44 Waiting to Exhale (1/2)
”Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
The great Eastern Philosopher, Sun Tzu, really knew exactly what to say. It was the perfect quote for the night we planned.
My Foolhardies were waiting for us beneath the hill. All hundred of them looked ready to fulfill the job Great General Darah gave us. This was clear in the confident looks and determined gazes on the variety of faces staring back at me. In fact, the only ones who seemed worried were my officers.
”Hey, Commander,” Varda, her chainmail shirt gleaming underneath the folds of her midnight blue magician's robe, raised a hand in salute. ”Qwipps says your plan's going to get us killed.”
”What?!” Qwipps slanted eyes—the left one apple red and the right one electric blue—gazed wide-eyed at Varda. ”You said that... I just agreed!”
Varda punched Qwipps in the gut to shut him up, forcing him to bend over as the wind was knocked out of him.
”It does sound kind of foolhardy,” Ashley, who was dazzling to look at in her shieldmaiden white robe and silver breastplate, commented from beside Varda.” Even if this sort of thing is kind of our M.O.”
”A plan that risks much in exchange for vague rewards,” Thom chuckled as he gripped tightly on the handle of his wooden bow. ”I find myself liking you more and more, Commander.”
After they'd expressed their varying opinions, I tapped each of them lightly on the shoulder while saying out loud, ”Don't sweat it... believe in me... believe in our plan... and we'll make it through the night like we always have... covered in the trappings of victory!”
The Foolhardies resounding replies of ”Yes, sir!” stayed present in my mind roughly two hours later after our hundred-man unit had traveled the distance to our target location.
We'd trekked past our hill and circled the bottom of another hill while keeping ourselves out of sight from the combatants on the field on the opposite side.
At one point, we heard the rumbling of tens of thousands of stomping feet and felt the tremors in the ground as the grey army marched forward. To me, this was a warning that the battle had begun between the two great armies and the countdown to our success or failure started ticking.
Unfortunately, this danger-close situation made our own march slower. We were all tense with the worry of discovery.
Our drow gliders were extra vigilant when they took to the skies and scouted the path ahead, allowing us to avoid any enemy outposts on this side of the hills. With this drow GPS, we were able to navigate the snaking paths between hills and cliffsides, allowing us to reach our destination to the rear of the enemy position.
Basically, we'd circled around the enemy until we were southwest of their main force, along several small hills which were right between them and their rear units. It was the perfect spot to set up an ambush for those daring enough to lie in wait between a hammer and its anvil—and so we dared.
The first spot we'd chosen was a wide stretch of road between two small hills that were dotted here and there with pine trees and thick bushes that could provide us with cover. As this was the straightest path to the battlefront from the rear, we guessed that it was the most likely supply route.
Qwipps, Ashley, Luca and I took forty men and positioned ourselves on the northern hill. We hid behind the trees and underneath bushes waiting for our prey to arrive.
Aura, Edo, and Varda stayed behind on the south hill. They too kept out of sight for our enemy's approach.
Thom took two drow and kept watch a mile away on the east side of the road. His cousin, Enna, took another two drow with her to camp the west side of the road. These two lookouts would alert us of any approaching hostiles from either side.
The waiting was a strain on my mind. A dozen thoughts raced through my brain, each one a worst-case scenario with each leading to total failure. What if we were in the wrong spot and the supply route was somewhere else? What if the enemy was too well guarded? What if my soldiers died because of my foolhardy plan?
Such thoughts made my hands clammy with sweat. My mouth turned dry. My brow creased.
On my right, I could hear Luca take a deep breath and then exhale all the air out of his lungs. He repeated this action several more times before I realized that he was going through his breathing exercise in an effort to calm himself.
Qwipps, who was standing behind a birch tree to the left of my bush, was whispering constantly to himself. I couldn't hear what he said but I had no doubt he was complaining about something.
Of course, I knew I wasn't the only one whose nerves were frayed. But I had to be the one to take their worries away which meant I needed to psych myself up so I could lead by example.
I took a long breath of cold night air into my lungs. It smelled of pines and wet grass. I exhaled the air while thinking about another piece of advice from Sun Tzu, ”He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not will be victorious.”
This thought calmed me slightly because it reminded me that I was doing things the right way. There was no need for panic. It was just a time for waiting to take action.
Fifteen minutes and a few breaths of cold air later, a warning from the east arrived in the form of Thom Blackthorn.
”You may just be as clever as I thought you were, Commander,” Thom said in that mocking tone of his. ”Several large elken wagons are on the way here. By the way, the wagons looked to be sagging under the weight of what they're carrying, I believe there's a fifty-fifty chance we've found what we're looking for.”
”Are the elken having a hard time pulling the wagons?” I asked.
Elken are the Fayne's version of deers, but they had green fur instead of brown and were bigger than their Mudgardian counterparts. They were almost twice the size of an adult brown bear.