#28 - peninsula in the sky

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The mysterious yellow bricked road on which the stampede had occurred exited the portal and then only went several tens of yards before it made a sharp turn. Had it not turned the road would have gone out onto a little peninsula. Oddly enough it had deep, really deep ditches on both sides for that distance...and the ditches went UNDER the road when it turned. If there were any water in those ditches it would be ejected over the cliff on both sides of the small spit of land. Perhaps that was the wrong word. Peninsula is what it would have been called had the Mesa been surrounded by water. It was not. There was no water. Just air. Lots and lots of air. There was no visible bottom looking off those cliffs. Far, far, FAR below there were clouds. It was if it were floating in space.

Surely not.

The little peninsula in the sky was fairly spacious. It covered several hundred acres, perhaps a square mile. On it were woods and a small meadow. It even had, against all logic, a spring fed pond near one edge. That pond spilled over the side of the escarpment to produce a magnificent waterfall and a gorgeous rainbow.

Nothing could be seen in any direction but sky, clouds and more sky. It was literally the edge of the world. The peninsula protruded PAST the edge of the world. The ground below on all sides, was so far away as to be invisible, it was really strange to be looking DOWN at sky. It was dizzy-making. A person might fall. It would be best not to stand too close to the edge.

The neck of the promontory was narrow and exquisitely defensible, literally crying out for fortification. Even minimally fortified a few armed men could hold off an army with relative ease. It was a much better campsite than any other given patch of forest or meadow.

Sgt. Halsey began organizing. That was what he did best. He was, after all, the First Sergeant. His job was to see to it that things got done. His superior told him what they wanted done and he made it happen. He liked it that way. It made life simple for him. He set different squads and platoons to different tasks. The least skilled men were to do the grunt work.

Too bad about the Trolls, they were brutes and each could probably outwork a dozen humans. No one trusted them yet so as they arrived they were placed under the watchful eye of well armed guards. They, and everything else, moved onto the promontory.

While busy organizing things Sgt. Halsey noticed the big Texan, some other humans and some of the little people file out onto the headland and get comfortable. That was the language group. The captain had asked around for anyone with multiple language experience. They were exempt from all other tasking. Learning the little people’s language had priority.

First Sgt. Halsey oversaw his men. But mostly he wanted to stay busy. If he was busy he wouldn’t panic. He wanted to panic. He wanted to run screaming into the woods and maybe jump off a cliff or something. Given their circumstances that would be frightenly easy to do. He was terrified and pretty much scared spitless. He was compensating furiously.

…..the tales I’ll tell my Children
of Trolls and , Bears and Griffin….
…on an island in the sky…
..oh my

Didn’t rhyme. HE didn’t care...It kept running through his mind.

This wasn't covered in the manual, not explicitly. Implicitly it was. Keep busy. Allow himself or his men exactly NO time for panic , he knew that. So he kept busy and he kept the men busy. He promised himself a nice little mental breakdown later. He'd worked for it, he deserved it and he was going to enjoy it.

Just not right now.

Right now he organized.

He glanced occasionally at the Captain and the language group. There was serious waving of hands and upper body movement. The knife slashes and the blood brother thing was new though. Sgt. Halsey had heard of Blood Brother Rituals among the Indians but not seen one. Perhaps that Texan was part Indian. Being Black that seemed unlikely but a lot of unlikely things had happened recently. The Blood Brother thing seemed messy. Maybe that meant all was going well, or maybe they were desperate and willing to try anything

Oh well, not his business.

Sgt. Halsey made sure that the cook wagon had coffee going constantly. Any time any one wanted a hot drink Halsey wanted it available. That would mitigate the booze problem. They didn’t HAVE a booze problem...yet. He didn’t intend to allow one to develop either. He knew that HE wanted to get drunk now, very bad, others would also. He had to nip that in the bud right off. He put the booze under lock and key and sent the only key via runner to the Captain.

Some of the foods stores had broken open during the rough ride. They might as well be used for supper. He told the cook to put on a large spread. This evening they would feast and tonight they would sleep like the dead.

Next Episode
#29: Construction…
Previous Episode
#27: Scouts returned
First Episode
# 1 : In the beginning…

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