A week after Troop-Lieutenant Nikos had frantically galloped his troop back to camp, three men squatted around a small fire near the mouth of a large cavern, chewing tough meat and tougher bread and washing down their fare with long drafts from a goatskin of resinous wine.
Tall, spare, and big-boned, Chief Hwahlt Hohlt’s brown hair and beard showed streaks of gray and nothing else betrayed his years, for he was possessed of a strength and endurance equal to that of his co-commanders.
He spoke: “Much as I hated to see thet good shine go down the gullets of them bastards, she worked like a charm—I’ll say thet.”
“Trust to an Ehleenoee to think of stealth and poison, rather than open battle and honest steel,” growled Pawl Vawn of Vawn through a mouthful of mutton. But the twinkle in his hazel eyes revealed his words as banter, not insult.
Tomos Gonsalos took a swig of wine and grinned. “I thank both of you ratty-looking types for the compliments, if such they were. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what you barbarians really mean.”
“But what good did it do God-Milo to feed those troopers poisoned whisky?” put in the Vawn quizzically. “With their two miserable watchers downed, we could as easily have shafted most of them, then ridden in and sabered the rest. They’d have been just as dead.”
Tomos questioned in answer. “Did you notice how Zastros narrowed his columns and stopped all patroling within leagues of that village, Pawl? Disease has killed more soldiers than all the steel ever forged, and they fear it in proportion.
“As to how this little scheme has aided King Zenos and High-Lord Milo,” he said, weighing the wineskin for a moment, “look you, Pawl.” And then he shot a thin stream of wine into the fire.
“Now, what would happen were I to now remove the nozzle from the mouth of the skin?”
Hwahlt answered, “All our wine would be in the fire and you’d find my knife blade kinda hard to digest.”
Tomos ignored the mountaineer and continued. “My King and your High-Lord need time, and the way we gave them some little time is this: the swamps extend far inland, near to that village, and Zastros is not fool enough to try to march troops and horsemen and haul wagons through the fens; therefore, it would appear that—as he needs to maintain a wide front to achieve any kind of speed of march—he originally intended to march both on the narrow strip of flatlands and in the foothills. But now that his troops are afraid that pestilence stalks those foothills . . . well,” he said, squirting another stream of wine into the fire, “we’ve put a nozzle on his army just like the nozzle on this skin. So there’s a stream going north, instead of a flood. Thus do we buy time for our lords.”
To the east, across the width of that narrow strip of flatlands, Benee poled his flat-bottomed boat through the ways known only to his fellow swampfolk. His skinny body was nearly nude and he was smeared from head to foot with mud. He beached his boat with a barely audible crunch on a tiny sand pit at the foot of a high, grassy bank. Taking a small, wooden cylinder from the bottom of the boat, he entered the grass and slithered up the slope as silently as a cottonmouth … and every bit as deadly.
Just below the rim, he stretched out on. his back and fitted the sections of his blowpipe together, then carefully inserted a two-inch dart, its needlepoint smeared with a viscous substance.
Gingerly, he parted the small bushes clinging to the edge of the slope and his keen eyes judged the distance between him and the nearest spearman, who slowly paced to and fro, his frequent yawns loud to Benee’s ears. No, the distance was just too far for a sure hit on vulnerable flesh, and blowdarts could seldom pierce cloth, much less armor.
Up . . . and over the edge, a shadow among the shadows. Flat as the earth itself, his supple body conformed to every hump or hollow of the ground it covered. Two yards closer . . . five yards, and Benee could pick out a movement of the sentry’s arm, accompanied by rasp of clothing and muttered curse as he scratched himself.