King Kobold revived-Warlock-2.5 (31 page)

“Not quite what I had in mind, that’s for sure.” Rod fought a smile. “Don’t be so negative, Puck. Think of it like this: ‘Our brave, heroic line doth advance, and the murderous mass of craven beastmen stumble toward them with mayhem in their eyes! They catch our soldiers’ gazes, and our goodmen freeze, terror-stricken by the Evil Eye! But the witch-folk wrench them free, and the High War-lock doth rise up, a gleaming paragon on a giant steed of jet, to call them on-ward! Inspired by his valor, our soldier-men take heart; they shout with anger and do charge the foe!’ ”

Puck gave him a jaundiced eye. “Thou’rt not slow to trumpet thine own vir-tues, art thou?”

“Well, not when it’s warranted,” Rod said, abashed. “And in this case, it’s downright vital. Brother Chillde won’t believe anything less of me, Puck—and, whatever other effect you achieve, you’ve got to make him believe what you tell him, totally.”

Air boomed outward, and Toby stood before them. “Lord Warlock, thou’rt wanted on the poop deck.”

“From the poop deck?” Rod raised an eyebrow in surprised sarcasm. “All that way? Gee, Toby, I hope you didn’t tire yourself out.”

The young warlock reddened. “I know thou dost enjoin us, Lord Warlock, to not appear and disappear, or fly, when simple walking will be nearly as fast…”

“Darn right I do. Totally aside from what it does to your fitness and your character, there’s the little matter of its effects on the non-psi majority.”

“I did forget,” Toby sighed. “When great events are in train, such matters seem of slight import.”

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“That’s why you need to make normal conduct a habit. But what great event’s in train now?”

“I am!” the young warlock cried in exasperation. “I have but now returned from bearing word of our arrival to Master Yorick and his band! Wilt thou not come attend to me?”

“Oh!” Rod bolted off his stool, feeling like a pompous idiot. “What an ass I am!”

Puck perked up and opened his mouth.

“Just a figure of speech,” Rod said quickly. “But accurate. Here I am, catechiz-ing you about details, when you’ve just finished a hazardous mission! My deep-est apologies, Toby—and I’m glad to see you’re back intact. And, of course, you can’t report to me here—you’ve got to say it the first time where the King can hear it.”

“No offense, milord,” Toby said with a grin. He stepped over to the door and held it open. “And, since thou canst not transport thyself from place to place, I’ll company thee on foot.”

“I, too,” Brom growled. “I must hear what progress this grinning ape hath made.”

The door slammed behind them, leaving Puck alone to mutter imprecations to himself.

“Welcome, Lord Warlock,” Tuan said quietly, as the door closed behind them, “and thou, too, Lord Brom.” His eyes glittered. “Now! May we hear this warlock’s tale?”

Toby looked around at the glowing eyes, all fixed upon him, and succumbed to sudden embarrassment.

“Where… what shall I tell?”

“Everything that happened,” Rod suggested, “starting from the beginning.”

Toby heaved a sigh. “Well, then! I listened for the beast-men’s thoughts, and felt a mind belaboring with emptiness. This did resemble the ‘sound of one hand clapping’ that the High Warlock had told me of, so I drifted toward where it seemed the loudest, and looked down. I was far past the beast-men’s village, and the feelings of their thoughts had thinned; but now I felt the thrust of several minds, mayhap threescore. Yet all I saw were treetops.”

Rod nodded. “They hid well. What then?”

“I listened close, till the un-clapping mind had begun to think of other mat-ters—yet, even there, no inkling-thought of treachery did come. Therefore did I drift down into a treetop and clambered down into their midst, the less to afright them.”

Tuan smiled thinly. “That might somewhat lessen their startlement, I wot—yet not abundantly. What said they when they beheld thee?”

“Oh, the first beastman that laid eyes upon me shrieked and whirled up a war club, and I readied myself to disappear; but I also held up open hands, and he stayed his blow, then nodded toward his left. I went thither, and he followed me, though with ne’er a bit of trust in’s eyes. And thus came I unto Master Yo-rick.”

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“Where?” Rod pounced on it.

Toby looked up, surprised. “He sat beside a nearly smokeless fire with sev-eral others, only one among many, till he looked up and saw me. Then he stood, and grinned, and came up to me, hand upheld in salute.”

Tuan had caught Rod’s point. “Ah, then. He sat among his men as an equal, with neither state nor honor.”

“None that I could see. I’ truth, there were as many women as men around that fire—yet they did defer to him, that much was plain.”

“How many were there?” the King demanded.

“A score of men, at least; and he assured me others stood sentry-guard, the whiles a squadron patrolled the jungle’s edge, nigh to the village, to aid those who sought to escape. His force, he said, has strength of twoscore and more.”

“How many women and children are there?” Catharine sounded anxious.

“A dozen that I could see, of women; each had two babes, or three.”

“Thriving little family group.” Rod smiled. “If we didn’t clean out Mughorck, Yorick’d have his own village going.”

“Aye, and betimes the two villages would battle.” Tuan smiled with irony. “Mayhap we ought to keep our men at home and let our foemen slay one an-other.”

“Thou canst not mean to say it!” Catharine flared.

“Nor do I,” Tuan sighed, “for Yorick and his folk are allies now; and if Mug-horck did battle him, Mughorck would surely win, since that he hath thousands. Nay, we must needs strike whiles yet we have a force to aid us. What did he say of the rumor he had hoped he’d seed?”

“He said that in these few weeks time it hath increased amazingly.” Toby grinned. “Indeed, saith Master Yorick, ‘Tis ready to be reaped and sheaved, and gathered into barns.’ ”

“The seed, then, fell on fertile ground,” Brom rumbled.

Toby nodded. “Thus saith Yorick: ‘There are some hundreds of widows now where there were none two months agone—and what hath their blood bought? Why, naught—save the fear of vengeance.’ Aye, milord, these folk were more than ready to believe that vengeance would be aimed only at the Kobold and his priest Mughorck.”

“What of the High Cave?” Brom rumbled. “Hath he sign that the ones we seek do lair therein?”

“They do.” Toby nodded. “Those lately come agree with those who ‘scaped two months agone—the Eagle’s High Cave now holds the Kobold and his priests.”

“The Eagle—aye. What of him?” Tuan frowned.

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“He dwells near them, but not with them,” Toby answered, returning his frown. “Ever and anon doth Yorick go to speak with him, but he dwells not with his folk.”

“Afraid?” Rod demanded.

“Not of Yorick’s band. Yet he seems to think Mughorck might come in search of him, and doth not wish his loyalists to be caught in a net that might be laid for him.”

“I think the Neanderthals aren’t the only ones who’re paranoid,” Rod noted with a lift of the eyebrow toward Tuan. “Well, Your Majesty, it sounds as though our partisans are in good shape, and definitely ready to pitch in on our side.”

“I would so conjecture.” But Tuan still watched Toby. “Art thou certain there was no hint of treachery in his manner, nor in his thoughts?”

The young warlock shook his head firmly. “Nay, my liege—and I did probe. There might be summat hid in the fast-nesses of his heart… but if there is, ‘tis beyond my comprehension.”

“Mayhap there is,” Tuan said frowning, “but when there’s no sign, we would be fools to turn away their aid.”

“Still,” Rod pointed out, “we could try to be ready for a last-minute change of heart.”

“We must be so, indeed,” Tuan agreed. “Let us count the beastmen loyal only when the battle’s won.”

“Which will not be easy.” Rod stood, frowning down. “We’ll be on the beastmen’s home territory this time. They won’t need lightning to bring them their extra power; they’ll have it right there at hand.‘’

“Indeed, ‘twill be a most fell battle,” Tuan agreed. “Art thou certain of this ancient wizard’s aid?”

Rod started to answer, then hesitated.

“So I feared,” Tuan said grimly.

Rod nodded unhappily. “But if he jumped in to save his ‘son’ once, he’s al-most certain to do it again.”

“Well, one can but pick the strongest ground and do one’s best,” Tuan sighed. “For, after all, no outcome’s certain in battle, commerce, love, or life. Godspeed ye, my commanders—and may we all meet again, when tomorrow’s sun hath dawned.”

The Neanderthal village breathed uneasily in its slumber, bathed by the moon. The sentries on cliff-top and in small boats were bone-weary but not at all sleepy, for Mughorck had filled them with fear of the wild-eyed, ferocious Flat-faces who were so powerful as to be able to throw off the effects of the Evil Eye. What other powers did they have? How soon would they descend upon the hap-less people, filled with vengeful blood-lust?

But, countering these tales, was the rumor that filtered throughout the village now—that the Flatfaces’

anger was blunted; that Yorick had pled with them and brought them to see that this madness of raiding
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and invasion was only Mug-horck’s doing, and that when the Flatfaces came they would be satisfied with only Mughorck, and his lieutenants. And, of course, the Kobold…

The sentries shuddered. What race of wizards was this, who could dare to strive against a god?

Thus their thoughts ran through the hours while the moon slowly drifted down toward the horizon, then slipped below it—and the land lay shadowed, its darkness lightened only by the stars. The sentries, weary to begin with, began to grow sleepy. The night was almost past; the Flatfaces had not come. For a few more hours, they were safe…

Then they started, staring. What were those dark shapes that scuttled over the water toward the beach, so many as to seem like a field of darkened stars? In disbelief, the sentries squeezed their eyes shut, shook their heads—but when they looked again the squat, dark shapes still drove toward the beach. Surely these could not be the Flatfaces, flooding in so silently…

But the dark shapes plowed up the beach, grinding to a halt, and scores of smaller shadows dropped off their sides. Nightmare though it seemed, this was no dream! The sentries clapped horns and conch shells to their lips, and blew the alarm!

Neanderthals tumbled out of their huts, pulling on helmets, hefting war axes, groggy but waking fast, calling to one another in alarm.

The Gramarye soldiers formed their line and marched toward the village. The High Warlock rode back and forth behind the lines, cautioning, “No shouting yet! Remember, silence! The more noise they make, the more eerie we’ll seem.”

But the beastmen pulled a ragged line together and stumbled toward the Gramarye soldiers with querulous, ragged war cries.

“Now!” Rod bellowed, and the soldiers charged with a hundred-throated ear-splitting shriek. The lines crashed together, and the long pikes did their murder. Axes chopped through their shafts, but the beastmen died. Then, here and there, a beastman began to catch a soldier’s eyes, and the Gramarye line slowed as its members began to freeze.

In the flagship’s cabin, the witches and warlocks sat in a circle, hands joined, staring at the ceiling. The Gramarye line gained speed again as the numbing darkness lifted from the soldiers’ minds. Frantically, the beastmen reached for the power of the Kobold. A second wave of Gramarye soldiers charged up the beach, and new pikes poked through the line. The first wave retreated, minds dizzy from the Evil Eye.

“We are come, Lord Warlock,” Tuan called, as he reined in his steed next to Fess. “Do as thou must; Sir Maris and I will care for our men.”

“All thanks, my liege!” Rod called back. He ducked down, lying flat on Fess’s back. “Now, Steel
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Steed! Head for the low scrub!”

The robot-horse leaped into a gallop, heading for the brush and low trees at the edge of the beach.

“Rod, this subterfuge is scarcely needed! My thoughts were not even growing fuzzy yet!”

“For once, I’m not worried about you having a seizure in the middle of a bat-tle.”

“Then, why this retreat?” Fess slowed and halted behind a screen of brush.

“Just wait. Trust me.” Rod parted the bushes and peeked out toward the beach. The battle was raging nicely, he noticed. But that wasn’t his prime con-cern. He scanned the beach—more especially, the brush. It was very dark, so of course he couldn’t be sure. The Gramarye soldiers had lighted torches to see their enemy by, and the light spilled over, dimly illuminating the edges of the beach; he thought he could just barely make out some dim, amorphous mass, bulging very slowly, and growing larger—but he couldn’t be sure.

The second wave of soldiers had carried the charge almost into the Neander-thal camp before sheer reflex had made individual beastmen begin seeking out the eyes of single opponents. Power flowed into the beastmen; their eyes burned more brightly. The Gramarye line slowed to a grinding halt. In the flagship’s cabin, Agatha and Gwen squeezed the hands of the witches to each side of them and shut their eyes, bowing their heads.

Pikes, spears, and swords began to move again, slowly, gathering force to block the beastmen’s swings. The beastmen chopped hysterically in the desperation born of superstitious fear—but wildly, too, dropping their guards. The pikes drove in, and blood flowed out. Coming down the gangplank, Brother Chillde tripped, stumbled, and fell, sprawling on the sand with a howl of dismay.