On the other hand, he thought, as Scales thrust his great snout under the magic dome and drove the soldiers forth with his usual roar of “MARCH, SCUM!” it would be good to get away from those soldiers. As they came streaming out of the dome, Blade could feel them hating and fearing his father in a way that was beyond even the way they hated Kit. They were stark terrified of Scales, and a wizard who so cheerfully rode on Scales’s back they assumed to be even more horrifying than Scales himself. It was not pleasant to feel all those minds directing hate at Derk.
Blade laid himself facedown across the three hampers. Translocation might be the thing he was really good at, but he had to be touching everything he wanted to move. And as Kit had discovered by experimenting a year ago, if the thing Blade was touching was made of iron, then Blade could not move it or himself either. Blade was glad Kit had found this out. There were two spades among the bundles. Blade had made sure they were well wrapped up, right inside everything else, before he lay on the hampers.
He whisked himself onward and away. Scales’s roaring, Kit’s yells, and the sound of dogs, cows, and tramping feet stopped as if Blade had quite suddenly gone deaf. The sound that replaced them was that of water rushing a little way off. Blade looked up.
To his surprise, this was obviously the permanent barracks. It stood above him on top of a gray, shaly hill, a very much bigger misty dome than the ones he had so far seen. Below the hill, a wide gray river rushed in a shallow slaty bed. There were fir trees growing up the hillside beyond the river, and behind these Blade could see the mountains, still not very near. For a moment he wondered if he had made a mistake in translocating. But when he looked into that part of his mind that did magical things, he knew this was indeed the next camp on the line of march. So it had to be right. Well, Kit had the map, not Blade. Blade had not attended much to how far they had gone. He got off the hampers and went down to the river, where he stood for a while chucking stones into it with loud watery clunks and trying to work out how he felt now that Dad seemed to be in charge again.
In a way it was a great relief. Blade did not need to feel rushed and worried anymore. There was no need any longer to keep thinking of all the things that might go wrong. Derk could do that now. But Blade did not feel as carefree as he expected. The loose, easy feeling he had as he stood there throwing stones struck him as rather babyish. And Dad had made him feel even more babyish by ordering him off here with those hampers. Blade hated being pushed around. He found he wanted to think of things for himself, then do them. He wondered if Kit felt the same. Kit had been really subdued when they saw Derk coming.
Blade strolled back to the hampers with the flat river stones clacking under his feet. Then, because he could see a wide opening in the magic dome, he went crunching up the hill to the barracks. It was always a funny feeling inside the bubble of mist, warm and windless and cut off, and Blade found the place rather depressing with its rows of raw wooden huts, all empty. But there must be someone here. There was a horse tied to a railing outside the big hut in the distance, and Blade could hear another, irritably shifting its hooves somewhere at the back of things. One of the horses must belong to Barnabas.
Blade crunched over to the big hut—where the horse gave him a glum look—and put his head in through the open door. It was raw new mess in there. The place was clearly meant to be the cookhouse and eating hall, but the huge stove had its iron chimney leaning against it, not yet connected to the hole in the ceiling, and the tables and chairs were stacked like timber at one end of the room. In between, there were numbers of big packing cases, which Blade supposed must be full of cups, plates, or even food. The owner of the horse was sitting on one of these big wooden boxes eating breakfast, or possibly lunch, from a silk handkerchief spread on the knees of his green velvet trousers. He was a tall dark man, beautifully groomed, and a total stranger to Blade.
“Who are you?” Blade blurted.
The man looked up. “I return you the same question,” he said, in a calm, unfriendly way.
“I’m Derk’s son, Blade,” Blade told him.
“Conrad the Bard,” replied the man. “Does your presence mean that the Dark Lord has arrived?”
“They’ll be here this evening. And,” Blade told him, “you don’t want to be inside here when the soldiers come in. They’d kill you.”
“I am aware of that. My business is not with them,” Conrad said coldly. “What are you doing here yourself?”
“I’m looking for Wizard Barnabas,” Blade explained.
Conrad shrugged. “I know no such person. There’s a drunk in a hut at the back who might know. He seems to have been here for some time.”
“I’ll ask him then,” said Blade.
He turned to leave. The bard called after him, “This camp is in the wrong place. Did you know? It’s miles too far south. I had trouble finding it.”
“Nothing to do with me,” Blade answered. But that did explain why he had been so puzzled, he supposed. He crunched around to the back of the cooking hall.
The horse standing tied outside one of the row of small huts there looked utterly miserable. The hut was obviously meant to be a latrine, but when Blade opened its door, there was no hole dug in its floor or any other provision. Barnabas was lying snoring inside a sleeping bag on the ground. There was a barrel beside him which, when Blade rocked it, seemed to be empty. The inside of the small hut smelled like a brewery.
“Pooh!” Blade nudged Barnabas with his toe. It was almost a kick really. He had to do it several times more before Barnabas rolled over, sat up, and gazed vaguely at Blade. Barnabas’s curls and his beard looked wet. His eyes were red. His normal genial expression had turned into a senseless grin.
“Barnabas!” said Blade. “You’ve got to get up. The soldiers are coming, and this place isn’t more than half finished.”
“Buildings are up,” Barnabas replied cheerily. “Soldiers can do the rest.” He lay down, rolled over, and went to sleep again.
Cold water’s supposed to do it, Blade thought. But he doubted if there was any water nearer than the river. Still, there was one thing Blade was good at besides translocation. It was easier, too. He concentrated. Shortly Barnabas began to shiver in his sleep.
“Hey! Stop that!” he muttered.
Blade concentrated some more.
Barnabas abruptly rolled over and stared at Blade with his teeth chattering. His face was bluish, but this time his bloodshot eyes were looking properly into Blade’s.
“Barnabas,” Blade said, “how long has your horse been standing outside this hut?”
“Oh, ye gods!” said Barnabas. “Is the army here already? Tell your father—be a nice lad and explain to him, Blade!—I don’t normally binge like this when I’m working. The pressure just all got too much this time!”
“Dad won’t be here till this evening,” Blade told him. “You’ve got about six hours to get the camp finished in. You’d better get up and get going.”
“I had, hadn’t I?” Barnabas agreed readily. “If you’d stop freezing me to death, young Blade, I’ll get up and attend to everything. I promise.”