The war mind was becoming concerned with dealing with the beasts. The rats were the only group that had a leader. The bees were somewhat organized but only on a hive to hive basis. The hospital had three bee colonies. One of giant bees, one of small carnivorous bees, and one that was regular honeybees. Each man trapped in a hive was controlled by a queen none of which took orders from each other. The only one who any of the queens would take orders from was the mage.
The spiders also did not have a leader. They moved only at the whims of the mage. They worked together but none of them had command. How they achieved anything was beyond the war minds understanding.
The crows and horses with teeth seemed to be trying to decide who was their alpha or pack leader or person in charge other than the mage.
A thought from the mage and all of them had accepted that he could give them orders. They listened to what he was saying but asking them to choose a leader just turned into the animal equivalent of bickering. Having it all in his head gave him a headache he did not think possible. Most of them had developed a childes sense of human language. So, between the growls, barks, and caws was the shouting of five-year olds.
The only group that had a leader among the beasts were the rats who seemed to agree a rat named Bags was in charge. The rats agreed since she was a mother for a third of the rats and had been in their master's service the longest, she was the boss as far as rats were concerned.
The minds opinion of her was that she was smart. At least for a rat. She was also very inquisitive. Any conversation with her needed more time explaining why to do something than the doing of something. Educating people had been his job for as long as he could remember. All things considered Bags was the fastest learning one year old he had ever had to teach. To his surprise the rats were holding on to five of his eight banners. According to the rats the other three had been destroyed by explosions or the mindless surge of the undead.
He had expressed interest in the rats who had been shooting muskets from the walls. Bags was able to get hold of the children that had figured out how to use the weapons and summoned them.
"Gun rats!" declared Bags in a proud squeak.
"Yes hello," thought the severed head to the rat minds present.
"New mind! New Mind!" shouted the rats thoughts. "Who this momma?"
"Master get mind for fighting two legs," declared the alpha rat. "look at Bags big babies they is best babies!"
"Bags I am a head in a jar," commented the old soldier. "I can't see shit."
"No shit here just rats," thought all the rats sharing the mind link.
"I mean I'm blind guys," thought the old soldier. "I am a severed head in a jar. I have no idea wat is going on outside this jar outside of what you tell me."
The severed head felt the magic liquid keeping him alive seemed to heat up around him. The mind wondered if he got frustrated enough if the blood would boil and finish him off.
"Can head no see through Bags like master?" asked the head rat.
"I Don't Know I have never tried," responded the war mind. "This being in a jar is new to me."
The old man tried successfully to see through bags blood stone eye. It was not difficult for him to tap into the rats vision know that he knew it was an option. In front of him where three rats the size of a ten-year-old human carrying muskets and cartridge boxes. He tried to borrow their vision but could not seem to find it the same way he could with bags.
"You are new?" mumbled Bags. "Is bag older than War mind?"
"No Bags I have just never had my head cut off and stuffed into a jar before," responded the Maxum. "why can't I see through the other rats' eyes?"
"They no get good eye from master," squeaked Bags. "Master give bags special eye so he can see what bags sees. He give lots of eyes to stupid birds. Master also can see through smelly dead men but it different."
"Okay, lets stop talking about the eyes for now," declared the war mind. I would like these rats to take a banner each. I will help tech the other s how to load and shoot muskets. We also need to test all of your children to see who the smartest ones are."
"Why?" asked Bags.
"So, they are better at killing people and so that we can find other rats to get banners," responded Banners.
"Why do rats need banner?" asked Bags.
"So, we can determine who the sub leaders are," answered Maxum.
"But Bags is leader?" complained the rat. "Why we need more leader?"
"We need leaders who listen to you," responded the war mind. "You are in charge off all the rats but if the all rats have five different things to do you need five different rats to do it. Telling five rats what to do is easy right?"
"Bags can tell five rats to do things," declared Bags proudly.
"Now if the rats have one hundred things to do you will need to tell one hundred rats what to do. That is a lot harder to do right?" asked the mind.
"Is one hundred more than ten?" asked bags.
"One hundred is a lot more than ten," replied Maxum.
"How much more?" asked bags. "Is one hundred a lot more than twelve?"
The soldier felt the temperature in his jar start to rise again as he began to think he was going to have to teach a rat how to multiply.
"Okay bags," exhaled the mind "how many claws do you have?"
"Bags has eighteen," declared bags.
Okay so if you wanted to count one hundred claws you would need more than five rats worth of claws to count that high," explained The war mind. "Can you understand how many claws that is?"
"One hundred is a lot of claws," agreed bags.
"Do you think you could tell one hundred rats to do one hundred things at once?" asked Maxum again.
"Bags does not think Bags can tell one hundred rats what to do," The rat agreed.
You will give orders to your banner rats who will give orders to the rats under them. They will tell you what is happening that way not all the rats try talking to you at the same time. You only have to talk to five rats at once."
"Bags thinks she gets it," declared Bags.
Maxum tried to sigh in his jar. The blood in his mouth increased and he had to squish the extra liquid out of his mouth with his cheeks. The mage blood squeezed out of his neck. It was a different sensation to say the least. The old man felt his composure breaking.
"Bags I need to take a break for a moment," declared the severed head.
"War mind needs a break," squeaked Bags. "Okay! Have good break."
Maxum felt the mind link sever as he began to try to scream without lungs in the blood jar. He sat in the liquid thinking and mouthing swears in perfect silence for five minutes not happy with the silence of being a head in a fucking jar. The howl experience was strange to adjust to.
"War mind about the creation of a body?" came the thoughts of Scab intuiting the old mans lamentations. "do you have any preferences. We do have most of your old body minus the head of course but if you had something unique in mind tragedy does enjoy a sewing project."