Chapter 107 - Allies

  We made our way south as rapidly as everyone could move, pushing steadily along the open space of the runways. I had to set Sue’s pace down a few notches from max, because I was mad enough to go racing off and leave everyone behind if I wasn’t careful.

  Holy shit, had that man pissed me off something fierce.

  Turner wasn’t wholly in the wrong, and I knew that. Early on, using his Charisma to keep people calm, get them organized, and make sure everyone was working together just made sense. It was still manipulative, but I could understand it. But he hadn’t told anyone what he was doing, clearly. And trying to use magic to order people into battles where they might well die was a step and a half too far.

  I didn’t know what was going to happen there while we were gone. Would Turner be able to maintain control, now that his people knew what he’d done? Maybe—tier six Charisma had a lot of weight. But I had a feeling the Guard base was about to see something of a ‘change of command.’

  “Selena?” Kara asked, beside me.

  “I don’t really want to talk about it right now. We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” I said, assuming she wanted to chat about what had just happened.

  “Um, no, for real—we’ve got company!” Kara said, unlimbering her bow.

  She was looking west, so I figured we had avians inbound, and I wasn’t wrong. An entire flight of them was moving our way fast, maybe fifty or so warriors, all heavily armed. I frowned at that. It wasn’t enough to take us on, so why bother? We’d just frightened off an attack force more than twice that many in number.

  Then I saw the rest of that force, readying themselves near the air traffic control tower on the west side of the runway. I grimaced. Once the second wave arrived, they’d have over a hundred flying attackers. We had a lot of archers with us, and a few spell casters. Sue’s firepower alone was enough to put a serious dent in their numbers. But it was definitely a large enough force to hurt us badly, and we couldn’t afford to lose anyone, not if we wanted to beat the mall horde.

  “I think I need to try diplomacy again,” I said.

  “Like you did with Turner just now?” Kara quipped, grinning.

  “I said I didn’t want to talk about that,” I growled, chuckling anyway. “But no, I was figuring I’d be a little more polite.”

  “Be careful.”

  “No promises!” I said. Then I took off, flying toward the avians.

  They stopped as soon as they saw me flying up to meet them. I guess the Guard didn’t have too many flying humans, or something, because they looked startled. I halted my approach just inside Sue’s firing range. If they came at me, Sue would be able to blast them out of the sky.

  We were just at the edge of speaking distance, so I had to raise my voice a little bit to call out to them. I opened my arms, palms up, showing they were empty. No idea if that meant anything to them or not, but I had to try.

  “We’re passing through. We are not coming to harm you.”

  The avians looked angry. They didn’t form ranks like human warriors might have, instead buzzing around the sky in little circles and swirls. They looked like a flock of birds, with all the semi-random movement you’d see from a group of agitated gulls or pigeons.

  Then I spotted a familiar face, or I was fairly sure he was, anyway. An avian flew to the front of their ranks, and I was almost certain it was the same one I’d met when I returned ‘Peeps’ to them. I’d brought their youngling back to them, and if this was the same avian I’d communicated with then, maybe he remembered me?

  I pointed to myself. “Selena.”

  He pointed a feathered hand at his chest and mirrored the motion, then gave a squawk. It sounded like “Rawk.”

  “Rawk?” I said, trying the sound out. He shook his head, so I tried again, and this time my pronunciation must have been a little better, because Rawk bowed his head. I assumed that meant agreement, anyway.

  “We need to face the monsters in the mall,” I told him. He stared at me blankly. My words were clearly not getting through to him. How do I make this work?

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  Pantomime. That would do the trick, maybe. I knew they were smart. We had a language barrier. If I could mime what I was trying to do, that might just work.

  I pointed toward the ground and then descended. Rawk did likewise, landing a short distance from me, two guards on either side of him. I understood his caution; Rawk was tier five, which meant he could sense the tiers of those around him just like I could. He knew I was much stronger than he was. I’d be nervous, too. They held their position, waiting for me to make the next move.

  So I stood there and did my best zombie imitation. Careful not to move toward the avians—I didn’t want them to grow alarmed—I stepped into a staggering walk, making growling noises, arms outstretched in what I’d come to see as ‘typical zombie style.’ Then I drew my sword and mimed killing the zombie.

  It wasn’t the best acting job, but it was the best I could do with what I had. I sheathed the sword again, and turned back to Rawk. “The zombies,” I repeated the ‘zombie mode’ mimicry again, “They need to be stopped. We’re going after them. We’re not here to fight your people. We want to make this place safe from the undead.”

  “Fight,” Rawk said. It wasn’t perfect English, but it was darned close, and easy enough to understand. Of course the first word of human language they learned was ‘fight.’ Damn Turner all to hell, anyway.

  I shook my head and pointed at myself, then at him. “Human and avian no fight.”

  Then I mimed zombies again, stopped, and said “We fight zombies.”

  Rawk turned and conferred with his fellows for a few moments. I had absolutely no idea what they were saying to one another, but it appeared to be a spirited debate. I glanced back toward the base, but there was no sign of anyone coming out to meet us. That was probably a good thing, if I was being honest. The only thing Guard forces would do if they showed up was torpedo any chance of a peaceful passage.

  Rawk turned back toward me, animated and interested again. He seemed almost excited about something, and said a bunch of complex avian sounds, none of which I understood. I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  He looked frustrated at that, and I couldn’t blame him. The language barrier was hell. It was more obvious to me than ever that the avians, like the ratkin, were intelligent beings that we could reason with and potentially work alongside, if only we could learn to communicate with one another.

  Rawk pointed at himself, then said that one word again: “Fight.”

  Then he pointed, but not at me, and not at the Guard base. Instead, his hand was aimed southwest—directly toward the mall.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “You want to fight with us? You want to kill the zombies?” I made the zombie motions again.

  He nodded.

  Holy crap, this was actually working! He wanted to send troops along with us? I wasn’t going to say no to that. I mean, it would be a pain in the ass not being able to communicate with them on the battlefield, but any advantage was worth having in the fight ahead of us.

  “We welcome you,” I said, nodding firmly. Then I pointed to myself with one hand, to Rawk with the other hand, and then clasped my hands firmly together.

  Rawk nodded and took a few steps toward me. I felt my troops behind me bristle at his approach, but I waved them back with one hand, and he kept coming until we stood face to face.

  The bird-man was taller than me, broad-shouldered, and covered with feathers and light armor. His head was that of a bird, set atop a humanoid body with massive wings. The lower legs were clawed, like a bird. Really, the magic which had changed regular birds into these incredible beings had done amazing work. The smell was funny, not something I’d smelled before, but reminiscent of clean feather bedding.

  Rawk reached out a hand toward me, like he was offering it to shake. He must have seen humans doing this to one another and gleaned the meaning of it. They’d been watching Turner’s camp for a week now, so they’d had plenty of time to learn a lot about humans.

  I reached out and took his hand, shaking it firmly. “Allies,” I said.

  “Allies,” Rawk squawked back. More or less, anyway—it wasn’t perfect, but I got the idea. Rawk probably had no concept of what that word meant, but…baby steps. We had a long way to go if we were going to get true human and avian cooperation going. This was one hell of a start, though! And it was precisely what we needed if we wanted to have a serious chance of taking down the mall monsters.

  Rawk turned away from me, crying out orders to his people. Most of them flew away, unfortunately. I understood why. Turner’s base represented a deadly threat to their people, and so long as those two camps were fighting, neither of them could afford to send too many troops far from home.

  He kept himself and a dozen avian warriors, each tier three, though. It was a sizable addition to our force. Each of those fighters looked ready to kick some ass, armed to the teeth and armored as well.

  I lifted off from the ground, flying back to Sue and landed atop her. Then I drew my sword. I stood tall atop the dinosaur so everyone could see me, sword high in the air, and called out.

  “The avians are joining us—more warriors against our common enemy! With more fighters, we have an even better chance of ending this threat for good. Let’s move out! We still have a good way to travel, and we want plenty of daylight for this battle. The enemy hates the day, so let’s use that to our advantage.

  “All of us have friends nearby, and many have family, too. If the zombie horde isn’t stopped, it will take over everything nearby. It’ll kill everyone inside the base, turn all of them into zombies, adding them to the horde. We stop this here, today. Together, we end this threat to our home. Together—because look at us, friends!

  “Humans. Ratkin. Avians. No one has ever made an alliance like this happen before. Together, we can be far stronger than any of us are alone, and together, we will face whatever is waiting inside that mall and finish it off.”

  Okay, it wasn’t the best speech ever made, but apparently I did it well enough. The humans cheered right away, the ratkin joining in enthusiastically a moment later. Even the avian contingent raised their weapons in the air and gave loud battle cries.

  I had my army.

  Now it was time to put it to use.