Tax: the tribute which the periphery of the Body Politic
contributes to the center, and which the center in its wisdom
redistributes to the periphery, with the resulting circulation
ideally improving the overall health of the political organism.
Unfortunately the sundry parts of the Body Politic are typically
less co-operative than the mouth, heart and fundament of the
average human-in-the-flesh, as lack of suitable pain receptors
often makes the center insensitive to the sufferings of the
periphery. Early in the reign of the Witchlord Onosh, such
insensitivity led to the ill-fated rebellion of the Geflung; and a
continuation of such insensitivity later precipitated the tax
revolt led by Sham Cham of Locontareth.

                                                 * * *

        The town of Babaroth stood a little to the north of the Pig
River. It stands there no longer, for the region in question was
afflicted by a severe earthquake last year, and by all accounts
the town has been entirely destroyed.
        Still, when Witchlord and Weaponmaster found themselves as
masters of opposing armies, Babaroth was still standing, and
serves as a convenient landmark for the action. Let it be noted,
however, that the town could not be seen from the battlefield, nor
the battlefield from the town, for a forest stood between them.
        (Is it really necessary to make this point? Unfortunately, it
is, for the realms of scholarship are the scene of much unseemly
quibbling, as scholars often seek to shred a great and generous
intellectual tapestry by pulling on the smallest and most
insignificant of its loose threads. Therefore, at the risk of
seeming pedantic, let it be made quite clear that this history
does not claim that Babaroth was ever situated precisely at the
confluence of the Pig and the Yolantarath, and acknowledges,
rather, that a diligent surveyor would have found it some 4,000
paces to the north of the Pig, with a goodly stretch of trees
between river and town).
        When Sham Cham reached the Pig, he found the single bridge
across that tributary was held against him by Lord Onosh.
        While some geographies claim the Pig to have been bridged in
three places, and others declare it to have been bridgeless, the
the truth is that the Pig's bridges varied in number according to
the destructive force of the floods of each spring thaw. When the
Weaponmaster came in arms against the Witchlord, there was only
the one here-mentioned bridge within fifty leagues of the
confluence of the Pig and the Yolantarath.
        The Weaponmaster, who bore himself as proudly as if he were
the very leader of the army, sat on horseback by Sham Cham as that
revolutionary leader surveyed the Witchlord's forces. The
disposition of those enemy forces seemed clear enough. Some
baggage wagons were lined up on the southern side of the Pig, with
the Witchlord's army encamped in amongst these wagons and in the
dark of the woods on the river's northern side.
        Sham Cham set guards and scouts to watch his flanks, prepared
his own troops to meet any sudden frontal sally by the enemy, and
then in a moment of sudden doubt he sent a swift-riding scouting
party galloping to the south, just in case his enemy was somehow
setting about engulfing his forces in some prodigious encircling
move. Then the bold and brave Sham Cham sent forth his mother-in-
law to demand the Witchlord's surrender.
        Sham Cham's mother-in-law had a tongue so formidable that the
revolutionary leader was sure its scourging effect would provoke
her butchery. However, to Sham Cham's disappointment, his mother-
in-law returned from her dealings with no more damage than the
besmirchment of her boots by a trifling amount of horse dung; and
she advised Sham Cham (and seemed to derive some considerable
pleasure from imparting the advice) that the Witchlord had sworn
to personally castrate him, then to bugger him with a bayonet.
        "A bayonet?" said Sham Cham, who had never heard of this
weapon. "What is a bayonet?"
        "A kind of dog trained for the purpose of rape," said his
mother-in-law, who never admitted ignorance on any subject.
        "No, my lord," said Sken-Pitilkin, who in company with
Pelagius Zozimus was attending on this council, and who in the
daring of his scholarship was prepared to prosecute the cause of
truth even in the face of someone's mother-in-law. "A bayonet is
not a dog. Rather, a bayonet is a species of detachable knife
sometimes found attached to a crossbow. It has a blade triangular
in section, nicely designed for - "
        "A knife, is it?" said Sham Cham. "Very well. If the thing be
built for buggering, then let the Witchlord prosecute it to its
purpose. I will happily accept that as the penalty of failure. But
I have no thought to fail. Since the Witchlord will not surrender,
we must perforce smash through his army. Smash, storm, shatter,
seize the bridge, then push through the forest to Babaroth."
        "In this matter, my lord," said Pelagius Zozimus, somewhat
disturbed by Sham Cham's briskness, "performance may not be as
easy as speech."
        Zozimus had long fancied himself a military expert of sorts,
and hence was quicker to put forward his opinion than was Sken-
Pitilkin, who ever preferred the conquest of the irregular verbs
to any elaborate schemes for the bloodying of bayonets and the
heaping up of the dead. However, despite his scholarly
proclivities, the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin was far from innocent of
the studious organization of institutionalized bloodshed; and,
though Sken-Pitilkin ever believed that the proper place for a
cook is in the kitchen, he was inclined on this occasion to
believe that the slug-chef Zozimus had a keener apprehension of
military difficulty than did the revolutionary leader from
Locontareth.
        "It is true, my lord," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Speech is one
thing, but performance another. And of the two, performance tends
to be the more difficult."
        "Speech!" said Sham Cham. "You talk of speech? Why, in
Locontareth I said I'd raise an army - and having said it, did it.
To speak is to act. Such is politics."
        "To prove speech at swordpoint," countered Zozimus. "Such is
war."
        "Then let us prove!" said Sham Cham, not acknowledging that
he had been countered at all. "We outnumber our enemies three to
one. I would not claim to have mastered all the ingenuities of
military science, but nevertheless would think brute force in such
proportions to be a sufficient appliance for victory."
        "My lord," said Sken-Pitilkin, seeing that Zozimus was in
need of his support. "I have long studied - "
        "Then study some more!" retorted Sham Cham. "But study
elsewhere, and in silence. I take no hectoring from pedagogs."
        Sham Cham's earlier doubt was a thing of the past, and now he
was resolved upon battle and victory. Or perhaps - there are
people whose character is so constituted - his doubt was so great
that he durst not admit to the slightest deviance from his chosen
course. For often it is the man who is most frightened who is most
resolute in action, for he knows that to reconsider will
necessarily be to panic, and that to panic is to fail.
        "Your wisdom is great, my lord," said Zozimus, "for Sken-
Pitilkin knows more of losing wars than winning them."
           A monstrous slander, this! And - insult upon insult! - a slander which Sham Cham greeted with an approving smile. "Still," said Zozimus, in his most conciliatory tones, "my lord, to cross a river against the armed opposition of one's enemies is ever one of the harder exercises of war, and to force a way to Babaroth we must
necessarily brute our way across the Pig."
        "I have heard," said Sham Cham, "that the Pig is a very
torrent of destruction in the spring, but that the river lies
slumped in its shallows in the heat of high summer. It is the heat
of high summer now."
        "So it is, my lord," said Zozimus, "but the shallows of the
river lie slumped between the steepness of its northern bank and
the southern. The steepness of those banks gives the enemy
considerable opportunity for defense."
        "Still," said Sham Cham, "I am sure I can force a passage
across the river, even if our enemies should burn the bridge."
        "Then, my lord," said Zozimus, "having crossed the river, we
should still have to fight our way through the forest which lies
north of the river."
        "That is what I am here for," said Sham Cham, a trifle
impatiently. "To fight my enemies."
        "True, my lord," said Zozimus, the velocity of his speech
evidencing impatient exasperation. "To fight, yes, war is
fighting, but only a boy would think it nothing but. War for men
is equally a matter of choice and timing. I as a veteran bloody in
my swordplay would choose to fight the Witchlord at the city."
        "The city?" said Sham Cham, quite confused by the rapidity of
Zozimus's speech, which typically became nearly indecipherable in
its speed when its temper was threatening to lose itself.
"Babaroth is no city. It is but a town."
        Sham Cham spoke in truth, for of course Babaroth was no more
than a town - a town built on a small hill on the eastern shores
of the Yolantarath, some two leagues upstream from the confluence
of the Yolantarath and the Pig.
        "The city which I had in mind," said Zozimus, "is the city of
Gendormargensis."
        Then Zozimus outlined his plan. The wizard proposed that they
retreat; and construct rafts; and ferry their army to the western
shores of the Yolantarath under cover of night; and then march on
Gendormargensis, leaving the Witchlord in his ignorance to stab at
shadows and grope at dust.
        "This plan is a nonsense," said Sham Cham. "As I have said
already, our business is not with the capital but with the
emperor."
        Sham Cham's intransigence dismayed the wizards. For the
conquest of Gendormargensis would win them gold with which to pay
soldiers; a population from which troops could be recruited; a
fortified city from which to stand off their enemies; and a
semblance of absolute victory, which would surely discourage and
dismay those enemies.
        Pelagius Zozimus said as much.
        But was not believed.
        "Gendormargensis is but a diversion from our business," said
Sham Cham. "Our business is to smash the emperor in battle. When
you say otherwise, I think you fearful of meeting this Thodric
Jarl in battle. I think you have a pronounced over-respect of the
Rovac."
        Sken-Pitilkin endeavored to support Zozimus in his wisdom.
        "My lord," said Sken-Pitilkin, "in Gendormargensis - "
        "In Gendormargensis," said Sham Cham, interrupting the
scholar, "the dralkosh Bao Gahai awaits her enemies."
        "Why, yes, yes, so she does," said Pelagius Zozimus, "surely,
yet she is but a witch, and the killing of a witch is no big
matter for either man or wizard."
        Though both Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin had from time to time
taken the part of witches in the past - Sken-Pitilkin out of
mercy, and Zozimus for reasons of unscrupulous ambition - neither
placed any value on Bao Gahai's personal survival.
        "The wizards of Argan," said Zozimus, "long ago disposed of
most witches in a mighty pogrom. As a sometime member of Argan's
Confederation of Wizards, let me assure you of the extreme
limitations of the Witchwoman breed."
        "So Bao Gahai survived pogrom, did she?" said Sham Cham.
        "She did," affirmed Zozimus.
        "Then," said Sham Cham, "clearly she is mightier than all
your wizards federated in their anger!"
        Thus did Sham Cham make clear his mortal terror of the
dralkosh Bao Gahai, a terror which had conditioned all his
thinking about the current campaign. Sken-Pitilkin found this
terror quite extraordinary. After all, it is usual for people to
fear what is near and discount what is distant, yet in Sham Cham's
case things were quite the reverse - and, when put to the
question, the leader of the tax revolt declared he would rather
face an army than a witch.
        "Well," said Sken-Pitilkin, "supposing you defeat Lord Onosh
here and now, what say Bao Gahai marches forth against you? You
see? One way or the other, you're doomed to face your greatest
fear before you're finished."
        "No!" said Sham Cham. "She'll settle for Gendormargensis.
Gendormargensis, that's hers. I'll keep Locontareth. Peace, see.
        The empire cut in kingdoms. Gendormargensis, Stranagor and
Locontareth. Three kingdoms. A recipe for peace."
        A recipe - so thought Sken-Pitilkin - for friction and for
war. The wizards redoubled their efforts, reminding Sham Cham that
Thodric Jarl had had days to reinforce his defensive position on
the Pig, and that the Rovac were vicious in defense.
        In his heart of hearts, Sham Cham knew himself to be no
military genius, so at last called in expert advice to evaluate
the counsel of wizards. To be precise: he brought in the
Weaponmaster Guest Gulkan, who was known to have defeated Thodric
Jarl in single combat in a duel in Enskandalon Square; and he
brought in Rolf Thelemite, who by his own account was mighty in
war, and had led many an army to victory against impossible odds.
Sken-Pitilkin chose to stay to see what damage Guest and
Rolf would do, but Zozimus threw up his hands in disgust and
stalked from the conference lest he lose his temper and do
something unpardonable.
        "What would you suggest?" said Sham Cham to Guest.
        "Attack," said Guest promptly. "Attack, for this Jarl is a
man like others, and here he is weak, and we can smash him."
        Guest spoke with the confidence of a true believer; for Guest
had defeated Jarl in single combat, and hence thought him weak.
Guest was still ignorant of the fact that he owed his survival in
Enskandalon Square to Sken-Pitilkin, who had used powers of
levitation to trick Jarl's feet from under him.
        Here the blame for Guest's derelictions must be place fairly
and squarely at the feet of the Emperor Onosh. Lord Onosh was, by
and large, capable of doing the hard things. But on that occasion
he had weakened. When Guest had dueled Jarl in Enskandalon Square,
Lord Onosh had allowed himself to be persuaded into an act of
incontinent mercy. So the boy Guest had survived, living
thereafter with an exaggerated sense of his own ability, and
becoming a danger to the very emperor who had saved his life.
        Remember this, if it is your destiny to be an emperor! The
seat of power is a seat of decision, and weakness in decision is
the doom of the governed and the governors alike.
        "The wizards speak of this man Jarl as being large in
reputation," said Sham Cham.
        "Why, a giant in reputation," agreed Guest, "but I've seen
him in his injuries with tears in flood upon his face, and that
was over nothing, a trifling matter of broken bones."
        So spoke Guest, he who had never yet had to live with the
worst of pain, far less to live with spearing pain from step to
step, from breath to breath, from moment to moment, and each of
those moments but a hair from a flinch.
        "So," said Sham Cham, "so you suggests - "
        "He speaks from the folly of his youth," said Sken-Pitilkin.
"In the truth of my wisdom I suggest rather that we send forward
two wizards in their wisdom to deal with the wild men according to
their wiles and thus avoid the wrath of woolly war."
        "Woolly war?" jeered Guest. "That's a nonsense! War is not
woolly. Sheep are woolly. What were you thinking of?"
        "I," said Sken-Pitilkin with dignity, "was thinking - "
        "You were thinking you were a sheep!" said Guest. "Woolly
war! Really!"
        Sometimes it will happen that an adult will mispeak himself
in front of a child, and the child will thereafter not let the
matter rest, but will strive to keep the error green in memory. So
it was with Guest Gulkan on that occasion.
        Rolf Thelemite then added his own boast to Guest Gulkan's
advice, and those federated dunces routed the sagacious Sken-
Pitilkin. Both Rolf and Guest were young; and drunk with bravado;
and intoxicated by thoughts of victory and power; and Sham Cham,
being likewise afflicted, was in no mood to heed counsels of
caution, not when his own forces outnumbered those of the
Witchlord by three to one.
        "Three swords can cut a single head," said Sham Cham, when he
summed up their debates, "be that head a jester's or a queen's."
        So it came to pass that on a bright and shining morning the
mighty Sham Cham awoke from dreams of revolutionary tax reform,
and marched his army to within battle distance of the Pig, there
to confront the army of the Witchlord Onosh, lord of the Collosnon
Empire.
        Then forth from the Witchlord's ranks rode Thodric Jarl,
riding under a flag of truce. Jarl was received by an ad hoc
embassy which included Sham Cham himself, and Guest Gulkan, and
Rolf Thelemite, and the wizards Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Hail, Cham!" said Jarl.
        "Hail, Jarl!" said Cham. "If you have come to present me with
your surrender, then I am ready to receive it. My forces outnumber
yours by a matter of three to one, therefore your defeat is
inevitable."
        "I dispute it," said Jarl. "To defeat me and mine, my lord
and me, you would need to have odds of a thousand to one in your
favor. As you have not the forces to compel a victory, yield me
your heart. Then we can negotiate."
        "Heart," said Sham Cham, puzzled by Jarl's idiom. "What do
you mean by my heart?"
        "I mean," said Jarl, "that bloody organ which beats in
orgasmic fury underneath the larger of your paps. Give it.
Surrender it. Then there will be a peace between us."
With that, the gray-bearded Thodric Jarl produced a silver
platter from a saddlebag and invited Sham Cham to deposit his
palpitating blood-beater upon the shining surface of that platter.
        "You are drunk," said Sham Cham.
        Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus, both veterans of past encounters
with the Rovac, knew that Jarl was not drunk but, rather,
intoxicated by the uplift of the moment.
        "Drunk?" said Jarl. He laughed. "No, not drunk. Not drunk,
but joyful."
        Then Jarl cast the silver platter into the mud. Mud sprayed
up into Sham Cham's face, and his horse reared, and Jarl wheeled
his own horse and rode back to the lines where the Witchlord Onosh
waited with his horsemen, apparently ready to charge.
        Sham Cham wiped the mud from his face.
        "So," said Sham Cham. "It is war. Very well then. Force
against force we will meet them. Force against force we will meet
them - and throw them back into the sea."
        His choice of idiom betrayed his origins. Stranagor lies by
the sea, and the throwing of great quantities of people into that
watery organ which dominates the planet's physical geography has
ever had pride of place in Stranagor's iconography of war.
        Then Sham Cham prepared his horsemen for the charge.
        With battle about to be joined, the restlessness of men and
horses caused such disorder in the ranks that the wizards Zozimus
and Sken-Pitilkin were able to work their way toward the rear
without attracting undue attention to themselves. Though Zozimus
looked like a very eleven warrior in his fish-scale armor, and
though Sken-Pitilkin in his fisherman's skirts looked a grim and
warworthy skirmisher, neither had any intention whatsoever of
wasting their substance in battle.
        Do not think less of them for this! It is true that both
wizards had sworn themselves to Sham Cham's service. Still, both
firmly considered that they could best serve the revolutionary
army by offering it their wisdom. Wisdom having been rejected,
what else could they do but sit back and watch?
Well ....
        They could have used their special powers, of course. But a
wizard's powers are soon exhausted by the demands of a
battlefield, and both Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin preferred to
preserve their strength until it was needed for purposes of
personal survival.
        Guest and Rolf remained to the fore of the army's mounting
disorder. Both were seated on over-aged geldings rather than the
high-spirited stallions to which they had aspired; and both were
becoming increasingly glad of the stability of their mounts, for
the tension of war-ready men was communicating itself to the
army's horses, and those beasts which were more highly-strung were
becoming close to unmanageable.
        As the moment of battle neared, the Weaponmaster Guest was
concentrating too intently to suffer fear. He was visualizing the
clash of sword against sword, practicing tactics by imaginative
immersion. The restiveness of the horses made him remember his
brother Morsh Bataar, crushed beneath a horse, his leg wrecked by
the weight of the animal. He must leap clear if his own mount went
down. He must -
        "Guest!"
        "What?" said Guest, irritated at being interrupted by Rolf
Thelemite. "What is it, Rolf?"
        Rolf looked worried.
        There was a simple explanation for this:
        He was worried!
        "Guest," said Rolf, "I've something to tell you."
        "Then spit it out, man!" said Guest.
        "It's about Jarl," said Rolf. "Jarl and me. He made me
promise. Before he ran, I mean. Back in Locontareth. He made me
swear. It was an oath, he made me swear an oath."
        "What oath?" said Guest, since the question was obviously
expected of him.
        "He made me swear to kill you," said Rolf.
        "Kill me!" said Guest. "You swore an oath to kill me?"
        "Yes," said Rolf. "But only - only if you really went to war
against your father."
        "What else could I do?" said Guest.
        "Well, kill Sham Cham," said Rolf.
        "What!?"
        "Yes, yes, kill him," said Rolf in eagerness. "It's obvious,
obvious! Look! He's riding up and down, ride up, a sword, a single
blow! We'd spur for escape, we'd be gone, he's dead, as good as
dead, just say the word!"
        "Rolf," said Guest, "I can't kill Sham Cham, for I'm sworn to
his cause in solemn alliance. I've sworn to make war on my
father."
        "But if you do," said Rolf, despairing, "then I must kill
you, for I've sworn an oath. Or if I don't kill you, then - then
I'll be an oathbreaker, an oathbreaker accursed of Rovac."
        "Then accursed of Rovac you will have to be," said Guest.
"For my doom is to fight the Witchlord, and I fight him today."
        Rolf couldn't believe he was serious.
        "But, Guest," said Rolf. "That's - that's your father out
there!"
        Rolf Thelemite was sweating under the obdurate weight of the
sun. A fly fed on his sweat. He was burdened by the heaviness of
chain mail, the chafing of leather, the intolerable sweatiness of
his feet in his boots. His left ear itching where his dangling
gold-snake earring was threaded through the flesh.
        Guest was watching him. Unsmiling. Guest was only 16 years
old, but today all traces of any childish sentimentality were a
lifetime removed from his nature. Rolf sensed a sameness about
Guest and Jarl. Both were missing a layer of humanity: lacked a
sense of the reality of pain. Especially the pain of others! Hence
they were dangerous. While Rolf knew how to make a boast, Guest
knew how to live one. And Rolf found himself afraid of the
Weaponmaster.
        "Guest," said Rolf, making one last try.
        Then Guest reached out and took Rolf by the throat. And
squeezed. Hard enough for Rolf to feel the swordsman's strength in
the fingers. Strength sufficient to kill by crushing. When Guest
released the pressure, Rolf coughed, spluttered, touched tentative
fingers to the flesh of his throat. Felt the fragility of the
structures there.
        As Rolf was still groping at his throat, Guest gave Rolf's
horse a hearty kick. Thanks to the beast's sturdy temperament, it
did not launch itself into an all-out charge. But even this stolid
and aging animal was not immune to the feverish anticipation of
battle, and it had danced a dozen paces before Rolf was able to
rein it in.
        With reins in his left hand and his right on his sword, Rolf
turned to face Guest Gulkan. Under the hot sun, a gust of wind
blew horse-smell and battle-dust between the Rovac warrior and the
Yarglat youth. They were estranged by dust and distance. Guest's
face was blurred by the dust, by the harshness of the sun. He was
no longer Rolf's familiar friend. Rather, he was an anonymous
Yarglat, a stranger, a horselord driven by the dynamics of war.
        And he was turning, wheeling his horse in response to an
order which Rolf had not heard, though others had heard it, must
have, for Sham Cham's horsemen were wheeling en masse, and in
moments they were sweeping forward in a war-whoop charge. Rolf
Thelemite's horse, over-excited, surged forward in a positive
gallop.
        "Slow down!" yelled Rolf, stupidly, uselessly.
        But it was no good. The beast was off, was bolting. Rolf
hauled on the reins, but his mount had a mouth like an old boot.
So the hapless Rovac warrior was caught up in the charge, was
swept away to destiny.
        Up ahead, Guest Gulkan charged with a vengeance.
        The young Weaponmaster rode in that charge, screaming with
exhilarated fury.
        In the face of that fury, the Witchlord's horsemen turned and
fled. Through their line of baggage wagons they rode. Then those
baggage wagons burst into fire - for they had been crammed with
incendiaries, doused with strong liquor and then set alight by
torches.
        Nothing daunted, Sham Cham's forces continued their attack.
        Guest Gulkan spurred his horse. The terrified beast galloped
through a gap between gouts of erupting fire. Then it crashed into
a pit. Down it went, Guest Gulkan going down with it. Shocked and
shaken, he found himself seated on his horse in the bottom of the
pit. The horse was direly wounded - blood spouting, white bone
gashed. It screamed. Its rolling eyes were liquid with reflected
fire.
        "Grief of gods!" said Guest.
        And struggled out of the pit into the tumult of smoke. There
he was attacked by a madman. Hack against hack they fought each
other, until Guest Gulkan's opponent screamed his battlecry:
        "Stranagor!"
        On hearing this battlecry, Guest Gulkan realized he had been
in battle with one of his own side.
        "Sham Cham forever!" gasped Guest.
        And moments later the two were bearhugging each other as
comrades.
        Having thus been reconciled with this aggressor, Guest Gulkan
joined Sham Cham's men who were charging down the bank of the Pig
and struggling up the steep slope on the other side.
        The Pig looked to be no more than waist-deep, so Guest ran
toward it readily, tripped, and went sprawling full-length in the
riverside mud. He struggled to his feet, brushed away the worst of
the mud, regained his sword, and floundered into the water. He got
across the river, then started stumbling up the steep bank.
        As Guest Gulkan struggled up the bank, his foot broke through
the crusted earth. His boot, weighted by the battle-slam intensity
of the boy's warcry charge, slammed down on a spike of sharpened
bamboo. The spike pierced the boot. Guest's foot was inside the
boot. Accordingly, the spike seared into his flesh, and he
screamed with intolerable pain. He pulled free his foot, wrenching
it clear from the spike. All around, other men were likewise
screaming. As they screamed, arrows began to fall amongst them.
        The entire slope was pitted with bamboo spikes. There was no
quick way up it, and the arrows were soon taking a brutal toll of
those whose ambition it was to hack down the Witchlord Onosh.
        "Forward, men!" cried Sham Cham.
        Then an arrow took him in the eye, and he cried no more.
        All around, men were wavering, not knowing what to do. But
Guest Gulkan knew. The boy Guest had been born into the household
of a mighty warlord, and had studied the theory and praxis of war
since he was knee-high to a donkey. He had yet to make himself a
complete master of military science, but this he knew for sure -
right now, it was most definitely time to be running away.
        Guest Gulkan promptly took command of the battlefield, and,
bellowing like a water-buffalo, he commanded a retreat, and was
obeyed.
        Guest Gulkan got back across the Pig, stumbled through the
still-burning wagons, and got onto the flatlands south of there,
where he was met by Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus, both of whom were
sitting still on their horses.
        "Well my boy," said Sken-Pitilkin. "How did you enjoy your
first battle?"
        "Suck shit and die," said Guest.
        Then collapsed, going down in a dead faint in front of Sken-
Pitilkin, who looked at Zozimus, who rolled his eyes to heaven
then indulged himself in a sigh.