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"For God's sake!" the king said. "If this keeps up, we'll become extinct!"
Hank felt sorry for him, but he said, firmly, "Get going! Now!"
Iizarnhanduz (Iron-handed) jabbed a finger at the simians on the field.
"Women and children, too? Have a heart, man!"
"No," Hank said. "They can stay out of it."
"Sure. And what will they do when all their menfolks are killed?"
"All I want is for those birds there to be killed or run off. And a little holding action... I told you what to do!"
"Yeah, and afterwards, if there is any afterwards, we have to fly all the way back home. You know how far that is?"
Whatever it was in the Golden Cap that moved and controlled the Monkeys, it must be losing its power, Hank thought. He suspected that there was some kind of machinery enclosed in the walls of the Cap and this was activated by the words he had spoken. What the energy source was, he had no idea. In any event, the king was showing much more reluctance than he had in any reported situation before.
"The last time the Cap was returned to you, by my mother, by the way," Hank said, "you people were supposed to be free forever from control by others. But you weren't smart. You didn't hide the Cap, and so it was stolen. I'll tell you what. I promise that after you carry out my orders, I'll put it some place where no one will ever find it. Will that make you happy?"
The king gri
"Very."
He turned and ran on all fours to his people. After a lot of jabbering, he arranged his males in formation on the meadow. Then, starting at the southeast corner, going into the wind, they began ru
When the lead row had turned and was coming with the wind carrying them toward the birds now circling nearby, Hank led the two men to Je
"You get back there with Sharts and Blogo for now," Hank said.
Sharts, at Hank's direction, primed the carburetor with ether. He also spun the propeller when Hank yelled, "Contact!" so that Je
The trees protected the plane from gusts, but when she got into the open, she would be subject to ground loops. Hank depended upon her reflexes and the fact that she could use energy to lift or lower her wings to cancel the gusts.
By then the hawks and eagles had closed with the Monkeys. Most of them, anyway. Some of the birds had figured that there was no use being brave against such numbers. They fled, and, within a minute or two, those birds who could extricate themselves did so. None headed towards the east. They made a wide half-circle and sped southward. They did not care to face the queen's anger.
The farmland was on a lower level than the road on this side of the gate. Hank could not see what was happening there. However, he surmised that the Gillikin soldiers had charged. The Monkeys were flapping towards the road. All they had to do was to check the Gillikins' advance until Je
The plane got to the takeoff point without dragging either end of its wingtips against the ground. She moved slowly into the wind, then began rolling forward swiftly. And she was up. He knocked on the instrument panel to indicate that he was now the pilot. After clearing the trees on the hills beyond the farm, he banked sharply and brought her around in line with the road. As he passed over the meadow, he noted that the Monkey females and children were jammed into the southeast comer. They were waiting until the plane had gone over before they started the southward migration.
He dipped Je
All of them, however, were on the ground in close combat with the van of the army.
Hank dived to bring Je
Hank could not worry about them. It was every man—every Monkey—for himself. He zoomed down the road and pulled on the cable. Both machine guns fired. Good. He had been worried that they might jam. They had always seemed to do so just when he needed them while dogfighting or strafing over France.
The road was packed with troops. To make consternation, disorder, and panic, he loosed four bursts among them. Those who had not been hit were diving onto the side of the road or trying to.
Ahead near the crossroads on a field was something that stood out. A big white coach with eight moose hitched to it.
"The queen's," Hank muttered.
He lifted up, then made a shallow dive. The people standing around it began ru
Erakna sat calmly, or seemingly so, until Hank fired. Seeing the twin line of bullets striking the earth and racing toward her, she abandoned the chair and her dignity. She threw herself to one side.
Hank brought Je
"Missed!"
He turned and dived again. Erakna was not in sight. She must be hiding on the other side of the coach.
His bullets tore into the coach, and the moose, recovering from their paralysis, or perhaps they had been obeying the queen's orders to stand still until then, pulled the coach away in mad flight across the meadow. Erakna was exposed now, but she had time to run. Lifting her long skirts with both hands, she sped like a rabbit with a hawk after her. She did not make the mistake of trying to run across the open fields but headed towards the mass of soldiers lying on the ground. There, no doubt, she would order some soldiers to throw themselves over her.
When Hank had turned and started another strafing run, he saw that soldiers were indeed clustered around. But when he started firing, the soldiers scattered. The queen was left alone, a white target.
Her hair was so blonde that it looked almost as white as her garment. Hank thought, irrelevantly, Glinda is a white witch with red hair, and Erakna is a red witch with white hair.
The queen threw herself to one side and rolled.
Hank did not know whether or not he had missed again until he climbed and turned again. He felt vibrations behind him and turned his head quickly to see what was causing them. Sharts was pounding on the side of the fuselage and gri
"This should do it," Hank thought. "I'll put an end to her and the war!"