Once they stole nervously past a roadblock. The militiamen on duty were snoring, but in Dennis’s imagination the cart was barely quieter than a banshee until they passed beyond the next fringe of forest.
Come morning they were high in the pass. They had left behind the main units of the army poised to invade the lands of the LToff. There were probably only a few squads of pickets between them and the open country.
But to proceed during daylight would be madness. Dennis pulled his little group off into the thickets beside the mountain highway, and they rested through the day, alternately sleeping, talking quietly, and sampling from the picnic basket Mrs. Sigel had prepared for them.
Dennis amused Linnora by showing her some tricks on his wrist-comp. He explained that there were no living creatures inside, and demonstrated some of the wonders of numbers. Linnora caught on very quickly.
They must have been more tired than Dennis thought, for when he finally awakened, it was dark again. Two of Tatir’s small moons were already high, making the forestscape eerily and dangerously bright.
He roused Arth and Linnora, who sat up quickly and stared in surprise at the darkness. They arose and loaded the little wagon once again. Dennis insisted that Linnora continue to ride in the cart. Although her feet were better, the Princess clearly wasn’t ready yet to walk very far.
The shadowy hillsides hulked around them as they set out. They pushed on silently.
Dennis recalled the last time he had been through this pass, three months ago. Back then he hadn’t any idea what lay ahead. He had imagined the river valley filled with amazing alien creatures and still more amazing technology.
The truth had turned out to be even more bizarre than anything he had imagined. Even now, from time to time he felt a faint recurrence of that sense of unreality, as if it were hard really to believe that this amazing world could exist.
He thought about the probability calculations he had set up back in Zuslik. With his wrist-comp he just might be able to work out the odds of such a strange place as Tatir—and its even stranger Practice Effect—coming into being.
But then, Dennis thought as they trudged under a dark canopy of trees, wasn’t Earth a strange place when you came right down to it? Cause and effect seemed so straightforward there, yet entropy always seemed to be conspiring to get you!
Dennis hardly knew three or four engineers back home who didn’t secretly, in their hearts, devoutly believe in gremlins, in glitches, and in Murphy’s law.
Dennis couldn’t decide which world was the more perverse. Perhaps both Earth and Tatir were improbable in the grand picture. It hardly mattered. What was important right now was survival. He intended to use the Practice Effect to the hilt, if that’s what it would take.
He helped push the little cart. Already it seemed much easier. The wheels didn’t seem to squeak much anymore. Linnora was no longer jostled and tossed like a sack of potatoes as they rolled along.
The Princess looked up at him in the moonlight. Dennis returned her smile. Everything would be all right, if only he could get Linnora safely to her people in the hills. No matter how great Kremer’s strength, the L’Toff could surely hold out long enough for Dennis to whip up some Earth magic to save the day.
If only they could make it in time.
Dawn came earlier than he expected.
Ahead, in the growing light, was the crest of the pass. Dennis switched the donkey to hurry it along. He felt sure there would be an outpost up here.
But when the road peaked without any sign of trouble, he began to hope. The pass flattened out in a mist of early-morning haze. Dennis was about to call a rest when there came a sudden shout from their left.
Arth cursed and pointed. Up on the hill to that side was a small red campfire they had missed, in spite of their watchfulness. In the dawning light they could see bustling movement and the brown uniforms of Kremer’s territorial militia. A detachment was already beating their way toward them through the underbrush.
The road ran slightly downhill ahead, around the flank of the mountain. Dennis slapped the tired donkey’s flank.
“Get going, Arth! I’ll hold them off!”
Arth stumbled after the cart, mostly carried along by inertia. “All by yerself? Dennizz, are you crazy?”
“Get Linnora out of here! I can handle them!”
Linnora looked back at Dennis anxiously. But she was silent as the muttering Arth led the donkey at a trot around the bend in the road.
Dennis found a good spot and planted himself in the center of the highway. Fortunately, the territorials weren’t the best troops Kremer had—mostly drafted farmers led by a smattering of professionals. Most of them would undoubtedly rather be at home.
Nevertheless, this would have to be a pretty good bluff.
When the patrol tumbled out of the brush onto the road, Dennis saw only swords, spears, and thenners. Fortunately, there were no archers. A good bowman was rare in these parts. A practiced bow required a lot of attention, and few had that kind of time or energy to spend on weapons.
His plan just might work.
He waited in the center of the road, fingering a handful of smooth stones and a strip of silky cloth.
The gathering soldiers seemed nonplussed by his behavior. Instead of charging, they came forward at a walk, urged by a growling sergeant. Apparently they had heard who the chief fugitive was, and they weren’t exactly boiling over with excitement at the idea of attacking an alien wizard.
When they were within a hundred feet, Dennis dropped a stone into his sling. He whirled it three times and flung.
“Abracadabra! Oooga booga!” he shouted.
In the dense packing of militiamen, he couldn’t miss. Someone howled and dropped a clattering weapon to the ground.
“Oh, demons of the air!” he invoked the sky. “Teach these fools who dare to try to thwart a wizard!” He whirled and flung another stone.
Another soldier clutched at his stomach and sat down, groaning.
A few of the militiamen began melting away from the rear, suddenly developing an intense interest in the breakfast they had left behind.
The others stopped uncertainly, their eyes wide with superstitious dread.
A sergeant in a gray cloak began shouting at the men, and commenced kicking a few rumps. After a moment, the line began to approach again raggedly.
Dennis couldn’t let this continue. Sure, he could make them pause again with another stone. But if they became habituated to his attack they would soon see that only a few men were getting hurt—and only getting the wind knocked out of them, at that. They would see that in a massed charge they could easily overwhelm him.
Dennis put down his sling and pulled from his belt a long leather thong. At one end was tied a hollow piece of hardwood he had whittled back at the Sigels’.
“Flee!” he called out in his best deep movie voice. “Do not make me call forth my demons!” He advanced slowly and began whirling the thong over his head.
The hollow tube bit into the air, and began to let out a rumbling, groaning sound. He hadn’t had much time to practice the bull roarer. It would have to do as he had made it. In a moment he had it moaning loudly, though, an eerie, hackles-raising noise.
It was a chancy business, certainly. Dennis wasn’t even sure Coylians were unfamiliar with the device. Just because he had never witnessed one in use and Arth had never heard of it didn’t mean none of these men had.
But the soldiers began to swallow nervously and back away as he advanced. Several more dropped out from the rear of the troop and hurried away.