He was just in time to see the Black Knight come striding up to him, breathing like a blast furnace. He swung his visor up and called, “We have won, Witch Doctor!”
“This assault, yes.” Saul turned to see the Moors regrouping beyond the walls. “They’ll try again in a few minutes. How long can we last, Sir Guy?”
“As long as we must,” the Black Knight grated.
But atop the castle wall, Mama was in her element, swaying as she chanted in Spanish. The world seemed not quite real as she told it how El Cid had led his men in defense of the city of Valencia. Tears ran from her eyes as she told of his death and his wife’s sorrow, then of her great self-denial as she ordered his body to be tied to his horse.
It worked far better than she could ever have imagined, for as the Moorish army threw itself forward in the charge, King Rinaldo led his own army over the ridge and down at the rear of Beidizam’s host.
Beside him ran Papa, bawling in verse how El Cid led his army in capturing the city of Saragossa.
On the wall, though, a huge suckered tentacle suddenly shot up, waving, then slammed down, striking several soldiers aside and wrapping itself around another. A second tentacle joined it, and a third. They hoisted the body of the monster up; a yard-wide eye peered over the wall, and the soldiers howled in fear, backing away.
“What is it, Witch Doctor?” Sir Guy called.
“A devilfish!” Saul answered. “A giant squid! But how in blazes are they keeping it alive without water?”
“There are more!” a sergeant screamed. “One for each quarter of the wall!”
Then Saul realized that what mattered was that the devilfish was breathing air with no problems, and shrugged. If squids could breathe, whales could fly.
Shadows darkened the battlements, and Saul couldn’t tell whether the defenders or the Moors were screaming louder. Huge forms shot down out of the sky; gaping jaws closed on the bodies of the giant squids. Ink jetted, and the huge tentacles let go of the wall to wrap about the sperm whales. The attacking Moors slowed, then retreated as the monsters rolled on the fields outside the town.
Saul winced at the plight of the fish out of water. The heck with breathing… that tonnage had to fall in on itself, without water to support it.
Sir Guy stared. “What was that?”
“Not my best,” Saul said sheepishly, “but I was copying from somebody good. Did it work?”
Huge sucking sounds burst from beyond the walls. Soldiers ran, craning over the crenels, crying, “They fade! They shimmer! They’re gone!”
“It worked,” Saul sighed. “My friends back home would never have talked to me, if I’d left a whale to die on the beach.”
“Still,” Sir Guy said judiciously, “it would have given us oil for our lamps for quite a… “
“You’ll have to use olives,” Saul snapped. “What are the Moors doing?”
Sir Guy stepped up to the crenels and stared. “They turn to fight another foe! Witch Doctor! We are rescued!”
Saul ran to stare, and saw a phalanx of knights charging full-tilt into the rear of the Moorish army. The one in the lead wore a crown around his helmet, and beside him, in hauberk and helm, was Papa, singing for all he was worth… off-key and hoarse, but loudly! The Moors, taken by surprise, turned to fight the new foe, but many, still intent on reaching the city, fought their own men, and for a few minutes the army boiled in disarray while the men of Ibile took advantage of the opportunity, laying about them with sword and mace, pike and halberd.
“Sally forth!” Sir Guy roared. “We have an ally! We must join him in the fray!”
The soldiers answered with a shout of glee and ran toward the gatehouse.
The drawbridge lowered, the portcullis shot up, and the front-rank of Moors, not yet knowing what was happening a quarter-mile behind them, shouted triumph and charged. They crashed headlong into a line of full-speed knights, and though the Moorish cavalry may have had it all over the heavily armored knights in maneuverability, they were no match for tons of galloping steel head to head. Sir Guy and his knights bowled them over and plowed them under, ramming deeply into the enemy army before their advance slowed. Behind them came a thousand soldiers, hewing and stabbing with halberd and pike.
The Moors gave ground… but at a relayed signal from the Mahdi, the flanks suddenly stretched out and flowed forward, turning inward to engulf the defenders.
Then the gates of the city opened again, and Sir Gilbert came charging out with the reserves, to hit the Moorish line.
A few hundred Moors, thinking they saw a chance, galloped toward the open gate… but archers atop the wall rained arrows on them. Many fell, man or horse; the others turned to run, and took the opportunity to attack Sir Gilbert’s force in the rear.
The archers aimed and loosed, flight after flight, until Sir Gilbert’s rear was clear.
All of a sudden, the ground began to shake under Sir Guy’s force and under King Rinaldo’s, but not under the Mahdi’s.
On the wall, Mama chanted in Spanish, and the ground stilled.
A dozen djinn appeared, reaching down to pluck individual soldiers one by one.
Mama’s chant changed, and the soldiers fell from nerveless fingers. The djinn howled with anger and turned, streaming toward the lone, lithe figure atop the castle wall.
In the midst of the battle, Papa looked up, saw his wife’s peril, and shouted out the verse his son had used on Lakshmi. The djinn shot upward, shouting in joy, then fell back to the battlements, shrinking to human size, and knelt in homage to Mama’s beauty. She stared, taken aback for a moment… but only for a moment. Then she began to ask a few favors of the free djinn.
Finally, King Rinaldo hewed his way through to the pavilion, and the Moorish commander turned at bay … but Papa looked up, startled, hearing a malicious chant. Eyes narrowed, he turned his horse to ride down upon Beidizam, singing the verses of the death of the traitor Gamelon.
Halfway there, an invisible fist struck him off his horse.
With a cry of victory, Beidizam stepped up, swinging a scimitar… and the Genie of the Ring, freed by Papa’s chant, boiled out of his confinement and struck his former master a blow that knocked him flat and senseless. Then the genie turned and bowed to Papa. “I have returned your kindness, O Wizard. Call upon me for a reward of three wishes, when you know them.”
“The first is that you never slay or cause more pain than necessary, to any living creature!” Papa cried.
“The second is that you make clear to these Moors that their battle is lost!”
The genie swelled, shooting up to tower twenty feet high. He surveyed the field from that vantage point, then turned his huge face down to grin at Papa. “There is no need to tell them that, honored sir, for they know it already.”
That evening, Papa strolled the battlements with his arm around Mama, looking out over the field where defeated Moors huddled over thousands of campfires, penned inside invisible walls raised by genie-magic. “You have defended the castle and capital most excellently, my love.”