Chapter 39: Counting the Cost

When I awoke I was a little confused for a second.  I sat up suddenly and looked around.  D'ar'Beth just turned her head away in amusement. 

I groaned as my body let me know that it was not happy with the amount of abuse I had subjected it to. It took me a few seconds to realise that not all the aches and pains were actually mine. We had bonded so closely in the Sword Dance that I hadn’t let go of it completely. After a little thought and experimentation, I realised that it was no longer something that I had to do consciously, but that it would now be a natural part of how I operated. I made a mental note to explore the ramifications later… the most immediate effect was that it seemed as if I had multiple pairs of eyes, hands and feet.

I stood up and took a step, before tripping over my own feet and falling down again. The sense of “expansion” of myself from a single individual to being part of a larger “group” would take some getting used to.

I got up again, and gingerly took a few steps. My head seemed to clear quickly and I could feel myself re-adjusting.

“[You’ll get used to it quickly enough,]” D'ar'Beth’s voice echoed in my head.

I looked at her quizzically, as I realised that there was something different about her. She seemed to be more than before.

“[What’s different about you?]” I asked her.

“[Nothing,]” she replied “[the real question is what’s different about you.]”

“[What do you mean? It’s just the Sword Dance that seems to have lingered?]”

“[No. It’s a lot more than that. You {taste} like a new hatchling.]”

“Hatchling?” I queried aloud, '”What the hell does that mean?”

“[It’s not important now. You need to focus on our immediate needs. When we are safe and secure, then we can have a long talk about what has happened.]”

“[I’ll hold you to that,]” I told her, still puzzled by what she had implied. In the background to her mental words I got the sense of what looked/felt like large wings sheltering a clutch of eggs. All I could relate it to was an eagle sitting on it’s nest.

I decided to follow D'ar'Beth’s advice and turned to the immediate situation. Now that I had had some time to adjust, I could separate out  what aches and pains were mine, and which belonged to others in the Finger. I made a quick check and realised I could pretty much disregard the various cuts and bruises on my own body. There were a few more serious wounds on some of the others though, with, I suddenly realised, a missing arm.

As I realised that, another realisation struck me. It wasn’t just my Finger with me, but that of Desrae, and it was her arm that was missing.

Chapter 37: First Battle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 32: Leaving the Dragon's Wing Inn

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 27: Lectures

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.

***

Chapter 25: New Finger

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 23: S'Alor & Second Phase

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.

Chapter 22: In the Forest

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

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.