Guard-Captain Medant Denmarof had a plan for his augmented legion. With his mercenaries, his trained workers, and some of his officers (the Battlers, Ritualists, and Symbol Knights more than whatever Odibink Sharazilk was), though unaccompanied by his employer and the person named on his banners, he marched from Lommad City across the border zone to the cliffs above Jiojjil's beach. In order to give Paosolt Tobalilk an excuse to leave the great hall and also because it sounded fun he set up two catapults and started tossing.

  He settled on two out of a sound motive consistent with strategy's firmest principles. “The crew which draws the better picture in the sand will receive a prize. I encourage creativity but not license. Hit the hall itself and you will be fortunate if I do not throw you in the ocean.”

  Regrettably, Jiojjil's troops hustled out of the hall before any of the observers was able to guess what the teams were trying to make. The left crew had created a curve that might have grown into a crescent moon or a bow while the right's sharp corner promised an infinite variety of items from a cross to a treasure box to a demonstration of how an artist may create a rectangle which gives the illusion of depth even on a single plane.

  Even though the enemy had no chance to reach the heights and contest the bombardment before the catapults smashed the hall, Medant ordered a withdrawal. What followed was a farce in which he repeatedly feigned retreats and Deputy Mayor General Paosolt pretended to pursue him while Jiojjil stayed behind with a small detachment at the latter's recommendation. His squad's purpose was to set up ramps which offered access to the cliffs, thereby ensuring a swifter response to similar threats in the future. The scouts kept Medant advised as to the progress of that, as well as the attitude of Paosolt's human soldiers. Their delight at the novelty of their vacation had subsided and left them wondering when they could go home. Confronting an army which, diminutive as it was, was serious enough to employ siege engines did not rejuvenate them the way it did Dvanjchtliv heroes in the epics.

  The two forces waltzed their way generally toward the sky district, though Medant adhered to the borderland like a sycophant to his patron. His scouts there had an order added to their usual duties. “Tell any fairy you encounter, as if passing the time, what a tactical coup it would be if a third force fell upon ours while engaged with Jiojjil's.”

  The typical person did not expect scouts to discuss such a topic any more than the typical commander seized on their ruminations to inform his decisions, but after a few hours of dragging his troops in stops and starts, Medant received confirmation Zatdil had crossed the border, this time with a force behind him. By doing so the mighty king abandoned a tactical advantage he never realized he possessed, a sad commonplace in the history of warfare.

  All throughout the performance Medant and Paosolt traded messages which the fairies presumed to be boasts. Through them the generals coordinated their maneuvers so that soon three armies sat apart from one another by less than the range of the bows the Adaban soldiers carried but were forbidden from using.

  “Every child is educated in the use of the self bow. Proficiency is another matter of course,” Dirant told Takki when she questioned their armaments.

  “Oh, I knew all about that, Ressi. We make fun of your bows constantly. Once a ruler of one of the old kingdoms hired Adaban archers and lavished real bows on them, and he conquered three neighboring kingdoms and almost unified the north before he succumbed to disease. The next king gave in to public sentiment and expelled the Adabans. What do you think happened next?”

  “Several options appear to me equally likely. The kingdom fell to invaders when deprived of its mightiest warriors. The mercenaries took over the kingdom themselves. A golden age followed, and the memory of it spurs anti-Adaban sentiment to this day. My guess however is that the new king, the mercenaries, and most of the public perished from that same disease.”

  Takki curtsied, overcome by admiration. “I'm really impressed you got it. That plague infuriates historians because they want to know what would have transpired otherwise, but it's impossible.”

  “Is that not an opportunity to write a speculative, ah, the captain calls us.”

  The time for action had come, for cruel valor and heroic tragedy. Paosolt ordered a charge (by his fairies only) against Zatdil, and the sight awed all onlookers. When the front ranks met, those ranks existing in a purely poetic sense much like how the world did not in fact become rectangular at night, unaffiliated fairies watched transfixed. Some of them started up cheers. Jiojjil's human braves meanwhile felt disgust over the butchery and the failure to form non-poetic ranks. As for Lommad's humans, they were unavailable to contribute a reaction to the record.

  The column was hustling across the borderland, still in good order for all that keeping it required slowing down to Ritualist speed, straight to the cliffs overlooking Jiojjil's hall. Hours of intricate maneuvers were undone in under twenty minutes of energetic marching, and if anyone lamented it all as a waste, Medant could point to the ramps Jiojjil had provided, supported by piled earth and wide enough to get the entire army down in half a minute.

  At the bottom, the captain paused to deliver an inspirational speech. “The enemy's strength is unsure, but our bonuses are assured! Attack!” That was the longest speech he was willing to risk. How much fight Jiojjil had in him was a matter of sheer conjecture since what earned the title of “strongest” among the underground fairies had not been tested. Granting he belonged to a different type from the usual fairy, startling and removing from battle the cohort which had remained behind with him seemed both easy to accomplish and possibly essential.

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  The vanguard broke down the door, which was not locked but might get in the way if allowed to swing back and forth like someone mulling over where to go for lunch, and surprised the fairies at their tables. They failed to reach the weapons decorating the walls and corners before the attackers reached them, or rather they neglected to try. Capturing all of them could not have been accomplished easier if they had requested the service themselves.

  Jiojjil, however, was one of the strongest, and he had been examining a spear with a blade broader than his hand when the offensive breached his hall. Even then, his first response did not exude martial spirit. “My door!” he yelled before he realized the opportunity an enemy was giving him to engage in heroic battle of the sort which gave the historical Jiojjil his great fame.

  By the time he opened his mouth to declaim in the proper style, his chance for that had passed. Medant had already issued his command. “Ointment!” The man on the street, if ordered to ointment, might wonder not only what sort of person took such an attitude toward a stranger but also what the process involved, perplexed by the lack of a verb. If informed the command was intended not for him but for a subordinate of the issuer, he would certainly theorize it to be a code of some sort and therefore be relieved of his indignation. That was in the street of an Adaban city. In Yean Defiafi, the typical subject might think it an invitation to a whimsically themed party.

  The theoretical Adaban had the better understanding of the situation. “Ointment” called for the Ritualist who had prepared and delayed the Fairy Fascination Ritual to trigger it, whereas “architrave” indicated the Fairy Dance Ritual. What revelations about Medant's personality might be gained from his choice of words none there had the insight to infer. Perhaps the most salient point was how quickly he came up with them, such an analyst would have said.

  It was not the place of the lieutenant to analyze his commander, unless he was after advancement either by satisfying said commander or arranging his downfall, and accordingly Dirant simply obeyed the order. The attackers soon considered the possibility they had committed an error, for when the ritual took effect, the entire world lost its color save for a streak of red like a frayed rope which ran above them straight through the hall as if Jiojjil had oriented his heroic dwelling along it, which he probably had. The uncanny circumstance threatened to overwhelm their morale and drive them away screaming for all that they had their own banner.

  Jiojjil recovered the situation. The fairy king collected himself before anyone had made the decision to abandon sanity entirely based on the reasoning that civic duties, familial responsibilities, and a compulsion to exalt oneself over others were all fine things, but there were disadvantages too, such as the need to keep up with inexplicably popular serials. He jerked as if from a spasm and then the color returned, as did the danger of facing him.

  The first stroke of his spear exhibited no skill whatsoever, but it shoved a Brawny Knight back a few feet when the ordinary man who managed to shove one a few inches during a fair with a willing participant putting on a show for the locals was thought to have performed a miracle. Following protocols established earlier for the eventuality Jiojjil was strong after all, the soldiers began withdrawing while employing their bows, which might have done more against a foe who did not distort the air around him and cause arrows to fall, their velocity spent.

  Each soldier was too occupied in executing his assigned role to become anxious, which left the Ritualists to do it for them. Above them, the captain remained unconcerned, at least visibly. He had resources left, among them the other ritual and also, well, a commander rarely reveals all his methods.

  One of those resources committed itself, or rather three of them. As one wit of the Symbol Knight class wrote, he would trouble himself about the welfare of his guests the same hour they did. Mr. Gabdirn's Gale Lion and Flame Lion moved against Jiojjil without care for their enemy's supernatural techniques, the emotion of fear which humans felt, and anything like “captains” and “orders.” Gabdirn remained aware of all three of those things, but he considered the first two of small account so long as he entertained his guests, and as for the third, Medant had made it explicit beforehand that he left to the Symbol Knight's judgment whether the lion guests could actually fight in an arena of that size.

  As large as the hall was, as halls went, that broad expanse of elite combatants did come close to filling it. Still, confidence radiated from them, and Medant ordered the bows to cease. He further dispatched the siege crews to check if the catapults could be restored to working condition in time to conduct an experiment regarding the interaction of rocks and fairy heads. The rest of the troops and officers were to withdraw to the beach in the time provided by the distraction, as Medant thought of the guests.

  He had miscalculated. The extravagant spear and the inhuman might which wielded it came against a spear of flame and merely matched it, giving way when wind joined the fray. Gabdirn's symbolic weapon when added to the other two forced Jiojjil to back away. By no means did he surrender upon that one setback, however. He had built the hall's ceiling to a height chosen not arbitrarily but rather to accommodate his acrobatic leap.

  The masters of dueling recommended jumping as an act appropriate for fairs, over the head of a Brawny Knight if that could be managed, and not a maneuver to be contemplated in practical combat. The opponent was unlikely, regardless of the height or distance achieved, to be so impressed by the spectacle that he would neglect to prepare a suitable reception. The lions chose not to wait that long. A veritable conflagration sprayed from one weapon and rose on wildly whipping winds to engulfe the roof, but Jiojjil descended only slightly scathed.

  The walls maintained their integrity for a short time, though the gouts of flame which pierced them discouraged visitors. Such a confusion of elements and spears took hold that not until the battle ended was anyone able to guess at the occurrences therein, perhaps not even the participants. The hall might have been constructed from mankind's longing for peace based on how little of it survived the battle, and the soldiers could have held a concert without a note of it being heard over the cacophony of wind and Jiojjil's terrible cries. Not a long concert though, for a struggle as ferocious as that reached a conclusion before long.

  Doubtless the fairy king never expected to end his reign at the feet of an author specialized in digestible Ertith scholarship, but the invaders who burst into song when the outcome became clear were less surprised. Hewekers and Symbol Knights were two categories of men capable of anything in their view.