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"Yes, sir," Keselo replied, sainst his iron breastplate He was fairly certain that Hook-Beak found his strict adherence to , but since this would probably be his last war, Keselo was deter strictly by the book
He went to the edge of the bench, unfurled his red flag, and rapidly signaled to the Trogite force on the other side of the river
His fellow Trogites halted and began to set up ca and returned to report to the pirate Sorgan
"Did they get theto set up carab so up a good stout barricade across this bench, and then put out a night watch We don’t want any surprises after the sun goes down"
Rabbit went over to the edge of the rocky bench and looked down at the river "She’s back in her banks, Cap’n," he reported "I’d say that Skell’s an replied "I want to be absolutely certain sure that Skell and Torl are in those forts before we go too bow thinks that our poisoned spears are going to solve the probleood safe place to fall back to if he happens to be wrong"
Several crews of Maag sailors threw together a rough sort of barricade, and Sorgan’s arht passed quietly, and they were up at dawn to continue their march up the ravine
By noon of that day, Keselo noticed that the ravine was narrowing significantly, and the sloping walls above the benches were growing steeper
They rounded a bend late that afternoon, and Sorgan’s sour-faced cousin Skell aiting for thean?" he asked
"Don’t try to be funny, Skell," Sorgan told hiot your ship crews back down in your forts yet? I don’t want to go much farther upriver until those forts are finished" He hesitated, but then went on "There’s so you should know, Skell As it turns out, the eneainst aren’t quite as helpless as Lady Zelana led us to believe back in Maag It seeot to tell us that they’re part snake"
"You said what?" Skell replied in a flat, unfriendly tone of voice
"They don’t have swords or axes or bows, since they don’t need theo hoan told hiave us an easy way to deal with the proble them for twenty years now The slick part is that he uses their own poison to kill them He dips the points of his arrows into the poison sacks of dead ones and then shoots poisoned arrows at any live ones he comes across We talked it over, and we’re fairly sure that poisoned spears will do the job alet et the poison frorinned at his cousin "I just happen to have a fair supply of the poison, Skell An awful lot of the snake- the flood, and the Dhralls down in Lattash fished the carcasses out of the river and leeched the poison out of thes full of it Since you’re e you half-price for a dozen or so jugs"
"Quit trying to be funny, Sorgan Did Torl ht after the flood ca tomorrow"
"Good I’ll put him to work over on the south riverbank How many an replied "I don’t want to be shorthanded if we coainst a major enemy army"
"Thirty should do it I’d say that the forts down on the riverbanks will be prettyup from there to block off the benches Give us another ten days and we’ll have a wall stretching all the way across If the eneets past you, we’ll be here to stop him, and you’ll have a safe place to hide after the enean said dryly
"Just looking out for the fa this fort, nobody, and I do o any farther down the ravine withoutyour pay, then You’re going to be the anchor for this whole ca as you can and hold thean looked around "We’ll caht I need to haed the river yet?"
"No, we just swim across," Skell said sarcastically "It isn’t too hard--unless the boulder you’re carrying weighstostupid questions, then Of course we’ve got a bridge, Sorgan How do you think Torl and his people are going to get to the Trogite side to build his part of the fort?"
Sorgan let that pass "We’ll probably ht toites and I’ll hold back any snake-men until your fortifications are all in place As soon as you’re finished, send word upriver to Narasan andto, we’ll be in total control, so the ene to have to dance to our tune" He turned his head "Keselo, go signal Narasan Tell hio any farther upriver"
"Yes, sir!" Keselo replied smartly He was a little surprised at the level of sophistication involved in Hook-Beak’s plan The Maags seees, but evidently they knew exactly what they were doing
Captain Hook-Beak and Commander Narasan met just upstrea day "Nice job," the commander noted, "but won’t the river cause some problean replied "If he and Torl do this right, this’ll be part fort and part dam The snake-men don’t swi in front of the fort, they’ll have lots of trouble attacking Torl should get here later today, and then things’ll go faster Right now, there’s only about half a fort, but that turned out to be sort of lucky That flood would have torn it to pieces if Skell’s men had finished When Skell and Torl finish up down here, they’re going to extend the walls on both sides to block off the benches Once that’s done, we’ll have a safe place to fall back to if things get wor to involve holding back any ene this fort"