Ruthless: Path of Conquest

“All right, I’ve gathered all of the volunteers,” Dave said. “We’re ready to invade the forest.”

The sun was already below the horizon as he spoke, and the whole Fisher Kingdom glowed under a brilliant, quickly fading orange halo—except the part that stood in the shadow of the evil spirit’s forest. The darkness there seemed almost impenetrable, as if there had never been the touch of light there. And yet that was where the Fisher Kingdom’s eager volunteers stood, armed and armored, eager and ready to do battle.

“There are quite a lot of them,” James said, looking surprised. He looked at the crowd of people gathered near the forest, around forty feet back from where he and Dave were talking. It was significantly more than the number of those who had attacked the bats with them earlier. A few hundred more.

“After your performance in response to the bats earlier,” Dave said, lowering his voice, “there has been a surge in enthusiasm for further military adventures.” There was a dark irony to his tone as he finished the sentence.

I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with the way people are reacting, myself, but I hope it will serve our purposes well, Dave thought. We need this kind of fervor right now. We need people psyched up to enter the unknown dangers of that forest…

“Are a lot of the people who invaded the bats’ territory signing up for this too?” James asked.

“Most of them,” Dave said, “plus anyone who they spoke to about it. A lot of people responded to your announcement.”

“Is there anyone still in their beds?” James asked incredulously. He lowered his voice. “Sending this many people feels very risky to me.”

“You don’t feel that you can distract the boss monster for long enough that we can all get in and out?” Dave asked quietly. “If you think it’s too dangerous, you can tell them now, and we’ll just go in with a small strike force.”

James turned his head and looked over to where his wife, mother, and sister stood, apart from the mass of soldiers ready to invade, wearing their bat capes.

“No,” James said after a moment. “We’ll go ahead with everyone. I can definitely keep the boss creature’s attention. I would just suggest that a few should go in before the rest. An advance party. I just want to make certain of whether the creature’s apparitions are active or not before we commit the full body of soldiers into that dark forest.”

Dave nodded. “That sounds prudent,” he said.

I am relieved you’re not just blindly ordering everyone in, he thought. That might work with you there in person, but I’m not certain how well it would work out with you staying behind. Dave reminded himself for the sixth time that James would be in the fight with them, because he would be grappling with this “Sister Strange” on the astral plane or something. It was still hard to fully grasp what it meant. How many planes of existence are there, anyway? There’s Earth, all the other universes the System mentions, other-other places where Orientations happen, plus at least one afterlife… and of course there’s a separate place where dream creatures can move around.

He sighed to himself. I have a feeling I’m going to miss normal shooting wars after a few years of this. But I’m in it now.

James placed a hand on his shoulder. “How are you feeling?” he asked, looking into his eyes.

Right now, I have the strangest feeling that you know the answer to that question already. You can’t also read minds, in addition to reshaping the earth, sensing foreign presences, and communicating with everyone in your territory, can you? It didn’t seem at all out of the realm of possibility.

“I feel okay,” Dave said. He could see James looking back at him skeptically but without humor. “Ah, fuck, I’m nervous as hell.”

“Yeah, that sounds more like it,” James said. “Now you sound like a good Captain.”

“What are you talking about?” Dave asked. “I have to imbue my troops with confidence.”

“Yes, which is why you won’t say you’re nervous as hell to them. But it would be irresponsible not to bring your well-founded concerns to your commander. You’re in charge of leading these men and women—and wait, are there teenagers over there?”

Dave looked back at the crowd, but they were much too far away for him to tell how old individuals were.

“Probably,” he said finally. “I told parents not to let their teenagers come, whenever teens asked if they could join, but there were too many people for me to ask them all for ID in the last half hour.”

James swallowed. “I really don’t want teenagers entering the forest, Dave,” he said. “This isn’t a game, and it isn’t World War One. I want to be better than the governments that came before me, not worse.”

“I agree with you,” Dave said. “The dark is getting thicker, though. I won’t even be able to read IDs in the next ten minutes. If people want to sneak into this fight, we’re not going to be able to stop them.”

“Yeah,” James said. “I know. I could check every ID myself. But soon the first people to go to bed will be falling asleep. I need to be in Dreamspace to intercept Sister Strange, or she’ll start attacking people’s dreams.” He sighed. “I’ll just make an announcement.” James closed his eyes.

Dave waited, but he heard nothing. Then there was a small commotion from within the crowd of volunteers. Dave heard raised voices, and then a half dozen people were shoved out of their ranks. The six individuals looked downcast from their slumped postures, but they headed back to the residential buildings.

“Wait, did you make an announcement?” Dave asked.

“I figured out how to keep them to limited geographic areas,” James said. “The more time I spend with these Ruler abilities, the better I’m getting at using them. Absorbing the power of another Ruler also makes mine stronger.”

Oh. Well. All right then. He’s just going to keep on getting further ahead of us normal human types, I guess. Cool.

“I’ll let you get to your power nap,” Dave said. “I’ll let the ones going into the forest first know who they are. The rest of us will be on standby, ready to rescue or back them up as the case may be.”

James looked surprised at something, though Dave couldn’t quite figure out what.

“You just accepted the Captain Job,” James finally said.

“I did,” Dave said.

“I meant for you to take your time and consider that,” James said. “I don’t want you to have regrets.”

“I meant to take you up on that generosity,” Dave said. “Then I realized that the Captain Job comes with bonuses to those under your command. I wasn’t about to lead people into battle without giving them every possible advantage. The boost only applies to up to five hundred people. But I think it will just about cover every member of our invading group today.”

James had seemed surprised at first, and then pleased. But as Dave spoke, he recognized on James’s face a look of respect. He couldn’t be sure if he’d ever seen that particular expression on the Fisher King’s face before.

“Well considered, Captain,” James said. He raised his arm in a salute, which Dave returned crisply.

Just like riding a bicycle, he thought.

“As Commander-in-Chief, you know you’re supposed to let other people salute you first,” Dave said mildly.

“I do know that,” James said. “I just felt like saluting you this time. It probably won’t happen again. Now let’s go inspire the troops.”

Dave smiled, and the two men walked over to where the volunteers stood waiting.

“Volunteer soldiers of the Fisher Kingdom!” James yelled. “Thank you for gathering this evening. Tonight, we take the fight to the enemy who has invaded many citizens’ dreams!”

A low cheer went up.

Dave heard them shout, “James!” and “Fight!” and “Rah!”

“I will engage the enemy in the dream world while you attack the forest,” James said, continuing in the same raised voice. “Follow the orders of your commanding officer, Captain Dave Matsumoto!”

There were shouts of “Captain Dave!” and Dave felt his heart beginning to race.

This is a bit intoxicating. His mind flashed to moments when he had been ready, eager even, to fight in his last war, and he realized that he was emotionally in a very similar place. But this time, I don’t have to lose so many of my friends, he told himself. This time, we’ll win a victory without such devastating losses. This time is different.

He wasn’t sure if he truly believed it or just fervently wanted to believe it, and maybe the difference didn’t matter right now. This wasn’t a war of choice. This was an enemy who had chosen to attack them. Self-defense was easy to support. He realized James was still talking, and he tuned back in.

“—just the beginning of building up our strength!” James was saying. “We will be taken seriously by all peace-loving countries and feared by all aggressive powers!”

The crowd seemed very energized, and they kept shouting, almost going over James’s volume.

“Yes!”

“Victory!”

“James!”

“Fisher Kingdom!”

“Keep control of yourselves!” James shouted. His voice seemed to cut through the noise, as if it was infused with something more than human. The crowd began to calm noticeably. “Follow the orders of your commander. We don’t want to lose any people unnecessarily. Before you proceed into the forest, a squad of scouts will move forward to see how active its defenses are. The Captain will select those scouts, if he hasn’t already. Until Dave tells you to advance, everyone else holds tight.”

“Yes sir!” someone in the thick of people shouted.

Then the rest of them joined in, “Yes sir!”

James turned back to Dave. He looked satisfied with the effect he had produced. Dave was slightly in awe and couldn’t find words for a few seconds.

“Those are some awesome powers you have,” Dave said finally. “I’ve never seen a group of people so eager to fight and kill and die before.”

“Well, today, that’s what we need,” James said. “A large number of very aggressive humans.”

“Yeah,” Dave said thoughtfully. “I noticed there aren’t a lot of Goblins around. I guess that was your decision?”

James nodded. “Only the ones who can use magic. Humans have a lot of different ways of fighting, but most of the Goblins are only armed with crude physical weapons. Only the Goblin Mages are going to be of any use against the kinds of opponents I’m imagining we’ll face.”

“I wonder if I’ll be of any use,” Dave said. He looked down at his pistol. It seemed remarkably mundane to face down any kind of supernatural threat, but it had carried him through thus far.

“I think you’ll be just fine,” James said. “Remember, don’t stand and fight against overwhelming odds if you find them. This isn’t our last chance to defeat the residents of this forest. If you can withdraw the army in good order, and you think that’s quickly going to become difficult to do, you should do that.”

“What are they doing?” Dave asked, gesturing to James’s wife, sister, and mother.

“They’re going to attack from another angle, as soon as the scouts give the signal that it’s okay for you and your allies to invade,” James said. “Apparently there’s a physical location that the boss is tied to, and it might be a point of vulnerability while I have the creature’s spirit trapped with me in Dreamspace.”

“So we’re serving in that time-honored role of barely trained foot soldiers throughout history,” Dave said. “A distraction.”

James shook his head but looked slightly uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t say that exactly,” he said, “but I will admit, I’m hoping that your frontal attack allows them to get further in than they would without it. The reason I wouldn’t think of it as a distraction is that any enemies you guys engage with inside are enemies we actually need to defeat. There’s not going to be any irrelevant fighting in the forest. Only fighting against Sister Strange and her minions.”

“Hm.” Dave wasn’t sure he was convinced, but he was all right with serving in the role of a distraction if James was lying to him. He knew that real military operations often needed some element of misdirection to succeed. “Well, good luck with your mission,” he finally said.

“Thank you,” James said. “I think we’ll either succeed together or fail together. If you see me appear on the battlefield at any point, you’ll know that we’ve probably already won.”

“I will look forward to seeing you, then,” Dave replied. He grabbed James’s hand and shook it forcefully. And then he spoke in a low voice. “It’s all right if you use us as a distraction. I know that sometimes, that’s necessary in war. But whatever you do, don’t disappoint these people by letting them suffer a pointless defeat. If we lose soldiers, it has to mean something. Understand?”

James nodded. “Tonight is either the first step toward victory, or the whole thing,” he said.

This time, Dave decided he believed him.