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spiritual comfort to the injured and frightened as his locum tenens, while he led a small scout party into the
forest.
But my lord found another task for me. He and I and an esquire rode out under a white banner
toward the Wersgor camp. We assumed the foe would have wit enough to understand our meaning, even
if they did not use the same truce signal. And thus it was. Huruga himself drove out in an open car to
meet us. His blue jowls looked shrunken, and his hands trembled.
"I call upon you to yield," said the baron. "Stop forcing me to destroy your poor benighted
commoners. I pledge you'll all be treated fairly and allowed to write home for ransom money."
"I, yield to a barbarian like you?" croaked the Wersgor. Just because you have some ... some
confounded detection-proof cannon-no!" He paused. "But to get rid of you, I'll allow you to leave in the
spaceships you've seized."
"Sire. I gasped when I had translated this, "have we indeed won escape?"
"Hardly," Sir Roger answered. "We can't find our way back, remember; and as yet, we dare not ask
for a skilled navigator to help us, or we'd reveal our weakness and be attacked again. Even if we did
somehow win home, 'twould still leave this nest of devils free to plot a renewed assault on England. Nay,
I fear that he who mounts a bear cannot soon dismount."
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So with a heavy heart, I told the blue noble that we had come for more than some of his shoddy,
oldfashioned spaceships, and if he did not surrender we would be forced to devastate his land. Huruga
snarled for reply and drove back.
We also returned. Presently Red John Hameward came from the forest with Father Simon's party,
which he had encountered on his way to our camp.
"We flew to that Stularax castle openly, sire," he related. "We saw other sky-boats, but none
challenged us, taking us for a simple ship o' their own. Still, we knew no fortress sentries'd let us land
without some questions. So we put down in some woods, a few miles from the keep. We set up our
trebuchet and put one o' those bursting shells in't. Sir Owain's idea was to lob a few to shake up their
outer defenses. Then we'd slip closer afoot, leaving a crew to fire some more shells when we was near
and break down their walls. We expected the garrison'd be scurrying about in search of our engine, so
we could slip in, kill whatever guards were left behind, lift what we could carry from their arsenal, and
return to our boat."
At this point, since it is no longer used, I had best explain the trebuchet. It was the simplest but in
many ways the most effective siege engine. In principle it was only a great lever, freely swinging on some
fulcrum. A very long arm ended in a bucket for the missile, while the short arm bore a stone weight, often
of several tons. This latter was raised by pulleys or a winch, while the bucket was loaded. Then the
weight was released, and in falling it swung the long arm through a mighty arc.
"I didn't think much o' those shells we had," Red
John went on. "Why, the things didn't weigh no more'n five pounds. We'd trouble rigging the trebuchet to
cast em only those few miles. And what could they do, I wondered, but burst with a pop? I've seen
trebuchets used proper, laying siege to French cities. We'd throw boulders of a ton or two, or sometimes
dead horses, over the walls. But, well, orders was orders. So I myself cocked the little shell like I'd been
told how to, and we let fly. Whoom! The world blew up, like. I had to admit this was even better to
throw nor a dead horse.
"Well, through the magnifying screens we could see the castle was pretty much flattened. No use
raiding it now. We lobbed a few more shells to make sure it were reduced proper. Nothing there now
but a big glassy pit. Sir Owain reckoned as we was carrying a weapon more useful nor any which we
could o' lifted, and I'd say he were right. So we landed in the woods some miles hence and dragged the
trebuchet forth and set it up again. That's what took us so long, m' lord. When Sir Owain had seen from
the air what was happening about that time, we fired a shell just to scare the enemy a bit. Now we're
ready to pound 'em as much as you wish, sire."
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"But the boat?" asked Sir Roger. "The foe have metal-sniffers. That's why they haven't found your
trebuchet in the forest: it s made of wood. But surely they could discover your flying boat, wherever
you've hid it."
"Oh, that, sire." Red John grinned. "Sir Owain's got our boat flitting up there 'mongst t'others. Who's
to tell the difference in yon swarm?"
Sir Roger whooped laughter. "You missed a glorious fight," he said, "but you can light the balefire.
Go back and tell your men to start shelling the enemy camp."
We withdrew underground at the agreed-on moment, as shown on captured Wersgor timepieces.
Even so, we felt the earth shudder, and heard the dull roaring, as their ground installations and most of
their ground machines were destroyed. A single shot was enough. The survivors thereof stormed in blind
terror aboard one of the transport ships, abandoning much perfectly unharmed equipment. The lesser
sky-craft were even quicker to vanish, like blown sea scud. As the slow sunset began to burn in that
direction we had wistfully named the west, England's leopards flew above England's victory.
Chapter XJV
Sir Owain landed like some hero of a chanson come to earth. His exploits had not required much effort
of him. While buzzing around in the middle of the Wersgor air fleet, he had even heated water over a
brazier and shaved. Lithely now he walked, head erect, mailcoat shining, red cloak aflutter in the wind.
Sir Roger met him near the knightly tents, battered, filthy, reeking, clotted with blood. His voice was
hoarse from shouting. "My compliments, Sir Owain, on a most gallant action."
The younger man swept him a bow-and changed it most subtly to Lady Catherine's, as she emerged
from our cheering thron~. "I could have done no less," murmured Sir Owain, 'with a bowstring about my
heart."
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The color mounted to her face. Sir Roger's eyes flickered from one to another. Indeed, they made a
fair couple. I saw his hands clench on the haft of his nicked and blunted sword.
"Go to your tent, madame," he told his wife.
"There is still work to do among the wounded, sire," she answered.
"You'll work for anyone but your own husband and children, eh?" Sir Roger made an effort to sneer,
but his lip was puffy where a pellet had glanced off the visor of his helmet. "Go to your tent, I say."
Sir Owain looked shocked. "Those are not words to address a gentlewoman with, sire," he
protested.
"One of your plinking roundels were better?" grunted Sir Roger. "Or a whisper, to arrange an
assignation?"
Lady Catherine grew quite pale. She took a long breath before words came. Silence fell upon those
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