Chapter 6

Except for no Grampits, this attack was practically identical to the one the day before. After it was over and the celebration had started, I asked Naomi to help me with my test of bronze weapons. I asked her to jab me in my left arm with a trident. She was reluctant, but I finally got her to honor my request. Yes, no matter how hard she jabbed, she could not get the trident to go through my skin. In other words, I was as protected as a demon!

I called a halt to the tests as soon as I had my proof of my hypothesis. I didn’t want any of my people to become convinced that they could not be hurt by a demon’s weapon until I had the chance to do a lot more investigation. Nevertheless, I was going to treat as many of my people as possible with the Water of Life. Specifically, I was going to start out with my special force unit and go from there.

So far, besides Naomi and me, all of the scouts and all of the squad leaders were protected. I had brought a trident back with me, and I demonstrated to each one that he could not be hurt by the demons’ weapons as long as they only used bronze. I also warned them not to talk about this until I had enough Water of Life to protect everybody. The regular troops were going to find out pretty soon, but I was afraid that they would not obey orders if they thought that they were invincible.

I also asked each squad leader to select one person from his squad to receive special training. I said that I was looking for 24 members of this elite squad, so I would need for six squads to provide me with two people. I emphasized that I did not care if these people were men or women; all I was interested in were people who would make good special fighters. The squad leaders talked it over among themselves and decided who could spare two people. Anyway, I left it to them to come up with the 24 people that I needed.

I would wait until our next meeting to tell them that I also wanted three squad leaders for my new unit. I was afraid that the information would only cloud the current issue. Without the 24 new people, I would not need the squad leaders.

We did pick up several more people who wanted to join us, but not as many as I had hoped. Bill said that it was likely that, by now, we had all of the people of Albany who were going to join. If that were true, and I had no reason to doubt him, then we had better concentrate our training efforts on the people we had and not worry about gathering more.

Naomi and her scouts took the new people to the depository to pick up their weapons. When they returned, I asked Naomi to find the needed squad leaders from our “blooded veterans.” I asked Jim, one of the current squad leaders, to become the chief squad leader and to train the new squad leaders. We only had 22 new people, all women, so two of the squads were going to be short a person. Well, I hoped to solve that problem very soon.

The elite group I had in mind would consist of three squads of eight people and three squad leaders who would report directly to me. I already knew who I was going to tap for those squad leader jobs, but I would wait a few days before I mentioned it to them.

It dawned on me that I was fairly close to the place where I landed when I fell out of that hole I was in. Why not visit the place to see what else I might find there? I might even find some more Water of Life. In any case, things were running smoothly here in Albany with the training for the new army, so I was considering leaving Naomi in charge while I revisited that cave to see what else I might find.

I brought up the subject with Naomi, and she hit the fan. “Doug, how dare you even suggest that you would leave me for a few days. Don’t you know how that would make me feel? NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT! If you go anywhere, I am going with you. Jim is perfectly capable of supervising the training while we are gone. Just tell him that you and I will be gone for a few days. I insist on going with you!”

Now, how in the hell was I going to counter that except by making it a firm order that she stay away from me for a few days. I don’t know, maybe the fact that she was correct was the part that hurt the most. I stalled around for a while, but I finally gave in, as both she and I knew that I would. Oh, well, Naomi is no shrew, but she has a way of getting her way when push comes to shove. Okay, I called in Jim and explained the situation to him, and he immediately saw the logic behind it, including the fact that Naomi was going with me.

We set up to leave the next morning, and that was so easy as to be laughable. Each one of us took a blanket and our weapons—that was all that we needed. We set out the moment that there was enough light to follow the road, and we practically ran the whole way. We averaged about 40 MPH, and it took only about two hours to reach the cave.

We stopped and looked around before we approached the cave, and we did see a group of about 20 Erglets and five Grampits in a clearing about 500 yards from the cave. There were enough trees and tall bushes in the area so that we were able to enter the cave without being seen. I simply could not understand how the demons could be so sloppy with security. I guess that they were overwhelmed by arrogance. Oh, well, that just made things easier for us.

We entered the cave expecting to encounter at least one Erglet or Grampit, but we got all the way into the cave without that happening. Where was everybody? Was this a trap? I didn’t think so, but who could figure out what demons would do?

We went deeper into the cave, but, strangely, we did not have any problem seeing where we were going. There were no obvious lights, so what was letting us see where we were going and what we were doing? A whispered conversation with Naomi had us falling back onto the universal answer for everything having to do with the demons: magic. At least we did not have to know why things worked as long as they did in a consistent manner. So far, that was the way things were happening, so we just took advantage of the situation.

We had progressed about 75 feet into the cave and met a cross-tunnel that I did not remember. Of course, I had no idea what was going on at the time, so the fact that I did not remember many details did not faze me all that much. I was carrying my sword in my right hand; I had left my halberd in Albany and was depending on my two sabers for protection. I was using my empty left hand to slide along the wall of the cave to make sure that I did not fall if I tripped over something.

As I came to the opening of the crossing tunnel, I reached forward toward the far side of the opening. For a moment, my arm was extended a bit above waist height. Suddenly something crashed into my extended arm and grabbed me around the shiny bracer on my left wrist and forearm. It had to be a Grampit, and it had grabbed the flashy bright thing in its mouth. Teeth shattered as it bit down, and I reflexively slammed the creature against the cave wall.

That twisted my arm from its mouth and caused my wrist to strike the beast in the throat. That collapsed under the pressure of my wrist wrapped in the steel cable, and I suddenly had a dead Grampit lying at my feet. I grunted in surprise at the attack, and Naomi asked, “Doug, what is it?”

“It appears that I have found the Grampit that was guarding that branch of the tunnel. Don’t trip over it as you follow me. Let’s see what it was supposed to be protecting.”

We walked a few feet into the side tunnel and came to a closed door. The door seemed to be locked, and I could not hear anything on the far side as I leaned my ear against the door. “Honey, the door is locked. I can’t hear anything on the far side of the door so I’m going to try to break in.”