An hour later, the town gates opened again and a mismatched army marched out.

     Gallit’s patrol was in the lead, followed by all twelve of the surviving town’s guardsmen, and behind them came around a hundred hastily armed town militiamen, most of them either less than seventeen years old or over sixty. The contrast they made was striking. The Beltharan soldiers were smart and alert, their uniforms still quite new looking even though they'd been worn long enough to be comfortably broken in, and their armour and equipment was in good condition, well used but also well looked after. Every shiny surface, every button and buckle, was covered by a new layer of dull camouflage paint, applied that morning from tins they carried on their belts, to help them blend invisibly into the woodlands that they spent most of their time marching through. They said nothing as they marched. Not even Cheston and Grey, their usual banter forgotten as they marched to battle. Every man kept watch on where he was treading, alert for every dry twig or patch of rustling leaves. Expertly trained, quiet and invisible, their passage would have gone unnoticed by an enemy more than fifty yards away once they were among the trees.

     If it hadn't been, of course, for the Eastglade men marching with them. The eldest of them, the old soldiers, knew how to march, but the younger men were shoddy and disheveled. Although smart enough by any objective standard, they simply couldn't compare with the Imperial soldiers. Those that had steel armour had had it in the family for generations, handed down from father to son and beaten into shape to fit its new owner, leaving them looking rough and out of shape. Still perfectly good as armour, but not nearly as elegant as the individually hand fitted breastplates worn by the Beltharans. Their steel weapons, also, were often up to a century old, Eastglade having no metallurgical industry with which to make new ones, and they had been sharpened and resharpened so often down the years that they were now dangerously slim and likely to snap in response to an overly enthusiastic thrust or parry. Most of the townsmen, though, wore slennhide armour and carried ironwood swords and spears, and a couple of them were armed with giant mallets, mostly ironwood but with a cap of real steel on their business ends.

     Also, the town troops simply weren't as well trained as the Beltharan soldiers. The younger men made no attempt to march in step, their weapons and armour clanked with every step, some of them walked crouched over forwards, the tips of their spears swaying above them like trees in a hurricane. A few were even chatting happily to each other, ignored by Ableman, who marched at their head, but not by Gallit, who ground his teeth and wished he could bawl them out, as he would his own men. Any man under his command who indulged in idle chatter while marching would soon wish he were dead. Militiamen! he thought seethingly. Worse than useless.

     He would have liked to have left them behind, faced the shologs with his own men only. He knew them, knew how they would react under threat, knew they would obey his commands instantly. They formed a unit that could destroy an enemy force considerably larger than themselves, even shologs, who were generally considered equal in battle to two humans. The townsmen, though, were an unknown factor. Wild cards whose reactions in battle couldn't be predicted, and even though they gave him a tremendous numerical advantage Gallit could feel the cold spectre of disaster looming over them all. There had been no way to prevent them from coming, though. Both Ableman and the Mayor had declared forcefully that they would not sit idly by while others fought their battles for them.

     Gallit had briefly considered letting the townspeople go out alone, but had dismissed the idea almost immediately. The reputation of the Beltharan army was  more important than the lives of his men, and if he refused to support the townspeople in their battle, that reputation would suffer a heavy blow. The people of Eastglade would no doubt have told all the surrounding towns and villages about the cowardly Beltharans who’d shied away from battle, and when word reached his superiors in Fort Battleaxe, Gallit and all his men would have been executed for it. He had swallowed his fury, therefore, and agreed to accompany the townspeople.

     They soon reached the edge of the forest and turned in the direction of the sho2log's war camp. If they were lucky, they would catch them packing up and preparing to move out, but Gallit didn't believe in luck. He'd fought shologs before, and expected them to try to ambush him. He had tried to warn Ableman before leaving town, but he'd just laughed derisively. "Don't be ridiculous," he'd said. "If the reports of your spies are correct, we outnumber them at least two to one, and everyone knows that humanoids don't attack humans unless they outnumber them by at least that amount. They'll take one look at us and run."

     "Have you never fought shologs before?" Gallit had steamed, barely keeping his fury in check. "They love to fight, they live to fight, and the more they're outnumbered, the more they love it! They don't care whether they win or lose, so long as they can fight! That's under normal conditions. This time, they'll be fighting to avenge their priest! Even if he's still alive, they'll still want to avenge the insult done to him by Drake when he stuck him one, and a sholog fighting for vengeance is like nothing you've ever seen! You bet they'll fight, and when they do you'll think the entire sholog race is out to get you!"

     "Really, Sergeant, you shouldn't allow yourself to get so worked up over such a small force of humanoids. Your men alone could handle them quite easily, I shouldn't wonder. There's really no need for our people to be here at all, but we thought we ought to take some part in the defence of our own town. I really doubt that there'll be any fighting at all. They'll see us coming and run. You should wish all your operations were so simple."

     Gallit had said something unrepeatable and stormed off, and just before leaving the town had warned his men to expect an ambush. They were wide awake and alert now as they walked, therefore, scanning the trees and sparse undergrowth around them for the slightest rustle or movement that might betray the presence of an enemy, while the townsmen still chatted to each other as though they were going on a picnic. If it were just them, Gallit wouldn't have cared, thinking of it as natural selection in action, but they were putting his own men in danger. "Shut the drass up!" he shouted, therefore, and Ableman stared at him in astonishment. "Do you know from how far away they can hear you? How could anyone so stupid command anything, let alone the defence of a whole town?" Ableman turned scarlet in fury, but he barked a command to his men for them to keep quiet and from that moment they marched in silence.

     The ambush came a thousand yards into the forest, in an area where some calamity several centuries before had felled most of the colossal ceenars and the gap had been temporarily filled by faster growing oaks and elms. The townsmen were taken completely by surprise, and a dozen of them were killed before the rest knew what was happening. The trees above them suddenly came alive with arrows pouring down on their heads, glancing off their helmets and shoulder guards but occasionally finding a mark in the neck or arm before they could raise their shields. Most of them were aimed at the Beltharans. Even ugly humanoids can tell the worth of these town soldiers, thought Gallit grimly. At least four were aimed at Drake alone, the hated priest of Samnos who'd dared to attack their own priest. His helm and chain mail vest deflected most of them, the small bows the goblins carried lacked the power to penetrate Beltharan mail, but one slipped in through the neck opening and the priest felt a sharp spike of agony as it penetrated his neck just below the ear.

     By some miracle, it missed any vital blood vessels, or else it was unlikely that even the holy power of Samnos could have saved him before he bled to death. Instead, the fire hardened wooden point came to rest at a shallow angle just under the skin and the young priest was able to pull it out with only a grimace of pain, giving thanks to the Gods that it wasn't barbed. There was poison on it, he saw with a grimace of disgust before throwing it away. Apparently, they didn't know that immunity to poison was one of the gifts that Samnos gave to His followers. Two of Gallit's men were less fortunate, though, falling to the ground and convulsing in agony.

     The Eastglade soldiers were thrown into panic and confusion, running this way and that, drawing their weapons and searching in vain for an enemy, and some who had bows and arrows shot indiscriminately at the overhead canopy, hitting nothing, while Ableman shouted orders that nobody paid any attention to. The Beltharans, however, who had been expecting the ambush, responded in a calm, disciplined manner, raising their shields over their heads and standing close to the archers, protecting them while they searched the branches above and shot back. A few goblin bodies dropped from the trees with arrows in them, and the attack stopped as the enemy shrank back from view.

     Drake, pressing a hand to the wound in his neck, called upon the war God's power and felt the wound healing, just as the rest of the humanoids exploded from their hiding places among the surrounding trees and attacked. The Beltharans knelt in a line, their spears aimed ahead of them to meet the charge, a classic defensive formation as old as warfare itself. The enemy would break upon it, and then the Beltharans would strike back in unison, killing most of the humanoids in one go and ending the battle as quickly as it had begun. Or at least, that was how it would have gone, had they been alone in the battle.

     The townsmen, seeing the shologs and goblins rushing at them screaming and waving their weapons, suffered a complete breakdown of discipline. Most of the younger men dropped their weapons and ran screaming back to Eastglade as fast as their legs would carry them, while most of the rest, enraged by the ambush and glad to have an enemy to face at last, rushed towards them, meeting them half way and leaping upon them in fury. The humanoids were so startled that they stopped their charge and fought where they were.

     The rest, about fifteen of them including Ableman and most of the older retired soldiers, stopped in confusion, unsure what to do and simply staring in amazement. Gallit swore, uttering a word so profane that even some of his older veterans looked at him in shock. By stalling the humanoids' charge, the townsmen had taken away the Beltharans' defensive advantage, and they would now have to go to the enemy themselves. He shouted an order, and the Beltharans marched forward in formation.

     Once the shologs got over their surprise at having been charged and attacked while they were themselves charging and attacking, they settled down and began living up to their reputation, fighting with such ferocity that half of their attackers were dead before the Beltharans were able to join in. Gallit's men tried to fight in a regular, disciplined manner, but the townspeople kept getting in their way and soon it degenerated into an undisciplined brawl with only a few men able to attack the enemy at any one time. The humanoids couldn't believe their luck and fought with a joy and vigour they hadn't enjoyed in a long time. Humans fell left, right and centre, and it wasn't until most of the townsmen had either fled or been killed that Gallit was able to organise his men to fight effectively. Just as he was thinking that the worst of it was over, though, he heard Ableman order the rest of his men into the battle, and soon the nightmare was starting all over again.

     The battle that should have lasted five seconds went on for nearly half an hour before the last humanoid died. When it was all over, six of Gallit's men were dead, including three veterans who'd been with him for over ten years, and another five were wounded, including Private Grey who had suffered a sprained wrist while choking a sholog to death with one meaty hand. Thirty townsmen were dead and another fifteen injured, including Ableman who had a nasty cut on his sword-arm. He was strutting around the battlefield in satisfaction, though, chatting with the wounded, giving them words of praise and comfort and giving cold glances to those who had run away and who were now beginning to slink sheepishly back. The sight of him, acting like some brilliant battlefield General, destroyed Gallit's remaining self control and, striding over in a blazing fury, he grabbed him by the neck of his breastplate and screamed right into his face.

     "What the drassing hell kind of commander do you think you are?" he shouted at the top of his voice, a voice that was a legend in the Fort Battleaxe garrison. "Six of my men are dead because of you! Good men! I have never in my entire life had the misfortune to witness anyone make such a complete pigs ear of a simple military operation! If you were in my army, I'd have you up before a court martial for gross military incompetence! No, I'd beat you to death with my own bloody hands! You've got no business being in command of anything, let alone a town's defences! I ought to kill you myself, and for a drop of boot polish I would!"

     Ableman was stunned, both by the accusation and by the voice with which it was delivered, and it took several seconds for the ringing in his ears to go away. "What are you talking about?" he asked at last. "We won, didn't we?"

     "Won?" screamed Gallit. "Won? Thirty six men dead, another twenty wounded! I'd expect casualties like that in a full blown battle with a regular army unit, not against a bloody tribe of humanoids!" He threw the townsman away from him, making him fall over a tree root and bump his head painfully. He got to his feet in growing anger and grabbed the raging Sergeant as he was walking away. "Now look here," he said, in what he thought was a calm, reasonable tone of voice. "You've got no right to talk to me that way. You seem to forget that I am in command here, and that therefore..."

     Gallit went for his sword with a scream of rage, but Drake caught him before he could do anything he wouldn't have regretted later. "I think you'd better take your men back to Eastglade," suggested the priest. "It might not be safe for you to stay here much longer. I will tend to our own wounded. My ability to heal is not great compared to that of the clerics of Caroli, but it will be sufficient for this purpose. I fear that I will be seriously overworked if your people and ours stay together for too long, however. Many of the men feel the same way as the Sergeant." He indicated the surviving Beltharans, many of whom were glaring at the town commander with undisguised hatred.

     Ableman felt a wash of fear. "Yes, we'd better be getting back," he agreed. "Many of our men need immediate treatment." He hurriedly retreated, got the rest of his men to their feet, organised the gathering up of the dead and wounded and led them hurriedly back towards the town.

     "Idiot!" spat Gallit as he watched them go. "We'd better make camp here for the night."

     "I take it we won't be returning to Eastglade," said Rivan, sharpening his sword.

     "Right," agreed Gallit. "I wouldn't trust myself. How long before we can leave?"

     "It will take me two days to heal all the wounded," said Drake. "If you want to leave sooner, you could send a man into town to ask for a cleric of Caroli."

     "No, I don't think that would be a good idea," said Gallit. "All right, detail some men to cover the bodies of our dead and pitch the tents. We'll leave Ableman to dispose of the dead humanoids. That, at least, ought to be within his competence."