Then Tlantar Two-Hands came back from even farther out to the front, and there was a Malavi horseman with him. “There’s a sizeable bison herd about a mile ahead of us,” Tlantar said. “We should probably slow down and let them go past us. We don’t want to startle them.”
“I’d pay close attention to what Tlantar just told you, my friends,” the Malavi advised. “Those shaggy things out there are at least four times as big as our cows in Malavi are. I’ve never seen any animal that big.”
“This is Skarn,” Tlantar introduced his companion. “He’ll be leading the Malavi who’ll go off to Tonthakan to drag Keselo’s catapult sleds here. I’ve talked with Padan, and he tells me that it won’t take the Trogites very long to build the catapults and sleds once they reach the forests over there. Skarn will take his horsemen over there in a few days, and he tells me that it won’t take them very long to bring the sleds back here.”
“That’s unless a few more bison herds get in our way,” Skarn amended. “I don’t mind pushing cows around to make them go where I want them to, but I’m not going to start pushing those bison around. I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my past, but I’m not stupid enough to irritate animals that big.”
“They do provide the important part of our food supply,” Chief Two-Hands reminded Skarn. Then he looked at the others in the group. “Be very careful around those bison herds,” he cautioned. “There are times when almost anything can startle them, and the whole herd starts to run.”
“That sounds very familiar,” Skarn said. “Our cows do exactly the same thing. We call it a ‘stampede.’”
“So do we,” Tlantar said. “A lot of our people have been killed in those stampedes. My own father died when he couldn’t run fast enough to get out of the way when a herd of bison started to run.”
Ekial led his advance force of a hundred Malavi horsemen north the following day while the rest of the men continued their march. It was late in the following afternoon when they saw a peculiar-looking cloud that appeared to be ignoring Dahlaine’s “no wind” interdiction.
“I thought the wind had been shut off,” Rabbit said.
“It’s what we call a ‘whirlwind’ up here,” Tlantar explained, “and I don’t think that even Dahlaine could order one of those to stop blowing.”
“They’re called ‘cyclones’ in some parts of the world,” Padan said, “and you’re probably right, Chief Two-Hands. I don’t think there’s anything that can stop them once they start to spin like that. How do your people avoid them?”
“We’ve had fair luck with holes in the ground,” Tlantar replied. “Every village has a well-constructed shelter under the ground to protect the people. The whirlwinds don’t sweep across one of the villages very often, but we don’t really want to take any chances.”
The dark, cone-shaped cloud moved off to the north, and Longbow and the others all thought that was very nice of it. As evening descended, they set up camp for the night and ate a rather sparse supper. It was not long after darkness had settled over the vast meadowland when a scar-faced Malavi horseman rode in. “My name is Orgal,” the rider announced as he swung down from his sweaty horse, “and Prince Ekial sent me here to tell you what’s been going on lately off to the north. We saw the Atazak invaders, and they don’t look to me like they’ll be very much trouble. There are quite a lot of them, but when we looked closer, we saw that at least half of them were women and children. There were a few of them who were brandishing things they might believe are quite threatening, but they’ll need a lot more practice before anybody will take them seriously. I’d say that most of them don’t even know what the word ‘war’ means. Of course, we were all riding horses, and I’d say that they might believe that the horse and the man riding him are just one creature—four legs on the bottom and two arms on the top—and with two heads of course. Whenever they see us coming, they run away.”
“How far ahead of us would you say they are?” Longbow asked the Malavi.
“I’d say about sixty miles.”
“It’ll take us about three more days to get there,” Longbow mused. “Can Prince Ekial hold?”
The horseman grinned. “Since the enemy’s too ignorant to know anything about wars, Ekial might just go on and defeat them all by himself.”
“That wouldn’t be at all polite,” Longbow said with a faint smile. “Do you suppose you could send a messenger off to the west? We’ve got several tribes of bowmen coming this way and some Trogites building catapults as well. They’ll all need a guide to bring them to the place where we’ll need them. There’s a Malavi named Skarn who’s over there with Keselo, and he has quite a few horsemen who’ll be able to spread the word once they know the route.”
“Skarn’s an old friend of mine,” Orgal said. “I’ll go over there and talk with him myself.” And he wheeled his horse and rode off to the west.
3
It was late in the afternoon two days later, and Longbow was fairly sure that they were nearing the region of northern Matakan where Prince Ekial was holding off the invasion of the Atazaks. Unfortunately, however, Longbow and his friends wouldn’t be able to go any farther today, and probably not tomorrow either.
“It looks almost like an ocean of fur out there, doesn’t it?” Rabbit suggested as they all stood on a hilltop watching the huge herd of bison running in panic toward the west and totally blocking Longbow and his friends from any further progress. “What do you suppose frightened them this time?”
“Maybe somebody who’s about ten miles away sneezed,” Chief Two-Hands replied. “Almost anything will send a herd of bison running toward the far horizon. All it takes is one frightened bison to start a stampede. If one of them runs, they all run—even when they don’t know what frightened the first one.”
“It makes traveling in this part of the world sort of interesting, though,” Rabbit added.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many animals all in one place at the same time,” the archer Athlan observed.
“That’s probably because you live in a forest, Athlan,” Padan said. “Forest animals hide. They were probably there, but you couldn’t see them because the trees were in your way.”
“I don’t think I’d want to try to herd animals that big around,” the Malavi Tenkla said. “It looks to me like those bison run almost as fast as horses, and they’re twice as big as horses. I wish Ekial had left somebody else in charge when he ran off to the north. If I happen to make a mistake, I could get a lot of the men killed.” He looked at Chief Tlantar Two-Hands. “You were saying that if one bison gets frightened and runs, the rest of the herd’s likely to follow him. Do they stand around looking at each other all the time?”
“I’ve been told that smell is involved,” Two-Hands replied. “I guess that a frightened bison gives off a distinctive odor, and it’s that odor that makes the rest of the herd bolt and turn.”
“I’ve come across sailors who’ve been drunk for a week or so,” Rabbit said. “They smelled bad enough to make me want to run away, too.” Then he grinned. “That might just solve this problem, Longbow. If a herd of bison are blocking us off, we could get Ox drunk, and he’d smell so bad that the bison would turn around and run away.”
“Very funny, Rabbit,” Longbow said.
“I’m glad you liked it,” Rabbit said with a broad grin.
They reached the part of northern Matakan where Ekial and his friends were holding back the invaders from Atazakan about two days later. “I was just about to send some horsemen out to find you,” Ekial said. “What took you so long?”
“We ran into a herd of frightened bison,” Padan explained. “They had us completely blocked off.”
“Ah,” Ekial said. “I should have guessed, I suppose. Were you and your friends in any danger, Longbow?”
“Not really,” Longbow replied. “We were up near the top of a hill, and it would seem that bison aren’t at all like goats. They don’t seem to like to go uphill, do they?”
&nbs
p; “Not that I’ve seen so far. If they’re at all like cows, every now and then they’ll stampede up a hillside, but it slows them down, and they don’t seem to like that much.”
“How are things going, Ekial?” Padan asked.
“We’re having quite a bit of fun,” Ekial replied with an evil grin. “These Atazaks are hopeless incompetents. They’re armed with what somebody who doesn’t know what he’s talking about might call ‘spears,’ but their spears aren’t very well-made, and the Atazaks haven’t got the faintest idea of how to use them. We gallop at them in places where they don’t expect us and skewer several of them with our lances and then gallop out again. Then, when that gets tiresome, we whip in and slash them with our sabres. I don’t think they even recognize our sabres as weapons.”
“I think somebody once said that a stupid enemy is a gift from the gods,” Rabbit said.
“I believe I might have just seen something that’ll make their lives even more unpleasant,” Padan said. “There’s an outcropping of hills about a mile north of here. We could build a fort out of sod blocks up near the top of those hills and then just sit there. If the Atazaks try to attack that fort, things will get very unpleasant for them. Then, if they try to avoid us, we can come down off the hill, kill a couple hundred of them, and then go back to the fort. Eventually they’ll almost have to attack us, and there won’t be many live ones left after that.”
“And even fewer if my men and I wait out in the grass until they attack your fort,” Ekial added. “We’ll hit them from behind. Maybe the rest of them will give up on this silly invasion and go on back to their own territory.”
Padan shook his head. “They’re being controlled by our real enemies, Prince Ekial,” he said in a bleak voice. “Let’s not take chances. We don’t want them coming at us from behind during our real war down in Crystal Gorge.”
It was about then that the Malavi Orgal rode in. “Red-Beard told me to come here and advise you that he’s leading the archers from Tonthakan here, and that it won’t be much longer than two days before he arrives. I’m also supposed to tell you that Keselo’s Trogites have finished building their war-engines, and they’ve installed them on those sleds. Skarn’s men are pulling the sleds, and they’ll be here soon as well.”
“It just wouldn’t be the same without them, Orgal,” Padan said with a broad grin.
“Was that supposed to be funny?” Orgal demanded.
It was just after dawn the following morning when Longbow, Athlan, and Two-Hands joined Prince Ekial some distance off to the east to take a closer look at the invading Atazaks.
“They don’t seem to have very many weapons of any kind,” Longbow said quietly as they looked out across the grassland at the disorganized camp of the invaders.
“The ones with weapons are a bit farther back,” Ekial explained. “The ones that are closer are just ordinary people. That’s what’s been bothering us quite a bit. The ordinaries aren’t permitted to have weapons of any kind as far as we can tell. The ones wearing fancy clothes and carrying spears are the soldiers—or at least that’s what they call themselves. They’ve been pushing the unarmed ordinaries out to the front to serve as a sort of walking barricade to keep my horsemen—and the local Matans—a fair distance away from the ones who think they’re important. I hired on to fight warriors, not to run over innocent, unarmed common people, so I’m having the same sort of problems that Tladan and his spearmen are. I won’t kill innocents, but they’ve been herded out to the front, so my men and I can’t get through them to attack the ones carrying spears.”
“Why don’t you just herd them out of the way, then?” Longbow suggested.
“I’m not really very good at herding people, Longbow.”
Longbow considered that. “I think we’ll have to wait until Athlan’s archers get here,” he said. “Once they’ve arrived, you can make a false attack on the Atazak front.”
“False attack?”
“Charge in as if you mean to kill every Atazak in the vicinity. The ones with spears will push the unarmed common people forward to block off your attack. Then the Tonthakan archers can shoot arrows over the commons and kill the ones who think they’re important by the hundreds. The survivors will run back to get out of the range of the arrows. That should leave the ordinaries standing there all alone. It shouldn’t be very difficult at that point to herd the innocents off to someplace safe. I don’t think there’ll be very many ‘Guardians’ left after an hour or so, and the ones who are still alive will most likely run away just as fast as they can. That should leave poor old Holy—but crazy—Azakan out there all by himself screaming orders at passing clouds, the sun, moon, and stars, and assorted other things that won’t pay any attention to him. An arrow—or a lance—should quiet things down out there quite noticeably.”
“What about the bug-people?” Padan asked.
“We know how to deal with them,” Rabbit said. “The innocent ones will be safe, the crazy man and his protectors will be dead, and the bug-people won’t be around anymore. Then we’ll be able to go on down to Crystal Gorge and help our friends down there eliminate our real enemy, the one that’s called ‘The Vlagh.’ That’s the war we need to win. This Atazak invasion was just a hoax designed to pull us away from Crystal Gorge.”
“Is this ‘Vlagh’ really just a bug?” Ekial asked Longbow.
“I’ve never actually seen her,” Longbow replied, “but sooner or later, she and I will meet and settle this once and for all.”
4
It was about noon of the following day when Longbow crept through the thick grass to the top of a small knoll to watch the invaders from Atazakan. They didn’t seem to be very well-organized, and there was a lot of milling around out there. “The Guardians of Divinity” were easily distinguishable from the ordinary Atazaks, since they were all dressed in brightly colored clothing, and they carried crudely made spears—which the ordinary people were evidently not permitted to possess. As Ekial had said, the “Guardians” were herding the commoners out to the front to stand between them and the Malavi.
Then Rabbit came crawling up through the grass. “Are they doing anything yet?” he asked Longbow in a quiet voice.
“Nothing very significant,” Longbow replied. “They’ve been fairly busy driving the ordinary people out to the front. They seem to really want a large number of unarmed Atazaks standing between them and Ekial’s horse-soldiers. Ekial and his men are staying out in plain sight to make the ‘Guardians’ believe that they’re in terrible danger. We don’t want them to start finding other things in other places for the commoners to do.”
“Red-Beard should lead the Tonthakan archers here sometime tomorrow,” Rabbit said then. “Once the archers have pushed the ‘Guardians’ back a ways, Ekial can swing in and drive the ordinaries off to the north. I talked it over with him, and we sort of agreed that the safest place for them will probably be around on the backside of those hills where Padan’s building his fort. He doesn’t really show it, but Ekial’s starting to feel very protective when it comes to those ordinary Atazaks. It’s almost like they were pets of some kind.”
“Cattle, Rabbit,” Longbow said, “not exactly pets. The Malavi spend all of their time protecting their cattle. I suppose that Ekial sees those helpless ordinary Atazaks as something very much like a herd of cattle, and the Malavi will do anything possible to protect their cows.”
“I guess I hadn’t really seen them that way,” Rabbit conceded. “I’m fairly sure that the ordinaries don’t say ‘moo’ very often, but I think Ekial can almost hear them say ‘moo.’” Then Rabbit laughed. “Or maybe they say ‘baa’ instead. They’re almost like the sheep down in Veltan’s Domain, aren’t they? Omago’s friend, that sheep-herder Nanton, did everything he could to protect his sheep from the wolves, and Ekial’s behaving almost more like a shepherd than a cattle-herder.”
“You don’t see very many shepherds with sabre scars on their faces, though,” Longbow added. “Anyway, once Ekial
and his men have herded the commoners out of the way and got them to someplace safe, we can all concentrate on eliminating the ‘Guardians.’ It might take a while for Holy—but crazy—Azakan to realize that we’ve removed, or eliminated, most of his worshipers, but I’m fairly sure that he’ll get the point, eventually.”
Rabbit raised his head and looked out over the Atazaks who were milling around in confusion. “Is that him?” he asked, pointing at an ornately dressed Atazak sitting on a very large chair near the center of the invading force.
“I think so,” Longbow replied. “He was shouting orders at the sky just a little while ago. I don’t think she was paying much attention to him, though.”
“Those little ones gathered around him are the poison-spitters, aren’t they?”
Longbow nodded. “They look very much like the ones I’ve been killing for a long time now. I haven’t seen any of them spitting today, though. Now that the wind’s not blowing, spitting out venom wouldn’t be a very good idea, since it settles right back down on them.”
“I was sort of hoping they wouldn’t realize that,” Rabbit said. “Enemies who destroy themselves are the very best kind, wouldn’t you say?”
Then the ornately dressed Atazak rose to his feet and began to bellow at the sky in a huge voice. Most of what he was shouting didn’t make any sense, but as nearly as Longbow was able to determine, the crazy man was shouting orders to lightning—which wasn’t around just then. “Strike down my foes!” he roared. “I command thee to strike them all down. Then clear a path for me that I might confront mine arch-enemy, Dahlaine the usurper! Do as I command, for I am the god of all of the Land of Dhrall! Ye must obey me, or I shall banish thee now and forever from the sky—which is also mine!”