“I really think you should take this up with Commander Narasan, sir,” Keselo protested. “I’m not really experienced enough to put this information to good use.”

“I’m sorry, young man,” Dahlaine said firmly. “Somebody in each of our hired armies needs to know what’s really happening. That person should be close enough to the army commander to persuade him to do what needs to be done. Narasan listens to you, and Hook-Beak listens to Rabbit.”

“Why do I always get saddled with these chores?” Rabbit complained.

“Because you’re quick, clever, and very inventive,” Zelana told him, “and because Longbow and Eleria both like you. That might become important later on. Quit sniveling, Bunny. Just smile and do as you’re told.”

“I wish all you people would get off the ‘Bunny’ business.”

“Eleria calls you Bunny all the time,” Lillabeth said. “It’s a sign of her affection.”

“If you people are going to keep on babbling like this, take it on outside,” Zelana’s older sister Aracia told them pointedly. “If you happen to interrupt Eleria’s dream, all our plans are going to fly out the window.”

“We’re almost done, Aracia,” Dahlaine told her. He turned back to Rabbit and Keselo. “This is only the first war,” he told them. “There’ll be three more, and your people will be involved in all of them. I’ve observed Sorgan and Narasan, and I’m quite certain that they’ll stay here and fight if we offer them more gold. We’ll also be bringing in the Malavi horsemen and the woman-warriors from the Isle of Akalla to join us in our struggle. Eventually, we’ll probably have to march our armies into the Wasteland and deal with That-Called-the-Vlagh permanently. Now the two of you know what’s really happening here. You’re both clever enough to lead your chieftains, or whatever you want to call them, down the proper path. We’ll be close enough to keep you advised if the Dreamers are about to unleash any other natural disasters, so you’ll be able to warn your leaders.”

“Sorgan and Narasan are coming along the beach,” Zelana warned them. “Rabbit, you and Keselo had better stay here. The rest of you go on back in the cave. Let’s not alert them to what’s really happening.”

Her brothers and sister took the children back toward the passageway where Zelana kept her gold, and a moment or two later, Sorgan and Narasan entered, along with Ox, Ham-Hand, Gunda, Jalkan, and Padan. Longbow, the two chiefs, and Red-Beard weren’t far behind them, and they all had serious, businesslike looks on their faces.

“That wind out there is really gusting,” Sorgan reported, “and it’s as warm as midsummer. Chief White-Braid here tells us that the river’s going to start to rise before morning, and it’ll run out of its banks by noon. He’s fairly sure that dike his people built will protect the village. We’ve talked it over, and we all agree that it might be best if all of us outlanders went back on board our ships out in the bay and sat out the flood there. That way we won’t get scattered, and we’ll be able to see when the flood begins to subside. Then we’ll come back ashore and move on up the ravine.”

“The plan seems sound, Hook-Beak,” Zelana approved. “I’ll keep Rabbit and Keselo here, just in case I need to send messages out to you. The Dhralls will be up on the rim, so they’ll be able to keep an eye on the river. When it returns to its banks, they’ll sound their horns again, and Rabbit and Keselo can pass the word on to you gentlemen out there in the bay.”

“This is turning out even better than I’d hoped,” Narasan said. “This annual spring flood’s likely to do about half of our job for us.”

“We’ll see,” Sorgan replied cautiously. “It’s all going to hinge on whether or not the invaders stay down at the bottom of the ravine. If they recognize the danger and make a run for higher ground, we’ll have to face their whole poison-fanged army, and we might be just a bit shorthanded for that.”

6

The warm wind was still coming in from the sea when the sun rose the next morning, and Rabbit and Keselo climbed the hill above the cave mouth to keep an eye on the river.

“I don’t really see all that much difference, do you?” the young Trogite said.

“It’ll need to do a lot better than that if it’s going to do our job for us,” Rabbit agreed. Then he looked curiously at Keselo. “It’s probably none of my business, but what made you decide to take up soldiering? Is the pay really all that good?”

Keselo shrugged. “Not really, but we eat regularly, and we don’t have to sleep in the street. I wasn’t really interested in politics or buying and selling, so my father bought me a commission in Commander Narasan’s army.”

“What’s a commission?” Rabbit asked.

“I’m an officer instead of an ordinary soldier. I’m supposed to tell the ordinary soldiers what to do—‘dig a ditch’; ‘build a wall’; ‘kill those people over there’—things like that.”

“Ah,” Rabbit said. “You’d be sort of like Ox and Ham-Hand, then. They’re the first and second mates on board the Seagull. The cap’n tells them what he wants done, and then they tell us ordinary seamen to do it and hurry. It sounds to me like being a soldier isn’t all that much different from being a sailor. We all take orders, don’t we?”

“I suppose I hadn’t really thought of it that way,” Keselo admitted. “How did you Maags get involved in this war?”

“Lady Zelana took the cap’n into the back of her cave and showed him about ten tons of gold bricks. Then the cap’n took a hundred or so of the bricks back to Maag and showed them to just about everybody who owned a ship over there. Every Maag sea cap’n loves the sight of gold, so we didn’t have too much trouble gathering up a fleet to come across and fight this war.”

Keselo smiled. “Veltan did much the same thing when he hired us. Of course, he had to find Commander Narasan first.”

“Oh? Was he lost?”

“Not really. We all knew where he was, but he didn’t want to be a soldier anymore. We’d been involved in a war that hadn’t worked out very well, and Commander Narasan blamed himself. He threw his uniform away and set up shop as a beggar. The army was right on the verge of falling apart after he left. We tried everything we could think of to persuade him to come back, but he wouldn’t listen to us. Then Veltan came along, talked to him for a little while, and Commander Narasan came back home. It could have been the promise of gold that persuaded him, but I think it might have been something a little more than that. For some reason, it’s awfully hard to say no to someone in Veltan’s family.”