The Warslayer(61)

"Come up with a better one," Glory said reasonably. She turned and began to lead Fimlas back up the path toward Ivradan.

Dylan grumbled something barely audible and followed her.

"But look," he said, though he was forced to address this cogent argument to her back. "Even were I to accept this utterly shopworn tale at face value: why me? Galaxy Quest is hardly a fresh new idea. If someone wants a hero for their gladiatorial games, well and good, but why me? I'm a henchman, Glory, dear. Second villain and all, supporting frightener—though I must say, my Mercutio has been rather well received, and—"

"I don't know," Glory said bluntly, stopping to look back at him. "I want to know. I reckon I'd better know. But right now, I don't." She did manage to feel a bit sorry for Dylan. He'd been dropped right into the midst of things, and that none too gently. She'd be happy to send him off to the sidelines if she could, but where? The only possible place was the Oracle.

Maybe she could send him back with Ivradan. Who'd be worrying just now, and who would at least be easier to explain things to. She led Dylan back out of the ruined city, up the gentle rise to the edge of the forest to where Ivradan waited with the other two ponies. She only hoped he wasn't as familiar with TITAoVtS as Englor had been, or she was going to have a lot of fast talking to do to explain the presence of Fra Diavolo.

Ivradan's eyes widened when he saw Dylan. "Mind your manners," Glory told Dylan in an undertone. "His mum's a wizard who can turn you into a hatstand if you look crosswise at him. S'okay, Ivradan," she said, pitching her voice a little louder. "He's my, um, camrado. Dylan comes from back home. Where I come from."

Ivradan inspected the newcomer warily, taking in Dylan's wildly inappropriate but very fashionable outfit.

"Is he a wizard?" the Allimir horse-master asked at last. Dylan smirked.

"Not exactly," Glory temporized. But if she'd managed to kill an eight-foot-tall monster with a dull sword, who knew what Dylan might not be able to accomplish if he had to? She considered how best to explain to Ivradan that he was to take Dylan back to the Oracle with him, and how to persuade Dylan to go peacefully.

"More of your little friends?" Dylan asked idly, pointing out across the plains.

Glory turned and looked, and her heart sank.

A mass of marching figures. There were a lot of them, as many as TITAoVtS would lay on for a superdeluxe big-budget crowd and battle scene, say eighty to a hundred. They were, by the most generous estimate, five kilometers away, too far to make out the individual details clearly, especially in the diffuse grey light of the overcast day. She could not even tell whether they were entirely human. But the blades of their pikes or spears or whatever they were were clearly silhouetted against the sky, and they were wearing some kind of armor, and here and there in the mass of determinedly marching figures, she thought she could see a toxic gleam of blue, as from the glow of an amulet.

Ivradan watched them come with the worried incomprehension of a man who knows the news can only be bad, but still has no idea of what it is he's looking at.

The marauders were heading straight toward the ruined city, which meant straight toward them. The three of them couldn't hide and couldn't fight. And their directions for running away were decidedly limited. Glory took a deep breath.

"Ivradan," Glory said gently, "that is an army, and I reckon they'll be unkind to us if they reach us. I'm not sure we can outrun them, and if we try, we'll just lead them back to the Oracle. I'm afraid all three of us are going to have to go up the mountain. How fast can you get the pack off that pony?"

"An army?" Ivradan abruptly went greyish under his all-weather tan. "Her army?" He swayed on his saddle-pad, causing Felba to shift uneasily beneath him.

Glory growled a flavorful Elizabethan profanity under her breath—one that had slipped right past the Standards and Practices review board when it had made it into the script for the pilot episode—and went over to the pack-pony. She pulled at the forward cinch's double-ring closure, growling under her breath. Maybe there was some way over the mountain that didn't involve tromping down the Warmother's throat—and even if there wasn't, that was still better odds than standing here while an army of rogue bushrangers and freelance nightmares marched over them. The three of them could take the beer and whatever food they could carry with them, but the rest would have to be left behind.

The cinch loosened, and Ivradan, bless Erchane for what backbone he did have, was there to take the weight of the sliding pack and work the second cinch free faster than Glory could have managed.