DALEN A-SORGUD
Far southeast of Senvidar, at the eastern end of a narrow channel of water, Batarel stood in a small clearing amidst a dense stand of trees. The soldier in front of him was also a Shaper, but had been operating as an Anduar for many years, not unlike the direction Batarel had been heading before Semjaza found him. The soldier was looking down at the bundles of weaponry lying on the ground, taking inventory in order to relay the Myndarym's state of readiness to the Amatru.
"Fifty vaepkir. Fifty vandrekt. Thirty vanspyd. Fifty light keskyd. Thirty heavy keskyd. And forty skoldur," the angel mumbled to himself. "This is not enough. How many more are being made?"
"Two, maybe three times what you see." Batarel assured him. "They are being brought as we speak."
The soldier looked up to the midday sky in search of the moon, which was nowhere to be seen. "How far away? We only have one day left."
Batarel noticed the way the soldier's eyes darted back and forth along the grass, looking for other information that would be useful—most likely, to identify the location of the Myndar city. The arrangement with the Amatru was fragile, and Batarel didn't think the answer to the question was relevant to their mission. At least, not their primary mission.
"We'll worry about that," he replied. "You just make sure you bring enough soldiers to get the job done."
The Shaper suddenly turned his head toward Batarel. Behind his eyes, Batarel could almost see his disgust at having to work with unholy traitors. But the soldier held his tongue.
"And next time you cross over, do it here. Not in the open again. Semjaza's eyes are everywhere."
Again, the Shaper held his tongue. But his displeasure at taking instruction from someone outside the Amatru was obvious. Finally, the soldier nodded. Then the objects around him appeared to distort. Trees and vines bent inward. The grass bowed toward him. But it was only an illusion. It was the light from these objects that was warping, fragmenting into bands of color as the Shaper shifted his existence out of the Temporal Realm.
And then he was gone.
In the following silence, Batarel smiled. The plans were moving along quickly. Soon, Semjaza's fortress would be infiltrated, and the wicked Pri-Rada would be overthrown.
A faint scraping noise brought him out of his thoughts and sent his heart racing, for he knew the sound to be abnormal. His sensitivity to noise was a residual benefit of spending time in an animal form. Shifting his consciousness toward the Eternal, he looked outward with different eyes, seeing beyond the orderly structure of this realm. To the west, he counted fourteen spirits spread out in a loose, crescent-shaped formation. The fiery nuclei—visual representations of the spirit within each temporal being—hovered just above the ground, moving cautiously toward him. As they passed over the earth, they came closer to each other, converging upon Batarel's location. Judging by their size and movement, they were Semjaza's Anduarym.
Batarel stepped quietly to the north and began making his way out of the clearing, hoping to lead the attackers away from the stash of weapons and armor. Instead of shaping himself, he remained in his angelic form. It was slower than his animal form, but he wasn't planning on trying to escape. Instead, he felt a mixture of fear and hatred building in his heart, and he allowed it to grow and consume his thoughts. As he moved through the thick vegetation, a discordant melody wove itself into his mind. It produced a sense of pride and pleasure that intertwined itself with the other emotions, taking control of them. From his lips, which were now curled into a grin of delight, a Song of Unshaping began to emanate.
* * * *
SOUTHEAST OF ARAGATSIYR
"And what are those?" Enoch asked, pointing ahead to the bundle of weaponry hoisted on the back of a nearby Myndar.
"Vandrekt," Ananel replied. "For the Anduarym. They are the closest approximation of the weapons they use in the Eternal Realm. They hold the wooden shaft and thrust the sharpened, metal point toward the enemy."
Enoch couldn't keep his face from wrinkling at the thought of such violence.
"I know. Your kind is not familiar with war," Ananel stated, "or the art of working with metals."
"How long has your kind been at war?" Enoch asked, looking up.
Ananel stepped high over a rock and kept moving ahead. "Since before humans were created."
Enoch looked ahead to keep from tripping over a bush. "Why can't the Amatru bring their own weapons?"
"That's a good question," Ananel replied. "When the Myndarym shift from one part of creation to another, it comes naturally, for that is how we were created. It is much like when humans learn to walk. Once the skill is mastered, it is rarely given much thought afterward. But clothing, armor, and weaponry—these objects are not part of us. So, it takes a great deal of practice to shift these things with us. And when creation was sundered into our two realms, this task became infinitely more complex. But the weapons and armor used by the Amatru are a different matter altogether. They are not like other objects. They are purer, crafted solely from the light of the Spirit. And only the most skilled Shapers even know how they are made. Such objects have no temporal equivalent. They cannot exist in this realm. So, when the Amatru arrive, they will be without weapons and at a great disadvantage against Semjaza."
Enoch kept his eyes forward, but nodded, trying to take in the wealth of information that Ananel seemed pleased to offer. When he looked up again at the angel, who was now smiling, he realized suddenly that he had made a friend. It was something that Zacol had been trying to get him to do for years among the Shayeth, but somehow it had never worked.
How strange to befriend an angel, and yet feel so distant from my own kind!
After a long silence, Enoch spoke again. "If it is so difficult to shift objects other than yourselves, then how did you bring Semjaza and his soldiers here? Surely another living being is more complex than clothing. How did the Speaker and his angels come here? How will the Amatru be brought here?"
"The Speaker and his angels were Myndar. But to shift others ... well, it is quite complicated," Ananel admitted. "Few among the Amatru can do it. In fact, when we shifted Semjaza, there was only one among us who was capable—Ezekiyel. He is a master Shifter and Shaper. It is he who taught the rest of us. We had to sing a Song of Naming to comprehend all the individual pieces that comprised the angel we were shifting. Then, in order to move the pieces, we had to find suitable forms for each one to take as we brought them across. You see, this realm operates differently. So, if we were to just move the pieces here, they would perish. They had to be constructed properly to exist within the laws which govern this realm. Then we had to reassemble the pieces into yet another structure that could exist and function here as intended. And all of this had to be done at once, in transit. For the very moment one piece is changed, it is also no longer able to survive in the other realm. And so, the ever changing location and complexity ..."
Enoch glanced up at Ananel who had trailed off.
The angel was looking out across the fields, his eyes squinting.
Enoch followed his gaze and could barely make out something lying in the field, just before the shoreline of the water they were approaching. He couldn't see what it was, but immediately felt that something was wrong.
* * * *
Sariel dropped the bundle of armor he'd been carrying. In one swift movement, he unfurled his wings and leaped into the air. Seconds later, he glided to a running landing and slowed as he reached the dead body.
Batarel's angelic form lay on its side, with arms stretched out in front of him. Two spears had been run through his chest and another protruded from the side of his ribcage, sticking into the air like a standard carried before an army. His pale skin was covered in blood from head to toe. And though his fatal wounds had obviously been gruesome, Sariel's trained eyes could see that not all the blood was his own.
"Check the weapons!" Sariel yelled, pointing into the nearby forest as the other Myndarym came running.
A few dropped their bundles and ran away from the crowd, while the remainder of the angelic population of Senvidar approached Sariel with caution.
Before they arrived, Sariel followed the trampled grass westward along the shoreline. A short distance away, he found a blackened Anduar lying on his back. The skin on the front of his body had been burned so that it seemed to peel backward away from his bones. On either side of the dead soldier, two swaths of bare soil extended to the west for a dozen paces. At their edges, the charred roots of dead vegetation jutted upward to the sky, while the surrounding grasses bore the unmistakable wilting and discoloration of proximity to fire.
Sariel continued walking west, finding two more dead Anduarym a moment later. One was completely missing his upper body, while the other looked as if something had exploded inside his chest cavity. The gore was scattered for several paces in a half-moon shape in front of the body. Bare ribs were exposed to the air, like fingers of an open hand.
"They're gone. All the weapons are gone!" someone yelled from behind.
Sariel turned and walked back to the group which had gathered around Batarel's body.
Most of the Myndarym stood motionless while several knelt close to their fallen friend.
Ananel, who always seemed to be accompanied by Enoch, pushed his way through the crowd. His face looked grim, but there were no tears in his eyes, unlike the others. "Were they watching us the whole time?" he asked in a low voice.
"I don't think so," Sariel answered him. "It was probably just a scouting party. But if they return to the fortress with those weapons, we'll have lost the element of surprise. Semjaza will have time to prepare for the attack."
"And they'll know we're working with the Amatru," Ananel added.
"What can we do?" one of the females asked. "The Amatru will not arrive until tomorrow."
"By the look of things," Sariel said, glancing back to where the dead Anduarym lay, "Semjaza's soldiers have a half-day head start. Perhaps more."
"We can't afford to wait," Ananel concluded.
Sariel noticed that the expressions on the faces of the other Myndarym began to change. No one said another word. But he could see their sadness over Batarel's death being replaced by fear, and he spoke quickly to put an end to it.
"Like it or not, we are already at war with Semjaza. Hiding from him is no longer feasible. So we have two options. We can wait for the Amatru, forfeit the majority of our weaponry to the enemy, and give up our element of surprise. Or, we can go after the weapons and risk our lives to keep the plan intact."
"But how many soldiers are we talking about?" one of the Myndarym asked.
"Three of them are dead. But they were able to carry off the weapons, so it was probably more than one scouting party," Sariel answered. "If it was two parties, then there should be eleven left."
Ananel turned to face his fellow angels. "I say we go after them. We can catch up; they'll only be walking on two legs."
"But what will we do when we catch up with them?" another asked.
Sariel ran through the scenarios in his mind, then quickly verbalized his thoughts. "Those of us who can fly can probably catch them within an hour if we push hard. Those who travel by land ... perhaps two or three times as long. If any of you wear forms accustomed to water, you'll be somewhere in between. But I'm the only one who knows how to use these weapons, so we may only be able to slow them down."
"If we're going after them, we'd better do it quickly," Ananel pointed out.
Sariel looked from angel to angel, still seeing fear in their eyes. But now, at least they realized the gravity of the situation and the consequences for waiting. From years of battle, he knew this look. He'd seen it on countless faces. Many times, it was the last he ever saw of the soldiers. But he also knew that action must be taken. And sometimes, the only way to initiate it was to make the decision for them—to push their wavering courage over the edge.
"Alright. Those of you who can fly, follow me. We'll move fast and try to slow the Anduarym down when we reach them. The rest of you, catch up as quickly as you can. The greater our numbers, the better chances we have. Where's Enoch?"
"Right here," the human said, stepping out from beneath the crowd as a child among adults.
Sariel knelt to the ground. "Wait here for the Amatru. When they arrive, tell them what has happened. Give them the weapons and tell them to follow us. Do you see this mountain range here," he asked, pointing to the south.
"Yes," the prophet answered.
"Semjaza's fortress is beyond the western end of this range. If they head in that direction, they'll find us."
The short man's fingers wound nervously through this dark beard, but he nodded anyway.
Sariel reached over to the nearest bundle of weapons and untied the cord that bound them. The pale, fibrous cloth unrolled across the ground. From the pile, he chose two vaepkir, then stood up, feeling their comforting weight resting in his hands and the cold metal lying against the outside of his forearms.
"Take what you need and let's move."
"Just my teeth," Ananel replied. His voice already sounded like the canine outline that his shimmering form began to take. When the process was complete, a massive grey wolf raised its head into the air and loosed a deep howl which spread across the valley. Then, with his snout to the ground, the Myndar burst into motion, running swiftly through the deep grass to the west.
One by one, the Myndarym shaped into their preferred forms, some as creatures of the air and some as creatures of the sky. Before he took to the air, Sariel noticed several Myndarym who were still in their angelic forms, wading into the nearby water. Seconds later, they began to shimmer, as well.
Sariel looked back to the odd assortment of flying creatures scattered across the field. They were waiting for his lead. He pulled his weapons to his chest and spread his wings. "Try to keep up!"