The Pixilated Peeress by L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp Page B

end.
     
                  "Stop!" yelled Thorolf . He sprang toward the first guard and seized the shaft of the halberd below the ax head. "You idiots, that's the Countess of Grintz, ensorceled!"
     
                  "Ha!" snorted the first guard, wrestling with Thorolf for possession of the halberd. "I once met a countess , when I soldiered for the Count of Treveria, and she looked not at all like this! Guard! Turn out!"
     
                  With a mighty wrench, Thorolf tore the weapon from the guard. Losing his grip on the shaft, the guard, backed against the side of the cart, reached for h is sword. He had it half out of the scabbard when a mot tled, brown-and-white tentacle snaked out of the tub, caught him round the neck, and dragged him shrieking over the edge.
     
                  Sensing motion behind him, Thorolf whirled to meet the other guard. The man swung his halberd in a de capitating blow. Thorolf knew that, while the swing of this top-heavy weapon was slow enough to be usually evaded or parried, when such a blow got home it com monly killed. He also knew that he fought at a disad vantage. While th e guards seemed eager to kill him, he did not wish to slay either and thus foreclose all chance of help from Orlandus.
     
                  He caught the swing of the other halberd on the head of the one in his hands. The ax heads met with a hid eous clang. Instead of retalia ting in kind, Thorolf re versed his shaft and rammed the butt into the guard's solar plexus. The coat of mesh mail and the padded acton beneath did little to break the force of the thrust; the man went sprawling on the cobbles, doubled up and clutching hi s midriff.
     
                  Thorolf turned to glimpse the carter in flight down the path up which they had come, and Doctor Bardi crawling under the cart. The legs of the guard whose halberd Thorolf had taken dangled kicking over the edge, of the tub, while from the tub c ame the bubbling sounds of a man trying to shout with his face under water.
     
                  "What in the seven hells betides?" shouted another armored man, an officer from his scarlet insignia, is suing from the portal at the head of a squad of blue-clad guards.
     
                  "I came to present a patient for Doctor Orlandus to treat — " began Thorolf.
     
                  The felled guard, who had stopped coughing, climbed to his feet and cried: "He — he seeks to smuggle a mon ster into the castle!"
     
                  "Give up your weapons, and we'll look into this m at ter, " the officer growled.
     
                  "No, sir, I will not! I am a soldier of the Rhaetian Army, and those idiots attacked me without provoca tion."
     
                  "What doth my man in yon tub?" asked the officer.
     
                  "My patient, who is in the tub, came to mine aid," Thorolf said, leaning the halberd against the cart and pulling the barely conscious guard out by the legs. Tho rolf turned him over, hoisted him by the middle, and shook the water out of him. The man went into an ag ony of coughing.
     
                  The officer stepped to the t ub. "That's your pa tient?"
     
                  "Aye; she's a noble lady under enchantment."
     
                  "Ha!" said the officer. "When I believe that, I shall believe the legend that Arnalt of Thessen rode his horse across Lake Zurshnitt atop the waves."
     
                  "Ah, Sergeant Thorolf of th e Fourth Foot, I be lieve! " said a new voice from the gateway. The cluster of guards opened out as the newcomer approached. As he passed among them, they placed hands over their hearts and bowed low.
     
                  The object of their reverence was a tall, lean man wi th a long, mobile face, wherein slanting eyebrows and greenish-blue eyes effected a