Green Eyes

“There you are,” Selene informed at dusk as she removed her glowing hand from Micaela’s arm. “Should be good as new.”

Micaela flexed her arm, twisting it around to test the range of motion, finding it back to where it was before Jared snapped it like a twig. “Remarkable,” Micaela looked at her arm with awe. “I’ll never cease to be amazed by Navi powers.”

“How are you feeling?” Mara asked Selene. Perspiration beads had broken out on her forehead. After healing Heidi earlier in the day, healing Micaela’s arm, small as it was, was still tiring. Selene was still a little weak despite sleeping for seven or so hours and wolfing down an astonishing amount of bread and cheese and soup.

“I’ll be fine,” she bravely said. Tired as Selene was, once she had been filled in on what had happened, she refused to be left behind. Emmanuelle had become a friend of hers over the last three plus weeks and she’d already lost one friend to the Viceroy. More than that, Selene knew first-hand what being his prisoner was like.

“So here’s what—” Jared began.

“I’m the one who gives the orders around here,” Micaela cut in tensely.

“Shut up, both of you,” Mara quietly but sharply cut off both of them before they could start that again. “Neither of you are in any condition to give orders, especially to each other. You both will do exactly what I say. Got it?”

Micaela and Jared looked at her and blinked. Mara was tired, stressed, and had no desire to deal with their personal issues. A woman was imprisoned by possibly the evilest man in the world so she was going to take charge and make the children play nice. For now.

Mara didn’t wait for them to acknowledge before going on. “We need to figure out where their camp is,” she declared. “They can’t be too far, which is a concern. Do you have a map?”

Micaela nodded and called to one of her aides and sent her for the map. A moment later, the aide reappeared with a roll of parchment that proved to be a map of the Harosheth, remarkably detailed. There was a mark that denoted the Amazon’s Camp location, something that was remarkably close to the Ammonite Road. Mara realized that she hadn’t known where she actually was for nearly a month, which was more than a little disconcerting.

“Knowing typical Kalashonian tactics, they’ll probably use the road as a baseline for operations,” Mara declared, keeping her eyes focused on the map.

“The road?” Micaela cocked her head. “Doesn’t that leave a lot of the Harosheth unsearched?”

“It’s conventional anti-guerrilla tactics, which you qualify as guerrillas,” Mara explained. “Guerilla tactics work by dividing up conventional forces and picking off the individuals or small groups, which is why most guerilla forces use forests or mountains as bases of operations because those naturally divide up armies. To counter that, conventional forces stay in open-field areas because that is where superior numbers, weapons, and training slant things heavily in their favor. You control cities and roads and if guerillas want to hide in the mountains or the trees, they can rot there for all you care. Force them to fight you on your terms; it comes down to another old Kalashonian maxim: he who chooses the field chooses the outcome. Not always true, but generally true.”

“So what are you saying?” Selene asked feeling dizzy as she usually did when Jared or Mara started talking technical.

“Whenever you have to engage an enemy force in mountains or woods, your first objective is to control the road,” Mara explained. “It’s the closest thing you have to an open field and therefore the best battlefield. This is especially true in this case since the Amazons have made their living by raiding caravans. They secure the road and sooner or later, you’ll have to face them on their own terms.” Mara frowned at the map, shaking her sandy brown head. “Irritatingly clever,” she commented more to herself than anyone else. “Once the road is secured, they’ll start pushing to one side of the road or another, setting up relay camps eight hours or so apart. Eventually they’ll run into you and then fight, fall back, fight, fall back all the way back to the road where they’ll suddenly stiffen up and cut you to pieces.”

“Out-guerilla the guerillas,” Micaela remarked.

“Something like that,” Mara nodded. “That’s why they didn’t press after your girls this morning. There’s a bit of psychology here to: guerilla groups are usually very tight-knit collectives. You know, the whole one-for-all, all-for-one, never leave a man—woman,” Mara corrected wryly, “behind thing. They have to. The paramilitary life isn’t easy; the food is often lousy and the pay worse plus you live out in the sticks away from family. So the group becomes your family. Plus leaders don’t have the weight of a government behind them to enforce discipline. They maintain control partially through rhetoric but mostly through convincing their people that they really do put their well-being first.”

“It’s not an act,” Micaela sharply pointed out.

“I’m certain you are genuine, as it often is,” Mara acknowledged with a small smile. “That is an advantage for the other side who wisely view their soldiers as tools instead of people.”

“That’s horrible!” interjected Selene.

“War is horrible, Navi,” Mara chided gently. “I would’ve thought that you would have figured that out by now. A good commander understands that his primary objective is long-term victory and focuses singly on that. Sometimes that means sacrificing soldiers to achieve that objective. If a unit is out of position or some soldiers get left behind on a retreat, a conventional commander can and does leave them behind. If he puts those soldiers well-being over winning the battle, then he has put his entire nation at risk. Unpleasant as it is, much better to cut your losses and move on.

“That is a luxury that guerillas do not have for the previously stated reasons which is factored into anti-guerilla tactics,” Mara elucidated. “This is one of the very few times were prisoners are actually an asset. Paramilitaries will try to rescue them which forces them to come to you and fight them on your terms.”

“So the conclusion to this long soliloquy is that we’re walking into a trap?” Selene summarized.

“Yes and no,” Mara smiled at the younger woman. “Yes, we are walking into a trap they set for us. No because we know it is a trap and when you walk into a trap knowing it is a trap, the trap becomes a trap for the trappers.”

“What?” Selene blinked as she tried to work that one.

“Basically we have the advantage,” Mara clarified. “All the more so because they are expecting all of the Amazons to come down like a bunch of banshees and not a small strike team.”

“That’s what my original plan would’ve been,” Micaela commented.

“Then it’s a good thing we’re here,” Mara returned. “You would’ve been cut to ribbons.”

“Okay then, so what do we actually do?” Selene pushed.

“You really should pay attention to these tactical lessons,” Jared admonished. “You never know when you’ll need them.” Creator help us all if you ever are in that position, he didn’t add.

“The first thing we need to do is find their camp,” Mara ignored her brother. “We know that they’ll be camped near the Ammonite Road,” she ran her finger across the line that denoted the thoroughfare. “And we know that they won’t cross the border here,” she tapped the Ammon-Kalashon borderline. “Your scout team encountered them here,” the former slave pointed to a spot about five miles south and a little west of the camp and pursed her lips, thinking.

“You’re camped awfully close to the road,” Mara observed to Micaela.

“It makes striking the road easier,” Micaela explained.

“It also makes you very vulnerable,” Mara pointed out. “Your greatest asset is the Harosheth; use it. You can set up relay camps all the way down here, here, and here,” she noted several places on the map. “But at the moment that’s irrelevant. We know that the Kalashonians are camped somewhere between here and here,” she drew her finger across a fifteen-mile wide swath of road.”

“That’s a large area to search,” Selene remarked.

“Not necessarily,” Micaela studied the chart. “There’s a spot right here that a lot of caravans like to use as a camp or rest stop,” she indicated a place roughly 13 miles from the camp.

“It’s as good as start as any,” Jared shrugged.

“Agreed,” Mara nodded rolling up the map. “We can make more specific plans once we get there. Selene keep your senses alert for sorcerers. Micaela, can you get us there in the dark?”

“Please,” she snorted. “I could get you there blind and deaf.”

“Then let’s go,” Mara ordered before sternly looking at Micaela and Jared. “You two better behave. Remember someone’s life is on the line here.”

Neither argued with her.

*******