“Sorry, My Lord,” the archer captain muttered. “Shouldn’t have said it. But not even a Scot would—”
He clamped his jaw again, and Sir George gave him a stern look that was only slightly flawed by the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. That small lip twitch emboldened Grayhame, and his gray-green eyes glinted for just a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders apologetically and returned his attention to the Commander.
” . . . and so we will spend several more of your weeks here,” the demon-jester was saying. “The craven curs you have whipped to their kennels will offer no threat,” he seemed completely oblivious to how foolish his rhetoric sounded to human ears delivered in his piping, emotionless voice, “and you and your mates and children will have that time to enjoy the sunlight and fresh air you so treasure. Go now. Return to your families, secure in the knowledge that you are valued and treasured by our guild.”
Sir George started to follow his men out, but a gesture from the Commander stopped him. Grayhame and Maynton paused as well, their eyes meeting Sir George’s questioningly, but a tiny shake of his head sent them on after the others. He watched them leave, then turned to his master.
“Yes, Commander?”
“Not all of this planet’s primitives have been sufficiently cowed by your defeat of the local clans,” the Commander said. “They appear to grasp that their local colleagues’ forces have been utterly destroyed, but they do not seem to believe the same could be done to their own. Apparently they feel that those you have defeated were poorly led and motivated—unlike, of course, their own warriors. While cautious, they have not yet accepted that they have no choice but to do as we bid them or be destroyed in their separate turns.”
He paused, his three-eyed gaze fixed on Sir George’s face, and the human tried to hide his dismay. Not from concern over what might happen to his own men, but because the thought of butchering still more of the local not-men for the benefit of the Commander’s guild sickened him.
“I see,” he said at last. “Will it be necessary for us to destroy their forces in the field, as well?”
“It may,” the Commander replied in that emotionless voice, “but I hope to avoid that. We would be forced to move the ship in order to transport your troops into reach of their warriors. That would be inconvenient. Worse, it might actually encourage them to resist. Such primitive species have exhibited similar behavior in the past, particularly when they believe their numbers are greatly superior. My own analysis suggests that moving the ship from point to point, thus emphasizing the fact that we have but one of it and but a limited number of you English, might encourage some among them to overestimate their ability to resist us. In the end, of course, they would be proven wrong, but teaching them that lesson might require us to spend much longer on this single world than my superiors would like.”
“I see,” Sir George repeated, and this time he truly did. Before he had fallen into the hands of the Commander’s Guild, he, too, had sometimes found himself looking over his shoulder at superiors who insisted that he accomplish his tasks with near-impossible speed. Not that understanding the Commander’s quandary woke any particular sympathy within him.
“No doubt you do,” the Commander replied. “I hope, however, to avoid that necessity by demonstrating their inferiority to them. Accordingly, I have summoned all of the principal chieftains from within reasonable travel distance from our current location. They will begin arriving within the next two local days, and all should be here within no more than twelve. While your bows are clumsy and primitive in the extreme, the locals have nothing which can compare to them in range and rate of fire. When the chieftains arrive, you will demonstrate this fact to them, and the leaders of the clans you have already defeated will explain to them how your weapons allowed you to annihilate their own troops. With this evidence of their inferiority before them and demonstrated before their own eyes, they should be forced to admit that they cannot, in fact, withstand you in open combat and so have no choice but to accept my terms.”