Chapter 7: Jasiri
Jasiri was flying on his board of wood in the cool night's air. He was on his way to the slavers' camp when he saw the four tribesmen moving out of the forest. Mguu Mkubwa was leading them, but Lawrence was nowhere to be seen.
He slowly descended a safe distance away, and approached.
Mguu Mkubwa was in bad shape. His right leg was wounded. The men noticed Jasiri approaching.
"What happened? Where is Lawrence?" he asked with worry.
"There were too many of them, eighteen by our last count. They had hounds... they caught up to us, and we killed as many as we could; then we got away. I saw him fall. I don't think he made it out." Mguu said with a grunt.
Jasiri's heart fell at this news. They had to save Lawrence!
But the camp was alert now. How could they do that without endangering themselves?
He was angry at Lawrence.
This is stupid. They shouldn't have sent me away.
He thought.
I could have helped.
He led the men to the cave. He decided he needed the time to think while they recovered.
He needed to survey the camp, and in order to do that... Well, he had to think up a new approach.
~*~
It took them a while to reach the cave, thanks to Mguu's injured right leg. They hid their tracks the best they could. Jasiri used Shaping to create directed gusts of wind to sweep their scent away.
Jasiri was still wracking his brain on how to approach the rescue operation. If Lawrence still lived -- which was something he was quite sure of for some reason -- then he would have to either sneak past the sentries or storm the camp by force.
He liked the second option. He just wasn't sure if what he did the first time had been a fluke. It could have been his rage for his mother's injury fuelling his rampage the first time around. Still, going up against eighteen dangerous enemies alone would be a challenge.
As for stealth, they had hounds; which meant that his scent would be instantly detected and they would spot him as soon as he got close. Unless... of course! The river!
If he could cross the river and sneak into the camp from upstream, he would be virtually undetectable to the hounds. The water would mask his scent, and with any luck, they would be upwind from him.
He would have to come up with some trick to dive into the river for a long time, but it was a problem that science could solve, and he liked science very much!
~*~
After healing Mguu's injury with some difficulty. He started looking into his options.
First, he searched the cave and found an assortment of strange items that Lawrence had hidden there. He recognised some of them from Lawrence's memories, but didn't recognise the rest. He concentrated hard to recall what knowledge he could from Lawrence's memories.
Every new item he found triggered Lawrence's knowledge in his head in some way. When he had two bits of knowledge, a third would cascade into his mind, like a jigsaw puzzle -- funny how he knew about those now -- solving itself. All this junk was his gold.
He could work with this.
With a plan in mind, Jasiri started picking out the items he would need.
It took some convincing; but after Shaping a sharp stone axes and handing them out to the men, they went out to fell all the wood he'd need.
For the next day, they collected wood, and using Shaping, he started compressing the wood and bending it to fit his needs. Wheels and axles formed as he concentrated hard on the structures he wanted in his mind. He even made very strong rope by Shaping vines in the same way.
He wondered what would happen if he compressed stone, he tried it and was rewarded with very strong stone that had edges sharper than flint. He used that knowledge to craft nails -- another concept from Lawrence's memories -- to fortify his creations with.
Then he started fitting all the components together. It took him a while to get it all right.
In the end, he had made his first invention, and it only took a day of work.
Turning his attention to the items he'd gathered from Lawrence's stash, he started Shaping his next idea. Some of the items were ancient and worn, but he managed to salvage what he could.
With night coming fast, and his second invention complete. He knew he was finally ready.
Lawrence would be proud.
He thought.
It was time to put it to the test.
~*~
Jasiri knew he was exploring new territory with his ideas. From what he'd skimmed from Lawrence's mind, he knew that the man had his qualms about using science for war; but he hoped he'd understand the necessity.
He'd created four identical siege engines, fashioned from compressed wood. He'd made the nails with compressed stone. The wood was so compressed, it wouldn't even burn when he tried to ignite it.
After they received some hasty training in their operation, the men praised him for his ingenuity. Aided with Lawrence's experience and scientific mind, he had made his best guess at aiming them appropriately at their target.
Now in position, they would hopefully rain a hail of death upon the enemy's camp come dusk, and his tribesmen would man the war engines. They spent the rest of the day collecting rocks to load the makeshift siege weapons. Jasiri compressed as many of the rocks as he could.
With a final farewell and wishes of good luck to his party, he made his way to the river bank.
His second invention was not as elaborate as the first. It was a cruder version of the snorkelling equipment he'd seen in Lawrence's memories.
Using a length of tubing and an ancient gas mask he'd found in Lawrence's stash, he'd Shaped a close imitation of the pictures he'd witnessed in Lawrence's mind. It was untested and he wasn't even sure if it would work. He hoped for the best as he dove into the river.
~*~
Siege engines or not, Jasiri was determined to go through this.
He fought the current tooth and nail to approach the slaver's camp. He first tried Shaping in water to propel himself but found it to be extremely difficult. So, he resolved to swimming close to the surface. He hoped that the long shadows cast by the trees from the setting sun would hide any trace of him that broke through the water.
He was finally in position to strike. He hid himself well in the reeds sticking out of the water, and waited.
Just as the first rock landed, he stealthily started making his way out of the reeds and towards the slave enclosure.
The slavers were panicking. They started fleeing away and into the forest, abandoning the hounds and their captives to their fate. After a few shouts from their leader, they started regrouping outside the camp and left the area.
The hounds barked and snarled in their cages as a hail of doom savaged the tents of their camp. One of the enclosure walls was broken by a projectile, the captives scattered and some of them leapt to escape through the broken palisade. Jasiri was perplexed, he thought he caught sight of someone in his tribe's garb coming out through the hole, but he was not sure. The rubble and dust in the air from the barrage was reducing the visibility significantly.
By the time he reached the palisade, most of the captives were gone. The remaining ones were just resigned to their fate and hugged the corners. He supposed that this was the slavers' conditioning that Lawrence mentioned in passing before. If his father was here, he'd already left.
He had to hurry. Lawrence was near, and he could sense him.
"Don't use Shaping!"
he heard Lawrence scream into his mind!
He tried to ask Lawrence why he couldn't use Shaping, or where he was, but found that he still wasn't skilled enough to communicate in the same way. He regretted not having Lawrence teach him that when they had the chance, but he still tried.
