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The demon-jester gazed down at Sir George for another moment, then nodded regally for the demonstration to begin, and Sir George, in turn, nodded to Rolf Grayhame.
The archery captain barked an order, and two dozen plate-armored archers, helmets and metal work brilliantly polished for the occasion, surcoats washed and bright with color over their armor, marched briskly to the firing line. Sir George had longed to call for a larger number of them, but he'd concluded that he dared not. Twenty-four was more than sufficient to provide the demonstration the "Commander" desired. To ask for more bows to be issued might have aroused suspicion, or at least caution, and the demon-jester might have decided to remain safely in his air car after all.
The archers stopped in formation and quickly and smoothly bent and strung their bows, and the demon-jester, like the gathered chieftains, turned to gaze at the targets just over a hundred yards down range. Most of those targets were shaped like humans, but some among them were also shaped like natives of this world, and all were "protected" only by the large wicker shields the natives used in battle. The sort of shields longbow arrows would pierce as effortlessly as awls.
Grayhame barked another order, and twenty-four archers nocked arrows and raised their bows.
"Draw!" Grayhame shouted, and twenty-four bowstaves bent as one.
"Loose!" the archer captain bellowed... and twenty-four longbowmen turned on their heels in perfect unison, and twenty-four bow strings snapped as one. Two dozen arrows flew through the bright sunlight of an alien world, glittering like long, lethal hornets, and crashed into their targets with devastating force.
Eighteen of those arrows carried deadly, needle-pointed pile heads. At such short range they could pierce even Hathori plate armor, and they smashed into the wart-faces on the raised dais like hammers. Five bounced harmlessly aside, defeated by the angle and the Hathori's armor; thirteen did not, and all but two of the bulge-eyed aliens went down. Not all of those felled were dead, but all were out of action, at least for the moment.
And so were the two who were unwounded, for the remaining six arrows had done their own lethal work. Every one of them had slammed home in the "Commander's" body, and the brilliant red garment which would have shrugged aside fire from the dragons' terrifying "energy weapons" was no help at all against clothyard shafts at a range of under ten yards. They drove clean through the creature's body, spraying bright yellow-red blood, and then deep into the back of his throne-like chair.
The demon-jester never even screamed, couldn't even tumble from the chair to which the arrows had nailed him, and the two uninjured Hathori gaped at their master's feathered corpse in shock. That shock seemed to hold them forever, although it could not actually have been more than the briefest span of seconds, but then they turned as one, raising their axes, and charged the nearest humans.
They never reached their targets. The archers were already nocking fresh arrows while the handful of knights and men-at-arms who'd known what was to happen charged forward, but many of the men and women who hadn't had the least idea what was pla
But it didn't matter. The wart-faces had moved no more than two strides when half a dozen lightning bolts literally tore them apart.
The air was full of human shouts and screams of consternation and shock as the enormity of what had just happened smashed home, and the alien chieftains had vaulted from their places and disappeared with commendable quickness of mind. Sir George had watched them vanish, and now he made a mental note to keep an eye out for their return, in case they should sense an opportunity to strike at all the hated off-worlders while those invaders fought among themselves. But almost all of his attention was focused elsewhere, and he charged up the stairs towards the demon-jester's body. Maynton and three other picked knights accompanied him, helping to drive through the confusion, and his own sword was in his hand by the time he bounded onto the platform. It wasn't needed—the dragons had already dispatched the wounded Hathori with ruthless efficiency—and he leaned forward to jerk the bright, faceted pendant from around the neck of the corpse. He held the precious device in his hand, his heart flaming with exultation as he gazed down at it, and then something touched his armored shoulder.
He spun quickly, only to relax as he found himself gazing up into the silver eyes of one of the dragons. The towering alien regarded him for several long seconds and then waved at the carnage about them, pointed to the dead demon-jester, and cocked his head in unmistakable question. The baron followed the gesturing hand with his own eyes, then looked back up at his huge, alien ally, and gri
"Your folk may have been willing enough to die, Sir Dragon. Aye, and brave enough to do it, as well! But it isn't the English way to murder our own, and with this—" he raised the pendant "—we'll not need that piece of meat to take his precious ship, now will we? And with us to hunt the guildsmen, and your folk to hunt Hathori, well—"
His grin bared his teeth as he and the mute dragon stood eye to eye, and then, slowly, the dragon showed its own deadly-looking fangs in a hungry grin of its own and it gave a very human nod.
"Then let's be about it, my friend!" Sir George invited, reaching up to clap the huge alien on the back, and the two of them started down the platform stairs towards the waiting lander together.
-XI-
"So," Admiral Mugabi sighed. "It's official."
"Not quite," Admiral Stevenson replied with a tight smile. "What's official is my informing you that the Galactics are finally getting around to issuing their ultimatum. Of course, we're not supposed to know that, because the official note hasn't arrived yet. And the consensus is that even when it does, the exact consequences if it's rejected won't be precisely spelled out in it, anyway."
"Of course they won't," Mugabi snorted. "They're so damned sanctimonious that there's no way they're going to commit themselves in an official communique."
"I wouldn't bet on that," Stevenson said much more somberly. "The one thing we can be fairly certain of is that they didn't have this brainstorm overnight, whatever they may be trying to tell their citizenry. There had to be some pretty drastic horsetrading to get the Kulavo and Daerjek to sign off on their final position. Unless ONI is completely off base, one of the points the hardliners like the Saernai and Josuto will have insisted upon is that the Kulavo, at least, officially endorse their prescription for finally solving their little problem once and for all. After all, the Kulavo have been the `conscience' of the Council for so long that the faction that wants to smash us almost has to have the cover of their public agreement. So I'd guess that the final act in that little Kabuki play will be the presentation of an official note demanding that we hand the ship—and the Romans—over on pain of military action."
"But I'll bet you anything you care to name that they won't mention words like `genocide' in any official note," Mugabi shot back.
"You're probably right about that," Stevenson agreed. "Of course, they won't have to, either. After all, if we're so unreasonable as to provoke them into taking military steps in the first place, any little accidents, like a planet-buster that just happens to go off course, will be on our own primitive heads. They'll have warned us that we could get hurt, so their hands will be clean when the `accident' takes place on schedule. I mean, all they're really demanding is that we hand over to them a ship that's stolen private property and the crew—who are also private property, under the Federation's laws—who stole it and murdered their legal owners in the process. If we're so unreasonable, stupid, and primitive that we're unwilling to hand such bloodthirsty, mutinous criminals over to the appropriate authorities, then certainly no law-abiding government like the Federation could possibly just stand by and see its fundamental legal principles flouted. Obviously they have to take steps, and if those steps just coincidentally end up with a star system full of aborigines getting mashed in the gears, well, maintaining the rule of law sometimes requires unpleasant actions."