171. Preparation and Confrontation

 

 171. Preparation and Confrontation

My only preparation for war was having watched a pretty good performance of Shakespeare’s Henry V. And what I most remembered was that at the beginning someone, Henry himself maybe, said that war must not be entered into lightly. But I only had to look about me to see how much inside I had stepped.

Oh, the bustle and uproar at our camp, set up a few miles away from the forest bluebells. There they were, congregated before me, the constituents of my army. Those that had suits of armour were already wearing them. There was a lot of colour, for everything was very mediaeval. Flags and banners and even flowery wreaths there were, and everything looking more like a festive tournament than like a war to be. My brothers and sisters and their fay friends had brought their own flying steeds, winged horses, streamlined dragons, even flying felines, from large cats to young lions. Others had made an arrangement with some of the birds and bats and other winged creatures. The birds that did not have riders were making ready to carry jugs and buckets full of the antidote with their beaks, drop them where convenient and come back for more. Led by my sisters Thistle and Heather, a band of kitchen fairies who delighted in cooking and in chemistry were brewing enormous batches of Thymian’s antidote in huge metal barrels and tanks. The green witches of Minced Forest were doing the same using cauldrons of a size I had never seen them handle before. Some of this crew, having inhaled the vapours that rose from these cooking vessels declared that they were surely now inmune to the pipnosher poison and were inviting others to fly over the containers on their brooms and breathe the air there. “More!” everyone was demanding, “Make more!”

And speaking of more, more and more would-be combatants were showing up. There were male and female volunteers and even the most frightful-looking of children armed with slignshots and water bombs were there, dragging their parents to the event and hollering they were going to fight to the death. All these people had brought what they had at home to contribute to what they called the war effort. Jugs, mugs, pails, buckets, tubs, watering cans, teapots, anything and everything that could hold the antidote and have it poured from. They also brought all the sprayers they could find and water guns of all sizes. The most spectacular contribution came from the elves of Grindlebul, who, for reasons best known to themselves, are obsessed with manufacturing weapons and live in a fiercely fortified multiple castled complex hidden somewhere in the Grindlebul mountain chain. They provided two dozen cannons. Uncle Gentlerain was quick to warn me that we had to be very careful with these people and their guns or things might get out of hand. The cannons had to be set up where they would not target any of our own flying antidote spouters. The huge doses of antidote they could shoot had to go far beyond our people, so these would not be knocked down by a wave of the liquid or otherwise disturbed by friendly fire.

Of course, I didn't know him very well, but I thought Uncle Gentlerain was acting a little stangely. Every now and again he would pick up a fallen leaf or two, or a bit of earth, hold it for a second and let it drop slowly. He drew me aside and said gravely, “Now it is time for you to decide the limits of your theatrum belli.”

“You mean, the battlefield?”

“A battlefield is only part of a theatre of operation. You need at least one combat zone, or area of active fighting and a communications zone, which is an area for administration of the theatre of operation. Will you just advance from here to there in a straight line, spouting before you pass into enemy territory or do you mean to surround Sherbanawood and spray your potion from all directions at a time? You must also take into account that those that have cast their portions of antidote and wish to return to the tanks for a refill have to be able to do so without interfering with the advancing army. They must not block the way.”

“I thought we would fly in the direction of the sunflower fields, which are closer to where we are than the town and spray the antidote all over the place as we advanced. As we advance, the air should get cleaner and that way we can keep advancing till we pass the town and get to Petey’s palace which is practically at the other end of Sherbanania. I want to keep it simple.”

“Hm. That should make for an easy retreat should your enemies surprise you with something unexpected, at least if everyone turns round at the same time. Unless, of course, Viruta’s sons manage to surround you. Of course, if the antidote works, that won’t be likely to happen.”

“Alpin said he hasn’t detected anything unexpected.”

“Will you keep Alpin with you in the communications zone?”

“I? I will ride ahead of everyone. That’s what I have to do, don’t I?  After all, I am the person who got them into this mess.”

“You are indeed keeping this simple. Look hear, Arley, I’m sorry, but this isn’t just a barroom brawl. If you fall, and do it in front of everybody, this whole business may simply fold up instead of turning into a free-for-all. You can’t lead the parade, Arley.” 

“But… don’t I have to stand in front of my troops on one side of the battlefield and give a speech and then yell charge?”

“Certainly not! What do you think this is? The Day of St. Crispin and St. Crispinian? That’s October 25th. You can’t wait till then. I don’t care what the stars say. It won’t be propitious.”

“Henry V didn’t go first? In Shakespeare’s play it sounds…”

The face Uncle Gentlerain pulled cut me short.

“You’re not really thinking of this as a war you need to win, are you? You’re thinking you are going to go out there and spray the plants in your garden so the pests will fall off them. Worse yet. You think you are just going to go out there and purify the air with a bit of clean cotton air freshner. Let me remind you that whatever you want to call this operation you are going to wipe out thousands of the so-called sons of Pepperpot and Viruta. And this you had better be able to digest or they will do away with you.”

“I admit I am not comfortable about doing away with these creatures, who, no matter how unsavoury, are still living beings. Of course they were created with the only purpose of enslaving others and they don’t know how to do anything but spread poison or seem to be made in a way that they could learn to become better. You know, I spoke to Thymian about that. He says their mechanism is very simple. Eat when hungry and spit when angry and that is it. I also spoke about how you said he had mummified the pipnoshers he experimented with. And he says we are going to sweep all these creatures away twice. Once with the antidote and then he and the cleaning squad  will sweep all their remains into the enormous barrels and tanks where the antidote now is and which should be emptyish by then, and he will throw some other kind of liquid of his own into them and bury those in the dessert under the hot sand and…”

“You have an organized cleaning squad?”

“As part of a sanitary department. With Cobweb at the head of it. I’m not going to make a mess out there and just leave it there for someone else to tidy, am I? Thymian will speak with Anubis and …”

“You are going to bring Anubis into this? A foreign power?” Uncle Gentlerain rolled his eyes in disbelief.

“Thymian says he will be present anyway. This is about death. And that’s what Anubis is in charge of. I know I am going to kill these creatures, like you say. But it won’t matter so much if they can be resurrected, will it? I mean, it’s not like ending them forever. And if they have souls, which we don’t know, because Viruta may not have given them souls, only life, these will go off with Anubis to…”

“To Egyptian hell. That might not be a bad idea. I thought you said before that bringing them back to life couldn’t be a good idea. Bringing them back here, it isn’t.”

“Thymian says it depends. He has to study the problem for a while longer, all this is happening very fast. He wants to see if these creatures are redeemable and can be put to good use in some way. I’m sorry. I suppose I am more worried about exterminating a life form than about organizing my army. That’s not right for a warlord is it?” I said smiling feebly.

“Where are you going to put the apple? It can’t ride into the fray on your shoulder. It has to be in the communications area, telling you what it sees from there.”

Uncle Gentlerain kept organizing my war, always with suggestions in the shape of questions. He never gave any orders or told anyone what to do. I had to do that. And to decide. We finally agreed to divide the crowd we had gathered there into fifteen brigades, each made up of some five thousand antidote casters and under the command of someone popular and with a reputation for not being stupid. The cannons would fire really high first to clear the air some and then, once the brigades began to advance, they would fire lower than the air force flew. The brigades would spread out as the air was cleared, to avoid being surrounded by pipnoshers producing more sour air. Those returning for more antidote would have a suitably large corridor to pass through. And we organized a float of flying ambulances and rescue teams of eagles and falcons who would snatch up and carry off any of our flyers who had been hit before they could crash.

After we had  agreed on a few more details, we managed to get the combatants to fall into formation. The sun was about to set and we explained to our supporters how we wanted to do things, and they seemed to understand.

I didn’t get to give a rallying speech because Uncle Gentlerain said these people needed no encouraging. They were rat-rage furious and spoiling for a fight as was and if we calmed them down enough to listen to me, and I told them I was there for Jane, they would realize they were fighting for humans and not against them and they might think twice and go home. This may sound as if we had fooled all these people into fighting, but Uncle Gentlerain said that was just as it always is with volunteers. They are all deluded if they think war is a picnic.

“The wind is blowing in your favour,” said Unle Gentlerain, casting a last bit of earth and a leaf or two.  “That’s the first thing you should have taken into account. Will you now order the cannons to fire?”

I did and they did. Uncle Gentlerain and I then mounted on a silver chariot drawn by a green dragoness and we charged.

Ah, we were lucky! Our fortune in war was much better than I had dared to hope for. The wind really favored us and spread the antidote very effectively, while the pipnoshers’ poison practically flew back at their faces. As far as the pipnoshers were concerned, Thymian’s creation worked wondrously well. They fell in droves under cannonfire, and though more advanced like clouds of  ravenous locusts, we were able to push them back and downwards before they got close to us. I think their mistake was to always advance instead of fleeing, and they all ended up flat on the ground. They had been created to attack, and didn’t know that sometimes, to advance, one has to retreat. They charged like mad bulls before a red flag and that was their mistake.    

There were no surprises specially prepared by Viruta, who had put up no other resistance than the sacrifice of her sons. And I will tell you later why. But one thing did go wrong. While our people were cheering and hollering that they had liberated the Sunflowers, the zombified humans must have whiffed the air, for they came out of their lethargy without understanding what was going on and at first took us for the enemy. Of course they couldn’t fly, so all we had to do was keep out of reach of the stones they began to cast at us. They were still half dazed so they couldn’t aim well anyway. But they began to step on a lot of fallen pipnoshers and it was awful to hear the crunching sounds. Alpin, back at the communications zone, had surrounded himself with the most stentorian of our partisans, all provided with magic mega-horns, thinking he might have to give orders through these people. He now had them fly about yelling all this was against the tyrant Pepperpot, and that the liberated Sherbananians finally understood. They forgot about us and regrouped to storm the palace. Uncle Gentlerain didn’t have to tell me that my problem then was to get Pepperpot out of there before they lynched him.