Excavations and Enlightenment (A sequel to "Caveats and Cliches")

Chapter 16: Of Course, You Know, This Means War

The sun slowly rises on our forlorn group. Ever so slightly, I turn toward Sarah with eyebrow raised.

"Don't say I told you so." She sighs without looking at me.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!" Toby bellows in frustration, making all of us flinch. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Go after them, of course." Sarah says casually, as if she were suggesting that we go for a walk in the park.

"What?" Toby rasps irritably.

Sarah pays him no mind and looks at me. "We should track them, right? Find out where their camp is?"

I can't help but smile. I signal the knights, who are still in the forest, and they converged on our location. We strike out immediately, carefully following the subtle traces left by the bandits. It takes just a little over an hour to find what we are looking for. Nestled behind two stony peaks forming a natural barrier, lies the camp of the enemy. We crouch on a ridge under low cover, watching through Sarah's binoculars. The camp is unremarkable, but well equipped. I count twenty two people, and all of them seem to be warriors. Satisfied, I signal to the others and we quietly climb back down to the knights. I instruct them to stay in the area and keep the rival camp under observation while we work our way back to our own camp. We keep quiet as we travel in case there is anyone watching, but as soon as we get back to camp, I tell them what I saw. Toby and Easton look pale, but Sarah doesn't seem the least bit perturbed.

"Hmmmm, we will have to transition back first, round up the troops, and then make a battle plan..."

I nearly laugh, it's out of character for Sarah to be strategizing, especially when it comes to combat, but I'm enjoying her new devil may care attitude too much to question it.

Toby scoffs. "You can't be serious."

Ignoring her brother, Sarah looks down disapprovingly at her clothing. "I'll need to change into something more combat worthy. Do you think you can accommodate me, My Dear? Or should I have another look through the wardrobe Myles procured for me?"

Her teasing doesn't work. The idea of going on a mission with Sarah is too appealing for me to be distracted. I run a hand slowly down her arm.

"Oh, I'm sure I can come up with something...appropriate."

"If you two are done playing Mr. and Mrs. Smith, perhaps you could explain to the rest of us your insane plan to go after them!" Toby barks at us.

Sarah turns, calmly regarding her brother's agitation. "What's to explain? We take the excavator goblins home and trade them for soldiers, come back and attack the enemy camp, then reclaim the staff, simple as that."

Toby pulls a hand down his face then points angrily in the direction of the other camp.

"Sarah! The staff was stolen from us by literal ninjas, and you think we can just run up into their camp and get it back?

"Relax, Toby. Jareth has experience with this kind of thing. He has led the goblins into battle before."

Toby throws his hands up in exasperation. "That's supposed to make me feel better? It's still the four of us and a squad of oompa lumpas against the 47 Ronin!"

"Worked in the battle of Endor." Sarah says unconcernedly.

Toby turns an impassioned shade of red and looks like he's about to launch into another arguement when Easton suddenly speaks up.

"I agree with her. I think we should attack."

We all turn our attention on my brother.

"I just called Pema's abductor. I told him we had his prize. If we show up without it, Pema is the one who will pay. There's no way I'm going to give up without a fight."

Toby's arguements die in his throat.  For a few breaths, he seems to silently struggle with himself; then he turns in my direction.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but what do we need to do?"

Though the plan Sarah laid out was greatly oversimplified; we begin with what she suggested. We get the majority of our current crew transitioned safely home and bring back a small army. The community tent is replaced by temporary barracks. The excavation camp becomes a military camp. The knights check in at regular intervals, keeping us updated on the goings on of the enemy camp. They report surprisingly little. I would have expected our adversaries to pack up and strike out before the day is over, but they have made no move to break camp. This information unsettles me- it's a strategic mistake. There's no reason for them to stay now that they have relieved us of our artifact. They are either overconfident or there is something else going on here that I don't understand yet. I hope it is simply the former; I don't like the idea of going into battle without knowing all the variables.

My officers set up a small tent with a high table for war council, and I spend most of the day there making battle plans. Sarah comes in as evening descends. She makes a show of looking over the notes and sketches I've made on the enemy camp and asking if there have been any recent developments, but I know why she's really here. I skipped lunch, and now she's concerned I'm working too hard. She'll never admit it, of course, just like I'll never admit how touched I am by her concern. I let her linger over the paperwork for a bit, then suggest we go to dinner. We meet up with Easton and Toby by the fire and begin discussing methods of attacking, infiltrating, or otherwise obtaining the staff from the enemy camp. Unfortunately, we come up with more problems than solutions.

"We need to know exactly where they are keeping the staff."

"That's not going to be easy. Their camp is well defended and partially surrounded by mountains. I doubt a reconnaissance mission would go undetected."

"But if we attack without knowing where our objective lies, they will have the upper hand."

"They are going to have the upper hand anyway. Look how they were able to infiltrate our camp, taking the staff right out of my hands! If Jareth hadn't sounded the alarm, we never would have known what happened."

"And even caught off guard, their organization and stealth allowed them to escape from us. We won't be able to out sneak them."

Toby looks at the ground, discouraged. Sarah stares at the fire, searching for plausible solutions. Easton paces, pulling at his hair. Frustrated, he kicks at one of the provision baskets, spilling out toiletries, and huffs,

"How can we do it? How do you fight coordinated shadows?"

"You turn on the lights." Sarah muses with a dry smile.

Hmmmm...

"That's not a bad idea." I say, the whisper of a plan beginning to take shape in my mind. Slowly, I get up from my seat and walk over to the contents spilled from the basket.

Easton stills, following my movements with his eyes.

"From what we've seen, stealth and structure are their greatest weapons. So we take those away from them. We expose them, make it impossible for them to hide, remove their camouflage..." I trail off, running through options in my head.

"And then?" Toby prods.

"And then," I stoop to pick up a roll of toilet tissue. "We introduce them to a little goblin kingdom chaos."

Our camp is busy late into the night.  The four of us in the counsel tent carefully paint layers onto our outrageous battle plan. Sarah, Easton, and I can't help but snicker at the absurdity that we are preparing to unleash on our adversaries; but Toby is not having it. The more our plan comes together, the more surly and argumentative he gets, finally stomping off to bed like a petulant child.

"I don't know what is wrong with him!" Sarah grumbles as we watch him go.

"He isn't used to this like we are."

Sarah and I turn to Easton in surprise. I doubt either of us considered it before, but he's right. Toby doesn't remember his time in the Labyrinth, he wasn't with Sarah and I when we had to rescue Easton from Myles, and apparently this is his first camping experience. I suppose I can see how being robbed by ninjas and then listening to our, shall we say, unorthodox approach to combatting them could push him a bit too far.

Sarah sighs, "He will be fine tomorrow, he just needs some rest. In fact, I think we've got this plan nailed down well enough. We should all get some sleep."