Guardians Inc.:Thundersword (Guardians Incorporated #2) (41 page)

Thomas sighed. They really couldn't do anything more about the “rogue” until they rejoined the time frame, but they could still do something about someone else.

“Bolswaithe,” Thomas asked. “Where is Tony?”

“He's on assignment.”

“So you've told me already.”

“So you already know.”

Thomas pressed on. “I want to know exactly where he is and what he's doing, Bolswaithe. I will find out with or without you. I’ll leave you here and not come back for you even if I find out where he is.”

“Thomas...” Bolswaithe said.

“You know I'll do it.”

“He's in Africa, in the Congo at the base of Mount Nyiragongo,” Bolswaithe finally gave in.

“What is he doing there?”

“He's about to go into battle against a faun army of the African Clans,” Bolswaithe said. “He's one of the leaders of our army,” he continued. “We apparently are going to war.”

A battle, armies, war?
It seemed Thomas’s absence had created more than just a ripple in the company. “What is going on, Bolswaithe? Tell me everything! What is this battle about?”

An image displayed on the wristpadd, and Thomas immediately recognized the elegant curved horns of the faun in the picture.

“It is about Mar-Safi,” Bolswaithe said.

Battleground

“Mneme has not returned to the Halls of Remembrance since your encounter with her.” Bolswaithe had been telling Thomas all the relevant details that led to Mount Nyiragongo since he had left. “It has been one of the pressing issues that led to the Clans’ secession from the League of Nations.”

“You've told me that already.” Thomas took a dirt road up toward the battlefield. The gate to the Guardians’ outpost was active and open. Watchmen and Fire Teams had set up a Command center at the base of the volcano and were setting up both a supply line and a trench as he walked among them. “And I understand how the Clans could be angry at me because of that, but what does Mar-Safi have to do with this war?”

“Relations were tense already, and Mar-Safi was hijacked yesterday from the Leyeeta Clan lands by humans.”

“Leyeeta?”

“Hyenas,” Bolswaithe said. “They are one of the strongest African clans and have many settlements. Mar-Safi was living in one close to the Sahara when a group of armed humans attacked and killed many of the Leyeeta as they kidnapped Mar-Safi.”

“And the Clans think it was us who hijacked her?”

“Hoormel Kian is sure it was us,” Bolswaithe said. “He's actually named himself as an envoy to find a 'diplomatic solution' between the Clans and Guardians Inc. He was beginning a speech when we received intel that Mar-Safi was inside Mount Nyiragongo, and satellites confirmed that she's inside the volcano’s caldera by the lava lake. We sent a team in; the fauns were coming too. There were hostilities between the two and soon Mar- Safi was forgotten by both teams trying to rescue her.”

“That's stupid!” Thomas said, leaving the camp behind. He knew that Tony was surely in the front lines.

“It is a sign of how desperate things have become since you left,” Bolswaithe said. “Both the Guardians and the African Clans had already been preparing for combat since the Clans seceded, and their immediate build up around Mount Nyragongo only proved that they had been ready to wage war.

Thomas’s intrusion in the Halls of Remembrance had been the first in a chain of events that led to this. He vowed that he'd do whatever necessary to end this useless fight.

“Stop, Thomas,” Bolswaithe voice became shrill until only beeping sounds came from the wristpadd.

“I can't hear what you're saying,” Thomas said.

“You've decelerated almost twenty-three percent in the last minute,” Bolswaithe told him. “Hold on, I'm compensating.”

Thomas stopped for a second. He hadn't felt the change in speed as things were still frozen around him.

Ratatosk peered into the wristpadd.

“I can see you,” Bolswaithe said. “You're still moving incredibly fast, but you're at the uppermost limits of my camera. If you hold still I can make out your features.”

“How long until we return to normal time?” The last time Thomas asked Bolswaithe had given him almost thirty-six hours. 

“At the present rate,” Bolswaithe calculated, “about twelve of your hours.”

“Can you tell us where we are?” Thomas turned the wristpadd toward the mountain, and a plume of smoke rose from the top of the volcano.

“We are almost to the frontlines.” A red laser beam came out from the wristpadd and pointed toward a line in the trees. “You'll find Tony in that direction.”

Thomas quickened his pace as he went into the bushes. He passed Guardian Fire Teams and Watchmen. The soldiers were pointing rifles toward the trees above them.

“The attack has begun,” Bolswaithe said. “The Fauns prepared an ambush. Follow that trail.”

The Guardians were getting ready to repel attackers. Thomas could see fear in some of their faces as he passed.

Then he found Tony at the front.

It was like pausing an action movie in the most intense scene. Tony was yelling, his two swords in hand and ready to receive an enemy that was ready to kill him. Thomas knew the faun that had jumped over Tony, frozen in mid-air. He had met him in the Halls of Remembrance.

It was Chief Gratsat.

The gorilla had jumped over Tony from a boulder, and his arms were raised and locked over a huge, wooden mace, ready and aimed at Tony, his mouth open in a fierce yell, his large canines bared in a snarl.

Tony had braced himself and placed his swords in front of him, aimed at the gorilla’s chest.

“Looks like both of them will be killed,” Ratatosk said as he jumped over Tony and checked the angle of the swords. Gratsat was going to be impaled by the swords, but his weight would surely kill Tony too. “The two generals killed by each other in the first seconds of the battle... Very poetic.”

“Very stupid you mean.” Thomas dropped his backpack and walked over to Tony. “If anyone can stop this madness it’s these two.”

“I don't think that will be an option after time resumes,” Bolswaithe said. “Gratsat will surely die, and Tony's chances of survival are slim at best.”

“Why aren't Henri and his brothers here?” Thomas hadn't seen any of the Grotesques in the frontlines or the camp, and their muscles would have been useful in a battle with these fauns.

“It was still a rescue operation until three minutes ago,” Bolswaithe told him. “You know what most fauns think about Henri and his brothers. We didn't want to provoke them further by bringing them.”

Thomas scanned the area in horror. Fauns were ready to spring a trap on the Guardians surrounding Tony. Once time restarted it would end up in a massacre.

“We need to rescue Mar-Safi,” Thomas said. “She's the main reason for this. If the fauns see her safe and sound this will stop.”

“That would have been the best option before you slowed down,” Bolswaithe chimed in. “But it is a five- to six-hour climb and then another two to reach Mar-Safi inside the caldera. Even if you could somehow carry her back, it would be too late.”

“And if I don’t save her, doing anything here will just postpone the war.”

Ratatosk jumped from Tony and perched himself above the gorilla’s head. “I’d say that the Norns really chose well where to place you,” he said, touching the gorilla’s fangs with a finger.

The Norns!
Thomas hadn’t made this connection with the Norns, but he had rescued his grandfather already, and he had slowed down as soon as he reached the battleground. If he had kept in the previous rate of deceleration he would have had more than a day to move everyone out from harm’s way and save Mar-Safi, but now he only had the exact amount of time to either save the armies or save Mar-Safi.

“There must be another way. The Norns wouldn't put me in a losing position,” Thomas said.

“Of course they would!” Ratatosk jumped back on top of Tony’s shoulder. “What would be the point of placing you here if you were predestined to succeed? They are creatures of destiny, but they don’t assign that destiny. They see possibilities and then watch it as it unfolds.”

“So they placed me in a point of time where I can change things?”

“Or let them unfold,” Ratatosk told him. “Destiny is the result of the choices we make.”

“Thomas,” Bolswaithe said, “you have a chance to change this outcome. You can move Tony away and set him up in a way to defeat Chief Gratsat.”

Thomas had already thought about it, and it would be easy to move Tony to the safety of the camp, but what then? Once Gratsat recovered he would attack again and the Guardians would still engage the fauns in combat.

He couldn't move all the soldiers and save Mar-Safi in nine hours, but he could give the Guardians the advantage. He could trip the fauns, push them on the ground or tie their feet, which would give the Guardians enough time to react.

And kill them all.

Thomas couldn't do that. “I can't set the fauns to be killed,” he said. “And I can't just leave them like this.”

“But you can change the course of the battle,” Ratatosk said.

“Yes, I can.” Thomas sat down to think by Tony's side. “But then the fauns will be massacred.”

It was a no win situation—do nothing and both sides would tear each other to pieces; help the Guardians, and all that Hoormel Kian had said about the Guardians would be vindicated. There would be war, not only with the African Clans, but with all Fauns.

“You can also tip your king,” Bolswaithe said after a minute or so.

“What?” 

“As in chess,” Bolswaithe explained. “Tip your king, resign from the battle. Concede defeat.”

When Thomas didn't answer Bolswaithe added, “The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities... It is best to win without fighting. That's from the
Art of War.
”

“Surrender. Okay, I like that. How am I supposed to do that?” 

“Take Tony's and all other Guardians’ weapons away.”

“Are you nuts?” Thomas yelled as he looked around. The Guardians’ weapons were the only thing that could balance the fight against the fauns.

“If you take the Chief's mace,” Bolswaithe said, “he's still very able to kill Tony with his bare hands, and the same applies to all other fauns. Humans, on the other hand, don't stand a chance against them unarmed. They'll have to surrender.”

“And what happens if the fauns don't accept their surrender?” Thomas asked. “What if I leave them defenseless and they are all killed?”

“Then the burden of killing unarmed, defenseless humans falls into the Fauns’ laps. The other Clans will condemn them and an even greater conflict can be averted,” Bolswaithe said. “The reverse outcome is surely a war with all Clans.”

Thomas rubbed his temples, thinking over the solution Bolswaithe had given him. “I don't think I can decide this on my own,” he said. “I'd be sacrificing these men and women.”

“For a greater good, yes,” Bolswaithe said. “There are greater things at stake here, Thomas, and right now you're the only one who can shape what will come next.”

Thomas looked at Ratatosk. “I won't say a thing,” the squirrel told him. “It's your decision.”

Thomas took a deep breath; he had to think about the best course of action not only for Tony, or for the Guardians, but for the world at large. He imagined that these kind of decisions had been made by many kings and generals in the past—send an army on a suicide mission, order the invasion of Normandy knowing fully well that almost half of those men would not return from those beaches. It was the “Weight of Command,” Killjoy had told them in one of her martial classes. The accountability that fell on the leader for all the actions of his subordinates and the power and responsibility the leader had to sacrifice whatever necessary to assure the good of the many. Send in a messenger with a peace offering knowing that the enemy would kill him, or order a repair crew into a nuclear reactor to stop a meltdown in progress in order to save a submarine.

Sacrifice Guardian Watchmen and Fire Team members….and Tony to avert a war.

It was unfair that this decision had been placed on his shoulders; all those kings and generals had had the training and experience to make them.

Who was he?

A kid playing hero? The Cypher that would give Technology supremacy over Magic? Or the one that Fauns and humans had been waiting for, the one that would unite the Clans and humanity and at the same time bring peace for at least five hundred years?

Damn the Norns!

After a couple of minutes in silence, Thomas moved Tony away from the arc of Gratsat’s blow. Then he took his swords and gun away and hid them behind a tree.

“I'm sorry,” he told Tony's frozen face before moving toward the next Guardian. He had to believe that Chief Gratsat would do the honorable thing and not kill his friend, because deep inside, he knew that Bolswaithe was right. And even if all the Guardians and Tony died that day it would be better for the future of the world to avert a war with the Clans.

He wondered if it had been any easier for those kings and generals.

Decisions

Thomas had left the Guardians defenseless at the mercy of the fauns, hoping that the fauns would be more humanitarian than the Guardian humans. He had counted them—sixty-three Guardians had gone to rescue Mar-Safi, and seventeen of those were women.

Following Bolswaithe’s advice, he had not only taken the Guardians’ weapons away, but he had used their own plastic handcuffs to tie up their hands and feet. That way there would be no claim from the Fauns about acting in self-defense should they harm anyone.

Thomas thought that if he was going to betray them, why not do it all the way?

He had left Tony sitting by a boulder, as bound as the others, and hopefully away from any immediate danger.

Hope was all he had left.

It had taken him an hour and a half.

“About seven hours to climb up and down the caldera,” Bolswaithe said. “At this time rate I can access our surveillance information of the lava lake and the location of Mar-Safi.” Bolswaithe had displayed many photos of the volcano. From the ground it looked like a flat top mountain, but from the air it was like an inverted cone, the crater walls diving inside and a churning lake of lava lying at the center. Thomas would first have to climb up the mountain and then climb down into the caldera.