‘You did give your men down on the slope enough of that netting to protect them, didn’t you?’
‘We gave them netting, Dahlaine, but I don’t think they’ll really need it. So far as we’ve been able to determine, the bug-bats never bite anybody. Their job seems to involve watching us and then carrying what they’ve seen back to the Vlagh.’
‘You’re wrong, Veltan. Once the actual fighting starts, all of the servants of the Vlagh turn belligerent. Right now, those fish-nets are the only thing that’s keeping your soldiers alive.’
Longbow, however, had come up with an alternative. ‘Night vision would be absolutely necessary for a creature of any kind to have if it was watching other creatures after the sun goes down, wouldn’t it?’ he asked Veltan’s older brother.
‘I’m sure it would,’ Dahlaine agreed.
‘And wouldn’t a very bright light almost blind a creature that never comes out of its hiding place until after darkness sets in?’
Dahlaine blinked, and then he suddenly burst out laughing. ‘Don’t go away, Longbow,’ he chortled. ‘I’ll be right back.’
There was a sudden flash of light and crack of thunder and Dahlaine was gone.
Moments later, there came another flash and a sharp crack. Dahlaine had returned, and he was holding a small glowing ball in his left hand. ‘Don’t look at her too closely, friends,’ he cautioned. ‘That’s very bad for your eyes.’ Then he opened his hand, and the small object rose up into the air, glowing brighter and brighter as it moved upward. Then, when it was perhaps a quarter of a mile above Gunda’s wall, it stopped, and the light emanating from it grew so intense that it flooded the wall and the slope leading down to the Wasteland as if noon had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
The bat-bugs in the vicinity shrieked in agony, and immediately fled from the light.
‘What in the world is that little thing?’ Gunda asked in an awed voice.
‘Just one of my pets,’ Dahlaine replied. ‘If she were larger, we’d probably call her a sun.’
2
At first light the following morning, Longbow climbed down the rope ladder on the outer side of Gunda’s black wall and went down the slope, easily leaping over the rough-stone barricades Padan’s men had erected. Given the agility of the smaller servants of the Vlagh they’d encountered back in the ravine, it seemed to Longbow that the barricades might be more effective if they were higher, but he decided not to make an issue of it.
His primary reason for this early visit to the outermost barricade was to speak with the men who’d actually encountered the Vlagh’s most recent experiments.
He found Brigadier Danal and Sub-Commander Andar, garbed in the standard Trogite black leather and bright-gleaming iron, talking quietly together near the center of the barricade.
‘You’re up early,’ Danal said as Longbow joined them. ‘Is there something afoot?’
‘Not yet,’ Longbow replied. ‘I haven’t seen any of the newer creatures up close, so I thought that I should talk with some people who’d actually encountered them. Did you notice any significant differences?’
‘They’re much more clumsy than the ones we fought back in the ravine were,’ Danal said. ‘Sometimes it almost looks like they’re stumbling over their own feet.’
Longbow nodded. ‘That’s not uncommon,’ he replied. ‘If I remember correctly, when I was still growing I had the same problem. If your body grows so fast that your mind can’t adjust to the new size, you’ll probably trip over every blade of grass you come across. Were there any of the ones with turtle-shells involved in yesterday’s attack?’
‘None that I saw,’ Sub-Commander Andar replied in his deep, rumbling voice. ‘Did you happen to see any, Danal?’
‘No,’ Danal replied, ‘and I think I’d rather keep it that way, too. A poison-fanged enemy is bad enough, but a poisonous one with armor added might just be a lot worse.’
‘Did Keselo mention his notion of falling back to the next breast-works after nightfall?’ Longbow asked them.
Andar nodded. ‘It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think it’ll work very well unless somebody can come up with a way to put out that bright light hanging over this slope. We’ll need darkness to hide what we’re doing.’
‘Smoke might work,’ Danal suggested.
‘Only if you can find enough firewood,’ Andar disagreed.
‘We won’t have to come up with anything until this evening,’ Longbow told them. ‘How are your archers doing?’
‘They’re better than they were before,’ Danal replied. ‘They aren’t as good as your people are yet, but they seem to be able to hit what they’re aiming at about half the time.’
‘They’re probably letting their arrows fly too soon,’ Longbow advised. ‘You might want to lay out a line of some sort - twenty or thirty feet out to the front. Then tell them not to release any arrows until the enemy crosses that line.’
‘We’ll give it a try,’ Andar rumbled.
Longbow drifted off to one side, and then he sent a silent thought out to Zelana.
‘Was there something?’ she asked in a lofty sounding voice that she knew very well irritated him.
‘Your brother’s little sun is very nice, Zelana,’ he said, ‘but if the men out here are going to try Keselo’s deception, they’ll need darkness to conceal what they’re doing.’
‘If Dahlaine puts his little sun away, the bats will probably come back out again, Longbow,’ she reminded him. She paused. ‘Wouldn’t fog conceal them almost as well as darkness?’ she asked. ‘Dahlaine’s little toy sun would still keep the bats away, and the fog would conceal the movements of Narasan’s forces from the other servants of the Vlagh.’
‘I hadn’t even considered fog,’ Longbow admitted, ‘probably because fog’s very rare in the mountains at this time of year. Could you really bring in a fog-bank along about sunset today?’
‘Of course I can, Longbow. You should know that by now.’ She paused. ‘It’ll cost you another kiss-kiss, though.’
Longbow was almost certain that Zelana’s imitation of Eleria’s favorite expression was nothing more than a form of teasing, but then again . . . ?
As the sun rose, the inhuman roar from out in the Wasteland announced the beginning of the second day of the war in the South. Longbow moved along behind the breast-works advising the marginally trained Trogite archers to wait until the enemy force was almost on top of them before they loosed their arrows.