“Please, sir, we’re just farmers,” Audag whined. “We were turned out of our inn because of a little disagreement with the owner. He charged us more than he had promised he would. We’re looking for a place to stay.”
“And just where is this inn and who owns it?”
“The Jolly Cheeks. The crook who owns it is Skilduz the Stammerer, may he rot in the ground and worms enjoy his beer-soaked putrid carcass.”
“The Jolly Cheeks? That’s on the other side of town. Sergeant, probe that pile in the wagon with your spear.”
“Yes, sir!” the sergeant bellowed. “You, Izak and Azgo, help me!”
“Nuts!” Hank said. He came up out of the pile at the same time as Sharts and Blogo. He only had time for a quick estimate of the situation. The wagon was surrounded by nine men on deer and three getting off their beasts. None of them seemed to have crossbows. He stood up, yelling at Sharts and Blogo to get out of his fire, and he turned, shooting until he had completed a circle. The officer fell first; eight either dropped from their saddles or fell under the weight of their stricken animals. Then Hank had to attach a fresh magazine to the BAR. Three on the ground leaped up and started to run away. They and the three still mounted might have gotten away in the darkness if Hank’s colleagues had not brought loaded crossbows from under their cloaks and shot them.
Blinds went up in the nearby houses, and people looked out through the rain.
“Go like hell!” Sharts screamed.
The wagon started with a jerk that hurled Hank off his feet. Fortunately, the hay and fruit softened his fall.
While the wagon rattled, bumped, and jolted down the streets and skidded around corners, Hank reloaded. A minute later, a patrol spread out across a wide street to block them. The BAR was emptied clearing them out of the way. Hank attached another box magazine. Five left.
The wagon finally stopped below a sentinel tower on the outer wall of Wugma. It was a half-mile from the north gates. While Audag and his son unhitched the deer, Sharts hallooed the guard in the tower. He would be, if all went according to plan, an agent of Glinda. He had been in the Gillikin army for three years, and he was supposed to put his fellow guard out of commission and let down a rope ladder. Every tower had one; they were to be used to admit other troops to the top if besiegers broke through and cut off the access of other defenders to the top of the wall.
Their disadvantage was that they could be lowered to let enemies in or out.
The man in the tower was barely visible by his torchlight. He waved, and, two seconds later, the ladder fell down. Smiim was the first up; Audag, the last. The deer were gone then. They would hide during the night. When morning came, they would dash through the city gates and be lost in the country. At least, that was what they hoped. The plan to haul them up by ropes had to be abandoned. There just was not enough time for that. The sentinels in both towers on each side were yelling and beating drums now.
A lightning flash showed that a man had left each of these towers and was advancing towards them. Hank killed them with four rounds.
Presently, they were on the ground with the agent Lukaz, and they were heading north through the village there. Just as they left it and were going across farmland, Bargma lit on Hank’s shoulder.
“Give me some warning the next time!”
The owl laughed, then said, “There’s no sense in my staying with you. I’ll go on to the farm.”
“O.K. Tell the farmer to unstake Jenny if the storm quits and if there isn’t a high wind. He’d better be ready to run with his family if we’re tracked to the farm.”
The owl flapped off heavily. A little later, the group left the farmland and took a narrow deeply rutted dirt road which ran northwest. Every step the group took would head them one step more from the main road. There would be cavalry—cervusry?—out on the highway now and perhaps on the sideroads. When daylight came, Erakna’s hawks and eagles would be surveying from the air. However, the band only had ten miles to go now and should be on the farm before dawn.
Even so, if this storm continued, the airplane would be grounded.
Hank plodded on, his jacket collar around his neck, the rain trickling down his neck, looking now down at the ruts so he would stumble less, then at the bull’s-eye lantern. Sharts would occasionally turn it around so that the others could see him.
They came to a road at right angles that ran to the main highway. They would have preferred to cut across the country toward the farm, but they could easily get lost in the dark hills and woods. They would have to chance encountering the soldiers.
Luck played out on them. Erakna’s men were in a copse of oaks ten yards from the crossroads. They had with them what Hank had not expected: hawks and eagles. These had ridden on the pommels of the saddles. They swept out of the darkness and struck the band before it was aware that anybody was within a mile.
The cavalry charged, screaming and whooping, the moment the screeches of the birds and cries of the men notified them that the birds had attacked. They came through single file on the narrow bridge across the ditch along the meadow. Fortunately for Sharts’s band, the third deer in line slipped and fell down. Six mounts and riders piled up on top of them. The three behind them managed to pull up in time. Their beasts jumped the low fence and plunged into the ditch. Here two deer fell under the water, but the third got his beast to scramble up the bank.
The eagle that came from behind and sank its talons into Hank’s leather helmet was almost as surprised as Hank. It must have been much more disappointed. The strap of the helmet was loose. Though the talons went through the leather and gashed the top of Hank’s head, the helmet came off. Hank threw himself on the ground, crawled away, turned, and removed the BAR from his shoulder. The eagle was somewhere in the darkness, doubtless trying to get its talons loose from the helmet.
Others had not been as lucky as he. They were screaming and battling desperately with the birds trying to rip out eyes and gash faces. Hank decided that it was too dangerous to shoot in the dark. He reversed the BAR to use as a club and brought it down on the back of a hawk that had a man on the ground. Though its back was broken, the hawk’s talons did not come loose. Man and bird rolled away into the night.
The three who had cleared the bridge galloped up waving their swords. Hank could not see them very well, but he could make out three bulks. He reversed the rifle again and shot the riders off the saddles. The deer, though disciplined to fight, ran away at the explosions.
Hank located three more battling couples and killed the birds. By this time, the soldier who had gotten across the ditch charged. He cut down Smiirn, who was stabbing a hawk whose talons were sunk into his chest. Hank shot the soldier and his deer.
Sharts and Blogo had managed to slay their attackers and to pull the talons out of their flesh. They aided Hank and soon had put an end to four more birds. Hank came across the eagle with the helmet caught in his claws. He shot it, but he had no time to get his helmet back. Three deer and riders who had struggled up from the mess on the bridge roared in. Hank shot two. Blogo leaped onto the back of one and slashed his throat.
It took a while to kill the other birds, but it was done. Of Sharts’s band, all except three were dead, unconscious, or blinded. The only ones who could walk were Sharts, Blogo, and Hank.
From an indeterminate distance to the south came the faint notes of a bugle.
“They must have heard us!” Blogo said. “They’ll be ripsnorting up the road now! We haven’t got much time!”
Sharts said, “We can’t leave them at the mercy of Erakna!”
He pointed at the blinded and the badly wounded.
“Right you are!” the Rare Beast cried.
Before Hank could protest, Blogo had cut the throats of the blind men and was starting on the others.
“I don’t like it, but it has to be done,” Sharts said.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Hank said wearily.
The thunder and lightning had ceased shortly before the attack, though it
was still raining. He took Blogo’s lantern and searched until he found the eagle. After trying to get the helmet loose, he gave up. The two men were threatening to leave him behind if he did not stop fooling around. He trudged after them, and they reached the farmhouse within twenty minutes. They had to go at a wolf trot to do it, run fifty steps, walk fifty. Sharts halted when they got to the gate. The light from the lantern fell on a ghastly figure. His face was deeply gashed, blood was spattered over his face and clothes, and his shirt was torn to shreds.
“What’s the matter, boss?” Blogo said. “We shouldn’t stop now!”
“You know what the matter is,” the giant said.
Blogo said, “Oh, yeah. Sure.”
He took off his knapsack and removed a paper-covered package. After tearing open the top, he took out a purple-and-gold-striped shirt with an exquisite white lace collar and cuffs. Meanwhile, Sharts had taken off his jacket and the ruined shirt.
“For God’s sake!” Hank said.
Blogo looked up at him.
“Every time he gets into a fight... well, you can see for yourself. That’s why...”
“Why what?” Sharts said angrily.
“Nothing, boss.”
If he had not been so weary, Hank would have laughed. That was just as well. Sharts would undoubtedly have attacked him, and he would have been forced to shoot Sharts. Shoot Sharts. Alliterative and attractive idea.
The giant, now reattired, said, “Blogo, you go down to the house and tell the farmer that he and his family should take off for the hills. They can watch from there to see if the Gillikins come here.”
“Sure, boss, only... there isn’t any doubt they will. Once day comes, the hawks’ll be all over this area like pepper on soup. They’ll spot Jenny, and the whole army’ll be here.”
“They can’t do that until dawn,” Sharts said, very patiently for him. “If the weather clears by then, we can fly off in her.”
“Not if there are a lot of hawks here,” Hank said. “The moment we get in the plane, they’ll attack. We won’t have a chance to get off the ground if they are here in great numbers.”
“Do you want to flee into the hills?” Sharts said. “That army will be beating the bush, and the chances are they’ll find us.”
“It’s twelve one way and a dozen the other. No, I don’t want to run for the woods. Not until I have to. I’m for waiting until dawn to see what the weather’s like.”
“If a patrol finds us, a hawk will be sent to Wugma to bring the garrison army here.”
“There’s your patrol now,” Hank said.
He pointed at the swinging lanterns far down the road.
Blogo left to notify the farmers. The two men waited until they could hear the clop-clop of hooves and see a dim mass moving toward them. Hank emptied the rest of his magazine and expended five rounds from the fresh supply. Some of the lanterns were dropped on the road, where a broken one burned. What was left of the patrol had retreated, though several wounded men were screaming. After a while, the cries gradually got fainter. The soldiers had sneaked back and carried off the wounded.
The Rare Beast came running and out of breath. “What happened?”
Sharts told him.
“Where’s Bargma?” Hank said.
“Gone hunting. She’ll be back just before dawn.”
Hank did not think that Terrestrial owls went hunting in such foul weather. They would not want to get wet, there was so little light that even an owl could not see well, and the prey would be staying out of the open. But here the animal kingdom did not behave exactly as on Earth. Bargma could be walking through the woods now, trying to find some holed-up rodent. Her sentiency would enable her to hunt in a manner her other-world cousins would never dream of.
Sharts sent Blogo after some food and hot berry juice. When he returned with a large basketful, he said, “They’re gone.”
Sharts said, “You sound as if you’d like to go with them.”
“Not me!” Blogo said. He thumped his barrel chest with a fist. “You know me. Did I ever run away from a fight? Hell, boss, you and I have taken on and licked twenty men! And look at what havoc we worked among the Gillikins tonight! They must be filling their britches just thinking about tackling us! Maybe I ought to go down the road and tell them who we are! That’d shake them up!”
“Yeah,” Hank said. “All ten thousand of them.”
“Numbers don’t scare me,” Blogo said.
Hank had to listen to much more boasting. He was tired of it, but it did keep him awake. That and his mental images of how he would like to kick the two in the rear while they were bent over looking down a cliff.
When dawn was almost due by his wristwatch, the sky was still black. Moreover, the thunder had come hack, and lightning was running fiery fingers over the pages of the earth. Hank hoped that it was not looking for his name.
Carrying the lantern, Hank walked on the down-slanting road. When he came to the level ground, he cut across the field. He stopped under the oak tree and said, “How are you, Jenny?”
“Fretting and fuming, very worried. I knew that three of you had gotten back because I asked Blogo when he went by. But he wouldn’t tell me what had happened.”
She sounded hurt.
“Sorry,” Hank said. “We’ve been very busy.”
He sketched the raid and then said, “I’m going to untie you even if the wind is still strong. We’ll take off at dawn or a little after. We don’t have any choice. I’ll let you handle the taxiing and the takeoff, but when we’re ten feet off the ground, I’ll take over. Understand?”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “What then?”
“Some action. Maybe.”
He patted her cowling and returned to the gate. By then the east was paling, though not much. Hank could see a dark mass of men a half-mile away on the road. He supposed that there were many more under the trees along the road.
Two minutes passed before what he had been waiting for came. A hundred or so hawks and eagles appeared. They did not attack, but settled down a quarter of a mile away on the branches of the oaks to Hank’s right and left. One hawk flew back along the road. She would be reporting the number and location of the defenders.
“I’ll bet that Erakna is here, directing the army,” Hank said. “She’ll be furious because of what we did, her narrow escape and all. And she’ll want to make sure that her soldiers don’t screw up again.”
Blogo said, “I hope she doesn’t use her magic against us.”
“She shouldn’t think it’s necessary,” Sharts said. “She’ll want to save her energy.”
Hank pointed at the birds sitting quietly but glaring at the three men. He said, “You agree, Sharts, Blogo, that we don’t have a mammoth’s chance on thin ice of getting off the ground while those birds are still there?”
The giant looked narrow-eyed at Hank. “They’ll swarm over us as soon as we get into the cockpits. You can kill a lot of them, but they’ll keep coming.”
“Yeah, and as soon as I run out of ammunition, which will be quickly, we’ll have had it.”
“It’s evident you have a plan,” Sharts snapped. “What is it?”
Hank reached into the knapsack and brought out the hemisphere. Sharts’s and Blogo’s eyes widened.
“The Golden Cap which controls the Winged Monkeys,” he said triumphantly.
Sharts should have been happy, but he frowned and bit his lip and began whistling. He was reproaching himself for not having seen it.
“Wow!” Blogo said. “Maybe we could trade that to the queen for an immediate pardon!”
“I think they call you the Rare Beast because you’re rarely intelligent,” Sharts said. “Why should she bargain with us when she can get it at the expense of a few lives?”
“Sometimes, I think you don’t like me,” Blogo said. “But... yes... I see what Hank is getting at. I think.”
“This is the main reason why Erakna will be personally commanding the army,” Hank said. “She kn
ows what we’ll do with it if we have any brains. O.K. Here goes.”
The inscriptions inside the rim of the Cap were unreadable by Hank, but he did not need to have to decipher them. At least, he hoped he wouldn’t.
“Memory, don’t fail me now!” he muttered.
He put the Cap on his head. It was too small to stay on without a helping finger. Feeling silly, he lifted his right leg and stood on his left foot.
“Ep-pe! Pep-pe! Kak-ke!”
“That’s from the language of the Long-Gones,” Sharts said to gape-mouthed Blogo.
Hank stood on his right foot.
“Hil-lo! Hol-lo! Hel-lo!”
Hank planted both feet firmly on the ground.
A BARNSTORMER IN OZ by Philip José Farmer Page 25
