A Pyrrhic Victory - and Some Desperately Bad Luck
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 20629
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With an effort, Princess Illura manages to avoid throwing up at the scene
of carnage that surrounds her. Obviously a major battle has just taken
place, yet she has no memory of it or of the events immediately preceding
it. A blow on the head resulting in amnesia, perhaps? But it soon becomes
clear that the twenty or so of her comrades that survive (many of them
wounded) are equally at a loss as to what has happened, and surely they
can't all be suffering from loss of memory?
Her side has theoretically won the battle, since none of the enemy remains alive. But though this world does not have the expression "a Pyrrhic victory", Illura recognises that this win amounts to a defeat. Her army has lost more than ninety-five per cent of its strength, and there is no way now that they can push on to the Zendaran capital and force her father to give the country's women full citizenship. It is true that her father's field army seems to have been wiped out, but he is sure to have kept a substantial force behind to guard the capital. She has no idea what she can do now. She hadn't envisaged this situation. She had thought that either she would win or else be defeated outright and killed or imprisoned by the enemy. One of her soldiers, a teenage girl, looks even more confused than everybody else. Illura puts a consoling arm around her shoulder. "Where is this place?" the girl asks. "And who am I?" If her troops are suffering from some collective amnesia, then this girl seems to have it much worse than everyone else. "You're Karen," another girl says. "You come from the same village as me. Don't you remember?" The girl does not seem convinced. "Karen?" she says. "Somehow that doesn't seem right." Meanwhile, several hundred miles away, in a forest not far away from the capital of Daria, the Champions are relieved at how smoothly things have gone. They have managed to get Rebecca well away from the rest of the hunting party without any bloodshed, and her horse is calmly following Synizn and Andrea, in their full fox form, through the forest to the point where they will rendezvous with the rest of the Champions. The horse has been entranced, of course. Rebecca has not but, though she looks understandably confused and a little apprehensive, Synizn and Andrea are glad that she does not seem to be really frightened. In another few minutes they will be at the rendezvous, and then they can explain to her what is going on. But a major glitch in causality such as that which has happened in Zendara inevitably casts its ripples outwards. It doesn't affect the Champions who, both because of their special status and because they are not from this reality, are immune. But it affects Rebecca and the remainder of the hunting party. One minute her horse is following the foxes, the next both horse and rider have seemingly vanished into thin air.
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JH
9/30/2002 9:09:34 AM
Extending Enabled
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