Perhaps a fitting flag to signal brave men to go to their deaths, I thought as I tucked the drawers into my ax belt. The baron had his riders fan out into a crescent one deep, and he held his battle-ax high all the while. Finally he brought it down, pointing in the direction of the cylinder. On that cue, they charged.
Immediately I trained my farsight on the Lupanians. Their farsight arm was already whirling back.
"Of course the sound of several dozen charging horses is not going to be ignored, you clown!" I shouted after the baron.
The two tentacles with the heat weapon were rising as I
spoke, and I lowered the farsight to get a more panoramic view. The horsemen got to within about three hundred yards of the pit. The reason the Lupanians did not fire at them earlier was probably that they wanted them so close that none could escape back to the cover of Bald Pate Hill. The first I knew of the heat weapon striking out was the flashes of brilliance leaping from horseman to horseman. The polished shields protected the kavelars from the beam about as much as a reedpaper bag might protect a head from a battle-ax. Horses and riders exploded in puffs of flesh, blood, and dingy smoke. The kavelars were the first to fall, being at the northern end of the crescent, but the archers were at the southern end, and thus they had a few extra seconds before the heat beam swept across to obliterate their bodies. Those seconds were enough for them to get within nearly two hundred yards of the cylinder, and in a truly magnificent display of futile, desperate bravery, the mounted archers let off a volley of arrows just before the beam cut them down. Abruptly all became utterly silent and quite still, apart from dispersing smoke and a handful of descending arrows. Suddenly I saw a man clamber over the opposite lip of the pit and run for the stream. Poor devil, he must have been hiding behind some rock in the pit ever since the first massacre, I thought. Any moment now the Lupanian controlling the beam was going to turn away from the slaughtered horsemen and notice him ... but then the arrows fell into the pit, and the Lupanian was again distracted.
At least one arrow must have struck something sensitive and caused considerable annoyance, as the tentacles holding the heat weapon casting suddenly writhed and twisted, as if in pain. Seemingly in a fit of temper, the Lupanian now swept the fallen mass of smoking cavalrymen and their mounts again and again with the beam, sending great clouds of dark smoke into the air. I turned my farsight back to the pit in time to see the arm with the farsight turn to Bald Pate Hill— presumably to check whether I was still there.
Without even thinking to spur my horse into flight, I leaped » from the saddle. Behind me, I heard something between a *r wheeze and a whinny, and I glanced back to see the horse explode in a messy cloud of flesh, flames, and smoke. I lay still
as smoking fragments of horse rained down around me, and I remember thinking that the smell was oddly appetizing. I lay very still for what seemed to be quite a long time.
"This does, of course, mean war!" declared a squeaky voice nearby. The speaker was roughly nine inches high and was holding a spear about the size of a knitting needle. The top of his floppy red hat had been burned away, and smoke curled up from what was left. He wore a red coat over a green tunic and green trews. Taking off the remains of his hat, he frowned at it, then batted out the smoulders.
"Flame one grass gnome, you flame all grass gnomes," he continued.
"That can probably be arranged," I warned.
"It's them Lupanian imperialist oppressors of the freedom lovin' sentient entities," he said, oblivious to my warning.
He took off his coat and turned it inside out. The lining was a sort of streaky black and green, and blended in with the grass very effectively.
"Let me guess, you've been talking to the bridge trolls," I said, unsure about the wisdom of moving as yet.
"Nah, I knows a water sprite—no funny business, mind, we just exchanges fish for nuts every week. Anyway, she said that the bridge trolls told her that some constables got an eye on those Lupanians, and that they were going to sort 'em out. Didn't do a very good job, did they?"
"You mean that charge? They were nobles, not constables."
"Nobles?"
"They're the sort that have bags of gold and go around doing heroic things on battlefields. It's the World Mother's way of weeding out the stupid ones."
"Well I'd say it's time us grass gnomes entered into alliance with you big folk!" he declared, flinging down his spear, lowering his trews, and waving a small, pale bottom in the general direction of the Lupanians. "Burn that, ye bastards."
However good die Lupanian optics were, they were evidently not capable of picking up a target of that size, so no invisible beam of heat transformed him into ash and smoke.
"Look here, I don't suppose you gnomes are planning anything as foolish as saddling up a few rabbits and charging the Lupanians over open ground, are you?"
"Do I look stupid? We do candlestine warfare. We're sort of, well, built for it."
"I think you mean clandestine warfare, but... look here, if you want to make a real difference, you could spy on the Lupanians, then tell us what they are doing."
"Guv, that's just what I had in mind."
"I saw a man dash out of the pit and run for the stream, just as the nobles charged. He may be still alive, and if he is, he will have a day's observations of the Lupanians and their weapons. Could you tell the water sprites to tell the bridge trolls that I would like to speak with him?"
"Good as done!" he declared, saluting smartly. "Solonor's the name, by the by."
"Inspector Danol, Wayfarers," I croaked in response. "Did you see where my farsight landed?"
"Farsight?"
"A sort of tube thing with glass bits at either end." "Oh, that. Came down on the east side of the hill, safe and sound."
"Oh good, it cost me a month's wages." "Look, it's not as if it's my business or anything, but are you going to lie there all day?"
"Yes! Until after sunset, when it's dark." "Why's that?"
"Because I am still within sight of the Lupanians, and I'm nine times taller than a gnome, you little twerp! The Lupanians can move their heat beam a lot faster than I can run!"
"All right, fair enough, no need to get personal." XXX
The second massacre had taken place about five minutes after dawn, so I was faced with the prospect of lying there for the entire day. It began to get quite hot on the crest of Bald Pate Hill, and being covered in bits of half-charred, exploded horse did not make things any more pleasant. The flies seemed to have a good time of it, however. On the positive
side, all that gunk protected my face from sunburn as I lay there, hour after hour. The gnome returned, and offered me a drink from a waterskin made from the hide of a field mouse. He reported that the escapee from the Lupanian pit was in the hands of the bridge trolls, and that he was being moved along the stream very slowly.
"You must be gettin' seriously hot, guv," the gnome commented at about noon.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" I mumbled.
" 'Cause you've drunk thirty-seven waterskins in six hours. Think you can really last the hours until dark?"
"Better than I'd last the millionth of a second that the heat weapon would take to finish me."
"Oh, I see. Look, you just stay right there and I'll see what I can do." I lost track of time after he left, and I definitely blacked out once or twice. I awoke to a trickle of water being squirted onto my face.
"Wakey, wakey, Lupanians about to be distracted!" squeaked Solonor as I opened my eyes. "I'm awake," I moaned. "Can you move?"
"I'd rather not perform a high-risk experiment to find out."
"Well when I says go, you just sort of spring up and leap down the hill, behind you, like," he said as he climbed onto a chunk of dead warhorse and peered out over the field.
"What are you going to do?"
"We're— Shyte! They're early! Move! Run! Jump! Go, that was it!" Without pausing to ask what that might be, I lurched up, took a few steps doubled right over, then s
prang down into the hill's cover just as the heat weapon returned to annihilate what was left of the warhorse. Solonor was standing nearby, pointing out my farsight.
"What did you do?" I asked as I reassured myself that I was still alive.
"Oh, we wove up a few men of straw; then the bridge trolls dragged them along the stream to near the pit, and held them up on sticks from the cover of the bank."
"Good to hear that nobody got hurt," I said as I scraped the congealed horse blood and muck from my face. "There's a lot of us men who could learn from you."
I was drinking from the stream when two muddy bridge trolls, six grass gnomes, and a stark-naked water sprite approached me along the bank. For a moment the thought crossed my mind that the mucky looking bridge trolls lived upstream, in the very water that I was drinking, but to dwell upon it would have been to throw up, and I was much too dehydrated to be able to afford that. A mud-encrusted youth in a tunic was walking between the trolls. On closer inspection I saw that he was not actually walking. Each troll had a hand around an upper arm, and his feet were some inches above the ground.
"This is my, ah, trading partner, Slivisselly," said Solonor uneasily, introducing the water sprite.
She was about three inches taller than he was, and I would have found her very alluring had I been about nine times shorter. A gnome with a blue rinse in his beard frowned at Solonor, but did not speak.
"Esteemed and handsome hero of the Wayfaring Constables, we bring you this refugee from the oppression of the Lupanian royal establishment," the sprite said with a gesture to the youth between the bridge trolls. Her body moved in a quite alarmingly suggestive manner, and I shook my head and tried to focus on the trolls and their captive. One of the trolls holding the youth now cleared his throat.
"Yeah, we brung one of, er, your freedom-lovin' people what made a dash for freedom from the, er ..."
A troll with massive, hairy shoulders whispered something to him.
"Thanks, sister. Yeah, er, from the oppressive Lupanian establishment sorcerers."
The escapee was set down. He was wide-eyed with terror, and did not try to move. The apparently female troll whispered something else.
"Can we have a receipt?" asked the spokestroll.
"I'll scribe one now," I said, fumbling for the report kit under my chain mail and dropping to one knee.
"And why have you got a pair of drawers in your belt and a dishcloth tied to your arm?"
"A display of cultural solidarity with my consultants in etheric scholarship," I explained wearily, with a reasonably straight face. Then I stood up and handed over the receipt.
The youth was pushed forward.
"Don't be afraid, lad, nobody's to hurt you now," I said cheerily. "What's your name?"
He took a soaked, grimy book from a pouch on his belt and opened it. Pointing at some lines of writing and a symbol, he bowed.
"Menni gil trekkit, pores," he declared, then added, "Azorian."
"Foreigner with a phrase book!" I sighed. "Give it here." There was no Alberinese in the book, in fact there was no language that I spoke. Using signs, I established that he was uninjured, fed him some bread and cheese, then got him to follow me as I set off for Gatrov on foot. After about a hundred yards a voice squeaked out behind me.
"That's it lad, just follow the inspector."
I turned and stopped. Solonor was riding on the Azorianese youth's shoulder.
"Shouldn't you be back there, rallying gnomes or something?" I asked.
"Er, the wife's bein' a bit unreasonable, like, about my trading partner." It was only now I noticed that he had suddenly developed a closed and swollen eye.
"Your wife? But I saw no women back there—well, not female gnomes, that is."
" 'Course there were! They're the ones with their beards dyed Lavender Morning, or whatever the fashion is this month. Ain't no male gnomes that dye their beards ... not that we likes to talk about, anyway."
"So ... Slivisselly likes her lovers short and muscular?"
"Now don't you start! Looky here, Inspector, is there any chance of some, er, liaison work with the Wayfarers? Things is a little, er, awkward for me back at Bald Pate Hill, as of about three minutes ago."
"Are you saying that you fear your wife more than you fear the Lupanians?"
"Ain't married to the Lupanians. What do you say?"
"Oh very well, come along. The Wayfarer service is full of folk like you." I paused, undid my belt, bent over, and shook off a mail shirt that would have required a decade-long mortgage to buy on an inspector's salary. Leaving the mail where it had fallen, I then snatched up the dishcloth and drawers, and stuffed them into my report kit before walking on.
"Won't you need that chain mail?" asked the gnome.
"For what?"
"Protection against the Lupanian heat... oh. I see." About a hundred yards farther on I removed the greaves and discarded them as well. It took us three hours to make the trek to Gatrov, crawling through open fields on all fours, dashing from tree to tree in woodland, and ever watchful for anything resembling a tentacle. It was early evening as I entered the town, and the sky was clouding over. I soon learned that Halland's flamethrower attack on the second cylinder had been successful. Burning hellfire oil had been poured into the hatch as soon as it had been opened, and whatever had been inside had been roasted within moments.
I chanced upon Riellen, who was addressing a crowd on some subject that involved freedom, oppression, electocracy, cheap ale for countryfolk, and oppressive royalist sorcerer lackeys of the tyrannical Lupanian establishment. Interrupting the rally, I gave the Azorianese youth and the adulterous gnome into her care, told her to report to the militia commander that I was on my way with a report, then hurried on to Norellie's house. On the door was a proclamation by Halland that any issues involving the practice of sorcery associated with Norellie were to be referred to him before any action whatsoever was taken. I knocked.
Norellie opened the door, and Mervielle and Lavenci were still with her. The serving maid cried out as she caught sight of me, swayed as if about to faint, then recovered her composure, flung her arms around me, and all but lifted me from the floor.
"You're meant to be dead!" Norellie cried, stamping her foot. "I performed the Soul's Release ceremony for you this morning."
"I lit a candle for your spirit in Lady Fortune's shrine before dawn," said Lavenci, looking vaguely annoyed. "Cost me five peons."
"I—er, thank, you. But how did you know about the battle?" Norellie explained hurriedly. Some peasants from Bald Pate Hamlet had been lurking at a distance, watching the baron's charge in the hope of free entertainment. What they saw was the baron and one hundred and twenty of the empire's finest cavalry annihilated in somewhere between three and five seconds. Terrified witless, the peasants fled straight to Gatrov, bypassing their hamlet and running most of the way. They reported the fate of the baron and his men to the town militia headquarters.
"They said the squad was wiped out!" Norellie concluded. I forced a smug smile onto my face. "I had myself appointed chronicler, and was forced to watch from a safe and distant vantage."
"I should have known you would not he stupid enough to get yourself reduced to overdone pork crackling," said Lavenci. "I—" Away to the northeast a green star burst out of the gathering clouds and drew a line of fire with itself across the darkening sky.
"Another one," said Norellie.
"At least we now know that they can be roasted when the cylinders are first opened," I said, unhappy about the prospect of probably having to help the cook, but resigned to it nevertheless.
"The commander says Duke Lestor just arrived from the next province downstream with six river galleys loaded with the Riverway Militia," said Norellie. "He will probably lead the attack."
"So, no work for me, so I'll not need these," I said with some relief, returning the drawers and dishcloth. "I'm afraid I won no victories in your name."
"They're covered in blood!" excl
aimed Norellie, holding her drawers up to the lamplight.
"Most of it's not mine. Now then, time to report to the militia."
"And time for me to give thanks for your safe return to many, many gods," said Mervielle.
"That probably didn't help," said Norellie.
"And probably don't exist," added Lavenci.
"Lady Lavenci, will you please come along and explain your mathematics of the heat weapon?" I said with a wave in the direction of the militia's headquarters.
"Nobody but you will understand, Inspector."
"You flatter me, ladyship."
XXX
Lavenci and I hurried across to the militia's headquarters, exchanging observations of Lupanian castings and science as we went. Riellen was waiting at the front door as we arrived. Although my report of the catastrophe at Bald Pate Hill had not been the first to be brought back to the militia commander, I had been closer to the action than anyone else. Upon entering the militia offices, I discovered that Duke Lestor was there. He had come from Siranta, the next large town downstream on the Alber. The baroness had fled for Alberin before noon, as soon as word of her husband's defeat had reached her. She had called in at Siranta long enough to tell the duke what had happened. He had immediately decided to throw a small force together and teach the Lupanians not to declare war without a proper exchange of diplomatic insults. Having six river galleys and four times more fighting men than the Gatrov Militia, the duke felt that he should be in charge of whatever was being done about the Lupanians. Halland had thus put himself and his men at the duke's disposal. The duke had based himself in the militia offices, and was compiling the various reports of what had happened when I arrived. I was shown into his presence, and I gave my report as quickly and coherently as I could, leaving out such details as Norellie's drawers, Mervielle's dishcloth, and the offer of an alliance from the grass gnomes. Once I had finished I was told that I had done a good job, then taken outside and presented with a pint of ale and a slice of
smoked ham in a bread roll. Halland then arrived with news from the watchtower. His estimate was that the third cylinder had come down about seven miles to the north, at a place where the River Alber runs close to Waingram Forest. The duke decided to convene a council of advisors.
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