Yet it put the Wersgorix in a cruel dilemma. If they used a similar weapon to wipe out our camp — if they overran us by any means — they might expect a hail of death. For the hidden bombard would have no further reason to spare the area of Ganturath. Thus they must suspend their assault upon us, until they had found and dealt with this new enemy.
Their war-wagons lumbered back. Most of the aircraft they had in reserve lifted and scattered widely, searching for whoever had fired that shell. The chief implement of this search was (as we knew from our own studies) a device embodying the same forces as are found in lodestone. Through powers which I do not understand, and have no desire to understand since the knowledge is unessential to salvation if not smacking of the black arts, this device could smell out large metallic masses. A gun big enough to fire a shell of the known potency should have been discovered by any aircraft flitting within a mile of its hiding place.
Yet no such gun could be located. After a tense hour, while we English watched and prayed on our walls, Sir Roger gusted a deep breath.
“I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” he said, “but I do believe God’s helped us through Sir Owain, rather than directly. We ought to find his party somewhere out in the woods, even if those enemy flyers don’t seem able to. Father Simon, you must know who the best poachers are in your parish—”
“Oh, my son!” exclaimed the chaplain.
Sir Roger grinned. “I ask for no secrets of the confessional. I’m only telling you to appoint a few shall we say, skilled woodsmen?…to sneak their way through the grass into yon forest. Have them locate Sir Owain, wherever he is, and order him to hold his fire till I send word. You needn’t tell me who you appoint, Father.”
’In that case, my son, it shall be as you command.” The priest drew me aside and asked me to give 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.”
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.”
“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.