Crystal Gorge

“Maybe somebody who’s about ten miles away sneezed,” Chief Two-Hands replied. “Almost anything will send a herd of bison running toward the far horizon. All it takes is one frightened bison to start a stampede. If one of them runs, they all run—even when they don’t know what frightened the first one.”

“It makes traveling in this part of the world sort of interesting, though,” Rabbit added.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many animals all in one place at the same time,” the archer Athlan observed.

“That’s probably because you live in a forest, Athlan,” Padan said. “Forest animals hide. They were probably there, but you couldn’t see them because the trees were in your way.”

“I don’t think I’d want to try to herd animals that big around,” the Malavi Tenkla said. “It looks to me like those bison run almost as fast as horses, and they’re twice as big as horses. I wish Ekial had left somebody else in charge when he ran off to the north. If I happen to make a mistake, I could get a lot of the men killed.” He looked at Chief Tlantar Two-Hands. “You were saying that if one bison gets frightened and runs, the rest of the herd’s likely to follow him. Do they stand around looking at each other all the time?”

“I’ve been told that smell is involved,” Two-Hands replied. “I guess that a frightened bison gives off a distinctive odor, and it’s that odor that makes the rest of the herd bolt and turn.”

“I’ve come across sailors who’ve been drunk for a week or so,” Rabbit said. “They smelled bad enough to make me want to run away, too.” Then he grinned. “That might just solve this problem, Longbow. If a herd of bison are blocking us off, we could get Ox drunk, and he’d smell so bad that the bison would turn around and run away.”

“Very funny, Rabbit,” Longbow said.

“I’m glad you liked it,” Rabbit said with a broad grin.

They reached the part of northern Matakan where Ekial and his friends were holding back the invaders from Atazakan about two days later. “I was just about to send some horsemen out to find you,” Ekial said. “What took you so long?”

“We ran into a herd of frightened bison,” Padan explained. “They had us completely blocked off.”

“Ah,” Ekial said. “I should have guessed, I suppose. Were you and your friends in any danger, Longbow?”

“Not really,” Longbow replied. “We were up near the top of a hill, and it would seem that bison aren’t at all like goats. They don’t seem to like to go uphill, do they?”

“Not that I’ve seen so far. If they’re at all like cows, every now and then they’ll stampede up a hillside, but it slows them down, and they don’t seem to like that much.”

“How are things going, Ekial?” Padan asked.

“We’re having quite a bit of fun,” Ekial replied with an evil grin. “These Atazaks are hopeless incompetents. They’re armed with what somebody who doesn’t know what he’s talking about might call ‘spears,’ but their spears aren’t very well-made, and the Atazaks haven’t got the faintest idea of how to use them. We gallop at them in places where they don’t expect us and skewer several of them with our lances and then gallop out again. Then, when that gets tiresome, we whip in and slash them with our sabres. I don’t think they even recognize our sabres as weapons.”

“I think somebody once said that a stupid enemy is a gift from the gods,” Rabbit said.

“I believe I might have just seen something that’ll make their lives even more unpleasant,” Padan said. “There’s an outcropping of hills about a mile north of here. We could build a fort out of sod blocks up near the top of those hills and then just sit there. If the Atazaks try to attack that fort, things will get very unpleasant for them. Then, if they try to avoid us, we can come down off the hill, kill a couple hundred of them, and then go back to the fort. Eventually they’ll almost have to attack us, and there won’t be many live ones left after that.”

“And even fewer if my men and I wait out in the grass until they attack your fort,” Ekial added. “We’ll hit them from behind. Maybe the rest of them will give up on this silly invasion and go on back to their own territory.”

Padan shook his head. “They’re being controlled by our real enemies, Prince Ekial,” he said in a bleak voice. “Let’s not take chances. We don’t want them coming at us from behind during our real war down in Crystal Gorge.”

It was about then that the Malavi Orgal rode in. “Red-Beard told me to come here and advise you that he’s leading the archers from Tonthakan here, and that it won’t be much longer than two days before he arrives. I’m also supposed to tell you that Keselo’s Trogites have finished building their war-engines, and they’ve installed them on those sleds. Skarn’s men are pulling the sleds, and they’ll be here soon as well.”

“It just wouldn’t be the same without them, Orgal,” Padan said with a broad grin.

“Was that supposed to be funny?” Orgal demanded.

It was just after dawn the following morning when Longbow, Athlan, and Two-Hands joined Prince Ekial some distance off to the east to take a closer look at the invading Atazaks.

“They don’t seem to have very many weapons of any kind,” Longbow said quietly as they looked out across the grassland at the disorganized camp of the invaders.

“The ones with weapons are a bit farther back,” Ekial explained. “The ones that are closer are just ordinary people. That’s what’s been bothering us quite a bit. The ordinaries aren’t permitted to have weapons of any kind as far as we can tell. The ones wearing fancy clothes and carrying spears are the soldiers—or at least that’s what they call themselves. They’ve been pushing the unarmed ordinaries out to the front to serve as a sort of walking barricade to keep my horsemen—and the local Matans—a fair distance away from the ones who think they’re important. I hired on to fight warriors, not to run over innocent, unarmed common people, so I’m having the same sort of problems that Tladan and his spearmen are. I won’t kill innocents, but they’ve been herded out to the front, so my men and I can’t get through them to attack the ones carrying spears.”

“Why don’t you just herd them out of the way, then?” Longbow suggested.