Chapter 39: 11.3 Tactics

  Sarah walks out into a clearing that’s approximately eighty feet across and twice as long with a bean shape. Trees surround the area with most of the sloping terrain hidden beyond the treeline. Foliage bends over the perimeter of the clearing, but the center is mostly open sky.

  Jack steps through the portal, and Wolf takes an uneasy, exaggerated step through. Jack looks around the clearing as Wolf narrows his eyes at Sarah.

  “As much as you use those portals,” Wolf begins, “I’d think you’d be able to avoid opening them in unnecessary places like, oh, I don’t know—beyond the edge of a cliff?”

  Sarah crosses her arms. “You have a problem with heights now?” she asks.

  “Now? When have I ever not? Maybe it wasn’t part of your warfighter-prodigy training, but wolves don’t typically have an application for mid-air environments.”

  Sarah squints and brings her fist up to brush across her mouth as she grows distant.

  “Nope—no, just forget I said anything,” Wolf announces, shaking his head. “We don’t have to find me training for that. I’ll just sort out whatever supporting we need from the ground.”

  Sarah nods. “Yeah, I guess that’s fine… for now.”

  Wolf’s widening eyes turn back over to Jack for help.

  “Nope,” Jack says. “That’s why you don’t hear me complaining.”

  “No,” Wolf replies. “You’re not complaining because you’re freakishly calm about everything.”

  “Maybe you’re just overly worrisome. Ever consider that?”

  “Boys,” Sarah interrupts, “I swear, I’m about to get a pair of shock collars and a remote to keep you two focused.”

  Wolf shakes his head. “I don’t know what that is, but it doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience.”

  “It’s not meant to be.”

  “So this is where we’re planning to fight?” Jack asks.

  “Yeah, either this or someplace similar.” She points back to the entrance of the clearing. “The path narrows on each end, and this is the side they would come from. They’d be lucky if they could travel that in rows of three, but there are likely parts that will constrict them even more. We shouldn’t have any problem handling them just three to four at a time.”

  Jack nods. “That makes a heck of a lot more sense than you pointing at their camp and saying we’re going to fight that. This seems more realistic.”

  “Yeah, it’s exactly what Wolf’s swimsuit fighters are doing on the other side of the plateau.”

  “Hey,” Wolf protests. “Why do they have to be my swimsuit fighters? ‘The’ seems perfectly acceptable.”

  “You’re the one that wanted to call them that, so I’m just trying to help you out here. Would you rather I say Greeks, Persians, and Spartans? What about Leonidas, Xerxes, and Ephialtes?”

  “Ok. So how are my swimsuit fighters managing this?”

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  Sarah grins broadly. “They’re fighting in a gap where the larger army has to funnel inward to fight them. Because of this, the larger army’s numbers don’t really mean anything for the fight, and it’s reduced to a skill comparison.”

  “So we’re not really fighting an army,” Jack says. “It’s more of a continuous fight of three verses four or five. But they’re going to trip over their own dead and push us further into the opening.”

  Sarah shakes her head. “We don’t let them do that. I may dump the bodies elsewhere from time to time, but if they pile up and slow down the enemy, I say let them sort it out. If they have to stop and move the dead, that just means we get a breather.”

  “So we’ve got a plan, then. What do we do until then?”

  Sarah turns to look around the clearing. “I don’t think we need to do anything here, so you two work on gathering wood for a fire. Cut down more trees if you have to, just not the ones that constrict the entrance into this clearing.”

  “But I don’t have a way of cutting down trees,” Jack says.

  “Really?” Wolf asks. “Isn’t that what axes are for?”

  Jack reaches up towards his axe handle and rests his hand on his shoulder as if wounded. “I can’t cut trees with this.”

  Sarah pulls her satchel around and reaches in to grab their old ammo bag, then fishes his old axe out of it. “Here,” she says, tossing it over to his feet as she puts everything else back away.

  “I didn’t know you kept this thing,” Jack says, bending to pick it up.

  “Yeah, I grabbed it when I doubled back for our bag—the one you left behind.”

  Jack harrumphs. “It’s not like it was a big deal. All you had to do was open a portal to grab it.”

  “Yeah, from a hilltop full of zombies. I was there, remember? Anyway, it was beside the bag, so I just grabbed them both.”

  Jack nods appreciatively.

  “Ok, so let’s also cut down trees on the outskirts of the mountain path prior to it getting to this clearing. I want to cut off or limit any ability to pass around the point we’re wanting them to come through. The cliffs to each side should be too steep for that to be viable, but I still want to reinforce its difficulty.”

  Sarah reaches into the satchel and fishes out the bandolier of grenades. “I’m about to scout further down the trail, but when I get back—” She tosses the grenades aside and points to them. “—I’m going to set up some discouragement in the treeline for those that attempt circumventing the desired path.”

  “Traps?” Jack asks. “That’s some nasty business.”

  Sarah nods. “Well, we’re not in the business of playing nice. I need to see as much of this stuff working as I can, because I genuinely don’t know what all we’ll need when we start our assault.”

  “I get it. I just wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end.”

  “That’s a good point though, because we don’t know that we won’t. Wherever she’s held up, it’ll definitely have defenses, and traps may be part of that.”

  Sarah puts the grenades back in the satchel and begins opening a few portals on each side of the clearing. “These all lead back to the plateau, so just throw the wood through them. Make sense? Great! Let’s get to it, then.”

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