Her Majesty's Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  In the moonlight, rocks heaved and rolled aside from secret cave mouths. Stunted three-foot men came out, pulling together into a ragged troop as they neared the army. Their legs were short, but their beards were long. They were thick-muscled and massive, dressed in leather tunics. They carried maces, axes, and great broadswords.

  More emerged from the northern mountains and still more from the eastern peak. They straggled across the valley to mass before Colmain. One in the front rumbled, "Ye have summoned us, Lord of Rock. What coil brews, that ye hail us out by the power of the ancient compact?"

  Colmain looked over the five hundred dwarves. "You are summoned to hoist your weapons against a sorcerous army that would enfold us all, and to fight for your true queen!"

  The heads turned to study Alisande. Then the leader nodded gruffly. "Aye. We live by stone and earth, and you stand for the land, Majesty. We will do your bidding."

  Colmain was doing his sums again. He sighed and shook his head. "Two thousand, five hundred. Doughty warriors who will make the enemy buy victory dearly-but victory will be his. We need more to face the teeth within the sorcerer's maw."

  "Teeth!" Matt snapped his fingers.

  Alisande glanced at him warily. "What mean you, Wizard?"

  "I mean to get a thousand more," Matt cried. He whirled to Stegoman. "Hey, can I have your tooth?"

  The dragon's head snapped back. "My body's part? Wizard, what-?" Then, reluctantly, his neck lowered. "Aye, or all my body. I have sworn."

  "Thanks, Stegoman. You won't be sorry." Matt untied the leather bag, shook out the tooth, and knelt with it between his hands.

  "By the spirit fructifying,

  Let this tooth start multiplying! Let there be a thousand more, Equal to its length and bore. Let the valor of their donor Be to each a pledge of honor!"

  There were two teeth, then four; then they spilled over and mounded up into a huge pile of dragon's teeth.

  With all eyes on him, Matt whipped out his sword, gouged it into the ground, and ran, digging a long trench. He turned and ran backwards, repeating until he had six such channels. Then he scooped up an armload of teeth and began to cast them into the furrow, about eighteen inches apart. After a moment, Father Brunel caught up a heap of teeth in his cassock and began sowing. Then Sayeesa joined them, while Matt recited:

  "Unto Greece, whose name lives yet, Cadmus brought the alphabet. Men then learned the written word Bites far harder than the sword. Kingdoms grew and spawned empire; Written words then did inspire Warriors to the scribe's desire. On a green and fertile heath, Cadmus sowed the dragon's teeth, Reaping from them fighting men. Let it work this time as then!"

  Seedling blades poked up from the earth behind him, surging upward with leaf-shaped spear blades for eight feet before horsehair crests led Greek helmets into view. Grim Greek faces appeared, then breastplates, armored kilts, and greave-covered shins. As the three finished sowing, a long line of soldiers surged up behind them. Within a few minutes, the last tooth had. reached full growth. The Greeks looked about, turning to stare at the first. He nodded and stepped forward, snapping out a question.

  Matt's two years of Greek studies had seemed useless-an endless business of the strategos riding his hippos to the potamos and archaic military maneuvers. But now, surprisingly, he understood that this strategos was asking what was going on.

  Matt took a deep breath, remembering bits of Aeschylus, and cried out, "Heroes, Hellenes, I call upon you to defend freedom, as you've ever done and ever shall do!"

  The leader looked startled to hear Greek-however mangled, from the lips of this steel-plated alien, but he nodded. "What enemy falls upon us now?"

  "An evil magus," Matt replied, "with a horde of armies"

  "Persians!" they bellowed as one man, and the leader shouted, "As did our sires at Thermopylae -- form hup!"

  When the dust settled, Matt found himself facing a phalanx, bristling with fourteen-foot spears. The leader stepped out and bawled, "Ready for battle, sir!"

  Matt nodded, poker-faced, wondering if he were really doing this. "Stand at rest, Strategos, but ready. The enemy may advance at any moment."

  The spears sagged as the Greeks settled down in place, sitting on their heels, waiting patiently at ready.

  Matt nodded and turned to the giant. "Three thousand and five hundred now, Colmain."

  "And twenty ogres." The giant surveyed Matt with respect. "Can you summon more?"

  Matt cursed silently. It could as well have been two thousand or more from the tooth. but he'd let his own unthinking prejudice trap him into the first round number that came to mind. Now it was too late. He shook his head bitterly. "No."

  "Well, battles have been won against great odds before." Colmain sighed. "We can but hope. 'Tis not always the number of the men, but the skill and spirit that they hold."

  Matt turned away, then remembered one other contribution he could make. He slapped his breastplate. "Hey, Max!"

  "Aye, Wizard?" The Demon zipped to him from a knot of nuns. Matt eyed the cluster and saw Sayeesa among them. He frowned-but there was no time to worry about it.

  "Look, we're expecting a battle any minute now. So do me a favor, will you?"

  "If 'tis in my power."

  "This is. Just flit around the field wherever the whim takes you, concentrating gravity-about four gees should be enough, under groups of enemy soldiers. Keep it random, so they can't figure out where you'll be next."

  "Wisely planned," the Demon hummed judiciously. "If they knew where I might next be, their sorcerers night circumvent me."

  Matt nodded. "Right. You're not to cause damage so much as to create confusion."

  "Create? I? 'Tis near an insult!"

  The moon came out from behind clouds. Now they could see a forest of pikes and spears rising up from a mass of men and horses across the valley. A figure in bright armor was at its head.

  "Astaulf!" Alisande made the name an obscenity.

  "He didn't strike me as intelligent," Matt said nervously.

  "Mistake not, in battle he has few equals." her voice rose to command. "Master Colmain, command the right flanks with your dwarves and ogres.. Sir Guy, take the left flank with the Moncaireans and their good barons and host of foot. Reverend Mother, let your ladies ride near me, for I'll command the center. And Lord Wizard, command your dragon-teeth men behind us in the center." She took a deep breath and bawled, "Commanders, to your commands!"

  Sir Guy's blank shield snapped up far to the left, and the Moncaireans rode around the rear toward him. Sayeesa stood up in her stirrups, waving. The nuns homed on her and the abbess beside her.

  Matt turned and called, "Spartans! Bring up your phalanx! March behind the black-clad ladies!"

  The Greeks came to their feet and snapped into position.

  It didn't make too much sense to Matt to put most of the cavalry on the left flank and the rest in the center. But maybe Alisande knew her troops better than he did. Anyhow, it gave him an excuse to stick near her; he had big worries about what Malingo might try to do to her.

  He looked at the army of sorcery flowing across the valley; Sir Guy's estimate had been far too conservative. "Do we charge now?" he asked Alisande.

  "No! If there is no battle, 'tis better for us. We'll march back eastward, gaining strength with each mile."

  "They know that, of course?"

  Alisande nodded. "And cannot permit it. There will be battle tonight. But let them begin it."

  And win it? Matt noticed that she was still not claiming victory by infallibility. He studied the hosts of Astaulf again, worrying. And there were the spells of Malingo ...

  Maybe he could do something about them. He began shaping the verses in his mind. It would need power-more power than he had called on in waking the giants. He built the lines in his mind slowly and carefully.

  Then something touched his thoughts-a feeling of dark evil intruding. Malingo! The sorcerer was already working to disable him! And there was no time now for h
is spell. Desperately, Matt cried out the only lines he could think of, sure they would not work, but forced to try.

  "Words were shaped within my head; Treat those words as being said."

  A wind seemed to sweep across his mind, and the dark presence weakened, seeming to rise, struggling, to hover over him. Stalemate between himself and Malingo? If so, at least Astaulf's armies would not be able to invoke major magic.

  And halfway across the valley, Astaulf kicked his horse into a gallop as he swung his sword overhead with a bellow. His whole army broke into a run with a vast shout.

  Alisande sat her charger, waiting tranquilly, while the tail of Astaulf's army still flowed down over the ridge and until Matt could make out every detail of the usurper's armor.

  "Now!" Alisande bawled. "Charge!"

  Her army broke into a gallop with a shout of joy, thundering across the valley to meet the enemy.

  As they charged, Sir Guy rose to stand in his stirrups, and his voice sounded above the battle, directed toward the foe with a pounding melody in archaic words. From his right, Colmain echoed it, hammering the meaning through:

  "Who was it fought for Hardishane?

  Your fathers, lads, your sires!

  Who marched to war behind Colmain?

  Your fathers' fathers' sires!

  They answered Deloman's first call;

  They fought with Conor, risking all;

  And now they feast in Heaven's hall!

  Your fathers' fathers' sires!

  Who now shall stand against the foe?

  Not you, my lads, not you!

  Who fights to gain the reign of Woe?

  You do, my lads, you do!

  Who, out of fear of captains fell

  Now fights against the Book and Bell?

  And who shall taste the fires of Hell?

  You shall, my lads, you shall!

  Yet even in this doom-lit hour

  Men may turn against the power

  That seeks to rule by fear and pain;

  And they Salvation still may gain!

  Or tell the sons they robbed of worth

  That they helped bring them Hell on earth!

  Your children, lads, your sons!

  Who now shall fight for Kaprin's bud?

  You can, my lads, you can!

  Whose child will praise your siring blood?

  Yours shall, good men, yours shall!

  If you turn now against your lords!

  With pikes beat down their evil swords!

  Then you shall live on Heaven's swards!

  Fight for your Queen, lads, fight!"

  There was magic in the words, a weird magic that beat through Matt's head and drummed in his blood. And it was a magic for which Malingo was not prepared.

  Pockets of Astaulf's army slowed, seeming suddenly reluctant. Their captains bellowed, lashing at them with the flats of their swords. The pockets swelled as they stopped, balking. The captains cursed and swung with the edges, lopping off heads.

  With a roar of fury, whole battalions turned on their commanders, laying about them with their pikes and shouting: "Lord, forgive me!" ... "Jesus, I do repent each blow I've struck for my foul master!" ... "Die, devil! Heaven claim my soul!"

  In a matter of minutes, almost a third of Astaulf's army had turned against him. That quickly, Sir Guy had changed the odds to a somewhat more even match.

  "For God and Saint Moncaire!" Alisande cried, swinging her sword high as the two armies crashed together. She and Astaulf traded blows; then a horde of battling footmen surged between them, and they were lost to one another's sight.

  On the left flank, Sir Guy mowed down soldiers; chanting war songs, with the Moncaireans following to bind the sheaves of dead. On the right, Colmain bent low, slapping knights from their horses and slinging them behind him for the dwarves to finish, while the ogres spread out to either side of him, crushing skulls.

  Both flanks slowed as reinforcements surged toward them, stalling the advance by sheer weight of numbers. The battle settled down to personal combat and immediately degenerated into chaos, as repentant queen's men fought those whose greed outweighed their fear of Hell or of their sons' contempt. Knots of struggle formed all along the line.

  Matt laid about him with his marvelous sword, catching blows on his shield and slashing in return. The air was filled with the roars of the berserkers and the shrieks of the dying. Pikes pressed in upon him from all sides. He had no time to try magic, even if the countering spells were gone. But they seemed to endure, since there was no sign of magic from Malingo, either.

  An ancient Greek battle song roared in his right ear, and his left was filled with a battle hymn from Sister Victrix's band; he was caught between the classical and the medieval. He had lost sight of Alisande; he'd lost sight of everything but Colmain, Stegoman beneath him, and the swords and lances that stabbed at him from all directions. Here and there, above the clamor, he heard metal crashing together as Max pulled down pocket after pocket of enemy troops. Hoarse male screams filled the air.

  Then a chorus of screeches came down from the sky. Matt looked up in alarm and saw a horde of harpies plummeting down toward the battle; in front of them came twelve-foot flying snakes, bat-winged and breathing fire.

  "Firedrakes!" someone screamed nearby. "Lord defend us!"

  Hell-spawn had joined the battle. Apparently the stasis on spells was wearing thin. The enemy roared with relief and waded in.

  "To me!" Stegoman bellowed, lifting his head above the crowd.

  Matt caught a blast of fire from a drake upon his shield and swore as the armor conducted heat to his skin. He rose in his stirrups to chop out full-length, slashing a firedrake in half. Liquid spattered as the two halves went flying, still writhing and snapping. A drop hit Matt's shield; in a few seconds he was staring through a hole the ichor had eaten.

  "To me!" Stegoman bellowed again, and a chorus of roaring answered from the skies. Matt risked a quick glance up, and saw a hundred dragons diving down from the heights, a shoal of fire before them-Glogorogh and the volunteers.

  The harpies shrieked and flapped frantically upward, sheering off.

  "Captains!" Alisande's voice came clearly above the lull in the battle the aerial combat had created. "Regroup your forces!"

  They had time, because the dragons plowed into the firedrakes with bellows of fury and billows of flame. A score of younger dragons scoured the skies for harpies, sailing into a cluster of monsters and lashing fire about them, slashing out with claws and teeth. The harpies shrieked, ganging up on the dragons by dozens and scores; but the dragons were in full rage and in no mood to argue numbers. Charred harpies crashed down in the midst of the armies; manic women's heads went flying.

  Lower, just above the soldiers' helmets, older dragons chewed up the fire-snakes.

  The armies cowered under their shields as fire and acid rained about them. The allied commanders bawled commands at their troops, cajoling and bullying them into order again.

  The rain of fire began to slacken. Matt risked a peek around the edge of his shield and saw only a few harpies, trying to flutter away toward the east, with the dragons in hot pursuit. There were no firedrakes, though snake bodies writhed upon the ground, splattering acid blood about them.

  "Now," Alisande called, somewhere ahead, "hew a road for me to the usurper! Ladies, to me!"

  The nuns howled, and the Greeks bellowed behind them, hammering into the churning enemy battle line.

  Far away across the ranks, the moonlight revealed Astaulf, laying about him with the flat of his sword, knocking his own men aside to clear a path to the princess. Behind him rode a robed figure with a tall, pointed cap-Malingo, preoccupied with sword and shield.

  The commanders surged toward each other, while dragons danced over the enemy, roaring blasts wherever they could make the most confusion.

  Sister Victrix and her nuns formed up around Alisande-now only half their original number, but still laying about them with their swords,
catching blows upon their shields, and chopping a way through the ranks for their princess, like a black arrowhead driving toward Astaulf.

  Then a surge of the enemy broke through. A long knight's lance caught Alisande in the midriff, knocking her off her horse. She disappeared in the crush of fighting.

  Matt screamed, "Forward, Stegoman! Torch them away! Plow through to the princess!"

  The dragon roared, blasting fire straight ahead. His own men saw the dragon coming and leaped aside. A tiny spark sprang into Stegoman's flame, and it roared out an additional ten feet.

  "Thanks, Max!" Matt laid about him like a maniac, chopping through any enemy in his way.

  But the troops still loyal to Astaulf, greedy for goods and careless of their souls, saw their chance to gain great kudoes by downing the enemy wizard and pressed in, howling for blood.

  Matt chopped them away, noticing them only as obstacles. The monofilament-edged blade sheered through armor and bone. Soldiers died, yet more pressed in to delay him. But knight and dragon plowed through to the knot of nuns who were formed into a hollow circle, fighting valiantly against a crush of enemy. They battled bravely, but they were heavily outnumbered and went down, one by one, killing three men for each of them. They died, until only a score of them remained to guard their princess.

  Matt, twenty-five feet away and high on Stegoman's shoulders, could see Alisande in their center, trying to struggle back to her feet with the aid of a spear, but with one leg badly twisted beneath her. Matt's heart seemed to lurch; he hewed about him frantically. He was fifteen feet from her, then ten. But now the nuns all lay dead or senseless, and only two black-clad figures stood between the princess and the enemy, Father Brunel, with a shield on his arm and a steel cap on his head, roaring like a wounded bull and laying about him with the strength of a gorilla; and Sayeesa, with two slender swords in her hands, stabbing at chinks in enemy armor.

  Knights loomed up over them, with battle-axes raised high ...

  Stegoman bulldozed through the last few pikemen and leaped up to Alisande with a roaring blast of fire, white-hot to melt armor, turning his head in a long, slow arc to sweep the field clean. Max was still adding to the blast. Knights screamed and beat their way backward. Brunel and Sayeesa dropped to huddle low against the dragon's forelegs while white fire roared out over their heads.