"What kind of ding-bat wants to fight?" he asked rhetorically. "Do I look crazy? Do my boys look crazy? Everybody thinks we got some kind of weird drive that keeps us going. They think that all we want to do in the whole world is march around in sweaty armor and sharpen swords on other people's helmets. That's what you think too, isn't it? Eh? Isn't it?"
This last was shouted directly at me. By now I was pretty fed up with being shouted at.
"Yes!" I roared angrily. "That's what I think!"
"Well," Julie scowled. "You're wrong because-"
"That's what I think because if you didn't like doing it, you wouldn't do it!" I continued, rising to my own feet.
"Just like that!" Julie shouted sarcastically. "Just stop and walk away."
He turned and addressed his officers.
"He thinks it's easy! Do you hear that? Any of you who don't like to fight, just stop. Eh? Just like that."
A low chorus of chuckles rose from his assembled men. Despite my earlier burst of anger, I found myself starting to believe him. Incredible as it seemed, Julie and his men didn't like being soldiers!
"You think we wouldn't quit if we could?" Julie was saying to me again. "I bet there isn't a man in my whole army who wouldn't take a walk if he thought he could get away with it."
Again there was a murmur of assent from his officers.
"I don't understand," I said, shaking my head.
"If you don't want to fight, and we don't want to fight, what are we doing here?"
"Did you ever hear of loan sharks?" Julie asked. "You know about organized crime?"
"Organized crime?" I blinked.
"It's like government, kid," Aahz supplied.
"Only more effective."
"You'd better believe ‘more effective,' " Julie nodded. "That's what we're doing here! Me and the boys, we got a list of gambling debts like you wouldn't believe. We're kinda working it off, paying ‘em back in land, you know what I mean?"
"You haven't answered my question," I pointed out. "Why don't you just quit?"
"Quit?" Julie seemed genuinely astonished. "You gotta be kidding. If I quit before I'm paid up, they break my leg. You know?" His wolfish grin left no doubt the thugs in question would do something a great deal more fatal and painful than just breaking a leg.
"It's the same with the boys here. Right, boys?" He indicated his officers with a wave of his hand.
Vigorous nods answered his wave.
"And you ought to see the collection agent they use. Kid, you might be a fair magician where you come from. But"-he shuddered-"this, believe me, you don't want to see."
Knowing how tough Big Julie was, I believed him.
Giving me a warm smile, he draped his arm around my shoulders.
"That's why it's really gonna break my heart to kill you. Ya know?"
"Well," I began, "you don't have to ... KILL ME?"
"That's right," he nodded vigorously. "I knew you'd understand. A job's a job, even when you hate it."
"Whoa!" Aahz interrupted, holding one flattened hand across the top of the other to form a crude T. "Hold it! Aren't you overlooking something, Jules?"
"That's ‘Big Julie.' " one of the guards admonished.
"I don't care if he calls himself the Easter Bunny!" my mentor snarled. "He's still overlooking something."
"What's that?" Julie asked.
"Us." Aahz smiled, gesturing to the team. "Aside from the minor detail that Skeeve here's a magician and not that easy to kill, he's got friends. What do you think we'll be doing while you make a try for our leader?"
The whole team edged forward a little. None of them were smiling, not even Gus. Even though they were my friends who I knew and loved, I had to admit they looked mean. I was suddenly very glad they were on my side.
Big Julie, on the other hand, seemed unimpressed.
"As a matter of fact," he smiled, "I expect you to be dying right along with your leader. That is, unless you're really good at running."
"Running from what?" Gus growled. "I still think you're overlooking something. By my count, we've got you outnumbered. Even if you were armed-"
The supreme commander cut him short with a laugh. It was a relaxed, confident laugh which no one else joined in on. Then the laugh disappeared, and he leaned forward with a fierce scowl.
"Now, I'm only gonna say this once, so all'a ya listen close. Big Julie didn't get where he is today by overlooking nothin'. You think I'm outnumbered? Well, maybe you'd just better count again."
Without taking his eyes from us, he waved his hand in a short, abrupt motion. At the signal, one of his guards pulled a cord and the sides of the tent fell away.
There were soldiers outside. They hadn't been there when we entered the tent, but they were there now. Hoo boy were they. Ranks and ranks of them completely surrounding the tent, the nearest barely an arm's length away. The front three rows were archers, with arrows nocked and drawn, leveled at our team.
I realized with a sudden calm clarity that I was about to die. The whole meeting had been a trap, and it was a good one. Good enough that we would all be dead if we so much as twitched. I couldn't even kid myself that I could stop that many arrows if they were all loosed at once. Gus might survive the barrage, and maybe the others could blip away to another dimension in time to save themselves, but I was too far away from Aahz and the D-Hopper to escape.
"I... um... thought war councils were supposed to be off limits for combat." I said carefully.
"I also didn't get where I am today by playing fair," Big Julie shrugged.
"You know," Aahz drawled, "for a guy who doesn't want to fight, you run a pretty nasty war."
"What can I say?" the supreme commander asked, spreading his hands in helpless appeal. "It's a job. Believe me, if there was any other way, I'd take it. But as it is..."
His voice trailed off, and he began to raise his arm. I realized with horror that when his hand came down, so would the curtain.
"How much time do we have to find another way?" I asked desperately.
"You don't," Big Julie sighed.
"AND WE DON'T NEED ANY!" Aahz roared with sudden glee.
All eyes turned toward him, including my own. He was grinning broadly while listening to something the Gremlin was whispering in his ear.
"What's that supposed to mean?" the supreme commander demanded. "And where did this little blue fella come from? Eh?"
He glared at the encircling troops, who looked at each other in embarrassed confusion.
"This is a Gremlin," Aahz informed him, slipping a comradely arm around the shoulders of his confidant, "And I think he's got the answer to our problems. All our problems. You know what I mean?"
"What does he mean?" Julie scowled at me. "Do you understand what he's sayin'?"
"Tell him, Aahz," I ordered confidently, wondering all the while what possible solution my mentor could have found to this mess.
"Big Julie," Aahz smiled, "what could those loan sharks of yours do if you and your army simply disappeared?"
And so, incredibly, it was ended.
Not with fireworks or an explosion or a battle. But like a lot of things in my life, in as crazy and off-hand a way as it had started.
And when it had ended, I almost wished it hadn't. Because then I had to say good-bye to the team. Saying good-bye to the team was harder than I would have imagined. Somehow, in all my planning, I had never stopped to consider the possibility of emerging victorious from the war.
Despite my original worries about the team, I found I had grown quite close to each of them. I would have liked to keep them around a little longer, but that would have been impossible. Our next stop was the capital, and they would be a little too much to explain away.