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He put a hand to the back of his head. It came away smeared with blood. A burning coal seemed to be frying his head and neck. He ignored it, picked up the sword again, leaned down, grabbed a flopping wing, and cut the wing off. The hawk, which had been tearing up the face of a man on the ground, collapsed. But its talons did not come loose from her victim's flesh.
Suddenly, the melee was over. For a while, at least. The surviving hawks were flying away, or, if too badly wounded, were staggering away on the ground.
Hank pried the dead hawk's talons from their grip on his helmet and put it on his head. His goggles were lying ten feet away; he decided that he would wear them to protect his eyes. The hawks had lost heavily. Fifty were dead or too hurt to be effective. None of the men were killed, but ghastly face wounds had put seven out of action. Four seemed to be blinded in one or both eyes. Several had missing noses and ears.
Niklaz had the badly wounded taken into the barn where the medicos could take care of them.
"I don't hate easily," the Tin Woodman said. "But I hate that Erakna. All this is totally u
Hank thought so, too, but he said nothing. He went into the barn to make sure that no hawks had gotten in there and damaged Je
Niklaz said, "I wonder how the battle is going."
"What?" Hank said. Then he understood that the king was referring to the conflict they had seen on the plains just before landing.
"If the Gillikins break through," Niklaz said, "it won't take them long to get here. We might be able to hold off the hawks and Monkeys, but we can't stand up against an army."
"Will they have hawks, too?" Hank said.
The tin mask smiled fixedly through the blood.
"You're worried that their hawks will reinforce the others. Yes, they'll have hawks and eagles. But not many. They'll be used primarily as scouts, not fighters. Erakna doesn't have thousands at her command any more than Glinda does. Most birds prefer to be wild. Glinda has about five hundred who serve her, and half of these are scattered through the land. I imagine that Erakna has about the same."
"Here comes one of hers now," Hank said, pointing. Niklaz turned to look at a duckhawk which had just landed on the branch of an oak near the edge of the meadow. However, the duckhawk yelled at them not to shoot. He was Rakya, one of theirs. He had come to report on the plains battle.
"Oh, yes, I recognize him now," Niklaz said.
The duckhawk lighted before them. He was missing some feathers and had some blood on his breast. One eye was swollen and closed.
"Sire, I have bad news. Your army is retreating in panic, most of them trying to get to the castle. The Gillikins are hot on their heels, and a cavalry outfit, archers and camels, are heading this way."
"When will they get here?" Niklaz said.
"In about an hour."
Niklaz looked at the rugged yellowish heap on the top of the hill.
"Maybe we should withdraw to the castle."
"No," Hank said. "We can't leave Je
"Could we take her with us?"
"We'd all be too exposed, too vulnerable," Hank said. "We have to smash them first, make them too discouraged to pursue us."
He indicated the mass of hawks and Monkeys to the east. They looked like a swirling cloud, a confusion, but he was sure that the hawk leader and whoever had replaced the Monkey-King were conferring. The disorder would become order soon enough.
"All right, we'll stand off one, maybe two, charges," Niklaz said. "Then we'll have to make a break for the castle."
"No, I won't leave Je
"You're as stubborn as your mother," the king said. "I esteem your loyalty, but loyalty can become stupidity. I have to consider the welfare of my people, and I won't be helping them if I allow myself to be captured."
Hank went into the barn. A medico washed off his wounds with soap and cold water, patted them dry with a towel while Hank bit his lip to keep from crying out, poured a liquid over the gashes and applied taped bandages.
He went to Je
"It's that desperate?" she said.
"Not yet. It might be. If the enemy kills or captures me or I have to run off into the woods, take off. If I manage to hoof it back to Suthwarzha, I'll see you then."
Je
"And if you don't get back...?"
"Glinda will take care of you."
He had the barn doors fully opened so that Je
Je
"Don't be sad," Hank said. "Be mad. Gee, I almost forgot! Your wing is damaged. You'll have to watch it; more fabric might tear off. By the way, does your damage—I mean, injury—hurt you?"
"No. I can feel it, but it doesn't hurt. At least, I don't think so. I'm not sure just what you mean by hurt."
It was strange. She, the Scarecrow, and the Woodman had the sensories to locate damage, but they were spared pain. Physical pain, that is. They could feel emotional injury.
He dipped a ladle into a tin bucket of water and drank deeply. Though the air was cool, he had sweat so much that his clothes were soaked. His mouth was as dry as an Army manual.
He went out and told the Woodman what he had in mind.
"I need about twenty men to surround me when I go to the woods. Two won't come back, me and my ammo handler. Do you think it'll work?"
"The hawks have very keen eyesight, but they're about a mile away," Niklaz said. "They might not count you as you go in. But they will wonder why the group went into the trees. They'll check that out."
"Have the men pretend to crap," Hank said. "That'll fool them, I hope. Anyway, from the smell here, I think that some have already filled their pants. Have them shake the stuff out of their pants."
"Yes, it is pretty strong, isn't it?" Niklaz said.
Baum had said that the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman couldn't smell odors. That wasn't true. They could see with their similitudes of eyes and hear with the similitudes of ears. Since they had similitudes of noses, they could also smell. But they did not have the sense of taste.
By then the hawks and the Monkeys were organizing formations. Hank filled in the men he needed on his plan, and presently he was duckwalking toward the woods so that his head would not be above the group around him. A squint-eyed Winkie named Nabya the Sneezer carried the magazines.
When they reached the massive one-hundred-foot-tall, beautifully flowering, indigenous trees lining the meadow, the group opened out. Hank and Nabya went into the cover of the woods, where their sense of smell almost reeled under the dense but exquisite odor of the blooms. They went south, then east. When they were about a hundred yards from the barn, they walked to a spot about forty feet in from the meadow. They crouched behind a bush and got ready.
They had gotten into the woods just in time. A bald eagle flew over the barn and circled, then flapped northward. It must be a scout sent by the Gillikins. It would soon be telling the cavalry that the Winkie king was here and his route to the castle would be cut off.
Niklaz had seen the eagle, but he apparently was going to stay at the bam.
"Here they come!" Nabya said. He spat out a plug of tobacco.
The hawks were not flying at top speed; they were hanging back so that the Monkeys could keep up with them. Both groups were at a hundred feet altitude. The hawks were three lines deep in the van, and the simians were four lines deep. The birds were silent, but the Monkeys were screaming war cries and shouting insults at the enemies and encouragement at each other.