“Your superiors, the dragonlords themselves, must have caught wise at last,” guessed Augie. “Did you admit your deceit?”
“I wish it were that easy,” said Brack. “Actually it was much, much worse.”
The gnomish delegation arrived at dawn. There were fifteen of them, all looking about as threatening as a pack of rabbits. Some were dressed in leather work-aprons, and others in farmer’s shirts and slacks. One or two looked as if they had been rousted from their beds and dragged along by the mob.
They were led by a short gnomish woman with fire-red hair braided down her back and a stern look plastered across her face. The gnomes presented themselves to one of the guards by the outer paddocks, demanding to see someone in charge.
In another part of Ansalon, a band of gnomes suddenly appearing at an oupost would be cause for alarm, but this part of the front had been pacified, and this outpost was little more than a garrison with a few scout units. The guard, amused by the small delegation, demanded the gnomes’ business.
“We are here to see about release of one of our people, unfairly held,” said the flame-haired gnome.
The guard raised an eyebrow. He was unaware that the army had even taken “good faith” hostages. He asked what hostage the short woman was talking about.
She told him, and the guard fought the urge to laugh. He thought about it a moment, and asked the gnomes to wait. Then the guard beetled his way quickly to Lieutenant Brack’s quarters.
“Rumtuggle?” said Lieutenant Brack, commanding officer of this particular outpost in the Green Dragon-army. “They want us to release Rumtuggle?”
The guard nodded, snorting a laugh in the process. “They say they heard that we were holding him captive, and they have demanded his release.”
“You told them he doesn’t exist?” Brack asked, wide-eyed.
“I thought about doing exactly that,” said the guard, “but then I thought they might not understand and might go somewhere else and ask someone else about it. The people they ask might not think to come to you about it.”
“Hmmm. .” Brack ran a thumb along his jawline. “I see your point. They might ask questions, which may cause others to ask questions.” Brack sighed. “Send them to my tent.”
The guard nodded, and within five minutes the delegation was in Brack’s command tent. Several of the gnomes became immediately distracted and started sketching the design of the tent supports for future application. The red-haired gnomish woman would not be turned from her purpose and zeroed in on Brack with a sniper’s precision.
“We understand you have one of our numbers here as a prisoner,” she said curtly.
Brack managed his widest, sternest smile. “You have been misinformed. We hold no prisoners at this camp, not even good-faith hostages.”
“We understand you have had problems with a gnome named Rumtuggle,” said the woman.
Brack paused for a moment, then nodded slowly. There was no telling who else the gnomes would be talking to. “There have been reports of small accidents involving someone of that name.” He chose his words carefully, telling the truth only as far as it served him.
“We”-she motioned to her motley crew-”represent the various small gnomish communities in our area. Rumtuggle is not among any of our communities. Therefore,” she growled, screwing up her face and glowering at the lieutenant, “he must be your prisoner. You should release him at once.”
Brack looked at the guard, who stood at the doorway. The guard shrugged. To the gnome the lieutenant said, “I assure you we don’t have your Rumtuggle at this camp.”
“You have him at another camp?” asked the woman.
Brack sighed. “No. We don’t have him at any camp.”
“We don’t have him in any of our communities!” said the gnome woman. “No one has seen him for months!”
“Had anyone seen him before?” said Brack.
The gnome bridled and said, “I don’t think you’re taking this matter with the proper seriousness.”
Brack took a deep breath and regarded the group. A small, heated discussion had broken out in the back of the party about how the lantern wicks in the tent could be better cut. These were not rebels, Brack decided. These were barely targets. Gently he said, “Your Rumtuggle was probably a wanderer. He wandered into our lives, caused some havoc among our occupying forces, and now will wander out. I doubt,” Brack added with a hard look at the guard, “that we will ever hear about him again.”
The gnome woman was not mollified. “Your answers are evasive, human. You have three days to release Rumtuggle. After that we will have to take action.” She stomped her foot for effect. “Three days, human!” She spun on her heel and left the tent, her gaggle of gnomes in tow. One took a lantern with him, peering at the wick.
The guard waited behind, looking at Brack. The lieutenant sighed deeply and said, “I think we may have a small problem.”
“Emphasis on the small,” said the guard, breaking into a smile.
Brack smiled as well. “Very small, but for the next while, Rumtuggle should vanish from the reports. No point in stirring up the locals.”
“And when she demands his release?” asked the guard.
Brack shrugged. “She’s a gnome,” he said. “In three days she’ll have found something else to worry about.”
Of course the gnome leader did not. Each day, for the next three days, a gnomish messenger arrived at the edge of the camp, demanding Rumtuggle’s release. Each day Brack explained that they did not have Rumtuggle in their keeping.
On the morning of the fourth day, the cattle disappeared.
Brack never figured out how they did it. One night the cows were in the pasturage, the guards keeping an eye on them between games of dice. Then the sun came up on empty fields. Several hundred head of cattle, the provisions for most of the outpost, had vanished.
A messenger arrived, declaring that the cattle would be returned when Rumtuggle was released.
Brack looked at the messenger. He counted to five, then to ten. He explained that he could not release what he did not have and unless the gnomes gave back the cattle pretty damned fast he would unleash the entire fury of his unit on the surrounding area. A hungry army was an angry army. The gnome said he would be back the next day.
Privately, Brack worried. A hungry army was an angry army, but most of that anger would be directed at those responsible for feeding them-like their officers. Brack sent out scouts in all directions, both the hapless hobgoblins and real horsemen, in the hopes of finding whatever secluded valley the cattle had been squirreled away in.
They found nothing. The next day the gnome messenger returned. Brack counted to five, then to ten, and then to fifteen, then told him that they did not have Rumtuggle. The gnome said that he would return the next day.
Brack doubled the patrols, calling in favors from other commanders who knew about his fictitious gnome. Already the troops were restricted to salted meat, and would have to get by on hardtack if the cows were not returned. Brack sent word back up the line for additional supplies.
The patrols found nothing: no secluded vales, no herds of cattle in secret hiding places. All they found was increased evidence of lumbering in the area. Going into the gnomish towns was considered hazardous, since several gnomish inventions had gotten loose in the past and harmed some hobgoblins, and none of the nonhuman troops wanted to go anywhere near the gnomes, particularly now that Rumtuggle was apparently helping them.
The troops were getting hungry. And angry.
A query came from HQ asking what Brack had done about the cattle problem and notifying him that the rear echelon would be sending the provisioner-general to find out what happened to the missing cattle. The official would arrive the next day.
Hot on the heels of that message, the gnomish messenger returned, repeating the demand that Rumtuggle be released.
Brack counted to twenty but finally gave up trying to hold his temper. “I can’t give you Rumtuggle!” he sho
uted at last. “There is no Rumtuggle! Rumtuggle isn’t alive!”
The gnome’s eyes grew wide, and he practically squealed, “You mean, you killed him?”
Brack stared down at the little figure. “What are you going to do about it?” he shouted.
The gnome seemed to quail for a moment, then said, “I guess we’ll have to give back your cows, then.” He departed, leaving Brack speechless.
The cows did not reappear immediately, not for the rest of that day, nor with dawn of the next day. The pro-visioner-general did appear at dawn, and Brack found him inspecting the vacant paddocks.
“You had four hundred and fifty-three head of cattle,” said the provisioner-general, an officious skeleton of a man, regarding Brack over the top of his glasses. “They seem to be missing.”
“Well, yes,” started Brack, “we have had a problem with gnomes taking the cattle.”
The provisioner-general looked dubious. “Gnomes? Raiding cattle? Unlikely.”
“Ah,” said the guard at Brack’s side, “Well, these gnomes have had, uh, exceptional leadership.” He was trying to help, but Brack shot him a venomous look.
“Yes.” The provisioner-general flipped through a sheaf of papers attached to his clipboard. “This would be the ‘Rumtuggle’ mentioned in your earlier reports.”
Brack looked at the guard again, then sighed. “Yes, that would be correct, but we have ordered the gnomes to return the cattle, and they have said they will do so.”
“Hmmm,” said the provisioner-general. “Did they give you any idea when they would be returning said cattle?”
Brack opened his mouth to respond, but instead there was only the noise of a distant twanging, followed by the approaching sound of a lowing, panic-stricken cow. From overhead.
The gnomes were returning the cattle-by catapult. The first of the four hundred and fifty-three head of cattle smashed into the ground between Brack and the provi-sioner-general, knocking both off their feet. Brack immediately started scrabbling away as the provisioner-gener-al held his clipboard over his head in hopes that paperwork would stop the rain of cows over the dragonarmy camp.
Augie slapped the table with the fleshy part of his palm. “So it’s a cow story, then!” he said laughing.
Brack managed a thin, patient smile. “It’s a gnome story, one of those where you underestimate the gnomes and they turn out to be more intelligent, inventive, and dangerous than you thought. They found a way to hide the cattle, then built catapults. . ”
“Cattle-pults,” snorted Augie, almost spitting beer out his nose.
Brack sipped at his tankard, and Augie waved for another round. Another gnome appeared with more ales. Augie pulled himself slowly back together and rubbed the tears from his eyes.
“So the jig was up,” he said at last. “Your little imaginary friend was revealed at last, and you were cashiered.”
Brack shook his head. “Not yet. The cow-shot attack was only the beginning. We sent out forces, of course, but the gnome towns were abandoned.”
“They fled before your victorious armies?”
“They had abandoned them earlier,” said Brack. “They were keeping the cows inside the buildings. Of course none of our hobgoblins wanted to go find out because. .”
“These gnomes were dangerous!” shouted Augie, almost losing his composure again. “They were followers of Rumtuggle!”
“Rumtuggle the Rebel,” said Brack. “Who was supposedly dead, but now was being sighted everywhere, rallying the gnomes and the kender and whatever other races they could find against us. That just brought out the worst elements of all.”
“Oh no, not. .”
“Adventurers,” said Brack, staring into his mug. “Any tinpenny warrior with a dream and a sword. They started rallying the gnomes into a real organized force. And if we caught and killed any of them, then more showed up.”
“So what did your highlords do when all this activity suddenly showed up in your comfortable backwater?” asked Augie, smiling.
Brack sighed. “The worst thing they could possibly do.”
“You mean?”
“Yes.” Brack set down his empty tankard and picked up the refilled one, “They sent more troops in. To help us put down the imaginary gnome.”
The dragonlord’s armor was a shiny jet-black, and he rode an emerald-colored mount, its reptilian scales shimmering greenly in the wet morning fog. What Lieutenant Brack remembered most of all was his nose. It was a thin, aquiline nose with a great distance from tip to bridge, and the dragonlord looked down the entire length of said nose to regard Brack.
“You have rebel troubles,” said the dragonlord icily, in the tone of a man who had far more important things to do. Brack wished the dragonlord was doing them.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Brack, as calmly as possible. “There were some thefts-”
“Cows,” said the dragonlord. “You lost some cows.”
“But we got them back,” put in Brack.
“Not in the same shape as you lost them,” said the dragonlord. He struck a pose. “Rebellion must be crushed wherever it raises its head!”
Brack wondered if the pose was supposed to be heroic or just uncomfortable. “It has been a very peaceful area.”
“Until now,” said the dragonlord in a voice as serious as the grave. “Until this. . Rumtuggle chose to challenge the might of our armies. He will live to regret it.”
The dragon snorted in agreement. Lieutenant Brack looked at the dragonlord, wondering if he should laugh or scream.
By the end of the first week, he would have opted for screaming. More forces arrived, and with them a plethora of lieutenants, captains, and colonels. All answered to the dragonlord, and Brack was reduced to little more than a concierge, rushing about and making sure that all their needs were met. Most of these units had served together and had rivalries ranging from friendly and competitive to bitter and dangerous. Most of Brack’s forces were now kept busy keeping the other encampments from raiding each other over slights, real and imagined.
The dragonlord was oblivious to such problems within the ranks, as was usual with those in charge. The various commanders jumped when he shouted orders, and they scuttled away to enact them. Usually that involved some new demand upon outpost commander Brack.
While overseeing a crew to clear still more land for the encampment of a newly arrived unit, Brack realized what was bothering him-he had suddenly rejoined the army, and he did not like it one bit.
The weather did nothing to help. The fogs that had helped created Rumtuggle in the first place had continued and, if anything, had gotten worse. They were combined with continual rains that drenched the area. Given the large number of troops now contained in the immediate vicinity of the outpost, the entire region was now a foot-sloshing bog.
Each day the dragonlord flew through the grayish fog atop his mount and spent the day reconnoitering the area. However, with the exception of more fog, broken by the occasional shattered, rocky hilltop, there was nothing to be seen, and each day the dragonlord returned in a fouler mood, resulting in more orders for the subordinates and ultimately more irritation for Brack.
Finally the dragonlord drew up a plan. Since the weather was against them (undoubtedly influenced by foul rebel wizards), they would press outward, putting any settlements discovered to the torch until the combined forces of the enemy were forced to either flee or engage them on the field of honorable battle.
Only Brack, unused to blind obedience, asked the question, “What if the enemy has already fled?”
The dragonlord chortled and said, “These rebels are fanatics, and this Rumtuggle is the worst of all. No, they want to fight, and we will triumph!”
The other subordinates glared harshly at Brack for lengthening the briefing by asking stupid questions. The dragonlord laid out his plans for which units would be where, how to form a huge, sweeping formation that would course over the land like a wave, sweeping everything in its path. They would ri
de forth on the morrow morn, rain or shine. He looked at Brack with piercing eyes and asked if there were any questions.
Brack kept his thoughts to himself, and the sub-commanders were left to their units. Brack noted at the time that at least the dragonlord had showed the good sense to keep the most quarrelsome units on opposite flanks of the force, where they would not be able to taunt each other.
The next day was rain, not shine, but that did not slow the juggernaut of the dragonarmy. The dragonlord was at its head, astride his mount, and Brack’s forces were slightly to the left, just outside the vanguard. Most of the hobgoblins scouted, and his few cavalry forces were to act as skirmishers. The rain grew heavier, and struck with such force that the soft earth spattered on the assembled soldiers.
Brack considered telling the dragonlord the truth but felt that after a few days’ march and finding no official resistance, the dragonlord would fly away and things would get back to normal.
In truth, they barely got out of camp. As the dragonlord raised his hand to give the order to move out, a hobgoblin scout came staggering up, covered with mud.
“Gnomes!” shouted the hobgoblin. “Rumtuggle is waiting with his army!”
Upon reflection, Brack was to decide that the muddy scout, survivor of some other mishap while on patrol, had decided that Rumtuggle would be a suitable target to blame. Upon reflection, Brack was to decide this, but there was no time for reflection.
The entire army was electrified by the news and sloshed forward over the muddy parade fields and into the even muddier hills of the surrounding areas. The hillocks broke up the lines of units into packets of swordsmen and archers, of hobgoblins and cavalry. The rain grew worse, which Brack had thought was not possible, and the fog closed in so that an entire unit could walk into a river without seeing it-not that the drag-onlord would notice if a unit completely vanished.
Actually Brack did notice something as the ground dropped away at his feet. He found himself half-falling, half-sliding down an embankment. Other swordsmen and archers nearby cursed as they were similarly caught unawares. Mud caked on his armor and greaves as Brack and his unit fought to clear the far side of this particular gully.
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