Chapter 18
We spent night back in our own beds - or, in the fugitive's case, their own huts - trying to recover from the night's mission. With any luck, our plan would have slowed the Yeerks' schemes to infest more Controllers, and we'd done it without getting caught. But most importantly, we'd done it as a team. Our first mission involving the whole group, American and British Animorphs. And we'd done it well. Hopefully, things would go this well in the future. I had a good feeling they would. Sam seemed good at her job, and the others respected her. Philip was a great commander, but since he had something against making decisions which would affect the rest of the group, he was perfectly content to act as a sort of second-in-command to both Sam and I. Maggie and Cassie were getting along well, and Rachel finally had another daredevil to relate to. Marco was finally beginning to trust Sam, and even Ax seemed to take well to them, particularly Philip, who he saw as a 'warrior', due to his time in the military. I knew that things wouldn't always go so well, and they'd be arguments, disagreements and misunderstandings, but I knew that if we could get off on the right foot and all share a common cause for fighting this war, we'd be better of than we'd ever been before.
"Ferdie! Don't ride him so fast! He's not fit enough yet to gallop!"
"Oops, sorry, Cassie, I suppose I got rather carried away."
It was Sunday evening, and with the exception of Ax, who was feeding, we were gathered at Cassie's farm, getting ready to take the new Animorph's stuff down to the valley. Piled up outside the stables were backpacks stuffed full of warm clothes, sleeping bags, food, penknives, tents and other random bits and pieces that they'd been buying over the past few days, using Ferdie's online bank account and Rachel's credit card and knowledge of the mall. Everything they needed to survive in the forest. Mostly designer. Mostly in the sale.
"I think we're going to have to make at least two trips for all this equipment," I said, throwing a couple in camping mats on to the pile. "You won't be able to take it all in one go."
"Can we not take some more horses?" asked Sam. "Philip and Rachel, you can ride too, can't you?"
"Oh, Cassie said the other horses are all on medication," Rachel said, absently wiping some mud from her shirt. "These are the only two we can take."
"How much stuff do you lot need?" asked Marco, gazing incredulously at the substantial pile. "Sam? Are you four planning to build a city down there?"
"Just trying to make ourselves a little more comfortable," Sam replied. She turned to Cassie, who had just come out of the stables carrying armfuls of leather tack.
"All right, Cassie?" she called. "Shall we get the first load on the go?"
"Sure," Cassie replied. "Better do it before Ferdie wears the horses out."
Ferdie was cantering happily around the paddocks, riding a rather wild looking stallion with ease. He looked like he'd been sitting in a saddle his whole life and was blatantly trying to impress Sam. Cassie began tacking up a gorgeous black mare, one which I recognised as her very first morph. The morph she used to rescue a single woman from the Yeerk Pool when we first became involved in this battle.
"Ferdie, come and grab some bags," said Philip. "This is a job, not a match. Stop messing about."
Ferdie trotted back over to the stables, and Philip passed him up a couple of rucksacks. He put the larger one on his back as normal, and wore the other one across his chest. Cassie grabbed some bags and mounted her own horse.
"Jake?" she called. "Are you and the others going to follow as birds?"
"Yeah, I think we could do that," I said. "What's the weather like for flying?" I asked Tobias, who was circling overhead.
--It's great,-- he replied. --Plenty of uplifts, and if we follow the road, we might catch a few thermals. It's going to be really nice over the valley.--
"Excellent," I said. "Right, why don't you two make a start, and the rest of us will follow you down there." I waved to Cassie, and the two of them set off into the forest, the motioned to the others to follow me into the barn.
We stripped down to our morphing suits and began to morph, out of sight on anyone working on the farm. A peregrine falcon, an osprey, a large bald eagle, an even larger white-tailed eagle, a buzzard, a lanner falcon and a red tailed hawk took to the skies. We spread out over a couple of kilometres, gliding at different altitude, but always making sure that we were close enough to thought-speak. It was a beautiful evening. There were virtually no clouds, it was warm but not hot, and there was a nice, faint breeze. Perfect for flying. It was times like these that flying really made up for the horrors of the battles we'd had to endure. Keeping Cassie and Ferdie in our sight, the seven of us soared over the forests, out over the meadows where Ax and Tobias live, and down towards the valley.
--Guys, you need to head right a bit more,-- called Tobias to Ferdie and Cassie. --You can't really see from down there, but the trees are thicker ahead. You need to go round them to get to the valley.--
Tobias guided the two of them down. He was the one most familiar with the route, having spent the most time with the Hork-Bajir. After an hour or so of gentle flying, I let myself slip into the trance-like state needed to find the valley. A moment later, the trees seemed to open up, as if by magic, and the beautiful valley was revealed to me.
"Toby!" cried Cassie, as the young seer came into view. "Good to see you again."
Ferdie and Cassie rode the horses down towards the Hork-Bajir. The route was pretty steep, but the two of them were experienced riders, and made their way down with ease.
"Hello, Cassie," replied Toby. She was soon followed by Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak, plus a group of other Hork-Bajir. "How was the journey down here?"
"Oh, it was fine," she replied, jumping off her horse and tying the reins round a tree.. "Great to get the horses out again."
"Not as good as becoming them, of course," added Ferdie, "but cool all the same." He dismounted his horse in one fluid moment, and began unloading the bags. I spilled some air from under my wings and dropped down to meet them, demorphing as soon as I was on the ground. I greeted the Hork-Bajir, and the rest of us, apart from Tobias, did the same.
--Heya, Jara,- said Maggie, as her wings slowly became hands. Maggie is a slow morpher, but like Cassie, she has some ability to control the order in which things morphed. She was trying to make her morph go as smoothly as possible, so as not to alarm the Hork-Bajir who were still not used to watching them morph.
"You have food and bed?" asked Jara Hamee. "We help take to hut?"
Maggie finished her demorph and nodded.
"Thank you," she replied politely, passing the Hork-Bajir the sleeping bags. Jara Hamee picked them up gently in his huge claws, so as not to tear the material, then bounded over to one of the trees and nimbly made his way up into the branches.
"Whoa," said Marco. "I was right. You guys are building a city down here." Marco hadn't been down the valley since Sam and the others had arrived here.
Sam laughed and started rummaging through a rucksack. "The Hork-Bajir have been really helpful," she said. "They helped us build those two tree houses up there, huts n the ground, ladders and everything." She pointed out two big huts made out of logs and rough planks, high up in the branches. There was a sort of balcony thing outside them, and a ladder made out of vines and sticks which they would be able to climb to reach the huts if they weren't in morph.
"I always begged my dad to build me a tree house like that," Marco said in mock disappointment. "Never happened. It's not fair."
"Well, I'm sure you can join us for a sleepover," Maggie laughed.
"Uh, maybe not," he said. "Not sure if I could stand the bugs and the cold."
Ferdie laughed, and threw him a bag of shoes. "Want to take them over to the cave over there?" Ferdie grabbed a bag of dried food and the two of them wandered over to the cave. Philip and Sam took the rest of their stuff up to their tree houses, then began to remorph. Cassie and Ferdie remounted, and we made our way back up to the barn again, enjoying the lazy journey back.