were barely targets. Gently he said, “Your Rumtuggle was probably a wanderer. He wandered into our lives, caused some havoc among our occupying forces, and now will wander out. I doubt,” Brack added with a hard look at the guard, “that we will ever hear about him again.”
The gnome woman was not mollified. “Your answers are evasive, human. You have three days to release Rumtuggle. After that we will have to take action.” She stomped her foot for effect. “Three days, human!” She spun on her heel and left the tent, her gaggle of gnomes in tow. One took a lantern with him, peering at the wick.
The guard waited behind, looking at Brack. The lieutenant sighed deeply and said, “I think we may have a small problem.”
“Emphasis on the small,” said the guard, breaking into a smile.
Brack smiled as well. “Very small, but for the next while, Rumtuggle should vanish from the reports. No point in stirring up the locals.”
“And when she demands his release?” asked the guard.
Brack shrugged. “She’s a gnome,” he said. “In three days she’ll have found something else to worry about.”
Of course the gnome leader did not. Each day, for the next three days, a gnomish messenger arrived at the edge of the camp, demanding Rumtuggle’s release. Each day Brack explained that they did not have Rumtuggle in their keeping.
On the morning of the fourth day, the cattle disappeared.
Brack never figured out how they did it. One night the cows were in the pasturage, the guards keeping an eye on them between games of dice. Then the sun came up on empty fields. Several hundred head of cattle, the provisions for most of the outpost, had vanished.
A messenger arrived, declaring that the cattle would be returned when Rumtuggle was released.
Brack looked at the messenger. He counted to five, then to ten. He explained that he could not release what he did not have and unless the gnomes gave back the cattle pretty damned fast he would unleash the entire fury of his unit on the surrounding area. A hungry army was an angry army. The gnome said he would be back the next day.
Privately, Brack worried. A hungry army was an angry army, but most of that anger would be directed at those responsible for feeding them-like their officers. Brack sent out scouts in all directions, both the hapless hobgoblins and real horsemen, in the hopes of finding whatever secluded valley the cattle had been squirreled away in.
They found nothing. The next day the gnome messenger returned. Brack counted to five, then to ten, and then to fifteen, then told him that they did not have Rumtuggle. The gnome said that he would return the next day.
Brack doubled the patrols, calling in favors from other commanders who knew about his fictitious gnome. Already the troops were restricted to salted meat, and would have to get by on hardtack if the cows were not returned. Brack sent word back up the line for additional supplies.
The patrols found nothing: no secluded vales, no herds of cattle in secret hiding places. All they found was increased evidence of lumbering in the area. Going into the gnomish towns was considered hazardous, since several gnomish inventions had gotten loose in the past and harmed some hobgoblins, and none of the nonhuman troops wanted to go anywhere near the gnomes, particularly now that Rumtuggle was apparently helping them.
The troops were getting hungry. And angry.
A query came from HQ asking what Brack had done about the cattle problem and notifying him that the rear echelon would be sending the provisioner-general to find out what happened to the missing cattle. The official would arrive the next day.
Hot on the heels of that message, the gnomish messenger returned, repeating the demand that Rumtuggle be released.
Brack counted to twenty but finally gave up trying to hold his temper. “I can’t give you Rumtuggle!” he shouted at last. “There is no Rumtuggle! Rumtuggle isn’t alive!”
The gnome’s eyes grew wide, and he practically squealed, “You mean, you killed him?”
Brack stared down at the little figure. “What are you going to do about it?” he shouted.
The gnome seemed to quail for a moment, then said, “I guess we’ll have to give back your cows, then.” He departed, leaving Brack speechless.
The cows did not reappear immediately, not for the rest of that day, nor with dawn of the next day. The pro- visioner-general did appear at dawn, and Brack found him inspecting the vacant paddocks.
“You had four hundred and fifty-three head of cattle,” said the provisioner-general, an officious skeleton of a man, regarding Brack over the top of his glasses. “They seem to be missing.”
“Well, yes,” started Brack, “we have had a problem with gnomes taking the cattle.”
The provisioner-general looked dubious. “Gnomes? Raiding cattle? Unlikely.”
“Ah,” said the guard at Brack’s side, “Well, these gnomes have had, uh, exceptional leadership.” He was trying to help, but Brack shot him a venomous look.
“Yes.” The provisioner-general flipped through a sheaf of papers attached to his clipboard. “This would be the ‘Rumtuggle’ mentioned in your earlier reports.”
Brack looked at the guard again, then sighed. “Yes, that would be correct, but we have ordered the gnomes to return the cattle, and they have said they will do so.”
“Hmmm,” said the provisioner-general. “Did they give you any idea when they would be returning said cattle?”
Brack opened his mouth to respond, but instead there was only the noise of a distant twanging, followed by the approaching sound of a lowing, panic-stricken cow. From overhead.
The gnomes were returning the cattle-by catapult. The first of the four hundred and fifty-three head of cattle smashed into the ground between Brack and the provi-sioner-general, knocking both off their feet. Brack immediately started scrabbling away as the provisioner-gener-al held his clipboard over his head in hopes that paperwork would stop the rain of cows over the dragonarmy camp.
Augie slapped the table with the fleshy part of his palm. “So it’s a cow story, then!” he said laughing.
Brack managed a thin, patient smile. “It’s a gnome story, one of those where you underestimate the gnomes and they turn out to be more intelligent, inventive, and dangerous than you thought. They found a way to hide the cattle, then built catapults. . ”
“Cattle-pults,” snorted Augie, almost spitting beer out his nose.
Brack sipped at his tankard, and Augie waved for another round. Another gnome appeared with more ales. Augie pulled himself slowly back together and rubbed the tears from his eyes.
“So the jig was up,” he said at last. “Your little imaginary friend was revealed at last, and you were cashiered.”
Brack shook his head. “Not yet. The cow-shot attack was only the beginning. We sent out forces, of course, but the gnome towns were abandoned.”
“They fled before your victorious armies?”
“They had abandoned them earlier,” said Brack. “They were keeping the cows inside the buildings. Of course none of our hobgoblins wanted to go find out because. .”
“These gnomes were dangerous!” shouted Augie, almost losing his composure again. “They were followers of Rumtuggle!”
“Rumtuggle the Rebel,” said Brack. “Who was supposedly dead, but now was being sighted everywhere, rallying the gnomes and the kender and whatever other races they could find against us. That just brought out the worst elements of all.”
“Oh no, not. .”
“Adventurers,” said Brack, staring into his mug. “Any tinpenny warrior with a dream and a sword. They started rallying the gnomes into a real organized force. And if we caught and killed any of them, then more showed up.”
“So what did your highlords do when all this activity suddenly showed up in your comfortable backwater?” asked Augie, smiling.
Brack sighed. “The worst thing they could possibly do.”
