King Kobold revived-Warlock-2.5 (23 page)

“She does,” Rod said slowly. “Her name’s ‘Angry Agatha.’ ”

The old soldier’s head snapped up. He stared; and two or three other soldiers nearby looked up too,
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then darted quick glances at each other. Fear shadowed their faces.

“She decided it’s more fun to help people than to hurt them,” Rod explained. “In fact, she’s decided to stay with us.”

Every soldier within hearing range began to grin.

“ ‘Tis wondrous!” Brother Chillde fairly glowed. “And dost thou seek more such ancient ones?”

Rod nodded. “A few more, hopefully. Every witch counts, Brother.”

“Indeed it doth! Godspeed thine efforts!” the monk cried. And as Rod turned away, Brother Chillde began to bandage another damaged soldier, chattering, “Dost’a hear? The High Warlock doth seek to bring the ancient wizards and the hill-hags to aid us in our plight!”

Rod smiled to himself; just the effect he’d wanted! By evening, every soldier in the army would know that they were fighting fire with blazing enthusiasm—and that the witches were going out for reinforcements.

He stopped, struck by another thought. Turning, he looked back up the hill-side. Tuan stood, silhouetted against a thundercloud, arms akimbo, surveying the devastation below him. You shouldn’t lie to your army. That’d just result in blasted morale—and, af-ter a while, they’d refuse to fight, because they couldn’t be sure what they’d be getting into, that you wouldn’t be deliberately throwing their lives away.

Rod started back up the hill. He’d promised the rank and file more witch-power; he’d better convince Tuan.

Tuan’s head lifted as Rod came up to the brow of the hill; he came out of his brown study. “An evil day, Rod Gallowglass. A most evil day.”

“Very.” Rod noticed the use of his name, not his title; the young King was really disturbed. He stepped up beside Tuan and gazed somberly down at the valley with him. “Nonetheless, it could have been worse.”

Tuan just stared at him for a moment. Then, understanding, relaxed his face; he closed his eyes and nodded. “I’ truth, it could have. Had it not been for thy rallying of the troops… and thy wife, and Angry Agatha… i’ truth, all the witches…”

“And warlocks,” Rod reminded. “Don’t forget the warlocks.”

Tuan frowned. “I trust I will not.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind seeking out some more of them.”

“Nay, I surely will not,” Tuan said slowly. “Yet where wilt thou discover them?”

Rod sighed and shook his head. “The ladies had the right idea, Tuan. We should’ve gone out recruiting.”

Tuan’s mouth twisted. “What young witch or warlock will join us now, with this crazed preacher raising
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the whole of the land against them?”

“Not too many,” Rod admitted. “That’s why I’ve realized Gwen had the right idea.”

Tuan’s frown deepened in puzzlement. “Of what dost thou speak?”

“The old ones, my liege—starting with Galen.”

For the first time since Rod had known him, he saw fear at the back of Tuan’s eyes. “Rod Gallowglass—dost thou know whereof thou dost speak?”

“Yeah—a grown wizard.” Rod frowned. “What’s so bad about that? Don’t we want a little more mystical muscle on our side?”

“Aye—if he’s on our side i’ truth!”

“He will not be,” croaked Agatha from a boulder twenty feet away. “He doth care for naught but himself.”

“Maybe.” Rod shrugged, irritated. “But we’ve got to try, don’t we?”

“My lord,” Gwen said softly, “I ha’ told thee aforetime, ’tis the lightning that lends them their strength—and not even old Galen can fight ‘gainst a thunder-bolt.’‘

Rod turned slowly toward her, a strange glint coming into his eye. “That’s right, you did mention that, didn’t you?”

Gwen nodded. “We did free our soldiers from the Evil Eye—but the lightning flared, and the witches lay unconscious. ‘Twas then the soldiers froze, and the beastmen mowed them like hay in summer.”

“Lightning,” Rod mused.

He turned away, slamming his fist into his palm. “That’s the key, isn’t it? The lightning. But how? Why?

The answer’s there somewhere, if only I could find it and FESSten to it.”

“Here, Rod,” his mentor murmured.

“Why would the Evil Eye be stronger right after a lightning flash?” Rod seemed to ask of no one in particular.

The robot hesitated a half-second, then answered. “Directly prior to a light-ning flash, the resistance of the path the bolt will follow lowers tremendously, due to ionization, thus forming a sort of conductor between the lithosphere and the iono-sphere.”

Rod frowned. “So?”

Tuan frowned, too. “What dost thou, Lord Warlock?”

“Just talking to myself,” Rod said quickly. “A dialogue with my alter ego, you might say.”

Fess disregarded the interruption. “The ionosphere is also capable of func-tioning as a conductor, though
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the current passed would have to be controlled with great precision.‘’

Rod’s lips formed a silent O.

Gwen sat back with a sigh. She had long ago acquired the wifely virtue of pa-tience with her husband’s eccentricities. He would’ve been patient with hers as well, if he could find any (he didn’t think of esper powers as eccentric).

Fess plowed on. “The ionosphere is thus capable of functioning as a conduc-tor between any two points on earth—though it would tend toward broadcast; to avoid loss of power some means of beaming would need to be developed. There are several possibilities for such limiting. Signals may thus travel via the iono-sphere rather than by the more primitive method of…”

“Power, too,” Rod muttered. “Not just signals. Power.”

Gwen looked up, startled and suddenly fearful.

“Precisely, Rod,” the robot agreed, “though I doubt that more than a few watts would prove feasible.”

Rod shrugged. “I suspect psi powers work in milliwatts anyway.”

Tuan frowned. “Milling what?”

“That’s right. You wouldn’t need much for a psionic blast.”

Tuan eyed him warily. “Rod Gallowglass…”

“All that would be needed,” said Fess, “is a means of conducting the power to ground level.”

“Which is conveniently provided by the ionization of the air just before the lightning bolt, yes! But how do you feed the current into the ionosphere?”

Tuan glanced at Gwen; they both looked apprehensive.

Old Agatha grated, “What incantation’s this?”

“That,” said Fess virtuously, “is their problem, not ours.”

Rod snorted. “I thought you were supposed to be logical!”

Tuan’s head came up in indignation. “Lord Warlock, be mindful to whom you speak!”

“Huh?” Rod looked up. “Oh, not you, Your Majesty. I was, uh… talking to my, uh, familiar.”

Tuan’s jaw made a valiant attempt to fraternize with his toes. Rod could, at that moment, have read a gigantic increase in his reputation as a warlock in the diameters of Tuan’s eyes.

“So.” Rod touched his pursed lips to his steepled fingertips. “Somebody over-seas lends the beastmen a huge surge of psionic power—in electrical form, of course; we’re assuming psionics are basically electromagnetic. The beastmen channel the power into their own projective telepathy, throw it into the soldier’s minds—somehow, eye contact seems to be necessary there…”

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“Probably a means of focusing power. Unsophisticated minds would proba-bly need such a mental crutch, Rod,” Fess conjectured.

“And from the soldiers’ minds, it flows into the witches’, immediately knock-ing out anyone who’s tuned in! Only temporarily, thank Heaven.”

“An adequate statement of the situation, Rod.”

“The only question now is: Who’s on the other end of the cable?”

“Although there is insufficient evidence,” mused the robot, “that which is available would seem to indicate more beast-men as donors.”

“Maybe, maybe.” Rod frowned. “But somehow this just doesn’t seem like straight ESP… Oh, well, let it pass for the moment. The big question is not where it comes from, but how we fight it.”

Tuan shrugged. “Thou hast said it, Lord Warlock—that we must seek out every witch and wizard who can be persuaded to join us.”

“We tried that, remember?” But Rod smiled, a light kindling in his eyes. “Now that we’ve got some idea about how the Evil Eye gains so much power so suddenly, we should be able to make better use of the available witch-power.”

The phrase caught Tuan’s military attention. A very thoughtful look came over his face. “Certes…” He began to smile himself. “We must attack.”

“What!?”

“Aye, aye!” Tuan grinned. “Be not concerned, Lord Warlock—I have not gone brain-sick. Yet, consider—till now, it has not been our choice whether to attack or not. Our enemy came in ships; we could only stand and wait the whiles they chose both time and place. Now, though, the place is fixed—by their earth-works.” He nodded contemptuously toward the riverbank below. “We do not now seek a single long ship in the midst of a watery desert—we have a camp of a thousand men laid out before us! We can attack when we will!”

“Yeah, and get chopped to pieces!”

“I think not.” Tuan grinned with suppressed glee. “Not if we fight only when the sky is dear.”

A slow smile spread over Rod’s face.

Tuan nodded. “We will make fray whilst the sun shines.”

“You must admit that the idea has merit, Rod,” Fess said thoughtfully. “Why not attempt it full-scale, immediately?”

“Well, for one thing, those earthworks are a major barrier.” Rod sat astride the great black robot-horse on top of the cliffs in the moonlight. “And for an-other, well… we’re pretty sure it’ll work, Fess, but…”

“You do not wish to endanger your whole army. Sensible, I must admit. Still, logic indicates that…”

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“Yes, but Finagle’s Law indicates caution,” Rod interrupted. “If we made a full-scale frontal attack by day, we’d probably win—but we’d lose an awful lot of men. We might be defeated—and Tuan only bets on a sure thing, if he has a choice.”

“I gather he is not the only one who favors caution. Allow me to congratulate you, Rod, on another step towards maturity.”

“Great thanks,” Rod growled. “A few more compliments like that, and I can hold a funeral for my self-image. How old do I have to be before you’ll count me grown-up—an even hundred?”

“Maturity is mental and emotional, Rod, not chronological. Still, would it seem more pleasant if I were to tell you that you are still young at heart?”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

“Then, I will,” the robot murmured. “And to do you justice, Rod, you have never been a reckless commander.”

“Well… thanks.” Rod was considerably mollified. “Anyway, that’s why we’re just gonna try a raid first. We’ll hit ‘em under a clear sky where they’re weak.”

A dark shadow moved up beside them, about even with Rod’s stirrup. “The moon will set in an hour’s time, Rod Gallowglass.”

“Thanks, Your Elfin Majesty.” Rod looked down at Brom. “Any particular point in the earthworks that’s weaker than the others?”

“Nay. Yet should we spring up the riverbanks to attack them, then would they fall back amazed and confused, and elves might hap upon them and trip them in flight.”

Rod grinned. “While our men relieve their camp of everything portable, eh? Not such a bad idea.”

“I shall be amused,” Brom rumbled.

“You shall? They’ll just die laughing.”

The moon set, and Tuan gave the signal. A picked band of soldiers (all former foresters) clambered into the small boats Rod had hurriedly requisitioned from the local fishermen and rowed toward the beastmen’s camp with feathered oars.

But the advance party was already at work.

The sky was clear, the stars drifted across the hours; but there was no moon this night. The Neanderthal camp lay deep in gloom.

There are superstitions holding that the dark of the moon is a time conducive to magical, and not always pleasant, events. They are justified.

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Watchfires dotted the plain locked within the semicircle of cliffs. Groups of beastmen huddled around the fires while sentries paced the shore. In the center of the camp, a large long hut announced the location of the chiefs.

The beastmen were to remember this night for a long time, wishing they could forget. Looking back, they would decide the defeat itself wasn’t all that bad; after all, they fought manfully and well, and lost with honor.

It was the prelude to the battle that would prove embarrassing…

While one of the small groups gathered around one of the fires were compan-ionably swiping gripes as soldiers always have, a diminutive shadow crept un-seen between two of them, crawled to the fire, and threw something in. Then it retreated, fast.

The beastmen went on grumbling for a few minutes; then one stopped abruptly and sniffed. “Dosta scent summat strange?” he growled.

The beastman next to him sniffed—and gagged—gripping his belly. The smell reached the rest of the group very quickly, and quite generously. They scrambled for anywhere, as long as it was away, gagging and retching.

Closer to the center of the camp, a dark spherical object hurtled through the air to land and break open in the center of another group of beastmen. With an angry humming sound, tiny black flecks filled the air. The beastmen leaped up and ran howling and swatting about them with more motivation than effect. Lit-tle red dots appeared on their skins.

At another group, a series of short, violent explosions from the fire sent the beastmen jumping back in alarm.

At still another fire, a beastman raised his mug to his lips, tilted his head back, and noticed that no beer flowed into his mouth. He scowled and peered into the mug.