“I’m not really very good at herding people, Longbow.”

Longbow considered that. “I think we’ll have to wait until Athlan’s archers get here,” he said. “Once they’ve arrived, you can make a false attack on the Atazak front.”

“False attack?”

“Charge in as if you mean to kill every Atazak in the vicinity. The ones with spears will push the unarmed common people forward to block off your attack. Then the Tonthakan archers can shoot arrows over the commons and kill the ones who think they’re important by the hundreds. The survivors will run back to get out of the range of the arrows. That should leave the ordinaries standing there all alone. It shouldn’t be very difficult at that point to herd the innocents off to someplace safe. I don’t think there’ll be very many ‘Guardians’ left after an hour or so, and the ones who are still alive will most likely run away just as fast as they can. That should leave poor old Holy—but crazy—Azakan out there all by himself screaming orders at passing clouds, the sun, moon, and stars, and assorted other things that won’t pay any attention to him. An arrow—or a lance—should quiet things down out there quite noticeably.”

“What about the bug-people?” Padan asked.

“We know how to deal with them,” Rabbit said. “The innocent ones will be safe, the crazy man and his protectors will be dead, and the bug-people won’t be around anymore. Then we’ll be able to go on down to Crystal Gorge and help our friends down there eliminate our real enemy, the one that’s called ‘The Vlagh.’ That’s the war we need to win. This Atazak invasion was just a hoax designed to pull us away from Crystal Gorge.”

“Is this ‘Vlagh’ really just a bug?” Ekial asked Longbow.

“I’ve never actually seen her,” Longbow replied, “but sooner or later, she and I will meet and settle this once and for all.”

4

It was about noon of the following day when Longbow crept through the thick grass to the top of a small knoll to watch the invaders from Atazakan. They didn’t seem to be very well-organized, and there was a lot of milling around out there. “The Guardians of Divinity” were easily distinguishable from the ordinary Atazaks, since they were all dressed in brightly colored clothing, and they carried crudely made spears—which the ordinary people were evidently not permitted to possess. As Ekial had said, the “Guardians” were herding the commoners out to the front to stand between them and the Malavi.

Then Rabbit came crawling up through the grass. “Are they doing anything yet?” he asked Longbow in a quiet voice.

“Nothing very significant,” Longbow replied. “They’ve been fairly busy driving the ordinary people out to the front. They seem to really want a large number of unarmed Atazaks standing between them and Ekial’s horse-soldiers. Ekial and his men are staying out in plain sight to make the ‘Guardians’ believe that they’re in terrible danger. We don’t want them to start finding other things in other places for the commoners to do.”

“Red-Beard should lead the Tonthakan archers here sometime tomorrow,” Rabbit said then. “Once the archers have pushed the ‘Guardians’ back a ways, Ekial can swing in and drive the ordinaries off to the north. I talked it over with him, and we sort of agreed that the safest place for them will probably be around on the backside of those hills where Padan’s building his fort. He doesn’t really show it, but Ekial’s starting to feel very protective when it comes to those ordinary Atazaks. It’s almost like they were pets of some kind.”

“Cattle, Rabbit,” Longbow said, “not exactly pets. The Malavi spend all of their time protecting their cattle. I suppose that Ekial sees those helpless ordinary Atazaks as something very much like a herd of cattle, and the Malavi will do anything possible to protect their cows.”

“I guess I hadn’t really seen them that way,” Rabbit conceded. “I’m fairly sure that the ordinaries don’t say ‘moo’ very often, but I think Ekial can almost hear them say ‘moo.’” Then Rabbit laughed. “Or maybe they say ‘baa’ instead. They’re almost like the sheep down in Veltan’s Domain, aren’t they? Omago’s friend, that sheep-herder Nanton, did everything he could to protect his sheep from the wolves, and Ekial’s behaving almost more like a shepherd than a cattle-herder.”

“You don’t see very many shepherds with sabre scars on their faces, though,” Longbow added. “Anyway, once Ekial and his men have herded the commoners out of the way and got them to someplace safe, we can all concentrate on eliminating the ‘Guardians.’ It might take a while for Holy—but crazy—Azakan to realize that we’ve removed, or eliminated, most of his worshipers, but I’m fairly sure that he’ll get the point, eventually.”

Rabbit raised his head and looked out over the Atazaks who were milling around in confusion. “Is that him?” he asked, pointing at an ornately dressed Atazak sitting on a very large chair near the center of the invading force.

“I think so,” Longbow replied. “He was shouting orders at the sky just a little while ago. I don’t think she was paying much attention to him, though.”

“Those little ones gathered around him are the poison-spitters, aren’t they?”

Longbow nodded. “They look very much like the ones I’ve been killing for a long time now. I haven’t seen any of them spitting today, though. Now that the wind’s not blowing, spitting out venom wouldn’t be a very good idea, since it settles right back down on them.”

“I was sort of hoping they wouldn’t realize that,” Rabbit said. “Enemies who destroy themselves are the very best kind, wouldn’t you say?”

Then the ornately dressed Atazak rose to his feet and began to bellow at the sky in a huge voice. Most of what he was shouting didn’t make any sense, but as nearly as Longbow was able to determine, the crazy man was shouting orders to lightning—which wasn’t around just then. “Strike down my foes!” he roared. “I command thee to strike them all down. Then clear a path for me that I might confront mine arch-enemy, Dahlaine the usurper! Do as I command, for I am the god of all of the Land of Dhrall! Ye must obey me, or I shall banish thee now and forever from the sky—which is also mine!”

“That’s definitely crazy,” Rabbit noted. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody that crazy before! Is there any kind of a cure for that?”