“It can’t be all that hard!”
Rod took a deep breath. “Look—we have to move at least as many men as your whole village.”
“What for—to fight just a lousy thousand?”
“I don’t think you realize just how much of an advantage that Evil Eye gives your men,” Rod said sourly.
“Not all that much. I mean, one man can only freeze one other man. Maybe two, if he pushes it—but not very well.”
Rod stared at him for a moment.
Then he said, “One boatload of your men held a small army of ours totally frozen.”
“What!?”
Rod nodded. “That’d be about, uh, two hands of my men for every one of yours.”
Yorick stared at his outspread fingers and shook his head. “Can’t be. No way. At all.”
Rod gazed at him, then shrugged his shoulders. “Apparently, somebody found a way to do it.” He remembered what Gwen had said about the lightning.
“Then figure out a way to undo it,” Yorick said promptly. “You Flatfaces are good at that kind of thing. We can show you how the Freeze—what’d you call it, the Evil Eye?—we can show you how it works.”
“That might help…”
“Sure it will! You gotta be able to figure out something from that!”
“Oh, I do, do I? How come?”
“Because,” Yorick said, grinning, “you can manipulate symbols.”
Rod opened his mouth to answer—but he couldn’t really think of anything, so he closed it again. That’s what set him apart from ordinary men. He just smiled weakly and said, “Manipulating symbols doesn’t always produce miracles, Yorick.”
“I’ll take a chance on it. You just tell us what we can do, and we’ll do it.”
“Might they not be of some value with our force?” Tuan inquired.
Rod turned to him, frowning. “Fighting side by side with our soldiers? They’d get chopped up in the first battle by our own men.”
“Not if we were to employ them to slip ahead of our main force to reconnoitre the enemy’s forces. Let us train them in the use of longbow, crossbow, and lance, and send them ahead to wreak havoc ere we arrive.”
Rod shook his head. “The nearest knight would charge them in a second. They’re not exactly inconspicuous, you know.” Suddenly his eyes widened; he grinned. “Oh!”
“Oh?” Tuan said warily.
“Yeah. If they stand out too much to do any good here—then we should use them someplace where they won’t!”
Tuan’s face slowly cleared into a beatific smile. “Aye, certes! Train them well, and send them back to Beastland. Then they can attack this Mughorck’s men unbeknownst!”
“Well, not quite. Just because they all look alike to us doesn’t mean they look alike to one another. But they could hide out in the bush and recruit some others from among the disaffected, and…”
“Aye! Build up a small army!”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking on that scale…”
“Couldn’t manage an army.” Yorick shook his head. “Fifty men, though, I might be able to get—but that’s fifty, tops.” He glanced back at his colleagues, then up at Rod. “That’s all our hands together—right?”
“Right.” Rod fought down a grin. “But put ‘em in the right place, at the right time…”
“Aye, fifty men who know the lay of the land.” Tuan’s eyes kindled. “ ‘Twould be well done indeed, Master Beastman.”
“ ‘Yorick’ is good enough,” the Neanderthal said with a careless wave of his hand. “Fifty, I think I could get. Yeah. We could hide out in the jungle on the other side of the cliffs from the village. no more than fifty, though. Most of the men have wives and children. That makes a man cautious.”
Rod nodded toward the other Neanderthals. “How about your guys?”
Yorick shook his head. “All bachelors. We wondered why the Eagle didn’t choose any of the married men for his cadre—and I don’t mind telling you, some of the ladies were pretty upset about it.”
“Don’t worry—it was nothing compared to how they would’ve squawked the first time their husbands had to work late.” Rod thought of Gwen with a gush of gratitude. “So they thought Eagle was a misogynist?”
“No; he turned handsprings anytime anyone married. And if one of the Inner Circle got spliced, he was even happier. Kicked ‘em into the Outer Circle, of course—but he always said the guy was being promoted, to husbandry.”
“Odd way to look at it.” Rod mulled it over. “Maybe accurate, though…”
“It is a job, all by itself,” Yorick agreed. “But the lack of dependents sure came in handy when we had to leave town in a hurry.”
“Think the Eagle had that in mind all along?”
“I’m sure of it—now. So, we’ll get bachelors for this guerrilla force, for you—but what do you want us to do with them?”
“Thou must needs assault them from their rear, whilst we storm in from the ocean,” Tuan answered. “Then, mayhap, we can bring thine Eagle from his aerie.”
“Or wherever he’s hiding.” Yorick nodded. “Sounds like a great idea.”
“Then, it’s a deal.” Rod held out a hand—carefully, it must be admitted.
Yorick frowned at Rod’s hand for a moment. Then he grinned. “Oh, yeah! Now I remember!” He grabbed Rod’s hand in both of his and pumped it enthusiastically. “Allies, huh?”
“Allies,” Rod confirmed. “By the way, ally…”
“Anything, milord,” Yorick said expansively.
“Viking gear.”
“Huh?”
“Viking gear,” Rod said again. He was glad to see the phrase had meant absolutely nothing to the Neanderthal. “Your shaman’s raiders came decked out in Viking gear—you know, horned helmets, round shields…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what Vikings were,” Yorick said in annoyance. “Dragon ships too?”
Rod nodded. “Any idea why?”
“Well, nothing very deep—but I’ll bet it scared hell out of the locals.”
Rod stared at him for a second.
“Makes sense, if you’re trying to adapt terrorism to a medieval culture,” Yorick explained.
“Too much sense,” Rod agreed. “Come on, let’s get back to Runnymede—we’ve got to start a military academy for you.”
The train headed northward with a squad of spearmen leading; then Rod and Tuan; then the Neanderthals, à la carte—or à la wagon, anyway, commandeered from the nearest farmer (the Neanderthals had never even thought of riding horses; eating, maybe… ); and well-surrounded by spearmen and archers. The soldiers and the beastmen eyed each other warily through the whole trip.
“I hope your wife doesn’t mind surprise guests,” Rod cautioned Tuan.
“I am certain she will be as hospitable as she ever is,” Tuan replied.
“That’s what I was afraid of…”
“Come, Lord Warlock! Certes, thou’lt not deny my gentle wife’s goodness!”
“Or your good wife’s gentleness,” Rod echoed. “We’ll just have to hope these cavemen know what a bed and a chair are.”
“I doubt not we’ll have to teach them the uses of many articles within our castle,” Tuan sighed, “save, perhaps, their captain Yorick. He doth seem to have acquired a great deal of knowledge ere this.”
“Oh, yeah! He’s a regular wise guy! But I’m not so much worried about what he’s learned, as who he learned it from.”
Tuan glanced at him keenly. “Dost thou speak of the Eagle?”
“I dost,” Rod confirmed. “That’d you get out of our little cross-examination?‘’
“I was cross that we had so little opportunity to examine. The fellow hath a deliberate knack for turning any question to the answer he doth wish to give.”
“Nicely put,” Rod said judiciously. It was also unusually perceptive, for Tuan. “But I think I did figure out a few items he didn’t mean to tell us. What did you hear between his bursts?”
Tuan shrugged. “I did learn that the Eagle is a wizard.”
“Yeah, that was pretty obvious—only I’d say he was my kind of wizard. He does his magic by science, not by, uh, talent.”