Colmain looked over the five hundred dwarves. "You are summoned to hoist your weapons against a sorcerous army that would enfold us all, and to fight for your true queen!"
The heads turned to study Alisande. Then the leader nodded gruffly. "Aye. We live by stone and earth, and you stand for the land, Majesty. We will do your bidding."
Colmain was doing his sums again. He sighed and shook his head. "Two thousand, five hundred. Doughty warriors who will make the enemy buy victory dearly - but victory will be his. We need more to face the teeth within the sorcerer's maw."
"Teeth!" Matt snapped his fingers.
Alisande glanced at him warily. "What mean you, Wizard?"
"I mean to get a thousand more," Matt cried. He whirled to Stegoman. "Hey, can I have your tooth?"
The dragon's head snapped back. "My body's part? Wizard, what-?" Then, reluctantly, his neck lowered. "Aye, or all my body. I have sworn."
"Thanks, Stegoman. You won't be sorry." Matt untied the leather bag, shook out the tooth, and knelt with it between his hands.
There were two teeth, then four; then they spilled over and mounded up into a huge pile of dragon's teeth.
With all eyes on him, Matt whipped out his sword, gouged it into the ground, and ran, digging a long trench. He turned and ran backwards, repeating until he had six such channels. Then he scooped up an armload of teeth and began to cast them into the furrow, about eighteen inches apart. After a moment, Father Brunel caught up a heap of teeth in his cassock and began sowing. Then Sayeesa joined them, while Matt recited:
Seedling blades poked up from the earth behind him, surging upward with leaf-shaped spear blades for eight feet before horsehair crests led Greek helmets into view. Grim Greek faces appeared, then breastplates, armored kilts, and greave-covered shins. As the three finished sowing, a long line of soldiers surged up behind them. Within a few minutes, the last tooth had reached full growth. The Greeks looked about, turning to stare at the first. He nodded and stepped forward, snapping out a question.
Matt's two years of Greek studies had seemed useless - an endless business of the strategos riding his hippos to the potamos and archaic military maneuvers. But now, surprisingly, he understood that this strategos was asking what was going on.
Matt took a deep breath, remembering bits of Aeschylus, and cried out, "Heroes, Hellenes, I call upon you to defend freedom, as you've ever done and ever shall do!"
The leader looked startled to hear Greek-however mangled, from the lips of this steel-plated alien, but he nodded. "What enemy falls upon us now?"
"An evil magus," Matt replied, "with a horde of armies"
"Persians!" they bellowed as one man, and the leader shouted, "As did our sires at Thermopylae -- form hup!"
When the dust settled, Matt found himself facing a phalanx, bristling with fourteen-foot spears. The leader stepped out and bawled, "Ready for battle, sir!"
Matt nodded, poker-faced, wondering if he were really doing this. "Stand at rest, Strategos, but ready. The enemy may advance at any moment."
The spears sagged as the Greeks settled down in place, sitting on their heels, waiting patiently at ready.
Matt nodded and turned to the giant. "Three thousand and five hundred now, Colmain."
"And twenty ogres." The giant surveyed Matt with respect. "Can you summon more?"
Matt cursed silently. It could as well have been two thousand or more from the tooth. but he'd let his own unthinking prejudice trap him into the first round number that came to mind. Now it was too late. He shook his head bitterly. "No."
"Well, battles have been won against great odds before." Colmain sighed. "We can but hope. 'Tis not always the number of the men, but the skill and spirit that they hold."
Matt turned away, then remembered one other contribution he could make. He slapped his breastplate. "Hey, Max!"
"Aye, Wizard?" The Demon zipped to him from a knot of nuns. Matt eyed the cluster and saw Sayeesa among them. He frowned - but there was no time to worry about it.
"Look, we're expecting a battle any minute now. So do me a favor, will you?"
"If 'tis in my power."
"This is. Just flit around the field wherever the whim takes you, concentrating gravity - about four gees should be enough, under groups of enemy soldiers. Keep it random, so they can't figure out where you'll be next."
"Wisely planned," the Demon hummed judiciously. "If they knew where I might next be, their sorcerers night circumvent me."
Matt nodded. "Right. You're not to cause damage so much as to create confusion."
"Create? I? 'Tis near an insult!"
The moon came out from behind clouds. Now they could see a forest of pikes and spears rising up from a mass of men and horses across the valley. A figure in bright armor was at its head.
"Astaulf!" Alisande made the name an obscenity.
"He didn't strike me as intelligent," Matt said nervously.
"Mistake not, in battle he has few equals." her voice rose to command. "Master Colmain, command the right flanks with your dwarves and ogres. Sir Guy, take the left flank with the Moncaireans and their good barons and host of foot. Reverend Mother, let your ladies ride near me, for I'll command the center. And Lord Wizard, command your dragon-teeth men behind us in the center." She took a deep breath and bawled, "Commanders, to your commands!"
Sir Guy's blank shield snapped up far to the left, and the Moncaireans rode around the rear toward him. Sayeesa stood up in her stirrups, waving. The nuns homed on her and the abbess beside her.
Matt turned and called, "Spartans! Bring up your phalanx! March behind the black-clad ladies!"
The Greeks came to their feet and snapped into position.
It didn't make too much sense to Matt to put most of the cavalry on the left flank and the rest in the center. But maybe Alisande knew her troops better than he did. Anyhow, it gave him an excuse to stick near her; he had big worries about what Malingo might try to do to her.
He looked at the army of sorcery flowing across the valley; Sir Guy's estimate had been far too conservative. "Do we charge now?" he asked Alisande.
"No! If there is no battle, 'tis better for us. We'll march back eastward, gaining strength with each mile."
"They know that, of course?"
Alisande nodded. "And cannot permit it. There will be battle tonight. But let them begin it."
And win it? Matt noticed that she was still not claiming victory by infallibility. He studied the hosts of Astaulf again, worrying. And there were the spells of Malingo ...
Maybe he could do something about them. He began shaping the verses in his mind. It would need power-more power than he had called on in waking the giants. He built the lines in his mind slowly and carefully.