Unicorn Point

Sabreclaw set about selecting her squad of tough hens, and Phoebe went on to more routine matters. The remaining hens were assigned to offense and defense, and there was one sui cide squad who would make a determined raid on the enemy flag at about the time Sabreclaw’s squad was passing under the water, to draw the attention of the bats. It was all intended to seem conventional enough, as if harpies lacked the wit for innovation or subtlety, and with luck the bats would under estimate the opposition.

The siege began at noon, and would continue until settle ment. The harpies knew they had to win it by day, because the bats were supreme by night. But Phoebe figured to do it in the first hour; if her sneak ploy failed, they would be in deep droppings. She had rehearsed all the squads in their tasks; in addition to the flag defense and the flag offense, there were the mock oflense and the general defense to be seen to. Phoebe herself would hover above and go where needed to buttress a problem area.

She went forward with her lieutenants Hawktooth and Sa breclaw, to meet the bat leader Vodlevile, his son Vidselud, and a female bat. When the bats assumed their manforms, Phoebe was amazed. “Suchevane!” she screeched, recognizing the loveliest of all the vamps. “How earnest thou to be here? Methought thou wedded to the Red Adept!” For the alien from Proton-frame, Agape, had exchanged bodies with the unicorn Fleta eight years prior, and come to Phoebe for help, then gone on to the Red Adept, who had finally solved her problem. In the process Suchevane had gotten to know the Adept; she was beautiful and lonely, and he was powerful and lonely, and one thing had led to another, and now they had their mixedbreed son, Al. In the old days such a union would have been impossible, but the rovot and the ‘corn had shown the way.

“The Flock be short a member, so I returned,” Suchevane replied.

“But this be a siege!” Phoebe protested. “It be very like war. We dirty birds thrive on it, but thou dost be too delicate for aught like this.”

“Delicate? I raised the child o’ a troll!”

She had a point. “Well, the mayhem be but mock,” Phoebe said. “ ‘Twere else a shame to mangle thy pretty features.”

“Aye,” Suchevane agreed, smiling. Such was her beauty, despite her advancing age and state of motherhood, that the harpy minions were nauseated.

“Thou knowest the Adepts, human folk, and animals be watching,” Vodlevile said. “E’en as their magic nulls our weapons, it sends the image o’ this activity out. This be why none o’ us may contact other beyond the demarked region, lest they learn things illicitly.”

“Aye,” Phoebe screeched moderately. “We mean to win, an all will see how we do it. There be no rules o’ conduct here.”

“Save touching not thine own flag,” he said. “Then let us part now, and next we meet as combatants.”

“Aye,” she repeated. Then she and her minions flew back toward their flag, and he and his minions turned bat and returned to theirs.

“Easy pickings!” Sabreclaw screeched.

 “Nay, that Vodlevile be a cunning one,” Hawktooth warned. “And that hussy, the bride o’ the troll—no good can come o’ the like o’ that.”

Phoebe was inclined to agree. Suchevane had not spent eight years with the Troll Adept without learning something about the applications of power. It would be best to take her out early, as well as Vodlevile and Vidselud, so as to render the enemy leaderless. Of course, the bats would be trying to do the same to them. “Watch thy tails,” she warned the other two. “We three be marked hens, now.”

“Aye,” they screeched in chorus.

“Ho’er through the fog and filthy air!” she screeched at the Flock as they rejoined it. It was the code for the start of hostilities. Immediately the hens launched up and out, screeching a splendid cacophony. Simultaneously the bats fountained up from their starting point; Phoebe saw the cloud of them, before it dissolved into its business formation and was hidden behind the trees.