Richard realized then that all the Glee were very similar in stature. They were all lean, and their skin all looked the same. From the description it certainly seemed like he would have no difficulty at all recognizing the goddess.
Although, he couldn’t imagine how she would look golden in this world. Everything was tinted some shade of red. Only Vika’s red leather outfit looked normal to him. But the rest of her was tinted red. Her blond hair was a rather lovely rose color.
He guessed that maybe the golden color was simply relative to everything else. But finally, with an easy way to recognize the goddess, Richard felt like they at least had one advantage on their side.
“Do you think she will be down there with the others?” Vika asked.
“Oh yes,” Sang said, nodding confidently. “She likes the others to see her among them so they can admire her. Her golden skin color is the envy of all for its exotic appearance. She likes others groveling and seeking her approval, so she is always among them.”
“Besides, she never likes the others to be out of her sight,” Iben said. “She doesn’t easily trust that they will stay loyal.”
Not wanting to waste what darkness there was, preferring to have that on their side along with the element of surprise, Richard finally gestured for them to move out. With Vika beside him, he started out in a crouch, heading down the long slope into the place of the goddess and her followers. He worried about their numbers. When they had attacked back in Richard’s world, there were sometimes large numbers of them, so they were likely to encounter even more of the enemy Glee here.
All the Glee wrapped in water weed followed Richard down the rocky slope. None of them seemed to grasp the concept of sneaking up on an enemy. He urgently signaled for them to crouch down the way he and Vika were doing. They did their best considering the wrap of water weeds but found it awkward.
The Glee they were after were quite familiar with being vicious. Most of the Glee with Richard and Vika apparently had not yet met any of their fellow Glee with such a capacity for brutality. The spy had said that they were coming to kill Sang and all those who weren’t followers of the goddess. This was going to be a savage encounter.
To say that he greatly feared for those with him was an understatement, but this was their world, and this was about their lives and future. Richard couldn’t simply fight this war alone and then hand them their freedom from the Golden Goddess, or others who would eventually spring up from her legions of followers to take her place. Sang and his group had to take part in stopping the threat to their world and way of life.
He hoped that when it came right down to a battle, they would show the same capacity for ferocity as those they were about to face.
62
Richard moved in a low crouch from one thick growth of vegetation to another, relieved that, since they were coming in from an unexpected direction, they had managed to get down close without being spotted. He knew that the closer they could get before they struck, the greater the surprise, the more confusion it would create, and the more effective the attack would be.
Vika was close behind him as he silently slipped through the moon shadows, going from cover to cover. He had told the Glee to stay back a little because he wanted room to draw his sword and fight. If he had the chance, he would rather use his bow to take the goddess down from a distance than engage in close combat with her. He already had an arrow nocked and ready.
He had learned to fight Glee, but he had no idea what her capabilities might be. She was taller than the others, so she very well might be stronger as well. But Richard was also tall, a little taller than the rest of the Glee.
The biggest problem would be their numbers. It would be hard to take out one individual, the goddess, if masses of her followers were charging in all around him. It would be much better if he could simply drop her with an arrow and then they could deal with her followers.
It tended to take the fight out of followers when they saw their leader be the first to fall. If he could, he wanted to dispirit them by killing the goddess first, before he had to fight the rest of them, or before the Glee with him had to engage in battle. He wanted the important part over first. He knew, though, that in battle things rarely went as planned. In such unfamiliar territory, that made the situation even more difficult.
So far, they hadn’t seen any sleeping Glee, but they were still some distance from the areas of water. The ground back where they were was muddy, but Sang and Iben had said that the Glee favored sleeping in the wet water weeds on the banks and often partly in the water.
All of a sudden, there was a loud squeal, and it wasn’t from a Glee.
Richard turned just in time to see something low crash through the thick brush close to him. He heard grunts and high-pitched squeals. When he spun to the sound, he saw several Glee upended, their legs knocked from under them as they were flipped through the air.
He just caught sight of a bunch of piglets scattering through the underbrush in every direction. Almost immediately he saw the sow charging through the brush to protect her young. The sow was bigger than any wild boars he had ever seen. The tusks were enormous, and no doubt lethal. The sow charged at the Glee with Richard. Fortunately, they were all able to dive out of the way just in time.
The piglets’ piercing squeals seemed to be all the louder in the stillness of the night. The sow let out angry snorts as she wheeled and charged the Glee before racing through the dense brush toward the squeals from her young.
The boar was not the problem, though. The squeals and screeches of all the piglets were the problem because the sound pierced the quiet night air.
Richard heard the warning cries of the Glee rising from their sleep, furious at discovering other Glee sneaking up on them in a surprise attack. He saw frightening numbers of the dark shapes rising up everywhere out of the swampy areas and then the shadowy shapes of all the Glee were suddenly racing toward them.
Searching frantically, he finally caught fleeting glimpses of the Golden Goddess as she raced through the dark masses of Glee. Iben had been right. There was no mistaking her. Her long legs carried her faster than any Glee Richard had seen before.
Richard tracked her as he let the first arrow fly. Although the aim was true, it hit another Glee that got in the way of the shot at the last second. She charged ahead without pause, pushing some of them out of her way as she wove through the throng of her followers, clearly infuriated. The same thing happened with the second and then the third arrow as others passed in front of the arrow before it could get to her.
Richard realized that his plan to take her down at a distance with an arrow was not going to work. There were simply too many Glee in the way to have any hope of getting a clear shot and she was closing the distance fast.
As he momentarily lost sight of her, Richard threw his bow to the ground and drew his sword in a rush. The unique sound of the blade that had been touched by the world of the dead rang out across the swamp. That clear, pure sound could easily be heard above the mass of angry howls as it announced the arrival of a lethal rage of its own.
Some of the advancing Glee in the front stopped in their tracks at the sound as those behind kept coming, packing them together even tighter. Maybe some of them had heard that sound before, or heard descriptions of it from returning Glee, or maybe the danger it represented was simply obvious.
Off to Richard’s right, Iben raced out ahead, calling out, bent on urging the Golden Goddess to stop and listen, hoping to stop the battle before it could begin.