Christopher Stasheff - King Kobold Revived

Rod struggled back to his feet, ungallantly heaving Gwen up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and stumbled blindly back over the scrubline in a shaky trot. “Fess! Talk me in!”

“Turn toward the sea, Rod,” the robot’s voice murmured through the earphone set in Rod’s mastoid process. “Approach fifty feet… turn right now… another twenty feet…Stop.”

Rod dug his heels in, just barely managing to counter Gwen’s momentum. He put out a hand and felt the synthetic horsehair in front of him. “Good thing they built your eyes sensitive to infrared,” he growled.

He threw Gwen over the saddlebow, then dropped to one knee, reaching under the robot horse to lift Toby’s head in the crook of his elbow. He slapped the boy’s cheeks lightly, quickly. “Come on, lad, wake up! You’ve done your bit, contrary to orders; now it’s time to get out of here.”

“What… Where…” Toby’s eyelids fluttered. Then he looked up at Rod, squinting against a painful headache. “Lord Warlock! What…”

“You tried to get into the battle by proxy, and got knocked out in person,” Rod explained. “Gwen tried the same thing and got the same result. Now we’ve got to get out of here, before our few remaining soldiers get wiped out. Come on, lad—up in the air. Let’s go!”

Toby stared up at him painfully. Slowly, he nodded. He squeezed his eyes shut, his face screwing up in concentration; then, suddenly, he was gone. Air boomed in to fill the space where he’d been.

Rod leaped up and swung into the saddle, bracing his wife’s still form with one hand as he bellowed, “Retreat! Retreat!”

The dozen soldiers left standing leaped backward, then began to yield ground a step at a time. The beastmen roared and followed, but the Gramarye pikes whirled harder than ever with the power of desperation, keeping the Neanderthals at a distance. There were too many beastmen ganging up on each soldier, though; given time, they’d wipe out the Gramarye force.

Rod didn’t intend to give them that time. “All right, Iron Horse—now!”

Fess reared back, pawing the air with a whinnying scream. The beastmen’s heads snapped up in alarm. Then the great black horse leaped into a gallop, charging down at them. At the last second, he wheeled aside, swerving to run all along their line. The beastmen leaped back in fright, and the soldiers turned and ran. Fess cleared the battle-line; the beastmen saw their fleeing foes, shouted, and lumbered after them.

Fess whirled with another scream and raced back along the Neanderthal line. The beastmen shouted and leaped back—except for one who decided to play hero and turned to face the galloping horse, club raised.

Rod hunkered down and muttered, “Just a little off-center—with English.”

Fess slammed into the Neanderthal, and he caromed off the horse’s chest with a howl. He landed twenty feet away, and was silent. His companions stood poised, wavering.

On the saddlebow, Gwen stirred, lifting her head with a pained frown. She took one look and grasped the situation.

The beastmen growled to one another, softly at first, but gaining volume and anger. They began to waddle back up the beach, their low, ugly rumble filling the air.

Gwen’s eyes narrowed, and the beastmen’s clubs exploded into flame.

They howled, hurling their clubs after the Gramarye soldiers, turned, and ran.

Gwen glared after them. Then her head began to tremble, and she collapsed again.

“Retreat!” Rod snapped. Fess pivoted and raced back up the beach after the soldiers.

They came to rest high in the rocks atop the cliff, behind the long, sloping beach. “You did well,” Rod assured the soldiers. “No one could have done better.”

One of the men spread his hands helplessly. “How can we fight an enemy who can freeze us in our tracks, milord?”

Rod dismounted and lifted Gwen down tenderly. “I think my wife’s given us the basic idea. I’ll work it out with her when she comes to.” He knelt, lowering Gwen to the ground behind two boulders, cradling her head and shoulders against his chest. He winced at a sudden pain in his arm and remembered a club hitting him there. He remembered a few other blows, too, now that he thought about it. With the adrenaline of battle beginning to wear off, the bruises were beginning to hurt. With surprise, he noticed a bright crimson streak across his chest—one of the ax-blows had come closer than he’d realized. When he understood just how close, he began to get the shakes. He clamped down on them sternly; there’d be time for that later. “What’re they doing, men?”

“They begin to feel brave again, milord.” One of the soldiers was lying among the seaward rocks, peering out between two boulders. “They are stepping away from their dragon.”

“Any sign of the villagers?”

“None, milord. All fled in time.”

Rod nodded. “Well, it’s a shame about the village, but they can rebuild it.”

“ ‘Tis not destroyed yet, milord.”

“Yet,” Rod echoed. “There’s a wineskin in my saddlebag, boys. Pass it around.”

A soldier leaped and wrenched the wineskin out. He squirted a long streak into his mouth, then passed it to his comrade.

“Toby!” Rod yelled. Nothing happened.

Gwen stirred in Rod’s arms, squinting against a raging headache, looked up, saw Rod, and relaxed, nestling against his chest, closing her eyes. “I am safe.”

“Praise Heaven,” Rod breathed.

“What doth hap, my lord?”

“We lost, darling. You came up with a good idea, but they outnumbered you.”

She shook her head, then winced at the pain it brought. “Nay, my lord. ‘Twas the lightning.”

“Lightning?” Even through his exhaustion, Rod felt something inside him sit up and take notice. “Well…”

“Milord,” the sentry called, “fire blossoms in the village.”

Rod nodded with a grimace. “Whole place’ll be one big torch in a few minutes. The beastmen won’t find much to pick there, though. Peasants don’t own much—and what they do have they can carry.”

“There is the granary, milord,” one of the locals pointed out, “and the smokehouse.”

Rod shrugged. “So they’ll have a picnic on the way home. Don’t worry, lad—the King and Queen will send you food for the winter. Grain they could’ve had for the asking.” He looked down at Gwen. “Can you find Toby, darling?”

Gwen nodded and closed her eyes, then winced. Rod felt a stab of guilt—but he needed the young warlock.

Air slammed outward with a soft explosion, and Toby stood before him. “Milord Warlock?”

One of the soldiers stared, then turned away, muttering and crossing himself.

Rod pretended not to notice. “Feel up to some action again?”

“Assuredly, an’ thou dost wish it, milord.” Toby’s knees were shaking with exhaustion.

“I do,” Rod said. “I hate to ask it of you, but we’ve got to salvage something out of this. When they ship out, can you follow them?”

Toby stared off into space for a moment, then nodded. “There are clouds. They will not see me.”

“You don’t have to go all the way,” Rod pointed out. “Just see ‘em on their way, then call for one of your mates. He can teleport out to you, and you can disappear. Just get them started.”

Toby nodded slowly. “Wise, milord. We will.”

“The flames slacken, milord.”

“Yes. Thank heaven for the rain.” But Rod looked up, frowning; the sentry’s voice had changed. A different soldier lay among the rocks, his arm in a fresh, gleaming sling.

Rod stared. “Hey—who gave you that?”

The sentry looked up, surprised, then nodded toward another soldier who sat, teeth gritted against pain, while a chubby figure in a brown robe wrapped linen around a long gash in his arm.