I certainly wasn’t expecting this, and the hyn seemed pretty amazed, too.

In The Power of Ten, the hyn were born from human midgets and pygmies in a magical world, transforming from the tide of magic coming across the planet. Thus, no more midgets were born to normal humans at all, and the hyn were simply considered a shorter branch of the human race.

I kicked off the withers of one of the lancer’s horses, popped up another ten feet, and landed on the wall right between two of the hyn archers, who stumbled back, a lot of pointy things aimed my way. The closer one actually fell down, staring up at me, and I bent down over him.

He wasn’t a dream. Cold, hard reality gathered around him, giving him a solidity that a creature of Dream just didn’t have.

“Hmm,” I muttered to no one in particular, and turned around to look down at the serpent folk down there.

They weren’t from Dream, either… or, at least, mostly not.

I looked up at the gray, unreal mists shrouding the sky and permeating the air, laced with the stuff of Dream… but this area was not in Dream.

It was on the borders of Dream. What was the Curse playing at? Did it get tired of thinking up new landscapes and things for us to fight? It had all of Creation’s dreams to pick from, literally infinite amounts of nightmares and visionary landscapes.

But this was even different than that drugged idiot venturing to places in Dream he should not have.

I turned back to look at the hyn, who had clustered up with their spears and bows, and were watching me narrowly as my men cleared up the last of the scalies below.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I told them, and all their eyes went wide. “What happened?” I glanced over them… only about a hundred of them, with non-combatant women and children among them.

“You… who are you?” asked the hyn in the lead, his short bow unwavering. My total lack of fear was unnerving him.

“Sama Rantha, the Sage of Swords,” I replied calmly, and then my eyes narrowed. “You may notice I have my Sword sheathed. If you want me to take it out and point it at you, keep your arrows trained on me.”

His eyes darted left and right, and then over the edge of the roof. Horsemen were gathering up in lines to watch what was going on up above… and my skirmishers had hands resting on their own horsebows.

He whistled sharply, and the bows dropped with the spears, some of the short folk letting out relieved breaths, having seen me chewing through the snake-men below. “Apologies, Sage Sama. This situation has unnerved us.” Fear was nibbling at the edge of his eyes. “I am Esco Twindleburr. We were brought here by a bank of billowing yellow fog. We do not know where we are, only that the snake people have discovered us, and are hunting us…”

I nodded once. “They want to find out how you taste.” The hyn swallowed once. “Do you know how to get out of here? If you stay too long, you will not be able to leave.”

He hesitated only a moment, and then all their heads turned off to his left, in a specific direction. “There is something pulling us that way…”

“We’ve got a direction!” I declared, hand to my temple. I held out my hand. “We’ll get you home, Master Esco. We were brought here to fight, and that looks like a fine direction to go. If you’re willing to come with us, we’ll get you out of here.”

He looked at me, stepped up to look up at the gore-spattered horsemen below, and all the dead scaled bodies being trod beneath iron hooves.

Esco glanced at me. “They all follow you?” he asked, surprised.

He jumped when near two hundred swords left their scabbards at the same time. “TREMBLE!” they shouted, in a unison so perfect that the hyn all flinched.

“Yes,” I added, with a fierce smile that showed my dual canines. “You game?” My hand hadn’t moved.

He swallowed, looked up at all those upraised swords, and made his decision. “If you could safeguard us, that would be great, Sage Sama!” he said, and reached out to take my hand.

-------

I used a Disk for an intermediate step, standing on it and as each hyn leapt down, I tossed them to a waiting horseman, who caught them easily and seated them in front of them on their mounts. The process was incredibly quick and fluid, as the hyn were naturally agile, and my lads were very precise.

In just a few minutes, the road rooftop was empty. Esco was dropped on my Disk as I jumped off it, and found himself getting pulled after me at high speed as I led the horsemen away on foot.

I was on high alert, my Tremblesense plunging into shadows, through the stone, riffling the air. Just behind me, the lancers waited, shields out and prepared to deal with attackers coming in from the sides.

They pulled up in front of several intersecting openings, glaring into the darkness beyond where hissing creatures waited, unnerved at being confronted by a line of lancers, and the horsemen streaming behind them.

Rolling from street to doorway to crumbling arch to hole in the ground, the lancers paused to let those forces below intent on streaming out know that they were ready, and when the horses with the hyn galloped by, they wheeled after them.

Behind us, serpent folk and their minions were surging into the street, but ahead there was only one belated attempt to raise a Wall of Stone in front of us. I shattered it back into the magic it came from, and we surged into the plaza beyond.

Fighting had already started, lines of brutish morlocks under mental domination charging out at us, mere cannon fodder meant to open ways for the scalefolk behind. It looked like they were using troglodytes, more creatures usually found in Deep Realms, as their elite strikers, their stench preceding them as they attacked with spiked clubs and fangs gaping while their frills flapped away, and the disciplined masses of the serpent folk masters waited beyond.

Well, didn’t wait too idly, because a volley or two of arrow fire was enough for them to hunt cover.

We slid easily through a gap in the lines, and try as they might, there was no way those following could slip in behind us, and they instead found themselves confronted with a bristling hedge of longspears and flat eyes behind them. Carnage ensued quickly.

The hyn were let down near the hospital area, their wounds quickly attended to by the Healers there. Esco found himself just standing on the Disk and looking around at my camp.

Things that were big and hungry were coming out of the water there, looking to have a few snacks with the creatures here, probably goaded on by magical Spears. Unfortunately for them, even a plesiosaur isn’t good at taking a full-frontal charge from cavalry to the face, and the knights were slamming into the various creatures with deadly verve.

Tremble was out and Singing, and the men were long, long versed in his Songs, humming under their breath in low, grim voices, beating cadence with Stand, showing a terrifying unity of step and gesture as they began to press forward the moment we were back.

The roars and bellows of dinosaurs ahead of us didn’t bother anyone. We’d fought Evilborn, Elementals, Aberrations, Dragons… while Serpentfolk and troglodytes were new, scalefolk weren’t, as both ophidians and lizardmen numbered among our past opponents.

“Lay down for a moment, I’m going to Mark you.” If I was going to get these people home, I probably wasn’t going to get much work done today. Life sucked, carry on.

“What is that?”

“A Tattoo that’ll give you an enhanced sense of coordination and balance, and hook you into the Battlemind. No slaving.” He got down warily as I pulled out a bottle of the Ink needed. “Takes five minutes. Every soldier fighting here has one, if you are wondering how they move so well together.”

He submitted warily as I pulled the needles out of my hair, and went to work, ki driving the Ink into his skin in the proper pattern, and I momentarily transferred the Dexterity Mark from my ersatz belt of them to my Palm to harmonize it.

He twitched as he felt the link-up, but nothing happened. “Now, concentrate and remember that elation you had when you put an arrow between the eyes of one of those snakes… and shove that elation down towards the Mark.”

He closed his eyes, and a savage smile momentarily flickered on his lips.

The Mark’s black pattern gained a white core, and his eyes popped open, because suddenly he could hear me in his head.

-Squads Two through Six, take the lead on Avenue One. Ten through Twelve, number Two. Rear lines draw back ten yards. Secondary squads to either side, four men wide, keep those side streets covered in good order. Archer ranks down the middle, I want eyes up and looking for snipers at all times. Volley at one hundred yards down One… now!- Bowstrings thrummed, arrows leapt out at distant figures racing forwards in a swathe of doom. Many of them fell twisting under the rain of shafts, others continued forwards despite being struck.

His eyes were wide as he looked at me, and listened in on all the orders I was giving everyone, staring at the mental map inside his head, the formation displays, the avenues of attack, the support teams to move in, the way the greater square constricted on the flanks to move ahead, the indicated positions of the enemy and their spread…

“You can stay with your people, or come with me,” I told him verbally, and he blinked the sight away for a moment.

Tremble’s Song was thrumming through him, and he could feel a sense of steeliness, of invincibility and purpose that he had never felt in his entire life filling him.

He could FEEL this entire army had just one purpose… to get them all home!

“Can you give this to some of the others?” he asked quickly, as groups of spears began to advance into the teeth of the defenders, and piles of morlock bodies burned down to vivus beneath their boots. Precise arrow fire came down and punched holes in the troglodyte ranks, which were rapidly replaced by many advancing points of sharp steel.

“Which ones?” I replied calmly. “Make it quick.”

“Damo, Tribs, Hauna, Legis!” he waved them over, three men, one woman. “The Sage here is going to give you a magical Tattoo. Let her do it. It, she…” he looked around with a sudden wild grin. “They’re going to get us all home!”