BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan (36 page)

As soon as this general’s eyes lay upon the
command tent, he saw that Stormea was comfortably sitting in a
plush chair on only two legs, just next to the closed tent flaps.
He appeared to be quite dazed.

When he had halved the distance to the
command tent about a minute later, however, he observed that
Stormea’s eyes had crystallized upon spotting him through the
throngs of other soldiers already working, or just getting out of
their tents.

Upon having arrived in front of his
commanding officer, another minute later, he stopped in his tracks
and threw a sharp salute.

Still leaning back in his chair, Stormea
lightly returned the salute. After releasing, he said in just above
a whisper, “Good morning, Major-General—just so you know, I’m going
to be the one personally waking Ruling-General Humonus and King
Cheo up, in one hour. I think that our leaders will need that
little extra bit of rest, especially for what lies ahead. Why don’t
you just give me that report, so you can go to bed?”

Ray replied just as quietly, “Sounds like a
wise idea, sir. Would you like us to take a walk somewhere else for
me to deliver my report?”

After rising to his feet, Stormea replied,
“Wise idea, Ray—let’s go. I need the exercise anyway.”

As the two men began to mosey their way
through the camp, Ray delivered his report, which wasn’t all much
except for a few cases of leeches, and a pair of tigers that had
been sighted near the encampment much earlier in the night. A few
of the soldiers were about to take off into the jungle and hunt the
tigers down for the meat, but thankfully, their superior officers
had ordered them to stay at camp—after all, it could have been a
trap from either the jungle cats, or the gnomes.

Once Ray had completed his report by throwing
up another sharp salute, which salute was equally returned by
Stormea, he headed off to one of the bunk-wagons, and fell fast
asleep.

As for Stormea, he headed back to the command
tent, and sat back in his seat for the next hour. For the first
half hour that passed, he watched as the troops and giants
exhaustedly and quietly ate their dried rations and drank their
water. For the second half hour, he watched as they began the
process of unsetting camp or preparing all of their animals for
departure.

Only minutes before sunrise, Stormea rose to
his feet, entered the command tent, walked over to Humonus’s bunk,
wiggled the man’s toes on his right foot, and quietly said, “Sir?
The time has come to wake up. I took it upon myself to give you an
extra hour of rest, sir, so that you and King Cheo will be able to
function your best. Your food and water is already set for you on
the table, sir, so whenever you’re ready, you can get up…”

A quarter of the way through his words,
Humonus’s mind had slowly begun to return to consciousness. By the
end, he sat up in bed while yawning and stretching his arms out to
the skies.

Seeing that Humonus was now completely awake,
Stormea headed over to Cheo’s bed, and gently wiggled this man’s
toes until he was awake…

Perhaps fifteen minutes later, Cheo and
Humonus—now armored and armed—consumed their small breakfasts
within the command tent; it was then that Stormea relayed the short
report from Ray.

Only seconds after Stormea had finished with
the report, the troops outside began to chatter with excitement
amongst each other about
something going on in the
skies
.

Immediately all three leaders ran outside,
seeing that many of their troops were pointing eastbound—turning to
look, they saw that the entire eastern and southeastern horizons
were covered with very thick, black, smoky clouds!

Perhaps thirty seconds later, Cheo tapped
Humonus on the shoulder until he turned around. He signed, “I
wonder what’s going on over there?”

Humonus answered, “I’m not really sure. Want
me to find out on the hawk, your Majesty?”

Cheo signed, “Actually, may I go and find
out? Today’s my turn, anyway.”

“As you wish,” Humonus respectfully said with
a bow.

Cheo, after an appreciative nod to his head,
made his way over to the stable areas in order to retrieve the hawk
and Darius. Meanwhile, Humonus looked over at Stormea, and said,
“Commanding-General, it looks like our forces are almost ready—in
fifteen minutes, we need to be in formation and ready to
leave.”

“Yes, Ruling General!” Stormea said, just
before he snapped a salute and then departed to carry out his task.
Just then, Yaush and Salami arrived at the command tent.

While cocking his head to the east, Salami
greeted, “Strange looking clouds, eh?”

Humonus nodded his head and answered, “Yes.
King Cheo is going to check it out.”

After interpreting Humonus’s answer to Yaush,
Salami said, “Good. Oh—just to let you know, we’re all ready to go,
whenever you guys are.”

Humonus replied, “We’ll be ready in fifteen
minutes.”

Salami interpreted—Yaush nodded his head.

Salami said to Humonus, “Sounds good to
us.”

These two giants then walked back to the rest
of the loosely congregated giants who were silently standing or
sitting around. As for Humonus, he walked around the camp that was
nearly unset, ensuring that everything would be ready to go at the
scheduled time of departure.

About five minutes later, Cheo and Darius had
just finished strapping the last of the saddle and reins upon the
hawk. They next climbed into the saddle and began to buckle
themselves in, Cheo taking the front seat.

Once so, Cheo pulled back on the reins so
that the hawk would launch straight up into the air, and once they
had risen to one thousand feet in altitude, he veered Leshava
eastbound toward the direction of the dark and smoky clouds.

Over the course of the next forty-five
minutes, Cheo had to evade dozens of large flocks of birds that
were frantically flying to the northwest.

Upon nearing the source of those very clouds,
which had surprisingly spread from the southeastern horizon to the
northeastern horizon, both men couldn’t help but see that there was
a raging fire far ahead in the distance!

As far as their eyes could see, which were
thousands of square miles because they were now at an altitude of
five thousand feet, they could tell that the dried-up jungle
vegetation and trees were quickly burning up in all directions, due
to the lack of rain!

A minute-or-so later, Darius was the first to
broadcast his thoughts, saying, “It would appear that this fire was
intentionally set, your Majesty.”

Cheo turned his head around to look at Darius
before he nodded his head affirmatively twice.

It was only then that Darius observed that
tears were steadfastly pouring from the king’s eyes, but then his
mind immediately reasoned that the reason for this was because his
kingdom was being consumed by fire!

Through the unabashed tears, Cheo pointed at
the three of them with his index finger, and then pointed that
finger toward the direction where their army’s last known
coordinates were.

“Wise idea, your Majesty!”

Cheo sharply tugged the hawk’s reins to the
right, in order to do a U-turn—in response, Leshava began to circle
to the right. Once they were facing the correct direction, he
relaxed the reins, which then caused the hawk to fly forward.

Nearly a half an hour later, now bearing an
altitude of one thousand feet, he spotted their army.

Thirty seconds later, he pulled down hard on
the reins—in response, the hawk collapsed her wings, which caused
the three of them to plummet straight down to the ground.

About fifty feet up in the air, Cheo pulled
back up the reins, and Leshava smoothly landed on the ground thirty
feet in front of the formation, where Humonus currently rode on the
chariot.

Humonus lifted his left-armored fist high up
into the air, while calling out, “Halt!”

After the officers to his right and left
called out “Halt,” they did.

Humonus pulled back on the reins with his
right hand, and the two horses pulling the chariot stopped in their
tracks.

At the same time, even though every last
giant was too far away to hear the vocalized command, they saw the
troops halt, so all but two of them stopped in their tracks. Yaush
and Salami began the walk ahead to the front of the line.

Humonus only had to wait for a little over
three minutes before Yaush, Salami, and Stormea had arrived, as
well as Cheo and Darius.

Once together, Humonus asked with great
concern, “So what’s with the dark clouds that are rapidly coming
from other directions now as well, King Cheo?”

Salami interpreted the question to Yaush.
Once done, Yaush nodded his head, but did not say a word.

Bearing a horrified expression upon his face,
Cheo signed, “Well, where should I begin? Okay—there is a massive
jungle fire ahead of us, which fire is spreading every direction
from the northeast to the southwest! Already, from what Darius and
I’ve seen, it has destroyed a bare minimum of hundreds of thousands
of acres of my home, perhaps even millions! It is coming this
direction and it is way too big to stop…”

At this point, Cheo took a lengthy pause, so
that his words could be interpreted to everyone—meanwhile, a grim
look had begun to cross both Yaush and Stormea’s face during the
course of these interpretations.

By the time that Salami and Humonus had
concluded, Yaush and Stormea’s faces looked pretty much the same as
everyone else’s face—nervous yet thoughtful.

A minute of silence passed before Cheo
clapped his hands two times together, in order to get everyone’s
attention. Once this was so, he then signed, “This fire was most
likely set last night—most likely at the very same time by the dark
gnomes, and perhaps the dragon!

“If we are to avoid the likely possibility
that this fire will be quickly heading this way, we will need to
veer our course northbound. I know of a river that exists to our
north about sixty miles away. Once we have all safely crossed this
river, we should be safe from the dangers of the fire. We can then
continue to travel northeast until we are directly north of
Chao-chu-sha-maen, and then we make our way south if possible.”

After another lengthy pause so that his words
could be interpreted, he added, “Once the fire has been
extinguished, we can then recommence to find and destroy these
villains who are not only guilty of killing my people, but
destroying my land. Sound good?’

Humonus interpreted to Stormea and then
Salami interpreted this information to Yaush.

Once all the interpreting was complete,
everyone remained silent for about ten seconds as they contemplated
all this new information.

Yaush was the first one to speak. Once done,
Salami interpreted, “Yaush said that this plan sounds very good. He
says that we should waste no time in getting there, either!”

“Agreed,” everyone but Cheo said in
unison.

After Humonus had interpreted to Cheo, he
nodded his head.

Humonus added, “One final thing I’d quickly
like to say before we adjourn this meeting and move our forces…
Let’s keep moving and not make camp again until after we’ve crossed
the river—no telling how quickly that fire will get here!”

Salami interpreted, and Yaush nodded with
complete agreement as did everyone else.

Only moments later, they stood up to their
feet and began to exit the command tent. Right away, a dozen
soldiers began the process of packing everything up inside, while
another dozen soldiers began to unset the tent itself.

After the two giants had waved farewell, they
hurriedly walked back over to the location of the other giants in
the rear of the formation, in order to relay the “new news.”

At the same time, Cheo made his way back over
to the hawk, in which Darius had already buckled himself into the
back seat and was holding onto the reins. Once there, he climbed
into the front seat, buckled in, took the reins, and took off into
the air. By this time, Stormea, who had ridden on his horse, waited
in the very middle of the first set of ranks, as was his designated
spot.

Humonus continued to remain where he was,
standing outside the front of the tent, but his eyes never stopped
gazing around at all of his forces to ensure everyone was in place
and ready to go. Other than those soldiers disassembling and
packing everything away, in which they should be done by the time
the last wagon passed, they were nearly ready.

Exactly one minute after the men had exited
the tent, one soldier drove up his ruling-general’s two-horse-drawn
chariot, stopped the chariot in front of the man himself, got out
of the chariot, and saluted.

After returning the salute, Humonus climbed
aboard. The soldier headed back to his wagon.

Through his megaphone in his right hand, he
ordered, “Forces of the Sharia Empire. Forward, ride. Column
half-left, ride.”

They did.

Once Humonus saw this was so, a minute later,
he then called out, “Column half-left, ride.”

The army did, now traveling north.

Without making camp once, and with only two
half-hour-long breaks, due to the threat of the fire that was fast
coming their way and spreading quickly, they arrived at the river
the following hot-and-steamy afternoon!

The utterly exhausted army, their horses, and
the just-as-exhausted giants—finally began to cross the juncture at
the river that flowed from the northeast to the southwest … it used
to be rapids. Now it was only halfway filled—looking shallow, weak
and calm.

Only once on the far side did Humonus deliver
the order to make camp, eat dinner, collect as much water as
possible, and then rest. All slept obliviously, except for the
night-guards who had been given plenty of time to rest during the
trip.