Part 5 "Assault on a Salt Bunker"
The next morning there was a good deal of commotion among the archers on the cliff. The DeWorfers had carried a couple of large items up the hill. They where covered over in large rain canvas. A group of El Fvis were firing shots at the bank, but looked behind them constantly to see what the DeWorfers were up to.
The DeWorfers were muttering among themselves. "Is what they say true? Here comes the fair maiden Cissie now."
One of the DeWorfers approached Cissie. "Mistress Cissie, word is that you have become a stone bearer."
Cissie removed the blue stone, which she hung in a fine thin net, on the end of a chain under her shirt.
The DeWorfers clapped and jumped for joy. "The stone of El Niinyoe the great El Fvis hero of the DeWorfer people."
Cissie smiled. "Toelkeen told me you've got something to show me."
They approached an area on the cliff. A canvas covered several large contraptions.
Several DeWorfers removed the canvas to reveal harpoon launchers with giant harpoons sticking out the end of them.
Cissie shouted to the El Fvis archers firing over the cliff in front of them. "Move it or loose it."
The El Fvis looked behind them and reluctantly made way for the strange contraption.
"Let her rip." She commanded.
Toelkeen flicked a handle on the launcher and the harpoon sprang forward with tremendous velocity. The harpoon descended skewering a P'Orhk far below them.
The DeWorfers raised their hands in triumph.
Gud Luk approached them from where he was shooting. He winked at Cissie. "Good thinking." Then he went again to the edge of the cliff face.
Gud Luk shot his bow at them with relentless precision. Cissie fired along with him but safely kept to nearer safer targets.
She slowed her onslaught as she looked towards him dreamily.
He was handsome, lithe, refined, delightfully exotic but most important of all he could shoot. Damn but he could shoot.
The DeWorfers brought forth more launchers. They fired their large harpoons at the P'Orhks skewering several of them.
Robin strayed into the large encampment of DeWorfers. "We've had complaints people. When the El Fvis agreed to let you stay here they said that you had to respect their laws. And that includes no domestic animals. And I hear someone here has a chicken."
A short DeWorfer held his hat innocently in front of him. "Chicken? No, no sir. I have seen any chickens around here."
There was a large squawking noise from behind him. "Buk-bekaw."
Robin raised his eyebrow. "No chicken eh?"
The chicken wandered out in front of the man. "No sir. It's more of a hen, oh please sir I can't bear to get rid of her. She's my pet."
He looked to a pile of eggshells on a plate. "You eat the eggs of your pet?"
"It's how she shows her love for me."
"I don't believe this." Robin raised his arms exasperation.
Oh please sir. If they make me turn her free, well, she's not used to fending for herself, she'll die."
"Hmm…" Robin looked toward the small chicken.
The gang wandered down into the low valley. The ground below them dropped sharply and jaggedly. They walked in the road of stone left by the dried up river. They were surrounded on all sides by gray and twisted leafless branches of the lifeless trees.
El Evan looked upon it disgusted. He spoke to Cass. "You asked if all the places in Innbee Tweenerth were beautiful, do you have your answer."
"Men…" He hung of his head. "They will be the ruin of the earth. They have no respect for it."
Cassie looked the steep mountain walls above them on either side. "Echo!" she shouted. "Hmm. That's interesting no Echo."
"Hello! Here I am." A figure darted out from the dead underbrush along the edge of the riverbed.
The gang stared as an extremely gorgeous young woman, with soft slightly pointed ears and light and sparkling hair, approached them, completely without modesty in the nude. She smiled joyfully. "Someone has beckoned me, after so, so long."
Kon smiled broadly, he waved his hand in the air. "That would be me over here."
"Thousands of years I have waited here, banished by Hera from earth. Cursed not to utter a single word until someone called my name."
"What?" Kon, Aleks, and El Evan looked quizzically at her.
Cassie steeped in font of the nude girl. "Ok this one I know, but before we start. Echo as a fellow traveler to Olympus, I'd like to give you this dress of mine, as, you know, a sign of friendship and respect." Cassie handed her the white gown given to her by the El Fvis from her knapsack.
She smiled broadly looking over at a disappointed Kon as the nymph accepted and donned the gown.
Cassie began. "This tale takes place long ago on earth in ancient Greece. It concerns the two great gods of Olympus queen Hera and her husband Zeus. Now I know you supposed to be faithful to a god but for a god Zeus wasn't exactly faithful. He used to come down to earth to seduce lovely nymphs all the time."
"Way to go Zeus!" Kon shouted.
Cassie gave him a withering look. "So anyway Zeus conspired with Echo here, whenever he was off seducing a nymph he would get Echo to distract Hera, his wife, by gossiping with her."
Cassie looked to Echo. "Until Hera finally caught on and cursed Echo but it was to repeating the last words spoken by a person."
Kon thought for a moment. "You mean like an echo? That's why an echo is called an echo?"
"You catch on fast Sherlock."
"I wonder if I'm making a mistake by having the DeWorfers and El Fvis get together like this." Robin sat at the end on a long table filled with plates of food.
Cissie leaned over the table. "No Robin this communal banquet that we're having in a great place for the DeWorfers and El Fvis to get to know each other and overcome their differences."
One of the DeWorfers spoke loudly at the other end of the table "They think we all come from seeds. Can you believe it from seeds. Ha. It is no wonder the El Fvis are such seedy characters."
"What did you say DeWorfer? Did you dare to blaspheme the great creator gods?" The El Fvis came forward toward the DeWorfer.
The DeWorfer stormed up to greet him. "Me blaspheme? I'm not the person who thinks the races were brought forth from plants from the ground, when we all know the great creator god carved them from stone."
The El Fvis stood before the DeWorfer insulted. "Why you savage heathen DeWorfer."
"Heathen?" The DeWorfer stared back at him as though amazed and amused by what he was hearing. "I'm not the one bound to one of the seven hells of the unworthy."
The El Fvis became enraged, he cursed. "By all that's holy…"
"War." Shouted an El Fvis who came suddenly running into the banquet area. "They mass on the shore, ready to attack as before, now their equipments are much larger and heavier, and there are more new P'Orhks all the time."
The pair looked grudgingly at each other and headed off with the others to the front.
The sun was setting over the horizon.
Robin peered at the scene below him. A large allotment of fresh P'Orhks had arrived and they set about erecting an extremely large camp enlarging 3 times the previous camp size. They did this even though most of the former army's soldiers perished in the previous battles.
"They're setting up shop and are going to be bringing in a lot bigger army then before. It's just going to be a matter of time now." He looked down to see a large projectile being flung his way.
"Scatter!" An El Fvis said calmly. Robin and the El Fvis moved out of the area the boulder was approaching. It missed smashing into the cliff wall below them.
The P'Orhks fired small boulders toward the top of the cliff with gigantic catapults they had erected. They fired these relentlessly now at the El Fvis archers picking off their workmen below.
The boulders came at them so slowly and inaccurately that they rarely bothered them but occasionally they would have to stop their activities to dodge of these boulders.
Cissie turned to Toelkeen. She pointed to the group of arrows scattered on the ground. "Gather those together and tie them up so we can use them again."
"What am I supposed to tie them all up with?"
"Here use this." She handed him a small piece of twine.
Toelkeen held the twine up in the air and examined it disbelievingly. "One sting! Fools they're all. I want you to remind them. One string to cling them all together and in the darkness, no less, bind them."
Echo extended her hand before them and looked at the group sarcastically. "Do you see now why you can't attack the great wizard's lands by going through it's guarded Iron gates?"
They looked at the large swing door that led up to the salt plane. Many great polar bear like salt beasts guarded it.
Kon looked at it and whistled. "That place and our luck is built like the fort of hard knocks."
"We need not pass through the gates." Echo stated.
"Well I can't go over them? Can you?" Kon dared her.
Echo pulled a black cloth from her hand.
Kon stared at her confused. "Yeah, I think I have that one in my old magic kit of fifty amazing magic tricks."
She unfolded the black cloth on the ground. It became a giant hole.
She entered into the hole.
Cassie waved her sword before her as she stepped into the hole. "Hmm… Looks like were crusading into the holey land." The rest followed closely behind her.
Kon waved his sword menacingly as he went down the hole. "We'll get dat wascally wizard."
Gud Luk took Cissie by the hand and led her into the glade. She saw a strange orchard of tall thick trees, each variety and species scattered randomly about one another but all of them tall with large trunks. She noticed that their bark was painted over with large pictures that spiraled up the length of the trees. A staircase of vines and twigs curled up them.
"Shall we take a walk through the Garden of Legends?"
"I'd love to." Cissie followed him up the steps spiraling around the tree. At each few steps one could, if one was a certain height, be able to stare strait at the trunk of the tree and see a single picture as if painted at a gallery at a museum.
Gud Luk gazed with admiration at the picture of a man with a sword raised above his head on a reared horse. "These pictures tell the legends men and of the gods."
Cissie stared at them. "But it leaves a lot open to interpretation there's no words."
Gud Luk smiled at her. "No, there are no words to get in the way of the interpretation of the legend."
"I dunno. It leaves so much up to the imagination."
He smiled at her. "Words total are a total abstraction. They do not covey what is there. Do you not feel moved being here staring at the art of the sacred scrolls?"
She sighed gushing at him. "Oh I feel terribly moved."
The gang crawled through the dark, often times climbing on their hands and knees because of the upward slope.
Kon sighed. "Oh man how long does this go on, I'm getting carved tunnel syndrome."
Light poured in ahead of them. "We're here now." Echo stated bluntly. They exited on the side of the mountain just above the salt plane.
"Good Lord." Cassie looked out the side of sloping mountaintop they were on.
Below them was a large compound. A large rectangular wall surrounded the compound. It contained many rectangular buildings made from block cut from the salt the entire plane of ground seemed to me made of.
There were several smaller P'Orhks here but none of the larger warriors they had seen before. As well they could see what looked to be DeWorfers. They were stockier however and wore thick hairy beards. They were all chained together by the ankle. A group of them carted huge buckets of blackish coal into the nearby building with thick black smoke rising out of one of the stacks.
Kon peered at the building. "It looks like a concentration camp."
Cassie pointed at the chained laborers. "Who are those people down there are they DeWorfers too?"
Aleks answered. "No, they are distant cousins, DeOrrifissers. While we left the mountains to live by the waters they stayed mining the mountains, digging deep holes within the earth."
Toelkeen of the Howbritt clan had come into the glade with Cissie. He had brought a small notebook along as he wandered though the paintings on the trees.
So engrosses was he in the artwork that he didn't notice a shorter El Fvis sitting on the steps looking at the painting and sketching on a small pad. He looked up surprised to see the DeWorfer. "A DeWorfer comes to the garden of legends?"
"Lets just saw I was interested," Toelkeen jotted notes down on a small pad.
At this the El Fvis seemed to take a genuine interest. "What are you drawing?"
"Nothing. I'm writing, I'm writing about what I see here. I think it's important for our people to know about them."
The El Fvis smiled and opened his sketchpad to a scene filled with DeWorfers.
Toelkeen the DeWorfer opened his eyes in instant recognition "That is from one of our legends of old."
The DeWorfer raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
The El Fvis smiled. "Lets just say I was interested."
They snuck up behind the group of P'Orhks who had gone on patrol just outside the grounds of the encampment.
Cassie held the red stone in front of her. She concentrated deeply. She waved her hand containing the stone again at the P'Orhks. Again nothing occurred.
"Want me to give it a try." Kon held out his palm.
"It wouldn't work for you. You're vulnerable to fire remember."
"And everything else, and don't remind me."
She waved the stone again futilely.
Kon intruded again. "Sure you don't want me to give it a whirl."
Cassie stared at him her eyes enflamed. She roared. "No. " Flame spurted from her mouth.
Cassie smiled as she got up from hiding to face the P'Orhks. She opened her jaws wide. And smothered them in searing white-hot flame, instantly setting their oily bodies alight.
"Guess we're going to have to start calling you hot lips." Kon stared at the flaming P'Orhk bodies
"Like you'd ever know." She said softly under her breath.
"Now all we have to do is put on this armor and pretend to be P'Orhks and we can march right in there."
"You mean you wanna pretend to be storm troopers to get to the detention level." Kon shook his head. "I dunno Cass that idea might belong in the trash compactor."
They quickly dressed in the metal armor with full helms left by the pork guard patrol.
"C'mon." She said going down the bank toward the guarded gates.
Robin noticed in tremendous increase in tensions of late. "The religious differences between the DeWorfers and the El Fvis are becoming more of a problem every day." He thought as he stared across to the area where an El Fvis trial took place.
The accused DeWorfer sat silently, a group of El Fvis surrounded him sitting around him in a circle. One of the El Fvis paced in front of the DeWorfer.
"This man has broken the El Fvis laws in flagrant disregard wile under our hospitality. He has kept a domesticated animal in our forest. It is clearly shown in the scrolls that only wild animals should remain in the forest. All DeWorfers were warned as such."
Another El Fvis rose and spoke. "The DeWorfers actions are like that of men. It is man who seeks to tame all the creatures of the land. All animals born in captivity are born slaves."
"But she doesn't know how to look after herself she'll die, if I let her go loose. You El Fvis are supposed to have empathy with the living creatures, can you look at her and want to condemn her to death."
"You eat the eggs of this creature do you not?"
"Figure somebody might as well."
A group of DeWorfers sat angrily around a table outside the area where the trial took place. One pounded on it violently with his fist. "This is so unfair he didn't do anything wrong."
"According to El Fvis law he did." Robin intoned.
"If a law is unjust and based on heresy like the El Fvis laws they should be broken." The DeWorfer shouted angrily.
"So what do you plan on doing then, run wild rioting if the verdict doesn't go your way?"
"Yeah! Yeah that's a good idea. We'll show those El Fvis." He slammed his fist down on the table harder. "Who's with me?"
"Please people. Violence isn't the answer. Besides you still have a common enemy who is massing forces, getting ready to attack both of you.'
"Well what would you suggest?" Another DeWorfer asked Robin.
"I suggest you stand by the ruling whatever it is."
The DeWorfers looked at Robin and groaned.
There was a heavy knocking on the gates in front of him. The P'Orhkish guard pulled back a small slit so he could see through the door. "P'Uswad what are you doing back from patrol so early."
A helmed P'Orhk looked back at him. "I forgot something."
"You forgot something? What did you forget?"
"Uh, my keys."
"But you do not have any keys, I alone control the gates."
"Uh, I mean my wallet."
"Your wallet?" The P'Orhk pressed his face to the slit. "How do I know that you are really P'Uswad?"
"I guess you'll have to take my word for it seeing as how I left all my ID in my wallet. If you open the gates you will be able to see that I am P'Uswad".
Without thinking the guard swung the gate open.
Before him were 6 P'Orhks dressed in full-face armor.
Kon removed his P'Orhkish helm.
"But, but you are not P'Uswad!" The guard grabbed for the short sword at his belt.
Kon skewered him with his sword. "No you are."
He reached down off his belt and removed the set of keys.
From the aqueduct Slobo and Anita stared out at the enormous elevation they were at. Impossibly the water seemed to be running uphill toward the mountains they were headed towards. The mountains menaced them with their jagged teeth.
Slobo and Anita paddled along with the current up the salt aqueduct.
Slobo looked at the ground far below him. "Ah that's what I like to see nice bleak barren landscape."
Anita looked around. "You like this? Yeah I guess its kinda cool in a creepy short of way."
"You just remember to stay behind me babe."
"Why do you want me to stay behind you?"
"Because there's probably evil creatures around these parts that would want to tear you apart the moment they saw you and I want to protect you from em is all."
Anita glanced skeptically toward him.
End of Part 5
"The Lord of the Stones" m