Chapter Thirty-Three: Walk Through the Woods

The Northern clans live in villages, similar to the Treefolk. Their buildings, however, were made of a combination of stone and wood, as opposed to the simple wooden wigwam-esque structures of the Western Fires. Their villages were larger, too…resembling towns more than villages, if you asked me.

Another difference between the Northern towns and the villages of the Treefolk were the palisades that surrounded the town. Northern towns had walls surrounding them, most likely to protect them from the swarms of underlings.

The town I'd been taken to by Aiyana was the central settlement of Clan Unagwe, one of the larger Northern clans. Most likely because of its status as the central settlement, this particular town had an entire Dersite fort built on a nearby hill. The consorts told me that tribute was constantly paid to the Dersites in the fort. If the tribute were ever not to be paid, the Dersites would then come down to the town in force and wreck some shit. Sometimes they did this for no reason at all.

I could understand why K'eyush and Tlanextic had wanted me to help them drive the Dersites from the North before they joined the march on Hyperion—the Dersites really had a hold over these guys. Not nearly as tight a grip as they'd held the Desert Fires in, way back in the days of slavery and quarries, though…no, they seemed to have learned their lesson: treat your prisoners like something even less than shit, and one day they will fucking end you.

I don't know if the Northerners ever tried rebelling—knowing my consorts, they probably have—but from what I could see today, they seemed to be adopting a watching and waiting policy. Slowly, stealthily building up their strength, planning for the downfall of the Dersites under Hyperion's control, all the while waiting…

Waiting for me. The Old One predicted that I would be the one to stand up to Hyperion, so I guess the Northerners—being the most pragmatic and logical of the three tribes, from what I could see—reasoned that any attempt to overthrow Hyperion before my arrival would end in failure.

After I woke up, Aiyana took Scales and me up to the town above—the cavern where we had met with K'eyush and Tlanextic had been located far beneath the blacksmith's forge. We met Inuyyak, the muscular, violet-scaled giant who seemed to follow Aiyana around wherever she went, and the four of us sneaked across the palisades before the daylight grew too bright. There weren't any Dersite guards, or anything, but we still wanted to avoid all possible detection.

I mean, if the Northerners heard about me traveling towards the northern hills, then the Dersites would definitely have heard about it, too. They'd be on the lookout. And while I'm more than capable of handling myself against Dersites… I'd much rather be handling them while at the head of a massive army of pissed-off consorts, instead of on my own.

And so, right now I found myself vanishing into a thickly wooded region of the northern hills, dubbed 'The Bear's Thicket' by Aiyana. She explained that it was the closest thing the North had to a forest. When Hyperion's conquest of the northern hills was nearly complete, the last of the warriors who refused to yield rallied to the call of a consort named Krenerkasaktok—goddamn, and I thought the Sand Dweller names were weird ones; these Inuit-themed Northerner names were making my brain throb.

Krenerkasaktok was a violet-scaled giant who was, in his time, the chieftain of Clan Unagwe, as well as the only chieftain who was still alive by the end of Hyperion's conquest of the northern hills; all of his counterparts from the other clans had been killed. He was nicknamed 'The Bear' because of his massive stature and strength—Inuyyak claimed to be a descendant of the Bear, which I found easy to believe. With the last of the Northerner warriors, the Bear made a final stand in these woods, holding out against Hyperion's underling swarms and Dersite troops for several years before he was killed, along with every last warrior who had stood with him.

I guess if there was one thing to be learned from that story, it was the possible existence of bears in this region of my planet, the Land of Rain and Rivers. I didn't see why this would be impossible—after all, we also had buffalo and cardinals. There was no rule stating that cobras were the only sentient creatures here; merely the most intelligent.

Well, if there were bears here, I honestly hoped we never ran into any of them.

"Remind you of home?" I glanced over at Scales, gesturing at the trees.

"Hardly," the red-scaled consort sniffed. "Thiss place iss a naked sskeleton when held next to the Knightswood or the Shadowed Forest."

"Ever the forest critic, I see…" I remarked.

I mean, I thought these woods were pretty nice. No, they weren't as thick or widespread as the giant western forests, but they were still pretty nice. Streams and creeks trickled through the trees, the ground was matted with moss, ferns, and other kinds of foliage. I could see the red-feathered cardinal birds nesting in the treetops, which was unusual because the cardinals usually tended to stay above the rainclouds. The sound of the rainfall pattering softly against the leaves and branches of the trees, before dripping down into the moss below, was very relaxing.

I was surprised I was able to feel relaxed at all. I mean, what we were doing here…traveling through an underling-infested land to reach the High Council Fire, so we could get the clan chiefs of the Northern Fires to begin their own little uprising against the Dersites…well, it was a slightly high-pressure mission, don't you think? And yet, a little thing like the sound of rainfall was able to calm me down.

I've always been a rain person. You'd find me ten times more likely to go outside in a rainstorm than I ever would on a sunny day. I always viewed it as Mother Nature's way of saying, 'Hey, guys, take a breather.' Maybe it was because, as a bit of a lazy student, I felt less shitty when I did jack shit on a rainy day as opposed to doing jack shit when it was sunny and beautiful outside.

But enough about the weather.

As we hiked through the woods, I practiced conjuring fire. I would spread my palms, focus on my Aspect… I could feel them, somehow, all the little atoms that made up the air above my hands. I focused on my Aspect, generating the kinetic energy required to excite the atoms, causing them to vibrate faster and faster, creating heat…and eventually, flame. I wondered if it was actually possible to create flame like this back in the real world, back…back on Earth, or if it was just another one of the mind-numbing oddities of the incipisphere.

I would sprout small flames over my palms. I would then make them explode into giant geysers of fire, sending the flames jetting up many yards into the air. While I normally might have been worried about starting a forest fire…this was a planet where it perpetually rained. Fires weren't a very big problem, here.

After practicing for a little while, I started to experiment. I started increasing the frequency at which I would make the atoms vibrate—not necessarily generating more kinetic energy…but generating more powerful kinetic energy…if that made sense. Almost like throwing a larger rock, as opposed to a handful of smaller pebbles. The result of my experiments was a much hotter, more concentrated flame that almost appeared to be white. I kept messing around with the manner in which I was generating the kinetic energy, finding that I could even modify the shape of the flames, to a certain degree. With enough practice, I'd probably be able to make a blowtorch-like flame.

Scales watched me play around with fire with varying levels of interest. Well, no, that's not quite right; Scales was incredibly interested, but he was Scales. He wasn't gonna stare at me slack-jawed, or anything. After a short while, he slithered up next to me, falling in step with me. "Only our elderss can wield fire as you do, and even then only after a lifetime of honing their craft," he observed soberly. "And now here you sstand, wielding fire with the sskill of an elder, when it wass not sso very long ago that the creation of even a tiny sspark wass beyond your sskill or undersstanding."

"Well, uh…yeah," I shrugged, closing my palms and extinguishing the flames. I mean, I didn't know what I was supposed to say to that—it was an observation, and a correct one at that. Was there really anything I could do besides agree with him?

"What I wish to know iss how you learn sso quickly?"

Another shrug from me. "I dunno, I guess… I mean, I kinda just…understand it. When I get better with my Aspect—sorry, my Vis—I just start understanding more and more about how it works," I replied, giving Scales a much better answer than I was expecting. When I saw that he wasn't following, I decided to try and probably fail at explaining the Force Aspect. "What do you know about your Vis? How does it work?"

Scales had an easy answer for that. "It is the physical manifestation of our will," he started to explain. "It is our link with the world around us-"

"Yeah, yeah, that sounds really interesting and everything," I tried not to yawn, "but you still haven't answered my question. You're telling me what your Vis is, but not how it works. How exactly can you move objects or create fire just by focusing on something? That doesn't make sense. How does it work?"

Scales opened and closed his mouth several times, obviously trying to find a way to answer me, but coming up painfully short. I could understand why, though. It would be like an optometrist asking me how I could see. I would answer, 'with my eyes'. Then the optometrist, to whom the study of the eyes was a profession, would say that it was in fact due to the brain being able to process visible light via the optic nerve. But I wouldn't have known that because seeing through my eyes is just a part of who I am.

Asking Scales how his Vis worked would yield the same result—his answer being simply 'with my mind'. My answer would be that it was in fact due to our ability to generate kinetic energy through the manipulation and subsequent conversion of the latent potential energy contained within all objects, allowing us to propel those objects through space…or stop them by removing kinetic energy, converting it back to potential energy. That very same energy could be applied to create fire, which I've already explained…but the challenge was to try and explain the process to someone who had absolutely no idea of the ideas and workings of physics, and-

Jesus H. Christ, listen to me… I had to work hard to keep from flunking out of my science classes all throughout High School, and now here I was prattling on about elementary physics? It was very subtle, all this knowledge I had that I hadn't possessed a month ago—I never realized it was there until I started trying to explain shit about the Force Aspect, and then suddenly, BAM! Fucking physics encyclopedia starts pouring outta my mouth.

"Okay, uh…the first thing you have to understand is that everything you see—water, air, grass, trees—is made of tiny little objects called atoms," I started to explain. Scales was giving me a what the fuck look already, so I simplified. "Okay, what is mud made of?"

"Water and earth," Scales answered evenly. "That iss ssimple."

"Right, you combine water and dirt, and you get mud," I nodded. "But what is water made of?"

Scales blinked. "Nothing. Water iss water."

"False," I grinned. "Water is made of atoms. All the components of dirt are also made of atoms. I am made of atoms, you are made of atoms. Everything is made of atoms! They're incredibly tiny, though—not something you can see. Imagine a beach…billions and billions of grains of sand together form one beach. Then look at the sand…billions and billions of these 'atoms' form a single grain of sand."

Scales blinked again, several times. "How can ssomething be sso ssmall?"

"What do these tiny building blockss have to do with our Vis?" Aiyana, who I'd had no idea was listening in on my little science lesson, queried.

"It matters because when they move in a certain way, heat is produced," I explained, realizing suddenly that my consorts probably wouldn't immediately know what vibration was, so I'd have to figure out another way to explain that… But that could come later. "And if you can wrap your mind around this idea, making fire becomes pretty damn easy!"

"Quiet, little Knight!" Inuyyak hissed suddenly from up ahead, shutting me up. Yeah, that's what he called me…still, it was better than 'little shit', I guess. The violet-scaled cobra's head was pressed down to the earth, much like a normal snake, but upon giving his warning he straightened back up. "Underlingss are near."

I looked around and saw that we were in a small clearing with nowhere to hide, so we all booked it for the trees. The four of us found some nearby bushes and dove into the leaves, making sure we were all covered up. Aiyana coiled herself up a tree, though—her brown scales allowed her to almost perfectly blend in with the bark. From there, she could tell us what was going on.

She didn't tell us, though; at least, not with her voice. Instead, she started to make a series of quick, convoluted signs with her tail that I couldn't comprehend. I didn't have to, though, because Inuyyak seemed to know exactly what she was signaling.

"Impss," he murmured to Scales and me. "Over a dozen of the little shitss. Besst to keep quiet and let them pass…"

"Why not just kill them?" I asked the violet-scaled brute. "We could absolutely wreck those little fuckers, between the four of us."

But Inuyyak shook his head. "The underlingss are like animals, but they are ssmarter than they look," the violet-scaled consort rumbled under his breath so that his voice did not carry. "Packss of imps usually travel near to larger sswarms. They don't really report back to the sswarm; however, if they were to come under attack, every underling in a five mile radiuss will know we are here."

Okay, maybe I'll just sit tight for this one. After a minute or so, true to Aiyana's silent word, a small pack of maybe fourteen or sixteen imps skittered right through the clearing we'd just come through, all of them cackling and clicking their teeth and claws. They almost reminded me of feral dogs—their tongues were sometimes lolling out of the corners of their mouths, and they didn't really run so much as they bounded forward.

Unlike dogs, thank Christ, they did not seem to have a very keen sense of smell, because they bounded right past us, not once turning in our direction. I didn't even breathe for about a minute, remaining perfectly still, not moving a muscle. And after they were gone, I almost forgot to let myself breathe again until I suddenly realized I'd been holding my breath for too long, releasing it in a slightly explosive exhalation.

"How'd you see them coming from so far off?" I asked Inuyyak as I got back up to my feet, brushing the leaves, twigs, and dirt from my jeans and the remains of my shirt.

"I didn't ssee them, little Knight," the violet-scaled consort replied. "I heard their vibrationss in the ground."

Ah. So my consorts did understand what vibration was. Maybe explaining Force-created fire wouldn't be quite as difficult as I thought it would be.

After we got back to it, continuing our northward push towards the High Council Fire, I waited until we'd all relaxed slightly before speaking again. "So, uh…sorry, but I'm a bit confused," I spoke to Aiyana, taking care not to trip on a tree root that almost caught my ankle. "No one ever really explained how someone from the Desert Fires is calling the shots up here."

"Tlanextic is the Faithful of my clan," Aiyana explained to me. "There are twenty Faithful—one in each of our clans, and they are all Sand Dwellers. We are led by our clan chiefss, but the Underground iss led by the Faithful—our clan chiefss would lead the resisstance themsselvess, but it would be impossible for them to lead ssuch double livess without being disscovered."

"Yeah, but why Sand Dwellers?" I continued to press for answers. "Why not just lead your own shit?"

"The Sand Dwellers have had experience with rebellion," Aiyana replied. "They were worsse than sslavess, when Hyperion'ss dogss forced them to exisst in those quarriess, and yet they were able to throw off their shackless. What ssort of people are we Northerners if we cannot do the ssame? And who better to help uss throw off our shackless than those who have already disscarded their own?"

Memories of my trip through time with Anna threatened to enter my mind. "You realize that none of those Sand Dwellers were alive when the Desert Fires rebelled? That was hundreds of years ago. And it was actually a Treefolk who was responsible for starting the Great Liberation," I pointed out, though I refrained from identifying Glimmering Scales as that Treefolk. That would've just caused a whole lot of unnecessary confusion.

"There iss more to thiss pact than you think," Aiyana went on to say. "Rarely have any of our three peopless ever cooperated with one another. After the death of the Old One, we fell into long periodss of conflict with each other… Let uss jusst ssay that both the Desert Fires and my own people have claim to the Golden Grasses. Perhapss if we help one another rid our land of Hyperion, we will not fall back into sstrife."

"Well when you put it that way…"

As we continued to forge deeper into the woods, Aiyana was the one to break the silence, this time. "How do you know sso much about the Great Liberation?" she asked me.

I arched an eyebrow at her. "Would you believe me if I told you I was there?"

Aiyana blinked once. "No, I do not believe I would."

"Okay," I shrugged, sharing a quick glance with Scales. "Wouldn't really expect you to. So, not to be the proverbial little kid in the backseat of the car, but…how long will it take us to reach the High Council Fire?"

"One or two dayss' travel to the nearesst drop of the Nanuk River," the brown-scaled female answered me. "Then a further half-day until we reach our desstination."

Before she could say anything else, however, a low howl shattered the relatively ambience, which until now had comprised of a gentle breeze and the soft, omnipresent tap-tap-tap-tap of the rainfall. My Roman Lightbowie appeared in my hand, and the three consorts' neck hoods flared out wide at the exact same time, all of their pupils narrowing to slits. They were spooked, too.

"Ogre…" Inuyyak breathed. "That may have been a pack leader…" The violet-scaled consort stopped moving and flattened his upper body to the ground, resting his lower jaw on the earth. After presumably listening to those vibrations of his for a few moments, he swore under his breath. "Underlingss heading thiss way…and a lot, by the ssound of them."

"Dark flame…" Glimmering Scales swore. "How could they have caught our trail when the impss did not ssensse uss?"

"Could've been a banshee," Inuyyak suggested as we picked up the pace. "Ssometimess they track prey from the sskiess."

I wished I was my dream self. Then I could just fly up into the sky, hunt down the banshee that was fucking us over, and ram a fireball down its throat. End of story. Unfortunately, I wasn't dreaming, right now. I was my regular old boring self, which made things a bit more challenging.

We sprinted through the woods, splashing through a small creek before approaching a giant grove of pine trees. I was glad none of the water had gotten into my shoes, but those positive thoughts were very short-lived. We reached the pine trees and crashed through the thick veils of green pine needles. I half-expected to stumble through the other side into Narnia—snow, the Lamp-post, child-abducting fauns, talking animals; all that fun shit. What we got instead was a small clearing, and a pack of about twenty-five or thirty imps, running towards us from the opposite direction. The imps burst into the clearing at the same time we did.

Our two groups stared at each other for a split-second—even the imps were surprised to see us. Their surprise did not last very long, though, before their primal instincts kicked in and they all started to bum-rush us.

I didn't even bother to ask if we should run or fight. These little shits were standing between us and a general away-from-the-underling-swarm direction. If we wanted to keep evading the swarm behind us, we'd have to go through these imps. Good thing I could fight underlings worth a damn…a month ago, this would have posed quite a challenge. Now it was like exercise. Well, more like a cakewalk, even, considering the fact that I had three friends fighting alongside me.

I beheaded the first imp that jumped me with an underhanded stroke from my Bowie. I then brought my blade around and whipped it back to the right with a quick backhanded stroke, cleanly severing the head from the second imp's shoulders. The two dead imps dissolved into grist.

I was then set upon by a group of four imps. Upping the ante, a bit… Ignoring the ache in my shoulder from where I'd gotten a mild laceration from an imp's claws, back when Scales and I first arrived here in the north, I tried to behead the first imp. It got botched, however, when the imp instinctively dodged to the side, resulting in my Bowie hacking through its shoulder and neck, momentarily getting lodged in the underling's chest. The second imp leaped at my back just as I tried yanking my blade free, unsuccessfully. I reflexively whipped around to face the imp—right hand still gripping my Bowie—and thrust out my left hand, seizing the imp with my Aspect. Having no time to react before I was attacked again, I hurled that imp into one of its friends, sending both underlings crumpling to the ground in a daze.

The fourth imp was nearly upon me, by then, but the imp who I'd nearly sliced in half dissolved into grist by then, releasing my Bowie. I didn't go for a decapitation, this time. Instead, I simply took a step back and pressed the small button concealed within the Bowie's grip, activating the transparent red energy field that enveloped the blade—that was the lightsaber portion of my composite weapon. I needed to do this because, while the blade of my Bowie had been given a length and weight increase after alchemization, it still wasn't enough for the strike I was about to do—not, that is, without the energy field.

My Bowie came straight down on the imp's skull, and the lightsaber energy allowed it to burn straight through with the ease of a really good table saw eating through plywood. The thing about the energy field was that it only had a limited amount of energy—it could give me one or two good strikes before it would deactivate, remaining dormant until it recharged. In this case, it was more than enough to absolutely wreck this imp's skull. Another explosion of muted blue units of build grist.

By then, the two stunned imps were back on their feet, joined by an additional three. God damn, I think I'm currently eating my own words, when I said this would be a cakewalk. Normally it would be, but just the sheer frequency at which these imps were attacking me… I was being tired out by numbers. My reaction times were good, but not godly…

I gutted the next imp to attack me, executing a swift jab and impaling the little shit through the abdomen. It gave a loud screech of agony before dissolving into grist. I recovered from the thrust and turned to face the remaining four imps leaping at me at the exact same time. I was good with knives, but four targets at once… Again, I'm good, but not godly. Luckily, fire happened to be my bitch. So I used fire.

I focused on my Aspect and blasted white-hot flames from my left-hand fist and forearm, engulfing and roasting one of the leaping imps while I snapped my Bowie through the neck of a second underling. My strike was slowed by the second imp's neck, so when it hit the third imp, it was not a death blow. It simply sheared off its arm and buried itself into the small underling's side.

I let go of my Roman Lightbowie and dropped to the ground. The last imp overshot, landing on the other side of me. I rolled away and quickly jumped back to my feet, springing over to where the third imp had fallen. I brought my heel down on its skull—the wounded imp's body was transmuted into grist before I could even register the sickening crunch. I recovered my Bowie and turned just in time to see the last imp flying right at my face—it had recovered faster than I expected.

My mind racing at the speed of light, I sidestepped the leaping imp. As it whipped past me, I seized it by the back of the neck with my free hand and, following its momentum, brought it slamming down into the ground. Before it could even react, I brought my knife down into its back once, twice, and then a third time. The third time, I stabbed it right through the back of its head, twisting the blade. The imp immediately turned into grist after that.

I took a deep breath, realizing that there were no more imps coming for me. I rose from my knees, watching as Inuyyak brutally finished off the final imp by coiling around its body, baring his fangs, sinking his teeth into the imp's head. He then tore the imp's head right off its shoulders, sending blood and bits of bodily matter flying.

Scales and Aiyana had been busy, too. Out of the corner of my eye, I'd seen them fighting back to back, keeping the imps at arm's length with their swords while Inuyyak brutalized the underlings all on his own. Man, I would never want to be on the opposite side of a war with my consorts…there wasn't much left of many of the imps that had gone up against my three companions. The other underlings had been quite literally sliced to pieces.

"Come, little shitss, we musst keep moving!" Inuyyak thundered.

I was hearing more howls, now, from many directions. Inuyyak was absolutely right; we had to move. And so, we set off at a sprint once again, praying that we didn't run into any more packs of underlings along the way. We couldn't afford to get slowed down again.

We kept on running and running until I lost track of time. Eventually, after evading several more roving packs of imps and constantly keeping ahead of the swarms of underlings behind us, we splashed through yet another creek, raced up a steep hill…and came across a sheer cliff. I mean, it wasn't the cliff itself that captivated my interest…it was the cave in the cliff face, set twenty to thirty feet off the ground. That caught my interest.

Shelter.

Aiyana had the same idea, too. "Into the cave!" she shouted. "Underlingss cannot climb very well; we will be ssafe there!"

We raced across the final stretch of woods between us and the cliff face. There was another stream that we had to cross—I hopped from stone to stone with varying success, though I ended up slipping at the last stone before I reached the opposite bank. I didn't fall, or anything, but I got my foot wet, which soured my mood a little.

When we reached the cliff face, the howls that had been pursuing us since late morning were closing in. We had to get into that cave, and sharpish. Scales and the others threw themselves up against the cliff face, manipulating their way around the ledges and makeshift handholds, worming their way up the cliff face with an agility I wouldn't have imagined cobras to have. Scales, used to scaling the trees of the Knightswood, was by far the fastest climber—Aiyana and Inuyyak had to take their time.

As for me, I just said 'fuck it' and focused on my Aspect, using it to lift me up into the air. I levitated myself slowly, keeping pace with Scales as he climbed. I reached the cave entrance in about thirty seconds, using my Aspect to gently push myself forward into the mouth, landing lightly on both feet. I turned around and crouched down at the edge of the cave mouth. One by one, my consorts reached the cave mouth, and I helped them up. Luckily, Inuyyak came last, because Scales and I both had to help the violet-scaled brute into the cave mouth.

As we hauled Inuyyak up, I could finally spot the swarms that had been chasing us. Dozens of ogres, hundreds of imps…they all roiled out of the trees like a thundercloud exploding out of a sunny sky. A thundercloud full of claws and very sharp teeth. Boy, they sure could move fast…

The first ogres and imps to reach the cliff face below leaped up at the rocks, trying to pull themselves up to us. My insides clenched up as I watched them attempt to climb up…but then relaxed when I saw that none of them were able to climb more than five feet without slipping and falling back to the earth, no matter how hard or frequently they tried.

We were safe.

I released the breath that I hadn't even realized I'd been holding. I sank down to the ground and rested my head and back on the cave wall, breathing in deeply, trying to get my heart rate to go down. Deep breaths, deep breaths…relaaaaaax…

I turned my head towards the cave mouth, listening to the growling and howls coming from the swarm of monsters outside, waiting to get a nice, wet chomp out of all of us. "Okay…" I turned back to the two Northerners. "So now what?"