Crystal Gorge

“We’re breaking new ground, then,” Keselo said. “I think that maybe we’ll call this ‘the Shwark maneuver.’ You’ll be famous, Sergeant.”

“Only if it works, Subaltern,” Shwark said. “Iff’n it happens t’ fall apart, I don’t think I’ll want my name attached to it.”

Keselo grew more and more tense as more and more of their enemies came out of the lower breastwork and started up the slope. It was growing increasingly obvious that the Vlagh had available servants beyond counting.

“I just came up with another idee, Subaltern,” Sergeant Shwark said enthusiastically. “What say you to the notion of not settin’ no fire t’ the first one we fling out at them folks a-comin’ up the slope. If we was t’ splash the stuff that burns all over most of them, an’ then threw fire down the hill, they’d almost all catch on fire, wouldn’t they?”

Keselo blinked. “That’s brilliant, Sergeant!” he exclaimed. “How in the world did you come up with that—just at the last minute?”

“I ain’t all that shore, Subaltern,” Sergeant Shwark replied. “It just seemed t’ come a-poppin’ outta nowhere.”

“Do it that way. Let’s see what happens.”

“Keep yer fingers crossed,” Shwark said, grinning. Then he ran over to the first catapult and took the torch away from the soldier who usually ignited the fire-missile. “All-right, shoot!”

“But—” the igniter protested.

“Keep your mouth shut!” Shwark barked. Then he glared at the catapult-crew. “I said shoot!” he barked. “Do it! Now!” The crew-leader jerked the release lever and the thick liquid that was normally on fire was hurled high into the air and then showered down on the advancing enemies.

Shwark turned sharply to the second catapult. “Touch off the fire!” he shouted.

The igniter laid his burning torch on the thick liquid in the catapult cup, and flame and smoke came pouring out.

“Shoot!” the sergeant roared.

The crew-leader jerked the release lever and the ball of fire flew out above the slope. It slanted down above the steep slope and then crashed down, almost exploding into hundreds of flaming gobs.

That in and of itself would have been disastrous for the advancing enemy, but the as yet unburning liquid launched by the first catapult suddenly took fire as well, and the entire slope was in flames.

Keselo stared down the slope in horror. No matter where he looked, he saw burning enemies—and they were mindlessly running in all directions at the same time. The fumes rising from the first catapult launch were suddenly ignited, and hundreds more enemy soldiers caught fire, and they too ran in all directions, igniting still more.

“A little extreme, perhaps,” the Maag ship captain Torl noted, “but it might even get the attention of the Vlagh herself.”

Then the warrior queen Trenicia, closely followed by Commander Narasan, came running up to the top of the wall. “What are you doing!” Trenicia screamed.

“It’s called ‘war,’ Your Majesty,” Keselo replied respectfully. “A bit unusual, perhaps, but it does seem to be working.”

“Wars are supposed to be fought with swords!” she fumed.

“The older ones were, I suppose,” Keselo admitted, “but fire is much more efficient. Look on the bright side, though. Your sword didn’t get so much as a single dent in the blade this time, and we still won.” He paused. “Isn’t that just dandy?” he asked her in wide-eyed innocence.

“Be nice, Keselo,” Commander Narasan murmured, trying his best to conceal the broad grin on his face.

INFERNO

1

It seemed to Ara that Dahlaine’s decision to concentrate on Crystal Gorge was very sound. There were other passes that led up through the mountains standing between the Wasteland and the North country, but after Ara had sent out her awareness to examine those other passes, she was positive that the servants of the Vlagh would concentrate on Crystal Gorge, since the other passes all led into that single ravine which was the only route through the ridge-line that effectively blocked all other possible invasion routes.

The fort the Trogites had erected near the lower end of the gorge should have most effectively stopped the incursion of the creatures of the Wasteland, but the servants of the Vlagh found a way to assault the Trogites and their friends rather than the fort itself.

Ara found that to be most irritating. What made it even worse, she felt, lay in the filching of the use of smoke as a way to drive the outlanders out of the gorge. The Vlagh was a thief—a very good thief, but a thief all the same.

The Trogites and their friends had devised many ways to block the creatures of the Wasteland. The barrier that now stretched across the north end of the gorge seemed most effective, and the mud-pit would have been a stroke of genius if their enemy had been human. The servants of the Vlagh were not intelligent enough to be afraid, so they crossed the mud-pit with an enormous loss, and they took the first breastwork.

The savage attacks of the Malavi slowed the advance of their enemies, but not by very much.

It was the use of what the Trogites called “fire-missiles” that was most effective. Ara found the innovation of the “skip-shot” by the humorous old veteran called Shwark to be a stroke of pure genius. She had come up with a way to make it even more effective, and it hadn’t been difficult to pass that on to Shwark at the last minute. Fire, it appeared, was the one thing that actually frightened the creatures of the Wasteland, so it seemed to Ara that fire might just be the best possible weapon to use in this particular war. This was confirmed by the mention of “a fire unlike any fire we have ever seen” in Lillabeth’s dream. It didn’t seem to make much sense to Ara, however. Fire was just fire, after all, and they all looked more or less the same.

The smoke that had driven their friends out of Crystal Gorge had pretty much died out by now, and the clouds Dahlaine and Veltan had called in to douse the gorge with rain had moved on, and the sky above was once again a glorious blue.

Then the word “blue” seemed to jump out and seize Ara. Of course! That was what Lillabeth’s dream had described. Blue fire would be most unusual, but not here in the Domain of the North. The archer Athlan had spoken of “swamp-fire,” and the overly clever Trogite Keselo had mentioned something he called “methane,” or “coal-gas.” He’d told his friends about a coal mine down in the Trogite Empire that had been on fire for seventy years and would probably continue to burn for several centuries. The notion of a blue fire that would burn forever cleared away Ara’s doubts and confusion. All she had to do now was to locate a deposit of what Keselo had called “coal.”