King Kobold Revived

“I knew there was something in the air!” Rod cried. Ozone, probably. “Go tell your comrades to hold the fort, Leonatus! We’ll be there posthaste!” Especially since the post was currently air mail.

“Aye, my lord!” But the youth looked puzzled. “What is a ‘fort’?”

“A strong place,” Rod answered, “and the idea is to catch your enemy between it and a rock.”

“An thou dost say it, Lord Warlock.” Leonatus looked confused, but he said manfully, “I shall bear word to them,” and disappeared with a small thunderclap.

Rod muttered, “Fess, we’re coming in at full speed. Meet me at the cliff-top.”

“I am tethered, Rod,” the robot’s voice reminded him.

Rod shrugged. “So stretch it tight. When you’re at the end of your tether, snap it and join me.”

They dropped down to land at the witches’ tent, just as the first few drops of rain fell.

“How fare the young folk?” Agatha cried.

“Scared as hell,” Rod called back. “Will they ever be glad to see you!” He jumped off the broomstick and caught up his wife for a brief but very deep kiss.

“My lord!” She blushed prettily. “I had scarcely expected…”

“Just needed a little reminder of what I’ve got to come home to.” Rod gave her a quick squeeze. “Good luck, darling.” Then he whirled and pounded away through the drizzle.

He halted at the edge of the cliff-top by the river, staring down. He was just in time to see the first wave of beastmen spill over their earthworks and lope away up the river valley, shields high and battle-axes swinging. Rod frowned, looking around for the Gramarye army. Where was it?

There, just barely visible through the drizzle, was a dark, churning mass, moving away upstream.

“Fess!”

“Here, Rod.”

Rod whirled—and saw the great black horsehead just two feet behind him. He jumped back, startled—then remembered the sheer drop behind him and skittered forward to slam foot into stirrup and swing up onto the robot-horse’s back. “How’d you get here so fast?”

“I do have radar.” Fess’s tone was mild reproof. “Shall we go, Rod? You are needed upstream.”

“Of course!” And, as the great black horse sprang into a canter, “What’s going on?”

“Good tactics.” The robot’s tone was one of respect, even admiration. He cantered down the slope, murmuring, “Perhaps Tuan should explain it to you himself.”

Rod scarcely had time to protest before they had caught up with the army. Everything was roaring confusion—the clanging clash of steel, the tramping squelch of boots in ground that had already begun to turn to mud, the bawling of sergeants’ orders, and the whi

“Why?” Rod snapped.

“Tuan has ordered it,” Fess answered, “and wisely, in my opinion.”

“Take me to him!”

They found the King at the rear, for once, since that was the part of the army closest to the enemy. “They fall back on the left flank!” he bawled. “Bid Sir Maris speed them; for stragglers will surely become corpses!”

The courier nodded and darted away through the rain.

“Hail, sovereign lord!” Rod called.

Tuan looked up, and his face lit with relief. “Lord Warlock! Praise Heaven thou’rt come!”

“Serves you right for inviting me. Why the retreat, Tuan?”

“Assuredly thou dost jest, Lord Warlock! Dost thou not feel the rain upon thee? We ca

“But if we don’t,” Rod pointed out, “they’ll just keep marching as long as it rains.”

Tuan nodded. “The thought had occurred to me.”

“Uh—this could be a good way to lose a kingdom…”

“Of this, too, I am mindful. Therefore, we shall turn and stand—but not until they are certain we’re routed.”

Rod lifted his head slowly, eyes widening. Then he gri

“They’ll expect some show of resistance, surely,” Tuan agreed. “Therefore wilt thou and the Flying Legion ride out against them.” He nodded toward the right flank. “They await thee, Lord Warlock.”

His commandos raised a cheer when they saw him, and he raised them with quick orders. A minute later, half of them faded into the grass and scrub growth that lined the riverbank. The other half, the ones with the hipboots, imitated Moses and drifted into the bullrushes.

Rod stayed with the landlubbers, easing silently back along the bankside till they reached a place where the beach widened, walled with a semicircle of trees, the spaces between them filled with brush. Ten minutes later, the first scouts from the beastman advance guard came up even with them. Rod waited until they were right in the middle of the semicircle, then whistled a good imitation of a whippoorwill. But the cry was a strange one to the beastmen, and something rang fowl. One Neanderthal looked up, startled, his mouth opening to cry the alarm—when a dozen Gramarye commandos hit him and his mates.

The rangers surrounded the beastmen completely, so Rod didn’t see what happened; all he knew was that it lasted about thirty seconds, then his men faded back into the trees, leaving three corpses in the center of the glade, pumping their blood into the pale sand.

Rod stared, shaken and u

“I’ll take your word for it,” Rod muttered. “What’d these boys do in peacetime—work in a slaughterhouse?”

The sergeant shrugged. “Any farm lad must know how to slit the throat of a swine, and these ogres are little more.”

Rod had to bite back a sudden impulse to explain the conflict as the beastmen saw it. “They’re the enemy,” he agreed unhappily, “and this is war. They’ve already pretty well proved that they’ll kill us if we don’t kill them first.” Privately, he wondered how many of them really wanted to.

Later. Right now, it was time to play monster. “Tell the men to spread out along the backtrail, sergeant.”

The sergeant turned away to mutter a few words, but that was the only effect Rod saw or heard. He sat his saddle securely anyway, knowing his men had spread out toward the beastmen. He sat securely, and waited.

After about five minutes, the vanguard came up. Their leader saw the corpses in the center of the glade and held out an arm to stop his men. While they stared, shocked, Rod called like a gull, and fifty commandos slid from the brush, swords slashing throats before the beastmen even realized they’d been attacked.

As the first Neanderthals fell, the others turned with a roar, axes whirling down. Rod’s men leaped back, but a couple weren’t quick enough. He let the anger fuel him as he commanded Fess, “Go!” The great black steel horse leaped out into the battle as Rod shouted, “Havoc!” The beastmen’s eyes all riveted on this new threat, so they didn’t notice the shadows that slid out of the rushes behind them in answer to Rod’s cry. Beastmen began dropping at the rear as Rod and his men began their deadly gavotte, skipping back out of reach of the beastmen’s axes as they tried to catch Gramarye glances, but Rod’s men held to their hard-learned tactic—staring at the enemy’s weapons, not at his pupils. Here and there a soldier accidentally looked at the reddened eyes of the foe, and slowed. It even happened to Rod—being on horseback, he attracted eyes. One Neanderthal managed to catch him squarely, and suddenly he was plowing through molasses, panic touching him as he felt two rival impulses battling in his brain, and realized neither of them was his own.