“Didn’t you begin to get the feeling that the climate was turning unhealthy?”
“Just about then, yeah. We”—Yorick jerked his head toward his companions—“began to feel the wind shifting. So we headed up to the High Cave, to tell the Eagle to fly.”
“I hope he listened to you.”
“Listened! He was ahead of us—as usual. He had our knapsacks all packed. While we were slinging our packs onto our backs, he slapped our bows into our hands. Then he told us to disappear into the jungle and build a raft.”
“Raft?” Rod frowned.
Yorick nodded. “We had some really thick trees, with really thick bark, and they floated really well. He told us not to worry about where we were going—just to paddle it out into the ocean and hang on. Oh, and he told us to bring plenty of food and lots of drinking water, ‘cause we might be on that raft for a long time.”
“Without a sail or oars, it must’ve been.” Rod noted silently that the Eagle, whether or not he was a wizard, obviously knew the odd bit about science—which he should have, if he’d been running a time machine. It seemed that he knew about the Beastland-Gramarye current. “Did he tell you where’d you’d land?”
“Yeah—the Land of the Flatfaces. But he told us not to worry about it, because these Flatfaces were good people, like him.” He clapped his hand over his mouth, eyes wide.
The slip, Rod decided, had been a little too obvious. “Didn’t you want me to know he was good?”
“Uh… yeah.” Yorick took his hand away, bobbing his head eagerly, grinning. “Yeah, sure. That he was good, that’s all.”
“Thought so. I mean, you couldn’t’ve been worried about letting me know he was a Flatface—that’s been pretty obvious all along.”
“Oh.” Yorick’s face fell. “You guys are good at manipulating symbols, aren’t you?”
But how could a Neanderthal realize that words were symbols? His education was showing again. “So you built your raft and paddled out into the ocean—and the current brought you here.”
“Yeah.” Yorick eyed the wall of spearpoints that hedged him in. “And I don’t mind telling you that, for a while there, we thought maybe the Eagle had been wrong about you.”
Rod shrugged. “Can you blame them? Some of these men are locals; and your boys hit a village not far from here a few days ago. They turned it into toothpicks and meatloaf—and some of my soldiers had relatives there.”
“They what?” Yorick stared at him in stark horror. Then he whirled to his own men, pouring out a furious cascade of gutturals and barks. His companions’ heads came up; they stared in horror. Then their faces darkened with anger. They answered Yorick in growls of rage. He turned back to Rod. “I don’t mean to sound callous, milord—but are you sure about this?”
Rod nodded, fighting to keep his face expressionless. Yorick and his men were either actually surprised and shocked by the news—or very good actors. “They hit a village up north, too. I was there; I saw it. Most of the villagers got away, but they carved up my soldiers like hams at a family reunion.”
Yorick’s face worked for a moment; then he turned his head and spat. “That skinny, catbait Mughorck! He’s got to be behind it somehow!”
“Didst thou, then, know nothing of this?” Tuan demanded.
Yorick shook his head. “No one in the village did.”
“There were five score of men at least aboard that long ship,” Tuan said. “Many in your village must have known of it.”
“If they did, they did a real good job of keeping the secret,” Yorick growled. Then he pursed his lips. “ ‘Course, nobody really would’ve noticed, with that epidemic going on.”
“Epidemic?” Rod perked up his ears. “What kind?”
“Oh, nothing really serious, you understand—but enough so that people had to take to their beds for a week or two with chills and fever. You’ll understand we were a little preoccupied.”
“I’ll understand they were goldbricking,” Rod snapped. “This fever didn’t happen to affect only single men, did it?”
Yorick gazed off into space. “Now that you mention…”
“Simple, but effective,” Rod said to Tuan. “If anybody came knocking and didn’t get any answer, they’d figure the guy was sleeping, or too sick to want to be bothered.” He turned back to Yorick. “Nobody thought to stop in to check and see if they wanted anything, I suppose?”
Yorick shrugged. “Thought, yes—but you don’t go into somebody’s house without being invited. We left food at the door every night, though—and it was always gone the next morning.”
“I’ll bet it was—and your shaman’s friends had extra rations.”
“You’ve got a point.” Yorick’s face was darkening. “But we never thought to check on the sick ones—we trusted each other. You don’t know how great it is, when you’ve been alone all your life, to suddenly have a whole bunch of people like yourself. And we wouldn’t stop in just to say hello when we were pretty sure the person was feeling rotten; nobody wanted to catch it.”
Rod nodded grimly. “Simple. Despicable, but simple.” He turned back to Tuan. “So we got hit with private enterprise—a bunch of buckoes out for their own good, without regard to how much harm it might do their neighbors.”
“So that louse Mughorck was sending out secret commando raids to get you Flatfaces angry,” Yorick growled. “No wonder you sent a spy.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Rod countered. His eyes narrowed. “Come to think of it, maybe you have.”
“Who, us?” Yorick stared, appalled. “Make sense, milord! This is like walking in on a hibernating cave bear and kicking him awake! Do you think we’d take a chance like this if we had any choice?”
“Yes,” Rod said slowly. “I don’t think you’re short on courage. But you wouldn’t be dumb enough to come walking in without a disguise, either—especially since at least one of you speaks good Terran English.”
Beside him, Tuan nodded heavily. “I think they are what they seem, Lord Warlock—good men who flee an evil one.”
“I’m afraid I’d have to say so too,” Rod sighed. “But speaking of good men—what happened to the Eagle?”
Yorick shrugged. “All he said was that he was going to hide.”
“And take his gadgets with him, I hope,” Rod said grimly. “The enemy has entirely too many time machines already.”
“ ‘Enemy’?” Tuan turned to him, frowning. “There is naught here but an upstart hungry for power, Lord Gallowglass.”
“Yeah, one who thinks Gramarye looks like a delicious dessert! If that’s not ‘the enemy,’ what is?”
“The futurian totalitarian,” Fess murmured through the earphone implanted in Rod’s mastoid, right behind his ear, “and the futurian anarchists.”
“But you know my devious mind,” Rod went on, ostensibly to Tuan. “I always have to wonder if there’s a villain behind the villain.”
Tuan smiled, almost fondly. “If this suspicion will aid thee to guard us as thou hast in the past, why, mayst thou ever see a bear behind each bush!”
“Well, not a bear—but I usually do see trouble bruin.”
“Optimists have more fun, milord,” Yorick reminded him.
“Yeah, because pessimists have made things safe for ‘em. And how do we make things safe when we never know where the enemy’s gonna strike next?”
Yorick shrugged. “Mughorck can only field a thousand men. Just put five hundred soldiers every place they might hit.”
“Every place?” Rod asked with a sardonic smile. “We’ve got three thousand miles of coastline, and we’d need those five hundred soldiers at least every ten miles. Besides, five hundred wouldn’t do it—not when the enemy can freeze ‘em in their tracks. We’d need at least a couple of thousand at each station.”
Yorick shrugged. “So, what’s the problem?”
Rod felt anger rise, then remembered that Neanderthals couldn’t manipulate symbols—including simple multiplication. “That’d be abou
t six hundred thousand men, and we’ve…”
Yorick stopped him with a raised palm. “Uh… I have a little trouble with anything more than twenty. If it goes past my fingers and toes…”
“Just take my word for it; it’s a lot more men than we have available. Medieval technology doesn’t exactly encourage massive populations.”
“Oh.” Yorick seemed crestfallen. Then he brightened. “But you could post sentries.”
“Sure—and we did. But there’s still the problem of getting the army to where the raiders are in time to meet them.”
“It can’t be all that hard!”
Rod took a deep breath. “Look—we have to move at least as many men as your whole village.”
“What for—to fight just a lousy thousand?”
“I don’t think you realize just how much of an advantage that Evil Eye gives your men,” Rod said sourly.
“Not all that much. I mean, one man can only freeze one other man. Maybe two, if he pushes it—but not very well.”
Rod stared at him for a moment.
Then he said, “One boatload of your men held a small army of ours totally frozen.”
“What!?”
Rod nodded. “That’d be about, uh, two hands of my men for every one of yours.”
Yorick stared at his outspread fingers and shook his head. “Can’t be. No way. At all.”
Rod gazed at him, then shrugged his shoulders. “Apparently, somebody found a way to do it.” He remembered what Gwen had said about the lightning.
“Then figure out a way to undo it,” Yorick said promptly. “You Flatfaces are good at that kind of thing. We can show you how the Freeze—what’d you call it, the Evil Eye?—we can show you how it works.”
“That might help…”
“Sure it will! You gotta be able to figure out something from that!”
“Oh, I do, do I? How come?”
“Because,” Yorick said, grinning, “you can manipulate symbols.”
Rod opened his mouth to answer—but he couldn’t really think of anything, so he closed it again. That’s what set him apart from ordinary men. He just smiled weakly and said, “Manipulating symbols doesn’t always produce miracles, Yorick.”
“I’ll take a chance on it. You just tell us what we can do, and we’ll do it.”
“Might they not be of some value with our force?” Tuan inquired.
Rod turned to him, frowning. “Fighting side by side with our soldiers? They’d get chopped up in the first battle by our own men.”
“Not if we were to employ them to slip ahead of our main force to reconnoitre the enemy’s forces. Let us train them in the use of longbow, crossbow, and lance, and send them ahead to wreak havoc ere we arrive.”
Rod shook his head. “The nearest knight would charge them in a second. They’re not exactly inconspicuous, you know.” Suddenly his eyes widened; he grinned. “Oh!”
“Oh?” Tuan said warily.
“Yeah. If they stand out too much to do any good here—then we should use them someplace where they won’t!”
Tuan’s face slowly cleared into a beatific smile. “Aye, certes! Train them well, and send them back to Beastland. Then they can attack this Mughorck’s men unbeknownst!”
“Well, not quite. Just because they all look alike to us doesn’t mean they look alike to one another. But they could hide out in the bush and recruit some others from among the disaffected, and…”
“Aye! Build up a small army!”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking on that scale…”
“Couldn’t manage an army.” Yorick shook his head. “Fifty men, though, I might be able to get—but that’s fifty, tops.” He glanced back at his colleagues, then up at Rod. “That’s all our hands together—right?”
“Right.” Rod fought down a grin. “But put ‘em in the right place, at the right time…”
“Aye, fifty men who know the lay of the land.” Tuan’s eyes kindled. “ ‘Twould be well done indeed, Master Beastman.”
“ ‘Yorick’ is good enough,” the Neanderthal said with a careless wave of his hand. “Fifty, I think I could get. Yeah. We could hide out in the jungle on the other side of the cliffs from the village. no more than fifty, though. Most of the men have wives and children. That makes a man cautious.”
Rod nodded toward the other Neanderthals. “How about your guys?”
Yorick shook his head. “All bachelors. We wondered why the Eagle didn’t choose any of the married men for his cadre—and I don’t mind telling you, some of the ladies were pretty upset about it.”
“Don’t worry—it was nothing compared to how they would’ve squawked the first time their husbands had to work late.” Rod thought of Gwen with a gush of gratitude. “So they thought Eagle was a misogynist?”
“No; he turned handsprings anytime anyone married. And if one of the Inner Circle got spliced, he was even happier. Kicked ‘em into the Outer Circle, of course—but he always said the guy was being promoted, to husbandry.”
“Odd way to look at it.” Rod mulled it over. “Maybe accurate, though…”
“It is a job, all by itself,” Yorick agreed. “But the lack of dependents sure came in handy when we had to leave town in a hurry.”
“Think the Eagle had that in mind all along?”
“I’m sure of it—now. So, we’ll get bachelors for this guerrilla force, for you—but what do you want us to do with them?”
“Thou must needs assault them from their rear, whilst we storm in from the ocean,” Tuan answered. “Then, mayhap, we can bring thine Eagle from his aerie.”
“Or wherever he’s hiding.” Yorick nodded. “Sounds like a great idea.”
“Then, it’s a deal.” Rod held out a hand—carefully, it must be admitted.
Yorick frowned at Rod’s hand for a moment. Then he grinned. “Oh, yeah! Now I remember!” He grabbed Rod’s hand in both of his and pumped it enthusiastically. “Allies, huh?”
“Allies,” Rod confirmed. “By the way, ally…”
“Anything, milord,” Yorick said expansively.
“Viking gear.”
“Huh?”
“Viking gear,” Rod said again. He was glad to see the phrase had meant absolutely nothing to the Neanderthal. “Your shaman’s raiders came decked out in Viking gear—you know, horned helmets, round shields…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what Vikings were,” Yorick said in annoyance. “Dragon ships too?”
Rod nodded. “Any idea why?”
“Well, nothing very deep—but I’ll bet it scared hell out of the locals.”
Rod stared at him for a second.
“Makes sense, if you’re trying to adapt terrorism to a medieval culture,” Yorick explained.
“Too much sense,” Rod agreed. “Come on, let’s get back to Runnymede—we’ve got to start a military academy for you.”
The train headed northward with a squad of spearmen leading; then Rod and Tuan; then the Neanderthals, à la carte—or à la wagon, anyway, commandeered from the nearest farmer (the Neanderthals had never even thought of riding horses; eating, maybe… ); and well-surrounded by spearmen and archers. The soldiers and the beastmen eyed each other warily through the whole trip.
“I hope your wife doesn’t mind surprise guests,” Rod cautioned Tuan.
“I am certain she will be as hospitable as she ever is,” Tuan replied.
“That’s what I was afraid of…”
“Come, Lord Warlock! Certes, thou’lt not deny my gentle wife’s goodness!”
“Or your good wife’s gentleness,” Rod echoed. “We’ll just have to hope these cavemen know what a bed and a chair are.”
“I doubt not we’ll have to teach them the uses of many articles within our castle,” Tuan sighed, “save, perhaps, their captain Yorick. He doth seem to have acquired a great deal of knowledge ere this.”
“Oh, yeah! He’s a regular wise guy! But I’m not so much worried about what he’s learned, as who he learned it from.”
“I dost,” Rod confirmed. “That’d you get out of our little cross-examination?‘’
“I was cross that we had so little opportunity to examine. The fellow hath a deliberate knack for turning any question to the answer he doth wish to give.”
“Nicely put,” Rod said judiciously. It was also unusually perceptive, for Tuan. “But I think I did figure out a few items he didn’t mean to tell us. What did you hear between his bursts?”
Tuan shrugged. “I did learn that the Eagle is a wizard.”
“Yeah, that was pretty obvious—only I’d say he was my kind of wizard. He does his magic by science, not by, uh, talent.”
Tuan frowned, concerned. “How much of this ‘science’ hath he taught to Yorick?”
“None. He couldn’t have; it depends on mathematics. The basic concepts, maybe—but that’s not enough to really do anything with. He has taught Yorick some history, though, or the big lug wouldn’t’ve known what the Vikings were. Which makes me nervous—what else did the Eagle teach Yorick, and the rest of his people, for that matter?”
Tuan waved away the issue. “I shall not concern myself with such matters, Lord Warlock. These beastmen, after all, cannot have sufficient intelligence to trouble us—not these five alone—when they cannot truly learn our language.”
“I… wouldn’t… quite… say… that…” Rod took a deep breath. “I will admit that not being able to encode and analyze does limit their ability to solve problems. But they’ve got as much gray matter between their ears as you and I do.”
Tuan turned to him, frowning. “Canst thou truly believe that they may be as intelligent as thyself or myself?”
“I truly can—though I have to admit, it’s probably a very strange sort of intelligence.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the group of Neanderthals. The spearmen surrounding them happened to lean toward the outside at that moment, affording Rod a glimpse of Yorick’s face. He turned back to the front. “Very strange.”
Gwen snuggled up to him afterward and murmured, “Thou hast not been away so long as that, my lord.”
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