Chapter 7

The attack on Zindar was almost an anticlimax after all of the trouble they had getting there. It rained the first day of the trip. It rained the second day of the trip. It rained the third day of the trip. It rained the fourth day of the trip. Finally, it stopped raining during the night, and they had fine weather for the fifth, and last, day of the trip. It was a good thing that the weather cleared up, or some of the rebels might have decided that the raid on Zindar was not such a good idea, after all. They still had mud to contend with, but they had dryer weather to look forward to, so spirits rose as they got closer to Zindar.

Zindar was an interesting town, and unique to the area. It was mostly a manufacturing community, and the major product was wagons. There were wagons of all sizes and for all purposes. There was everything from 2-wheel carts to a monumental contrivance with 8 wheels designed for very heavy moving. The 2-wheeler required only one draft animal, but the 8-wheeler was able to accept teams of 8 to 24 draft animals. The 8-wheeler with 24 horses or mules was a sight to behold—it stretched for 35 yards and didn't use a single driver, but, rather, a crew of 8 men who rode on the backs of the draft animals and directed them from there. None of the rebels could think of a use for such a wagon and team, but several wanted one, just to have it as a toy!

The town did not have a wall, probably because there wasn't much to steal at Zindar besides the wagons, and it would be difficult to sneak away with even the smallest cart. This was very convenient for the rebels, since they didn't have to infiltrate through one or two gates, but could walk into town from practically any direction. The town did not have a lot of small dwellings, but had several large apartment complexes, instead. The Glax ruler was a real glutton and wanted to keep all sources of emotion, his food, close to him. The apartments were not made for comfort, but for warehousing people in the most efficient manner possible, consistent with keeping them in a constant state of low-level misery.

For example, there was only 1 toilet for the 20-30 people on each floor of the apartment buildings, and it was open to view and smell at all times. There was almost always a waiting line to use it. It was not a flush toilet, but simply an open chute to a central collecting tank for the sewage, and the odor permeated the whole building. Nobody was assigned the job of cleaning the toilets, there was always too much demand for their use to allow time for that sort of thing. Thus, disease was a constant weight on the backs of the residents, but the suffering just added to the enjoyment of the Glaxoi in residence in the town.

This total disregard for the people of the town was one of the reasons that Zindar was chosen to be the target of the first major rebel raid. Not only was it unlikely that the human residents would interfere with the raiders, they might well want to help in the destruction of their tormentors.

The fighting began in mid-morning when the ruler was known to be in his office planning the next day's torment and torture for the humans. The rebels simply marched in and took positions encircling the ruler's house. All of the ceremonial guards were shot on the spot and dragged out of the way.

Aelinor led her troops up the ornate front steps to the main door. It was not locked—who would want to enter without some compelling reason to do so? Several more ceremonial guards were cowering just inside the vestibule; these were shot without hesitation. Anyone wearing the livery of the ruling class was automatically a blood enemy of the rebels. They lived "high on the hog" and abused their fellow humans as a matter of course. Many people hated them more than they did the actual rulers, because the guards and functionaries were the ones in daily contact with the people being tormented.

Aelinor's companions fanned out through the building, looking for enemies to kill. There were none, beyond a few clerks sitting at their desks shuffling paper and trying to look necessary in case one of the bosses should wander in. These people were also shot as a matter of routine; without them, the whole system of oppression would have collapsed of its own dead weight.

Upstairs, the invaders found bedrooms devoted only to sleeping. The human shells occupied by the Glaxoi did not have the usual sexual urges that a human would normally have, so there was no reason to bring women to their beds. They did find a few immature Glaxoi in the process of learning how to use their human bodies, and these were killed with considerable relish. The amulets were invaluable in making it easy to find and destroy the Glaxoi, no matter what body they were hiding in.

While this was going on, Aelinor and two aids had worked their way as far as the ruler's office. All of the pain and other emotions emanating from the dying guards had alerted the Glaxoi in the room to the unusual activity going on outside. However, there was nothing that they could do about it, but recoil in fear, and hope that they would be rescued by their guards.

Purely as a gesture to relieve her own pent up moral indignation, Aelinor threw open the door to the ruler's office and confronted him like an avenging angle. The Glaxoi, even in their human shell, could not feel pain as a human would; the most that they could register was a need to move away from what was causing the damage to the body. Otherwise, Aelinor would have taken great pleasure in slowly dismembering the human shell cowering before her.

However, the Glaxoi could know fear of death. In fact, it was their only substantial fear. Aelinor decided to take advantage of that by killing the Glaxoi in the room in order of lowest to highest status. That was the only way she knew to make the Glaxoi suffer—watching the approach of their certain death. By the time all of his subordinates had been killed, the ruler had been reduced to a gibbering mass of insane fear. Aelinor became disgusted with the whole affair and incinerated the ruler with a blast of fire.

They moved to the cellar and found the treasure room with a minimum of searching. Essentially, it was in the same relative location as had been the first treasure room that they had invaded. Did the Glaxoi have only one floor plan?

Aelinor did not fool around; she cut the door open with her fire weapon. They looked inside and found many, many sacks of money stacked in a haphazard manner around the room. Apparently, this ruler had not been very high on neatness. They dragged the money outside the building, but had to make several trips to do it. They found a sturdy freight wagon and a team of mules in a barn behind the house and used that to carry the money. When finally loaded, a team of 4 mules was required to pull the treasure wagon through the mud of the roadway.

Once the building had been searched for any thing else of value, Aelinor proceeded to burn it to a pile of ashes with her heat/fire weapon.

Strangely, all of the activity around the ruler's house had drawn a crowd that had let its curiosity outweigh its fear. There was a great cheer as the house was burned to the ground in only a few minutes by the force of Aelinor's fire weapon. Cheering could even be heard from the brothel and the jail. Also, strangely, in all of this time, there had been no sign of the ruler's guards who had been expected to rush to his aid.

Finally, though, a detachment of guards was seen to march from their barracks up to the attackers. Many of these men were bleeding and had bandages here and there. The sergeant leading the 17-man detachment broke out a white banner and energetically wave it while shouting, "SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER! DON'T KILL US! WE SURRENDER!" He then signaled his men and they threw down their weapons and fell to their knees, crying and wailing.

Brad was taken aback by this activity, but told his men not to shoot until he had a chance to investigate. He waved for Aelinor to join him, and, together, they walked up to the sergeant. Brad asked, "What's going on? Who are you and why do you want to surrender?"

"We have just fought a battle at the barracks with the guards who were loyal to the ruler. As you can see, we were wounded in the fighting. These men are all conscripts who never wanted to be guards, but were forced into the job by threats made against their families. We want to join you and fight against the rulers."