Chapter 78 – The Calling Jungle

Maisara looked out the window of the palace she was staying at. There the crowd was again. With its signs and its chant: “Maisara, Go Home!”

“I can hear it!” Kassandora came to a stop when she heard one of the men shout. She turned and looked at the line of fifty men she had picked out. No one important, it was the men who had served the least amount of time before they cast away Kavaa and swore allegiance to her. They stood there in a line, on the red Arikan dirt, in shorts and light clothes, some had brought swords, others bottles of water.

“Who?” Kassandora shouted out, she was twenty steps ahead of them. A man raised his hand. The Arikan Sun today was furiously beaming down on them, good thing she had only brought a light white shirt, a skirt and sandals. Her hair was tied up into a long tail, Divines would not die of heatstroke, but she felt sweat on her face. “You stay there! The rest, forwards! Stop if you feel anything!”

The line of men advanced. Kassandora saw Kimani’s band watch them from the nearby hill. Within five steps, ten men had stopped and shouted that they felt the Jungle’s call. Twenty steps and everyone had come to a halt. Kassandora eyed the distance. A mile to the Jungle still. She sighed. “Does anyone want to go forwards?” Some men awkwardly stood about, obviously afraid of the green wall behind Kassandora. One man answered.

“It’s calling me, but I don’t want to go.” Kassandora nodded. She had come to the edge of the Jungle before alone and felt nothing. It was indeed something on the level of Divines then.

“How does it feel?” Kassandora shouted.

“I feel a whisper.” One man replied.

“It’s like my mother is calling me forwards.” Another added.

“Like I’m returning home.” A third answered. Kassandora went down the line of men, everyone gave something similar. It was a pleasant feeling that beckoned them closer.

“I need a volunteer!” Kassandora shouted, no one raised their hand. “Double rations for today!” Twelve men were brave enough to take it, Kassandora picked the one closest to herself. “The rest, do not move or approach. Stand here! You, what’s your name?”

“Thomas Babbage, General.” He saluted proudly. A tall man, somewhat young to be a cleric. Kassandora scanned looked him up and down. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, but then he was an ex-cleric, Kavaa’s blessings would always make someone age better. Late twenties then, maybe early thirties, with a full head of brown hair, a jaw to make girls swoon and bright green eyes.

“Babbage, five steps forwards!” He bravely took them. “What can you feel?”

“It’s louder General!”

“Five step forwards.” The cycle repeated nine times. Each time the man came to a stop and Kassandora measured the distance. She stayed a fair distance away from him, her own presence could interfere with the Jungle’s call. “Five step forwards!” Kassandora shouted. The man’s voice was beginning to crack. The forty-nine behind him merely watched. “Stop!” Kassandora shouted. “Babbage! Stop! I command you. Stop!”

“I-I can’t!” His voice sounded as if he was drunk. His posture broke, and he started stumbling towards the Jungle. Kassandora scanned the distance again, so it at amount eight hundred metres. That did put a damper on her plans to merely fell the trees with axes and saws. She watched the man approach. Seven hundred. Six. At five hundred, the Jungle started to move. Vines came rolling out of the green like a pack of hunting snakes. They cracked against the ground like lightning, straight for Babbage.

Kassandora was faster. Joyeuse appeared in her hands, she rushed forwards like a bolt released from a ballista. Joyeuse cut through the vines effortlessly, that wasn’t any test though. It would cut through stone when she wielded it. She grabbed the man’s shoulder, he kept stumbling forwards. “Babbage, wake up. Thomas! Tom!” Kassandora shouted. She poured some magic into him. The man rejected her entirely.

A Divine-threat entirely then. Kassandora knelt down, threw the man over her shoulder and retreated back as more vines came from the Jungle. These were thicker, and they slowly slithered along the ground. So it could learn and adapt too. “Everyone, return to base! March! Orderly!” She shouted. The men started to turn around as Kassandora watched them. Thirty-five, the men who stopped first and furthest away from that green cliff turned. Some had to drag their feet for the first few steps. Kassandora watched it all. She caught up to the closest man and threw Babbage on the ground. “You, with water, over here!” One of the soldiers approached and handed the bottle to Kassandora. She threw it over Thomas’ face. He spluttered, his eyes opened and he panicked for a moment on the ground.

“Wa-wa-wha-what?!” He crawled away from Kassandora before his mind caught up to his body and he calmed down. “What was that?”

“You tell me.” Kassandora said as she turned to look at the fourteen men still standing. Three had managed to pull themselves away. One man had fallen over and had to crawl back. The vines had stopped and retreated. They even pulled the ropes she cut back into the forest.

“I don’t know.” Thomas said as Kassandora threw him the water bottle. He drank half right away. “I just… I don’t know. I just blacked out. I can’t remember.”

“Did you hear me shout?”

“I heard the five steps forwards.”

“And the stops?” Kassandora asked. Joyeuse finally disappeared from her hand, the greatsword merely vanished into thin air. Thomas merely shook his head. So it was like that then? They would have to engage from range then. How do you cut down a forest from range though? Kassandora wished she had sorcerers about. Her eyes scanned that great green wall of jungle again. It was a picturesque view, it crawled over the mountains and into the valleys in the distance, but it was odd. Jungles were supposed to be loud, filled with animal cries and shaking trees. This one, the wind barely rustled the leaves.

And it watched her. She was sure of that. She felt it when she had crested the hill, and she felt it now. Hundreds of eyes all over her.

Three of the men could not pull themselves away. They merely stood there. One had managed to get his arms shaking and was trying to knock himself over. One by one, Kassandora went and brought them back until they could move themselves. They all said the same things. They wanted to return, but they couldn’t. Something was holding them in place. “And your name?” Kassandora asked when she. Apart from Thomas, this was the fellow who had travelled the furthest.

“Leonard Koch.”

“And you couldn’t move?” The man nodded.

“Why?”

“It’s like I was frozen. Do you know when you’re scared?” Kassandora nodded, although she had rarely if ever felt the sensation. “Just pure terror, I couldn’t move, it was like someone was holding a blade at my throat and calling me forwards.”

“And now?” Kassandora asked as she knelt down and patted red dust off the man’s shirt.

“It’s fine.”

“There’s nothing calling you to the Jungle anymore?”

“Not anymore.”

“I see.” Kassandora said. “Go back to camp.” She stood up straight and shouted. “I want a report from everyone here! Make it long or make it short, just tell me what it was!” She stayed at the back of the party, her attention split on the men in front and the Jungle behind. Eventually, they crested that hill in a tight march. Kassandora split off to join Kimani and his group. The Arikans were silently watching them all throughout the exercise.

“I told you, it beckons you forth.” Kimani said when Kassandora approached. He stood there, spear by on his back and shield in his arm.

“I had to see it.” Kassandora replied. “The Clerics said you enter the Jungles with them?” Kimani nodded.

“How do you resist it then?”

“The Jungle grows tired when the moon disappears. Our shamans carve runes into us, then we enter.”

“Into you?”

“Into our bodies. The Clerics heal us after.”

“Do you ever find anyone?”

“One in five who disappear are found.”

“And what’s that like?”

“They shamble slowly further in, we don’t know where.” Kimani said then chuckled and corrected himself. “Well we do, it’s to the Jungle’s stomach, but where that is, I don’t know.” Kassandora nodded. So they merely had a folk tale and not a geographical location. “By the way, your clothes.”

“I’ve not succeeded yet.”

“It was for help with the villages.” Kimani replied.

“I didn’t help with that.”

“We asked a question and you gave an answer, we won’t be held in your debt.”

“My answer wasn’t a particularly good one.” Kassandora turned to two men, tall and dark, approaching neatly bundled clothes.

“Our philosophy is that when a men holds a knife to his own throat, we let him slit it. We learn through mistakes. You saved eight hundred lives with that answer.” Kassandora took the clothes without further argument. They would force them on her anyway, and she already knew she would offend them if she rejected them. Kimani continued as Kassandora curiously unwrapped one of the bundles. “This war you wish to wage, I have no hope in its success.”

“That’s why I wage it and you don’t.” Kassandora replied as she unfurled a shirt. It was indeed what she asked for. The material was odd, as if it was hand-woven grass, but it was sturdy and soft. Another shirt that was short enough to reveal her stomach. A skirt and another. A pair of trousers. Even a traditional dress. They had really gone all out.

“Thank you for this.” Kassandora said. She supposed politeness would not kill her.

“It’s our payment but also a gift from the villages, they were delusional by the time we got there. A few more days and they would have gone in too.”

“What’s the expansion like?”

“These camps will have to be moved by two weeks’ time, it is speeding up.” Kimani turned to Kassandora. “Arusei say it senses you and the other Divines and doesn’t like having competition.”

“Like a predator that doesn’t want to share hunting grounds.” Kassandora said and Kimani nodded.

“If you can’t find a way to stall or slow it, we’ll ask you to leave. You have roughly two months.” Kimani turned and pointed to the red hill in the distance with his spear. “There’s a stream after that hill. It will stop the Jungle for a while, and then it will dry up. When it gets to the stream, that’s when we want you gone.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

“There’s no reason for us to hide things from you in a situation like this. We won’t monitor you as we do Kavaa, but we want results.”

“You’ll get them.”

“I hope so.”

Kassandora returned to the camp with the bundles in her hands. Here someone was watching her too, she could always tell. It wasn’t a menacing gaze like the Jungle, but curiosity. Kassandora wished her gift was as powerful as Fer’s, her sister could pick out a person from a crowd behind her simply based off their intentions. Kassandora’s power simply annoyed her. She was a Goddess, of course people would be watching her.

Kassandora walked to her own tent, in her own camp. There was commotion about. Commotion was always about during construction, Kavaa had basically kicked her out to sleep in the dirt after the day. Kassandora smugly grinned to herself as she looked at Of Health’s camp. Kavaa was simply sour Kassandora was far more popular than her. Two soldiers came up to her. There was no reason to give them ranks yet, two thousand people could be managed by Kassandora herself. There was a woman with them.

Dark haired, in a pale shirt and trekking shorts. Her hands were tied behind her back with rope. The taller soldier spoke first. “This woman was found sneaking into the camp when you were away. She had this.” The man pulled a dagger from his belt and presented it to the Goddess.

“How very dangerous.” Kassandora said sarcastically, she took the dagger and gave it a juggle with a hand. It was finely balanced, obviously something by hands that knew what they were rather than a cheap assassin.

“She refuses to reveal her name and intention, and only says she wishes to speak to you.” The soldier continued. “We searched her, there’s no documents on her either.”

“Lovely.” Kassandora said sourly. She supposed assassins would be sent eventually, but this girl? The Pantheon really had lost its touch. She crouched down to bring her eyes level with the woman’s. A mixture of excitement and disbelief stared back at Kassandora.

Not an assassin then.

“Who are you?” Kassandora asked.

“I cannot say yet.”

“I’m not here to play games.”

“I have a message.” The woman said. “From someone who knows you.”

“A lot of people know me.” Kassandora replied.

The woman started to speak as if she was reciting something.“War was given a chance, and War gave me a chance.” The woman said nervously and struggled with her bindings as Kassandora contained her shock. Those were words she spoke to bless the men she had chosen to lead Arascus’ armies in the Great War. “He said you would know what it means.”

“I do indeed.” She stood up straight. Who though? One of the elven ones, the humans and dwarves would be long dead by the passage of time. A Tlerin? A Tremari? Iliyal had been talented… “Unbind her.” Kassandora said and the soldiers immediately followed. “I understand you girl. What is your name?”

“Sara Daganhoff. Duchess.” The woman rubbed her arms and winced at the red marks along her wrists. Kassandora looked around the campsite. Around at the hills. They were empty. Then the mountains further ahead. She narrowed her eyes as a figure caught her gaze.

Sometimes, she wished she had Fer’s perfect vision. But sometimes, her own eyes were enough. There were two figures far away watching her, dark from the distance, but she saw them. One of them wore a red cloak Kassandora had personally bestowed upon him.