the level of your abilities. It will also be the first time that you will be able to exercise the skills that you have learnt as a finger, fighting against another finger. For most of you, the difference will come as a surprise. The two best performing fingers will then get to battle a veteran finger to demonstrate that while you are probably all super-confident, there is a big difference between training and fighting. Carry on Finger Leaders.]"

Finger Roberts came trotting over to us with a huge grin on his face.

"[Whats up Finger?]" I asked him.

"[Oh nothing much,]" grinned Finger Roberts, "[I just placed a huge bet on you guys to one of the two fingers that wins the competition today, and an even larger one on you beating the veteran finger.]"

"[Thanks. No pressure huh?]" I replied with a smile.

"[Nope. I have confidence in you. Now follow me.]

We had already been allocated to Hands and we went to join the other four fingers that made up our hand.

"[Right. Mingle and get to know each other. We have about 10 minutes to get ready. I am going to suggest that you go last.]" Finger Roberts told us and trotted off to meet with the other finger leaders.

Note:

5 warriors = 1 Finger (+ 1 Finger Leader)

5 fingers = 1 Hand = 25 warriors (5 Finger Leaders and 1 Hand Leader) = 31 total

5 Hands = 1 Fist = 125 warriors (25 Finger Leaders, 5 Hand Leaders and 1 Fist Leader) = 156 total

5 Fists = 1 Fight = 625 warriors (125 Finger Leaders, 25 Hand Leaders, 5 Fist Leaders and 1 Fight Leader) = 781 total

Chapter 15: Sword Dance II

2009-01-13T19:59:00.002+02:00

The next morning’s routine started out as normal with a run through the forest. This time I entered the meditative state as soon as we started running and monitored the area around me constantly, building up the map-model in my head as we went and checking what I sensed against what I saw. The process was slowly becoming entirely automatic and I found as we ran in various formations that I could shift the mapping to the back burner of my mind. I was slowly integrating this new skill and I started seeing the fruits of it within a few short klicks.

We were running in the arrow-head formation and I rotated to the left point position. I felt as if I was running incredibly fluidly and had to really think about to discover what was different. After a while I realised that I was not crashing through the bush, but rather I seemed to glide through it without interfering with anything. I was running almost silently with very few breaking sticks or branches snapping back into place behind me. I decided that this was a very nice development: fast and silent movement, especially through the bush, was a gem without price in any jungle based combat.

I was shaken from my thoughts by a sudden question in my mind.

"[You hunt?"]

It was S’Alor. I recognised his mental ‘taste’ instantly. This time, probably because I was not expecting him to be a human, I paid more attention to the subtleties of the query, and the underlying feel that I got was that of feline.

"[No. We practice.]" I replied.

"[Why?]"

I thought about the question before answering. As I turned it over in my mind, S’Alor came into range of my mind-mapping and this time he wasn’t hidden from me. I stumbled slightly in shock and then recovered and ran on as I considered the image I had seen and compared it to the image that Finger Roberts had added to his description on the first run we had taken. If I wasn’t mistaken, S’Alor was a Smilodean. One of the predator cats that we had been told to watch out for. The ones that ate humans. There had been no hint that the cat might be sentient. I decided I needed to be careful, as I didn’t know what I was getting into, but at the same time, the over-whelming sense I got from S’Alor was one of curiosity and even friendliness. Not aggression. There was also a sense of things being very simple in S’Alor’s mind. He had even made the point to me the first time he contacted me, pointing out that he thought I was a predator and not prey. it seems he divided the world up into those two camps. In the light of that, I decided to answer him as simply as possible, but to try to ensure that I didn’t scare him off.

"[To make sure we learn how to do it properly.]"

"[You are not a cub. Why do you have to learn this?]"

I had to consider my answer carefully.

"[The lessons I learnt as a cub are not the same lessons that I need to learn here. Finger Roberts {image} is acting as our mother while we are acting as ‘her’ cubs to learn what we need to know.]"

There was a slight pause as S’Alor turned this concept over in his mind.

After a while he asked "[You ‘taste’ like a hunter. I watched in your mind the memories of ‘men-prey’ that you hunted before. {puzzlement}]"

"[I was a soldier/hunter before. That must be what you saw. I was thinking of past fights where I had to kill and comparing them to what I can expect to face in the future.]"

"[You are not the same as most of your litter-mates. They ‘taste’ almost like true cubs. They have not tasted blood; not felt the thrill of claws striking and their prey struggling to get away. Why is this?]"

I was very surprised by this. I thought about it and tried think about it from a cat’s perspective.

"[Maybe it is because they have not killed from up close. They might have used a rifle {image} to kill from a long way away.]"

"[True. I do not know about rifles {image} but that ‘tastes’ similar to what I see in some of their minds. I do see one other. She has also ‘tasted’ blood. She {image/taste} tastes like a mother though.]"

That was a surprise. The image and mental taste that S’Alor shared with me was definitely of Desrae. I still had not had much of an opportunity to find out her motivation for coming to War World and had assumed that it was simply because of the fringe benefit of regaining lost-youth. I had wondered why someone who had not been a soldier was recruited. I resolved to follow up on that because now I was really curious about her history.

"[I don’t know. I will have to ask her.]"

"[I go.]" said S’Alor and he disappeared from my mind and mental mind-map at the same time. As he did so, Finger Rogers called for a breather.

We paused at a stream. Finger Roberts called for the temporary halt, and it took just a gentle reminder that we had to move from our tactical formation (arrow-head) in a dog-leg and then take up our laager positions for all-round defence.

Once we were settled, and Finger Rogers was satisfied with our formation, he asked me "[Cy, what have you been up to?]"

"[What do you mean Finger?]" I wasn’t going to volunteer anything until I had had a chance to mull it all over for a while.

"[I can see that there is a huge difference in you. The hair-loss showed me that you have started making progress in the mental control of your body, and I can see that you have already started to apply it to your movement through the bush. What puzzles me though is that I could sense that you were busy communicating with someone during the run and all your comrades weren’t, yet there was no-one that I could sense that was within your range.]"

"[Finger, I was talking to someone. He calls himself S’Alor.]" I deliberately kept the taste/image out of the communication. For some reason I didn’t think it was right to share the fact that S’Alor was a Smilodean with Finger Roberts until or unless he specifically asked me what he was.

"[I find it strange that I cannot sense him. We will discuss this later.]"

We moved out again after a short rest, and eventually returned to our camp.

After lunch, Finger Roberts started us on practicing the sword forms again. There was no connection between the forms and I found it very difficult to adjust to doing each movement separately. I had discovered the "Sword Dance" the evening before, and I wondered why we weren’t taught anything like that. I decided to take the bull by the horns and ask.

"Finger, please could you tell me why we practice each of the sword forms as a single exercise?"

"What do you mean Cy?"

"Well, I was practicing on my own yesterday, and I sort of joined them all together into a series of movements, almost as if I was doing a mock fight. I haven’t studied martial arts at all, but I tried to do something similar to the katas that I have read about."

"Why don’t you show us what you mean?"

"OK."

I spent a few seconds getting myself into the meditative state that I had discovered and started the Sword Dance. As before, I started fairly slowly, then rapidly speeded up until I was going full-blast. After a few minutes, I heard a mental enquiry from Finger Roberts, "[Cy, stop please. Let’s talk about this.]"

I came out of the mental state and stopped. I gave Finger Roberts an enquiring look.

"Where did you learn to do this Cy?" Finger Roberts asked.

I started out just putting the forms together Finger, then I started imagining a series of enemies and used the forms to practice fighting them. I have started calling it a Sword Dance." I answered him.

"Mmm this is something that I haven’t seen before with these weapons. I have had some comrades who have had previous training in Kendo and other martial arts who performed something similar, but I never thought I would see anything like this with our weapons. Do you think that you could teach this to others?"

"I am not sure Finger. I would be happy to try though."

"OK. It is actually very early in your training, so I am a little concerned that you start to do things that turn out to be inappropriate to our fighting style. Let’s discuss some additional things and then we can see whether we can apply your Sword Dance to it. Colourful phrase by the way."

"Thanks Finger."

"Alright, we haven’t started working with the parry dagger yet. Those of you who have studied military history will realise that our choice and combination of weapons and tactics might seem a little strange. We are configured essentially as shock infantry, very similar to the Roman Legions, and yet we have no shields. The use of the parry dagger is also not a normal addition to this configuration. We have been concentrating so far on individual weapons and have barely scratched the surface of the way that you will co-operate as a unit in the battle-line. Most of you have grasped the essentials of the use of the short-sword, and with more drilling in it’s use, you will soon be competent. We rely on mental ‘shields’ to protect us from projectile weapons, but personal shields or bucklers were normally used in the line for individual protection as well as for a weapon to knock your opponent off balance. We introduced the parry dagger for a specific reason. In the first place, the parry-dagger is essentially a short-sword in it’s own right, as it is just over half the length of the sword, so you will find that it is particularly useful when you are up close in the line-of-battle, and in a general meleé it becomes a second sword. When you become competent in it’s use, you will be able to catch an opponent’s sword in the grooves on the back and use that to slow your opponent down, or even, to break his sword. Remember that you, and your opponents, have reflexes and abilities which far outstrip those of the original users of these weapons and tactics, and this makes a big difference to the way that the fighting plays out. Each person in the finger, and in the line, is usually individually extremely skilled. We are not talking about two lines of brutes bashing at each other with pokers. We are also not like the Roman Legion confronting the Picts where the skill and weaponry on the two sides is completely different. We are often very closely matched in abilities and weapons, and we tend to use pretty similar tactics.

"Some people have tried to use other weapons such as maces or axes and we have taught them the error of that pretty quickly. Those weapons are just to unwieldy in the tight confines of the line-of-battle, especially when you consider the ability of the finger to work so closely together, and the space needed to wield them is just not available which slows them down and makes them vulnerable to the sword. In a traditional meleé they would be very effective weapons against soldiers without shields, but remember that even in a meleé, you will fight as a finger, not as individuals. Think of it as the old infantry square. On the breakdown of the line, each finger becomes a fighting unit in it’s own right, so you never lose the benefits of fighting with your war brothers.

"Something else that you will experience in the intense bonding that happens within a finger. Some of you have experienced close relationships before, either from being married or even with comrades-in-arms. All of those relationships pale into insignificance when compared to the bonds you will develop with the members of your finger. That’s why we talk about ourselves as war brothers. This is something that has to be experienced though; no amount of explanation will prepare you for it.

I listened to Finger Roberts explaining about the weapons and tactics, and while it made complete sense to me, I figured that I would have to experience it for myself before I really believed it. Unfortunately, the way my mind works is that when I hear something, I immediately start to either question it’s validity or try to figure out some way of countering it, and my experiences commanding modern Zulu soldiers started to play on my mind. I wondered idly whether an impi with long-shields and stabbing assegais wouldn’t provide more of a threat to the tactics that Finger Roberts had described than what he thought. It seemed that there was a huge European bias to doctrine that seemed to assume that it was the only valid one. From watching the Zulu soldiers playing at stick-fighting, I figured that they had skills that would translate pretty well to the two-handed sword fighting that Finger Roberts had mentioned. I had also played around with them with recreating some of Chaka’s tactics of the head and horns of the bull formation as well as the use of the long-shield and the stabbing assegai. I thought that they might well be able to disrupt or defeat the short-sword line. I decided to keep my mouth shut though as I was, in this situation, still a neophyte.

"OK. With that in mind, will you see if you can show us the Sword Dance CY?"

"Sure. It started for me in the mental preparation. I tried to do the thing where you empty your mind, but failed dismally at that. What I then discovered was that if I allowed everything to flow through me as I tried to sense everything around me, it dropped me into a meditative state. The first thing I did was to create a mind-map of my surroundings, and from there I moved on to focus my attention on various things. That led me to putting the Sword Dance together. Let me try something if you don’t mind; let’s see if I can communicate what I experienced mentally to see if that makes things easier to explain."

I closed my eyes and entered the meditative state, then reached out tentatively to connect to all the rest one by one. I started out with Finger Roberts, then Desrae and then added the rest. Once I could ‘taste’ them all in my mind, I sent them all {images} of what I meant. They all lined up in a row in line with me and I started going slowly through the sword forms. As I did so, I showed them in my mind what I was doing. The first person to grasp it was Finger Roberts. It only took a few seconds for him to match up to me and then it seemed as if my awareness of him and his actions flared up to be in the fore-front of my brain, before subsiding below the level of conscious awareness. I could still ‘taste’ him there, but it was an awareness similar to that of being aware that your hand is at the end of your arm somewhere; not something I had to make a conscious effort to do.

I concentrated on Desrae next. She felt as though she was flailing around in the dark.

"[Just forget about thinking about anything consciously Des. Let it come to you, don’t reach out for it.]" I told her.

"[I’m trying Cy. It’s difficult. I can ‘taste’ what you mean, but I can’t quite grasp it.]" Desrae answered.

"[Think about it as if it was looking with your eyes. Your eyes accept the light that comes into them. You don’t have to reach out to see.]"

I could feel a sudden change in the way Desrae was doing things and heard an excited "[I think I’ve got it!]" from her.

"[That’s it. Now narrow your focus to the individual movements of your body. Concentrate on them one by one, like this {image/taste}.]"

As Desrae thought about each part of her body involved in the movements, I ‘tasted’ them as an extension of mine. I sent her {images} of my movement, overlaid on hers and she worked slowly on making the {images} from me match the movements she was making.

It took some time, but it suddenly clicked and she flared up and subsided in my mind in a similar way to Finger Roberts.

Now I had some experience teaching someone else, I reached out to all the others at the same time and guided them through it in the same way. One by one they all got it and after a while it felt as though I was one person with six bodies, all moving through the forms in perfect sync.

Once I had achieved this, I started putting the forms together into the Sword Dance I had developed and on each iteration I ramped up the speed until we reached a level that I thought was the best we could do, at least for now. It must have looked surreal; the six of us moving in perfect harmony and with blinding speed.

As we progressed, I found I could pull more forms for the sword and movements from Finger Roberts; including a lot that were more advanced that he had not taught us yet and I started including those in the dance. I simply pulled the {images} from his mind as he offered them, and passed them on to the rest of the finger. I could feel that we were moving way beyond what was simply instruction into the area of battle experience as the textbook forms were slightly modified by what Finger Roberts had learnt in battle. It occurred to me that this was a process of rapid learning of real experience that would prove to be beyond price when translated into battlefield experience. Somewhere during this process, Finger Roberts started guiding me to {images} of the forms for the parry-dagger used in conjunction with the short-sword and I passed this on too.

Eventually I could feel that we were reaching our limits. I could feel the fatigue of the others, just as clearly as I could feel it in my own body, so I started slowing down and eventually stopped.

As I emerged from the meditative state, there was a pause where all six of us were dead quiet and just looked at each other. Desrae broke the moment with a heartfelt exclamation of "Wow. That was awesome!" I couldn’t have agreed with her more.

"Cy, that was incredible. By my estimation, we have been busy for close to three hours, but we have whipped through at least three weeks worth of instruction, never mind the fact that the way that what we just did translates to muscle memory, it means that we have achieved what normally requires many hours of repetitive drill." exclaimed Finger Roberts. "I am going to report this up the chain of command, but I suspect I won’t be believed. I think that the proof of how effective this will be will be shown when we get to practice against other fingers. I suspect that we will blow them away. What is interesting Cy, is that you were essentially acting as Finger Leader during your "Sword Dance" and that is not supposed to be possible without a lot more training and experience."

We took a bit of a break and then continued with training. Finger Roberts did tell me later that he had reported what we had achieved and had been politely dismissed, so he was looking forward to seeing us put this to use. Over the next three weeks, Finger Roberts went over the theory of everything we were supposed to cover during normal lectures, then we would do the practical part in the meditative state of the Sword Dance. We continued with our morning runs, although the whole finger slowly developed the ability to apply the meditative state to the way that they moved through the bush until we would move extremely fast and with almost perfect balance. We started playing war games with some of us being attackers and others being defenders, and if we listened just with our ears, the movement was almost perfectly silent; almost indistinguishable from the natural sounds of the forest.

We started applying the Sword Dance state to combat practice as well when we fought against each other. Watching combinations of the others in this state was frightening. They were moving so fast and with such precision that it was difficult for me to believe that I was also capable of doing that.

We also got the opportunity to practice our bush-craft skills; tracking animals and each other; eating what we found in the bush; making shelters and camping out at night. S’Alor contacted me a few times during this period, but Finger Roberts never mentioned it again so I never got to tell him that he was actually a Smilodean.

At the end of the three week period, Finger Roberts told us that the first collaborative training would start the next day. We were to rejoin the Hand to train as complete Fingers in combat against others and to start working towards coordinating with other fingers so that we could fight as a Hand in the Battle-Line. We were looking forward to this as we felt that we had progressed as far as we could in isolation. Finger Roberts warned us though that he didn’t think that things would go smoothly as our level of readiness was a lot higher than was normal, which meant that he thought that we would blow the other recruit fingers away in finger-on-finger combat training. He thought we might even beat a veteran finger.

We cleaned up around the camp and had a last braai. It was with mixed feelings that I thought that we would be leaving this camp.

{Thanks to "Echomadrid" for thoughts and comments on weapons and tactics which prompted Finger Roberts to give his little lecture :-) }

Chapter 14: Sword Dance

2009-01-09T01:41:00.004+02:00

After Finger Roberts let us stop for the day, I walked a short distance out of the camp to get a little time alone. I found a little clearing in the under-growth about 700 meters from the camp and sat down to practice the meditation that we had been taught that morning. I struggled for a long time to clear my mind but found it to be absolutely impossible. Every time I thought I had got it right, I found myself drifting off on some tangent, thinking about something that we had done that day, or remembering where I had come from, or just feeling the general aches and pains that I had gathered during the day.

After a while of this I decided that it wasn’t going to work for me and just relaxed. As I sat there I started listening to the sounds of the forest around me and after a while it felt as if the peace of the forest had crept into my mind. I wasn’t paying attention to any one thing, but just allowing everything around me to soak into me. Slowly I felt more and more as if I was becoming almost a part of the forest, instead of an intruder. As I thought about it, I realised that I had built up a mind picture of the area around me; almost a 3D map of the terrain and the flora. I decided to experiment a bit and found that I could treat it as if it was a virtual computer simulation, and turn it around and around in my head to examine each part of it. I started to get excited when I realised that I could look at everything from any angle.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I had accomplished this; whether it was a live image or it was something built up from observation of the area while moving through it. After some experimentation, I saw that it must be ‘live’ as I found I could ‘zoom in’ on any area and observe from close up the insect and animal life there.

I concentrated on the process that I had gone through to get into this state and to call up this image to make sure that I would be able to duplicate it, then deliberately shook it clear and started again a few times. On the third time I did this, I realised that it was actually a permanent image in my mind, and it seemed that it had been there all along. I had simply not known it was there or how to access it. I stood up and started to move around while trying to keep the image in my head and discovered that with a little effort, it started to feel natural to have this image and I thought that with time and practice it would be there constantly almost as an extra sense like sight or smell.

It struck me suddenly that this might be the situational awareness that I had observed in my first meeting with Roger de Vries.

With the success that I had achieved in a direction wholly unexpected from the meditation, I thought I may as well try to apply what I had learnt to using the sword. I drew the sword from the scabbard slung over my shoulder, and took up a stance in the first position. I closed my eyes and centered myself, slowing my breathing and narrowing my focus to the feel of the sword in my hand and my awareness of my surroundings. Once I had done that, I started moving slowly through the forms that we had been practicing that day. As I moved, I ignored the sword and concentrated on my body; on the way that the muscles in my arm moved, how my back swiveled and arched; the way that placing my feet differently effected my balance and how the combined movements of my body effected my control of the sword’s movement and the speed and power that I could apply.

As I went through the forms again and again, I started to adjust the way that I moved all the different parts of my body as I could feel that subtle changes made an effect. I experimented with what worked and what didn’t and slowly I felt myself coming into balance. That’s the only way I can describe it. It was as if I had been off balance all my life, and I had only discovered the true meaning now for the first time.

I started moving slightly faster and and then speeded up again and discovered that once I was in balance, going faster was simply a matter of nudging my balance slightly so that it became natural for my body to move in that way.

It suddenly struck me that I was feeling euphoric: I had mastered something that I had heard of but never really seen or believed before. It was as if I had moved into a mental place that I had glimpsed like a far off shore seen through the mist. A place of peace and power. I let the feeling seep into me and spread throughout my mind and body and I moved with joy. I decided I liked doing this Sword Dance.

I slowly became aware that someone was impinging on the edge of the area that I was holding in my mind; someone who was watching me. I kept up the movement while trying to see who it was. I found it strange that I couldn’t make out the person watching me even though the trees and plants around him were very clear. I tried to speak to the person with my mind.

"[Who are you?]" I queried.

"[I Watch]" came back.

The ‘taste’ of the person was strange. I thought about it for a few seconds then realised that this might not be a person at all. Maybe it was some sort of alien; one of the members of the other races that we had heard of but not really been introduced to as such.

"[What is your name?]" I asked.

"[{Amusement} S’Alor]"

"[I am Cy.]"

"[Well met. You interest me. You are not prey. I will watch again.]"

And the ‘person’ was gone.

I suddenly found that my concentration was faltering and I opened my eyes and discovered that I was exhausted and drenched in sweat. It was a surprise to me to realise just how fast I was moving. My sword was a blur and I could feel that I was performing the sword forms perfectly. I slowed down and eventually stopped. I decided that was enough for one day so I sheathed my sword and walked slowly back to our camp.

* * *

I dropped off my sword and the rest of my kit in the barracks room and grabbed my towel and soap and headed for the stream.

Once I had rinsed off the sweat and dirt, I realised that the cut that I had picked up during the day’s training was completely healed. I also noticed that I was slightly more muscular and all the remaining body fat was gone. I had a six-pack stomach for the first time since I was eighteen or nineteen. I thought about that and got an idea. I sat down on the edge of the stream and concentrated to get myself back into the meditative state that I had discovered while practicing my sword forms. I dropped into that state very quickly. Once I felt ready, I focused on the problem that I had with the hair on my face. Once I had achieved that, I focused on my body discarding all the hair that it found there. I felt a funny sensation that seemed to shiver the skin all over my body. I opened my eyes again and jumped back into the water. When I emerged, I rubbed my hand over my chin and found I was completely smooth; I didn’t have any more stubble. I was very happy about that.

I climbed out of the stream and was drying myself off when I was surprised by the sound of loud hysterical laughter.

"What have you done NOW Cy?" gasped Desrae when she could stop laughing for long enough to talk.

"Got rid of the stubble." I answered, puzzled at her amusement.

"Not just the stubble you fool... you look like a billiard-ball!"

I reached up and rubbed my hand over my head. She was right. I seemed to have made a mistake. I had no hair on my head. As I explored further, I discovered that there was not a single hair left on my body. Even the hairs on my toes had disappeared.

"Oops!"

"Oops is about right" Desrae laughed, "I came to see if you were here to tell you that the food is ready."

I got dressed and followed her back into camp where I was the butt of numerous jokes from the others. Finger Roberts just gave me a wry grin and told me I would have to improve my control.

Chapter 13: Meditation and the Sword

2009-01-08T23:29:00.004+02:00

Waking up the next morning involved going through what was fast becoming routine. Ice-cold water for washing was just as unpleasant as it had been the previous day and I decided the the water-heating skill better be something I learnt very soon.

We started out the day’s training schedule the same as the day before with a two hour run. Finger Roberts spent just as much time imparting his knowledge as the previous day. The one big difference was that he showed us how to move tactically while moving through the forest so we found ourselves running in formation and not on the pathways. The formation of choice, we were told, was the ‘Arrow’ which involved two people out to either flank in line with a third who ran on the path. The rest were in single-file about thirty meters back on the path. The reason for this formation was that the arrow-head would hit contact with the enemy first, and the ‘shaft’ would remain free to react without being caught in any ambush. This all made sense to me from the immediate-action drills I knew from before. The big difference though was one that I didn’t consider until it was pointed out to me: there was no provision made to counter projectile weapons. It was Desrae who brought this up.

"Cy," she asked, "what happens if someone has a bow-and-arrow? They could just pick us off one by one."

That caught me. I realised that I had simply assumed that with no rifles, the projectile threat didn’t exist.

"I dunno Des, lemme ask."

"[Finger, we were wondering about projectile weapons. It seems you don’t give them any thought?]"

"[True. We don’t. It’s because a well functioning team, from a finger up in size, generates a shield against projectiles automatically. That’s another of those things that you will find developing automatically as a consequence of growing personal skill, but more importantly, a growing sense of ‘team’ and bonding.]"

"[Thanks Finger.]"

"[Don’t get complacent about that though. The shield is something that you will have to be aware of as part of the functioning of the team. If you find yourselves operating on your own, or seperated from the rest of the finger, then you become vulnerable to any projectile weapon; even a thrown rock."

***

At the end of our run, Finger Roberts sat us down and demonstrated a meditation position and explained the technique to us. He told us that this was the best way to focus on mental disciplines and develop those skills, but also how it would assist with the ability to fight.

Finger Roberts encouraged us to talk about this. During the discussion I mentioned that durng a ‘contact’ in my previous experience, I had felt a sense of time dilation, with everything slowing down around me. Finger Roberts latched onto that and told us that we needed to develop two different skills; one was to speed up our thought processes during battle - to create the time dilation effect - and the other was to guide and enhance the body’s fighting ability.

"I don’t know whether any of you have done any martial arts before, but we make use of some of their techniques. One aspect is the idea that your body must be so well drilled that actually thinking about what you are going to do slows you down. The ideal is to enter a ‘zone’ of peace and tranquility when you fight so that your body’s reactions are faster and more instinctual. Meditation can help you promote and extend that ability."

We spent about an hour practicing.

"OK," said Finger Roberts, "let’s move on. We have covered the basics of fighting formations, and started on patrol formations. We have gone over the basics of grappling with it’s holds and breaks and we have made a start on the mental aspects of what you have to know. Tactics we will cover more as we move forward and we can consider various scenarios as they arise in training situations and terrain. The one gaping hole in this is the actual weapons used to fight.

"You need to know that any of the Medieval weapons are theoretically available. We, in the ‘War Brother Fight’ have made certain choices both of tactics and weapons that suit those tactics. Other Fights have made other choices.

"Our choice is to use the short sword in the right hand together with a dagger in the left. We will start on how to use the sword now."

Finger Roberts then spent over an hour introducing us to the short sword. This started with a classic ‘Naming of Parts’ and moved on to the different ways to hold the sword and how to adjust the grip depending on what stroke we were going to use. Once we had all absorbed that, he moved on to explaining the different strokes themselves. This was reminicient for me of tennis grips and strokes, and I used that metaphor to help myself understand what was required.

We spent what was left of the morning practicing the various strokes of the sword. Finger Roberts insisted that we concentrate on getting the forms perfect at a very slow speed. Once we had them perfect, then we could increase the speed gradually.

We got to practice all all the forms, strikes and counters with the sword for a couple of hours before Finger Roberts put us back into fighting formations to practice the forms with the swords while in formation. It was not easy: a couple of us ended the day with hastily bandaged wounds suffered in the process of getting it right. The slice wound on my back and shoulder was incredibly sore, but this proved for us the fact that we healed fast, basically just having to sit out for twenty minutes or so for the wound to make a good start at healing itself, and then being able to get right back into training.

By the end of the day, we all realised that we had made good progress in learning how far we still had to go before we were even approaching competent.

Blog: Back from Holiday

2009-01-07T22:28:00.003+02:00

Well, I am back from holiday. I didn't get nearly as much writing done as I hoped to, in fact just one draft chapter, as I was waaay too busy what with the boat and kite-surfing and ... Will get up to speed again in the next few days..

Blog: Holiday

2008-12-17T01:17:00.002+02:00

I'm off tomorrow (actually later today) on holiday. I will return on the 6th Jan. I hope to do a lot of writing while I am away, but I am not sure whether I will be able to post much. We are going to be pretty much in the bush and on the beach out of contact for most of the time. If there is 3G/GPRS coverage, then I will see what I can do. Enjoy what there is of the story so far, and don't forget to comment!

Chapter 12: Recognition

2008-12-17T01:02:00.004+02:00

"Cy, I contacted Hand Leader Evans this morning when you managed to communicate with me using your mind. I will leave you to speak with him." Finger Leader Roberts told me once the others had left us alone. "If you will excuse me Hand Leader?"

"Certainly." Hand Leader Evan replied. "Nice to meet you Cy." He shook my hand. "Walk with me." He turned and walked away. I scurried to catch up and matched my pace to his.

"Do you have any idea why I wanted to speak to you?" Hand Evans asked me.

"At a guess I would think it is because I was a little early for me to get the mental communication thing right?"

"Yes, well, that’s why your Finger Leader contacted me at first, but that was just for information. Early use of mind powers is a marker of higher than normal potential, and we like to watch such people as they are potential leaders. That would have been fairly normal. The real reason I am here is because in your second attempt to communicate, it seems that two other members of your finger heard you."

"I did notice that it seemed to be a little different at the time." I was puzzled about what made this so important.

"[Cy]" I heard in my head.

"Yes Hand Leader" I replied.

"[Mental communication please?]"

"[Yes Hand Leader]" I tried again.

"[Do you find that difficult to do?]"

"[No. The first time took some real concentration. Now it seems entirely natural . I have been listening to Finger Roberts all morning, and I think that his use of Mental Comms has made it feel almost normal for me now.]"

"[All right. Try to send a message Finger Roberts and I at the same time.]"

"[Do you hear me?]" I called in my head, trying to feel the mental taste of both Finger Roberts and Hand Evan at the same time.

"[Yes Cy, I hear you.]" It felt like a double echo. Both replied almost simultaneously but I had no trouble keeping their replies separate in my mind.

"Ok Cy. Thank you. I have seen enough for now. I will leave you to return to your training. I just want you to know that the ability you have demonstrated is very unusual so early in training and if everything else works out, then it indicates that you have the potential to rise very far in terms of leadership. I look forward to watching how things turn out for you. Thank you for your time." With that, Hand Evans turned and walked away.

I headed back to rejoin the others.

As I got back to the others, I realised that I hadn’t had an opportunity yet to ask about shaving, so I approached Finger Roberts and asked him what I should do.

"I think everyone should hear this." Finger Roberts said. "Gather round please. Ok, this is a little early in the program, but I want to explain something to you. Cy has just asked me how he can shave. That leads us to another aspect of the processing. As you have experienced, there are changes that have happened to your bodies since you woke up which have been stimulated by exercise. This has been pretty much involuntary. It is also possible to direct the changes deliberately. The first test of this ability and control is with body hair. All of you will be growing your hair until you learn to control the change simply by willing it. While the men have beards, everyone who sees them knows that they haven’t gained this ability. You will notice that a lot of the veterans have large and fancy moustaches. There are two reasons for this: one is that it demonstrates control and the other is based on history. Napoleons veterans were recognised by their moustaches. For the women it is a little more difficult, although hair on the legs is often the indicator."

"Does that ability extend to other things?" I asked.

"Yes. The start is facial hair. Once you have that under control, then I will teach you how to extend that to other things. You can change almost any physical aspect of yourself if you have sufficient skill." he replied. "Now, enough of that, today we are going to concentrate on a few more grappling holds: the neck and waist holds and the head lock."

Finger Roberts went through the process of demonstrating each hold in turn, and we spent a number of hours practicing these holds and the techniques for breaking them.

Lunch-time arrived eventually, and we discovered to our delight that we had been provided with fresh bread-rolls and sliced meat, so it involved very little preparation.

After I had eaten my lunch, I decided that I wanted to tackle the water-heating issue. I approached Finger Roberts and explained my concept based on what we called a "Donkey" which was a field water-heater made out of a 40-gallon drum. Essentially the principle was very simple, the drum was placed over a fire and it had a source of water that filled it. The hot water would rise to the top and pour out of a hole in the drum, while cold water took the place of the hot.

Finger Roberts complimented me on the idea, but explained that water heating was also one of the mental "magic" tricks that we would learn, and bathing in cold water was a major incentive to develop the skills.

Once everyone had finished eating, Finger Roberts instructed us to fetch our training swords. We returned to muster in front of him very quickly and he started explaining how we would be learning to use our swords.

"The first thing that you need to know," he began, "is that you work together as a team. We carry no shields. The warrior next to you is your shield. The principle of battle for you is extremely simple. You concentrate on striking the warrior in front of you to disable or wound him, and if you do so aggressively enough, you will put him on the back-foot and beat him before you need to worry about defence. We will teach you both attack and defence however as they compliment each other, but the focus is on teamwork.

"Our basic Finger formations are based on the concept of three up and down. The standard formation is to have three warriors in the line fighting, and three directly behind them in reserve. The Finger Leader fights with the Finger in this formation. There are a number of variations of this, where we can put more up front and less in reserve, or vice versa, depending on a number of factors. For example, if we have to fight in an enclosed space, then we might want only two to fight up front. This also allows for better husbanding of our strength as the reserve warriors can be swapped out. If we are required to cover a wider front, we can put four warriors up front, and have only two in reserve. We also have formations where we are all paired up and we swap and protect our buddy in the line.

"What we are going to do for the next while is learn the standard formations and drill in them; how to get into formation; how to change formation from one to another; how to replace each other in the line and what to do in various situations when one of you gets struck down and we have to react to reinforce the line. We will also practice the relief in the line; advancing to contact and breaking contact. There is no more square-bashing for the sake of pretty parades. Here drilling returns to its roots where it is a means to exercise control over formations in the midst of battle."

And that is what we did. We drilled for the rest of that day in the various formations. Finger Roberts drove us mercilessly through endless variations of the formations. He interspersed periods of formation drill with the various grappling holds and blocks. By the end of the day I was bone tired and collapsed into bed at the earliest opportunity.

Chapter 11: Training

2008-12-16T02:26:00.004+02:00

I woke up in the dark. I reached out for the alarm clock and fell out of bed. The alarm clock wasn’t there. As I sat rubbing my head, I remembered that I wasn’t at home anymore.

I looked around and saw the other members of the Finger stirring in their beds. I wasn’t sure what had woken us up, but I figured that this was going to be just like the army I was used to where I would have to get out of bed at oh-dark-thirty.

"[Now that you are awake, you have half an hour to get ready, then meet outside.]"

I identified the voice in my head as being Finger Roberts. I decided to try something. I had been doing the concentration exercises constantly the previous afternoon and evening without knowing if they had helped me make any progress, so I concentrated hard and sent back "[On the way Finger-Leader.]"

There was a startled "[...]" and then "[Was that Cy Peters?"] from him.

"[Yes Finger Leader]" I replied.

"[OK. Good!]"

I got up from the floor and grabbed my towel and soap. I scratched through my locker to see if I could find a razor, but there was nothing like that there. I decided that if I hadn’t been provided with one then I would just have to go without shaving and ask the Finger-Leader about it later.

I had a fast wash in the stream. It was seriously cold and I started thinking about how I could arrange to warm the water for the future. I would have to see whether I could arrange some kind of fire-heated donkey.

I was a little reluctant to pull on the same outfit as the previous day, but when I inspected it, I was surprised to see that it was clean. I decided that this was either a technological marvel, or some sort of magic, but as usual when you had no idea what caused something then the two were functionally equivalent.

Washed and dressed, I waited for the others to join me. Finger Roberts was standing and waiting, but he had a distracted look to him and I guessed that he might be in the middle of a mental conversation with someone else.

Once we were all present, Finger Leader Roberts turned and started running with a "Follow me" tossed over his shoulder.

We ran for about two hours. Only the first few hundred meters was on a pathway, then we headed off into the jungle. We ran between trees, jumped over logs and rocks and waded through streams, all at what I would previously have thought of as a pace suitable for a 1500 meter race on the track. As we went Finger Leader Roberts kept up a constant mental commentary on the terrain that we were moving through as well as the flora that surrounded us. I was surprised at his encyclopedic knowledge, but soon realised that he was giving us very valuable information; information that could assist us to live off the bush if necessary.

At one point, he stopped and waited for us all to catch up, then pointed at the ground. "That’s the spoor of the most dangerous predator other than man on War World. It is a large cat we call a Smilodean that is similar to a cross between a jaguar and tiger. Take note of the spoor. I would recommend that you make every possible effort to avoid tangling with them. They are very efficient hunters of humans whom they consider to be a delicacy." He looked at us with a wry smile on his face.

"[Finger Leader?]" I decided to try the mental contact again. As I did it, it felt slightly different and I saw Desrae and Lian jerk in surprise.

"Yes Cy?’ Finger Roberts answered aloud. Then he noticed the reaction of the other two.

"Did you just hear Cy?" he asked them. Both Desrae and Lian nodded.

"Ok." Finger Roberts gave me a strange look as he asked "What is your question Cy?"

"I was wondering what the Smilodean ate other than humans?"

"Look closely at the spoor. It looks as if this Smilodean is tracking a buck. They are not exactly the same as what we have on Earth, but they are a close equivalent. They make good eating for us too."

With that he turned and started running again.

"[An important lesson for any soldier is that the terrain is the most important aspect of the Art of War.]" Finger Roberts was in lecture mode again.

"[The terrain determines your tactics. It will guide you to water and food, and where you go to look for those, your enemy is likely to do the same. It can give you the advantage by allowing you to see your enemy, or to hide you from the enemy. Remember that there are two sides to the coin, and your enemy will, if he has any sense at all, make just as efficient use of the terrain as you. You need to get into the habit of thinking tactically about the terrain as a continuous, unconscious reflex.You will only learn to do this if you practice it until you no longer have to think about it. Build a map in your head as you move. Look for clues about what the terrain will do based on what your experience is. Use the vegetation to guide you. For example, these trees here on the left only grow where the soil is constantly wet. Those up on that hill there will only flourish when there is well drained soil. Just by seeing those trees, you can predict that there will be hills or valleys, and knowing that you can predict dead ground and high ground.]"

He went on like this constantly. An incessant flow of valuable information. I remembered the advice that Roger de Vries had given us to listen closely during our training, and I was realising how apt that advice was. A lot of what Finger Roberts was telling us was universal, and something that I already knew. I already had the habit of evaluating terrain constantly with an eye to tactical deployment and advantage, and also specifically to predict possible ambush sites. What he was giving us though was that basic framework together with sufficient detail to make it applicable to this environment. I was determined to remember everything that he told us, although I started to realise that the mental communication seemed to make it a lot easier to store and organise the information, and thus easier to remember. If I concentrated, I could see that not only were his words coming into my brain, but that somehow, when he thought of something specific when he spoke in this manner, then that image was transferred as well, so I was slowly building up a mental reference of the flora that included images as well as the description of it’s use and characteristic.

"[A lot of what a soldier does depends on how he utilises terrain to his advantage.]" Finger Roberts continued, "[The actual fighting is often only the culmination of a long process. Often the outcome of the fight is predetermined by the success of the manouevring that has taken place leading up to the battle. If any of you have read Sun Tzu before you came here, you will remember that he speaks about the best victory being one where you don’t actually have to fight. That’s the best outcome.]"

This information continued throughout our run.

***

When we got back to our camp, there was someone waiting for us. We stopped at Finger Roberts’ command while he greeted the guy, then turned to us and introduced him, "This is Hand Leader Evans. Cy, could we speak to you please? The rest of you take some time to get refreshed."

Chapter 10: Getting to know you

2008-12-15T22:09:00.006+02:00

We all got up and moved over to the sleeping side of the barracks. I decided to introduce myself around and find out more about the people who were now in my "Finger".

Other than Desrae and myself, there were two other men and one woman. The first guy I spoke to was tall and thin and told me he was from Michigan. What was interesting was that he was black and described himself as "African" and I was white and described myself the same way. His name was Geraint. His buddy was Elaine, a fat woman from Montreal, Canada. The other guy was Lian from Hong Kong.

"I am ravenous." I declared to everyone, "I am going to see what I can do about getting something to eat."

"Another braai I suppose?" Desrae asked.

"Well, I suspect that is a skill that is going to turn out pretty handy if we have to do a lot of our own cooking. Let’s see what’s available," I replied. I left the barracks and looked around. I had spotted what looked like a primitive Lapa to the side of the barracks-house and I strolled over to it to investigate. Sure enough, there was a box of some sort on the floor, which I opened. It seemed that this was a cooler-box of some sort. I couldn’t see any mechanism to cool it down, but I had already had enough experience of this place to just ascribe that to some sort of "magic" and ignore it. I unpacked the contents and found that we had been provided with some utensils, and under them there was a stack of steaks. In a sealed bowl I found the makings of a pretty decent salad.

"Excellent," I thought to myself, "just perfect for a braai."

The next step was to create some sort of braai-place. I decided to look in the storage area that I had seen earlier and found what looked like a metal grid which I thought would do very well for a braai-grid and hauled that over to the Lapa. I hunted around the area and hauled a bunch of stones back and proceeded to build a braai with a circle of stones that would hold the grid. Then back to the storage area where I found an axe-like tool and I set off into the surrounding forest to search for wood. I found plenty of dropped branches from the trees and within twenty minutes I had enough firewood stacked in the Lapa to keep a fire going for some time. Now for some way to start the fire.

I walked back into the barracks and asked if anyone had any lighters or matches, but had no luck, so I went back into the class-room area where I found Finger Roberts sitting at a desk doing some paper-work.

"Finger-Leader, I am trying to get a fire started to cook our meal for tonight. You don’t happen to have some matches do you?" I asked him.

"Take a look in the storage-locker under your bed Peters. You’ll find what you need there." He answered me.

I thanked him and went to take a look.

When I knelt down to look under my bed, the others all stopped their conversations to watch what I was doing.

"Lost something?" Geraint asked.

"No. The Finger-Leader told me to look under my bed." I answered. With that I pulled out the storage locker that I found there. All the others watched with great interest when I opened it.

Inside I saw that there were a number of interesting things. I scratched through the contents until I came across a flint and striker gadget that I recognised as vaguely similar to ones that I had used before. I also hauled out a Dixie and a knife and fork. I decided to leave exploring the rest of the contents of the locker for some later time. I returned the locker to it’s place under my bed and returned to the Lapa. As I left the room, I saw most of the rest all getting down to check out their own lockers.

After about half an hour, Desrae came out to join me.

"That smells incredibly good!" she told me.

I smiled as I turned the steaks on the braai. "Yes. I know. Funny how I knew that would draw you out here."

"The rest are on their way." she laughed.

"Great. The meat should be ready in another ten or fifteen minutes. You could help get the salad ready."

I didn’t have to call anyone. The five of us were joined by Finger Leader Roberts and I dished up for everyone.

After we had finished supper, Finger Roberts told us to gather out front again.

"You have all been issued with training swords and have gathered from what you have been told that is the primary weapon used here on War World. We are going to start training you to fight, and eventually, we will get to using the sword. I want you to put any of the romantic, swashbuckling ideas of sword-fighting completely out of your heads. You need to understand that the sword is a great big cleaver designed to inflict maximum damage on your enemy, it is not designed to clash against your opponent’s sword with a loud noise. The point of fighting is to disable or kill your opponent.

"We use a short sword within the Finger that is designed to suit fighting in close quarters. The sword is just one of your weapons. Your others are your hands, head, feet and elbows. Before we start with the sword, we will start with teaching you how to Grapple. This is the oldest known human fighting style. We have found that there is no better way to teach the concepts of timing and distance as related to fighting.

"Grappling will allow you to develop some of the the basic skills needed for fighting with the sword in formation, as well as in the general mêlée. It will help you to develop both strength and speed as well as teach you about how to break arms and legs, how to bind or lock an opponent’s arms, what places to strike including the eyes, nose, under the chin and the groin.

"We will work on Grappling first, interspersed with cardiovascular training and general endurance, and then we will move on to other forms of fighting.

"We will start with a shoulder hold."

I was surprised by this. I had expected to start immediately with training in the use of the sword. What he had to say though about not hitting someone else’s sword, made sense to me and I wondered why I had never thought of that when watching Errol Flynn or the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Finger Roberts gestured Lian to come forward and demonstrated a basic shoulder hold and the rest of us paired off and copied what he showed us. He then demonstrated the counter; how to break the shoulder hold and we practised applying the hold and then breaking it for the next hour.

Finger Roberts moved around constantly, acting as the partner for each of us in turn and ensuring that we rotated partners every few minutes. I got the feeling that he was evaluating us constantly.

At the end of the hour he called a halt. "That’s enough. You’ve had a long day. Knock off and we will continue tomorrow."

It suddenly struck me that it was still the same day for me that I had started at dawn at Greefswald, although I had no idea how long I had been out during the ‘processing’. I supposed that could have been any length of time. I decided it wasn’t important to think about. The priority now was the feeling of fatigue, and the fact that I was sore and dirty.

"Finger Roberts, is there anywhere for us to wash?" I asked.

"The stream is just behind those bushes." he pointed out.

When he said that, I realised that I had been subliminally aware of the the sound of running water. I returned to the barracks to retrieve the bar of soap and a towel I had noticed in the storage-locker under my bed, then I walked around the large bush and found a short pathway that led to a small stream. I stripped off my clothes and waded into the stream.

Desrae called out to me "Cold?"

"About this big" I answered her and held my index finger and thumb up about two millimetres apart.

She laughed and stripped off her clothes and joined me. As she walked into the stream, I took a good look at her and decided that she no longer looked like the ‘granny’ I had dubbed her. She looked like a twenty year old woman. Even her grey hair had regained it’s hazel colour. The rest of the members of the finger followed Desrae and I after an initial hesitation. I thought I could see that Elaine looked substantially less fat than she had a few hours before. Once I thought of it, I looked down at myself and saw that I had already lost my boep. In fact, there was a definite hint of muscles showing on my stomach. My arms and legs had also firmed up substantially. I hadn’t developed any large bulges of muscle, but I was definitely a lot trimmer than when I had last looked.

When I was finished I dried off and returned to the barracks room without waiting for the others to follow. I lay down on my bed and I must have fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, because I certainly remember nothing of the evening after that.

Blog: Keep on Trucking

2008-12-14T23:20:00.002+02:00

Well,
It seems to be going pretty well. I still get the odd negative comment about the length of my chapters, but I am just pointing people to my blog post about that and that seems to help.
I have had some really, really encouraging and helpful comments from a few people which have been brilliant to get. Constructive criticism, encouragement, ideas for improvements and more. I am overwhelmed at this support and appreciate it incredibly!
I think that with Chapter 8 & 9, we are finally starting to get into the sort of detail that people have been asking for, although I am still finding it incredibly difficult to avoid explaining what I want to convey without long monologues. I hope that the character development and plot can/will be balanced by the explanations. It is a really difficult balance. I would appreciate comments on how effective(or otherwise) I have been at this.
ATB
BoonDock

PS: I have caught up with the blog entries, which are now listed as the first entries in this blog. I cheated and changed the date on the entries to get them earlier than the chapter posts. From now on new blog entries will be interspersed with chapter posts.

Chapter 9: Introduction to Training

2008-12-14T22:32:00.006+02:00

Once Finger Roberts saw that he had all of our attention, he told us "Pick up your kit and follow me."

We all hurried to keep up with him as he set off at a rapid pace across the parade ground. I assumed that we would be shown to a barracks of some sort and then, hopefully, to a mess-hall so that we could get something to eat, and I was hopeful as we walked towards the buildings on the other side of the parade-ground that completed the horseshoe arrangement. I was puzzled when I realised that we were approaching the end of the buildings and we hadn’t entered one, and even more so when we left the parade-ground and started following a pathway that wound between some trees and into the bush.

We continued along the pathway for a long time, I would guess that we walked at least five klicks before Finger Roberts finally turned off the pathway at an intersection and headed through some bushes before finally stopping and saying "This is home for the next while. Find a bunk and meet me out here in ten minutes."

We were standing in a clearing in the bush about thirty meters wide and on the opposite side of the clearing from us there was a long low building. It had a roof made of some natural material that looked like woven leaves and was raised from the ground on what looked essentially like small stilts. When I got into the building I realised that the walls were very unsubstantial screens that would let the breeze blow right through them. They looked like the pictures I had seen of houses in tropical areas that were built to be cool in the intense heat. The barracks was divided into two with a simple partition. On the right side there were six frame beds, three on each side of the room. One already had kit on it, so I guessed it was taken. I dumped my kit in a pile on the bed opposite and Desrae did the same on the bed next to me. The others all chose beds and within a few minutes we were outside again standing in a line in front of Finger Roberts.

"Right," said Finger Roberts, "That wasn’t too bad. As you can see the facilities are fairly primitive here. I have no idea what you were used to where you come from, but this world is very primitive and you will have to adapt to it very quickly. The climate is essentially sub-tropical to tropical everywhere you will go. Buildings, sanitation and everything else is primitive as you can see from our accommodations here. Your food will be delivered here every morning, but you will have to set up a rotation to do the cooking. The six of us will be living and working together here for this stage of your training. Any questions?"

I looked around at the others in our Finger and when no-one asked any questions, I decided to risk it.

"Finger-Leader, when can we get further information about what we will actually be doing?"

"You will learn most of this stuff as we proceed, but for now here is the situation. This world has a fairly stable social structure and it’s own population. It is fairly close to what you would consider to be feudal or medieval. Does that give you any clues?"

"Yes Finger-Leader. Will we interact with the population or is it just battles all the time?"

"You will go through your first phase of training with me, then to graduate you will go out and perform on a mission. You can think of it as doing quests. You will have an objective given to you and you have to figure out the situation on your own. Part of what you will learn here will be the details of the situation on the world, so that you are not too lost when you get there, but that will be integrated with the military aspects of what you will learn. There are civilians out there and you will interact with them to the extent that it is required for your mission. Any other questions?"

This last was accompanied with a scowl that deterred even me from asking any more questions.

"Ok. Let’s get started." Finger Roberts walked over to the house and went into the left-hand partition. We all trooped in after him. I could see that it was decked out as a mini-classroom, with what looked like a blackboard and six chairs.

"Grab a seat and listen up."

Once we were seated, Finger Roberts began our first lecture.

"The first lessons you have already learnt. These were best shown by example and will be the basis for much of the rest of what you learn about and on War World. A lot of it you will not even have realised yet, but the basics are this:

- Your bodies and minds are vastly improved in potential, but you need to develop them by use.

- There is technology on War World, but it is not available for your use, and your experience on the planet is constrained by this fact.

"If you have been paying attention, you would have noticed that we have emphasised that it is not only your bodies that are important, but your minds too. The structure of the units that we use is different to what you are used to and there is a reason for this; it is not simply change for change’s sake. The most important aspect of this for you at the moment is why we have a ‘Finger’ with five members and what it means to be a Finger-Leader. As it happens, Finger-Leader is the lowest level of leadership position because the ability to control and communicate with others at this level is restricted to five people.

"We are going to start with physical preparation, but simultaneously we will work on mental preparation. One of the very first things that you need to learn is mental communication. All combat communication has to be facilitated by someone who has reached a certain level of competency, and this is one of the pre-requisites for achieving rank."

"Finger-Leader, can anyone learn how to do this?" asked one of the others.

"Anyone can receive," Finger Roberts replied, "most of you will learn how to reply, and some will learn how to initiate communications. A leader’s develops the ability to send to more than one at a time, and to maintain more than one communications link. This is important as we have to maintain a network of communications. Each Finger-Leader must be able to speak to his Finger members on one ‘net’ as well as to his Hand-Leader on another. Within the Hand, the same restrictions and rules apply as within the Finger. The same is true at each level up the chain of command. The higher levels can reach down through the various nets to any level, although that is only done in unusual cases, we like to maintain the chain of command."

"How will we learn this?" I asked. I was a little concerned about this as I had no experience of it. I was pretty sure that I could learn to handle anything physical that was thrown at me, but I was used to technological solutions to problems and this was far outside of my previous experience. The actual structure of the ‘network’ made complete sense to me though, as it seemed to duplicate to a large extent the radio networks that I was accustomed to. "Oh, and how do you know who you are talking to? Do you use call-signs?" I added as I thought of the radio network.

"I will give you some exercises to do which you need to start practicing. This is not something that you do only in a classroom environment, but that you need to mull over and practice constantly all day long." Finger Roberts replied.

"In fact, that leads me to the general approach that we take here," he continued, "this is not a basic training course in the same sense as you might have experienced before. What we are going to do is to start with a number of basic building blocks and drill you on them. Once you have achieved a certain level of competency, then we will move on to training with other Fingers and even competing with them in mock battles and exercises, although you will find that we believe in the philosophy of ‘The more sweat in training, the less blood on the battlefield’ although I suspect you will be surprised at how much blood you will actually shed during training."

"[What I want for now though is for you to take some time to settle in and get to know each other. I will give you some exercises to practice and I want to see progress in the morning.]"

I was shocked. I could see Finger Roberts was enjoying himself: he had a huge smile on his face. The last sentence had appeared in my mind without him speaking out loud at all.

"[Yes. That’s correct. You guessed it. This is what I have been talking about.]" he said in our minds again. "[Does that answer your question about call signs]" he asked me.

"Absolutely." I replied. There was no doubt who had spoken in my mind. I didn’t know how, but it seemed as if there was a ‘taste’ that identified Finger Roberts uniquely.

He then proceeded to tell us what the mental exercises were that would help to prepare us for mental communication and dismissed us to settle in. I certainly had a lot to think about.

Chapter 8: Kit Issue

2008-12-13T23:32:00.005+02:00

Embarrassment aside, Desrae’s change made me acutely aware of the reality of physical changes in general and fired off a series of speculative thoughts about healing and regeneration. I started to take note of the changes in my own body. If felt as if I was experiencing the benefits of six month’s road-work from one two hour run. I could feel that my legs were stronger and that the slight belly I had developed had almost disappeared. I had thought I was just getting my second wind, but this was definitely more than that!

I realised that we had run further than I had thought, and that our pace had been increasing constantly. We were now running almost twice as fast as we had been when we set out. In spite of the pace, I was surprised that I wasn’t hacking and coughing from my years of smoking. I couldn’t remember when, if ever, I had run as fast as this with as little effort. It seemed that the effects of processing were starting to pay off with an improvement in my lungs as well as everything else.

As we ran on, I saw that we had almost completed the circle and were returning to the parade ground.

"Looks as if we are almost finished the run." I said to Desrae, glad of the opportunity to talk about something that deflected the embarrassment I felt.

"About time. I have always hated running." came back from Desrae, with a touch of bitterness that I hadn’t expected to hear from her.

"Oh?" I queried, intrigued.

"Mostly because I blame running for the extreme pain and discomfort I experienced with early onset of arthritis" she explained.

"OK. That explains it."

"All better now though" she said with a self-satisfied smile.

When we arrived back on the parade ground, Fist-Leader Ryon was waiting, balled fists on hips and feet spread. Basically, the typical NCO stance. He had a scowl on his face as we ran in in drips and drabs, but stood patiently, obviously waiting for everyone to get back. We all fell in again into formation and stood waiting to see what would happen next.

"Right," started Fist Ryon, "I see all of you managed to drag your lazy carcases back here. Now let’s get started properly. Take a careful look around you. See if you can spot the people that you arrived with or that you got to know. You might find that you don’t recognise them anymore. That’s the effects of the processing starting to kick in. We have no idea what it is that Marek and his crew actually do to us when we get here, but we all enjoy the benefits of it. The purpose of our activities so far has been to kick start the process. You will learn more about this as we progress, but essentially, your body and mind will respond to what you do to make your more efficient at it. This means for example that if you exercise, then your body adjusts to match that exercise. It is just like normal training, except that the effects are incredibly fast. The first stage of the process is pretty much the same for everyone, but the amount of focus you apply to it will determine how far you can move into the second phase. What this means to you is that there is no magic wand effect, you still have to work, and work hard, to achieve the best results. It just means that the results are achieved a lot faster than they would be normally, and that it is possible to train to do things that you might not have been capable of doing before.

"Some of you will also have noticed that illnesses or injuries that you had before have either been repaired, or have progressed a long way on the path to being repaired, just in the last few hours. The same thing applies to that as to normal training; if you are injured, you just have to send a signal to your body that you want it to be active, and it will start repairing itself to enable you to do so. This does not mean that you are bullet-proof, just that you can recover from most things, even some of the most severe injuries. Kinda handy seeing as there is no real concept here of a hospital. Just the rough-and-ready first aid of your comrades, and their assistance to start moving again so that your body can heal itself.

"Let’s move on to the reason that you are here. This is War World, and you are here to fight. I know that most of you come from situations where there were projectile weapons and lost of mechanisation, so that you were transported in some or other way to and from the battlefield, in a vehicle or an aircraft. That is not the situation on War World. Here we rely on our bodies to transport us and on our physical and mental strength to fight. Our weapons are primarily swords.

"You will have realised that our structure here is somewhat different to what you might have been accustomed. Here is what you need to remember:

Five Warriors make a Finger,

Five Fingers make a Hand

Five Hands make a Fist and

Five Fists make a Fight.

You will now be divided into Fingers for the balance of your training."

Following that interesting speech, one of the people that had been pointed out as a Finger-Leader started calling out names. Once the five people that he had called out had joined him, the next started. The third called out my name, immediately followed by Desrae’s, and we moved quickly to join him. Once all five of us in this new Finger were there, our Finger-Leader ordered us curtly to follow him and moved off. We followed like ducklings after their mother as he walked rapidly towards one of the buildings.

When we arrived at the door, we had to wait for the Finger ahead of us to enter and our Finger-Leader stopped us.

He turned to us and said "My name is Jude Roberts. I will be your Finger-Leader during training. You may call me Finger Roberts, or just Finger-Leader when there are no others around. You will soon discover that this is my rank and position. You will do what I tell you, when I tell you to, and will not argue about it. If you have questions, they will be delayed until after I request them. Do you understand me?"

There was a murmur of "Yes Finger-Leader" and one misguided "Yes Sir". I wasn’t sure who said that.

"I am NOT Sir. I thought I just explained that. Get down and give me a hundred push-ups" Finger Roberts ordered with quiet menace. While I was busy doing the push-ups I thought quietly to myself that this was a much more effective technique than the usual blustering and shouting that I associated with drill-instructors and training cadre during basic training.

When we had all finished our push-ups, and no-one was more surprised than me by how they got easier to do the more we did them, rather than more difficult, we all stood up again.

"OK. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s see if we can get you your first kit-issue without too many SNAFUs. Single line. Go in the door."

With a chorus of "Yes Finger-Leader" we lined up at the door. I was second in line and looking forward to seeing what kit we would be getting.

As we entered the building, the place struck me as being completely different from any other Quartermaster’s Store that I had ever been in. Rather than a long counter with shelves up to the roof, there was a series of desks with what looked like a cupboard next to each one. Finger Roberts went ahead of us to the first desk and called Desrae, by name to my surprise, and she moved up to the table. She spoke briefly to Finger Roberts, then stepped inside the ‘cupboard" while he closed the door behind her. As he did so, he motioned me to come close. As I stepped up to him, he told me what I was sure would be repeated for everyone following:

"Step into the cupboard. Stand completely still. Once you have been scanned and measured, the door in front of you will open. Step through and wait at the table until you have received your kit, then move to the next station and repeat."

Just as he finished his spiel, the ‘cupboard’ opened on the far side of where it had opened before and Desrae stepped out. Once the door had closed behind her, the door in front of me opened and I stepped inside. The door closed behind me and it was dark for a few seconds, then a light started to moved from the ceiling down over my body. I felt as if I was inside a fax machine. There was absolutely no sensation or noise, just the light. When the light reached the floor, the door in front of me opened, startling me a bit. I stepped out and the door closed behind me.

I found myself standing at the table. I looked down and saw that there was now a pile of clothing on the table which I assumed was mine. I reached out and picked it up and looked for Desrae, only to see her disappearing into the next ‘cupboard’.

As I walked across to the next cupboard, I did a quick inventory of what I had received. I was expecting some more clothing, and at first glance it looked as if that is what I had received. A closer inspection revealed that this was actually a form of chain-mail. Exceptionally light, but definitely chain-mail made up of hundreds of little links of what looked like metal. I decided it couldn’t be metal though because it was too light. I didn’t have time to wonder though as I was at the next station and the door opened just as I got there.

I stepped into the second ‘cupboard’ and went through the same procedure. When I stepped out of this one however, what was waiting for me was a pair of shoes. Finger Roberts was there, and told me to put them on before moving on to the next station.

I sat down and pulled on the shoes. When I held them, they felt as if they were very light-weight moccasins, with the design of a pair of boots. When I pulled them on, they came up to just above my calves and they did that magic ‘adjusting’ thing again. As I started walking in them, I could feel that they hardened under my feet so that they felt as if I was wearing slippers with a tough sole. I decided that the boots I had packed weren’t going to be needed after all.

The rest of the kit stations went along similar lines. At the end of the process I had gotten new chain-mail, boots, a hat, cutlery and crockery and a training sword.

We all exited the building and stood waiting for Finger Roberts. While I stood there, I took a closer look at the sword. It came in a scabbard with a belt and I pulled it half-way out to see it. The sword blade was exactly as long as the distance between the tip of my fingers, and the crook of my arm. It was heavy, but I couldn’t determine what it was made of. It felt almost as if it was a mixture between wood and plastic. I had to stop my examination hurriedly when I heard a noise and looked up to find Finger Roberts giving me a baleful glare.

Chapter 7: You're in the Army Now

2008-12-13T23:29:00.003+02:00

Chapter 7: You're in the Army now

Almost everyone in the room seemed to be programmed to stand up when hearing the "Command Authority" voice, and those who weren’t followed the general example.

"Now that I have your attention, let’s establish the ground rules so there can be no room for misunderstandings." Fist-Leader Ryon said. "You have all been processed so you all speak and understand the same language. You will find that unless you had some pretty acute problems with your body before processing, nothing much has changed. Well, there is nothing for free; as you start exercising your body and mind, the changes will start kicking in. For some of you it will be fairly gradual, for others the changes will be radical. Think of it as the normal process of getting your body fit. Once you are at a certain level that I consider to be sufficient, the we will look at extending you to meet your personal potential.

"Most of you have prior military experience in one form or another. Well, keep that in mind but remember that this is basic training all over again and your prior experience might actually hinder your progress if you allow it to interfere with learning to do things my way!" The Fist-Leader paused for breath and looked around to see if everyone was up to speed.

It all sounded pretty familiar to me as I had heard, and even given, similar speeches myself in similar circumstances.

"Right," he continued, "let’s start by getting those ugly bodies of yours adequately covered. Take a look inside the pillow on your bed and haul out the clothing you find there. Get dressed then fall-in outside. You have five minutes."

With that he turned on his heel and disappeared.

I checked my pillow and found a lime green roll of fabric neatly packed inside. I fished it out and unrolled it on the bed. Turned out it was what looked like a standard set of long pants and a shirt. I quickly pulled them on.

When I turned to Desrae, she was already dressed. I raised an interrogatory eyebrow at her and mouthed "Shall we go?" over the general hubbub in the room.

I got an affirmative nod and we joined the steady stream of freshly clothed people head for the door.

As I walked, I felt the slight discomforts of the new uniform disappear and it felt as though it fit me better than I thought it would. I looked down at myself and discovered that the uniform had adjusted to me and now fit me better than any other set of clothing had ‘till that point.

I glanced across at Desrae and found her just as caught up in the novel sensation.

When I went through the door I was surprised to discover that we were actually outside rather than in one of the uniformly bland and ubiquitous white corridors. I looked up into a sky that was subtly wrong somehow, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on just what was made it feel that way.

It struck me for the first time that I was truly off Earth and a long way from home; how far I had no way of knowing.

We arranged ourselves into a formation of six lines deep and had got ourselves mostly sorted out, when the bellowing of Fist-Leader Ryon drew our attention again.

"Right. I see I have my job really cut out for me this time. It seems that someone has lied to me and you lot have never been in the military before. You look like a herd of animals trying to decide if you want to be prey. Pathetic. Lets see if the Finger-Leaders can do anything about that."

At that, a group of men and women dressed in red uniforms, similar to the lime green ones we wore, started moving amoungst us. They had been loitering on the fringes of the area just watching. I noticed a level of competence about them similar to what Roger had displayed.

Once we were arranged to the Fist-Leader’s satisfaction, he started to give us some basic drill instruction.

Within an hour or so, we had started to get the hang of it. With that accomplished, it seemed it was time for a run.

Fist Ryon led us around the parade-ground and the off into some wilder country.

The feeling I got was that this area was sub-tropical with bush and plants that were similar enough to what I knew from home that it wasn’t sufficient to trigger the ‘you’re not in Kansas anymore’ response.

We ran for about two hours through a lot of bush, even crossing three rivers enroute (or maybe it was the same river three times?)

The Fist, or company as my internal monologue still insisted it be called, slowly spread out. I had been next to Desrae all morning, and it seemed as if we were fated to be paired up as buddies. I initially found myself feeling protective of her and resentful that she should be made to suffer without having had much chance for the promised healing to kick in. As the morning had passed however, I had been amazed to see just how tough and determined she was. After a while, I stopped worrying about her so much and just concentrated on the drills an exercise. Now as we ran side by side I realised that she was running smoothly and easily and that the constant grimace of pain was missing from her face, as was the slight limp that she had started out with.

"Desrae," I asked her now, "how are you feeling?"

"Actually I cannot remember when last I felt this good." she answered. "It feels like my body is 20 again."

As I glanced at her again, I did a double-take.

"Umm Desrae, have you noticed any changes to your body?" I asked her.

"Well, my joints are definitely no longer a problem, my hip needed replacement, but no longer and I generally feel much better."

"Yes, I noticed the results of some of that, I was talking about something more immediately visually evident." and I gestured in the direction of her chest.

Desrae glanced down at herself, then she almost stumbled. "Oh my GOD!" she exclaimed as I grabbed onto her arm to prevent her falling. She was obviously as gobsmacked as I was: this was the first direct, visual evidence that either of us had seen, of the regenerative abilities that we had been granted.

Where she had only had scar tissue before, she now had a pair of healthy, full breasts. When I tore my eyes away from them and looked at her face, I saw that she was smiling broadly.

"God that feels good!’ she said

"Having breasts again?" I asked.

"No. Having a man struggle to remove his eyes from them." She giggled. "I can see that the fringe benefits are going to be worthwhile after all."

Chapter 6: Wake up

2008-12-13T23:28:00.003+02:00

Marek didn’t take us far; we turned to the second door down the corridor. The first thought that crossed my mind when I entered the room was that the machine that filled the room was an MRI scanner on steroids. It was huge. On closer inspection however, it was apparent that the superficial similarities disguised a technology that had very little relation to anything on Earth. There were no apparent controls and absolutely no evidence of any computer screens or anything similar.

"Please remove all your clothing and one at a time lay down on the ledge," Marek instructed.

The three of us looked at each other and then back at Marek. None of us made any move to comply though.

"I am quite aware of your clothing taboos; I am afraid that you will have to overcome that quickly. We have no time for that here."

I decided that I may as well lead the way. I had experienced enough situations where physical modesty was not an issue. The only complication here was the addition of females to the mix. I was a little selfconscious as I stripped down, but pretended that it didn’t bother me.

Once I had stripped, I lay down on a ledge that protruded from a tunnel through the ‘machine’. As soon as I was settled, the ledge started to move and I decided that it was more of a trolley. It carried me slowly into the tunnel and I found myself drifting off to sleep.

***

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying on a bed in another of the ubiquitous white rooms. I lifted my head to look around and saw that this room was a lot larger than any I had been in up to now. I estimated that there were a hundred beds in the room and each one had a naked person lying on it. That was a bit of a surprise, but of more interest to me was to see if there had been any changes made to my body. My first quick check didn’t reveal anything different and I had to struggle to suppress my disappointment.

Around me the other people on the beds were all starting to stir and look around and I figured that it was deliberate timing.

"Cy!"

I swung my head to see who had called my name, and saw Desrae looking at me. I noticed tracks down her face and realised she had been crying.

"Are you alright?" I asked her.

"The pain has gone," Desrae exclaimed "I can move my hands and legs without it hurting!"

She was clenching and unclenching her hands and rotating her wrists.

"Arthritis?" I guessed.

"Yes. I haven’t been able to use my hands properly for years and it has been even longer since I have been able to do it without pain."

"That’s wonderful news." I congratulated Desrae, although I found I had to avert my eyes so that I didn’t stare at the scar-tissue where her left breast had been.

Desrae had obviously noticed though, because she glanced down at her chest and said quietly "I lost that to breast cancer. I know it looks ugly."

"I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you." I apologised.

"No need to be sorry. I consider it to be an honourable scar," she smiled calmly at me.

"Allright. Listen up!" a stentorian voice bellowed, cutting across the murmur of voices that had been growing steadily louder.

There was an instant hush. I was sure that I wasn’t the only one to recognise a Sgt-Major style authority in that voice. It was obviously something universal to the military experience, irrespective of species, because it had issued from the mouth of someone definitely not from my neck of the woods.

"My name is Patlk Ryon. My rank is Fist-Leader. You will call me Fist Ryon. Those of you who do what I say and learn what I have to teach you might become War Brothers. Those who don’t will be meat to be fed into the grinder of war."

It had started.

Chapter 5: Arrival

2008-12-13T23:27:00.003+02:00

For a few seconds I couldn’t quite get my eyes to focus, and I felt slightly nauseous. Once it cleared, I looked around with great interest, but felt slightly disappointed at the sight of a plain white room. The floor looked like concrete but felt slightly flexible, the way a well constructed wooden floor does. There was one door to the room and Roger ushered us towards it and out into a corridor.

He led us down the corridor, past a number of closed doors and then stopped in front of one that was indistinguishable, to me, from any of the others we had passed. I thought that all the unrelieved white could get depressingly old very fast.

After a pause of a couple of seconds, the door opened and Roger entered. I was directly behind him and followed him docilely into the room.

This room was identical to the one that we had arrived in except for ten ranks of institutional looking chairs all facing one blank wall. Roger instructed us all to sit, moved to the front of the room and waited patiently until John, Steven, Desrae and I had taken seats. With a glance at Roger, Ben, Gill and Rob turned and left the room.

"OK," Roger started, "You have arrived. Very briefly, what is going to happen now is that you are going to start you in-processing immediately. I just wanted to say a brief goodbye and wish you well. I hope to see at least some of you when you graduate from here." He then sketched a vague salute and exited the room.

I felt this was a little abrupt, but for some reason it didn’t worry me too much. The four of us sat and waited passively for a while. I had no idea how much time passed, as I had no watch and there was nothing in the room to indicate the passage of time.

We were all startled by the sound of the door opening. I had almost drowsed off in my chair. I watched as two people entered the room. They were both extremely tall, at least a foot taller than me, and they moved with an unnatural seeming grace. Almost as if they were dancing or ice-skating instead of walking. They moved to the front of the room, stopped there and looked at us. The man checked something in his hand, which looked as if it could be an oversize PDA of some sort, then looked up at us again. The woman next to him kept her head down with her eyes on whatever it was that she held in her hand, and didn’t look at us at all.

"Good Morning." It was the man. "Welcome to War World. I am known as Marek and this is Shiyla."

His voice was fluid and melodious. The closest I could come to describing the accent was that of someone who was a native Mandarin speaker, but not quite. As he spoke, I noticed that his ears had a slight peak to them.

"I am not of your race. We are known as the Sidhe. We are the facilitators and managers of War World."

That clicked for me. Elves.

"We know that there are a lot of legends and myths about us on the world you come from. There is probably the odd kernal of truth in what you have heard, but I suggest that you forget that and pay attention to the facts as they are revealed to you here, as this is the only reality that you have to concern yourselves with.

"We have done a preliminary scan of each of you while you waited and we need to explain a few things before we begin your processing. You have been subject to a mild form of magic since you first made contact with your sponsors. This magic has suppressed your curiousity and fear so that all that you had to consider was the basic decision to come to War World and nothing else. Some of you might have realised that you were exceptionally drowsy. This is a side effect of the magic, and an indication of your resistance to its effects. It is the first indicator of whether you will have some talent of your own here and of your potential for an aptitude to become a War Brother.

"Are there any questions?"

Suddenly, it felt as if a veil had been removed from my mind. I realised that the magic must have been lifted as a plethora of questions crashed into my head. All the questions that I should have asked Roger and all the things that he had evaded answering returned full force to clamour for attention.

While I was reeling from this onslaught, Steven started freaking out next to me, screaming and shouting at Marek. Somehow hearing him go off like that made me calm down somewhat.

Marek just waited for Steven to run down, then asked "Was there a question in that somewhere that I missed?"

Steven seemed nonplussed at the lack of reaction to his tirade and look around at the rest of us; looking for support I suppose. After a few seconds, he slumped back into his chair and mumbled "I s’pose not. Was just a shock."

"Any one else?" Marek asked, giving each of us a long look.

I sat quietly turning over everything that had lead to this point, and eventually decided that it probably made sense just to go with the flow for now and see where it lead. I did ask "Can we ask questions later?"

"Yes. The best answers to questions though are the ones that you experience for yourselves. We have a lot of experience with newcomers, and we find this to be a universal truth. Now, if we can proceed. All our initial scans of you are positive, there are no problems that we can see..."

"Umm Excuse me?" John put up his hand.

"Yes?"

"I, umm, Gill knew that I was umm.- ill and uh - that I have..." John seemed unable to complete his question.

"Yes. We know. That isn’t a problem." Marek answered and proceeded to explain, "The next step in the process is for you to get treated. Please follow me."

Marek turned and walked out of the door with Shiyla close behind him. We all rushed to follow.

Chapter 4: Departure

2008-12-13T23:25:00.003+02:00

While we waited for the wood to burn down to coals, Roger hauled a portable cooler-box out of the Land Rover and placed it on a table handy to the braai. "Steak, chops or wors?" he asked me.

"Chops and wors please."

"OK"

"Can you tell me more now?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Well... everything I suppose."

Roger laughed. "OK, I can understand that. I will tell you a bit more about what is happening here, but most of if I am afraid you will have to learn once we are through the gate."

"OK, can I help with that?"

"Sure. You can put the grid on. It looks as if the coals are ready. I’ll grab some drinks. Another Coke?"

"Yes please."

I put the grid onto the braai and accepted the Coke gratefully from Roger as he returned.

Roger busied himself with putting the meat on the braai and opening his beer, while I waited fairly patiently. I could see that he was gathering his thoughts and, I guessed, deciding what to tell me.

Eventually he started "I have been doing this a long time. I was already old when I got recruited. I had just turned 82 and was suffering tremendously from arthritis and had all the early indicators from Parkinsons. I was approached in a similar way by someone else and made the same choice that you have. War World sorted out all my medical issues and I have done quite well there. Those of us who do well are allowed to recruit other people to join us. I chose you because you seem to meet the criteria that I figured would do well on War World. I am what you would call a Platoon Commander, but I hope to get my own Company in the near future, and I need to have people I think will be able to advance and be a valuable part of my company.

"Just by the way, we don’t call them platoons and companies on War World, I am just using the closest terms that you will be familiar with.

"You will find that things are really different on War World from what you know, but just remember to keep your eyes open and your mouth shut in the beginning and listen to everything that you are told. It is all important. More than that, listen to what the veterans have to say, but make up your own mind. A lot of them are doomed to repeating their mistakes and never progress.

"If you do well, then you will find that there are also a lot of things that will feel familiar to you. It turns out that being a soldier involves concepts that are pretty universal.

"What would you say that the most important skills are for a new soldier to master?"

I knew that this was a test, but I had no hesitation in saying "Sleep whenever you get a chance, eat everything you can lay your hands on and look after your feet and rifle."

Roger laughed. "You just confirmed my choice. That’s it exactly. You have no idea how many ‘soldiers’ never learn those lessons?"

I kept quiet because I thought it was a rhetorical question, but when Roger gave me an interrogatory look, I ventured to guess "All the ones who don’t survive?"

Roger just nodded, but he had a satisfied look on his face, so I figured he liked that answer too. While we were talking he had thrown my chops and his piece of steak on the grill. Now he added a big roll of boerewors. The smell of the meat braaing was starting to drive me crazy, as I realised I hadn’t eaten at all the whole day.

"Could you take a look in the fridge and grab the potato salad there?" Roger asked me.

"Sure." I went into the small kitchen and fished the salad out of the fridge and grabbed some forks at the same time. While I was there, I heard the sound of some cars arriving. I carried the stuff outside to the picnic table near the braai, and watched as Roger greeted the new arrivals.

It was clear to me that the six people who had arrived had exactly the same relationship to each other as that between Roger and I; each pair was a combination of one person who had been to the War World and one who was newly recruited.

I watched for a while to see if I could justify that thought with something more concrete than a ‘gut feeling’ and eventually decided that it had something to do the the situational awareness that I had noted in Roger the first time I laid eyes on him. These people were aware of what was going on around them all the time. I decided wryly that sneaking up behind one of them and shouting ‘BOO’ would not be a good idea.

Roger turned to me and said "Cy, let me introduce you to some people. This is Ben, Gill and Rob. The people with them are John, Steven and Desrae. They will be going to War World with us in the morning."

I was surprised to see that there were women in the group. I don’t know why, there had been no barrier to their entry to the army for at least ten years, but I suppose I was still a product of my experience. The three that Roger had introduced first, were the three that I had guessed had been to War World before. All three had a similar look; they were lean and wiry with an under-lying strength. Ben was tall; six foot 4 at a guess, Rob was around six foot; just slightly taller than me and Gill was about 5 foot 5. I couldn’t judge their ages any closer than I had Roger’s, and I already knew how unreliable that was. The other three were different. They felt like ordinary people I might have met anywhere..John was young. I guessed around 23 or so. He was also tall but pretty seriously over-weight. Steven looked about my age, with a bit of a pot-belly and Desrae was a stereotypical grey-haired granny.

I greeted each of them with a handshake.

Roger called me to fetch my meat from the braai. While I helped myself, the others all dumped their things in the Rondavel.

"What’s up with this lot?" I asked Roger.

"The same as you." he replied.

"But the Granny?"

"Will be sorted out like I was. I told you the medical technology is pretty amazing."

"Ok." I accepted what Roger told me, but I could see that I still hadn’t quite grasped what I was getting into.

When everyone had settled down and most had their cooked meat from the braai, Roger called for everyone’s attention.

"Alright, now that we are all together, let’s go over the ground rules. Thank you all for making the decision to join us on War World. I know that you have been given only the barest amount of information, but that will be rectified rapidly once we arrive there. We will be going through the gate at dawn. I will wake those of you who are asleep at zero four thirty so that we can be ready by zero five hundred. Each of your sponsors will check the stuff you have brought with you and anything that is not permitted will be placed in the safe for you to collect on your return. That includes any technology and any metal. Weapons are specifically forbidden as is all jewelry. In fact metal, and particularly iron, cannot travel through the gateway and will prevent the gateway from working. Once we get through the gateway the new recruits will be received by the reception cadre and start processing before continuing to basic training. Once you have completed your training, we will have first option on your service as we recruited you, so we should be seeing all of you again.

"Please remember what your sponsors have told you, especially that it is vitally important to play close attention to your training as everything you learn there is vital for your success on War World.

"For now just relax, have something to eat and drink and then I suggest you get a few hours sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day for you."

I found that I was incredibly drowsy and decided to go straight to bed. It didn’t occur to me to wonder why I was sleepy after sleeping for almost six hours during our journey here.

"Wake up Cy!"

It was Roger. I groaned and rolled off the bunk I had claimed the night before. When I checked my watch it was just approaching zero four thirty.

"OK. Time to get ready. Give me your watch and cell phone and any jewelry you have please?" Roger requested.

I handed over my watch and cell-phone and then looked at the wedding ring on my left hand. I was really reluctant to part with it. It had only been a year since I had lost my wife to a car-hijacker and taking the ring off seemed to be a betrayal of my memory of her.

Roger gave me a sympathetic look, but held his hand out anyway, and I removed the ring and gave it to him. He placed everything into an envelope and put it into the safe.

The rest were going through the same exercise with their sponsors, and in short order we were all standing outside with the remainder of our belongings.

Roger led the way as we walked through the dew-covered grass and climbed a small kopjie behind the trees. When we got to the top, Roger led us to a huge black rock..

"This is what is called the ‘Memory Stone’," he told us. "It anchors the gateway."

He directed us to stand on the west side of the rock while we waited for the sunrise. As the sun appeared, I saw Roger start to sub-vocalise what looked like some sort of chant, and as the first rays of sun struck the rock, he clapped his hands. As he did so, it seemed to me that the sound echoed for far longer than it should have. I felt a strange pulling sensation, but before I could figure out what it was, everything went grey for a long moment. The next thing I knew was Roger saying "We’re here" and I opened my eyes to see that I was inside a building and there were some people standing in front of me where there had been a rock only moments before.

Chapter 3: The Pickup

2008-12-13T23:23:00.003+02:00

I had a lot to think about. On the way home I found my mind churning with what I had been told. It occurred to me that I was jumping into something hugely life-changing with only the scantiest information. For some reason that didn’t bother me. I felt as if I had nothing to lose. When I thought back over my conversation with Roger, I realised he hadn’t even come close to offering proof, and yet I had believed him. I thought about it a bit and then realised that the proof would be what happened when he picked me up.

At home I decided to pack. I ignored Roger’s advice that all I needed was comfortable clothing, I had enough experience of going on operations and training exercises to know that while "everything" would be provided, there were a few comfort rations that I needed to pack for myself. I kept it small and light, just a pack of Rooi-Bos tea, a bag of fresh red chillies from my garden, a packet of curry powder and my cigarette rolling machine with some tobacco. I wasn’t sure whether I would be allowed to take it with me, but I figured I would try. I knew that adding chillies or curry powder would make almost any food palatable and the tea was an absolute necessity. It served the purpose of warming and refreshing as well as ensuring that the taste of any chemical efforts to make water safe for drinking were safely masked. I pondered what else to take and reflected on what Roger had said about weapons and uniforms and decided that I would have to trust him on that, although I made sure that I was wearing a good pair of boots that were well worn in and had seen some hard usage without damaging my feet. I figured that if I was returning to the real infantry where transport was based exclusively on Shank’s Pony, I had better equip myself with the best foot-wear I possessed.

I arranged with a friend to house-sit for me for the month that I expected to be away, and checked that all my monthly bills would be paid automatically from my account. I then spent a day with my business partner going over what he would need to handle while I was away. He moaned as usual, but accepted it; he was used to me going off at odd times so this was nothing new.

On the Thursday morning I was ready early and just sat around and waited. Around 10 am my gate buzzer went off and I walked down to the gate. Roger waved to me from the driver’s seat of a TD5.

I opened the gate and jumped into the passenger’s seat.

"Morning Cy"

"Hi Roger"

"Still up for it?"

"Sure."

"Any second thoughts?"

"Well, I did think that you hadn’t provided any ‘proof’ but I decided to take a chance"

Roger laughed. "Yes. I figured."

"Where are we going?"

"We have about a seven hour drive"

"In the bush somewhere? Is that why you have the Land Rover?"

"The last bit is in the bush. The Land Rover is just because I love the things and I don’t get much chance to drive at all."

"OK." We lapsed into silence and I watched the passing scenery. Roger headed up the N3 and then turned onto the N11 at Ladysmith and headed North. I found myself getting drowsy and dropped off to sleep.

* * *

I jerked awake and was disorientated for a few seconds. A glance at my watch made me realise that I must have slept almost the entire journey. I looked around and saw that we were just turning off the tar road and approaching a large gate. A sign next to the gate announced "Mapungubwe National Park and World Heritage Site". Another old battered sign with faded lettering told us that this had been the "Greefswald Military Base".

I looked at Roger "This is our destination?"

"Yup. You know about this place?"

"I heard about it. Huge braais by the generals and ‘re-education’ of the moffies?"

"Yes. They knew there was something special about it, but they didn’t know what."

"Well... ?"

"Well what?"

"Well what is so special about it?"

"It’s a place of power. People have known about it since antiquity. There are a bunch of Ley lines which come together here and a few other things. That’s not really important though, what is important is that this is where the gateway is."

While Roger was talking, he had shown a pass to the gate-guard and driven through the gate. He avoided the tourist centre and the other installations and turned off on a little side-road that rapidly became little more than a grass track. After about two klicks, we crossed a rise and I could see the lazy Limpopo river ahead of us. We followed the road into a small cluster of trees and stopped outside a small thatch-roofed rondavel.

"Ok. This is the end of the road for now." Roger announced

I climbed out, stretched and yawned. I grabbed my small backpack and followed Roger to the Rondavel. Once we were inside, I could see that it was larger than I had first thought, stretching back into the trees. There was a simple lounge and kitchen, then the rest contained twenty bunk beds.

"Lot of space here. You expecting visitors?" I asked Roger

"Yes. We need to wait for some others to arrive. Our deadline is dawn tomorrow. Why not grab a bunk then we can make a fire for a braai outside and we can chat about what you can expect?"

"Sure."

I threw my bag onto onto one of the nearest beds and joined Roger outside.

"I meant to ask you about what I am allowed to take with me."

"Not much," Roger grunted as he started setting up the firewood, "you will be provided with everything you need."

I told him what I had in my bag and he laughed.

"Sure. That should be fine. No weapons though, and no technology, like that fancy watch of yours and your cell phone."

"Ok. What do I do with them?"

"We have a safe here. You can put them in there and collect them when you return"

"I wasn’t mistaken, it is only going to be a month?"

"Yes. Not for you though."

"What do you mean?"

"When you return, you will have been gone four weeks, but each week you are away is a year on War World."

That threw me. "Some kind of time dilation?"

"Don’t try to work it out. Doesn’t work. You will just have to accept that some things are as they are." He started humming and it took me a few seconds to recognise the Queen song, It’s a Kind of Magic’, and I laughed. He grinned slyly at me and lit the braai.

Chapter 2: The Offer

2008-12-13T23:21:00.003+02:00

Roger just watched me. I guess he must have seen the incredulous look on my face, because he smiled and nodded his head.

"Yup. You heard me right"

"Details. I want details" I begged. "Oh, and proof" I added as an afterthought.

"Ok. Let me explain the basics. I can assume you are interested then" Roger grinned at me.

I gulped from my glass to wet my dry throat and just nodded.

"There is a universe out there that is larger and more complex than I think anyone here on Earth has ever envisioned outside of the science-fiction writers." Roger said without losing his smile. "We live in an old galaxy that has been well seeded with life. There is no ‘Galactic Federation’ or anything like that, but there are a huge number of planets out there with teeming populations. Some of them have been around for a very long time. A surprisingly large number hold humanoid populations, although sometimes you can’t tell from the outside."

Roger paused to take a sip of his draught, and shifted in his chair. From long experience of dealing with people in similar situations, I knew that he was mentally preparing himself to change gear and come to a part of the story he thought was important.

"There has been a lot of very bad conflict out there with countless worlds left burnt out cinders. The solution is what they call ‘War World’. What it boils down to is a neutral environment where planets or nations can settle their differences in limited scale battles."

"Sort of like the proxy wars during the Cold War?" I interjected. I had always battled to keep my mouth shut long enough to just hear what was being said. My mind always raced ahead trying to predict the course and destination of any conversation.

Roger smiled at me. "Exactly!"

I sensed his relief that I had made the intellectual leap, not only to guess where he was headed, but also to accept what he was saying as real and acceptable.

"There is a lot of detail that we can’t really get into without a commitment from you, but the basics are that I want to recruit you to join me on War World and explain the benefits to you. Once you accept that, then we can move on." Roger looked at me, obviously waiting for a reaction.

"Benefits?" I asked on cue and watched Roger’s contented smile. He seemed happy enough that I had taken his bait.

"Yup. Some pretty impressive ones I think. How old do you think I am Cy?"

I looked at him. "I can’t really tell, somewhere between thirty and fifty is all I can guess"

Roger laughed. "Actually, I am a WW1 veteran."

"What? How is that possible?"

"Like I said: benefits" Roger grinned.

"Ok. Don’t stop there, explain, and please ignore my interruptions" I encouraged him.

"There is a lot of technology surrounding the War World, just not a lot that the soldiers there can actually access. How it works is that there is a support infrastructure which uses technology to manage the place and to arbitrate the continuous wars. At first it seems like magic, but after a while it becomes somehow common-place. There are two very important aspects, the rest are essentially details which you will discover as you go along.

"The first aspect is that the technology available to combatants is restricted to the crudest levels. This means there is no transport other than your own two legs, no weapons other than swords, shields and knives, in fact in a lot of ways it is more ‘backward’ than on Earth more than three thousand years ago. On the other hand, what we do have is clearly the product of technology far in advance of our own. The construction of the swords, the composition of the fabric that we use for our uniforms and various other things are all incredible.

"The second aspect is that the medical technology is beyond compare. Essentially, if your brain survives intact, then you will survive. No-one knows how it is done, but there has been talk of nanites, which is simply magic by another name as far as I am concerned.

"Still interested?"

I just nodded at Roger. My head was spinning. This sounded incredible, but so far nothing Roger had said had made me think about backing out, in fact I was becoming impatient with the long honeymoon. I wanted him to cut to the chase now.

"Ok. Enough beating about the bush, how do we go about doing this?" I asked him.

"How about I pick you up three days from now? Do you think that’s enough time for you to prepare for an absence of a month?"

"Ok. Thursday then? I guess you know where I live. What do I need to bring?"

"Just dress comfortably. Everything will be provided".

I felt like I was floating on air as I walked out of the mess.

Chapter 1: The Approach

2008-12-13T23:18:00.006+02:00

I thought it was SPAM.

It had become more and more intrusive and offensive and not less so, in spite of all the effort that was put into place in an attempt to curb it.

Unfortunately, I had no option other than to wade through each message and check each one. One of the prices of doing business on the internet... I couldn’t afford to miss a message that could turn into an order, or a query or complaint from a customer.

Rather than SPAM, it was a message that signalled a major watershed in my life!

WAR BROTHERS was the subject. Then "Are you a soldier at heart?"

Interesting question. True. I had been a reservist for 20 years, and took great pleasure in running the Battalion’s training program, taking a lot of time out of my personal life to do so. I could not explain the attraction to anyone who didn’t feel the same, although my wife had achieved the best insight after the many years we had been together.

"Starting to feel that mid-life crisis or that you wish you had it all to do over again?"

Damn right! At fourty-five it was dawning on me that I would never again be able to expect my body to deliver what I asked of if without thought. Everything was starting to get more difficult to achieve physically, while my body got softer. I had caught myself on more than one occasion standing in the mess and saying things that I had vowed I never would... all those things that I had mocked as a youngster. In my head I was still eighteen, but it was getting harder every day to ignore what I saw in the mirror.

"Do you still have a sense of adventure?"

Damn right!

"If you are interested in finding out more, reply to this email and one of our consultants will get back to you."

So I replied. The risk was fairly minimal. At worst the disposable email address would have to be trashed if I found I starting picking up too much SPAM. And that was it, two minutes out of my day. I really didn’t expect much to come of it, and I put it aside and almost forgot all about it.

* * *

Three days later I got a call on my cell-phone. I hate it when it shows "Number Withheld" because I like to mentally prepare myself before answering the call... but that’s just a pet peeve.

"Cy Peter, good morning" It’s my standard greeting and if it sounds like I am telling someone to sigh, blame my parents for naming me that.

"Good Morning. This is Roger de Vries. Do you have a moment to talk?"

"Sure. How can I help you".

"You replied to an email a few days ago with the subject War Brothers and I am following up on that."

That was a surprise. It took me a moment to gather my thoughts. I had certainly not expected to receive a phone call, and especially not from someone local. I had thought that I would get some sort of email outlining a corporate ‘team building’ exercise. The other option, that this was a mercenary recruiting exercise, was that one that I half feared and wished for however.

"Ok. Thanks for calling. Sorry for the pause, I was just a little thrown for a second there."

Roger laughed. "Yes, we get that a lot. Would you prefer to talk on the phone or could we meet somewhere for coffee?"

"Well... I am very interested to hear what you have to discuss, so I would prefer to hear as quickly as possible. I would prefer to meet in person, but I suppose the phone will have to do."

"Not at all," Roger surprised me, "I am here in Durban and I have a number of people to speak to. I would also prefer to speak to you in person. Do you have a recommendation for a place we could meet?"

I thought about it for a few seconds then decided that I was frustrated enough with what I was doing, and intrigued enough about the topic to want to meet.

"How about we meet at our NCO’s mess? They have a pub that opens at 10H00 and we can chat there?" I asked him.

"Sure," he replied, "See you at 10" and hung up the phone.

It only struck me afterwards that he hadn’t asked which regiment, nor where it was.

* * *

I was sitting at a table in the NCO’s mess before 10. I like to be in a position where I can watch the person I am meeting arrive. It also establishes that I am the one on home ground. These things are more important than most people think as they can effect the balance between people in a meeting.

When Roger arrived however, he seemed faintly amused, as if he knew exactly what I was doing, and why, and it obviously didn’t bother him. My first impression when I saw him was that he was a soldier in civvies or an athlete. There was something undefinable about the way he carried himself that said that he was completely comfortable in his body, and aware of everything around him. He wasn’t staring around, but I got the impression that his single scan of the room had identifed each entry and exit, catalogued every possible avenue of threat and stored that information for use if it became necessary. I was also convinced that it was a totally automatic process that he wasn’t even consciously aware of. Somehow this caused the hair on my neck to stand up, because it was the first indicator that whatever this guy did, it was not corporate ‘team-building’. I had seen that level of unconscious competence 20 odd years before, and it was normally exhibited by Special Forces types just out of the bush.

I stood up and reached out a hand to greet Roger. As we shook hands, it occurred to me that we were the same height. Roger was lean and wiry. Not muscular, but there was strength there.

I invited Roger to sit and offered him something to drink.

"I’ll have a draught please. I have been talking all morning and my throat is dry."

I got him a draught and myself a coke and and we sat.

"Thanks for meeting with me Cy," Roger started. "I am sure that you are curious as all hell."

"Damn right. I almost spam-binned your email. I dunno what made me actually read it, never mind reply," I laughed

"OK. Let me go through my spiel and keep any questions to afterwards if you don’t mind. Some of what I have to tell you might be hard to believe."

"OK" I grunted, wondering where this was all leading.

"Alright. We have done a background check on you. There is very little that we don’t know from the available records. We know your military history, and we have seen all your online activities. Your FaceBook Profile, your Google-Groups memberships and the various military forums and lists that you belong to. All of these have led us to think that you would be open to an approach from us."

I was starting to get a little concerned. This sounded a little too much like ‘Big Brother’.

Roger seemed to understand this and went on to reassure me "We are not a government agency, nor do we belong to some fringe group. In fact, what we do is literally ‘out of this world’"

"OK. Now you have me seriously confused. Who are you then?" I asked

"I was just like you. I was recruited and took up the offer that was made to me, and now I am spending some time acting as an agent to recruit others before I return. The truth is that what is involved sounds like some sort of Science-Fiction." He paused, obviously to gauge my reaction, before continuing. "There is a ‘gate’ to another world, and what I offer lies beyond it."

To say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement.

Blog: Writing Method

2008-12-13T23:18:00.002+02:00

mmm Well. the comments have slowed down. One comment I have received though from various people is that the chapters are too short. I figured I should explain:
1. I think the chapters are more like long paragraphs in that they hold a partcular "scene" or series of related paragraphs and that the length fits this rather than some arbitraily imposed size
2. I trend to write in chunks of this size as time and opportunity allows, and I prefer to post once I have written a chunk.
3. I am writing primarily on my cell phone. I have a Samsung i850 with Windows Mobile on it, and I use pocket word to write when I am taking a smoke break. When I am sitting behind my office computer or with my laptop, I feel compelled to actually "work", whereas when I am sitting out side with my phone, I don't feel nearly as guilty. I also make use of the small gaps of opportunity that crop up during the day such as waiting for my daughters when I pick them up from school, waiting for others to arrive for a business meeting, when I am on the toilet or lying in bed before going to sleep or in an airplane etc. Little bits at a time, inbetween other things.

This is also why my first posts of chapters can be a little hairy. I am trying to ensure that first posts are a little better though as I realise that if I get it wrong and that is the first exposure that someone has to my story, they could stop reading right there.

On another topic, I have had one comment pointing out an inconsistency in that no metal is allowed through the gateway, so Cy and co have to remove watches etc.. but "What about the metal eyelets in their shoes,
zippers in their pants, snaps on their pants, belt
buckles. what if any of them had any metal plates
or screws in them etc."
Has this bugged anyone else?
Also, did anyone pick up on the "Iron" phobia/Sidhe thing before Cy got to War World?
Hope you are still enjoying the story...

Blog: More South Africanisms

2008-12-13T23:15:00.000+02:00

Ok.. More questions.
Wors = Sausage, Boerewors = Farmer's sausage.
Rondavels are generally round huts with a thatched roof (See pics of Leokwe Camp at Greefswald)
Kopjie is a small hill. Here is the one I was thinking of, with the big rock on top.
See this image for people starting a braai. The potjie (black pot) often makes an appearance. Good old Wikipedia brings you more info than you thought you wanted. Check out the article on braais.

Blog: Comments and Colloquisms

2008-12-13T23:12:00.000+02:00

Well, I have gotten quite a few comments on the story so far. Thank you very much to all of you who have commented, and especially to those of you who have sent suggestions for corrections. You will notice that I have applied your corrections in most cases.
Generally the comments have been very positive, which is great. I have had some questions however.
1. I know about the wife thing.. I will fix that in the next chapter (4) I realised too late that I hadn't explained it.. and will use it for a little "character development".. :-)
2. It should be obvious in the story that I am South African, so my language usage will be what I am accustomed to. For example, it is correct usage for us to say 10H00 and not 1000 hours (which to my eye looks like one thousand hours, not ten am)
3. A Bar-B-Que is a pale imitation of a braai. Just so you know !! ;-) Actually, from my experience the largest difference between the American and South African versions is that the Americans seem to cook on the flames while us South Africans like to cook over the coals. Other than that I am not sure..
4. A "moffie" is a homosexual/gay. Google Greefwald and SADF and you will find the TRC (truth and reconciliation) report on this. I would suggest though that it be read with a salt cellar in one hand. Moffie can also be used to describe someone who is slightly effeminate without actually being homosexual/gay.

Let me know if you spot other things that puzzle you or that needs correcting. I will happily explain anything that is unclear. I know that SOL has a large percentage of readers from North America who are generally less aware of practices in other countries than those of us outside the USA are of American ones..

Please keep the comments coming. All are appreciated.

Blog: Chapter 3 and Greefswald

2008-12-13T21:46:00.000+02:00

Well.. it seems to be going ok. I am still on the easy stuff though :-) For those interested in Greefswald, it is a real place with a really interesing history. Take a look at Mapungubwe National Park and World Heritage Site and/or Google it. Next chapter should be a little more interesting. As usual, all comments and criticims are welcome!