The cat slurped up a bit of cream, calling Fiona's attention to her own hunger. She hadn't eaten but a breakfast of trail mix on the walk from the copse. "Be good, Puss, and I'll bring you spoils from the fight. Surely they've got tuna stockpiled at the fortress."
She scratched the cat, who purred and leaned into her leg. "¡Surely you shall claim the victory, Señora! And it will be my honor to help you … dispose … of such spoils."
She made her way from her tent towards the mess table.
A tall ogress draped in rumpled deerskins crossed her path. She carried a basket tucked into her elbow; a witch's hat adorned it as if the basket were its head. "Oh hai Fiona, I've got something I think you might like!"
Fiona skidded to a stop on her heel. Unless you have Rumpelstiltskin's head in there … her own voice echoed in her mind. "And … just what have you got here, Traif?" Fiona asked carefully. She sneered uncomfortably at the hat.
Looking at the basket, Fiona saw in her mind's eye the pale green decapitated crown of a witch, dull eyes staring right through her. The image unsettled her: For just an instant, it was replaced with the dying head of the slaughtered ogre whose anonymous death had spurred her into this role in the first place. But no! He hadn't hurt anyone. This war was different. She shook off the agitation.
Traif grabbed the hat by its point, lifting it off the basket like a lid, and tipped the opening for Fiona to inspect. Inside was a head-sized ball of resin, shiny and lumpy.
Fiona exhaled in relief.
"Thank you, Traif. That'll keep the torches burning," she nodded, relieved she wasn't accepting a gift of hag noggin. The odor of frisky opossum wafted up from the basket and reached her nose, confirming its origin. "Mmm! And spruce, no less!"
Traif replaced the lid, pleased with herself for pleasing Fiona, and continued past.
·❧·
"Now you go on and sit down to eat, Fiona," Cookie said. "I made Snails Swirls Cajun like you ain't tasted before!"
"It looks fantastic, but I'm really busy, Cookie," she fibbed. The food did look good, and the truth was, there wasn't much to do but focus on the plan. She just wasn't in a mood to socialize. "Can you make me up a box of takeout?"
"For you, Fiona? Anything." Cookie scooped morsels haphazardly into a paper box.
"Oh, and take these," she said, dropping her gift box of slugs on Cookie's prep station. "I don't really want them; maybe cheer up the crew?"
Cookie snorted as Fiona met his eye. She could tell he knew how they'd come into her possession; it wasn't the first time she'd disposed of a favor from a flirt. He tucked in the flaps on the takeout box and held it out. "Imma be ready for the ambush, Fiona. Jis' you watch what my slappin' chimichangas do for morale!"
"I don't know what we'd do without you, Cookie," Fiona said, accepting the box of Swirls warmly.
Ogres were converging on the dinner table; the level of chaos was increasing. Fiona ducked out the back of the ersatz kitchen and made for the drill grounds. On the way, she popped open the box and scooped dinner with her hand from the box directly into her mouth. Her stomach welcomed the calories enthusiastically, but her mind didn't spare a thought for the flavors.
Her tent intruder intruded back into her mind. It was wrong for him to be there. It was also uncanny how eager he was to plant his lips on her face. Anyone in her position had reason enough not to tolerate a kiss assault, but Fiona had twice the motivation. Her curse meant that a kiss would turn her completely human, and that was a risk she would never accept. Ogress was who she was.
Approaching a small campfire, Fiona popped the last snail into her mouth and crunched it between her molars, then tipped the box up and drained the rest of the oily juices into her mouth. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and tossed the box into the flames. Her tongue toured her teeth, scooping up fragments of shell. One irritating little fragment remained wedged against an incisor. Fiona kept a long iron nail handy for exactly this purpose; its head was red with rust, its point shiny from extensive dental care. She worked the last morsel free, pulverized it with a molar, then slipped the wicked toothpick back into the fold of her belt.
Arriving at the glade, Fiona lit a torch and stabbed it into the soil. She set about winding the target mannequins and pop-up contraptions.
When she first started practicing here, it was just circles chalked on tree trunks. Gretched had suggested she blindfold herself and spin around before hurling her weapon; that gave her plenty of practice at orienting and situational awareness.
Then an ogress had joined the encampment with more cleverness than valor to offer. Bolg had put herself to work upgrading everything she could find. Now the little army had an intercom system, an outhouse that flushed, and animatronic target witches. Fiona was skeptical, thinking they would just be a distraction, but she had ultimately come around: the moving targets added an element of surprise that forced the warrior to sense more about the environment.
With all the fancy equipment ready, Fiona tightened up her bracers and loaded her belt and scabbards with daggers and axes. Then she sat down in the middle of the glade, legs crossed. She rolled up a stocking and tied it around her head as a blindfold. She straightened her spine, tensed her core muscles, and brought her entire body into a position of symmetry.
She filled her chest with deep breath until it nearly burst, then let it drain very slowly through her nose, that single breath lasting nearly a minute, bringing every voluntary function of her body under complete control. She repeated it nine times more, each time evicting busy thoughts from her mind. Chaos at the mess hall, gone. Gotta pick up more cat chow for Puss, gone. Nutbar with a gift basket, gone. That little hangnail on her left pinky toe, gone. The future and tomorrow, gone. Details of the ambush, gone.
Finally, there was no noise left in her mind, and she could hear her environment. She heard her own breath sighing through her nose. She heard her soft leather vest crinkle with the motion of her belly. She heard her heartbeat in her ears.
She heard insects buzz, crickets chirp in chorus. She heard snatches of laughter, clanks of pots drifting across the forest from the remnants of the dinner meal. She heard a rat's hesitant, staccato rustle in the bed of needles under some bushes. She heard birds high above, some fluttering between branches, others re-settling in their nests. She heard the highest branches creak and sway in the gentle breeze that skimmed over the forest top. She heard the gutter and pop of the torch behind her. She could feel where each sound came from as her ears swiveled on their own accord to pick them out.
Ultimately, she began to hear the shape of the forest itself in the echoes of those sounds. The crisp orange-and-blue-lit tree trunks in her visual memory faded, being replaced by an active sensation of bulbous, colorless monoliths that kept their places as she turned her head. She was completely connected to the forest now; it was time.
She leaned forward and stood in a fluid motion using only her legs. She turned in a slow circle, identifying every tree by its aural texture, locating each target zone relative to the trees. She mimed throwing each weapon at each target to practice her coordination without having to reset the course.
She was in the zone. Her mind was relaxed, her muscles just barely humming, ready on a hair-trigger to respond to every adversary with instant, lethal reflex. Her mind made a single decision, to loose a dagger at a static target. The gourd head exploded, loosed a rope, and set the clockwork gallery in motion.
Weight-driven escapements quietly ticked to time the release of targets. Hearing the mechanism felt like cheating, but each actual threat deployed with surprise timing. Fiona flung a dagger, listened, swiveled, fired another. A rope went taught and a board (painted with a witch for the new trainees' benefit) swung into motion; its pendulum motion hadn't settled before Fiona hurled an axe and cleaved it in two.
After such a salvo, she always felt exhilaration, realizing what she could do purely on reflexes built through exhaustive training. During the actual exercise, she felt nothing, her conscious mind almost completely suppressed as her muscle memory responded: sense, pivot, eliminate. Sense, pivot, eliminate. Like going for a swim.
Sense. Pivot. Hurl an axe. Chamber a dagger. Sense. Turn. Dagger, a spear following in quick succession, eliminating a pair of flying threats. Sense. Turn. A close threat on the ground; an axe swing ready to sever its head—
"Helloooooo!" it called cheerfully.
Her mind lit back up brilliantly, sounding an alarm. This wasn't in the program; there were no melee targets in this grove! Some fool had strayed into the firing range during live fire! A single thought stitched together these ideas at the slow speed of consciousness, sending an emergency abort to her torso, which pulled the axe stroke up short.
"Nyyyeeettt!" it gawped.
She sensed something big and meaty in her path, not a wooden target. Obviously. The carefully constructed meditative state of pure reflex collapsed in the rush of alarm. Fiona, frustrated, peeled back the stocking from one eye.