The Excalibur Alternative

-IV-

"There was no reason to awaken them at this time," the demon-jester said. There was no more expression in his voice than ever, nor did his body language give any hint of his feelings, and Sir George wondered if the small creature was properly grateful for the two dragon-men who towered behind him, one at each shoulder. Despite all that had happened, despite the example of young Denmore, despite the punishment Sir George himself had endured, he wasn't at all certain he could have kept his hands from the demon-jester's throat had those guards not been present.

"We do not require their services; we require those of yourself and your warriors," the demon-jester continued. "Their presence would only have distracted you when you ought to be preparing for and concentrating upon the battle you are here to fight. All of your attention should be upon that task."

"Our ability to concentrate will be hampered by our concern over the safety of our... mates," Sir George got out through gritted teeth.

"Your mates and young are completely safe... so long as you fight well and achieve victory," the demon-jester told him. "Nothing can harm them in their stasis beds, and if you bring us the victory we require, they will be awakened and restored to you as your justly earned reward. If you do not fight well, of course, there will be no reason for us to awaken them."

Sir George stared at the purple-furred face with a hatred more bottomless than he had ever imagined he could feel, yet there was nothing at all that he could do... except for the thing his commander—his master—demanded of him as the price for the return of his love.

"Very well, Commander," he managed to say in a voice he scarcely recognized. "In that case, let us prepare to do just that."

Sir George looked down as if from a great height, floating disembodied above the plain of deep purple grass, as the huge, six-limbed creatures lumbered forward. Each of them stood at least nine feet tall, with two legs and four massive arms, all covered in long, coarse hair. The hair's base color ranged from a dull ocher through rust to an almost painfully bright red, but each creature's pelt was also marked with a mottled black or brown pattern of spots and rings.

There were two armies of the creatures, moving towards one another in an awkward-looking, hunched lope that managed to cover ground with surprising speed. None wore any armor, although the patches of leathery skin he could see here and there, peeping through the coarse hair, looked tough enough to stand for armor if it had to. For weapons, most of them carried a pair of two-handed axes which dwarfed even those of the wart-faces. Others carried maces, flails, or long pikelike spears, and a very few, perhaps five percent of the total, carried quivers of long darts, like javelins.

As the two armies neared one another, the warriors with the darts began to hurl them, and the disembodied baron tried to purse nonexistent lips in a whistle of astonishment. The dart-throwers carried some sort of sticks, and as he watched, he saw them fit the butt ends of their darts into the ends of the sticks. Then they snapped their arms up in graceful arcs, and the sticks were like extensions of those arms. The alien creatures were already far longer-limbed than any human, and the sticks gave them a reach and allowed them to exert a leverage which sent their darts whistling out to unbelievable ranges.

Sir George had never seen anything quite like it, but it reminded him a little of the staff sling he had once seen a shepherd use. He'd never known where the shepherd, a Scot, had gotten the sling, and the lad hadn't been very accurate with it, but he'd been able to throw stones to an extraordinary distance. These four-armed monstrosities, on the other hand, were extremely accurate, and he judged that their range was very close to that of a Genoese crossbowman. His longbowmen could outmatch that by at least a little, and their rate of fire would be higher, but not as much higher as it would have been compared to crossbows. In fact, with four arms and two throwing sticks each of these creatures could come very close to equaling a single longbow's rate of fire.

Fortunately, neither army seemed to have very many of them, and he wondered why that was. If he had commanded either of those forces, he would have mustered every dart-thrower he could find!

But the reason, whatever it was, became immaterial as the two armies continued to close through the deadly hail of darts. Their blood, he noted, was a bright orange, quite unlike human blood, except for the way it spurted and ran as darts drove into bellies and chests and four-armed corpses thudded to the ground like so much slaughtered meat or shrieked and writhed in agony that was all too humanlike.

Even with their high rate of fire, none of the dart-throwers on either side had emptied their quivers when the two charging battlelines slammed into one another, and Sir George's immaterial eyes narrowed. The demon-jester had called the English "primitive"; Sir George wondered what he would have called these creatures. The baron was no stranger to the terror and howling chaos of hand-to-hand combat and the way every soldier's world narrowed to the tiny space within the reach of his own weapons, yet never in all of his battles had he ever seen anything like this—not even from an army of Scots! Indeed, he doubted that anyone had ever seen its like since the days when men finally stopped painting themselves blue before going out to hack and hew at their neighbors.

There was no formation, no effort to maintain line or interval. There were simply two mobs of nine-foot monsters, each armed with two axes or spears, or here and there one spear and an axe, or a pair of massive flails, all slashing and stabbing away at anything that came into range. It was sheer, howling bedlam, without rhyme or reason, and it went on far longer than he would have believed it could.

While it lasted, casualties were brutal. However thick the hide under their coats of coarse hair might be, in the end it was only hide over flesh and bone, and not one of those warriors carried a shield. Nor, so far as he could tell, had any of these hulking warriors ever even heard of the notion of blocking or parrying blows when it might have been attacking, instead. It was all offense and no defense, and blood soaked the grass and turned dry soil into gory mud. Either the fighters were in the grip of battle madness, or else they were too stupid to realize how dreadful the carnage was... or so unlike any human Sir George had ever known that the death toll truly didn't matter to them at all. Those were the only explanations he could think of for how long those two armed mobs stood toe-to-toe, smashing away at one another in an orgy of mutual destruction.

But finally one side had had enough. Its surviving warriors turned to flee, and, as always happened, their foes howled and lunged forward as they turned their backs, cutting down still more of them.

In the end, the routed side managed to outrun the victors—partly because they had thrown away their encumbering weapons, and partly because those who are fleeing from death always tend to be just a little faster than those who are simply pursuing to kill.

Sir George floated above the field of battle, watching the victors tend crudely to their own fallen and slit the throats of their wounded enemies, and then, slowly, his vision faded away.

Sir George sat upright on the comfortably padded bench and, as Computer had instructed him to do when the "briefing" ended, removed the "neural interface" headset.

His hand trembled ever so slightly as he set the headset aside. Computer had told him what he would see, but he'd lacked the experience to fully understand what the unseen voice was telling him. He hadn't realized that it would be real—that he would be able to hear the shrieks of the wounded, smell the subtly alien copper scent of the blood or the all too familiar sewer stench of ruptured organs and death. This was one piece of the demon-jester's magical arts that the baron felt no desire to understand. Not just now. Not until the familiar shudders and belly tightening echoes of combat had worked their way through him and subsided.

He heard a small sound behind him, and turned to see Sir Richard, Rolf Grayhame, Walter Skinnet, and Dafydd Howice sitting up on their own benches. Their individual responses to what they'd just seen were interesting. Grayhame and Howice looked almost completely normal, more thoughtful than anything else. Skinnet looked much unhappier than either of the two archers did, but that was obviously because he was considering the size and reach of the opponents he and his men-at-arms would be required to meet weapon-to-weapon. But Sir Richard looked very much like Sir George felt, and the baron found himself smiling sympathetically at the slightly older knight.

"Tough bastards, if you don't mind me saying so, Sir," Grayhame said after a moment. "Don't care much for how far they can throw them spears of theirs, either."

"I'm not so very happy about that my own self," Howice agreed. "Still, Rolf, I'm thinking our lads have the range on them, by a bit, at least."

"Not by much," Grayhame grumbled. "Not by near so much as I'd like, any road!"

"Aye," Skinnet grunted, "but at least your lot can stand off and shoot the bastards. My lads won't have that luxury."

"No," Sir George agreed, "they won't. On the other hand, I've no intention of sending you off to face them until they've been softened up a bit, Walter. Not when I'm riding along with them, at any rate!"

"With all due respect, Sir George," Maynton put in, "I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't be riding along with them even then. You're the one man we can least afford to lose."

"We can't afford to lose anyone at all, if we can help it," Sir George replied. "And if I'm going to send men off on a charge, then it's a charge I'll be making, too."

"You might as well give over, Sir Richard," Skinnet said sourly. "I've been trying for years to convince him that there might be just a mite of sense in putting the commander someplace besides dead center in the front line of a charge. You'd almost think he was French."

"There's no need to go insulting me, Walter," Sir George said mildly.

"All my life I've called a spade a spade, My Lord. I'm not about to change now."

"Well, whether you've a mind to change or not," Sir George told him, "I'm of the mind that with a little forethought and a little planning this might not be so very bad after all."

"And just how did you come to that conclusion, if you don't mind my asking, My Lord?" Skinnet responded with the skepticism of a retainer who knows his liege's trust in him is complete.

"Why, you said it yourself, when you were abusing me just a few moments ago," Sir George said. "They may be nine feet tall and covered with hair, but the way they just come right at you reminds me mightily of French noblemen or the Scots, and Computer says that what we've just seen is typical. So I'm thinking, the way to see them off is the same way His Majesty welcomed the Scots at Halidon Hill."

"I do not like this plan," the demon-jester piped.

"I can't say that I'm entirely pleased with it myself, Commander," Sir George replied levelly across the crystal table. "Unfortunately, the estimates of the enemy's strength which Computer has provided, added to the distance to which they can throw their spears, leaves little other choice. By Computer's most favorable estimation, we'll be outnumbered by at least six to one, and our bows give us much less of a range advantage than I could like. Moreover, despite their lack of armor, these creatures will be very dangerous opponents when it comes to hand blows... not to mention the fact that each of them has twice as many arms as any of my lads do."

"If the ratio of forces is so unfavorable," the demon-jester said, "then you should use all of your manpower."

"My plan does use all of my trained manpower." Sir George emphasized the adjective heavily in hopes that whatever translated for him and the demon-jester would pick up the stress.

"It does not use over ten percent of your total force of males," the demon-jester stated, and Sir George nodded.

"You're correct, of course, Commander," he acknowledged. "But you yourself have told me time and again that my men represent a valuable asset for your guild. The men whom you wish me to use aren't trained for this sort of task. We've begun training them, but making a master bowman is a lifetime's work, and the mariners and drovers you `rescued' with us were never soldiers. If we attempted to use them as archers, they would only get in the way of our men who already know what they're doing. Nor are any of them trained cavalryman, and I doubt that they could even stay on their horses if we attempted to use them as such. And if we attempted to use them as dismounted men-at-arms, especially against such foes as these, they would be slaughtered for very little return."

"If they are so useless," the demon-jester suggested, "then there seems little point in retaining them."

An icy shiver went through Sir George, for he had no doubt what the demon-jester meant.

"I didn't say they were `useless,' " the baron replied, choosing his words very carefully. "What I said, Commander, is that at the moment they're untrained. That's a weakness which we can correct, given time. I doubt many of them will make archers by the standards of Rolf Grayhame or Dafydd Howice, although I could be wrong even there. In any case, however, I feel confident that they can be trained as men-at-arms, in which case they would represent a significant and welcome reinforcement to my existing trained soldiers. But whatever we can teach them to be in the future, at the present moment committing them to battle would be simply to throw away their lives to little point. It would be... wasting your guild's resources."

"I see." The demon-jester sat in thought for several moments, his two smaller eyes half-closed while he considered what Sir George had just said. Then all three opened wide once more and fastened upon the baron.

"Very well. I understand your reasoning, and while I dislike the conclusion you have reached, I am forced to concede that preservation of guild resources should take precedence in this instance. Nonetheless, I do not like the way in which you plan to employ the men you are willing to use in combat. You should attack the enemy, not stand on the defensive."

"Against such numbers, we have no option but to adopt a defensive position," Sir George explained with much more patience than he felt. The demon-jester opened his speaking mouth, but the baron went on before the creature could say anything.

"Commander, you've informed me that the objective of your guild is to compel these creatures to enter into an agreement to trade only with you." Although, Sir George thought, I cannot begin to imagine what such creatures could possibly have to trade of sufficient value to bring your "guild" here in the first place! "From what you and Computer have told me, the key to achieving that objective is to force this Thoolaas tribe to submit to your will, because its power and the awe in which the surrounding tribes hold it will lead all of them to follow its example. To accomplish that, it will be necessary to decisively defeat the Thoolaas in battle, yet the Thoolaas' warriors alone outnumber us almost sevenfold. If we attack them and give them the advantage of the defensive position, our losses will be severe, even if we triumph at all. Heavy losses will weaken our value to your guild in any future campaign, and they would also mean that if any tribe declines to follow the Thoolaas' example, my men would probably be too few to compel additional tribes to submit.

"This means we must find a way to convince the Thoolaas to attack us in a place and at a time of our choosing. After studying the manner in which they fight with Computer's aid, I feel confident that we can not only defeat them but inflict very heavy losses upon them if we can convince them to do what we wish. And once they've been weakened by losses upon the field of battle—and had some of the heart taken out of them by the knowledge that we've already crushed them once—we can take the battle to them with much greater safety and effectiveness if that is still required."

"And if they choose not to attack?"

"I think that very unlikely," Sir George replied. "With Computer's aid," he stressed the disembodied voice's role in his planning, "my senior officers and I have watched over a score of their battles. These tribes have only a poor concept of defensive tactics in the field, but their villages are well fortified, with earthen walls and wooden palisades, and they would appear to have a much sounder notion of how to defend such works than they have of how to fight defensively in the open field. In addition, their dart-throwers are undoubtedly even more effective and dangerous from behind the cover of walls and palisades than in the open, where my archers can get at them readily.

"Fortunately, they appear to dislike that style of fighting and will adopt it only when their villages are actually threatened by forces larger than they themselves can muster. If the numbers are even near to equal on both sides, however, they almost always choose to attack rather than to be attacked. Since their numbers will be so much greater than ours, and since they can have no concept of what our weapons can do to them, I feel confident that they would rush eagerly to the attack under any circumstances. In this instance, however, I have labored with Computer's advice to devise a strategy which will assure that they do so, and it's for that reason that I've selected the specific field I've chosen."

He gestured at the imagery hovering just above the crystal tabletop. Or what he still thought of as a "tabletop," at least. In fact, he was beginning to have his doubts that whatever it was actually had anything a good Englishman would consider a "top" at all, for there was something very peculiar about it. He'd had no opportunity to examine it closely himself, yet nothing the demon-jester had ever set upon it in his presence had made the slightest sound, and objects seemed to slide over it even more easily than they might have slid over slick, winter-polished ice. At the moment, however, the nature of the demon-jester's furnishings was of considerably less importance than the image hovering above it, and Sir George had to admit that that image represented one aspect of the demon-jester's arcane arts of which he wholeheartedly approved.

Since the first time the demon-jester had shown him England and her neighbors through the eyes of God's own eagles, the baron had spent much time studying the marvelous "electronic" maps and "satellite and overhead imagery" Computer could produce upon request. It had been difficult for him, at first, to visualize the reality accurately from the "satellite imagery," in particular, because the pictures were so unlike any human map with which he had ever worked. Familiarity and practice, however, had overcome those difficulties, and he was awed by the unbelievable detail Computer could produce. No map he'd ever seen on Earth could match the precision and accuracy of this imagery... especially when Computer imposed a "three-dimensional, holographic topography" upon it and allowed him to see every rise and fall, every swell and hollow and stream, down to the tiniest rivulet, in true dimensions rather than as a flat representation. The baron had always had a tactician's eye for terrain, but no human commander had ever possessed the ability to visualize a field of battle with such devastating accuracy. Despite his servitude to the demon-jester, the soldier within Sir George rejoiced at the advantage he had been given. "Maps" such as these trebled his effective strength... at the very least.

The imagery currently displayed above the demon-jester's tabletop was one of Computer's "holograms" which showed a large hill, thickly grown in the dark purple grass of this murky-skied place. It rose perhaps fifty or sixty feet above the surrounding plain at its highest point, and its perfect roundness proclaimed that, despite its size, it was artificial, and not the work of nature. The hill was large enough that he could place his entire force upon it with some room to spare, if he arranged his formation carefully, and its stone-faced slopes angled sharply up from the level of the plain before the gradient eased off into something much more gentle as it continued upward to the summit.

"Computer has told me that this hill is sacred to the Thoolaas tribe," Sir George told the demon-jester. "It is the tomb in which they bury their heathen kings and priests, as sacred to them as Jerusalem itself to us. If we place our force upon it, they will attack us."

The baron did not add that the site he'd chosen for the battle offered no means by which the English could retreat if things went against them. He disliked that far more than the demon-jester possibly could have, even if it had occurred to the small creature, yet he saw no real alternative. It was obvious that his value to the guild, and that of his men, as well, depended solely upon their ability to win victories. If they lost that value, there would be no reason for the guild to retain their services, and he had no doubt whatsoever that the demon-jester would slaughter all of them as the cheapest and simplest way to rid himself of his poor investment. Almost worse, it had also become equally obvious that the demon-jester, for all of his arrogant self-confidence and contempt for the English, was less competent than some drooling village idiot when it came to planning and organizing a single battle, far less an entire campaign.

Computer had been much more forthcoming than Sir George had expected when the baron pressed him for information about the Thoolaas and the other local tribes, and Sir George had rapidly come to the conclusion that the demon-jester's analysis of the local situation was both overconfident and wrong. True, the Thoolaas were the largest and most powerful single tribe in the vicinity, and their king claimed the title of hereditary overlord, along with tribute, from all of his neighbors. But from what Computer had said, his authority was far more a matter of tradition than of fact. His "vassal" war chiefs were an unruly, independent-minded lot who were constantly at war with one another and who never bothered themselves with the formality of seeking his authority before marching out to slaughter one another. Only the other tribes' longstanding, traditional rivalries and the Thoolaas' chieftain's ability to keep their jealous leaders divided by playing one off against another had so far prevented two or three of them from banding together to overthrow him and bring an end even to his nominal authority.

From Sir George's perspective, that meant that defeating the Thoolaas could be no more than a first step in achieving the demon-jester's full purpose. These creatures clearly were at least as stubborn as Scots and as divisive as the Irish, which meant the defeat of one tribe, be that defeat ever so sound, was very unlikely to terrify its neighboring rivals into prompt submission. At least one or two of the other tribes—probably an alliance of several of them—would also have to be defeated before all of the local chiefs and subchiefs were prepared to submit. He had put that suggestion forward as diffidently as possible in his first strategy meeting with the demon-jester, but the idea had been waved aside. The "Commander" was positive that the elimination of the Thoolaas alone would solve all of his problems, and Sir George had decided not to argue the point. He'd made his own view a part of the record, and perhaps even the demon-jester would be able to recognize that he had been right after the fact.

And perhaps not. Sir George had seen altogether too many nobly born humans who were so sublimely confident of their own judgment and wit that they were fully capable of ignoring even the most painful lessons of reality. Particularly, he thought bleakly, when someone other than they has to pay the cost for their stupidity in blood and pain and death. That could very well be the case here, as well, but at least the demon-jester claimed to set a high value upon them as an "asset" of his precious guild. If his claims were honest, then perhaps he would at least be bright enough to learn from experience that it was valuable to listen to Sir George's advice.

But whatever the future might hold, the unpalatable present truth was that the demon-jester expected Sir George to deliver a quick, decisive victory. The baron might have managed to dissuade him from ordering an all-out frontal assault on the principal village of the Thoolaas, but that was the only concession he'd been able to win. And he felt confident that if, having obtained it, he failed to achieve the speedy triumph the demon-jester sought, he himself would be discarded at the very least. It was virtually certain that he would also be turned into an example of the price of failure for whatever of his subordinates survived to be elevated in his place, and Matilda and Edward would almost certainly die with him, probably—hopefully—without ever even being awakened.

His mind tried to shy away from that thought like a frightened horse, but he'd forced himself to consider it and face it fully. That, too, was one of the responsibilities of his rank, for if the demon-jester was willing to remove him, the hopelessly incompetent creature would undoubtedly insist upon exercising direct and total command over whoever replaced him.

And that would spell disaster and the ultimate death of all of those under his command and protection.

That was the reason Sir George had chosen a position from which there could be no retreat. In the long run, there was no option but to attain total victory or to perish anyway, and the position he'd selected gave him the best opportunity for victory. Not to mention, he thought mordantly, the fact that men who know they cannot run away have no option but to fight to the death.

"As long as I'm allowed to entice them into coming to me when and where I choose," he told the demon-jester with an absolute confidence he was very far from feeling, "I will promise you the victory you seek, Commander."

The demon-jester regarded him in silence for several endless heartbeats.

"Very well," the creature said at last. "I would still prefer a swift, decisive attack that would take the Thoolaas by surprise and crush them in a single blow, but as you have said, you have far more direct experience than I in the employment of such crude and primitive weapons. I will allow you to fight this battle as you wish... but I strongly recommend that you honor that promise and produce the victory my guild requires."

It was remarkable, Sir George thought, how much chill threat could be packed into a completely expressionless and uninflected sentence.

"Can't say I much care for this position, M'lord." Rolf Grayhame hawked and spat a thick glob of spittle into the unnatural, purple-colored grass as he turned his head, sweeping his eyes over the featureless plain which surrounded the hill. Thanks to Computer's demonstrations, he was as familiar as Sir George with how quickly the natives' loping gait devoured distance... and knew that no human footman could hope to outrun them even if he got the chance to retreat. "Nor for this whole damned place," he added with a grimace.

"I'm not exactly overjoyed by either of them myself," Sir George told the powerfully built archer calmly. "Unfortunately, they're the ones we have, so I suppose we'll just have to make the best of them."

Grayhame chuckled sourly, then nodded and touched his forelock with a bob of his head.

"With your permission, M'lord, I'd best go make one more check."

"Go on, Rolf," Sir George said with a smile. "And remind the lads that whatever he might have to say," the baron jerked his head at the strange device Computer called an "air car" where it hovered unnaturally in midair above them, "this little brawl really is important."

He saw a trace of surprise on the archer's face and barked a laugh. Grayhame's reaction didn't surprise him in the least. The demon-jester had spent the better part of an hour exhorting "his" troops to do battle in the name of his guild. If it hadn't been for the life-or-death power he held over all of them, his ludicrous, bombastic harangue would have had every man of them in stitches of laughter. The very thought of "honoring the guild we serve with the offering of your courage and blood" was enough to make any one of Sir George's hardened veterans laugh—or puke—and the thought that the demon-jester could think them stupid enough to be taken in by such bilge was even worse.

"Oh, I don't give a rat's arse for him and his precious guild!" the baron grunted to the bowman. "They could all take the pox and rot, for all of me, and the sooner the better! But whatever we may think of them, our lives depend on convincing them that they need us, and that means winning."

"Not to mention the little matter that if we lose, the four-arms will slit all our throats, M'lord," Walter Skinnet put in dourly, and Sir George chuckled.

"Aye, not to mention that," he agreed, then waved at Grayhame. "So be off, Rolf, and pass the word."

"Have no doubt of that, M'lord," Grayhame assured him with a crooked grin, and trotted off while Sir George turned back to survey the field around their hilltop position.

There were enough subtle and not so subtle differences between this place and Earth to make the entire scene seem just slightly unreal, like a fever dream or a hallucination. The sun was a cooler, dimmer thing. The "trees" which dotted the plain about the burial hill were too tall, too spindly, and completely the wrong color. Even Sir George's own weight felt wrong, for he was too light on his feet and felt too charged with energy. He was accustomed enough to the surge of energy which the threat of battle always seemed to bring forth, but this was different. He'd mentioned it to Computer when the "tenders" from the demon-jester's main vessel had deposited the English and all of their equipment and horses here, and Computer had replied that the local "gravity" was lower and that the local air contained more "oxygen" than that to which the English were accustomed.

The baron had no idea what "gravity" or "oxygen" were, but if they could make him feel this way, then he wanted all of them he could get!

His mouth quirked in a grin at the thought, but it was fleeting, and his eyes narrowed as he continued his survey.

The oddly colored grasslands stretched to the limit of his vision, broken up only by an occasional, small clump of trees and the steeply cut banks of the small but deep river that wound around the western edge of the hill upon which the English stood. The lands were flat enough that the Thoolaas' main village was clearly visible on the far side of that stream, perhaps five miles from the hill, and even as he watched he could see the surging tide of the tribe's warriors shoving and jostling for position as they loped through the grass, waist-high on a human and reaching almost to mid-thigh on them, towards the ford that carried the trail from their village to their burial hill. Even at their pace, it would take them some time yet to reach the hill, and he could make out very few details from here, but the deep, rhythmic booming of their war drums already came faintly to his ears.

"How many dart-throwers do they have, Computer?" he asked quietly.

"Approximately nine hundred and seventeen out of a total force of approximately six thousand two hundred and nine," Computer's voice replied in his ear.

Despite the fact that Sir George knew Computer reported everything he heard to the demon-jester and the rest of the crew, hearing the other's voice at this particular moment was a great comfort. The numbers Computer had just reported, on the other hand, were not. Without the mariners and other untrained men Sir George had convinced the demon-jester not to commit, he had barely eight hundred men in total. True, sixty percent of them were archers, but the enemy had him outnumbered by two-to-one even in missile weapons, and his bowmen were much more lightly armed for close combat than his men-at-arms, with only daggers, short swords, and an occasional maul or hammer to supplement their bows. If the rest of that horde ever got to grips with them, the longbowmen would be at a deadly disadvantage.

Which meant that somehow Sir George had to prevent the Thoolaas from getting to grips. That was where the hedge of sharply pointed wooden stakes set into the slope of the hill came in. Not to mention the caltrops hidden in the river and seeded thickly through the tall grass all the way from the edge of the stream to the foot of the hill. And also not to mention the double line of dismounted men-at-arms between the stakes and the front ranks of the archers. It was ironic that after arguing so strongly with the demon-jester about the necessity of horses, he had dismounted all but fifty of his men-at-arms for the very first battle.

Of course, he reminded himself, turning to look at the ranks of horses being held at the rear of his formation, once the Thoolaas had been broken—if they were broken—he would need all of those mounts for the pursuit he intended to put in. In the meantime, Skinnet and the fifty mounted men under his and Sir Richard's direct command represented Sir George's only true reserve.

At least his men were by far the best armed and armored troops he had ever led into battle, he reminded himself. For all of the demon-jester's contempt for the crudity and primitive nature of their equipment, the "industrial modules" of the guild's huge ship had met and surpassed all of the requests Sir George and his advisors had submitted.

Like every commander of his day, Sir George was only too intimately familiar with the cost of properly equipping men for war. Knights and mounted men-at-arms usually had priority, because they were the decisive element in hand-to-hand combat, where protection against hostile blows was paramount... and because knights were usually wealthy enough to afford better quality armor. No liege lord or captain could possibly have afforded to provide his entire force with such armor, however, and the archer and the footman-at-arms usually had to make do with less effective but far cheaper forms of armor. An archer was fortunate if he could afford brigandine rather than simple leather jack, and a footman was fortunate if he could afford a proper haubergeon instead of brigandine. Even knights and mounted men-at-arms were frequently forced to substitute boiled leather for the bits of plate armor used to reinforce their mail.

But not Sir George's men. Their armor might not be made of the same marvelous alloys as the ship or even the armor of the wart-faces, but it was made of a better steel than any smith born of Earth had ever forged. There was far more of it, too, and, unheard of though it was, every mounted man's armor was identical to every other mounted man's... and all of them were as well armored as any knight Sir George had ever seen. Indeed, the entire company's equipment had attained a uniformity and quality Sir George had never dreamed of when he first set out for France.

Men being men—and, especially, Englishmen being Englishmen—there had been some grumbling when the equipment that had been taken from them during their "processing" wasn't returned. That grumbling had faded quickly once the veterans began to recognize how much that equipment had been improved upon, and Sir George had never even been tempted to complain. Oh, he missed the familiar armor that had once been his father's, but that was no more than a nostalgic wistfulness, the loss of something which had connected him to people and places forever lost to him. His new armor was both lighter and far more efficient at protecting him from enemy weapons, and he was much too practical to regret that.

Even their horses were better protected. The destriers the demon-jester and his mechanical servitors had stolen one bloody night in France were not the massive chargers of true heavy horse, nor were they as heavily armored as those chargers would have been, but that was fine with Sir George, who preferred mobility and endurance to ponderous weight, anyway. Yet even though he had never been as enamored of heavy horse as most of his contemporaries, or perhaps because he never had, he was delighted with the barding and horse armor the demon-jester's modules had created. Like his own, it was lighter and tougher than anything he'd ever seen on Earth, and it afforded a high degree of protection without overburdening the mounts. Which was just as well, since the demon-jester's fear that horses might prove ill suited to phase drive stasis appeared to have been well founded. Computer told Sir George that they had lost no fewer than ten of their mounts during the voyage here (wherever "here" might be), and Sir George disliked thinking about what that promised for the long-term future.

But for any long-term problems to require his attention, he reminded himself, watching the Thoolaas horde loping closer and closer, he had to survive the present.

He raised one hand and beckoned for Sir Richard and Skinnet. The knight and the sergeant handed their reins to Sir Richard's squire and crossed to him.

"It looks to me," he said quickly, eyes never leaving the four-armed warriors, "as if these... creatures intend to do exactly what we'd hoped they would and come straight at us. If they don't, it will be up to you two and your lads to keep them off our backs until I can change front. I want you to withdraw the reserve another hundred and fifty paces and keep a close eye to the rear and flanks."

"Aye, My Lord," Sir Richard replied. Skinnet simply nodded, and the two of them moved quickly back to their men and began issuing orders.

Sir George left them to it, and returned his attention to the enemy.

The odds are little worse than I faced with the King at Dupplin, he thought. He'd pointed that out to his men in his own less bombastic, and more professional, prebattle speech, and it was close enough to true to satisfy them. Sir George had based his present deployment upon the one that had been used that day, and he truly expected it to give him victory, yet there were significant differences between Dupplin and this field, and he knew it. For one thing, although Edward III's army had counted no more than five hundred knights and fifteen hundred archers against almost ten thousand Scots at Dupplin, the odds against him had been only five-to-one, not eight-to-one. For another, the Scots at Dupplin had boasted no archers, whereas the Thoolaas had more dart-throwers than he had longbowmen. And, for yet another, Scots weren't nine feet tall and equipped with four arms each.

Still, it's not as if we haven't done it before, he told himself firmly as the oncoming warriors reached the far side of the stream and began splashing into it, bellowing their deep, strange war cries while the drums thundered and boomed behind them.

They should be discovering the first caltrops about... now, he thought.

As if his thought had been a cue, a huge shudder seemed to run through the front ranks of the charging Thoolaas. War cries turned abruptly into bellows of anguish as huge, broad, six-toed feet came down on the wickedly sharp caltrops. They were an ancient, simple device, no more than four-pronged pieces of wire, arranged so that however they lay, one prong was always uppermost. Designed as an anticavalry weapon, they were equally effective against the feet of infantry... especially when their presence was unsuspected. And it had certainly been "unsuspected" this time. The barefooted Thoolaas had never encountered such a weapon, and they shrieked in agony as the deadly sharp steel transfixed their feet. Hundreds of them fell, thrashing in torment, screaming even more loudly as they fell on still more caltrops, and many of them drowned in no more than three feet of water.

The entire leading edge of the aliens' formation—if such a mob could have been called a formation in the first place—came apart. But it didn't stop. Battle fever, contempt for the puny, half-sized runts on the far side of the river, resentment of the demands of the demon-jester's guild, and fury at the desecration of their burial hill, carried them onward, and Sir George's eyes narrowed in satisfaction as he watched their formation shift. At his request, the demon-jester's servitors had spent the previous night silently and stealthily sowing the river with caltrops for well over a mile, both upstream and down. But the ford directly opposite the burial hill had deliberately been left clear, and now the Thoolaas funneled towards the center of that ford, packing closer and closer together as they realized that none of the vicious, invisible, foot-destroying caltrops blocked their charge directly towards the hill.

Sir George grunted in fresh satisfaction as the four-armed warriors crowded more and more tightly into a single mass. The sheer press of bodies should greatly reduce, if not completely eliminate, the effectiveness of the Thoolaas' dart-throwers by denying them the clearance they required to launch their deadly missiles, and he waited another five heartbeats, then drew a deep breath and nodded sharply to Rolf Grayhame, who stood watching him steadily.

"Nock arrows and draw!" Grayhame shouted.

Sir George had split his archers, putting half of them on each flank of his line and slightly forward, though still behind their rows of wooden stakes, so that their fire converged on the tightly-packed column of Thoolaas warriors charging through fountains and rainbows of spray towards their position. His longbowmen were veterans all, each capable of putting twelve shafts into the air in one minute and hitting a man-sized target at two hundred paces with aimed fire. But this day the range was considerably less than two hundred paces; their targets were far larger than any human; and almost five hundred bows bent at Grayhame's shout.

"Loose!" he bellowed, and half a thousand bowstrings sang as one.

No one who had never seen English bowmen in action could have imagined the fierce, deadly hiss as that storm of arrows slashed upward with a great slithering scrape of wooden shaft against bowstave. The very air seemed to buzz as their fletching cut through it like some vast, sun-obscuring shadow of death, and then they came slicing downward like unleashed demons.

The Thoolaas shrieked in fresh agony, far worse than that inflicted by the caltrops, as the lethal rain blasted into them. Each shaft was a yard long, with a broad, razor-sharp head that drove effortlessly through the archers' unarmored targets, and for one eerie second before the howls of pain drowned them out, the solid, meaty thuds as they struck home were clearly audible from where the baron stood. Hundreds of the natives went down, but Sir George blinked in astonishment, for the deadly shafts had fallen much deeper into the Thoolaas' formation than he had expected. He snapped his head around in surprise as the front ranks of the enemy charged onward even while those fifty yards behind them shrieked and died, but Grayhame was already bellowing furiously at his archers. Some of the bowmen looked confused, but they were given no time for confusion to become uncertainty or panic before Grayhame barked fresh orders, and then a second flight arced upward.

This one fell closer to its intended targets, and the archers dropped into the familiar rhythm as they sent a third lethal storm hissing upward. And a fourth. A fifth!

The longbows had adjusted their trajectories fully by the fourth volley, and Sir George watched in a deep amazement that not even his experience at Dupplin or Halidon Hill could have prepared him for. Computer had said there were six thousand warriors in that force; in the next ninety seconds, his bowmen put nine thousand shafts into the air. When the last of them came down, the battle was effectively over. Oh, the arrows continued to fly for at least another two or three minutes, but the sheer, hammer blow carnage of that first minute and a half had shattered the Thoolaas. Despite the range and accuracy of their own dart-throwers, they had never experienced the horrific killing power of such massed, rapid, deadly fire. Probably as much as half their total army was killed or wounded in that initial, shrieking ninety seconds of slaughter. Another quarter was killed or wounded as the survivors turned and fled in howling terror, and Sir George straightened his spine as he watched them go.

For just a moment he allowed his eyes to linger on the windrows of Thoolaas strewn across both banks of the river and mounded across the stream itself like some hideous, arrow-pierced dam of flesh that turned the water downstream into a sludge of orange blood. All throughout those piles and hillocks of bodies motion twisted and writhed while the inhuman—in every sense of the word—moans of the wounded and dying rose like some horrible hymn of Hell.

He gazed upon that ghastly sight, a hardened warrior shocked despite himself by the carnage he had unleashed, and then he turned his back upon it and nodded to young Thomas Snellgrave, his squire and standard bearer.

Thomas was white-faced, and his hands trembled ever so slightly, but he returned his liege's nod and waved Sir George's standard in the prearranged signal. All through the English formation, movement and stir began as the dismounted cavalry who had thickened the protective line of footmen began moving towards the waiting lines of horses. Sir Richard and Walter Skinnet came trotting up from behind to join them, and Sir George walked across to the nervous groom holding the tall, midnight-black stallion.

The baron nodded to the groom, took the reins, and heaved himself into the saddle. It was a maneuver he'd learned to execute, despite his armor, when he was little older than his son now was, but it seemed much easier here. Because of that "gravity" and "oxygen" Computer had babbled about? He didn't know, and he wondered briefly if one of those factors also explained the extra range which had taken his archers by surprise. Perhaps Computer would explain it to him later if he asked, he thought, then brushed the question aside.

The horse he'd named Satan moved uneasily under him, fighting the bit and showing tooth while he rolled a wicked eye at anyone or anything, human or equine, that dared to encroach upon his space. Sir George heard the stallion's whistling challenge, but he had no time to worry over so minor a matter. He leaned forward in the saddle and rapped the horse smartly between the ears with one gauntleted fist. It wasn't a hard blow, but it did its job, for he and Satan had come to terms long since, and strength wasn't required to remind the stallion that the insignificant creature upon his back was his master. There was a symbolism there, an analogy, which Sir George chose not to examine too closely. He glanced over as young Snellgrave tucked the base of the standard's staff into his right stirrup and urged his own gelding up beside Satan.

Sir Richard moved into position to Sir George's right, with Skinnet on his left, and the baron nodded one last time in satisfaction. It was a small enough cavalry force, particularly given that at least a thousand Thoolaas had escaped the slaughter at the ford. But small or not, it was all he had, and so it would have to do. At least every man of it was well-mounted, well-armed, and well-trained.

As he looked upon his mounted men, Sir George made himself accept that some of them were about to die. The one-sided massacre the archers had inflicted would not be repeated this day. Perhaps he could have left the Thoolaas fugitives alone. After such savage losses, surely their surviving chieftains and shamans would submit to the demon-jester without further bloodshed! But he couldn't be certain of that, and he had been ordered to crush them beyond doubt or question. He dared not leave this task half-done, not when the survival of all of his people depended upon his ability to demonstrate their value conclusively to the demon-jester and his guild. And so he would insure the Thoolaas were broken beyond hope of future resistance, even if he must kill another thousand of them, or lose a dozen of his precious, irreplaceable men, to do it.

"All right, lads," Sir George Wincaster said calmly. "We've a way to go to clear the caltrops in the river, and no time to waste. Let's be on our way."

The trumpet call sent the small force of English cavalry swinging to its left, and the column deployed into a line on the move. The maneuver was as swift and well drilled as any commander could have asked, and it was as well that it was, Sir George thought grimly. The river lay two miles behind, the village lay three miles ahead, and the knot of Thoolaas warriors between his men and their homes numbered perhaps four hundred—twice his cavalry's strength. Worse, at least a score of dart-throwers stood behind them, and the spearmen and axemen sent up a howling scream of rage as they spied the cavalry.

The baron was unhappy at coming face-to-face with so many warriors, but at least they represented a third or more of the total force Computer estimated had escaped the slaughter at the ford. If they could be broken decisively, it was unlikely any other sizable force would coalesce.

The problem was ensuring that the aliens were the ones who were broken.

He took one more moment to glance to his left and right along the front of his line and grunted in satisfaction. Then he nodded to his trumpeter and slammed down the visor of his bascinet.

"Ready!" he called through its slots, and the trumpet sang.

He could have used Computer to carry his verbal orders to each of his men even here, but he'd chosen against it. His troopers were accustomed to the trumpet commands, and he had decided not to throw any more new, confusing experiences at them in this first battle than he must. There would be time enough for improvement and adaptation later, assuming that they won this fight.

All along the English line, lances swung down, Sir George's among them, at the trumpet's command, and he settled himself more firmly into the saddle while Satan stamped impatiently beneath him.

"At a walk!" he commanded, and the trumpet sang again.

The cavalry stirred back into motion, walking their mounts towards the weapons-waving mob of Thoolaas. He waited two or three more heartbeats, then shouted again.

"At a trot!"

The line of horsemen spurred to a trot, hooves thudding on firm earth as they gathered speed and momentum, and the Thoolaas warriors screamed their war cries and flooded to meet them.

"At a charge!"

The trumpet sang a final time, and a deep, hoarse bellow went up in answer from his troopers as the trot became a gallop. Sir George's vision was narrowed by the slots of his visor, but he saw the dart-throwers' arms come forward, saw the slender, javelinlike spears leaping from the throwing sticks. He smelled the dust, horse sweat and his own, and felt the sun which had seemed so dim in the murky sky beating down upon his armor while the equine thunder of the charge enveloped him. The spears came slicing wickedly downward, one of them impacting with a force and weight that struck his shield like a hammer. Somewhere he heard a horse screaming, and there were human screams mingled with the sound, but there was no time to think about that now. No time for anything which could distract him from the task at hand.

A huge Thoolaas came at him—a veritable giant, even for its own kind—with an enormous battle ax clasped in each pair of hands. The creature was as tall as Sir George mounted on Satan, and it shrieked its hatred and its war cry as it lunged towards him. But big as it was, and long as its arms were, they were shorter than a ten-foot lance, and it shrieked again as the bitter steel lance head slammed squarely into its chest.

The Thoolaas went down, but the impact ripped the lance from Sir George's grip. He was too experienced to try to maintain his grasp upon it at the expense of losing speed or balance, and his sword swept from its sheath in a reflex as automatic as breathing.

Satan thundered forward, screaming his own battle rage yet swerving, obedient to the pressure of Sir George's knees, and then the baron rose in his stirrups as another warrior confronted him. An ax and a huge, clumsy flail swung at him in a scissorslike attack, and the unbelievable shock as his shield took the weight of the flail nearly knocked him from the saddle. In an odd sort of way, the ax that struck home almost simultaneously actually helped him keep his seat. It slammed into the new, solid steel backplate which covered his hauberk, driving him forward and to the side, almost diametrically against the impact of the flail. It was like being trapped between two sledgehammers, but the baron maintained his balance, and his sword swept out and around with deadly precision.

The second Thoolaas tumbled backwards, his throat a blood-streaming gash while Satan trampled him underfoot, and suddenly Sir George was through their line, and he grinned savagely as Satan thundered towards the dart-throwers.

The alien missile troops carried no hand-to-hand weapons at all. Two last-ditch darts slammed into him—one turned by his breastplate, and the other skipping off of the plate cuisse protecting his left thigh—while a third bounced from Satan's barding, and then Sir George was upon them. He rose in the stirrups as he passed between two of them, and his sword severed one's arm on the downstroke, then split the other's skull on the backhand recovery. A third alien reached up for him with one pair of hands, trying to drag him from the saddle while two more hands stabbed furiously at him with bronze-headed javelins. But his armor defeated the javelins, and he slammed his shield into the alien's forehead. The creature staggered backwards, and one of his troopers who had somehow retained his lance came past the baron at a gallop. The lance's steel head punched deep into the stunned Thoolaas' belly, and then Sir George and his companion were reining in hard as their speed carried them beyond the last of the aliens.

Satan turned like an antelope under him, all trace of rebellion or resistance vanished, and Sir George's eyes swept the field.

The Thoolaas formation, such as it had been, had shattered like crystal under the impact of his charging troopers. Individually huge and powerful though they might have been, the aliens had discovered that even the ability to use weapons with all four hands was insufficient to overcome the discipline and armor of their far smaller opponents. At least half the aliens were down, and even as Snellgrave arrived beside Sir George with his standard, the handful of warriors who hadn't fled were being cut down by the surviving English. Other troopers were thundering in pursuit of those who had fled, hacking them down from behind in the ancient penalty cavalry had always exacted from infantry who broke and ran. This infantry, however, was very nearly as fast as the cavalry pursuing it, and Sir George turned to his trumpeter.

"Sound the recall!"

The trumpet notes blared out, cutting through the clangor and clamor of the battle, and the troopers responded quickly. Here and there someone took a moment longer to finish off one of the aliens, but these were experienced veterans, many of them personally trained by Sir George and Walter Skinnet over the course of years, not French knights. They were professionals who weren't about to allow enthusiasm or some half-baked concept of honor to overcome good sense, and they broke off and rallied quickly about his standard.

Sir George made a quick estimate of their numbers. He could see at least a dozen of his men scattered among the Thoolaas' wounded and dead, and several more humans were on foot. Horses were down, as well, but his initial impression was that more men had been unhorsed than had had their mounts killed under them. He didn't know how many of those armored figures sprawled in the trampled, bloody purple grass were dead, and how many were only wounded, but he had a very good notion of what would happen to any unprotected wounded the Thoolaas came upon. Under other circumstances, he might have relied on the dismounted troopers to protect their fallen comrades, but the Thoolaas were simply too big for him to count upon men on foot, however well equipped or led, to hold them off, and he raised his visor and turned to Skinnet.

"Walter! Tell off twenty men to secure our wounded!"

"Aye, Sir!"

"Sir Richard!"

"Here, My Lord!"

"We'll continue to the village. When we reach it, take your half of the force and swing around to secure the gate on the east side."

"Yes, My Lord!"

"Very well." Sir George gave the field another glance, then grunted in gratitude when one of the dismounted troopers reached up to hand him a replacement lance.

"My thanks," he told the dismounted man, and turned his head as Skinnet urged his horse up beside Satan. The stallion darted his head around as if intent on taking a chunk out of Skinnet's gelding, but Sir George checked him automatically, and the grizzled veteran chuckled grimly.

"Told you that one had the devil in him," the master of horse said.

"So you did—and a damned good thing on a day like this!"

"No argument from me on that, My Lord. Not now."

"Good!" Sir George flashed a smile, teeth white against his spade beard in the shadow of his bascinet. "And are we ready now?"

"Aye, Sir." Skinnet gestured at the twenty-man troop he'd chosen to detach, and Sir George nodded in satisfaction. He recognized the senior man, a dour, unflappable Yorkshireman named Dickon who had been with Skinnet even before Skinnet joined Sir George. He was the sort who would keep his head and hold his men together, rather than allow them to scatter or straggle, and the baron knew he could count on Dickon to hold off any reasonably small group of Thoolaas who might threaten the wounded. And, Sir George thought grimly, Dickon was also experienced enough to fall back with everyone he could save if a large group of the aliens turned up, rather than sacrifice his entire command in a hopeless defense of the wounded.

"Very well," Sir George said again. "Let's be on our way."

"It's a pity they can't use those things to fight, My Lord," Sir Anthony grumbled. "If we can't hurt them, then neither could the four-arms, and a score of archers shooting from that sort of cover could have decided this whole thing in an hour!"

The other knight sounded thoroughly disgusted, and Sir George had to nod in agreement.

The pallid sun of this dimly lit world was settling into the west, and the crackle and smoke of the Thoolaas village's burning palisades rose into the darkening sky. Most of his men, Sir George knew, would have preferred to torch the entire village, not just its defensive works, but his orders had been firm. The senior surviving Thoolaas war chief had surrendered what remained of his warriors on the condition that their village be spared, and the object was to compel the locals to accept the terms of the demon-jester's guild. That would be far easier to do if the natives had reason to believe acceptance could buy mercy or at least leniency... and that promises of leniency would be honored. Besides, he thought cynically, the rest of the village would undoubtedly be destroyed soon enough. He and his men had killed or wounded at least ninety percent of the tribe's warriors. It wouldn't take long for one or another of their rivals to finish off anything the English left intact.

But that reflection floated below the surface of his thoughts as he and Sir Anthony watched the demon-jester's mechanical servitors sweeping over the plain around the village. Some of them were much like the demon-jester's own "air car," only much larger, and even as Sir George watched, one of those descended briefly to a landing, then rose once more.

"A horse, that time, I think," Father Timothy said quietly.

The priest had come forward to join Sir George as soon as it was safe. Indeed, he had arrived rather too quickly for Sir George's peace of mind. The baron knew Timothy's faith had made him as close to fearless as any mere mortal was ever likely to be, just as he knew that the priest's many years as a soldier had imbued him with both an appreciation of the dangers of any battlefield and the prudence to avoid them. Despite that, the thought of what losing his old friend, confessor, and irreplaceable spiritual guide for his people would cost had brought a sharp rebuke to his lips when the Dominican arrived.

"There were no wounded among the archers," the priest had replied reasonably, "but there were hurt and dying men here, in need of shriving."

That had silenced Sir George's objections, even if it hadn't done much about the emotions which had sparked them in the first place. He could scarcely complain about Timothy's determination to discharge his priestly duties, but he made a quiet mental note to set Matilda to work upon the old man. If anyone could convince him of his irreplaceability, it would be she... and Sir George knew from intimate personal experience just how unscrupulous she could be in framing her arguments when she knew she was right.

His mouth had twitched in a smile at the thought, but that smile had vanished instantly as he recalled that Matilda and Edward remained in stasis, sleeping hostages for the satisfactory discharge of his master's commands.

Now he watched the rising vehicle with the priest at his shoulder and frowned.

"What do you think they want with them?" he asked, and Father Timothy shrugged.

"I have no idea, My Lord," he admitted, his eyes troubled. "Those same... vehicles collected all of our wounded immediately after the battle. Why they should also collect the dead, and especially dead animals, rather than leave them for us to provide decent burial to is beyond me. I'm more than half afraid I would dislike the reason if I knew it, though."

"You and I both, Father," Sir Anthony grunted with a nod, and Sir Richard added his own agreement as he walked up to the baron.

"Why we should like anything about this cursed `guild' is a mystery to me," Maynton observed. The other knight had been supervising the burning of the palisades, and from the look of his armor and the singed spots on his surcoat, he'd gotten a bit too close to his work. Indeed, he was still slapping at a smoldering ember on the chest of his surcoat as he reached the baron.

"Aside from the fact that so far most of us are still alive, I would be inclined to agree with you," Sir George told him, reaching out a gauntleted hand to help slap out the ember. "On the other hand, I suppose it might be argued that the fact that we are alive is your question's best answer."

"Aye," Sir Richard admitted. The last stubborn trace of smoke died, and he nodded his thanks to his liege. "There is that, My Lord," he went on. "Although it seems plain enough to me that it's you we owe the most of our survival to."

"There's truth in that, My Lord," Sir Anthony rumbled in his deep voice. "I've seen a fight or two in my time, and I'll not say these... Thoolaas—" he pronounced the alien word carefully (and poorly) "—were the best organized army I've ever seen. But they're not so bad as all of that. Aye, I've seen Scots and even French who were more poorly led, and these have to be the toughest bastards I've ever faced! However it may seem now, beating their arses like this was nowhere near so easy as you made it look."

"I suppose that's true enough," Sir George agreed, "but it was you and Sir Richard and the other lads, and especially Rolf's bowmen, who made any plans of mine work. And however `easy' it may have looked, the fact remains that we've lost at least fifteen men, and that's assuming none of the wounded die."

"Fifteen men for a victory like this is a miraculously low price, My Lord," Sir Richard pointed out, while the four of them watched one of the oxen-sized mobile water fountains land beside a clump of dismounted cavalry. The horses pulled uneasily at their picket pins as the vehicle landed, but the troopers crowded around it eagerly, and the fountain of cold, crystal-clear water leaping and bubbling from its top sang musically as it spilled into the wide catcher basin below. The men took turns, drinking deeply and burying their sweaty faces in the cleansing water, and then three of them began hauling water to the waiting horses in their helmets.

"Fifteen men is a low price," Sir George conceded. "Or it would be in Scotland, or even France. But here, where there will never be any replacement of our losses, even one man is a high price to pay."

"There's more than a little truth in that, I'm afraid," Father Timothy agreed, and all three of the knights knew it was the old soldier in him as much as the man of God who spoke. "On the other hand, there's no saying that every foe you face will be as formidable as these Thoolaas were."

He did a much better job of pronouncing the alien word than Sir Anthony had managed, and Sir George smiled tiredly.

"Of course there isn't, Timothy. But there's no saying the opposite is true, either, now is there? Suppose these Thoolaas had had proper steel instead of bronze. Or that they'd been armored as well as our lads are. Or that they'd had a proper mix of dart-throwers to axemen. Who's to say that the next enemy we face won't have those things?"

"We can only put our faith in God and pray that they won't," the priest replied after a moment, and this time Sir George surprised himself with a laugh.

"Oh, I'll certainly add my prayers to that one, Timothy!" he chuckled. "Still and all, though, I expect God probably listens a little more closely to you than to me, so I'll ask you to see to that part of it. My job will be to balance the problems of sustaining the `Commander's' faith in us as the `resource' his guild needs most in all the world while keeping him from assuming that we can do this—" the baron swung an arm at the burning palisades behind them and then out across the darkening field of battle "—no matter who he sends us up against."

"It would appear you were correct," the demon-jester said, and paused as if to invite a response.

He and Sir George faced one another once more across the table which might or might not have had a top of crystal. The chamber in which that table sat, however, bore no resemblance at all to the one in which they had last met. This time, the table seemed to sit at the bottom of a deep lake, surrounded by clear water and gently waving strands of some kelplike weed while vaguely fishlike creatures swam in and out of the weed's shadows. If Sir George hadn't amassed so much first-hand experience with Computer's ability to generate "holograms," the realism of the illusion would have terrified him. Even as it was, he felt distinctly uneasy watching something the size of a shark "swim" past fifteen feet above his head.

If the demon-jester felt even the faintest twinge of discomfort, he hid it extraordinarily well. Given that he was the one who'd selected this particular... decoration, it seemed unlikely that it could bother him deeply. Still, Sir George wasn't quite prepared to rule out the possibility that the demon-jester had made his selection not because it was one with which he himself was completely comfortable, but because it was one he expected to make Sir George uncomfortable. There had been times enough in Sir George's own life when he had deliberately managed meetings in ways intended to keep his subordinates off-balance.

Because it was possible that the demon-jester was attempting to do just that, Sir George chose not to respond to the possible opening. Instead, he simply clasped his hands together behind him and waited patiently for the small alien to continue.

If his silence discomfited the demon-jester in any way, his "Commander's" expressionless, piping voice gave no hint of it when he spoke again.

"What remains of the Thoolaas have accepted my guild's terms," he went on after a moment. "None of the other neighboring tribes have done so, however. Indeed, two of them—the Laahstaar and Mouthai—actually attempted to `kill' the remote communication units I dispatched to them to demand their submission. They were, of course, unable actually to damage the units, but their response appears... unpromising.

"In light of these developments, I have been compelled to reconsider the analysis of the local social dynamic which you put forward originally. I suppose that it was in some ways inevitable that someone so much closer to the primitivism and barbarism of these creatures should be better able to understand them than a civilized being. However that may be, the fact remains that the other tribes have so far declined to recognize the inevitability of submitting to my requirements. It therefore seems probable that, as you had also suggested might be the case, additional battles will be necessary to drive that inevitability home. The current computer analysis supports your initial conclusions, and further suggests that it would be advisable to allow some time to elapse before administering these primitives' next lesson. This will allow the opportunity for combinations of the local tribes to form and reform, which should present the chance to both identify the most likely sources of effective leadership among those who would oppose us and to play the various factions off against one another."

The demon-jester paused once more, his unblinking eyes focused upon Sir George. The baron gazed back for several seconds, and then the demon-jester made a small gesture with one hand.

"You will please respond to what I have just said," he commanded.

"If you wish," Sir George agreed, then pursed his lips in brief thought before he began.

"I'm not surprised that Computer agrees with my original suspicions, now that you and he have had the opportunity for additional thought, particularly in light of the reactions of the Laahstaar and Mouthai. I suppose it might be argued that it would be wiser to act immediately to crush the tribes which are presently loudest in their refusal to submit to the guild's demands. A sharp additional lesson, delivered directly to those who have made themselves the leaders in opposing you, could well dissuade other tribes from following in their footsteps.

"It would seem to me, however, that the course Computer is advising you to follow offers advantages of its own, although there are aspects to his plan which somewhat concern me."

"Describe the advantages," the demon-jester said.

"The most obvious ones are that by giving the tribes which are likely to refuse to submit to the guild time to come together in open opposition to you and to your demands, you will not only draw them into identifying themselves for you, but gather them together in a single faction. If all of those likely to oppose you are united in one group, then the defeat of that single group should lop off the heads of all of the probable sources of opposition in one stroke. And, as Computer has already suggested, it would also give you the opportunity to identify those who will see an advantage in joining their fortunes to yours. This could not only provide us with allies for any additional campaign we must undertake, but also tell you which of the native leaders are most likely to continue to protect your interests, which they will see as their own, following our departure."

"A cogent summation of the computer analysis," the demon-jester remarked, and yet again Sir George wished passionately for some guide by which to assess the other's emotions. Was the demon-jester's statement the expression of approval the toneless words might have suggested? Or was it an ironic dismissal of Sir George's arguments?

"You stated that you had some concerns, however," the demon-jester continued. "Describe those concerns."

"One serious concern is that the more time the locals are given to consider the fate of the Thoolaas, the more likely they are to recognize the many ways in which the Thoolaas contributed to their own defeat. It's difficult for anyone to change the fundamental nature of the way in which they've always fought, Commander. Certainly, my own people have seen sufficient proof of that in our campaigns in Wales and Scotland, not to mention France. Yet difficult isn't the same thing as impossible. If the Laahstaar and Mouthai ponder what happened to the Thoolaas carefully, they may well attempt to make a greater and more effective use of their dart-throwers in future engagements. Now that I've had the opportunity to face those darts directly, I have discovered that my archers hold a greater advantage over them than I had initially expected to be the case. Indeed, my bowmen can fire to extraordinary ranges here—due, Computer tells me, to the lower `gravity' of this place."

He paused, and there was a moment of silence. Then the demon-jester spoke.

"That is undoubtedly correct," he said. "It is not surprising that the effect came as a surprise to one as primitive as yourself, as you possessed no prior experience with changes in planetary environments. It should, perhaps, have occurred to me to consider such things and to point them out to you, but my inexperience with such crude, muscle-powered weapons prevented me from thinking about such matters."

He sat back, obviously done speaking, and Sir George shrugged.

"Whatever the cause," he said, "our weapons outrange theirs by a considerable margin. Nonetheless, if they can bring sufficient dart-throwers together and mass their fire against us, our losses will be far heavier.

"And that brings me to my gravest concern: our casualties. The Physician has already restored most of our wounded to duty. In fact, he has assured Father Timothy that all of the rest of our wounded will be likewise restored within the next day or two."

The baron chose not to mention his astonishment, even now, after all of the marvels he had already seen aboard this ship, that that could be true. Not even the belly and chest wounds that would have spelled certain death on Earth appeared to worry the Physician in the least.

"Even when all of the wounded are returned to us, however," he went on, "we will still have lost fifteen men and eleven horses which cannot be replaced, and—"

"Four men and six horses," the demon-jester interrupted, and Sir George frowned in confusion.

"I beg your pardon?" he said.

"I said, that your actual losses are four men and six horses," the demon-jester said. "The remaining eleven men and five horses were sufficiently intact for resuscitation to be cost effective."

" `Resuscitation'?" Sir George repeated cautiously.

"It is a relatively simple procedure for any civilized race," the demon-jester told him. "So long as the brain itself is not seriously damaged, and barring catastrophic damage to vital organs, biorepair and resuscitation are not difficult, although it can be costly enough in terms of resources to make the process too expensive to be worthwhile. I realize that these concepts may well be beyond your primitive, superstitious comprehension. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the ship's medical systems will be able to `bring back to life' all but four of your warriors and six of your horses."

Sir George stared at the demon-jester, stunned as he had not been since the very first day of his captivity. He'd believed his daily exposure to the wonders of the demon-jester's "technology" must have prepared him for the ready acceptance of any miracle it might produce, but he'd been wrong. If he understood the demon-jester correctly, then eleven men who had been dead—not simply wounded, but dead, with neither heartbeat nor breath—would be restored to life like so many present-day Lazaruses.

The simile sent a cold shiver down his spine. He'd come to truly believe what he had insisted upon in front of his followers from the beginning, that the demon-jester, for all of his marvels and tricks, was no more than mortal. That his kind had simply mastered arts which humans hadn't yet learned to duplicate. But this—! If the demon-jester's guild could raise the very dead, like the Savior Himself, then were they truly mortal? For that matter, did the very concept of mortality even exist for such as they?

No. He shook himself mentally. Whatever else the demon-jester might be, he was no god. If the Physician could use the "technology" of sickbay to save men whose bowels had been opened or whose lungs had been pierced so that blood bubbled at their nostrils and air whistled through the holes in their chests, then was it really so very great a step to breathe life back into the dead?

A part of him insisted that it certainly was, but another, greater part recognized that it was only a difference in degree, not in kind. And, he reminded himself, whatever seeming miracles this "technology" of the demon-jester's could create, he remained sufficiently fallible that he'd failed to recognize the blind spots in his own analysis of the situation he faced on this world. By his own admission, the "primitive" whom he had stolen from Earth had demonstrated a far better grasp of the locals' probable reactions and responses than he had.

"Very well," the baron said after a moment. "Four men and six horses. Although those numbers are lower than the ones I had believed applied, those who are actually lost remain impossible for us to replace. If we face additional combat against an alliance of the locals who can put more warriors than the Thoolaas into the field against us, it's likely that our losses will be higher, even under the best circumstances. If the faction opposed to you not only musters a larger army against us but also considers what happened to the Thoolaas and adjusts its tactics, losses on our part will increase. Moreover, the caltrops which we employed to such good effect against the Thoolaas are unlikely to come as a surprise in any future battle—certainly not to the extent to which they surprised the Thoolaas, at any rate. Even if they make no changes in their manner of fighting other than to avoid rushing into the sort of trap we were able to set at the river ford against the Thoolaas, they will substantially increase the effectiveness of their warriors, which will increase the cost to us of defeating them."

"Does a warrior like you fear death?" the demon-jester asked.

"Of course I do," Sir George replied. "Any man must fear death, especially if he's unshriven when it comes upon him. In this case, however, I speak less as a mortal who fears death for himself than as a soldier who recognizes that every man he loses decreases his military strength. And as our strength declines, so our ability to gain the victories your guild expects of us will decline."

"You do not believe you will be able to overcome an alliance of the local tribes, then?"

"I didn't say that," Sir George replied. "If it is indeed possible to identify the tribes who will support you against the Laahstaar and Mouthai, then it ought to be possible to recruit warriors from those tribes to take the field with us. If my own forces serve as the core of a larger, combined force, then our effectiveness will be multiplied and our losses should be reduced. My fear is less for what can be accomplished here, than for our long-term ability to sustain ourselves in your service."

"I see. It is good that you think in terms of sustaining a guild resource, but you need not concern yourself with such matters. Those decisions are properly made by myself, both as your Commander and as the senior representative of my guild present. Your only concern is to facilitate the execution of my commands as efficiently as possible. To that end, I may solicit your advice, but the decision on how we will proceed is mine, not yours, and I will make it."

Sir George clasped his hands more tightly behind himself and forced himself to remain silent, and the demon-jester considered him for several moments in matching silence.

"In the meantime, however," the small alien went on eventually, "I am pleased with how well you and your warriors have fought for my guild. I will address them shortly to express my pleasure personally to them. In addition, as a reward for your hardiness and bravery, I will have your mates and your young removed from stasis and reunited with you while we await further developments among the locals. I trust that you will be properly grateful for this reward."

"Oh, yes," Sir George said, showing his teeth in something even the demon-jester should have been hard pressed to call a smile. "Oh, yes, `Commander.' I feel certain that all of my men will be properly grateful and recognize the reason we've received this... reward."