Ruthless V5Ch48-The Wait

At the same time that James was flying toward the battleground, the Panther Army was marching there, double time.

Panther Warrior Thane Crowstrike was one of the unfortunate many who were participating in this long forced march. It had sounded good at this point. They would take out the force that had apparently been whittling down their numbers little by little over the last couple of weeks. The pads on his feet ached with each step he took by this point. But he had it on good authority—indirectly from the Panther Queen herself—that they were only a matter of hours away from the destination.

The route seems shorter than I expected, though, he thought. Unpleasant though it is, just walking this far.

They had been navigating to the Fisher Kingdom in an extremely roundabout way for ten days, and at a certain point in that process, the Queen had given the members of the Army an idea of where they were going. Now that they were force marching straight there, Thane had the strangest sense that they were going to fall short of the actual destination they had set out for.

This pesky inconsistency didn’t seem to bother those around him, though. They were mostly talking about how bloody and brutal the fighting would be—swapping some scary rumors that had somehow started about how the Fisher King ate his enemies alive and separated their souls from their bodies.

Just stupid soldier superstitions, really, in Thane’s opinion.

He knew that they had some information on the Fisher King from the humans among the Panther Army, but most of the non-Pantherfolk kept themselves to themselves. They were all essentially second-class citizens compared with the actual Pantherfolk, after all. If Thane was a second-class citizen, he wouldn’t want to spend too much time around the other citizens who could kill him with impunity if they happened to get angry.

Some of the Pantherfolk had also been having strange dreams about the battle to come. Nothing like that had happened before, and these were hardened people. So it made even the fighters who were not suffering those dreams a little nervous.

Thane had not experienced any intimidating dreams about the battle itself that he could recall, though there had been a recurring nightmare lately in which he was caught in a spider’s web.

His mind went over it idly as he walked, almost like picking at the closing flesh of a wound. Anything to take his focus away from his aching feet.

“Inescapable,” he found himself saying an hour later, shuddering as he spoke. “Inescapable, inescapable…”

He shook himself.

What’s wrong with you? A dream about a damned spider has you this on edge? How did a nightmare drill this deep into your brain?

There were more words running through his mind, though they did not feel like his own words.

One by one, you all fall down!

No, no, that wasn’t his normal inner voice. This one was thin, feminine, and creepy instead.

What just happened? Thane asked himself. His eyes were darting around, and he recognized that he was in a completely unfamiliar setting now. The deep forests had given way to sandy soil and much less tree cover. In the distance, he could see it would be even thinner. The Army was moving a little more slowly now, perhaps in recognition of that fact.

If they advanced carelessly, they might be spotted before they were ready to fight.

He could hardly even remember the substance of it now, but he realized as he returned to reality that he had been in a daydream—one adjacent to the dreams of the previous nights, but somehow different. It had really swept him up, too.

“Hey, how long have we been walking?” he asked the Panther Warrior next to him.

Theo gave him an odd look back and said nothing.

Well, fuck you too, he thought.

[Everyone, halt!]

The Panther Queen’s voice rang through their minds and flashed before their faces in text form, and the entire force came to a sudden stop. Thane had to windmill his arms to stop a little more quickly and not crash into the fighter in front of him. Thane swiftly stepped backward and into a disciplined resting stance, salvaging some dignity, he hoped.

In the silence that fell over the group as they waited to hear more, Thane heard Theo quietly snicker, and Thane reminded himself to beat some humility into the other soldier after the battle. No one laughed at Thane Crowstrike with impunity.

Looking around, he found someone else who was fidgeting as if uncomfortable.

A Panther Mage named Tawn Rouge. The two locked eyes, and she looked away, uncomfortable, after a moment.

I’m not trying to mate with you, damn it, Thane thought. I just want some information!

Thane glanced around himself, just to check whether the Queen was walking up to inspect them or moving out in front of the group or something. He didn’t see her yet, but she could appear at any moment now that she had ordered the Army to halt.

She must be messing around somewhere near the back.

The Panther Warrior cupped one paw in front of his mouth to slightly direct the sound of his voice.

Then he stage whispered in the Mage’s direction: “Psst! Rouge!”

The Panther Mage stiffened, then turned to look at him slowly.

“Yes,” she mouthed. “What is it?”

She managed to convey annoyance very effectively with her body language.

“How long did we walk today?”

He had a good idea in mind of the Panther Army’s rate of movement during a forced, double time march like this. This was not their first day marching as an army, after all.

She gave him a strange look and then shook her head, a slight smile tugging at her lips. And he knew that she understood, at least, that he had lost track of the time. The confusion resurfaced, though, and he could almost read her mind.

She had to be wondering: Why does that matter?

“About ten hours,” she mouthed. “Maybe more.”

He nodded. “Thanks,” he mouthed back.

She impatiently pointed with one claw, and Thane swiveled to his attentive stance from before, facing forward—and just in time.

The Panther Queen had stepped in front of the Army, and now she turned to look at the troops. Thane felt a mixture of relief that he had gotten back into his position in time and confusion. Rouge had confirmed what he already suspected. They had not even walked the full day. The Army should have had much further to go, Thane was almost certain, if his initial reckoning was correct. At least another three hours.

“Listen well, my brave subjects…”

The Queen began a narrative about the journey the Army had been on before this, where they currently were, and the battle that would soon take place—and how it would benefit their group if they won, all the levels, food, items, and resources they would acquire.

Despite the tantalizing words, Thane’s mind kept drifting away from the topic of the speech.

Did she give us different directions a week ago? he wanted to ask. Surely we cannot be there already, unless we got different information at some point. But he didn’t say anything. It was partly because the Panther Queen was there, giving what he recognized was her best attempt at an inspiring speech—not really her specialty, and Thane suspected she was only doing it because there was a rumor that the Fisher King did the same to his troops before battle.

But even if she hadn’t been talking, he knew that he would only look foolish, questioning the Queen’s infallible sense of direction. Especially after three Panther Scouts came back, apparently fresh from checking the area ahead of the Army.

They knelt in front of her, and the Panther Queen interrupted her speech to confer with them.

“We have the right location, Your Majesty,” said the leader, a large, dark Pantherfolk with long thick hair named Moro Risen.

So the Army was indeed just outside of the Fisher Kingdom. That settled that. No one but Thane seemed to be surprised by it.

It must have been all that bad sleep, getting me confused.

“Excellent,” the Queen said, smiling. “How many are there?”

“There are a lot of them, unfortunately. We estimate roughly as many as ourselves, if we discount their children and those who are likely too weak to fight at all. However, I do not assess their quality as being equivalent to ours.”

The Panther Army traveled with no children. The Pantherfolk themselves were in their breeding season, but the Queen had resolved no cubs were to be conceived until after the Pantherfolk had eliminated the most dangerous enemies in the region. There was no sense in disabling half of the Army with pregnancy when they were still vulnerable to attack from all sides, or so her reasoning went.

“Every one of us a warrior,” the Queen said loudly, in a tone of pride, turning so that her mouth was pointed at the Army rather than her scouts. “The Fisher King rules through keeping much of his population fat and complacent, while we are all keen for the kill!”

She was still trying to inspire them.

“Any special defenses?” she asked, lowering her voice slightly and turning her head back to the Army.

“No fortifications, my Queen,” said Moro. “Naturally, the whole area is within the aura of the Fisher King, and we could feel it even without stepping inside the territory. It was as intense as you would expect from the center of a Ruler’s power.”

“A little curious that it does not reach here,” the Queen mused quietly. Then she raised her voice again. “They are as vulnerable as newborns. As long as we do not make any foolish mistakes, we have them! Just in case, they have some plan of defense that was not visible for the scouts, however, I want us to wait a short time before attacking.”

What?! This felt out of character from the Queen. She was always aggressive, always ready to take the fight to whatever enemy confronted them. This one statement belied everything she had attempted to convey in her speech. She had been trying to give them confidence. But for once, it seemed that even the Panther Queen was afraid of someone.

“Some of you will be wondering why I say this,” the Queen said. “There are two reasons. First, I know I have driven you hard these last days. You have not had decent sleep or rest. Even the most formidable army in the world needs some amount of downtime in order to remain effective. I am not blind to that, and I do not want to smash my exhausted troops against the well rested troops sitting pretty in the Fisher Kingdom—even if they are fat and complacent, tired and sleepy is not much better. Second, I understand that the Fisher Kingdom is predominantly composed of humans. That is relevant, because humans generally do not have particularly strong night vision.” She smiled viciously. “So, pitch your tents, choose your shifts on guard duty, and rest up for the next few hours. No fires. We do not want to alert the enemy to our presence. And be careful what you eat. You will not want to have stomach troubles this evening. We attack tonight, after the sun has gone down, once it’s good and dark!”

Thane felt some of his trepidation disappear immediately. It wasn’t that the Panther Queen was afraid, exactly. She was just giving them the best odds possible.

And, of course, they would crush the puny human army that was waiting for them.

Why did I doubt her? It was strange that his mind had gone that way for even a moment. Out of character for him, perhaps. Well, whatever. We finally get to have some rest…

He felt the weariness in his body more intensely now that he knew he would get to have an actual good stretch of sleep.

Assuming that the dream did not come again. And Thane had a good feeling that it would not. That sort of thing was a symptom of pre-battle jitters. Now that the battle was truly here, staring them in the face, he thought he would finally be spared the discomfort of tossing and turning, trapped in a bad dream. His body would surely allow him to properly prepare for the battle.

The Panther Queen dismissed them and went off to await the availability of her own massive tent.

Thane didn’t even wait for a tent to be pitched and available for him as he normally would. He walked over to a nearby pine tree, just to get some shelter from the sun, parked his tail there, closed his eyes, and was instantly asleep—as if pulled into the dream.

He had been wrong about a couple of things, he would discover.

The dreams he had that afternoon beneath the tree would be distinctly unpleasant. The spider that had haunted his earlier nights would be there waiting for him—and many others—more menacing than ever.

And despite his triumphant thoughts before he sat down to sleep, the rest they had that afternoon would be the last sleep much of the Panther Army ever experienced.