The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 26

Part 5

“And they’re damned hard to kill. If you cut off one of their limbs, or even two or three, it won’t kill them, and they’ll probably be back in the battle in two or three days. Assuming that one of their own doesn’t take advantage of their weakness to kill them and eat them. You pretty much have to destroy their heads, or more than half of their torsos, in order to kill them. They breed like flies, and they give birth by vomiting up a few hundred tiny demons about five centimeters tall, all of whom are battle-ready a moment after birth. They double in size every three months when well fed, and they can change the shape and configuration of their bodies as they’re growing. They can add extra limbs, tails, wings, spikes, horns, whatever they want.

“I mean, I knew a lot of this already, from what Somonik said at the beginning of the War of The Founding. And we just read about it a couple of months ago. But knowing it is a lot different from seeing it, hearing it, feeling it like you were there. I don’t know how our babies haven’t been completely traumatized by this. It just amazes me. Fifty-four years of the demon war, every experience of it, taken in a blink.

“I’m so worried about them now, but I don’t know what to do about it, or even if we should do anything about it.

“And beyond that, I’m worried for us all. I think we’re not taking the threat of the demons seriously enough. But I’m not sure if there’s anything we can do about it. I don’t know that it’ll really help things if everyone knows in advance how horrible the demons really are. Many are having a hard enough time dealing with their fear as it is.”

“No doubt that was Quewanak’s thinking.” Talia mused. “And Povon and Kragorram’s as well, since they have the memory too. Quewanak’s training pushes us pretty hard. He could make it harder, and we could improve faster, but then it would start to detract from people’s ability to enjoy their lives between training. That in turn might slow our progress.

“We have the time to train in the healthiest manner possible. It would be different if we had less time. If we had to fight the demons in six months it would be worth it to hurry and intensify the training. But we can’t sustain that level of intensity for twenty four-years.

“On the other hand, the simulations of demons that we face in the training should be just as dangerous as real demons. If we have to face less of them in the exercises in order for any of us to survive the battle, then we’ll just have to do that. They just don’t have to be as horrible as real demons, not yet anyway.

“Tell me; when we faced the demons in Quewanak’s training dream, do you think they were the same as in Somonik’s memory of them?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Huh. I haven’t thought about that training since before you got pregnant. It’s like a dream that keeps fading with time. We didn’t face demons until the last part of the training, and by then I was pretty emotionally numb from it all, and they were just distractions from the task of beating Zarkog anyway. But yah, now that I think about it, they were pretty much the same, they were just as poisonous and tough and horrible in the training dream as they are in Somonik’s memory.”

“Good. I remember Quewanak’s training well enough to know that those demons were bad enough. I haven’t thought about it enough recently to compare it to the training exercises we’re doing now though. I spend most of the exercises thinking about how well the others are doing.

“And they’re doing well, considering how inexperienced most of them are. Quewanak allows us enough victories that the exercises are… Well not fun, as I was going to say. But with the joy and triumph and celebration that comes from the occasional victory, I think it’s an enjoyable experience overall.

“I’m still worried that we may be forming bad habits that will lead us to underestimate the enemy.

“Quewanak, what are your thoughts on this?” she asked of the thin air, knowing the dragon god’s vast awareness would insure she was heard.

“You’re correct in assuming that I designed this community’s training with equal consideration for their emotional health and for their combat capabilities.” He psionicly answered. “And you’re correct in thinking that this training program has been designed to advance steadily in difficulty over the full twenty-four year span of our time here.