The Treasured One

Sorgan turned quickly to look off toward the south. ‘Now that’s what I’d call an army,’ he said. ‘I was still just a bit nervous about the “sneak ahead and get more” crowd, but I’d say that the Regulators got their point across.’

The massive army of men in red uniforms were marching in what Narasan called ‘quick step’, and it seemed to Sorgan that they were making good time - until they reached the edge of Sorgan’s first trench. The front rank looked dubiously at the ten-foot drop to the bottom of the trench, and then they began to melt back in among the following ranks.

‘I seem to be catching a certain lack of enthusiasm,’ Padan said with a grin.

‘If a man’s not careful, he can break both of his legs in a jump like that,’ Sorgan said. ‘I’d imagine that I’d be a bit edgy about it myself.’

A lean man with an ugly face and wearing a black uniform conferred briefly with other men in similar uniforms, and his underlings - if that’s what they were - moved rapidly along behind the now-hesitant red-uniformed men, pushing them off the edge of the trench.

‘Efficient, maybe,’ Padan observed, ‘but just a bit extreme, perhaps.’ Then he peered into the trench. ‘Just how close to the other side of the trench did your people plant those stakes, Sorgan?’

‘Real close.’

‘The venom seems to be as strong as it was before,’ Padan noted. ‘It looks to me like everybody who went down over there is dead.’

Sorgan grinned at him. ‘That was the whole idea, Padan. Now that those men in red have seen what’s waiting for them, they’ll have to slow down and very carefully start digging up the stakes. I’d say that it’s likely to take them about two days to clear the bottom of the trench. By then, there’ll be twice as many soldiers standing on the far side waiting to come this way.’

‘Shrewd,’ Padan said. ‘After two or three more trenches, I’d say that all five church armies will be up here jumping up and down and waiting for the time when they can run out into the desert to gather up as much imitation gold as they can carry.’

But it didn’t turn out that way, Sorgan was forced to admit. There was another get-together of the Regulators, and the one who was apparently their leader snapped out some fairly blunt instructions. Then the Regulators moved out again grabbing hold of more soldiers. This time, however, the Regulators didn’t just push the soldiers over the edge of the trench.

They threw them instead - just as far as they could - and the pile of dead soldiers began to stretch farther and farther out into the trench as the Regulators carpeted Sorgan’s trench with people.

‘That does it!’ Rabbit exclaimed in a voice that didn’t have the slightest trace of his usual timidity. He raised that short bow that Sorgan had assumed was little more than a decoration and drew an arrow from the quiver belted to his back. ‘Which way did that one called Konag go?’ the little man asked Torl.

‘Ah . . .’ Torl’s eyes swept across the far side of the trench. ‘I think he’s that one standing off to the right side, Rabbit,’ he said. ‘Do you think you can take him from here?’

‘I’m definitely going to try,’ Rabbit announced, drawing his bow and sighting along the arrow shaft.

His bowstring sang when he released it, and his arrow arched slightly as it flew over the trench.

The black uniformed man who’d ordered his subordinates to throw live soldiers out into the trench to carpet over Sorgan’s stakes had been watching with an expression of bleak satisfaction, but that expression faded as he stiffened with Rabbit’s arrow protruding from the middle of his forehead. Then he fell on his back with his blank eyes staring at the sky.

‘How did you do that?’ Sorgan demanded of his little smith.

‘We call this a “bow”, Cap’n,’ Rabbit explained, ‘and the thing that’s sticking out of that fellow’s head over on the other side of the trench is called an “arrow”. If you put them together just right, they’ll do all sorts of nice things to people who aren’t nice.’

‘That’s not what I meant, Rabbit,’ Sorgan said. He turned to look at Longbow. ‘Have you been giving him lessons on the sly, maybe.’

‘Not me, Hook-Beak,’ Longbow replied. ‘It’s quite possible that he just picked it up himself after he watched us shoot arrows into the creatures of the Wasteland back in the ravine.’

‘That comes fairly close, Cap’n,’ Rabbit conceded.

‘You must have spent hours and hours practicing, Rabbit,’ Torl said.

Rabbit shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really take all that long, Torl - especially if the only thing you practice is hitting. I didn’t waste any time practicing missing.’ He frowned slightly. ‘I suppose I could teach myself how to miss,’ he said, ‘but it might take me quite a while to learn how. Maybe if I work on it a bit, I will learn how to miss.’ And then he laughed with an almost childish delight.

Sorgan was fairly sure that Longbow had trained Rabbit in the secrets of fine archery. ‘We’ll worry about that some other time,’ he muttered.

‘What was that?’ Padan asked him.

‘Just thinking out loud,’ Sorgan replied, staring across the trench. ‘I think that one arrow might have changed a few things,’ he said.

‘I’ve heard a few stories about that Konag,’ Padan replied. ‘I’ve heard that even the highest-ranking churchmen are afraid of him.’

‘Were afraid,’ Sorgan corrected. ‘Now that he’s dead, I don’t think anybody’s afraid of him any more.’

‘Maybe,’ Padan said, still looking across the wide trench. ‘It looks to me like those church soldiers are starting to shed some of their timidity. One of the Regulators just got a sword in the belly.’

‘What a shame,’ Sorgan replied sardonically.

‘There goes another one,’ Padan reported. ‘Things seem to be getting a bit exciting over there.’

‘Don’t start cheering yet, Padan,’ Sorgan growled. ‘If those soldiers over there work up enough nerve, they’ll kill all of the Regulators, and then they’ll go right back to “I can run faster than you can” and they’ll all start dribbling down the north slope in twos and threes, and the bug-people will have them for lunch.’

‘Not as long as your poisoned stakes are in place, they won’t. They’ll have to crawl along on their hands and knees pulling those stakes out one at a time. That should slow them enough for the rest of their forces to catch up with them.’