Heroes of Magic and Might
Chapter 36 – Diplomacy, with a knife

Evening lay over Hogwarts, quiet and still. Along the halls dwarves marched, sentries in the night. In the lord's office, once the headmaster's office, a judgement was being made… sort of.

"I can't decide."

He'd had all day to make a decision, and this was it. What a gyp!

"It really is quite the conundrum, I mean, you're both so competent."

McGonagall strongly disagreed with that statement, but wisely kept it to herself. She was doing that a lot lately. Probably wasn't healthy.

On her right, Umbridge sat, plotting no doubt. She knew the look, though it was typically associated with Fred and/or George Weasley. They were always good for a bit of plotting.

"I've got it!" he declared suddenly, "You'll fight for it."

"I beg your pardon," the unctuous toad queried, certain she hadn't just heard what she'd heard.

"You'll fight for it. A duel if you will. You wizards do that sort of thing I understand."

"Indeed," said McGonagall with just a hint of the vindictiveness that was coursing through her. "Filius was a ranked master before he joined us at Hogwarts."

"The short fellow? Marvelous! We can have him officiate," Co said grandly, ignoring the predatory smirk of the old scot or the panicked pale shade of the toad like woman. "Tomorrow looks to be rather busy so, let's set it for lunch the day after. We'll hold it in the great hall, where everyone can see it."

"Everyone? See it?" Umbridge croaked.

"Plenty of witnesses," McGonagall purred, "or volunteers to pick up the pieces."

… I see, better in the dark

"We should be there soon. I can smell the camp."

"So can I."

She wouldn't remark on the quality of that smell, which was foul on a number of levels with which she was familiar, as she surmised that to her traveling companions such odor was the smell of home, and not just the reek of muck, mire, rot and decay.

"Should we expect sentries?" the vampire asked as she loped along on the back of her wolf as the other wolves trailed on her left, the right reserved for the big lizardman who's lanky legs ate up ground like a starving dragon.

"There should be two at the edge of the camp. We will see how alert they are. Can you see anything?"

She could see a great many things. Her eyes glowed in the twin moonlight like a cat. Enhanced by magic that was her nature as a vampire, she stared through the darkness like knives through silk, making out at the far range of her vision something that looked like habitations of the crudest kind.

"What do you see?"

"Your village," she replied. "It's just over a mile and, yes, you were right. Two sentries."

"How are they?" he asked.

"They appear to be sleeping."

"Oh, do they?" Opening his mouth, the lizardman let out a strange cry, something between a banshee's wail and a lion's roar. "We'll see if that doesn't wake them up."

Them and everything for ten miles in any direction, thought Rosebud, hiding a little smirk.

… Just five more minutes

He was awake, at least, he thought he was.

The dark was dimming, he could feel it. Morning was creeping up, stealthy like a mouse. But he knew, he'd come to feel it in his time in the wild, where there were no alarm clocks or annoying roommates. Morning was coming, he must be awake.

The warm body snuggled next to him was not.

Cute, that's what she was. In sleep the half-goblin was the very picture of sweet innocence.

Huddled in the corner on the left side tower wall, he'd set down by order of the motherly old Nanny, fully intending to get up when she wasn't looking. Apparently, things hadn't gone quite as planned. He had to wonder when Gabby got involved. Was she there of her own accord, or had she been sent?

Hmm, probably not sent. She'd been giving signals he wasn't completely oblivious to. Not completely. Most likely she'd seen him asleep and capitalized on the opportunity. Thinking that way he decided she looked a little less 'innocent' than he'd originally thought.

"Well ain't that darlin."

The plump witch toddled out of the tower, whispering a cackle at the scene.

"Am I to assume you had nothing to do with this," said Harry, not yet cognizant enough to sound intimidating.

"I may lay claim to my fair bit o mischief," she happily admitted, "but this one didn't need any prodding from me."

This Harry knew, but it never hurt to be sure. "I trust I haven't missed anything?"

"They can't see in the dark," the witch said. "Those undead can though. The got a couple who thought they were sneaky. Other'n that, nothing to report."

"Good to know." Equally good to know that bit about the undead.

The day had been a long one, and the small number of undead was smaller by the end of it. Two skeletons, the lizardman ones, and a single zombie were all that remained. By some stroke of irony, the zombie that remained was the very same one that had pulled him out of the river some weeks back. He was roughed up, missing an arm and most of his clothes, but this meant little to a zombie.

Gently putting Gabby aside, he stood and went to the edge of the wall. Peering down he saw the trio standing, still as statues. The skeletons held their weapons, a mace and club, and the zombie listed slightly to one side, his two headed axe hanging loosely in his remaining hand.

At their feet, three fresh corpses. The rest from the previous day had been cleared away after the final retreat so these must have been the not so sneaky ones she'd mentioned.

"Where are the others?"

"The bulls are asleep down by the gate, they didn't go far," she said. "The snake complained of the smell and crawled back into her hole."

"The one you kept her in against her will?"

"Aye. Funny how people are sometimes."

Cupboard under the stairs. "Yeah. Funny."

"Mari's making up some breakfast for'em, and that short fella's working up bits a that hog you brought for the hounds and the gobs. At should keep us a while."

"Good." It was a welcome surprise. He hadn't brought it expecting a siege, but there he was, under siege, and there it was, keeping them fed. Speaking of fed.

"Ere, eat this," she said, handing him a doughy looking ball. "I made em last night. Give ya lots of energy."

"That so?" they didn't look like anything special, though considering who they came from he was still leery.

"Eat!" she ordered. "You'll need it if you're gonna use this."

From her bag she produced a fat bottomed bottle filled with a semi-clear blue liquid.

"What's that?" he asked between a mouthful of ball that tasted kinda like oatmeal.

"This me lad is what we call a mana potion," she said proudly. "It's a converter. Turns physical energy into magical energy. Wit all that castin you was doin yesterday I reckon you ain't topped off yet. You gonna be needing this."

The bottle was held in a complex bit of knot work with a large loop he slung around his neck crossways. She was right about the casting. His short walls had been conjured, though not literally conjured, specifically to give him fodder for transfiguration and it hadn't stopped there.

The walls hadn't been built with the idea that anyone would get close enough to use them as cover from those on top, but the walls were too tall for them to have any hope of climbing without help.

Those who managed to get past the wall defenders to the safety of the walls shadow had naturally rushed to the entrance, his small wall a barrier they could easily overcome. Except they couldn't, not when he lined it with spikes that shot out into anyone trying to get over it, then set the corpses on fire and banished them back into the mob.

It was gruesome, bloody work. Much of it was still a blur in his mind as he relived the carnage mentally.

A fierce squeal brought him back to reality. A familiar, detestable sound.

"They didn't use those yesterday," though he'd seen they were there.

"Probably thought they could overwhelm us with numbers," said Nanny. "Without the magic we had on this place, we're not so well defended."

"I think I have a few ideas about that," he said, but it was a concern for later. "Tell me something, those orcs that attacked us yesterday, they look different than the orcs I saw wrangling the boar."

"That's cuz those ain't orc's," said Nanny. "The only ones who can tame the Caladonian boar are the Aetolian boar-men. They ain't orc's, not by a long shot."

"What's the difference?"

"Everything. Boar-men come from the same world as the boars. Story goes they used to be human men. Depending on who's tellin it, they was either cursed, or blessed by their goddess into what they are now."

"And would that goddess have some connection to the boar?"

"Sent it down to punish… someone, or something. Not so sure on that bit."

"Are they dangerous? The boar-men I mean," he already knew the boars were dangerous.

"They make them orcs look like daisy flowers," she said. "They's all about the fightin. That's their whole way of life. It's why they ally with Ashe. Ashe is always fighting someone, even if it's just each other."

"Wonderful," they were the Spartans but with more pork.

"Hope you got a plan for em," she said. "They can't scale walls any better than the orcs, but they could sure make a mess of you lot down there."

That they could. Fortunately, this wasn't his first hog rodeo, nor even his second. Once the fatigue wore off, he'd learned a great deal from his second Caladonian boar. By the look of things, he'd be applying that knowledge very soon.

"How do I use this," he asked of the potion flask.

"Normally you'd want to drink the whole thing in one go. That's give a good big boost all at once, but only once. Just you sip on it a bit. The effect won't be so strong at first, but it'll go longer. You're gonna need it to go longer."

Harry considered this new information, "Is that dangerous?" he asked as she headed back into the tower.

"Compared to what," she rightly pointed out.