“Aye, Cap’n,” Keselo said in a fair imitation of Rabbit’s usual response to Hook-Beak’s commands.
Sorgan flashed him a quick grin.
They all seemed to have lost most of their fear of the poison-fanged servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh for some reason. Their long, poison-tipped spears provided an almost perfect defense, and their growing realization of the severely limited intelligence of the venomous creatures of the Wasteland had given them a growing confidence that this war would turn out to be one of the easy ones.
Keselo was a bit dubious about that, however. He was almost certain that there might still be a few unpleasant surprises awaiting them.
Keselo and Rabbit moved ahead to join Longbow at the head of the Dhrall archers quietly moving down the dry streambed, and it wasn’t too long until the flagman across the ravine made a chopping motion with his flag. “This is the place, Longbow,” Keselo whispered.
Longbow signaled for a halt and then moved quietly up the side of the streambed to look. Then he came back down. “Familiar spot,” he murmured. “We’ve been here before.”
“You mean it’s the place where we went to have a look last time?” Rabbit asked quietly.
Longbow nodded. “I’ll move my bowmen up around to the back side of the knoll on the east side of this streambed, where we looked down at the enemy position, and Sorgan and his men can stay hidden here in the streambed. The tall grass up on the knoll should conceal my bowmen, and Sorgan’s men can stay hidden here in this dry wash. We’ll all be out of sight—until Ox comes down the ravine. Then the enemy will start seeing more of us than he was really ready to see. Let’s get into position,” he added. “We still have work to do.”
A horn sounded from the far side of the ravine to give the burly Ox his marching orders, and Sorgan led his men farther down the dry wash.
“This is the place, Cap’n,” Rabbit said quietly. “Longbow’s archers are moving around to the backside of this knoll just behind us, and when Ox comes into sight down there on the bench, the enemies are most likely going to charge down the slope to try to kill everybody down there. I don’t think they’ll go very far before Longbow’s arrows start raining down on them, though. Then they’ll see all those archers up on the rise, and they’ll probably change their minds and try to charge Longbow instead of Ox. That’s where we come in. This creek bed’s between the enemies and Longbow’s archers, so the enemies have to get past us before they can get to Longbow.”
Sorgan grunted, squinting down the wash. “This is a good position,” he observed. “Your friend on the other side of the ravine’s got a good eye for this sort of thing, Keselo.”
“Sergeant Grolt’s a veteran, Captain,” Keselo replied. “He’s been through more wars than he can even count.”
Sorgan waved his men on in. “Keep the noise down,” he said quietly to one of the bulky ship captains who led the first detachment. “That enemy fort’s not too far to the west of us, and we don’t want them to know that we’re here.”
“I know what I’m doing, Hook-Beak,” the Maag replied. “You don’t have to lead me around by the hand.”
“Then go do what you’re supposed to do and get out from underfoot,” Sorgan told him.
Keselo suppressed a sudden urge to laugh. Military courtesy seemed to be an alien sort of concept to the Maags.
“I think you two need to be someplace where you can see what’s happening just a little better,” Sorgan suggested. “I want you to be able to see your friend across the ravine, Keselo, and Rabbit needs to watch the enemy charge. I want to know as soon as they change direction, so sing out.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” Rabbit replied, squinting at Longbow’s knoll just behind the streambed. “There, I think,” he said, pointing at a rocky outcropping about halfway up the knoll. “What with the tall grass and those boulders, we should be pretty much out of sight, but we’ll still be able to see most everything, and it’s well within shouting distance.”
Sorgan shrugged. “Whatever works best,” he said.
Rabbit led Keselo a way back up the creek bed until the rock shelf that loomed out over the enemy fort concealed them, and then they crawled back through the tall grass on the side of the knoll until they reached the rocky outcropping that stood midway between Sorgan and Longbow. “What do you think?” Rabbit whispered to Keselo. “Can you see everything you need to?”
Keselo raised his head slowly up out of the grass. “It looks good,” he replied. “If I need to signal, I can slip around the rocks until I’m out of sight of the enemy.”
“This is the place, then,” Rabbit said. “All we have to do now is wait.”
“What else is new and different?” Keselo replied.
There was a bend in the river at the bottom of the ravine just below the enemy fort, which may have had something to do with the positioning of the decoy village. Ox came striding around the bend on the north bench, and Keselo noted that the Maags trooping along behind him were probably the biggest men in Sorgan’s army and they were all armed with twenty-foot-long spears. There was a certain logic there, but Keselo wasn’t really certain that the servants of the Vlagh would even notice the size of the men they’d been ordered to attack.
He looked quickly at the enemy fort, but there weren’t any enemies in sight. He was certain that they were watching, but they weren’t making any moves as yet.
“What’s keeping them?” Rabbit demanded tensely.
“They’re probably holding back until there are more Maags just below them,” Keselo replied. “They wouldn’t want too many of Hook-Beak’s soldiers to escape.”
Then Keselo saw some movement back in the shadows under the overhanging rock ledge that concealed the enemy fort. “I think they’re coming out,” he said.
“Well, it’s about time,” Rabbit replied.
Then a thunderous roar echoed out from the shadows at the back of the fort, and a mass of small hooded enemies burst out of the shadows, spilled through the ancient ruins, and began to pour through the breaks in the front wall to charge down the steep side of the ravine toward the bench.
“Longbow!” Rabbit shouted.
“I see them,” Longbow replied, rising to his feet.
“Shoot!”
“Not quite yet. We want as many of them out in the open as possible.”