And that gave Mara the idea.
She grabbed the dangling rope, swung up on it, pumping her legs vigorously. Kicking off the ceiling, she spun around and swung back over the heads of the astonished draconians. One of them raised a spear, but not quickly enough; it barely scratched her.
Mara let go of the rope, landing well behind the confused draconians, and dashed back the way she had come. But she had to make certain they followed her. At the bend in the tunnel, she scooped up a handful of decaying spare parts from old mechanisms and skimmed them off the tunnel walls and ceiling into the draconians. A rusted bolt caught the captain on his reptilian snout.
The captain howled. 'After her! Kill her!'
'Quickly, or slowly?' A subordinate asked.
'Quickly,' he hissed. A hex nut clanged off his helmet. 'But not too quickly.'
They dashed after her again, weapons ready, their terrible jaws open. Mara fled, but made sure that they saw which way she turned. They chased her confidently; after all, what did they have to fear from a single unarmed human child?
The draconians came on her suddenly, around a comer. She was apparently helpless with fear.
The draconian captain leered at her and barked unnecessarily, 'Now you die.'
'If you must!' she said more coolly than she felt. 'But be quick.'
The draconian eyed her with resentment, tinged with admiration. 'Don't we frighten you?'
'You? Never.' Mara pointed to the floor. 'That thing frightens me. I can bear anything,' she said earnestly, 'but the Flying Deathaxe.'
At a gesture from his captain, the lead draconian picked it up. 'This thing?' he said, laughing, incredulously.
Mara shrank away. 'Don't pull that cord. Please. Put it down — '
The captain smiled at her, revealing an amazing quantity of pointed teeth. 'Of course, I'll put it down.' He set it on the ground in front of her with a low bow. As he straightened up, with one swift motion he pulled the starting cord, setting the propellers in motion. He watched, chuckling evilly.
The propellers spun and, unbelievably, the Deathaxe rose into the air. As it cleared the floor, the razor-sharp axe blade swung back and forth with a loud shearing noise. It hovered, hesitated, then began slowly spinning in a circle. Mara watched, open-mouthed, as the axe blade sliced through a boom extending from the tunnel wall. Now the axe was moving faster, and the circle was widening as well. Mara took a nervous step backward.
The Deathaxe hit the roof and bounced off. The blade sliced through the helmet and head of a draconian soldier without slowing down. The soldier turned to stone and toppled.
The captain uttered a command, succinct even for draconian field orders: 'Run!'
Mara obeyed. So did the other draconians. The axe gashed the wall where she had been standing a moment before, spun back on itself, and cut one of the draconian soldiers in the chest before careening upward to strike the ceiling and spin back down.
The wounded draconian, shouting in panic, crashed head-on into one of his companions. Both sank to the tunnel floor, unconscious but not dead. The remaining two sprinted after Mara, just ahead of the whining, humming Deathaxe.
Mara wouldn't have thought that the heavy draconians could run that fast, but then she surprised herself with her own speed. Once, in a crazy rebound off a hanging pulley, the Deathaxe spun into the floor in front of her and shot straight up at her. She fell backward, rolled between the legs of the startled draconian soldier behind her, and leapt to one side. The Deathaxe cut off his head. Turning to stone, it thudded to the floor where she had been. The draconian captain behind her screeched with frustration. The Deathaxe, now behind him, spun back toward both of them, and they were off again.
Perversely, the axe continued after them, instead of backtracking or taking wrong tunnels. Mara wondered if that was a side-function of Standback's sensors. She also wondered how long she and the draconian captain could keep up their pace; she was naturally faster, but he had more endurance. If she should tire or fall… She grit her teeth and kept dodging and running.
After what seemed like days, Mara thought that the axe might be slowing down. A minute more and she was positive; it was losing forward momentum and spinning more slowly. Finally, with a creak from its handle and a flutter of propellers, the Deathaxe crashed to the tunnel floor. Mara and the draconian, wheezing, collapsed — a spear's length apart — just beyond it.
The draconian recovered first. He rose unsteadily and searched for the sword. He had dropped it when he fell. The weapon was now lying within Mara's reach.
Mara staggered to her feet, picked up the heavy sword and nearly overbalanced. The draconian laughed at her and moved forward to recover it and kill her.
Mara heard an uneasy rustling on the tunnel ceiling above her, though she could see nothing. She swung the sword against the tunnel wall and banged it, shouting.
The air was suddenly filled with a terrible chittering and the sound of hundreds of wings. The draconian, disconcerted, waved his arms in the air. Mara steadied the sword, gathering her strength.
The draconian opened his mouth and snapped at the noises in the empty air; there was a tiny shriek, which cut off abruptly. Mara, feeling sick, took a deep breath and lunged with the sword.
It was far too heavy for her, but she managed to catch the draconian captain just below the kneecap. He roared, driving away all the flyers. Mara let go of the sword and backed off.
Grimacing, he looked down at his leg. Green blood oozed from the wound. He opened his mouth to shout at her; nothing but snarling and flecks of foam came out.
Mara dashed away, thinking to herself, 'I'll need a new name. Mara the Warlike… Mara, Queen of Battle…' A thrown dagger flashed between her arm and her side. Mara, Queen of Battle, legged it like Mara the Rabbit down the left fork of the tunnel. The draconian lumbered after her, limping painfully.
Mara dashed into a room. The draconian found her, crouched against the far wall. She stood holding the leg of a splintered chair as a weapon. As the captain came forward, she dropped it and shrank against the wall, her face a mask of terror.
'I have you,' he said slowly, with satisfaction. He limped into the center of the room, smiling -
Mara tapped the wall lightly with one finger.
The Thudbaggers activated. The draconian lost his footing. Both his arms were pinned in place by the bags; he couldn't reach the sword he had dropped when the first bag inflated in his face. He poked his head up out of the balloons, and glared helplessly at Mara, who had clambered onto the bags. 'You!' he said bitterly, beside himself with rage. 'You — '
'Shut up,' said Mara and, pulling off his helmet, knocked him cold.
She heard the sound of running feet, and then Standback appeared in the door.
'Are you all right?' He was panting.
Mara slid off the balloon. 'Mara the Bold is always all right.'
'That's good. When I arrived at the top level, I thought that it was a false alarm, and I came back down, and then I saw the dead and knocked-out draconians — ' He paused. 'You're bleeding.'
She looked at her shoulder in surprise. 'Not too badly.' She grinned. 'I gave better than I got.'
Standback looked at the unconscious captain. 'I see that,' he said, impressed. 'Were they after my weapons?'
Mara nodded. Standback, looking again at the pinned and unconscious captain, said thoughtfully, 'Mount Nevermind isn't at war with draconians. We don't dare kill them, and they're too dangerous to take prisoner. What are we going to do with them?'
'I've thought about that.' Mara paused for effect. 'Let them escape.'
Standback goggled at her. 'But if they escape, they'll take our weapons or plans for our weapons away with them — '
'You want them to,' she said simply.
Standback was now a complete rarity in Mount Nevermind or anywhere else: a speechless gnome.
'Think about it,' she went on. 'The draconians want the weapons. You need the weapons tested. They're soldiers. Who could better test them?'
As he still hesitated, she added, 'And isn't the theft by real warriors a kind of validation that your weapons
