I don’t waste any more words – they’ve been warned and if I stick around, I risk being attacked again. Beating my wings, I shoot up towards the forest canopy again.

  I feel several objects enter my cocoon and strike against my boots, and hear several grunts of pain from the Pathwalkers in my care, but I just keep going – the sooner we’re out of their view the better. In the meantime, I decide to give them something to think about – as soon as I’m high enough above the army that I’m able to drop my air-shield, I focus on creating as big a ball of fire as I can.

  Putting a shell of magic for the fire to ‘eat’ around the beach-ball sized fire grenade, I send it flying down to the samurans below. I’d have preferred to use lava – molten rock splashing around would have much more of an effect than flames – but it would have taken significantly longer to create that much lava, if I could do it at all, up in the air as I am. As it is, hopefully realising that they’re up against an enemy who can use the ‘Life-devourer’ against them will make some of them think twice.

  That’s one reason why I’m not creating an inferno right now to kill the whole lot of them – I’m hoping that some of them will choose to retreat or surrender. Maybe some of Flying-blade’s Evolved will get cold feet having already lost their leader and half of their Pathwalkers to me. This is their opportunity to flee. Or maybe they won’t, at which point they’ll hit the rest of our defences.

  And that’s the other reason why I don’t just wipe them all out now single-handedly. Much as it might make life easier for now, I’m not going to be here for the long term. If the village’s success rests solely on my shoulders, then, when I leave, it will be vulnerable. If, however, any survivors of this battle start telling tales at the next Festival of a powerful village defended by many Warriors and strong Pathwalkers, then perhaps my presence or absence won’t matter.

  Above the canopy and already moving back towards the village, I send my Flesh-Shaping into the Pathwalkers’ bodies. Their legs hold several injuries, two laced with poison. I work on Water-former after I’ve pushed the arrows lodged in Healer’s flesh from her body – she can heal the rest for herself.

  The poison is strong, but nothing that will cause me trouble – I push it out of the wound and watch it drip to the green canopy moving below us. I close up the wounds and knit together her flesh so that no trace of the injuries remains.

  They attacked me, Water-former says, sounding in something of a daze. They attacked me.

  And Tree-whisperer abandoned us to an enemy village’s mercy, Healer snaps at her even as she struggles to deal with her own poison. I lend a hand and feel a wave of gratitude come from her as the last of it clears her veins.

  She…she just didn’t want to pay for what she will gain for herself soon enough.

  She didn’t want to pay when she isn’t sure she will get it back, corrects Healer. Or what would be the harm in giving over the Energy Hearts now? How much ‘strengthening’ can be done in the hours before the battle? No, she’s not entirely confident in her victory, and she clearly deems those Energy Hearts as more important than two Pathwalkers who have already been captured. She sounds awfully bitter, though given her reasoning, I understand why.

  I don’t know if her assessment is correct, but she should know her own village’s leader better than I. But if so, it’s a bit of a contradiction of the usual attitude of ‘protect the Pathwalkers no matter what’. Especially since I thought that the main reason for Tree-whisperer coming would be to retrieve her captured village members – that’s why I emphasised the fact that they were alive and could be ransomed back to her in my message to her days ago.

  “Did you two annoy her or something? Or does she think you’re a threat somehow?” I ask Healer – that’s the only explanation that I can think of for why she might have such a different attitude.

  Of course not! Water-former responds immediately, her vehemence surprising even for her. Perhaps she’s happy to latch onto a new topic to think about. I have always been supportive of her, she adds.

  You almost won against her in the recent ranking battle, Healer murmurs thoughtfully. And it’s true that she and I often argue.

  Yes, that’s true, Water-former agrees slowly. But despite that, we’re still sisters. Aren’t we? She sounds almost plaintive, and I feel the hurt within her briefly before she covers it up with anger. It’s all your fault, she spits, twisting her head so she can look at me.

  “Oh?” I ask, more amused than angry. “Do tell.”

  I think it’s that Tree-whisperer is worried that we may have changed our allegiances, and how can she think otherwise when we lay so docilely against your body, speaking not a word to her? That’s why she wasn’t willing to pay – she didn’t want to risk having fighters in her forces who weren’t fully committed to the attack!

  “That is another possibility,” I allow. “I guess we’ll have to find out later – assuming Tree-whisperer survives the fight.” There’s probably a good chance of that since she’s likely to be the most protected of all the Pathwalkers, and they will each be far more protected than any of the Warriors. But in a fight, all sorts of unexpected events can occur.

  I frown as Sirocco’s message reaches me and I let the conversation fall away to concentrate on the information she’s conveying. Ptera and Noir might still be shadowing us to make sure that no airborne predator sees us as a quick snack, but Sirocco has remained behind as a scout. Her smaller size and the ability to become even smaller than that, stands her in good stead to offer discrete and intelligent scouting.

  It seems that Tree-whisperer has indeed not done the sensible thing and turned around to go back home. I wasn’t really expecting that. I am slightly disappointed, though, that everyone else is also continuing. But perhaps they aren’t sure enough that we have the power to back up our threats; maybe my demonstration with the fireball wasn’t enough since it only caused some injuries and no deaths. We’ll see how they feel about it as they walk – perhaps they’ll change their minds. It’s still a long way to the village, after all. And my people have no intention of making it easy for them.

  Still, it seems that the red leader isn’t completely unintelligent either: they’ve split into three groups – one bigger; two smaller. The groups have split apart, the biggest marching straight towards us. The other two groups are also heading towards us, but at different angles – I think that they may be intending to attack us from all directions, perhaps to prevent any chances of escape.

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  I concentrate on heading back to the village as quickly as possible. I even use some Air-Shaping to propel us forwards faster – the quicker we can get back, the more I can do to support the defence efforts.

  Fortunately, our Bonds mean that I’m able to notify everyone I pass that the red tribe force is still heading towards us and also that they’re splitting apart into multiple groups. While that could make things tricky if they all reach the village with the pincer movement that they’re clearly intending, they have to get there first, and reduced numbers offer their own opportunity.

  They might not think that they are in any danger from us, but my village and I will teach them the folly of that thinking.

  *****

  “Are we all prepared?” I ask the group of war leaders. In a situation like this, the council is not necessary, indeed, is not desired. Instead, the only people involved are those who are leading the various groups.

  The fences have been inspected, strengthened, and damaged sections replaced. Defender’s sticky silk has been layered onto areas where it was losing its power, Shrieks reports. I’m glad that he’s been using the male danaris hatchling – anyone who tries to climb our walls will have a nasty surprise. The gates will be shut as soon as everyone has returned from the forest. We have distributed as many extra weapons and pieces of armour as we can among the Unevolved. Ammunition in the form of rocks has been collected and stockpiled within the fence in multiple places. Other weapons and armour have been distributed as normal.

  I nod in thanks at the report. Since the last invasion, Sticks, Flower, and the other Plant-Shapers have worked hard on the fence to make it a far more defensible structure. No longer is it made out of loosely-connected fence posts; now, it is far more reminiscent of a medieval defensive wooden wall. The wood has been grown so that the posts are pressed together with no gaps between – it was decided that a single piece of wood was more vulnerable than multiple stakes. It’s higher than it used to be, too, reaching almost twice as high as me. A walkway has been grown on the inside of it, allowing defenders to stand up there and throw rocks while not being too vulnerable to return fire. On the outside, Defender’s sticky webbing makes attacking the wall even more perilous to attack. And to help protect the defenders when they need to stick their heads above the parapet….

  “Have Sticks and the Plant-Shapers made sure to create crenelations on the top of the wall?”

  We have, Flower answers. And done our best to reinforce the platform on which the defenders will be sitting as well as the fence and gates themselves.

  “Good,” I praise. “And do we know who’s going to be fighting and what we’re going to do with those who won’t be?”

  The elders and their charges have been sent to the den already, Shrieks responds promptly. Pathwalkers Smith and Enchanter will join them there later, but at the moment Pathwalker Smith is creating as many last-minute weapons as she can, and Pathwalker Enchanter is going all over, using her skills to improve our other measures, both defensive and offensive. Bites-a-leaf has been in charge of deciding the fighters and dealing with the non-fighter Warriors.

  We have identified who among the Warriors is capable and willing to fight in this battle, as per your orders, Tamer, Leaf says levelly.

  “And?”

  All of our original Warriors are, of course, willing to fight. As are all but two of the village we absorbed. The Warriors from Flying-blade’s village are the least willing – only seven of them answered honestly that they would be glad to defend the village from invaders.

  I try to remind myself that our expectations were actually lower than that – I’d feared that few of the Warriors from either village would be willing to join the fight. To have almost all of those from the small village volunteer to join and even seven from Flying-blade’s is an indication to me that we’re getting through to them.

  “Alright, good work. Make sure the ones who have indicated that they’re not willing to fight are put under the command of someone who is definitely loyal to the village and who is capable of giving them the right kind of orders to direct them into the fight.” I hesitate. Part of me wants to also suggest that they’re put in the most dangerous parts of the fight – my pragmatic side says that losing samurans who might be a threat to the village is better than losing those who have already proven willing to play ball or even the original inhabitants of the village. After all, they were willing to kill us not that long ago.

  At the same time, another part of me is yelling that that would be immoral. I swallow. Mercy is well and good in its place, but not if it risks the deaths of those I care about. Here, I think that pragmatism needs to win out, as sick as that makes me feel. “Make sure those groups are near the front of the fight, though make sure they have good equipment and weapons too,” I say finally, trying to tell myself that making sure they’re well equipped is enough to absolve my responsibility if they die.

  I will arrange it, Shrieks replies levelly, nothing in his demeanour indicating that he finds the idea as distasteful as I do. But perhaps it would be good if you reinforce the orders – I’m aware that my authority does not match that of yours.

  “Alright, I’ll do that once you’ve organised it,” I force myself to say, as much as I would rather delegate the whole thing to him. “How are our efforts outside the village?”

  The beasts have all been convinced to move to the fields further up the mountainside, Bares-claws informs me. Even if he’s only been part of our village for a short time, he’s demonstrated that he has no conflicts of loyalty. And since he’s one of the best at communicating with the animals beyond the designated handlers who have communication rune sets with the leaders, he has fallen into a position of…not exactly authority, but respect, even from the other Unevolved who have been there longer. Earth-former created hills in the land which hide the majority of the fields and discourage passage through. The disguise will not stand up to close inspection, but as long as the invasion force is focussed on the village, the fields should survive intact.

  “Well done,” I say sincerely – we don’t want the same thing to happen again where we lose more than half our food production in less than a day – not with as many mouths to feed as we currently have. We’ve only recently reached an equilibrium again with that, fortunately not being forced to make anyone go hungry thanks to both my own stockpiles of bodies in my Inventory and the work of our hunters. But since they’ve probably hunted the area a bit bare for now, and the force of samurans moving through our territory is probably chasing away even more animals, we need to maintain our own herds. “And what about the greeting for our ‘guests’?” I ask, turning to Poison and Tarra.

  We’ve been focussing on the main approach, Tarra tells me briskly. Everyone has been working hard. Having so many Pathwalkers capable of affecting the earth and the plants around has been useful, even if they only came after they had accomplished their tasks in the village. The invaders will find their path difficult.

  “You don’t think they’ll just go around?” I ask, concerned.

  They might, Poison breaks in, but we have plans to lead them through, or make them pay if they don’t follow the path we’ve set for them. A sense of amusement comes through the Bond between us. Well, pay more, that is.

  “Damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” I comment, a hungry smile probably spreading across my face. But honestly, now that they’ve been warned, I have very little sympathy for the attacking samurans. They’ve had their chance to back out. Multiple chances, since they’re the ones bringing the fight to us. If they keep pressing on, that’s on them. “But now we know that only about half of the force will be coming along the predicted route, we need to prepare something for the other two groups. Here’s what I was thinking.”

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