Arth backed away, lifting one of the swords Dennis had taken from the militiamen he had driven off yesterday. Dennis moved to put himself between whatever it was and Linnora, though he had begun to suspect…
A shrub by the road parted in a shower of flinders. The cloud of debris settled slowly, to finally reveal a mound of dust—a pile that advanced on them in a whir of spinning treads.
With a faint whine the Sahara Tech exploration robot’s turret opened. A pair of green eyes winked from the cupola within. Two rows of needle-sharp teeth grinned out from under the metal hood.
“Well,” Dennis said, “it sure took you two long enough to catch up with us.” Nevertheless, he smiled.
The robot beeped. The pixolet just grinned back at him through the cloud of floating dust. Then it shook its head vigorously and sneezed.
7
On the third fork of River Ruddik, the battle was not going particularly well for either side.
To Baron R’ketts and Count Feif-dei, the advance up the narrow canyon was a slow and dangerous undertaking, wasteful of both time and men. They watched from horseback atop a small hillock in the middle of the steep gorge as their forces trooped past in two columns.
The larger file headed westward, ever higher into the mountains, past heaps of rubble from the most recent of the many costly skirmishes in this hit-and-run war.
The very hill the barons stood on had been formed only this morning, when an avalanche of boulders had rained down upon this spot, trapping twenty soldiers beneath instant headstones.
The toll might have been far worse but for the prowess of the new King’s glider corps. Kremer’s crews had dived in, recklessly brave in the tricky air currents, and strafed the men of the L’Toff with hailstorms of deadly darts. They soon cleared the mountainside of defenders, allowing the lords’ armies to move on.
Baron R’ketts watched the advancing column with an air of grim satisfaction. Even Baron…make that King Kremer… couldn’t complain much over the pace they were making. At least not reasonably.
In spite of these early reverses Baron R’ketts still expected an easy victory and looked forward to the harvest of this campaign. He had heard wondrous stories of the wealth of the L’Toff. It was said that L’Toff men could practice tools and weapons to perfection in minutes, and the items would stay in that condition forever after! It was also said that L’Toff women had the gift of being able to practice men…restoring in their users the virility that had once been theirs.
Baron R’ketts’s spine hurt from all this time on horseback. But he kept telling himself it was worth it. Kremer had promised him wealth and pleasure beyond his fairest dreams.
He licked his lips in anticipation. He could dream of an awful lot!
Count Feif-dei watched the passing invasion with a more dour eye. Whereas his brother Lord gazed upon the stream of armed men climbing into the hills, Feif-dei could only watch the thinner trickle going the other way—farmers, yeomen, practicers, and even journeymen makers from the villages in his county—holding bandages to wounds, wincing on makeshift crutches, or leaning upon one another as they picked their way downslope to the aid stations.
Feif-dei knew that the best, most practiced bandages were saved for the nobility. Many, if not most, of these men would die—if not from blood loss, then from the wasting sickness that devoured the blood from within.
The troops seemed to have little of the bubbling enthusiasm with which they had begun this campaign. Mostly they were tired and hungry and getting just a bit frightened.
Still, there were a few here and there who spoke excitedly about the wealth they would win when they captured the enemy stronghold. Of his own blue-clad troops, he recognized some of the braggarts. They talked big, but unless they were watched closely they had an uncanny talent for being elsewhere when it came to any real fighting.
Count Feif-dei cursed softly, careful so his neighbor would not hear. War was hell, and Baron R’ketts was a fool to savor it. He, Feid-dei, had once visited the lands of the L’Toff and been hosted courteously by Prince Linsee. He had tried several times to explain to R’ketts that the L’Toff were not tremendously wealthy. This campaign had one purpose only, to protect Kremer’s rear for the real war to the east.
But R’ketts would listen to none of Feif-dei’s accounts of what lay ahead, preferring to believe his own fantasies.
Count Feif-dei sighed. Ah, well. At least this struggle would keep R’ketts off of his back for a time. His folk and his lands would probably be as safe under the new King as under the old.
Just let it be a clean victory, he prayed, with as few skilled farmers and guildsmen lost as possible.
From up ahead there came a trumpet sound—a shrill warning. The lords heard a loud clatter of falling rock.
“Oh, no. Not again!” Baron R’ketts moaned and covered his eyes. He sat immobile on his horse, shaking his head.
Feif-dei quickly turned to his aides. “Hurry back to the semaphore post. Inform them of the new ambush and have them call for air support.”
A messenger sped off. Baron R’ketts was still commiserating with himself, making no effort to investigate the situation. Count Feif-dei shook his head in disgust and spurred his horse toward the sounds of fighting.
8
“We strike and fall back, strike and fall back…” the courier explained hoarsely. “We have them stopped on all the other fronts, but in the Ruddik Valley the tide of lowlanders is endless! They just keep coming!”
Prince Proll thanked the exhausted messenger and ordered him taken away to find rest. He turned to his father.
“May I have leave, my Lord, to take forth with our reserves and crush the force in the Ruddik?
Prince Linsee looked tired. He sat beneath a camouflaged canopy, under the trees near the eastern front. Outside they could hear the sounds of messengers coming and going at a run or a gallop. In the outer pavilion the battle staff argued over the tactical disposition of the L’Toff forces with their sparse royal allies.
“No, my son.” The gray-haired Prince shook his head. “Your forces must remain in the north, with Demsen’s scouts. That is where the main attack will come—where Kremer’s full might will fall.”
He did not add that the northern road was probably where the rebellious Lord would reveal his hostage—Princess Linnora—at a moment well chosen to strike at the defenders’ morale.
When that moment came, they would need their best leaders to rally the men for the struggle of their lives. Old men, competent tacticians, could handle the delay along the eastern tributaries, especially when the balloon corps was ready to make its sally. But it would take sharp young fighters, such as Pro1l and Demsen, to give their soldiers heart, to adapt, to recover, and to continue harrying Kremer’s northmen.
For once, Proll seemed to understand. The young man did not complain. He merely nodded and resumed pacing near the doorway, awaiting news.
At last Linsee spoke again. “Send for Stivyung,” he told an aide. “I must know at last if his project is going to bear fruit in time.”
9
“Who the hell are you guys? Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing? Where are you taking me?”
The guards held the tall foreigner tightly and dragged him over to where the scholar Hoss’k waited in his red robes, sitting below the trees on a hundred-year-old portable chair.
The sandy-haired alien looked Hoss’k up and down. He straightened his shoulders. “Are you the grand high potentate around here? You’d better tell me what’s going on! Never mind what you did with Nuel…I want to know what you did to our zievatron!”