"Oh? How gloomy?"

"It's called 'the last stand,' Althalus, and things don't get much gloomier than that." He looked around. "Where's Salkan? He knows the country around here better than I do."

"What are we looking for, Sergeant?" Albron asked.

"A steep hill, my Chief. Gebhel can fortify the top of the hill and hold the enemy off for quite some time-at least until Kreuter gets here. Khnom's doors won't be of any use, because Gebhel's men are going to be looking out in all directions, so there won't be a backside to attack them from."

"Couldn't they just go around Gebhel and march on Keiwon?"

"That wouldn't be a good idea, my Chief. Pekhal and Gelta aren't very bright, but I don't think even they're stupid enough to leave an Arum army behind them."

"How long do you think Gebhel could hold out in that kind of situation?" Althalus asked.

Khalor shrugged. "A week, at least. Possibly even as long as two-if he's got enough food and water."

"That might be long enough," Althalus mused. "It all depends on whether Emmy can fix Eliar's eyes-and how long it'll take her. Do you think Gebhel can hold out today?"

Khalor nodded. "Since he'll be expecting Pekhal, he'll be able to take steps. He'll still be in his trench when the sun goes down. Then, once it's dark, we'll pull him out and take him to some nice steep hill. The war's not over yet, Althalus. Actually, it's just barely started."

"Gebhel knows what he's doing," Sergeant Khalor told Althalus, Bheid, and Chief Albron as the first faint hints of dawn stained the eastern sky. "We'll be at a bit of a disadvantage without Leitha, but we know enough about the enemy's plans to get by-at least for today."

"And tomorrow?" Albron asked pointedly.

"That'll depend on just how steep a hill Althalus and I can find-and how far to the rear it is."

Gher and Salkan came up the slope from the trenches in the predawn darkness.

"Gher says you wanted to see me, General Khalor," the shepherd said.

"Right," Khalor replied. "You know the country around here fairly well, don't you?"

"I herd sheep in this part of Wekti, General, so I know every bush and rock by its first name."

"Good. I need a large, very steep hill, Salkan-something right on the verge of being a mountain peak. Is there anything at all like that in the immediate vicinity?"

Salkan frowned. "Daiwer's Tower's a few miles south of here, and it sort of fits that description."

"Who's Daiwer?" Bheid asked.

"He was a crazy hermit who lived around here a few hundred years ago, your Reverence. I'm told that he believed that he was the only man in the world who truly loved God, and that everybody else was an agent of evil. When he first saw that tower, he was certain that God had made it especially for him. It sticks up out of the surrounding pasture land for about a thousand feet, and the walls of it are straight up and down."

"How did he get up there, then?" Khalor asked.

"There's a steep rock slide on the south side of the tower, General. It's hard going, but I've been to the top myself. Anyway, Daiwer climbed up there and lived in a cave up at the top. I understand that he used to roll boulders down the slide anytime anybody tried to get up there. I guess he really didn't want company."

"There almost has to be water up there, then," Khalor mused thoughtfully.

"Oh, yes, General Khalor. There's a spring in the back of the cave. I don't know how the water finds its way up there, but it's clear and sweet and cold."

"Just a trickle?" Khalor pressed.

"No, sir. It's more like a fountain."

"What do you think, Khalor?" Althalus asked.

"It sounds very close to what I'm looking for," Khalor replied. "Why don't we go have a look at it?"

"I think we should. Gebhel's men have rounded up a few stray Ansu horses. Why don't you borrow three of them, and then Salkan can take us there so we can look it over."

The three of them reined in their horses as they crested a hill not long after dawn and saw a sheer-sided tower jutting up out of the prairie.

"How did something like that crop up in the middle of all this grassland?" Sergeant Khalor demanded in absolute bafflement as he stared at the peak. "It looks almost like a mountain that went astray."

"I don't think 'how' makes that much difference, Sergeant," Althalus said. "Will it suit our purposes?"

"If we can get to the top, it'll be perfect," Khalor declared. "If Gebhel's got enough food and water, he can hold that place for years."

"Not while I'm the one who's paying Chief Gweti so much a day for his army, he won't. Let's go take a look at this rock slide. Salkan's part goat, I think, and just because he can scramble up the slide, there's no real guarantee that anybody else can."

The three of them returned to the trenches about midday. "If God has teeth, that's probably what one of them looks like, Gebhel," Khalor told the bald and bearded Gweti man. "It juts up out of that grassland for a good thousand feet."

"Steep slope?" Gebhel asked.

"I'd hardly call it a slope, Sergeant Gebhel," Althalus said. "The main tower's straight up and down. There's rubble down at the bottom that sort of slants down to the prairie, and that slope's about as steep as anything you'd care to climb. Once you get to the tower itself, nothing but a fly could go up."

"If I can't get my men to the top, what good's it going to be?" Gebhel demanded irritably.

"Oh, there's a way to get up there," Salkan told him. "It looks like part of the peak broke away, so there's a rock slide where that part used to be. It's a lot steeper than the slopes at the bottom, and it isn't very wide, but we managed to scramble up to the top. You can see for miles from up there."

"There has to be something wrong with it," Gebhel said. "I've never yet found anything that was perfect."

"It hasn't got a roof, Sergeant," Althalus said, "so I suppose you might get rained on every so often. I can make sure you've got food and water, but I won't be able to provide camp followers."

"See?" Gebhel said to Khalor. "I knew there was something wrong with the whole idea."

"What's been happening here while we were gone?" Khalor asked in a more serious tone.

"That sow's been wasting her cavalry all morning," Gebhel replied, shrugging.

"No noise or anything from behind your trenches yet?"

"Nothing. I think your spies were blowing smoke in your ears, Khalor. We haven't seen a sign of anything at all moving around behind our trenches-unless you're expecting a surprise attack by rabbits."

"Just keep your reserve forces handy and out of sight, Gebhel," Khalor told him. "You will be attacked from the rear by infantry before the sun goes down."

Gebhel shrugged. "If you say so," he said.

"Have you started making plans for your withdrawal from the trenches yet?"

"Who needs a plan to cut and run? As soon as it gets dark this evening, I'll pull my men out of the trenches and go south. Do you want to do me a favor?"

"All you have to do is ask, Gebhel."

"Lend me that young redhead of yours. I want to put a couple of companies of my men on top of God's tooth out there. My people are going to be moving in the dark, and a few bonfires on top of that peak should show them where they're supposed to go."

"That makes sense, I guess."

"Sergeant Gebhel!" one of the men in the trench called. "Here they come again!"

"If you'll excuse me, Khalor, I've got this little war on my hands right now," Gebhel said sourly.

"Of course," Khalor agreed. "Have a nice day, hear?"

"In your ear, Khalor."

"It's Dweia's idea," Althalus lied to Khalor and Albron as the three of them lay concealed in the tall grass not far from the tent. Actually, he hadn't heard so much as a peep from Dweia for the past few hours.

"Sheep?" Albron said incredulously. "I don't quite get the point, Althalus."

"They'll keep Koman from finding out about the men Gebhel's got hidden on the backside of this hill, Chief Albron," Althalus explained. "There's nothing in this world quite as brainless as a sheep, and they bleat all the time. When you get right down to it, a herd of sheep's even better than adding up fractions when you're trying to keep a mind leech like Koman away."

"I'm not going to argue with her about it," Khalor said. "If Dweia says sheep, then sheep it is. Do you think we'll get much warning when Pekhal conies running out through Khnom's doors behind the trenches?"

"Probably not very much."

"Gebhel's made some preparations, Sergeant," Chief Albron assured Khalor. "The backside of his trench line's not quite as unprotected as it might appear."

"Gebhel's an expert at that," Khalor agreed. "It's not going to take too much in the way of obstacles to ruin Pekhal's day. Gebhel's reserves are going to be all over him before his men can go fifty feet." Khalor raised his head to look across the valley beyond Gebhel's trenches. "Here comes the hag again," he said.

The Queen of Night appeared in the center of the army of Ansus lining the far ridge, and the weapon she was brandishing appeared to be that same stone ax that had quite nearly killed Eliar. She paused briefly, looking around to be sure her mounted men were in place, and then she swept her crude, antique weapon forward to point it at Gebhel's trenches. "Charge!" she shrieked. "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Her army roared its response and spilled down the slope like an unleashed wave, howling and slashing at the air about them with their swords.

Then Althalus caught a faint flicker of darkness on the hillside behind Gebhel's trenches, almost as if a cloud had briefly passed before the sun.

And then, howling triumphantly, Pekhal burst out of nowhere with a savage army of foot soldiers rushing out of the emptiness behind him. "Kill them all!" Pekhal roared.

Khalor calmly identified the attacking army. "Regwos." Then he rose to his feet and made a long, sweeping motion with his arm to command Gebhel's hidden reserves to attack.

Pekhal and his foot soldiers charged toward the apparently undefended backside of the trench, but at the last possible moment, a forest of slanted, sharp-pointed stakes snapped up out of a thin layer of concealing dirt to face them.

"That thief!" Khalor exclaimed.

"Who's a thief?" Albron demanded.

"Gebhel. That's the exact same trick I used on him during a war in Perquaine a few years ago."

The sheer weight of Pekhal's army crushed his front ranks forward to impale them on the stakes, and then as the charge faltered, Gebhel's bowmen rose up in the trench to deliver a sheet of arrows directly into the faces of the attacking army.

The Regwos infantry recoiled, and then Gebhel's reserves came charging over the hilltop behind them.

The panic-stricken sheep that had effectively concealed that reserve army from Koman complicated the battle behind the trenches quite a bit. Driven ahead of Gebhel's reserves, they broke over the top of the hill like some huge, white wave and ran blindly down the slope to engulf Pekhal's forces.

"Now that's something you don't see very often," Sergeant Khalor observed. "I can't even remember the last time I saw a herd of sheep attack somebody's army."

"It's all the rage now, Sergeant," Althalus said. "Fighting sheep are very fashionable this season." He felt a certain disappointment even as he said it. The herd of sheep had been entirely his own idea, but he'd credited it to Dweia to persuade his Arum friends to go along with him. The whole idea had turned out to be even better than he'd thought it might be, but there was no way he could take any credit for it.

It just wasn't fair.

Gebhel's reserves swept down the slope behind the stampeding sheep that had hidden them from Koman, and fell upon Pekhal's disorganized force.

The brutelike Pekhal stood gaping in absolute astonishment as terrified sheep scrambled over his men and Gebhel's force came along behind their wooly allies, slaughtering every Regwos in sight.

The outcome was never really in doubt, and after a long animal-like howl of frustration, Pekhal turned, spouting curses like axe, erupting volcano, and ran back through Khnom's door to make good his escape, leaving his army to its inevitable fate.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

Now that's what I'd call a real hill!" Sergeant Gebhel said in an awed tone when they crested a knoll and saw Daiwer's Tower jutting up out of the grassland in the pale moonlight. "Where's that rock slide you mentioned, Khalor?"

"It's around on the other side," Khalor told him. "We might have to set up a defensive perimeter around the base of it, though. You've got a lot of men, and the slide's not very wide."

"That's the way we want it, Khalor. I don't want a broad highway leading up to my position. It won't take too long for my men to reach the top, though. My advance party was supposed to string ropes up the slide, and the rear guard I left in the trenches should be able to conceal the fact that we've packed up and left. After what we did to the Ansus yesterday, I'm sure they won't be expecting our withdrawal. We chewed up most of their infantry behind my trenches, and bit big pieces out of their cavalry. A retreat right after a victory's very unusual. They might not even realize that we've pulled out until tomorrow, and it's going to take them a while to bring in reinforcements. I hate to admit it, Khalor, but this notion of yours is strategically sound."

"I'm glad you approve."

"I didn't say I approved. All I said was that it's an interesting strategic innovation."

"Do you think there's any chance that they'll just circle around us and march on Keiwon?" Bheid asked as they started down the knoll toward the tower.

"Anything's possible in a war, I suppose," Gebhel said, "but it wouldn't be very likely. Only an idiot moves on and leaves an unfriendly army behind him. If that's the way they want to do it, though, it's all right with me. We've got reinforcements on the way, so all we really need is time. Kreuter's cavalry should be here in a few days, and old Chief Delur's people shouldn't be far behind. I'm going to just sit tight on top of that silly tower and wait for them. If the enemy takes Keiwon, we'll just take it back after our reinforcements arrive."

"Won't that more or less demolish the entire city?"

"Cities are overrated anyway. It's not my city, so I won't lose too much sleep if it gets burned to the ground. I've been burning cities for fun and profit since I was a boy." He looked at Khalor then. "What about food and water?"