Christopher Stasheff - King Kobold Revived

“A likely thought.” Tuan nodded. “But thy warlocks hear thoughts. Could not he raise the alarm more quickly if there were another of the witch-folk ashore, listening for his thoughts?”

“True. That would be quicker, and… wait a minute!” Rod struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. “What’s the matter with me? Sorry, Your Majesty; I’m slow today. Why bother putting the warlock in the boat? Why not just have him stay ashore and listen for approaching beastman thoughts?”

“Nay, certes!” Tuan squeezed his eyes shut. “Did I truly need a High Warlock to tell me this? Where are my wits?”

There was a good chance he’d left them back at the royal castle in Runnymede, but Rod didn’t think it was politic to say so. Besides, Tuan could’ve replied that Rod’s brains currently had long red hair and a figure worth killing for.

Then the King opened his eyes, with doubt in them. “Yet art thou certain they do think?”

“That is a distinct possibility. Maybe if I go to the western coast and shout, ‘ Cogito, ergo sum ,’ they’ll all disappear.”

“Is that a mighty spell?”

“No, just wishful thinking; I’m putting Descartes before the horse.” There was a short, nasty buzzing in Rod’s ear; Fess didn’t think much of his sense of humor. “Seriously, though, Your Majesty, that shouldn’t be a problem. Anything alive and moving under its own power has some sort of neurological activity. I’ve got one young witch who can read an earthworm’s thoughts, and they don’t even have any.”

“But can they hear thoughts far enough away to give us time to set our battle line where they mean to land?”

“Don’t worry about that one, either. I had another young lady listen to the thoughts of one of the dino… uh, ‘terrible lizard’ giants over on the mainland, once. She wasn’t herself again for three days…”

“Then thou hast thy sentry-force made.”

Rod frowned. “Yeah, but I just had another nasty thought. How come none of the witches ever heard beastman thoughts before?”

That stopped Tuan, too. He frowned and thought it over for a few seconds. Then he looked up with a bright smile. “Mayhap because they were not there?”

Rod sat still for a moment. Then he sighed and shrugged. “Why not? On Gramarye, anyway.” There was a local variety of fungus that was very sensitive. Not that its feelings could be hurt or anything; but if a projective telepath thought at it hard enough, it would turn into whatever the projective was thinking about. Yes, it was very possible that the beastmen hadn’t been there before. All it would take was an old granny, one who didn’t know her own strength, telling horror stories to amuse the children…

He didn’t think he wanted to meet that granny. “Say, uh, Your Majesty… what happens when our sentries do find them?”

“Why, then we ride against them with steel and fire,” Tuan said grimly.

“Yes, but—Gramarye is a moderately big island. What if they strike someplace where our army isn’t?”

“As they have indeed done.” Tuan nodded. “Well, I have commanded each of the seacoast lords to muster a force of worthy size, and keep it ever ready. E’en so, the best of barons’ forces can only hold them till my armies come; if it can do more, I have more than beastmen to worry me.”

It was a good point; a baron who could defeat a party of raiders was bound to think of taking on the royal army. “But it could take a while for your army to get there—say, a few days.”

“Indeed.” Tuan turned to him, frowning. “Canst thou not discover a spell to move mine army to the battlefield ere the beastmen come to it, High Warlock?”

“ ‘Fraid that’s beyond even my powers.” Rod had a brief, dizzying vision of Tuan’s knights and men-at-arms clustered onto huge antigravity plates, skimming over the countryside; but he manfully thrust it from him, remembering that technology comes in whole chunks, not just bits and pieces. If he taught them how to make antigrav plates, they’d figure out very quickly how to make automatic cannon and television chains—and how much chance would democracy have in a land whose king had the technology for totalitarianism, and whose people still thought loyalty was the supreme virtue? Right—about as much as a camel in a glacier. “But you don’t need magic to do it—just a complete force of horsemen.”

“Why, how is that?” Tuan looked worried; to him, “horseman” meant “knight.”

“Well, I know it sounds like heresy—but you don’t have to have just the captains mounted. Common soldiers can learn to ride too.”

Tuan stared, scandalized.

“Not on full-scale war-horses, of course,” Rod said quickly. “The rankers can ride ponies. They can go just as fast as the destriers on the long haul, where they keep it down to a canter, if they don’t wear much armor. And you can keep the whole force right there, in Runnymede, since it’s pretty close to being the center of the island. Then, when my witch-sentries send word, you can just yell, ‘Horse and hattock! Ho, and away!’ and they can be mounted up and gone in ten minutes. Then, if you keep alternating canter and trot and give each soldier a spare mount, they can be anywhere within Gramarye in two days.”

“And the beastmen could land within one.” Tuan scowled, chewing at his lip. “E’en so, the idea has merit. A thousand men would suffice; certes these beastmen will not bring more. Then I could keep five such forces, placed so that any one of them could be at the seacoast in either of two provinces in less than a day.” He turned a beaming smile on Rod. “I’ truth, ’twill succeed! And if the footmen must ride, what of it? When they come to the field, they can dismount and fight as they always have!”

And, Rod realized with a sinking heart, the King would have discovered an excellent means of enforcing his will on the barons, whether they liked him or not. But what else could he do? Let bogeymen gobble up the taxpayers? “I think it’ll work, Your Majesty.”

“But a name! It must have a name!” Tuan’s eyes glowed with excitement. “They will fight better, these soldiers, if their force doth bear a name that may ring down the ages!”

Tuan was good at that—these little bits of nonsense that ultimately made a great deal of difference: honor, chivalry, things like that. Men fought harder for these intangibles than for cold cash, frequently. If Tuan said his men would fight harder if their regiment had a famous name, Rod wasn’t going to argue. “How about the Flying Legion?”

“Will this truly be an army, my lord?” Gwen stood beside him on the hillside, looking out over the little valley that had sprouted tents and horses.

“Only the vanguard,” Rod assured her. “Tuan’s still got his standing army of five thousand—and most of them are standing because they don’t know how to ride. Here we’re gathering a thousand good riders from all over the island, ones who already have some experience in war. Tuan’s going to recruit another five thousand pedestrians for the main force, though.”

Far below, a lieutenant shouted, and his squadron leaped into a gallop, charging down on another hapless unit with wicker swords.

Gwen watched and shuddered. “They are not terribly deft, my lord.”

“I said they were experienced, not talented.” Rod turned away and strolled along the flank of the hill, holding her hand. “Give ‘em a little training and practice, though, and you’ll never see a better troop of cavalry—I hope. Who’s this?” He stopped, scowling at a brown-robed figure with a neat round bald spot who sat cross-legged about fifty yards ahead of them, a huge book open in his lap. He had an inkhorn in his left hand, and a quill in his right.