Chapter 7

We spent more time preparing for out first major expedition than I had expected. Oh, it was obvious that we needed more practice in acting in concert as squads and as full units. For one thing, we now had enough people to call ourselves a Company, and we needed to get divided into platoons. The problem with all of this was that everybody was just too jacked up on finally getting back at the demons, so there was a lot of resistance to any sort of delay. It looked to me like we would need something more than our easy victories to convince people that we were not as good as they imagined us to be.

About the only thing that the troops agreed upon as a delay was that everybody wanted the bracers made from steel cable. I think a part of it was that it somehow looked kind of sexy, but it gave the people an added feeling of protection. The Water of Life had given them all of the protection they were going to need, but the bracers added a bit of emphasis to their feelings. I didn’t care what was the reason as long as the people would put in the effort to learn to fight as a group. I was able to get in another week of practice while we found the necessary steel cable and got everybody fitted with the bracers.

During this time, I also started work with the Rattle Snakes to turn them into the shock troops that would be important later. For one thing, they would be the first ones issued the missile weapons when that was worked out. I was already looking for woodworkers to start work on the crossbows. There were so many details involved in that project that I could not imagine when we would finally have them available.

Well, we were finally ready to attack the Pit. We had more than enough carts and wagons to carry everything we needed. Not needing food or water was the greatest boon, and that cut down so much on our baggage train that it was almost unbelievable. Mostly, the carts carried the extra weapons and the bottles of Water of Life.

All of these carts were small so that one person could pull one. That made it easy to divide up the labor, and no one had to pull a cart more than an hour. We had a couple of empty carts with us as ambulances if and when they were needed. Everybody was sure that they were just there for show and not really needed, but I wanted the backup on a just-in-case basis.

The pit was only about 30 miles away, and that was a one-day trip for us. Naomi and her scouts ranged ahead and around us to keep us from being surprised by any demons, but they did not seem to care one way or another about us. No humans had ever voluntarily approached a Pit, so they did not associate us with that. There was no question that we were seen, but we were ignored. Well, I was happy for all of that we could get.

We stopped about three miles from the site of the Pit to spend the night and to get ready for the coming battle. Guards were posted, and the only thing that bothered them were a few Grampits that just could not resist trying to bite a human. None of the Grampits survived. That just added to the confidence of the humans.

There was a festive air about the camp, and the place reeked of sex. How else were humans going to celebrate a great event? By the way, a byproduct of not having to eat or drink was that there was no need for latrines, so that smell and health hazard did not exist.

Naomi and her scouts spent several hours looking over the Pit. It mainly consisted of a large holding pen for the human victims and an amphitheater where the killings took place. Other than that, there were a few storage sheds where items associated with the rituals were stored. Of course, we did not know what these things were actually used for, but we planned to burn them before we left.

Dammit, there was nobody around for us to fight! The big ceremony was still three weeks away, so there were no demons about to be found. It looked like we had to do something to attract their attention. Burning the storage buildings might be what we needed for that. There were four storage buildings, so it looked like we had four sources of bait. Naomi and Bill took a crew out to burn the first building before daylight. It seemed to us that a fire would be more easily seen at night, so that was what we had in mind.

They only burned one building because we might need more than one fire to attract enough demons to make it worth while. The resulting fire was quite spectacular, and we hoped that it was sufficient. It was still burning after sunrise, and there was a tremendous pall of smoke. Some demon should see this and react.

I was beginning to wonder if the only thing an Erglet did was loll around as if stoned or else try to do something painful to a human. It was well after daylight before a demon showed up, and all he did was watch the smoldering fire for a few minutes before wandering off. By this time, it was too late to salvage anything from the ashes, so the demon was right in not overreacting, but any human would have been running around just to find someone else to tell about the fire and the resulting destruction.

We were getting pretty well pissed off at being ignored, and wondered what we had to do to provoke a fight. It was about 2:00 PM when an official of some sort showed up. This was a sedan chair born by eight human males. Inside the sedan chair was a very bloated demon who only vaguely resembled a Erglet. We had no name for this individual because it was the first one any of us had ever seen. It was elaborately costumed, and my first thought was that it looked like a priest. I had no real basis for that impression, but that was the way it struck me.

There were 12 Erglets along as what had to be a ceremonial guard because they did not yet really fear an attack by humans. There were no Grampits around, and we had no reason for that lack. Anyway, the human slaves carefully set the sedan chair on the ground and the “priest,” for lack of a better word, was helped from its seat. It was supported on either side by an Erglet, and looked like it would fall down from its own weight if it did not have the added support of the helpers.

A single walk around the remains of the burned building was enough, and the priest was helped back into its seat in the sedan chair. We had been hiding out of sight of everyone, so it was quite surprising to the demons when two squads of the Rattle Snakes suddenly charged at them. The human slaves were unharmed, but the priest and 11 of the Erglets were killed. The one Erglet was allowed to escape in hope that its report of our attack would bring on some demons for us to fight.

The slaves were gathered up and given the requisite three drops of the Water of Life. They were all in pretty sad condition and grateful for their rescue. Their bodies had been repaired by the Water of Life within an hour, and that was when an effort was made to question them.

They reported that this had indeed been a priest who had been sent to investigate the report of a fire at the Pit. This particular priest was a very low level individual, and he was well known for his cruelty toward humans. He seemed to savor watching humans being skinned alive over a period of two to three days. His favorite victim was a girl just beginning to start menstrual flow. All eight were delighted at its death, but they all wished that it had been possible to drag out the event.

These men had little that they could tell us except that they did know how to find the local temple. Well, we would be sure to visit that place as soon as we finished here, but we still didn’t know why we were being ignored. It looked like we might never find that out.

These eight men were eager recruits into our army, and they were issued their weapons. They were included in the training exercises that were organized while we waited for some reaction from the demons. It was not for another two days that an Erglet was spotted by Christy, one of the scouts, looking us over before disappearing in the general direction of that temple.

In two more days, all of us had run out of patience and we decided to burn down everything associated with the Pit. I just told Jim to arrange to burn all of the structures to the ground and left it to him to organize the operation. Jim turned it into a contest by assigning jobs to each squad or to groups of squads. This turned out to be fun for all, and nothing was left but piles of ashes by the time the fires had all burned out. I never did know who the winner of the contest was, but everybody was happy, so I never mentioned it.