Terrible Beast of Zor (11 page)

“Oh no, sire. I am your handmaid.” She bowed low. “Enter the house, Your Majesty.
I
will clean the fish.”

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t act like this!” Alex growled. He went around to the bunkhouse and washed up. By the time he got back to the big house, Lilith was already cooking the fish. As he entered, he saw Joss and Sarah smiling and knew that he was in for it. “We made this silly wager …” he said but could not finish.

Lilith came across the room, pulled out a chair and said, “Here is your throne, O royal prince. Sit down and your subjects will feed you.”

His face hot, Alex mumbled, “This is nonsense!”

“Oh no, sire. It is only right. You are royalty, and I am only a poor peasant girl.”

Sarah giggled. Lilith’s father was grinning.

The meal was fine. The fish was tender and delicious, but Alex did not enjoy it. Lilith refused to sit down and eat. She stood behind him and constantly filled his cup and saw to it that he had the best of the
fish and vegetables. She urged him on, calling him “sire” and “Your Majesty” and “Prince Lex.”

Finally Alex had enough. He left his chair, picked her up bodily, and set her on the high, narrow mantel. She barely had room to cling to it.

“Put me down!”

“Only if you do what I tell you.”

“And what’s that?” she challenged.

“Stop acting as you have been doing. Just treat me like Lex.”

To his surprise, she smiled and said sweetly, “All right, Lex. Help me down.” Perhaps she could tell that he was really embarrassed. When he had lifted her down, as if she were a feather, she said, “My, you’re very strong.”

“All right. Now let’s have some dessert.”

“It’s apple pie,” Sarah said. “Now that we’ve got all that foolishness out of the way, maybe you’ll enjoy it better.”

Afterward Sarah found a chance to speak with Alex alone. “That was dangerous. You shouldn’t have told her you were the prince.”

“I
didn’t
tell her I was the prince,” he said. “It was a game. I just told her to treat me like one if I won the fish wager. Just for part of the day.”

“Well, I don’t think she thought anything about it. Still, it was dangerous.”

“She’s a nice girl, isn’t she, Sarah?”

“As well as one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen.” She looked into the prince’s face. “I don’t think she’s like the girls that you knew at the palace. I hope you don’t treat her like a … a common woman.”

Alex was truly shocked. “How could you ever think such a thing! Of course I won’t. She’s a fine girl, a special girl—even though she
is a
peasant.”

“Back in OldWorld there were cases where princes married girls who were not of the royal blood.”

“Is that right? It never happens in this place.” He thought about that for a moment, though. “Well, she’s a fine person, and I’ll be sad when we have to say goodbye.”

T
he Zorian battle chief drew himself up proudly and looked around at his officers. They made a ring around him, all large men clad in armor and wearing the symbol of the Dark Lord on their tunics, and they watched him closely. Chief Thomor was the largest of them all. As he gazed around, looking for some weakness in his leaders, he found none. He said in a loud, hoarse voice, “Today is the day!”

A loud cheer went up from the officers, and they raised their swords in a symbol of victory.

“We will end this war today!”

Another cheer, and then Thomor asked his lieutenant, a short bulky soldier with murky brown eyes, “Is all ready?”

“Yes, Thomor. All is ready.”

“And is the beast ready?”

“Ready,” the lieutenant said confidently.

Thomor felt called upon to make a speech. “We have waited long for this day. Our enemies have kept us out, but today we will storm the pass, and we will possess the land. Some of us will die, but it is a good thing to die for one’s country.”

The speech went on for some time until finally Thomor said, “Now, let us inspire the troops by our presence.”

As they left the guardroom, the masses of soldiers lined up outside, rank on rank, uttered a cheer.

“As you see, the troops are ready, Thomor,” the lieutenant said.

“Good. Officers, take your places. It is the hour of the beast!”

Alcindor was a man of great physical courage, but today he felt apprehensive. He sensed that the Zorian soldiers massed behind the mountain passes were about to move, though he had seen nothing that would tell him this.

His first officer, a tall man named Glein, must have seen something in his commander’s eyes. “What is it, Alcindor?” Glein asked. “You seem nervous.”

“Something’s happening, and I don’t know what it is.”

“There’s nothing that we know of. No further report has come from the front.” But at the very moment Glein spoke, two soldiers came in. A small man was between them.

“Ah, it’s our good agent Danan. Danan, what news?”

Danan had deep-sunk brown eyes and scraggly brown hair and was clothed in the garb of a peasant. No one would ever notice him in a crowd, but Alcindor knew him to be an excellent scout. The man could move silently and almost invisibly.

The agent stopped and touched his forehead in a salute. “There is news, Alcindor,” he said. “The Zorians are moving their men to the pass by the twin oaks. They will make their attack there, I believe.”

“Did you see anything of a secret weapon?”

“No,” admitted Danan. “I could not get that close—their scouts are out in great numbers. But the Zorian troops are moving that way.”

“Good work, Danan,” Alcindor said warmly. He
turned to Glein. “We’ll move our best archers to the twin oaks.”

“What about the other passes?” Glein asked. “Should we leave them unguarded?”

“Leave a few men at each to give the alarm and hold long enough to shift our army if necessary. But we will go on Danan’s word. He has never failed us.”

Quickly the message went out, and within a short time Alcindor himself was at the pass of the twin oaks. These were two enormous trees that marked the narrow gap used as a passageway through the mountains. It had been impossible for the Zorians to storm this in the past, for here the Madrian archers could position themselves to shoot without exposing themselves.

Quickly Alcindor and Glein arranged their men in ranks. Alcindor gave careful instructions. “Expect them to force their way through. The men in our front line will shoot their arrows, then fall back. The second line will have arrows on strings and let go another volley, then fall back. We will have three lines so that there will always be a shower of arrows upon the enemy.”

“It’s a good plan,” Danan said. He clawed his whiskers thoughtfully. “Something may be different about their attack this time. I’ve heard about some kind of secret weapon or troops, some surprise that the Zorians are going to spring on us …”

“We’ll meet them, whatever it is.” Then Alcindor lifted his voice, crying out, “Men, we must hold this line! We
will
hold!”

A cheer went up, and the soldiers began to shout loudly, “For the name of the king!”

“I would that King Alquin were here,” Danan said.

“So do I, but he is not.”

The two men stood waiting silently, and then
Alcindor saw one of the advance scouts scrambling back from over the pass. The man’s eyes were wide, and he shouted, “They’re coming!”

“How many?” Alcindor demanded, when the scout reached him, panting.

“I don’t know. I didn’t stop. They have a fearful
beast
at the head of them. I never saw anything like it.”

Alcindor saw men in the nearby ranks waver. They were superstitious, he knew, and he cried, “Do not be afraid! Hold your line!” He himself advanced, planted his feet, and kept his eyes fixed on the gap.

Soon he could hear the sound of marching feet. He also heard voices raised in a battle song, coming loud and clear. Carefully he placed his best arrow on the string and stood waiting.

The noise grew louder. Then he saw something move, but he could not tell what it was for a moment. Then he did see—and, stalwart as he was, his heart skipped a beat.

A cry went up from the enemy then. “The beast has come, Madrians! The beast is here!”

What Alcindor saw was terrifying indeed. He had never seen an animal larger than a bull, but this creature was much larger than that. It was surely larger than even the OldWorld elephants he’d heard about.

The creature was gray with reddish eyes. Its back rose like a tower and was covered with huge armored plates. Its legs were thick as trees and had great claws that dug into the ground as it came. They were claws big enough to grasp a man. It had a long snout and a mouth full of sharp teeth.

So this was the secret weapon that the Dark Lord has fashioned for the Zorians. It was a mutant, no
doubt, from the time the earth had been torn by atomic warfare.

“Stand fast! Make your arrows count!” Alcindor cried. “Aim for the riders if you can!”

A platform had been harnessed to the monster’s back on which at least six men wearing armor were poised. They were archers and already had lifted their bows. Now they loosed a flight of arrows, and Alcindor saw three of his men fall.

“Shoot!” he cried, and a flight of Madrian arrows filled the air. They were all concentrated either on the beast or on its riders—and none of them took effect. The animal’s heavy plates and the men’s body armor turned every arrow harmlessly aside.

Again the enemy riders loosed their shafts with deadly aim.

Alcindor knew at once that the situation was desperate. He shouted, “Keep up your fire! The troops will come in behind the creature if we let it advance.”

The mammoth beast kept on coming through the narrow pass. Arrows struck it by the hundreds, but all were turned aside.

And then Alcindor glimpsed the Zorian infantry advancing behind the beast. He ran forward as if daring the enemy to shoot. He put an arrow to his string and, breathing a plea to Goél for help, loosed it. “Shoot!” he ordered the men behind him. “Shoot!”

Another line of Madrian archers shot and fell back, and a new line took their place. It was a steep pass, which was part of its advantage to the Madrians. The beast was having to climb upward as it came.

The battle raged. A few brave men advanced to the very feet of the beast. It seized one of them with its trunk.

At last, at close range and with an enormous flight of arrows, the men on the platform were brought down. Strangely, the beast now seemed uncertain. Perhaps it had been trained to obey the voice of one on its back, and now there was no voice to obey. The Zorians’ secret weapon hesitated, then slowly turned and lumbered back down the narrow pass.

“We won!” Glein said. “We beat them!”

“No, they will be back, and we did not hurt the beast at all,” Alcindor said grimly. “They’ll find some way to fight their way through.”

“What can we do?”

“I must report to the king. You’re in command, Glein, until I return.”

Alcindor made a hard ride back to the city. Having thundered over the bridge and thrown himself off his steed, he raced up to the throne room. There he found King Alquin awaiting his report, and Alcindor poured it out without pausing. “And so we managed to hold, though we lost many good archers.”

“But the beast will be back,” the king said wearily.

“I fear so. And then, unless a miracle happens, all is lost.”

The king summoned Count Ferrod and Ferrod’s close friend Asimov, the captain of the armies, who also had come in from the field. Asimov had not been in the battle, but he listened as Alcindor described it.

“We
must
find a way to fight this terrible creature,” the king said.

“There is no way, if what Alcindor says is true,” Ferrod said quickly. “A beast that cannot be killed with arrows is beyond us.”

“I fear Count Ferrod is right,” the captain put in. “We can only surrender and make terms.”

“Never!” the king cried.

The argument became heated, but at the end King Alquin bowed his head in thought while everyone waited for his decision. Then the king looked up and said, “You are dismissed from your office, Asimov. The new captain will be Alcindor.”

Anger flashed in the captain’s eyes, and he began to protest. But the king said, “That is all. Alcindor, our fate lies in your hands.”

When Chief Thomor reported to Rondel what had happened in the battle, Rondel grunted. “So we did not win the victory. I am displeased.”

Thomor shrugged. “It was just the first attempt. We destroyed at least fifty of them, and we lost only six men ourselves. They cannot keep losing troops like that.”

“But the victory must be won quicker than this. Find some way to protect the men riding the beast. And I want the next attack made as soon as possible.”

“There will be no stopping the beast, Rondel. And once we break through the pass and the beast is loosed among the Madrians, my men will pour through like a flood.”

“Make it soon,” Rondel said. “The Dark Lord is impatient.”