‘I wouldn’t make any large bets, Danal,’ Andar replied. ‘As soon as the Vlagh gets word that we aren’t there any more, it’ll start bellowing orders again - and from what I’ve heard, information reaches the Vlagh almost immediately.’
Then, almost as if it was confirming Andar’s speculation, the voice of the Vlagh roared again, and the clumsy bug-men turned to advance across the open space between the abandoned breast-work and the now-occupied one.
‘Archers to the front!’ Danal commanded.
The more or less inept Trogite trainees and the highly skilled native bowmen took their positions, set arrows in place, and drew back their bows.
‘Shoot!’ Danal shouted.
The arrows flew forward in a nearly solid wave, and the enemy charge collapsed in the lethal shower.
The few remaining bug-people plodded forward, climbing over the heaps of their now-dead companions as the highly skilled native archers sent new arrow-storms out to meet them.
Then there was yet another roar with more than a slight touch of fury in it, and the hard-shelled spider creatures came over the now-unmanned breast-works to scamper across the open field littered with the dead.
‘Catapults ready!’ Danal bellowed.
‘May I?’ Andar asked.
‘Be my guest,’ Danal replied with a broad grin.
‘Catapults launch!’ Andar barked.
The wave of fire rose up from behind the breastworks, arched up and out, and then fell upon the charging enemies, engulfing them in fire.
2
In a certain sense, Rabbit found the war here in Veltan’s Domain much more interesting than the war in the ravine had been. He was more or less obliged to admit privately that the unexpected appearance of those five church armies had added a great deal of excitement, and Longbow’s dreams had added even more. Rabbit had sensed a great reluctance on the part of Zelana’s family to accept Longbow’s firm belief that the church armies had been deceived to the point that they had unknowingly become allies in the war with the creatures of the Wasteland. That reluctance, it seemed to Rabbit, had grown out of a certain resentment. Zelana and her family were apparently very put out by the suggestion that Longbow’s dream visitor could do things that were beyond their capabilities. That seemed almost stupid to Rabbit. Quite obviously, they were going to need help in this war, and refusing to accept help because Longbow’s dream visitor was more gifted was ridiculous.
The bridge the Trogite armies were building was approaching completion, and Padan had pulled his people back into the forest on the west side of the basin to keep them out of sight. ‘They don’t need to know that we’re still here,’ Padan declared. ‘They’re busy doing exactly what we want them to do, so let’s stay out of their way.’
Longbow’s friend Red-Beard, however, thought that it might be wise to keep an eye on the ‘friendly enemies’. Sometimes Red-Beard’s clever remarks irritated Rabbit a bit, but if Longbow had been anywhere at all close to being correct, ‘friendly enemies’ might just be quite accurate.
It was late in the afternoon on a day a week or so after the church Trogites had started building their bridge when Rabbit joined Red-Beard and Sorgan’s cousin Torl in a fairly dense clump of bushes on the west rim of the gorge the waterfall had gouged out of the mountains off to the south. ‘Are they making any progress?’ He asked quietly.
Torl covered his mouth to muffle a laugh. ‘They seem to be having some trouble with the question of balance,’ he said.
‘Balance?’ Rabbit asked, a bit puzzled.
‘When you’ve got a log that’s about a hundred feet long and you want to slide it across an open space that’s eighty feet wide, the log starts to get a bit wobbly after fifty feet. But when it gets out to about seventy feet, it doesn’t wobble any more. It just plunges on down into that gorge. Those nitwits over there have already sent four logs tumbling on down, and they’ve just started on log number five.’
‘You’re not serious!’
‘Serious, no,’ Red-Beard said with a broad grin. ‘Accurate, yes. Eventually - sometime next week, maybe - somebody over there will realize that they’ll have to put something heavy on their end of a log to keep it up here instead of down there.’ He pointed down at the gorge.
‘We do sort of want them to finish, you know,’ Rabbit reminded them in a slightly worried tone.
‘They’ll manage,’ Torl replied with a shrug.
‘I think somebody over there just woke up,’ Red-Beard said. ‘It might take several more logs and a few hundred more men to sit on the short end of the log, but they’re getting closer, I’d say.’
The three of them peered out at the busy Trogites.
‘Using people for counterweights isn’t the best idea they might have come up with,’ Rabbit said dubiously.
‘They’ve got lots of people, Rabbit,’ Torl said. ‘Sooner or later they’ll get it right.’
The red-uniformed soldiers pushed the now-teetering log out a bit farther, and more and more of them laid across it to hold it in place. Then, when it had perhaps a foot more to go, the Trogites rammed it onto the rim.
‘Just how long did it take them to get that one log in place?’ Rabbit asked curiously.
‘They started about noon, didn’t they, Red-Beard?’ Torl asked.
‘A little earlier, maybe,’ Red-Beard replied.
‘If two logs a day is the best they can manage, they’ll be at it for quite a while,’ Rabbit said.
‘They’ve got the first log across,’ Torl said. ‘Things should go faster now.’ Then he suddenly grinned. ‘If it wasn’t that we really need them, the three of us could wait until about midnight and push their log clear of the rim and let it fall. Can you imagine the screaming we’d hear when the sun comes up tomorrow?’
Dusk was settling rapidly by now, and the Trogites had fallen back to their ramp and built several cooking fires. ‘That pretty much does it for today,’ Torl said. ‘Let’s go see what’s for supper this evening.’
‘Not quite yet,’ Red-Beard replied. ‘There are a few people coming up along the rim.’
‘How did they get up here?’ Torl demanded.
‘Ladders, probably,’ Rabbit suggested. ‘I suppose when you get right down to it, ladders might have been even a better idea than the bridge.’
‘Let’s sit tight,’ Red-Beard said. ‘Those people are being very careful to stay out of sight of their friends down on the ramp.’