CHAPTER 28

Battle

ROWFORTH, KING OF HUD, stood at the edge of the training field and unhappily inspected the twelve flopears in bright red uniforms. So squat, so broad, so ugly, and yet possibly of great value to him. They did not look like soldiers, and he hadn't anticipated that they would. What they did look like were flopears in especially made Hud uniforms.

"And now, oh, King," Herzig was saying, "you must see that they learn to ride."

Rowforth permitted himself a sigh. Herzig had proved unexpectedly difficult in insisting that his handpicked dozen fighters wear the Hud uniform. That had entailed special orders and individual tailoring to fit the odd contours of the flopear bodies. What needless delay! Now they had to learn to ride—these squat, seemingly awkward creatures! It would mean special saddles with special stirrups and a long, painful instructing time. He hoped that his cavalry master could do the job before the abominable green-clad troops swept all the way to the capital. This had originally not been his plan, but there was sense in it: a uniformed flopear cavalry should prove to be even more efficient than a few stationary flopears waiting for eye contact. On horseback these unlikely troops could ride up to the rebel leaders themselves, paralyze them with a stare, and strike them dead. There would be little need for executions after the war. The flopears could execute the entire armed force right from their saddles. When they went into action, no matter what occurred before, victory was assured.

Brownleaf, the cavalry master, stepped smartly forth from the stables, leading a mare. The mare bore a special small saddle on her broad back and towered well over the heads of her potential riders. As she was led near she began to whinny and skitter and jerk in the manner of an untrained horse.

King Rowforth eyed the cavalry master and the horse and the untrained troops, and wondered.

Beside him, Herzig spoke: "Danzar, eye!"

One of the uniformed flopears stepped out of line, displaying all the soldierly style of his short-legged race, devoid of grace. The flopear eyed the mare, who was now trying for all she was worth to break free of her handler.

The horse froze. Danzar waddled close, climbed the rope ladder depending from the saddle, settled into the cupped depression, and took the reins.

"Danzar, release!" Herzig commanded.

Instantly the mare reared, came down on her forelegs, and bucked. Danzar flew clear of the saddle, letting go of the reins on his way up. In awe Rowforth watched the tiny body sail up to a height that bordered on the magical. Then down, down, like a stone. SPLAT!

To the king's astonishment, the dust had scarcely settled around the small body when it stood.

The flopear was unhurt! It focused its large eyes on the mare—and the mare, turning her head, rolling her eyes, was caught as before.

Danzar waddled up again, climbed the short rope ladder, and resumed the saddle. And went flying.

"How long will this go on?" Rowforth asked Herzig rather than his cavalry master.

"Until Danzar controls."

"That will be—?"

"As long as it will take. Horses can be stubborn. That is why none of the serpent people now ride."

"So these will be the first? The first in history?"

"Yes, the first in history, for this species of animal. The first of the serpent people ever to conquer the equine." But Herzig's tone indicated that he did not consider this remarkable. Evidently he expected the flopears to succeed; it was just a matter of time. Herzig did not seem concerned about the rapidly diminishing time the king had left. Who would have thought those ragtag revolutionaries would be able to hire such a well-equipped and trained army! Where had they gotten the money?

Only twelve, King Rowforth thought. Only twelve, but a sufficient number considering their power. Yes, indeed, the flopears, even more than his fine army, would hold and expand his realm.

Once the revolution was dispatched, he would torture its surviving leaders until they revealed the source of their mysterious wealth. Then he would make that source his own.

Out on the practice field Danzar was again clawing wildly with both hands as he climbed above their heads into the blue, cloud-flecked sky. It would have been comical, if not so serious.

As Kelvin had feared, it was one obscenity of a battle. Oh, his men fought hard enough and his gauntlets knew what to do, and there were volunteers aplenty, even in the midst of a fight. But war was war, and after he had spilled the blood of perhaps his twentieth man, Kelvin would have liked to give up the fray. Was it worth it? he wondered, watching the guts spill from his last opponent. Were even the lives of his father and his brother, and the freedom of this country, worth it? He saw the man topple with a stricken face and land under the hooves of the war-horses. Maybe that enemy soldier was somebody's father or somebody's brother, maybe he was just earning money to support his family! At what awful price was anything being accomplished? Yet really, what choice did he have?

What choice did any of them have, other than to fight?

Day followed day, and the Shrood mercenaries fought for Hud as if it were their own land.

Nobody liked a dictator bent on world conquest; even Rowforth's closest people seemed secretly to hate him. But people followed dictators, intent on the spoils that conquest brought. Whether such plunder was logical, considering that the opposing armies were apt to do the same to the families of the plunderers, Kelvin could not say; he just knew that he wished he were no part of it.

The soldiers of Hud's royal army were at least as good fighters as Hud's Freedom Army; in fact, the two sides were astonishingly well matched. Kelvin was glad that in this fight the Shrood-trained officers were in charge, not he. Yet they did ask his advice, and looked on him as a champion, as did all the troops. With luck and his magic gauntlets, he thought wearily, he could win against the toughest fighters.

Only one thing bothered him, and that was that the flopears did not appear. If they did show up as Rowforth's allies, he hoped that the weapon he carried sheathed on his hip would come to his aid as it had back in serpent territory. But until they did appear, if they did, the Mouvar weapon was only so much extra drag on his sword belt.

"When are they going to use them?" Biscuit demanded one evening, as if he knew.

Kelvin shook his head. "It bothers me as much as it does the rest of you. Maybe he's holding them in reserve."

"And maybe just knowing we have the weapon keeps them out," Smoothy Jac said. These days, in his green officer's uniform, he looked nothing at all like a bandit chief. Neither did he sound like a man whose main interest had been in stealing silver serpentskins from the magical flopears. All of them seemed to be changing, Kelvin thought. Considering what bandits were, that was for the best.

Shagmore came and went, and it was almost as big and potentially as disastrous a battle as the one for Skagmore had been in the home frame. Possibly Kelvin's recounting of the battle of Skagmore helped, as his recollections, suitably modified, of other battles had helped. He was watched carefully by Jac and his compatriots and did not get himself captured as he confessed he had at Skagmore. He had thought that here, surely, the flopears would appear, because this spot had been such a turning point in Rud's history and could be the same in Hud's history. Shagmore, like Skagmore in the home frame, was within a day's ride of the country's capital.

Thus it was that they were fighting a pitched battle outside the capital itself and winning, little by little, without having yet seen Rowforth's magical allies. It began to seem that the flopears were not going to appear, and that the palace itself would be taken by the Freedom Army. Kelvin fought on, trusting the gauntlets, and gradually as men died all around him he ceased to think of the flopears and of the Mouvar weapon he carried. In the back of his consciousness there was a cry of alarm, but that was hard to hear when the immediacies of battle preempted his attention.

Men with pitchforks and staves were in their midst, some riding plow horses and others traveling on foot. Peasants from neighboring farms were coming to help the Freedom Army take the palace.

Kelvin winced to see those unarmored men and boys who had never before stood up now standing up. As a consquence too many of them were dying, often horribly. Better late than never, some had said, but as he watched them being mutilated and killed, he wondered. Yet peasant hands did pull the proud, red-uniformed Royalists from their saddles; knives, axes, and clubs did bring the Royalists death, as did the flashing swords and twanging bows of the Freedom Army. On and on they battled, the day becoming bloodier as it wore on.

At noon, when the sun was beating down most cruelly, and fatigue was a smothering blanket weighing down the muscles that guided the horses and swung the swords, they arrived at the very gates of the palace. Still no flopears, Kelvin thought, that alarm sounding again in his mind. Victory almost in their grasp—

Suddenly the gates fell, crashing thunderously. They fell outward, pushed by men in red uniforms. A dozen war-horses charged from the palace grounds. Each horse carried a rider squat and ugly, with great flopears. Flopears in uniform! Flopears on horses!

There was no time to react. Men in green uniforms froze before the flopears' stares. Men in red uniforms froze as well, but these were not the targets of the ferocious young flopears with swords.

Those swords cut down only the men in green uniforms, and these toppled and died without resistance.

At the side of the action Kelvin fought to move close. Oddly, the gauntlets did not cooperate.

They were warm on his hands, and he was reminded again that this meant danger. Well, danger there certainly was, but with luck he and the gauntlets would stop it. He reached for the Mouvar weapon bolstered to his waist.

His gauntleted fingers encountered nothing where the weapon should have been. The holster had been cut away. He was without the critical weapon!

A flopear was standing up on a saddle, right in front of Kelvin, his oversized sword raised, his eyes glowing. Those eyes held Kelvin and his war-horse!

The flopear was going to split him all the way through, and he had no way to stop it!

On his hands his gauntlets were very, very warm. As if he couldn't see the danger for himself!