After the presence of the King had dissipated, the war between the Royal Fisher Army and the reptiles began in earnest.


    “All humans into spear formation!” Dave ordered. “Goblins and scouts, hang back behind the tip of the spear. Wolf pack, protect the flanks!”


    No one argued with him. Despite the fact that they had all seen the freakish reptiles that they would be fighting, there were no naysayers in this large mass of people. The thousands of troops Dave had with him simply moved to obey, forming long columns that gathered into a large spear-like shape.


    Dave would have expected more talk from the humans who had come with him, but they were stone-faced—in some cases, they were smiling through gritted teeth, some combination of nervous and eager, but most were more stoic.


    Right, that’s the upside of having seen action before, Dave thought. The core of this group was baptized in the Haunted Forest. The rest have no doubt seen bloodshed in their Orientations. This group is more potent than I’ve been giving them credit for in my head.


    Men and women carrying spears gathered on the outer fringes of the tip of the spear, and the wolf pack split in two to protect the flanks of the columns that had formed behind the spearmen. The group was ready.


    As all reached their assigned positions, Dave shouted another, simpler command.


    “Forward march!”


    Armor and weapons clanking like the army was made entirely of metal, they advanced over the border and into enemy territory.


    The advance was strangely uneventful. While there had been a violent welcoming party at the border when the bulk of the army arrived, there seemed to be no inhabitants of the Florida scrub now that they were actually penetrating into the territory in earnest.


    The people in the lead moved across sand, hacked apart shrubs—and were not ambushed.


    This continued for a few minutes, making their Captain increasingly skeptical that things were as they appeared.


    Was it all some kind of bluff? Dave wondered. There’s definitely a Ruler here—I can sort of sense it, and Luna does too. She seems to have a much better grasp on those sensations—but maybe the force the Ruler commands is really small? So they’re avoiding a fight right now?


    The explanation did not make complete sense to him, and Dave didn’t like that. He liked to understand what he was walking into.


    Still, there was no cause for a change of plans yet, and Dave felt there was nothing further he could do to prepare his people for further contingencies beyond preparations he had made long before they entered this territory. Ordering them to stop so he could figure things out would only reduce group confidence—something he could actually somewhat feel with the Command Presence Skill—and sending scouts ahead would just be throwing those scouts’ lives away, assuming this Ruler was like James—capable of sensing movements within its territory.


    So the army simply continued on. They walked for five minutes, ten minutes, without seeing anything or sensing any sign of an enemy.


    By fifteen minutes, despite very flat terrain, they were no longer within sight of the place where they had entered. Dave estimated they were at least a mile into the territory, despite a relatively cautious walking pace.


    It was then that the enemy Ruler made its presence known.


    Dave tasted the threat before any of his comrades found the presence of mind to shout a warning. Perhaps the air had changed across the entire territory in a single instant—or maybe everyone else was simply caught off guard in the seconds they had to perceive it before Dave, close to the center of the force, did.


    What is that? Rotten eggs? Sulfur?


    Dave heard a cough from behind him, and then suddenly there was an outbreak of twitching and wheezing from all around. The Captain’s eyes widened in sudden realization—even as they began to tear up. The air was toxic, and it seemed to have reached him after it had struck most of the other members of the group.


    Every member of his army was breathing in poison.


    He kept his presence of mind. Opened his mouth. Choked out a cough, then managed to raise his voice despite his sudden difficulty getting air.


    “Poisonous gas!” he yelled, his voice amplified by his Command Presence Skill. “Healers, to your positions! Haunted Forest drill formation.”


    In the time that Dave had spent reflecting on the lessons of the Battle of the Haunted Forest, the biggest regret he had landed on was the lack of pre-planning for a circumstance when the environment itself was hostile. That had been the one thing that he and the Fisher King knew about the forest before the volunteers entered it. That the Wraith who ruled that territory could do strange things to those who simply looked into her space, showing them images of their dead loved ones. It was foolish not to plan some countermeasures to environmental hazards.


    Benefiting from that experience, he had drilled his troops in some simple defensive protocols.


    The strongest Healers in the group moved to the edges of the formation and began using Purification immediately, and to Dave’s relief, the smell of the air changed instantly. He sucked in deep breaths, gulping the newly freshened air greedily. Despite the quick action, in the right hand corner of his vision, he saw a body drop.


    “Assist anyone who falls near you!” Dave ordered, uncertain if he really needed to say it. But some things were best not left to chance. “We leave no one behind! Once you have a handle on your neighbors and are certain you are within the area protected by your nearest Healer, begin orderly withdrawal, back roughly the way we came. Maintain roughly the current formation. Members of the wolf pack, lead us by the shortest route to the edge of the Ruler’s aura. Scouts, move around to my position. We’ll guard the retreat.”


    The Captain intended to be one of the last men out of enemy territory. That was the best way to ensure that no soldier was left behind. The scouts were, on average, some of his least formidable troops, but they had uniformly high Perception, and he needed that just now, in case this was the moment the enemy chose for an ambush.


    Dave detected the movement of individuals springing into action in compliance with his commands, and he allowed himself a small smile. This isn’t going to be like the Haunted Forest. You won’t get rid of us this easily…


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    As the group began moving slowly backward, out of the pine forest, Dave and the scouts with him kept their eyes peeled for enemies—even as their eyes continued to water from the after effects of the gas that had suddenly replaced the air in the territory.


    Thankfully, nothing reared its head. Perhaps the enemy Ruler hoped that they were running away, never to return. Maybe the Ruler had not been able to send out any soldiers, because they too would have been exposed to the poisonous gas. Or perhaps it was not confident that its adversary was sufficiently debilitated by the poisonous air for an ambush on them to succeed.


    In any case, fifteen minutes later, Dave and his comrades were back just outside the border.


    Dave took a head count. Everyone had been withdrawn successfully, but there were losses. Three of those who had been carried out were dead, two Goblins and one human, none of them individuals Dave knew by name. These seemed to have been killed more or less instantly by the gas, before Dave had even shouted his orders. There were forty-six others injured enough by the poison to require some attention by the Healers.


    The army’s entry into the enemy territory had ended with a minor defeat and a strategic withdrawal. They would need to wait to reenter until the Healers had been allowed enough time to recharge their Mana—and of course until sometime after Dave had developed a plan to deal with the Ruler’s ability to turn the air itself into poisonous gas.


    That’s quite an ability, Dave thought. Maybe even better for area defense than James’s powers. Then again, if you can counter the poisonous gas, maybe the Ruler is weaker than the average. These things usually seem to be sort of balanced. They might not be, of course… No one said defeating a Ruler on their own land was supposed to be easy. And I wonder what the hell that gas was. Mustard gas? No, that stuff blisters the skin on contact, doesn’t it?


    Dave quickly gave up on speculating. He correctly reckoned that his chances of guessing which poisonous gas the enemy used were low, since he had never smelled poison gas before.


    “Leaders of each army group, please meet me for a strategy session once you have seen to your wounded,” Dave said, still projecting his voice to be heard by everyone. “All others, now would be a good time to consume rations and rest. We will plan our next offensive for sometime later today or early tomorrow, so bear that in mind.” Then he deactivated Command Presence. It was draining his Stamina, and he would need that later.


    Slowly, the rest of the army’s leaders gathered around him. Duncan and Luna were among the first. Their groups had a level of cohesion that Dave envied. Humans never had that sort of unity and obedience to hierarchy.


    Accordingly the human commanders under Dave’s authority all arrived after the monsters had—even the lumbering giant alligator Samuel, who appeared completely unaffected by the gas, though the humans and even most of the monsters had lingering symptoms, mainly watery eyes.


    Maybe it’s because alligators can hold their breath for a long time.


    “We need to figure out our next angle of attack,” Dave said once they were all seated. “But before that—” He paused and looked around a little uncomfortably—“any additional deaths?”


    The other leaders slowly shook their heads.


    “We were lucky, then,” Dave said. “Next time, the Ruler will be expecting us. Probably was expecting us this last time, after the slaughter of the border guards. We have a different kind of challenge than I was expecting, with the enemy just sitting tight somewhere and poisoning the air, waiting for us to succumb to that. It’s hard to know how to deal with that.” He scratched his chin. “I have a couple of ideas, but before I start going through options, does anyone else have thoughts on this situation?”


    There was silence for a moment as the group members looked at each other and considered.


    Samuel spoke first. “Hiding underground, if I had to guess. That is what I would expect this Ruler to do, considering the choice of tactics. Poisonous gas is not exactly the honorable, straightforward approach of someone like the Fisher King. I have dealt with a Ruler or two like this before. Finding its den may be difficult.”


    “I can sniff it out,” Luna offered. “My wolves and I had a good whiff of the reptiles who were assigned to guard the border, and wherever the Ruler is hiding, we would be able to find it if given time.”


    “Assuming that all of the air in the area around you isn’t turned into strong-smelling poisonous gas,” said Duncan of the Goblins.


    Luna simply fell silent in response to that, pointing her snout at the ground as if slightly embarrassed.


    “It might work out if a Healer or two were to go with you,” offered Rafael, an unofficial officer—because James had not made many official officers yet—among the Healers.


    But another of the human leaders was already shaking her head.


    “That would defeat the purpose of sending the wolves in alone,” said the Mage Felicia. “They’re fast-moving and fierce. You Healers are slow-moving and weak.”


    There were a few weak chuckles at that, and Rafael threw up his hands as if to say, You’re not wrong…


    Then the group grew quiet again for almost a minute, until their leader forcefully changed the mood. He wasn’t going to let the group dwell too long on one member calling another weak, even as a joke.


    “I appreciate the resourcefulness, Luna,” Dave said. “I think your wolf pack’s mobility and high Perception are going to be important to this, though I don’t know how yet. Any other interesting ideas?” He looked from face to face—or muzzle to muzzle, as the species of his interlocutors varied.


    “Perhaps we could fly over the territory,” Evangeline, the leader of the bats, suggested.


    But Ysabel, the leader of the squirrels, shook her head at that. She spoke gently, without condescension in her tone. “You don’t know this, Eva, because you won the position of leader of the bats after both our Races submitted to the Fisher King, but—well, the way a Ruler’s power works is frequently not dependent on proximity. You can do things from a distance. We already know this Ruler can turn the air into poisonous gas. So, even if you’re flying far above the territory, you’re just as vulnerable to being poisoned by that technique as someone on the ground would be. Maybe more so, since you’re surrounded by nothing but air. We don’t know what else this Ruler can do. The only important thing we know is that he or she transformed the air into poisonous gas, which means that’s one of the Ruler’s more important abilities. Scouting is important, but it’s not going to be any safer from the sky than on the ground.”


    “Yeah, you hit on something important,” Dave said, barely letting Ysabel finish. He didn’t like the negativity that was beginning to take hold of the group. “We definitely need additional information. The best way to gather it is some sort of reconnaissance mission. We at least need to figure out how large the territory is. It would also be good to know if the terrain ever changes and if the enemy base is visually obvious. From there, we’ll be able to determine how long it should take to search and where the best places to look are. We’d be kicking ourselves if we were struggling to come up with a solution for hours, only to figure out that the enemy base is just on the exact opposite side of the Ruler’s territory from where we are, easy to reach if we just attack from another angle. And I assume that there is some weakness to the enemy’s defenses that isn’t obvious yet. It might just be that the Ruler is physically weaker than some others or that the poisonous gas is something its followers are not immune to, which would limit its utility in battle. But everyone has a weakness. Some vulnerability we can exploit. And the more information we have, the better the plan we can make.”


    Luna was nodding again. “Allow me and my pack the honor of the search,” she said, tail beginning to wag behind her.


    That sounds perfect, actually, Dave thought. With their high Perception, they could hopefully avoid losing any members while actually getting a good idea of the size and layout of the territory.


    “Thank you,” he said aloud. “In the meantime, I’ll try to get an idea of how large a group we can bring in with the number of Healers we have who can rotate Purification duties. That way, I’ll have an idea of how we strike once you come back.”


    The poisonous gas had been a complication, but it was one that the Royal Fisher Army would adapt to and overcome.


    “Just make certain you don’t enter enemy territory if it’s at all avoidable,” Dave added as Luna began to rise restlessly from her seated position. “Above all else, we want to avoid any unnecessary casualties.”


    The wolf leader nodded.


    “I will be careful.”