The lad, overgrown and fuzz on his chin, approached eagerly, stumbling over his feet, then made a leg so long he almost fell. “Straighten up, son,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Pug, milord Hero,” he answered shrilly. (“Pug” will do. The Nevian meaning was as rugged as Jocko’s jokes.) “A stout name. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A hero, milord! Like yourself.”
I thought of telling him about those rocks on the Glory Road. But he would find them soon enough if ever he tramped it—and either not mind, or turn back and forget the silly business. I nodded approvingly and assured him that there was always room at the top in the Hero business for a lad with spirit—and that the lower the start, the greater the glory…so work hard and study hard and wait his opportunity. Keep his guard up but always speak to strange ladies; adventure would come his way. Then I let him touch my sword—but not take it in hand. The Lady Vivamus is mine and I’d rather share my toothbrush.
Once, when I was young, I was presented to a Congressman. He had handed me the same fatherly guff I was now plagiarizing. Like prayer, it can’t do any harm and might do some good, and I found that I was sincere when I said it and no doubt the Congressman was, too. Oh, possibly some harm, as the youngster might get himself killed on the first mile of that road. But that is better than sitting over the fire in your old age, sucking your gums and thinking about the chances you missed and the gals you didn’t tumble. Isn’t it?
I decided that the occasion seemed so important to Pug that it should be marked, so I groped in my pouch and found a U.S. quarter. “What’s the rest of your name. Pug?”
“Just ‘Pug,’ milord. Of house Lerdki, of course.”
“Now you will have three names because I am giving you one of mine.” I had one I didn’t need, Oscar Gordon suited me fine. Not “Flash” as that name was never acknowledged by me. Not my army nickname; I wouldn’t write that one on the wall of a latrine. “Easy” was the name I could spare. I had always used “E. C. Gordon” rather than “Evelyn Cyril Gordon” and in school my name had shifted from “E. C.” to “Easy” because of my style of broken-field running—I never ran harder nor dodged more than the occasion demanded.
“By authority vested in me by Headquarters United States Army Southeast Asia Command, I, the Hero Oscar, ordain that you shall be known henceforth as Lerdki’t Pug Easy. Wear it proudly.”
I gave him the quarter and showed him George Washington on the obverse. “This is the father of my house, a greater hero than I will ever be. He stood tall and proud, spoke the truth, and fought for the right as he saw it, against fearful odds. Try to be like him. And here”—I turned it over—“is the chop of my house, the house he founded. The bird stands for courage, freedom, and ideals soaring high.” (I didn’t tell him that the American Eagle eats carrion, never tackles anything its own size, and will soon be extinct—it does stand for those ideals. A symbol means what you put into it.)
Pug Easy nodded violently and tears started to flow. I had not presented him to my bride; I didn’t know that she would wish to meet him. But she stepped forward and said gently, “Pug Easy, remember the words of milord Hero. Treasure them and they will last you all your life.”
The lad dropped to his knees. Star touched his hair and said, “Stand, Lerdki’t Pug Easy. Stand tall.”
I said good-bye to Ars Longa, told her to be a good girl and I would be back someday. Pug Easy headed back with longhorses tailed up and we set out into the woods, arrows nocked and Rufo eyes-behind. There was a sign where we left the yellow brick road; freely translated it read: ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE.
(A literal translation is reminiscent of Yellowstone Park: “Warning—the varmints in these woods are not tame. Travelers are warned to stay on the road, as their remains will not be returned to their kin. The Lerdki, His Chop.”)
Presently Star said, “Milord husband—”
“Yes, pretty foots?” I didn’t look at her; I was watching my side and a bit of hers, and keeping an eye overhead as well, as we could be bombed here—something like blood kites but smaller and goes for the eyes.
“My Hero, you are truly noble and you have made your wife most proud.”
“Huh? How?” I had my mind on targets—two kinds on the ground here: a rat big enough to eat cats and willing to eat people, and a wild hog about the same size and not a ham sandwich on him anyplace, all rawhide and bad temper. The hogs were easier targets, I had been told, because they charge straight at you. But don’t miss. And have your sword loosened, you won’t nock a second shaft.
“That lad, Pug Easy. What you did for him.”
“Him? I fed him the old malarkey. Cost nothing.”
“It was a kingly deed, milord husband.”
“Oh, nonsense, diddycums. He expected big talk from a hero, so I did.”
“Oscar my beloved, may a loyal wife point it out to her husband when he speaks nonsense of himself? I have known many heroes and some were such oafs that one would feed them at the back door if their deeds did not claim a place at the table. I have known few men who were noble, for nobility is scarcer far than heroism. But true nobility can always be recognized…even in one as belligerently shy about showing it as you are. The lad expected it, so you gave it to him—but noblesse oblige is an emotion felt only by those who are noble.”
“Well, maybe. Star, you are talking too much again. Don’t you think these varmints have ears?”
“Your pardon, milord. They have such good ears that they hear footsteps through the ground long before they hear voices. Let me have the last word, today being my bridal day. If you are—no, when you are gallant to some beauty, let us say Letva—or Muri, damn her lovely eyes!—I do not count it as nobility; it must be assumed to spring from a much commoner emotion than noblesse oblige. But when you speak to a country lout with pigsty on his feet, garlic on his breath, the stink of sweat all over him, and pimples on his face—speak gently and make him feel for the time as noble as you are and let him hope one day to be your equal—I know it is not because you hope to tumble him.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Boys that age are considered a treat in some circles. Give him a bath, perfume him, curl his hair—”
“Milord husband, is it permitted for me to think about kicking you in the belly?”
“Can’t be court-martialed for thinking, that’s the one thing they can’t take away from you. Okay, I prefer girls; I’m a square and can’t help it. What’s this about Muri’s eyes? Longlegs, are you jealous?”
I could hear dimples even though I couldn’t stop to see them. “Only on my wedding day, milord husband; the other days are yours. If I catch you in sportiveness, I shall either not see it, or congratulate you, as may be.”
“I don’t expect you’ll catch me.”
“And I trust you’ll not catch me, milord rogue,” she answered serenely.
She did get the last word, for just then Rufo’s bowstring went Fwung! He called out, “Got ’im!” and then we were very busy. Hogs so ugly they made razorbacks look like Poland-Chinas—I got one by arrow, down his slobbering throat then fed steel to his brother a frozen second later. Star got a fair hit at hers but it deflected on bone and kept coming and I kicked it in the shoulder as I was still trying to free my blade from its cousin. Steel between its ribs quieted it and Star coolly nocked another shaft and let fly while I was killing it. She got one more with her sword, leaning the point in like a matador at the moment of truth, dancing aside as it came on, dead and unwilling to admit it.
The fight was over. Old Rufo had got three unassisted and a nasty goring; I had a scratch and my bride was unhurt, which I made sure of as soon as things were quiet. Then I mounted guard while our surgeon took care of Rufo, after which she dressed my lesser cut.
“How about it, Rufo?” I asked. “Can you walk?”
“Boss, I won’t stay in this forest if I have to crawl, Let’s mush. Anyhow,” he added, nodding at the worthless pork around us, “we
won’t be bothered by rats right away.”
I rotated the formation, placing Rufo and Star ahead with his good leg on the outside and myself taking rear guard, where I should have been all along. Rear guard is slightly safer than point under most conditions but these weren’t most conditions. I had let my blind need to protect my bride personally affect my judgment.
Having taken the hot spot I then went almost cross-eyed trying not only to see behind but ahead as well, so that I could close fast if Star—yes, and Rufo—got into trouble. Luckily we had a breathing spell in which I sobered down and took to heart the oldest lesson on patrol: You can’t do the other man’s job. Then I gave all my attention to our rear. Rufo, old as he was and wounded, would not die without slaughtering an honor guard to escort him to hell in style—and Star was no fainting heroine. I would bet long odds on her against anyone her own weight, name your weapon or barehanded, and I pity the man who ever tried to rape her; he’s probably still searching for his cojones.
Hogs didn’t bother us again but as evening approached we began to see and oftener to hear those giant rats; they paced us, usually out of sight; they never attacked berserk the way the hogs had; they looked for the best of it, as rats always do.
Rats give me the horrors. Once when I was a kid, my dad dead and Mother not yet remarried, we were flat broke and living in an attic in a condemned building. You could hear rats in the walls and twice rats ran over me in my sleep.
I still wake up screaming.
It doesn’t improve a rat to blow it up to the size of a coyote. These were real rats, even to the whiskers, and shaped like rats save that their legs and pads were too large—perhaps the cube-square law on animal proportions works anywhere.
We didn’t waste an arrow on one unless it was a fair shot and we zigzagged to take advantage of such openness as the forest had—which increased the hazard from above. However, the forest was so dense that attacks from the sky weren’t our first worry.
I got one rat that tailed too closely and just missed another. We had to spend an arrow whenever they got bold; it caused the others to be more cautious. And once, while Rufo was drawing a bow on one and Star was ready with her sword to back him up, one of those vicious little hawks dived on Rufo.
Star cut him out of the air at the bottom of his stoop. Rufo hadn’t even seen it; he was busy nailing brother rat.
We didn’t have to worry about underbrush; this forest was parklike, trees and grass, no dense undergrowth. Not too bad, that stretch, except that we began to run out of arrows. I was fretting about that when I noticed something. “Hey, up ahead! You’re off course. Cut to the right.” Star had set course for me when we left the road but it was up to me to hold it; her bump of direction was erratic and Rufo’s no better.
“Sorry, milord leader,” Star called back. “The going was a trifle steep.”
I closed in. “Rufo, how’s the leg?” There was sweat on his forehead.
Instead of answering me, he said, “Milady, it will be dark soon.”
“I know,” she answered calmly, “so time for a bite of supper. Milord husband, that great flat rock up ahead seems a nice place.”
I thought she had slipped her gears and so did Rufo, but for another reason. “But, milady, we are far behind schedule.”
“And much later we shall be unless I attend to your leg again.”
“Better you leave me behind,” he muttered.
“Better you keep quiet until your advice is asked,” I told him. “I wouldn’t leave a Horned Ghost to be eaten by rats. Star, how do we do this?”
The great flat rock sticking up like a skull in the trees ahead was the upper surface of a limestone boulder with its base buried. I stood guard in its center with Rufo seated beside me while Star set out wards at cardinal and semicardinal points. I didn’t get to see what she did because my eyes had to be peeled for anything beyond her, shaft nocked and ready to knock it down or scare it off, while Rufo watched the other side. However, Star told me later that the wards weren’t even faintly “magic” but were within reach of Earth technology once some bright boy got the idea—an “electrified fence” without the fence, as radio is a telephone without wires, an analogy that won’t hold up.
But it was well that I kept honest lockout instead of trying to puzzle out how she set up that charmed circle, as she was attacked by the only rat we met that had no sense. He came straight at her, my arrow past her ear warned her, and she finished him off by sword. It was a very old male, missing teeth and white whiskers and likely weak in his mind. He was as large as a wolf, and with two death wounds still a red-eyed, mangy fury.
Once the last ward was placed Star told me that I could stop worrying about the sky; the wards roofed as well as fenced the circle. As Rufo says, if She says it, that settles it. Rufo had partly unfolded the foldbox while he watched; I got out her surgical case, more arrows for all of us, and food. No nonsense about manservant and gentlefolk, we ate together, sitting or sprawling and with Rufo lying flat to give his leg a chance while Star served him, sometimes popping food into his mouth in Nevian hospitality. She had worked a long time on his leg while I held a light and handed her things. She packed the wound with a pale jelly before sealing a dressing over it. If it hurt, Rufo didn’t mention it.
While we ate it grew dark and the invisible fence began to be lined with eyes, glowing back at us with the light we ate by, and almost as numerous as the crowd the morning Igli ate himself. Most of them I judged to be rats. One group kept to themselves with a break in the circle on each side; I decided these must be hogs; the eyes were higher off the ground.
“Milady love,” I said, “will those wards hold all night?”
“Yes, milord husband.”
“They had better. It is too dark for arrows and I can’t see us hacking our way through that mob. I’m afraid you must revise your schedule again.”
“I can’t, milord Hero. But forget those beasts. Now we fly.”
Rufo groaned. “I was afraid so. You know it makes me seasick.”
“Poor Rufo,” Star said softly. “Never fear, old friend I have a surprise for you. Again such chance as this, I bought dramamine in Cannes—you know, the drug that saved the Normandy invasion back on Earth. Or perhaps you don’t know.”
Rufo answered, “‘Know’? I was in that invasion, milady—and I’m allergic to dramamine; I fed fish all the way to Omaha Beach. Worst night I’ve ever had—why, I’d rather be here!”
“Rufo,” I asked, “were you really at Omaha Beach?”
“Hell, yes, Boss. I did all of Eisenhower’s thinking.”
“But why? It wasn’t your fight.”
“You might ask yourself why you’re in this fight, Boss. In my case it was French babes. Earthy and uninhibited and always cheerful about it and willing to learn. I remember one little mademoiselle from Armentières”—he pronounced it correctly—“who hadn’t been—”
Star interrupted. “While you two pursue your bachelor reminiscences, I’ll get the flight gear ready.” She got up and went to the foldbox.
“Go ahead, Rufo,” I said, wondering how far he would stretch this one.
“No,” he said sullenly. “She wouldn’t like it. I can tell. Boss, you’ve had the damnedest effect on Her. More ladylike by the minute and that isn’t like Her at all. First thing you know She will subscribe to Vogue and then there’s no telling how far it will go. I don’t understand it, it can’t be your looks. No offense meant.”
“And none taken. Well, tell me another time. If you can remember it.”
“I’ll never forget her. But, Boss, seasickness isn’t the half of it. You think these woods are infested. Well, the ones we are coming to—wobbly in the knees, at least I will be—those woods have dragons.”
“I know.”
“So She told you? But you have to see it to believe it. The woods are full of ’em. More than there are Doyles in Boston. Big ones, little ones, and the two-ton teenage size, hungry all the time. You may fancy bei
ng eaten by a dragon; I don’t. It’s humiliating. And final. They ought to spray the place with dragonbane, that’s what they ought to do. There ought to be a law.”
Star had returned. “No, there should not be a law,” she said firmly. “Rufo, don’t sound off about things you don’t understand. Disturbing the ecological balance is the worst mistake any government can make.”
Rufo shut up, muttering. I said, “My true love, what use is a dragon? Riddle me that.”
“I’ve never cast a balance sheet on Nevia, it’s not my responsibility. But I can suggest the imbalances that might follow any attempt to get rid of dragons—which the Nevians could do; you’ve seen that their technology is not to be sneered at. These rats and hogs destroy crops. Rats help to keep the hogs down by eating piglets. But rats are even worse than hogs, on food crops. The dragons graze through these very woods in the daytime—dragons are diurnal, rats are nocturnal and go into their holes in the heat of the day. The dragons and hogs keep the underbrush cropped back and the dragons keep the lower limbs trimmed off. But dragons also enjoy a tasty rat, so whenever one locates a rat hole, it gives it a shot of flame, not always killing adults as they dig two holes for each nest, but certainly killing any babies—and then the dragon digs in and has his favorite snack. There is a long-standing agreement, amounting to a treaty, that as long as the dragons stay in their own territory and keep the rats in check, humans will not bother them.”
“But why not kill the rats, and then clean up the dragons?”
“And let the hogs run wild? Please, milord husband, I don’t know all the answers in this case; I simply know that disturbing a natural balance is a matter to be approached with fear and trembling—and a very versatile computer. The Nevians seem content not to bother the dragons.”
“Apparently we’re going to bother them. Will that break the treaty?”
“It’s not really a treaty, it’s folk wisdom with the Nevians, and a conditioned reflex—or possibly instinct—with the dragons. And we aren’t going to bother dragons if we can help it. Have you discussed tactics with Rufo? There won’t be time when we get there.”