I ran past the bud farm, where squirrels were growing rations for the war effort, and the medical area, where other squirrels helped restore front line combatants who didn’t have enough Love to heal themselves.
“Cheokit!” a voice called, and I caught sight of a squirrel waving me down. I turned in that direction and trotted over.
Like most of the squirrels I had come to know since going through my training and joining the war effort, he had exclusively functional transformations. No cultural embellishments, and no patagia, since at this height, falling from the tree meant a squirrel was almost always doomed to the miasma. Instead, he was growing basic crystal armor to protect his vitals. Battle damage could be healed, but only if a squirrel survived.
My patagia and antler shards spoke of my history from higher up on the tree, but my own armor had come a long way as well. I probably could have been fully protected in mere days after joining up, but that would have made me a bit too much of an outlier. Instead, I bled off some of my daily Love with [Metatransmutation] and grew my armor day by day like any other squirrel, though still slightly faster than rank novices, since I had leveled up [Transformative Growth] and would have already increased my Love stat from years of growing the things which made me stand out among my peers in training.
The squirrel who called me over, Kukeoti, was one such peer. At first, being an older female in training, the young male had been dismissive of me, but when I easily beat down every squirrel in my training unit, he and some of the other new recruits came to look up to me.
Training had largely been a way for the squirrels to gain a handful of stat points in Form, enough to actually have an effect in combat rather than just be sacrificial lambs sent to slaughter. The recruits were pushed quite hard, because squirrel lifespans weren’t long enough to take a slow and steady path to strength, and training damage was easily dealt with thanks to [Restorative Growth]. My own Form stat was already high when I started training, still unchanged from the end of my life as Mali, but I managed to pushed myself hard enough to gain a point and bring it to 89 before we were considered ready to deploy.
There was also advice on transformation for battle and education on the great enemy, which I got more from than combat training. These days, I was decked out in armor, carefully grown to protect me but not impede my mobility, with long, sharp growths extending out of my vambraces. They weren’t quite swords, but they were close enough.
Kukeoti’s armor wasn’t quite as far along, but it had kept him safe so far. It was visibly more developed than our last deployment, but I could tell most of his efforts had gone into the razor-sharp crystal claws extended from his fingers. They were long enough that they had to get in the way of daily life, but that wasn’t much of a concern for a front-liner.
After all, if you didn’t survive the battle, you didn’t have to worry about daily life.
“Incursion?” I asked when I reached Kukeoti. He nodded and fell into line with me as we continued towards the trunk. “How big?”
“At least four,” he said. I frowned, and picked up the pace.
“Whose unit is out there?”
“Rotuchik’s. But they were already exhausted and needed resupply, before the incursion started.”
“Right.” That’s why the runner had found me, since we were set to deploy and relieve them. It would have been the day after next, normally, but the enemy didn’t care about our plans.
The area our unit was going to be deployed to was only one of many that the squirrels held in order to keep the enemy from ascending. The trunk was massive, and squirrels maintained a number of staging grounds around its perimeter close to the base, to send out units like ours to the various holds.
Directions were different in this world, but we were staged at what would be the south-west camp, based on where the nega-sun rose each night. Our unit of twenty squirrels would be defending the 3rd Ridge.
I didn’t see combat in every deployment, but I had seen enough already. Enough that I led my own unit, now. Kukeoti could probably lead a unit of his own soon, too, but for now I appreciated having him with me. Our unit was capable. Four of the enemy was within our abilities, especially with my advantages. But we had to reach the ridge, first, and time was now working against us.
At the trunk, we met with the rest of our unit, barring a few stragglers. Our combat medic, Tikurit, had a hard expression on his face. As a medic, he was easy to spot, because he was barely armored, unlike the rest of us. He was likely worrying about the injuries Rotuchik’s unit had taken, and whether or not he would need to expend his Love on healing one of them before our unit even saw combat. That could mean the loss of one of our own, if we suffered a devastating injury in the first day.
Most of the unit would have the first level of [Restorative Growth] to handle their own minor injuries, at least. Only a few squirrels, combat medics like Tikurit and the healers at camp, had invested enough of their daily Love into restoration to level it up where it could help save someone who would otherwise die. The difference between him and the camp’s healers was that he also had put some energy into [Transformative Growth] and was willing to head into danger.
My own [Restorative Growth] had reached level 4, thanks to managing my own daily Blood damage, which gave our unit some flexibility. I was keeping that close to my chest, since by all accounts most of my investment should be in [Transformative Growth], but I wasn’t afraid to use it if need be. In truth, my transformation was my weakest skill, at level 2, with [Generative Growth] being level 3 from feeding myself during my travels. The only reason I could pass for being transformation-focused was my ridiculous Love stat.
The healers that stayed at camp had no transformations to speak of, since they exclusively put their Love into restoration. When they weren’t using their Love they were binding less threatening wounds with bandages made from strips of leaves and providing food and general care for the patients. The squirrels who invested in [Generative Growth] managed the bud farms, using the rest of their time harvesting, processing leaves for bandages and packs, and preparing provisions for the front.
I checked over our own supplies, and found leaf-packs full of buds which we would carry down with us. Each ridge had an area to grow buds on-site, but most soldiers had a low level [Generative Growth]. To use it, they had to get through a day without needing to restore themselves from minor injury or use their transformation to expand their battle capabilities. Without supplies from the specialists in camp, a unit couldn’t realistically feed itself on the ridge. I probably could feed my unit, but again, it would create questions I didn’t have answers for. Thankfully, it wasn’t an issue. This war had been going on forever, as far as the squirrels were aware, and managing provisions was well-handled.
The last stragglers of our unit arrived, though I didn’t yell at them, since we had all been taken by surprise. If this were a usual deployment, arriving late would get them reamed out, but instead I went to speak with the local command.
An old squirrel who had clearly seen combat, but was no longer able to fight, glanced up at me when I approached. I reported that my unit was ready to deploy and relieve Rotuchik, and got approval and confirmation before heading back to my unit.
I hefted the largest pack of buds, turning to the squirrels under my command.
“All right, you lot, load up and move out.”
*
The 3rd Ridge was covered in iridescent blood when we arrived.
“Canopy above,” Kukeoti muttered behind me.
“Tikurit, see what you can do,” I said, and our medic raced ahead to where squirrels were laid out.
A well-armored squirrel glanced up at me, a look of relief passing quickly across his face before his eyes hardened. I stepped towards him.
“Rotuchik.”
“Cheokit.”
“How bad?”
The leader of the unit grimaced. “Bad. The incursion didn’t stop at four. We took two out, but another three came through after we ran the report up the trunk.”
“Shit,” I muttered, then stepped to the edge of the ridge to glance downward.
The base of the tree flared just before it entered the miasma. It gave the trunk enough of a slope that we could fight, but it was precarious in places. Combatants had been lost, tumbling into the miasma, never to be seen again. The ridge was carved into the trunk, a safe trench from which we had the high ground, but if the enemy got past it, stopping them from reaching the lowest branches became exponentially more difficult.
Down, near the miasma, I spotted the enemy.
Massive, wriggling black caterpillars covered in thick spines rested below us. Each one was ten times the size of a squirrel, at least. They were consuming the dead, unbothered by the idea of cannibalizing their own to fuel the climb. The creatures borne from the miasma would be just as happy to feast on us squirrels, but their real target was the tree itself, which, I was told, they would strip bare if allowed to escape the front.
The spines made for a nigh-impenetrable defense, and each of their legs were razor sharp, capable of piercing squirrel flesh. Their only real weakness was their undersides, but if you got past the legs, you still risked getting crushed. If not for the crystal armor, we couldn’t fight them at all.
Even with armor, spines and sharp feet found their way through, impaling and gouging out flesh. The only upside was that these caterpillar-like creatures weren’t venomous. Squirrels didn’t even have a word for that, or poison, since all our food came from the tree and was safe. Getting stabbed in an unarmored spot wasn’t a death sentence, so long as the squirrel could get healing, but it was the source of all the blood on the ridge.
A quick headcount of Rotuchik’s unit told me not all of them had made it back, either. The enemy’s two-fold advance had been bad.
“At least they aren’t advancing while they eat,” I murmured, to which Rotuchik nodded.
“We should have the day, at least,” the other unit leader said.
I turned away from the ridge, then walked over to where the two medics were binding wounds. Rotuchik’s medic looked exhausted, and had clearly already used his Love, now just doing what he could to keep his fellow soldiers alive until the next day so he could properly heal another. Tikurit looked up at me questioningly.
“Go for it,” I said. “We shouldn’t see combat until tomorrow.”
Tension in my medic’s face released slightly, as he raced over to one of the most wounded, a squirrel who almost certainly wouldn’t have survived through the night.
“The rest of you, if you can afford it, help out,” I said. With only first-level restoration and the reduced efficacy of healing another, it wouldn’t save someone dying, but it would ease some of the burden and make it easier for Rotuchik’s unit to withdraw. My unit moved to answer the call, doing what they could.
I followed Tikurit to where the most injured soldiers lay wrapped in bandages, whimpering in pain, and saw another soldier in dire straits. I glanced around to ensure no one was paying too much attention to me and finding myself in the clear, transmuted away most of my Love with a grimace and used the remaining Love to surreptitiously heal him to a point of stability.
Rotuchik’s medic would probably notice, but I doubted he would call it out. A miraculous total recovery would create too many questions, but I could do this much, at least.
The next morning, after the relieved unit had healed themselves with another day’s Love, they began the climb back up to camp. Only a few had to be carried outright. Tikurit and I could have reduce that number further still, but the enemy was on the move again, and we needed our Love for our own coming battle.
I turned away from the receding back of Rotuchik’s unit, and looked back down from the ridge to the swarming mass of voracious monster caterpillars advancing up the trunk.
“Let’s purge some pests,” I grunted.