Dandelion War Jaye Michael & Levanah Greene Chapter Six Psychological Warfare

 

 

The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.

 — Sun Tzu, The Art of War (c. 512 BCE)

 

“Harry’s Holy Balls!” I cursed, as an HE missile flew at us quicker than I could think, the warhead at first barely visible as a black dot in the center of a ring of fire as it arced down from the top of the Castle wall and then expanding as it closed on our position. ‘Gumball! Now!’ I screamed mentally, or as near to it as I could, and then we were instantly weightless and falling as the ground collapsed beneath us and everything went dark. I couldn’t move and there was an oppressive stench of methane — or something organic and rank — that nearly had me gagging. Our expedition to my former home wasn’t going quite as smoothly as I might have wished.

Naturally, that’s when the rolling started and my queasy feeling turned to outright nausea as I was tumbled around the interior of what felt like a very big sack full of leaves and dirt. My eyes had closed, of course, at the first hint of grit, but it was still getting up my nose, in my ears, and I could just imagine the state of my hair by now. I couldn’t even move my hands and arms enough to try to cover them. “This is definitely not one of my favorite moments,” I somehow managed to think whilst my head — and all the rest of me — was quite literally in a whirl.

My lungs were almost bursting when Gumball finally spit me out onto the grassy prairie and I instantly clapped my hands to my face and eyes, trying to brush away the dirt from my mouth and eyes as quickly as possible so I could breathe and see — in exactly that order — without either choking or harming my eyes.

“Harry’s Words! Sapphire,” Beryl said. “What happened to you? I thought you were supposed to stay hidden.”

It took me a few moments to get myself back into working order, but then I said, “Sorry, so did I, but I forgot the first rule of Horticulturist strategy; Whenever you see something odd, blow things up. When you were swallowed up in the earth, they fired off a bunch of HE missiles at random, I think, one of which happened to be aimed directly at me!” I looked up at her and noticed that she looked awful, dirty and disheveled despite her protective suit, and only then figured out that I must look a lot worse. I looked down at my clothes as I struggled to my feet and saw that they were torn almost to shreds as well as filthy and winced. I’d really liked those slacks, and the blouse had been a perfect complement to them before my journey through the center of the earth. I grimaced slightly. ‘Scrapes and bruises are one thing, and a little dirt I could have taken in stride, but those trigger-happy fools have simply destroyed one of my cutest outfits! Hanging’s too good for them,’ I decided. “I think, however, that I can safely say that I know exactly how you felt the first time this happened to you.” I did my best to smile, although it felt a lot like I still had dirt in my teeth.

She looked at me for what seemed like a long time before she said, calmly enough, “Considering as how we had no idea what was happening, and thought that we were about to die, I doubt it.”

“Well, that’s a point,” I admitted, “but seeing an explosive missile streaking directly towards one’s head must be similarly disconcerting, and I had several moments of sheer terror when I almost fell into the maw of one of Gumball’s larger cousins at the beginning of my adventures, long before I found Gumball and his friends.” Then I reached out and took her hand. “Look, let’s not fight about this. It was just a joke, because I was frightened by my sudden and unexpected danger, and had to say something, which turned out to be stupid, as usual. You were incredibly brave to volunteer to jump in with both feet, as it were, knowing exactly how frightening it would be.”

She looked at me with a suspicious frown, but slightly mollified. “It was, wasn’t it?” she said sourly, “but at least I didn’t get dirt in my nose. You, on the other hand, look a perfect sight.” Then she smirked, and I knew I was forgiven.

“And me without any speck of makeup handy within fifteen miles…,” I lamented, putting on a bit of a show. “Harry’s bouncing balls! I don’t even have a mirror.”

“Oh! You poor dear! I don’t imagine you remembered to pack a change of clothes either, tch, tch, tch,” she clicked with just the tip of her tongue. “On any journey, a woman should at least plan ahead for unexpected changes in plans. It says so right in your Book.”

“Well,” I said, slightly irritated by her lack of sympathy, “I didn’t expect to find myself eaten by Gumball, along with half a ton of dirt, and then spit out like baby barf, so next time I’ll try to remember to bring along the proper outfit.” I paused, pouting, but then admitted, “It does seem that there were a few thin spots in my fabric of deceit, but we’ll clean all that up in the rewrite.”

“Rewrite?” she asked.

I answered blithely, “As Helmuth von Moltke once said, ‘No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy.’ He also said, ‘Strategy is a system of expedients,’ so military campaigns have obviously been operating with the same general flexibility for more than six hundred years. It’s all in the recovery, as they say, but we did very well with your brilliant idea of enticing them with a faux ‘heroic return’ marred by last-minute tragedy, since they took the bait. I regret the damage to my outfit a bit, because it’s difficult for me to find slacks that fit my hips, but there are plenty more to choose from, back in the city.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s all in growing up at the tender mercies of a hidebound officer who had a stick so far up his ass that he killed his own wife when she failed to ‘measure up’ to his high standards, and then did his very best to do the same exactly thing to his son, except he threw him out the door instead of over the wall. You’ve obviously been brainwashed by the notion that officers matter. Their troops have no such illusions, as a general rule, since the ‘temporary setbacks’ of the officers usually turn into ‘permanently dead’ for their troops. Last I looked, it’s hard to recover from dying.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll notice that he did his best to kill himself as well, so neither one of us can fault him on consistency, even if he does have a stick up his ass.” I looked at her slyly…

…and we both laughed.

 

 

I made Beryl take the point position on our march back home, not because there was any danger, but because she kept sniggering at the sight of my bare butt, since my formerly-cute outfit was now shreds and tatters, and the seat of my pants had mysteriously vanished entirely. It was embarrassing as well as drafty, and her jovial attitude about my predicament didn’t help at all. When she started singing Sweet Betsy from Pike, though, she really got my goat.

“If I never hear the words ‘and she showed her bare arse to the whole wagon train’ again,” I’d finally complained, “I’d be just as pleased. It’s just one verse, not part of the chorus, and I’ve never gotten ‘tight’ in my life.”

‘Still and all,’ I’d thought, ‘if this little episode were the only blemish on an otherwise perfect day, we could use a lot more just like it.’

We’d fired off a couple of our modified missiles just before sunset, when the smoke and fire from the rocket exhaust been well-hidden in the glare of the setting Sun, and then endured a fairly uncomfortable overnight bivouac, but had been at least slightly cheered by our confidence that the Castle would soon go the way of the Citadel, so at very least the potential enemies in our immediate vicinity were growing less numerous. Today, Pennsylvania, tomorrow the world.

I’d sweetened the trap with a little more honey as well — in addition to our ‘abandoned’ food supply — with a nicely-typed set of ‘orders’ from our ‘North American Command’ which detailed the broad outlines of our plans to relieve the local outposts and supply food to all the surviving inhabitants of the Northeastern Autonomous Region with the ultimate strategic goal of reïncorporating the region into the North American Command and restoring both local and regional civilian control.

‘That ought to have lit a fire under the hierarchy, at least,’ I thought, ‘ since they’ll foresee their cushy little racket coming crashing to a halt and be anxious to clean up their collective acts lest they be caught out in court-martial offences. It might make life a little more tolerable for the ordinary citizens until some sort of democracy is restored.’

 

 

We were making good time headed back toward the city when I felt some sort of weird disturbance to the south, which was strange, because I’d never felt anything like it before. It was a sort of creepy feeling, a restless itch at the back of my mind, like when you’ve forgotten something but can’t remember what you’ve forgotten, or like a premonition, but more urgent. As usual for me recently, I rifled through my memory of the cards and instantly fixated on two. I called to Beryl, “Hey, Sweetie! I think we should change our plans.”

She stopped and turned around, looking at me as if she thought that I’d finally lost my last marble. “Plans? What plans? Pretty much everything we’ve done so far has been spontaneous reactions to external events; brilliantly executed, no doubt, but decidedly off-the-cuff.”

I was taken aback, but only slightly. “Well, here comes another off-the-cuff improvisation, then, because I just felt a strange disturbance away down south of us, and the first cards that came to mind were Death, the Thirteenth Trump, and the Seven of Wands, both of which suggest some sort of challenge and eventual change.”

“Disturbance?” she asked.

“A sort of hostile feeling, like in the ring walls of plants around the castles, but more intense.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“No,” I confessed, “but I suspect, given the general level of animus and the timing, that there’s at least one castle to the south, and that the inhabitants, like the prisoners in the Citadel, are getting hungry and have launched a more desperate foraging party than usual. If so, they’re going to follow the main roads, as soon as they find them, and wind up in our city.”

“And your plan is?” she said sceptically.

I blinked. “Plan? I thought we should go see what was going on, so we can be prepared, of course.”

“And then?” Her brow was arched. “If we’re caught, looking like two desperate ragamuffins, do you suppose that you’re well-prepared to pull off your haughty imitation of a Canadian officer’s ‘wife?’ If we have to run away, don’t you think that your ‘southern exposure’ is going to strike anyone as just a little odd? ‘Oh, yes,’ you’ll blithely say, ‘the bare-assed look is all the rage in Vancouver these days….’ Let’s get real, honeybear. We both have a duty to warn our sisters first, and then make careful plans that take the safety of our little community into account before you go haring off like Prince Valiant with his Singing Sword to save the day.”

I was startled by her vehemence, but she did have a point. Before I managed to destroy whatever credibility I had, I said, “You’re absolutely right. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Thank you for pointing it out. First, we have to go back and warn our friends, and I can only plead my lack of experience with mysterious psychic premonitions to account for my foolish desire to go see if it was real before I made a compete fool of myself.”

“No worries about that,” she said ambiguously. “Just the sight of that huge ass of yours will grab their attention something wonderful.”

“Just for that,” I said, “you can look at it all you want while you try to catch me!” I took off running, back towards the city and our friends. Gumball was very pleased, since he thought it was great fun to roll along at speed instead of poking along, even at a swift walking pace, and I was fairly confident that I could outpace Beryl, since I’d had the advantage of several months of changes on her, not all of which had been wasted on developing my admittedly ample ass. I had at least a hundred feet of lead on her before she managed to get moving, both of us running flat out, but she never did manage to catch me.

She was ticked off about it too, and managed to catch me a good swat on my bum, even though I tried to avoid it. Obviously, she was catching up with me on some levels. I’d have to watch my step with all the new women fairly soon, since I could no longer count on mere strength and speed.

 

 

However little I trusted my own niggling nudge of awareness, the others were alarmed enough to begin making plans for guerrilla actions against an advancing force of unknown size and composition, so I went to talk to our prisoners of war.

They were a disheartened bunch, all of them experiencing changes that they recognized as precursors to the end stages of infection, though none were nearly as depressed as my father. He always had been inclined to take things seriously, which I supposed was a good thing in an officer, all in all.

“Well, Captain Glass,” I said to him when I saw him, still handcuffed to a beam in his sleeping quarters, “have you taken sufficient advantage of your time of quiet contemplation to accommodate yourself to your new reality?”

“I have not,” he answered sullenly. “Whoever you are, you’re not who you claim to be, and you have no right to keep me prisoner.”

I laughed. “I have every right, Captain, force majeure, if nothing else, not to mention the fact that you’re no longer fit for duty according to the terms of your former service in the The Castle branch of the Horticulturist forces. You might as well admit the fact that you have no remaining right to lead your former command, as you yourself tacitly conceded when you tried to kill yourself.” I looked him up and down. He already had fairly prominent breasts developing beneath his military-issue masculine tunic, and would soon require a brassiere. “So, Captain, are you reconciled to your changes, or are you going to be a pill about it for the foreseeable future?” I looked him steadily in the eye and added, “If you are, perhaps we’ll have to arrange a more permanent accommodation. I dislike having to dedicate any soldiers in my unit to guard duty, and I’m well aware of the Horticultural Corps prohibition of either provisional release on parole or the equivalent using the procès verbal. I’m sure you’re well aware of the only alternatives likely to be effective, so would you prefer to be hung, or shot?”

He began to bluster, bless his black heart.

“You can’t do that! I’m an officer…!”

“…Who’s just refused the direct order of a superior in time of war,” I continued with no bluster at all. “You’ve failed to comprehend both my patience and your position in the grand scheme of things. To put it bluntly, I’m getting tired of your pathetic posturing and mutinous attitude, and have put up with it only through a desire to see exactly how much trouble it’s going to be to bring our wayward outposts to heel under a reïnvigorated Central Command structure.” I frowned, for his benefit, and then added, “I’m beginning to think it might be simpler just to reduce these rebellious outposts of iniquitous luxury and corruption to rubble and rebuild our forces using local recruits with more of a sense of morality and patriotic duty.”

That finally fazed him. He blinked and said, “You’d kill everyone?”

“Of course not,” I said brusquely. “Civilians, and any soldiers who surrendered immediately would be spared, of course, pending their reënlistment in our ranks, but I can’t leave nests of malcontents and traitors in my rear as we advance toward the northeast, and eventually sweep down the coastline towards whatever remains of the Tidewater Regions of the Southern coasts and eventually Florida. Unfortunately, since my husband carried off the bulk of our forces with him into New York, I don’t have sufficient strength to permanently billet a portion of my detachment to handle guard duty, so any renegades would have to be dealt with summarily.” The scope and mission of my imaginary army had grown along with its paperwork, so I had a large portfolio of communiques and orders ready-to-hand to back up my specious plans. Although the initial impetus behind it was an improvisation, I’d actually elaborated the idea based on a book that I’d remembered reading in my father’s own small collection of military history books, although I’d refreshed my memory in our local public library. It was about the British Double-Cross System of double agents during World War II, which had been so successful that the Germans actually stopped sending spies across the Channel, lest they draw attention to the faux-spies being run from MI5. I have no idea why it was in there, since there had never been any question of espionage on the part of the plants, nor any point in having it, as far as I could tell, but I’d modelled my own operation after Operation Fortitude, which had created an entire Allied Army out of thin air and the trappings of bureaucracy. Although the props had been very thin indeed, the flurries of intercepted cables and ‘accidental’ newspaper accounts, combined with judicious ‘information’ about a top secret operation, convinced the Germans that a massive troop movement was planned in one area while the real preparations were being made for another. They’d been caught ‘flat-footed,’ as it were, although the fact that the Russians were whipping their asses badly on the Eastern Front at the time had doubtless contributed to their general confusion.

“So, Captain, what’s it going to be?” I asked. “Rededication to your bounden duty or a general court martial? Take your pick.”

I could see the conflict in his eyes when he said, “I’d like to hear more, if I might be permitted to enquire.”

“Ask away, but don’t take any more time than you have to.”

“I’ve noticed that you seem to have plants actually working with you, almost as if they were intelligent. Is that true?”

“That was two questions, but they amount to the same thing. Yes, the plants are ‘intelligent,’ in that they have purpose and volition, but many of them aren’t very clever at all. You wouldn’t go far wrong if you think of them as ranging from the intelligence we see in the old ‘cows’ we read of in the history books  — that is, not very smart at all, or at least primarily acting through instinctive behaviors — to that of dogs, who tend to be distinct individuals with ‘personalities,’ if you will, and the ability to form cohesive plans to obtain desired goals, even if those goals are fairly simple.”

“But that goes against…!” he almost shouted….

How well I remembered that ponderous absolutism. I cut him off. “Please don’t waste my time. You — and those who advised you — were mistaken. In the North-West, we’ve come to terms with the fact that we made serious mistakes in our early dealings with the plants, and have now made peace with them, although not in any formal sense, with top-hatted dignitaries signing documents. As far as we know, not one of the many plants we’ve discovered has any inclination to wear any sort of clothing, much less fancy hats and formal dress. What they do have is the ability to be useful — if inherently tacit — partners in the task of accommodating ourselves to a peaceful life on Earth, so we encourage the diversity of plants around us, and are very reluctant to declare any of them as being ‘surplus to requirements.’ That was the primary mistake the early Horticulturists fell into, of mistaking short-term benefits for long-term sustainability.”

“Alright, so the plants are supposedly on ‘our side,’ but are you? What are your intentions regarding the inhabitants of The Castle, and The Citadel I’ve heard of. Are we to be absorbed into some of North American Co-Prosperity Sphere? Will we have to pay tribute to our masters in Vancouver?”

“Not that I know of, although, to be perfectly fair, I’m only involved in the military end of things. I assume that you’ll pay taxes eventually, but we haven’t worked out any mechanism of civilian governance that can offer any services worth paying taxes to subsidize. I know we’d like to get the trains running again all across North America, but it will be a huge undertaking in time and effort to put the tracks back in order. I’m quite sure that it will take years, especially across the Rockies, although river crossings whose bridges have collapsed are also a vexing problem. Our most immediate concern, though, is to establish control of our borders, because we’ve heard rumors of a Brazilian-Argentinian Empire in South America that’s rapidly advancing through Mesoamerica and into Northern Mexico, as well as a resurgent Russian Empire, which of course could threaten us from the north, as well as flanking us from both the east and west.” These dangers had all been spun from cobwebs and morning dew, of course, but my own experience can’t have been unique in the wide world, so something like it was almost bound to have happened somewhere, and South America and Europe were very big places, with plenty of room for almost anything. Somewhere, somehow, there were real dangers to match my inventions, and from my own experiences in The Castle, plus my readings in world history, it’s horrifically simple for human societies to slide from enlightened democracies and patrons of all the civilized arts to totalitarianism and near barbarism.

“Are you serious?” He seemed stunned to hear that any major civilizations had either survived or were staging a comeback.

“I’d never joke about anything as serious as the security of what remains of the North American Alliance. In fact, I’ve just received word of a largish party of unknown armed men advancing from the South. While I can hope that they’re honest citizens come to lend a hand in our current state of disarray, I fear the worst and am preparing for it. Hence, my current urgency.”

My father, bless his military soul, at once snapped to attention and saluted, his doubts and suspicions subsumed in current need. “I’m at your service, Ma’am!”

I blinked. “I must say that I’m surprised, Captain, to see you change your mind so quickly.”

“Ma’am! I’m honor-bound to protect the inhabitants of The Castle, Ma’am, no matter what they think of my current state of infection. Whatever your ultimate intentions, I’m convinced that you have the immediate goal of protecting the people whom I would die to serve, Ma’am, so I have no choice.”

‘Damn that man to Harry’s Holy Hell!’ I thought to myself, struggling to maintain an impassive countenance. ‘Just when I get a good sneer on towards my father, he goes and pulls a heroic stunt like this that might have brought tears to my eyes, were I not trying so hard to dissemble.’ “Your courage does you credit, Captain. Would you like to volunteer to assist in scouting out this new threat? As you can see, we’re short-handed, and especially lacking in those with experience in the field. Your overall familiarity with the area might be of real help.”

“You’d permit me that much freedom?”

“You look like a man of your word, Captain, and I pride myself on being a shrewd judge of character; I accept your word without reservation. We’ll leave in the morning. Dismissed.”

He snapped to and saluted. “Yes, Ma’am!”

I saluted in reply, saying, “Tell Brigadier Farquhar that you’ll need full field kit, Captain, and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.”

 

 

We met up with our intruders on a bluff above a river. That is to say, we were on a bluff above what I knew to be the Savage River as it ran through the Appalachian foothills down towards the Potomac and eventually its bay, toward the westernmost strip of what used to be Maryland, but what the locals called it I didn’t know. They were below us, doing their best to follow the river north. Our horizons were diminished from what they were before the endless war against the natural world, the vast expanses of the USA before it disintegrated were almost unimaginable now, because all we could see was the local landscape, wherever we happened to be huddled within high walls. Growing up, I’d never known that the City we’d so recently inhabited was there, much less had a name, despite being within a day’s march to the north-east, and even the nearest town we used for a larder had no real name, because there was only one, as far as we knew, ‘The Town.’ Our real horizon had ended at the ringwall of plants that had hemmed us in, and few looked beyond that grim frontier for anything but the slim pickings of our former civilization.

“Is that them?” Beryl asked.

“I’d guess so, and from the looks of them they’re bandits.” Indeed, they had pack animals, horses, I think, although I’d never actually seen one, and were lugging along what looked like several town’s worth of loot, including people in chains, either prisoners or slaves I guessed, since they were badly dressed for the weather, which was chilly, since it was getting on towards Fall weather, whilst their captors were warmly jacketed with a type of closely-fitting cap which could be folded down to cover their ears. There were fifty-seven bearing arms, mostly rifles, so clearly they meant to kill people, not plants. This looked complicated. Assuming that the captives were innocents, how were we to extricate the villains from the flock of them, or vice versa? Our best weapons were the HE missiles, but they were crude at best in separating our obvious hostiles from the civilians they had close.

Beryl said wryly, “Notice anything about the captives?”

Taking a closer look, I suddenly saw. “Most of them are women.”

“Exactly. I think I’m going to enjoy this.” She grinned a particularly feral grin.

I looked back toward the captives. “I think I will too.”

 

 

Our first problem was the rifles, although we did have crossbows, which had the advantage of silence, so the first order of business was to get our hands on at least a few of them. I had the beginnings of a plan already and started squirming back from the edge of the bluff. “Up the river a bit, where the gorge narrows, might be a good spot to ‘borrow’ a few of those rifles.” It not only narrowed, but the roar of the rapids there was loud enough to cover even any stray gunshots, so it made a perfect ambuscade.

“Good plan, ” she said, also backing off the edge. “Their point men will be vulnerable while the captives are fairly safe toward the rear, even if things get a little wild as they turn the bend.”

“Exactly. If we work it right, we should be able to take out a dozen or more before the rear knows what’s happening. If we work it right, they’ll begin to retreat, whereupon we can throw a few rocks on any groups of warriors who present themselves, and so take out a dozen more.”

 

 

The roiling torrent before us was almost deafening as we lay concealed behind a group of large boulders beneath the cliff. To the left, there was nothing but more boulders and more river. To the right, the river swept around the edge of the cliff, with only a few handspans of good footing, so we thought the men would be dismounted, since there was every chance that a few of their mounts might bolt in the noise and the confusion, especially once the ruckus started. “Hsst,” I alerted my small party as I saw the first man back around the edge of the cliff, the reins of his horse in hand. Per plan, we waited, hunkered low, but what followed wasn’t what I’d expected. It looked like the entire retinue of captives followed right behind the one scout, which meant that the main body of hostiles was still behind them.

“Change of plan,” I whispered to Beryl. “We’ll wait to see the first group of hostiles around the edge of the cliff, and then take out the point man as well as the first new hostiles to turn the corner.”

“On the point guy,” she whispered back, and wriggled back a bit to get into a better position.

I let four mounted men through and then let fly four arrows as quick as I could manage, which was pretty quick, because the last man had just begun to fall with an arrow through his eye when the first hit the ground. Of course, I’d had four crossbows ready, so it was just a matter of picking them up and pulling the trigger. In the meantime, Beryl had done the same to the point man and had returned to cover the narrow path beside me. I waved my hand as a signal to the two I’d left stationed on the top of the cliff, so I assumed that they’d let loose the deadfalls we’d arranged to cover the back trail. “Is the point guy in a position where we can safely lay hands on his weapon?” I asked Beryl as I quickly reloaded my four bows.

“Not really. He fell into the river and was swept away, taking his rifle with him, worse luck. The damned fool had it strapped across his back. His mount is safe, and has saddlebags, so there may be some ammunition left, but your four look like the best bets for rifles. They at least had their weapons ready, undoubtedly in contemplation of killing any prisoners who tried to run. Arrogant bastards, I reckon. The guy on point wasn’t worried at all.”

I hadn’t seen any faces poked around the corner yet, so I assumed that the main body of troops were busy either ducking for cover or trying to climb the cliff to get at the ambushers above them, who were ably led by my father, now calling herself Opal, whom I suspected had a similar notion, despite the change in plan. “Cover me,” I said. “I’m going for the rifles.” I took two of my crossbows with me, just in case. ‘No guts, no glory,’ I resolved.

I had my weapon ready as I closed on the dead men, whose mounts were milling around restlessly, probably frightened by the smell of blood. As I approached the river, though, I saw the nose of a beautiful reddish-brown horse out of the corner of my eye, just now becoming visible on the trail as it skirted the base of the cliff. With a sigh, I raised the first of my crossbows and waited the split second before a human head became visible, then loosed another quarrel. I noted with some pride that I’d pierced his eye, just as before, snatched up the four rifles from where they lay, then took up the reins of the horses, whom I’d known only as ‘props’ in stories, and led them back toward the boulders.

None too soon, as it turned out, because another rider appeared at that very moment, this time bent low in his saddle to interpose the body of the horse between himself and any danger, the prick. “Coward!” I cursed at him, though I don’t imagine that he heard it, because my second bolt had him through the eye before he responded, and the river itself made hearing anything other than the sound of water crashing over rocks nearly impossible. Beryl got the next to pop his head around, but not before he’d got off a few shots with his rifle, all unaimed, because he’d learned from the fate of his comrade not to peek before firing. She got him in the kneecap, though, straight through to his hamstring, so he instantly toppled off his mount, pulling the quarrel from where it had lodged in his saddle while I took care of his head from behind.

After that, there was a bit of a lull, of which I took advantage by rescuing the remaining horse. I signalled to the two women at the top of the cliff to begin a strategic retreat back into the woods and downstream while I walked toward the captives, who looked very unsure of themselves, but they were still restrained by chains and other bindings, so were at a real disadvantage if they’d tried to escape. “Greetings, and peace to you,” I said. “Do you wish to be released from bondage? We are free women here, and have no patience with villains and slavers, as you may have noticed.”

One of them, a big burly sort of woman who bore the marks of many beatings, as well as what seemed to be a vicious brand burned deeply into the flesh of her upper arm, said, “We would, but there are many more Reivers behind you.”

“Not quite so many more,” I said, “since my companions on the cliffs above us have buried at least some fraction of them with a landslide of rocks and boulders that will at least have inconvenienced them. I plan to kill them all, if that’s any comfort to you, but would appreciate your help if you’ve a mind to seek revenge on those who’ve wronged you.”

The burly woman said, “Yes!” and held out her wrists, which were tied with some sort of brown rope that I assumed was leather, which I’d heard of, and had actually seen as leather belts in the shops back in the City.

I cut them with my machete, the prototypical weapon of the Horticulturists which I still carried, because I’d drilled with it for years and was familiar with its heft and handling. I looked down at her ankles, which were fastened together with a length of iron chain that were attached to two iron bands that had been riveted each ankle. Seething with fury, I knelt and tore the chain asunder with my bare hands, plucking out the rivets from the bands by levering them apart with my thumbs, until her legs were free, if still cruelly inflamed and scarred by the chafing of her bonds. “I have an ointment,” I told her, which will completely cure these physical wounds, but it has side effects which include the plant infection, if you’re familiar with it.

Her eyes were wide, torn between astonishment and fear at my display of angry strength. “I am,” she said, “but after my experiences among the ‘humans,’ I’m not terribly worried about it. In our old fortress, we used to kill those who’d been infected, but we’ve all be exposed to the wilderness for so long that we’d never be accepted back in our former home, even if it still existed.” Her eyes brimmed over with tears, suddenly confronting the loss of almost everyone she’d known and loved.

My heart went out to her as I said, “What’s your name, Sister? You’re among friends here, and as safe as we can make it.” I motioned to Beryl to free the rest of the captives as expeditiously as possible, which she commenced doing without a word. It almost scared me sometimes, how much we thought alike.

“Chalcedony Price,” she said. My husband was a Captain in the Horticultural Service, but he was killed in the first assault by the Reivers.

“Chalcedony,” I said, “I’m Sapphire McKenzie, the leader of our little expeditionary force. My friend here is Beryl Farquhar, my second-in-command, and you’re as safe as we can make it now, and will be safer still, and very soon.”

“How can you be sure of that?” she asked, reasonably enough.

“Because these so-called ‘Reivers’ are an undisciplined mob, but we are soldiers. They don’t know it yet, but their position is hopeless, and will not escape the justice they deserve.”

“What do you mean by ‘hopeless?’ They’re men, they outnumber you, and I see only five women here.”

I smiled. “But such women, and there are a total of six more women in two parties on the cliffs above us who have issue-HE missiles, plus the advantage of gravity. As soon as they made the craven decision to drive their captives before them, they were doomed, since our primary worry had been how to extricate you from their custody without exposing you to lethal fire.”

“You’re Horticulturists? But how?” She was wide-eyed, since she would have known only men enrolled in the East Coast Horticultural Service.

“Not every region of North America is as sexist and hidebound as your local forces seem to be down here. We’re from Vancouver, on the other side of the continent, and things are somewhat different there.” I smiled to let her know that they were better, even though my new and improved Horticultural Service had only as much reality as the Land of Oz. Perhaps I should have named myself Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. ‘Nah!’ I thought. ‘Pink is so not my color!’

She seemed to be at a loss for words, so I gently prompted her, “What happened here?”

“The Reivers happened, is what happened. They tricked us into opening our gates to give them the shelter that they’d begged of us, and then slaughtered almost all the men before looting our former home and taking those of us they didn’t manage to murder with them as slaves and whores for their use.” She spat upon the ground in her rage.

“Then they’re dead men, Sister. The laws of hospitality and military order are clear on this. I presume that they’re deserters from some fortress to the south of us, and so used their familiarity with Horticulturist protocols and language to gull you.”

“They did. They had two of them dressed up in foraging suits who claimed to have been overcome and driven away from their home fortress by an incursion of plants, but of course it was a lie. Their first act was to set off a bomb which destroyed the main gate, and then they immediately took over the armory, which of course was right next to the inner bailey and undefended, since we’d never imagined a human enemy in addition to the plants. The main body of them rode in from cover immediately, and proceeded to kill most of the men and loot our homes and fortress of anything that looked valuable to them — especially weapons and ammunition — and then burned the rest.”

“Are there any amongst you familiar with rifles?”

“I am,” she said proudly, “and these two men here behind me, although they were enslaved for their skills in gardening uniform repair. They needed to keep their decoy suits in good enough shape to be believable when they came knocking at the gates of their victims, but had no particular skills of their own besides trickery and lying.”

“Then take these rifles and any others you find, and look through their packs for ammunition. If we’re going to kill them all — as we must, I think — we’ll need all hands.”

“You trust us without sureties, or even questions?” she asked, eyes wide.

“Why not? Your plight is obvious; your feeling toward your former captors equally plain, so I’m fairly sure you’re on the side of righteousness, and if not, I’d best know it quickly.” I paused for effect. “And besides, we have no time to lose. Be ready when they come along the cliff, and I’ll be back.” With that, I ran down to the rushing river and walked in, picking my way along the bottom until I found a clear path downstream, then I let the current take me.

 

 

It took all of my considerable strength to keep from tumbling in the cataract or being hurled upon the rocks, but as I swept past the raiders — Reivers, she’d called them — I could see that they were still in disarray. There can’t have been more than forty of them left, although I hoped that those vanished were buried under the rocks and dirt I could see piled up against the cliff where there’d once been a path and not climbing the cliff to try and flank us. The way looked impassable for horses, which limited their options. If they wanted to move forward, they’d have to abandon their mounts, which cavalry is always reluctant to do, but they’d be equally vulnerable if they tried to go back, because my ambush party was hopefully making its way along the cliff-tops to prepare another ambuscade if they tried to retreat. They were, even if they didn’t realize it yet, in a cul de sac of our choosing, not theirs. ‘No matter, though,’ I reasoned. ‘Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof. The corollary, of course, is to avoid over-thinking when you’re already committed.’ I made my way toward shore as quickly as I could once I was well past their ragged group of horses and men. There was a wide meadow here, and the hint of a forest nestled up against the bluff, which had been perfect for my purpose. I appeared to struggle up the rocky margin, then ran for the woods as if in panic, making a great show of fear to draw their unkind attentions.

They’d seen me by now, of course, and four of them were riding toward me, whether to kill or capture me I knew not, although of course I didn’t care. “Gumball!” I screamed. “Rise and shine! Time for breakfast!”

They were almost on me, riding hard, and I held up a smallish ‘lady’s’ dagger in a pathetic show of defiance as they thundered toward me. I could see the sneers and anger on their faces as they came, and one had raised a rifle when Gumball and three of his pals erupted from the ground beneath the hooves of their horses, instantly toppling three of the riders from their saddles, with the other only escaping by a superb bit of horsemanship that I had to admire, even as I threw my lady’s dagger to catch him square in the middle of his back. It might have been small, but it was long enough to sever his spinal cord when thrown with sufficient force and accuracy. He’d have been better off if he hadn’t turned his back on me. Then I brought out my machete from beneath my skirt and began to walk down the beach behind my round friends. Of the three who’d fallen there was no trace, of course, and I picked up the single rifle that had escaped the general wreck, now fallen where it had left its owner’s nerveless hands.

One of the remaining horses was obviously in trouble with a broken leg, whinneying and thrashing about in panic, which I was sorry about, but these things happen in war. I used my machete to give him the mercy stroke, cleaving his brain before he had much time to suffer.

I glanced up the rocky margin to see what the self-styled ‘Reivers’ were up to, but they’d all abandoned their mounts and most were trying to clamber over the landslide to escape the green death rolling toward them, while a few tried shooting Gumball and his leafy pals, which wasn’t a good idea, because it irritated them, so our pet ‘burrowers’ all picked up speed. Our cavalry crew, it seemed, had never seen what a ‘blitzkrieg’ Panzer attack can do to unarmored troops, nor did they have the stomach to be real soldiers, and so had fallen almost instantly into disarray.

‘So much for the art of war in these troubled times,’ I thought, as I laid myself down into a prone shooter’s stance with the rifle they’d kindly furnished me, focusing on picking off the raiders as they scrambled over the rocks. Some jumped into the river, presumably to drown, since this was a very rough stretch of the Savage River, which had been well-named. On the other hand, they’d abandoned their weapons by then, which was all to the good. The more rifles we wound up with, the better. I did my best in the meanwhile to ensure that there weren’t many left to press forward toward Beryl’s position, but had to stop at thirty, since I’d run out of bullets. I had to trust that she’d organized the captured rifles into some sort of welcome for the remaining Reivers, who’d be at a disadvantage going upstream, because there wasn’t room for more than two abreast at any point along the river path before them, so Beryl on her own could probably have handled them even with the crossbows. Adding rifles to our armamentarium made the final result inevitable. She had the advantage of good cover, plus backup, even if the former captives were no help at all, while the raiders would be completely exposed as they came out from behind the cliff with no ability to bring any combined or flanking force to bear, a textbook example of defeating the enemy in detail.

 

 

The next day wasn’t at all pleasant. Seven of the self-styled ‘Reivers’ had thrown down their arms and were found cowering on the rocks between Beryl’s position and mine, where Gumball and company couldn’t get at them, and so were taken prisoner, which meant that we had to deal with them. I wasn’t looking forward to it, since there could be only one outcome. We had no prisons, nor prison for that matter, and I had no intention of marching around with a group of men in chains, a twisted parody of the captivity they’d enforced upon others. Still, there was plenty of precedent for drumhead court-martials in time of war, and I was perfectly willing — if not exactly eager — to take this unwanted responsibility upon my own conscience.

We made a small production of it, although we didn’t have a drum, and Beryl took notes so as to maintain the formalities of our actions.

I began the proceedings, saying, “This court-martial is convened on Julian Day 26 Lakh 4,733, in the region of the Savage River in the State of Maryland under the authority of the Combined North American Horticultural Forces. You men are charged with desertion in a time of war, cowardice, insubordination, waging war on civilian populations, and with treasonous assault and murder upon senior officers, your fellow troops, and civilians, as well as with forcible rape under color of authority and sundry other offenses. The penalty for these crimes is death. Do you plead guilty, or not guilty?”

Some of them blustered, whilst others merely said that they’d been forced to participate, which was duly noted by Beryl in her capacity of recorder.

“Chalcedony Price, can you identify these men as the perpetrators of the crimes with which they’ve been charged?”

“I do, Ma’am, each and several, to my certain knowledge.”

“Are there any other witnesses?” I asked.

There were, of course, the entirety of the group of former captives, who each testified that these were, in fact, the men involved in the crimes mentioned, that they’d appeared under false identities and had taken the fortress by treachery, that they’d seen no evidence of coercion on the part of the raiders, and so on. I’ll spare you the tawdry, and sometimes horrifying, details, but I allowed each of their victims ample time to make their individual stories known and set into the permanent record.

My father was on the panel, of course — ironically as the junior officer — but our decision was unanimous. In the long tradition of the Horticultural Service, the sentence would have been death by hanging, but we had neither a handy gallows nor the will to donate a valuable rope to the cause, so we simply stood them on the edge of the river and shot them, letting the river take their bodies away from our sight. Perhaps the rushing water would wash away their many sins.

 

 

“Have you heard of any other bands of Reivers, Chalcedony?” I asked the next day, as we headed back to her former home. There may have been survivors, although she didn’t have much hope, and I avoided pointing out that if there had been any foragers out, they might have survived. In any case, they all deserved to see their dead buried properly instead of lying exposed to the elements. We were all mounted now, although I wasn’t exactly comfortable on horseback. It was certainly a novel perspective, riding with one’s head so much further from the ground. I could see the attraction, though.

“From what I overheard among the men,” she said, “there was at least one other band that they knew of, although they weren’t allies in any sense, or so I understood, since they mentioned several skirmishes between their separate groups, squabbling over spoils. They were from farther south, I think, because they called them ‘Mosby’s Raiders’ when they didn’t call them ‘bushwhackers’ or vulgar names.”

I nodded. That made sense from what I’d learned in the library, as well as my father’s military library. The old South had never had an easy relationship with civil authorities, especially Federal civil authorities, which the Horticultural Service was — at least in theory — although the service had been splintered into more-or-less separate fiefdoms in recent years. “Where there are two, there are bound to be imitators out for easy pickings and a life of relative luxury, so I think we have to regard it as a potential insurrection at least, if not a fait accompli.”

“I’d never heard any rumor of such bands before they appeared at our gates, or we might have been more careful.”

“They’ve probably overrun the Virginia fortresses, then, or most of them. Do you know how far your radios worked? Were you in communication with any other fortresses?”

“We were in sporadic communication with most of the Chesapeake Bay fortresses, depending upon the time of year and day, and with a few fortresses in the northern Tidewater region of Virginia, but that was the extent of our knowledge. There were few direct contacts between our scattered forces, though, as the potential risks were seen as exceeding any possible reward.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. I understand from Beryl and Opal that their separate fortresses had no contact with each other, despite being only a few day’s walk from each other. Both were located in valleys which limited the range of their radios, so your own situation is understandable. I gather that the original long-distance communication between the scattered units of the Service were originally carried over wirelines, so when these were abandoned or destroyed, both fortresses were completely isolated.”

“It was much the same here,” Chalcedony said. “We still had the original wireline equipment in the control room, despite continuing pressure by our repair crews to salvage the system for the parts. My guess is that there were links along the system that depended upon external power.”

‘Dang! This woman was awfully clever.’ “I’d never thought of that,” I admitted.

“Well, I had the advantage of being married to…. Never mind,” she said, her face wracked with sudden anguish, “that’s over now.”

I reached out to touch her hand. “I’m so sorry. I wish we’d come south sooner.”

“So… do I,” she managed to choke out, before bursting into tears.

 

 

As it turned out, there had been a foraging party out, so we found them wandering through the ruins, still stunned after several days, their homes destroyed and their loved ones either dead or missing, listlessly digging through the general wreck without hope. Unfortunately, there had been only two happy reunions when we encountered them, and even those were tempered by the general misery of all involved. I had Gumball and his friends convince the local plants that the resident humans were no longer hostile, so that was one problem off their plate, but I had no idea whether they could survive on their own, so like every bureaucrat, I called a meeting.

“Citizens, soldiers, you’ve come to a critical point in your lives. As you now know, all the returnees have been infected with the so-called ‘plant infection,’ although I can now inform you that it isn’t carried by the plants at all, but by a very specialized fungus, almost like a mushroom, that was, I believe, developed by human scientists to help our species survive in these troubled times.” This was pure ‘spin,’ since I had no such knowledge, but the notion made the whole thing easier to swallow for most people, including me, so why not feel good about what seemed to be inevitable? Half of human history seems to have been created by ‘spinmeisters,’ Manifest Destiny, Lebensraum, the Chosen People, the British Empire, why not mushrooms?

There was a buzz of protest before Chalcedony overawed them. “Quiet! This fungus — mushroom — whatever it is — healed me of terrible scars and deep infections from where I’d been whipped, branded, and chained! It brought back more than one of us from desperate sickness that might easily have been fatal, and most importantly, the plants no longer have any quarrel with us, so we can walk around in the open air without protective suits and flamethrowers. If human scientists did these things, don’t we at least need to listen to this woman, who evidently knows more than we do, and is a prime exemplar of what this so-called ‘disease’ can do on our behalf. I personally saw this woman break the chains that bound me with her bare hands, so can testify to her strength, and I can feel myself becoming stronger day by day, so I know it’s not a fluke, that these benefits are available to all of us, and will help us to defeat the Reivers wherever we encounter them, and we will encounter them, because this woman and her companions are intent upon wiping them off the face of the Earth. I’ve already seen a dozen women utterly defeat the armed men who did this with nothing more than their bare hands — plus an arrow or two, and maybe a few knives — and I intend to help them! The men who murdered and raped your loved ones are dead! Stone dead at their hands, and you can read the transcript of their court martial for yourself, which contains our sworn testimony concerning their crimes. We know who our real enemies are, the enemies of every civilized human being, and those are the lawless human murderers and thieves who now menace us on every quarter. We know that there is at least one similar gang to the south of us, the self-styled ‘Mosby’s Raiders,’ and there are almost certainly more of them, so we all have to stand together now or face extinction.”

‘Dang!’ I thought, ‘she’s awfully good at this! Maybe I can give her this part of my job and concentrate on soldiering.’ Glancing over to Beryl, I saw that the same thought had obviously occurred to her.

One of the men who’d returned from foraging asked, “But what about the plant’s long war against us? Doesn’t that count?”

“It was never the plant’s war; the very concept is ludicrous. It was our war against the plants, and even that was a conflict instigated by greedy humans, who’d filled the environment with so many poisons and chemicals that the plants finally fought back. We’ve been fighting for several hundred years on behalf of a relatively few avaricious human beings who collectively robbed us of our friendly Earth, that plants and animals that fed us in perfect safety for many thousands of years, and even the plants and animals that depended on us for their continued existence, with no more regard for the rest of us than the vicious Reivers had for our lives and property.”

Beryl looked at me and grinned. “I like this woman,” she whispered. “Let’s keep her.”

I nodded my agreement and whispered back, “Let’s do.”

 

 

Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002 Jeffrey M. Mahr — All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2012-2013 Levanah Greene — All Rights Reserved