Myth-Gotten Gains

"It's sure a handy timesaver, sister!" I shouted.

I swung in a circle. Two of the Toadies stumbled off. I backed the other three into the wall. Half the plaster crumbled off on their heads. One of them tried pounding on my head. I grabbed his wrist and flipped him overhand. He went sailing through the air.

SPLASH!

The Toady guard landed in the pot of boiling stew.

"Auggh!" he shouted, surfacing. He leaped out and dashed out the door.

"Waste of good food," I commented.

Tananda was engaged in a tug of war. Two teams of Toady guards were pulling at her shoulder bags from either side. She was stretched between them like a prisoner about to be torn apart by wild horses. Buirnie's drummer and lighting guy kicked and battered at the guards trying to steal their boss. The Fife himself was shrieking with fear.

"Don't let them touch me! Roadies! Help!"

"Help!" Kelsa shouted. "These beasts have bad karma!"

I grabbed up a handy bowl and heaved it. It hit the lead guard on the Buirnie side smack in the face. He dropped like a

stone. With expressions that said that the following action was against their better judgment, a dozen more lowered their spears and charged at me.

"What do you have that they don't like?" I asked Asti.

"I've barely recovered from feeding the five thousand!" she protested.

"Save the blather!"

"Oh, very well!"

A blue liquid bubbled out of her bowl and dribbled onto the floor. It smelled like industrial-grade soap. I brandished it at the charging guards. The leaders windmilled to a stop, and fell back on the spears of their comrades. I sloshed more of the blue stuff toward them. They shrieked and ran in the opposite direction.

"Thanks!" Tananda said, rubbing her shoulders. "My goodness, I haven't had to deal with so many aggressive males since Frat Night in Imper."

"Slumming again?" I said dryly. She winked. "What was that stuff?" I asked Asti.

"Commercial dessicant," Asti said, as the liquid immediately dried to a crust on the floor. "These creatures need their skins to stay very moist, or it cracks."

I gri

"NOBODY appreciates beauty like yours except those who are totally blind!"

Tanda went on guard.

"Look out!"

The warning was u

I spun, brandishing Asti.

"You guys really have to oil your armor if you want to sneak up on someone," I suggested, sloshing them with the contents of Asti's bowl. They batted at the stuff with both hands, then looked at their hands in horror. The webs between their fingers shrank noticeably.

"Agh! Dry skin! Dry skin!"

They backed away from me. I followed, still flinging sludge. They fled, calling for help. I laughed at them and shouldered aside the curtain leading to the courtyard.

My eyes widened. The entire square was full of soldiers. At the rear was a gigantic carriage drawn by four matched newts. In it, a scrawny little guy wearing a rusty red wig bigger than his whole body.

"What is wrong with you?" the wizened little guy yelled at the soldiers. "Take them! Bring me the treasures!"

Hylida dropped to her knees. Most of her flock followed suit. "That's the Majaranarana!"

"Yield to me!" he shrieked, whipping his newts until they charged us. "I want the gold!"

The soldiers shouted. "For the Majaranarana!"

Buirnie outshouted them. The Fife let out a deafening trill that turned my ears inside out. The noise set the newts bucking and tossing their heads. Riders were thrown off their backs, including the Majaranarana, whose carriage flipped wheels-up as the four beasts tried to flee in several directions at once. The riders tried to grab their mounts, but the panicked lizards fled out of the square.

Klik, the spotlight, flew up out of reach and shone a blinding beam down on his boss, as Zildie started beating a martial rhythm. Buirnie blasted out a war song.

I kept spattering soldiers with Asti's special brew. Tananda flitted from guard, deftly kicking the spears out of their hands or knocking them flying with a stewpot on a chain she had picked up from Hylida's kitchen.

Our defiance of the tax authority had awoken something in the Toadies of the Abbey. They were fighting back, to the astonishment of the soldiers, who obviously were used to bullying them whenever they felt like it. The armored males defended themselves at bay or cowered with their hands over their heads as gangs of the neighborhood poor battered at them with pots, pans, rocks, unripe fruit, spoiled food and garbage. The soldiers

might have been better armed, but they were vastly outnumbered. It looked like a cross between a soccer riot and the great pie fight. Poor Hylida stood huddled against the front wall of her mission, shouting at people to calm down and stop fighting. It was no use. Her followers were fed up with their treatment, and were taking probably their one and only opportunity in their lives to fight back. I tried to get to her, but I spotted Calypsa in the middle of a ring of soldiers who were still trying to follow their master's orders and seize the Hoard. She looked terrified. I started throwing guards out of my way to get to her.

"Draw me!" Ersatz bellowed at her. "Come on, lass! Defend yourself! Draw me!"

Almost in a trance, Calypsa dragged the brand over her head. "Now what?"

"Wield me, lass!" he exclaimed. "I will guide you! Your dancer's wiles are better than a trained fencer's. Forward with right foot! Bring me around, cut upward! Slash right! Good, lass!" he called out, as the lead guard's head went bounding across the floor. "Quick, two-step to the right, plunge me behind your back! No, POINT first. Point first!"

"Ugggh!"

Calypsa turned gracefully on the tip of one toe and found herself staring at the biggest of the thugs, arms crossed over a belly-wound that I could tell was fatal.

"She doesn't need you," Asti said.

Ersatz shouted orders, and Calypsa followed them. She swung and danced, and the long, blue blade flashed in the sun like a pinwheel. To my surprise, the guards began to fall back.

"You're right," I said. "I'll be dipped in..."

"Help, aid, assistance!" Payge's soft voice suddenly exclaimed, from my other side.

I felt something tugging at the straps of the shoulder bag. I tugged back, and found myself looking into the beady eyes of the Majaranarana.

"Give that to me, or die," he said, showing his rows of jagged little teeth. At his back were thirty soldiers, most of them looking pretty beaten up. Still, I couldn't take on thirty of them. Very slowly, I extended the book bag to him.

"That's better," the scrawny ruler said, flipping open the top and fondling Payge's spine. Did I imagine it, or did the Book shudder? "Horunkus, give him the demand."

The captain cleared his throat importantly and raised his electronic tablet. "You underquoted the value of the goods which you brought into the Imperial city of Sri Port, and must pay five thousand gold coins per item that you undervalued."

"Five tho—Not a chance!" I snarled.

Horunkus gri

I gri

The Purse protested.