King Kobold revived-Warlock-2.5 (27 page)

“Why bother?” Rod answered with the ghost of a smile. “The truth is always more persuasive.”

Galen’s face darkened with anger. His arm lifted, forefinger upraised, to fo-cus his powers for teleporting them away. Then, suddenly, his head snapped about, eyes wide in shock for a moment before they squeezed shut in denial.

Agatha winced too, but she grinned. “Ah, then! That shout did pierce even thy strong shield!”

The wizard turned his glare to her. “I know not what trickery thou hast gar-nered to thus simulate another’s mind…”

“Oh, aye, ‘tis trickery indeed! Oh, I have studied for years to fashion the feel and texture of another’s mind, and all for this moment!” Agatha turned her head and spat. “Lord Warlock, let us depart; for I sicken of striving to speak sense unto one who doth seek to deafen his own ears!”

“Aye, get thee hence,” Galen intoned, “for thy scheme hath failed! Get thee hence, and come not hither again!”

“Oh, all right!” Rod shuddered at the thought of another broomstick ride. “I was kinda hoping to catch the express…”

“Thou wilt come to joy in it, husband,” Gwen assured him, pushing past, “if thou canst but have faith in me.”

“Faith?” Rod bleated, wounded. “I trust you implicitly!”

“Then thou’lt assuredly not fear, for ‘tis my power that doth bear thee up.” Gwen flashed him an insouciant smile.

“All right, all right!” Rod held his hands up in surrender. “You win—I’ll get used to it. After you, beldam.”

Agatha hesitated a moment longer, trying to pierce Galen’s impenetrable stare with her whetted glance, but turned away in disgust. “Aye, let him remain here in dry rot, sin that he doth wish it!” She stormed past Rod, through the cur-tains, and up the stair.

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Rod glanced back just before dropping the curtain, to gaze at Galen, standing frozen in the middle of his laboratory, staring off into space, alone, imprisoned within his own invisible wall. Rod clung to the broomstick for dear life, telling himself sternly that he was not scared, that staring at the gray clouds over Gwen’s shoulder, hoping desper-ately for sight of Tuan’s tent, was just the result of boredom. But it didn’t work; his stomach didn’t unclench, and the only object ahead was Agatha, bobbing on her broomstick.

Then, suddenly, there was a dot in the sky two points off Agatha’s starboard bow. Rod stared, forgetting to be afraid. “Gwen—do you see what I see?”

“Aye, my lord. It doth wear a human aspect.”

It did indeed. As the dot loomed closer, it grew into a teenage boy in doublet and hose, waving his cap frantically.

“Human,” Rod agreed. “In fact, I think it’s Leonatus. Isn’t he a little young to be out teleporting alone?”

“He is sixteen now,” Gwen reminded. “Their ages do not stand still for us, my lord.”

“They don’t stand for much of anything, now that you mention it—and I suppose he is old enough to be a messenger. See how close you can come, Gwen; I think he wants to talk.”

Gwen swooped around the youth in a tight hairpin turn, considerably faster than Rod’s stomach did.

“Hail, Leonatus!” she cried—which was lucky, because Rod was swallowing heavily at the moment.

“How dost thou?” “Anxiously, fair Gwendylon,” the teenager answered. “Stormclouds lower o’er the bank of the Fleuve, and the beastmen form their battle-line!”

“I knew there was something in the air!” Rod cried. Ozone, probably. “Go tell your comrades to hold the fort, Leonatus! We’ll be there posthaste!” Especially since the post was currently air mail.

“Aye, my lord!” But the youth looked puzzled. “What is a ‘fort’?”

“A strong place,” Rod answered, “and the idea is to catch your enemy be-tween it and a rock.”

“An thou dost say it, Lord Warlock.” Leonatus looked confused, but he said manfully, “I shall bear word to them,” and disappeared with a small thunder-clap.

Rod muttered, “Fess, we’re coming in at full speed. Meet me at the cliff-top.”

“I am tethered, Rod,” the robot’s voice reminded him.

Rod shrugged. “So stretch it tight. When you’re at the end of your tether, snap it and join me.”

They dropped down to land at the witches’ tent, just as the first few drops of rain fell.

“How fare the young folk?” Agatha cried.

“Scared as hell,” Rod called back. “Will they ever be glad to see you!” He jumped off the broomstick and caught up his wife for a brief but very deep kiss.

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“My lord!” She blushed prettily. “I had scarcely expected…”

“Just needed a little reminder of what I’ve got to come home to.” Rod gave her a quick squeeze. “Good luck, darling.” Then he whirled and pounded away through the drizzle. He halted at the edge of the cliff-top by the river, staring down. He was just in time to see the first wave of beastmen spill over their earthworks and lope away up the river valley, shields high and battle-axes swinging. Rod frowned, looking around for the Gramarye army. Where was it?

There, just barely visible through the drizzle, was a dark, churning mass, moving away upstream.

“Fess!”

“Here, Rod.”

Rod whirled—and saw the great black horsehead just two feet behind him. He jumped back, startled—then remembered the sheer drop behind him and skittered forward to slam foot into stirrup and swing up onto the robot-horse’s back. “How’d you get here so fast?”

“I do have radar.” Fess’s tone was mild reproof. “Shall we go, Rod? You are needed upstream.”

“Of course!” And, as the great black horse sprang into a canter, “What’s go-ing on?”

“Good tactics.” The robot’s tone was one of respect, even admiration. He can-tered down the slope, murmuring, “Perhaps Tuan should explain it to you him-self.”

Rod scarcely had time to protest before they had caught up with the army. Everything was roaring confusion—the clanging clash of steel, the tramping squelch of boots in ground that had already begun to turn to mud, the bawling of sergeants’ orders, and the whinnies of the knights’ horses. Rod looked all about him everywhere, but saw no sign of panic. Sure, here and there the younger faces were filled with dread and the older ones were locked in grim determination and the army as a whole was moving steadily away from the beastmen—but it was definitely a retreat, and not a rout.

“Why?” Rod snapped.

“Tuan has ordered it,” Fess answered, “and wisely, in my opinion.”

“Take me to him!”

They found the King at the rear, for once, since that was the part of the army closest to the enemy.

“They fall back on the left flank!” he bawled. “Bid Sir Maris speed them; for stragglers will surely become corpses!”

The courier nodded and darted away through the rain.

“Hail, sovereign lord!” Rod called.

Tuan looked up, and his face lit with relief. “Lord Warlock! Praise Heaven thou’rt come!”

“Serves you right for inviting me. Why the retreat, Tuan?”

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“Assuredly thou dost jest, Lord Warlock! Dost thou not feel the rain upon thee? We cannot stand against them when lightning may strike!”

“But if we don’t,” Rod pointed out, “they’ll just keep marching as long as it rains.”

Tuan nodded. “The thought had occurred to me.”

“Uh—this could be a good way to lose a kingdom…”

“Of this, too, I am mindful. Therefore, we shall turn and stand—but not until they are certain we’re routed.”

Rod lifted his head slowly, eyes widening. Then he grinned. “I should’ve known better than to question your judgment on tactics! But will they really be-lieve we’d just flat-out run, when we’ve been fighting back for so long?”

“They’ll expect some show of resistance, surely,” Tuan agreed. “Therefore wilt thou and the Flying Legion ride out against them.” He nodded toward the right flank. “They await thee, Lord Warlock.”

His commandos raised a cheer when they saw him, and he raised them with quick orders. A minute later, half of them faded into the grass and scrub growth that lined the riverbank. The other half, the ones with the hipboots, imitated Moses and drifted into the bullrushes. Rod stayed with the landlubbers, easing silently back along the bankside till they reached a place where the beach widened, walled with a semicircle of trees, the spaces between them filled with brush. Ten minutes later, the first scouts from the beastman advance guard came up even with them. Rod waited until they were right in the middle of the semicircle, then whistled a good imitation of a whippoorwill. But the cry was a strange one to the beastmen, and something rang fowl. One Neanderthal looked up, startled, his mouth opening to cry the alarm—when a dozen Gramarye commandos hit him and his mates. The rangers surrounded the beastmen completely, so Rod didn’t see what happened; all he knew was that it lasted about thirty seconds, then his men faded back into the trees, leaving three corpses in the center of the glade, pump-ing their blood into the pale sand. Rod stared, shaken and unnerved. Beside him, his sergeant grinned. “ ‘Twas well done, Lord Warlock.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Rod muttered. “What’d these boys do in peace-time—work in a slaughterhouse?”

The sergeant shrugged. “Any farm lad must know how to slit the throat of a swine, and these ogres are little more.”

Rod had to bite back a sudden impulse to explain the conflict as the beastmen saw it. “They’re the enemy,” he agreed unhappily, “and this is war. They’ve al-ready pretty well proved that they’ll kill us if we don’t kill them first.” Privately, he wondered how many of them really wanted to. Later. Right now, it was time to play monster. “Tell the men to spread out along the backtrail, sergeant.”

The sergeant turned away to mutter a few words, but that was the only effect Rod saw or heard. He sat his saddle securely anyway, knowing his men had spread out toward the beastmen. He sat securely, and
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waited.

After about five minutes, the vanguard came up. Their leader saw the corpses in the center of the glade and held out an arm to stop his men. While they stared, shocked, Rod called like a gull, and fifty commandos slid from the brush, swords slashing throats before the beastmen even realized they’d been attacked.

As the first Neanderthals fell, the others turned with a roar, axes whirling down. Rod’s men leaped back, but a couple weren’t quick enough. He let the an-ger fuel him as he commanded Fess, “Go!” The great black steel horse leaped out into the battle as Rod shouted, “Havoc!” The beastmen’s eyes all riveted on this new threat, so they didn’t notice the shadows that slid out of the rushes behind them in answer to Rod’s cry. Beastmen began dropping at the rear as Rod and his men began their deadly gavotte, skipping back out of reach of the beastmen’s axes as they tried to catch Gramarye glances, but Rod’s men held to their hard-learned tactic—staring at the enemy’s weapons, not at his pupils. Here and there a soldier accidentally looked at the reddened eyes of the foe, and slowed. It even happened to Rod—being on horseback, he attracted eyes. One Neanderthal man-aged to catch him squarely, and suddenly he was plowing through molasses, panic touching him as he felt two rival impulses battling in his brain, and real-ized neither of them was his own.

Then a spreading warmth coursed through his head and down his spine, a familiar touch, and he could almost scent Gwen’s perfume as his shield-arm leaped up to give the ax a slight push that deflected it to just barely miss, while his sword stabbed down over the beastman’s shield. He felt it sink in, jar against bone, and yanked back on it furiously, turning to the next foeman, trying hard to ignore the falling body. Then lightning strobe-lit the beach, and thunder broke upon their heads. Rod blocked ax-blows frantically, realizing that almost half his force was frozen. Axes swung and the Gramarye soldiers fell, while their opponents turned to help their fellows gang up on soldiers. Darting frantic glances from one to another, most of the soldiers slipped and chanced to look a Neanderthal in the eye—and froze. Rod bellowed in anger and fear and chopped down at a beastman. He dodged aside, revealing a grinning face that stared up at Rod, catching his gaze full in the eyes. It was as though Rod’s riposte had slammed into a wall. Frantically, he pushed at the sword, but it wouldn’t move, and an ax was swinging up at him. Only a spare tendril lingered in his mind, probing weakly at a dark wall that seemed to have settled there…

Then a blazing shield tore into the dark mass, shredding it to tatters—and Rod’s arms answered his summons. He whipped aside as the ax swung past, then bobbed back to stab downward. His men tore into the beastmen like wild-cats, outnumbered but determined to bring down ten times their number by sheer ferocity. But more beastmen were welling up behind the vanguard, more and more; and, in a stab of fear, Rod saw a long, slender dragon ship shouldering up out of the drizzle behind the masses of enemy.

But a roaring bellow shook the beach, and the beastmen looked up in sudden terror at five thousand Gramarye soldiers pouring down along the riverbank.

Rod bit back a shout of triumph; all his men kept silence and channeled the surge of energy into a series of quick stabs. Beastmen dropped before them, then came out of their trances enough to turn and defend themselves; but it was fran-tic and scrambling now, for the soldiers outnumbered them. Stabbing and blocking fiercely, Rod became dimly aware of a rhythmic rum-ble coming from the enemy.
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“Rod,” Fess’s voice ground out like a slowing recording, “the strain in-creases… I may fail you…”

“Hold on while you can!” Rod shouted, and mentally prepared himself to leap down and use Fess as a back-shield.

The rumbling grew louder, became coherent; the enemy army chanted, as with one voice, “Kobold!