Finally Rellin said, “You think this is over, but it is not.”
“Yes, it is,” said Uncle Press. “You have no way to explode this tak now.”
Rellin laughed even harder. What was going through his mind?
“But this is not all the tak that was brought from the mines,” he said. This grand weapon may have failed, but the signal has been given just the same. It was you who gave that signal, Press, my friend.”
The three of us looked at each other, befuddled. What was he talking about? Then it hit me. I remembered what Rellin had said to me the night before. He said that as soon as his miners heard the explosion, it would be their signal to attack. And there had certainly been an explosion. Granted it wasn’t the big boom everybody was expecting, but it was pretty loud just the same. There were quig guts all over the place as proof. Could the Milago miners have heard it? The answer to that question came right away. A horn sounded from on top of the stadium. All eyes looked up to see a lone Bedoowan knight standing there.
“The Milago!” he shouted for all to hear. “They’re attacking!” Instantly the Bedoowan knights scrambled. Even the knights who had bravely fought the quig and were wounded jumped to attention. They grabbed their spears, straightened their helmets and quickly climbed up the stairs of the stadium.
“Look!” said Loor and pointed toward Kagan’s royal box. What we saw were more knights, hundreds of them, all piling out from inside the palace to join their comrades. Queen Kagan stood on her throne, laughing and clapping like a child, cheering them on. To her, this was a game. She had no idea that these men were headed into a very real battle. Or maybe she just didn’t care.
The knights were now several hundred strong. They looked like a formidable fighting unit. They marched up the stairs of the stadium to join with their comrades and begin the defense of the palace. Then an odd thing happened. The Bedoowan spectators began climbing the stairs to the surface as well. They were excitedly laughing and chatting with anticipation. They were followed in turn by the Novans. This was unbelievable. It was like they wanted to watch the battle for themselves. Did they think this was going to be a show put on for their amusement, like the quig battles? Did they have any idea what was about to happen?
Rellin said, “We may not have made our grand statement, but we will still have our battle. We are armed with tak and we will triumph. Your efforts have been in vain. The battle is about to begin.”
Journal #4 (continued)
Denduron
Much of what I am going to write about now was told to me after the battle. As I wrote before, I have no doubt that it is all true and I have no problem adding it to my journal. I’ll try to recount it in the order that it happened.
When Alder left us to warn the Milago villagers about the bomb, nobody listened to him as he ran through the village shouting, “Everyone! Into the mines! You must protect yourselves!” But I guess none of the villagers even knew about tak, let alone about the huge bomb that was supposed to blow away the Bedoowan. So when Alder came running through like a nut job, they slammed their doors in his face and ignored him. I don’t blame them. If a guy ran around all Chicken Little screaming that the sky was falling, I’d probably ignore him too. Alder quickly realized that trying to save them was futile. His last hope was to find the one group of people who might listen to him: the miners who were preparing for battle. They knew about tak and they knew about Rellin’s mad plan. So Alder ran out to the training area where Rellin and his miners had captured us the day before.
What he found there was a frightening sight. All the miners of the Milago had assembled. There were hundreds of them. It never seemed like there were all that many miners living in the village, but that was because most of them were usually in the mines. Not today. All the miners were now on the surface and they were ready to rumble. According to Alder they had emptied the secret stash of weapons from down in the mines and each of them was armed with either spears or bows and arrows. But more important, several of the miners carried a much more lethal weapon. Around their waists were leather pouches full of small tak bombs.
As Alder ran through the crowd looking for someone in charge, he looked into the eyes of these hardened miners. He told me that what he saw gave him a chill. Even though they were about to begin a battle that could cost them their lives, these guys showed no fear. I suppose a lifetime of slavery will do that to you. They wanted blood. Bedoowan blood. They may not have been trained warriors, but what they lacked in fighting skills was made up for with pure hatred for the Bedoowan. They were confident, too. Once Rellin exploded his bomb, they figured that most of the Bedoowan knights would die instantly. Any of the knights who survived would be easy to mow down with their precious tak. They thought the battle would be short and sweet.
They were absolutely, totally wrong.
Alder finally found the leader. It was a miner who stood toward the front of the group giving orders. Alder ran up to him and said breathlessly, “The bomb…the tak bomb. It is more deadly than you could imagine! If Rellin succeeds, it could kill us all! We must get everyone down into the mines to-”
That’s when it happened. That’s the moment when Uncle Press threw the small bomb at the quig and made quigburger. The miners all looked in the direction of the Bedoowan castle as the explosion thundered through the hills. Then just as the last echo died away, the leader shouted, “Death to the Bedoowan!”
There was a huge cheer and the miners began running toward the castle. Alder had to dive out of the way for fear of being trampled by the stoked-up miners as they rushed to their destiny. They had no idea that they were headed right into the full force of the Bedoowan army.
The stadium was almost empty. Even Queen Kagan had left to watch the show. Four Novans had lifted up her throne and carried her up the stairs and out to the battlefield. Those pale little guys must be a lot stronger than they looked because that throne and that fatso must have weighed a ton. The three miners who brought the tak bomb with Rellin were gone too. They had run off to fight with their comrades. The only ones left in the huge stadium were me, Loor, Uncle Press, Rellin, and a dead quig. Actually two dead quigs, but the second one looked more like Hamburger Helper.
Rellin struggled to get to his feet. Uncle Press gave him a hand. These guys weren’t enemies. They both wanted the same thing, sort of. Their only disagreement was how to go about getting it.
“Your miners aren’t prepared to battle those knights,” Uncle Press said to him. “The tak may prolong the fight, but the Bedoowan will crush them.”
“Perhaps,” said Rellin. “But better to die fighting, than as a slave.”
Those were powerful words. I had seen the horrible lives the Milago lived. If they were going to die, at least now they would die with some dignity. It was a terrible choice, but maybe it was the right one. Rellin then said, “Permit me to join my men?”
Uncle Press picked up the spear he had used to stop Rellin from exploding the bomb. He looked at it, then handed it to the chief miner. “Good luck,” he said.
Rellin took the spear, gave a small nod of thanks, then took off running to join his doomed men. We watched him run across the stadium grass and bound up the stairs toward the battle that was about to begin. I wondered if I would ever see the guy alive again. Uncle Press then picked up another spear.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m going back to the Milago village,” he answered. “The Bedoowan are going to suffer casualties. That’s never happened to them before. I’m afraid they’ll get angry enough to continue on to the Milago village and take it out on some of the villagers.”