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The e any enemy who cashad a longer handle,’ he muttered Then he suddenly felt just a little foolish Many of his own tools - particularly in his orchard - consisted of long poles with a cross-piece firmly attached so that he could pull the branches of his fruit trees down and pick the fruit without cliht there in his tool shed

As a sort of experio removed the crosspiece from one of his harvest poles and fir a tool at that point and becao tried a few practice jabs with his modified pole, and it seemed that it definitely had so at him, a jab in the belly or the face with that sharp knife would ht even kill hith of the pole would keep his ene anywhere at all close to hi?’

The notion of deliberately hurting people was completely alien to the faro had been hearing lately ca eneht look like people, but that was probably just a hoax The term that had sort of drifted down froht be very useful If O their eneuilty about exter them On occasion, swarms of locusts had attacked the fields, and the local farrass fires were a fairly effective way to deal with theht be even erent every time they hear that word

All sorts of possibilities were coo went ho about, Oo?’ Ara asked as he sat down at the table

‘I don’t think we far to be quite as helpless as Veltan see tools into weapons isn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it ht be, and I think I’ve stuer probleths to protect their fields fro us about these invaders correctly, they’re at least part bug All I’ll have to do is stand on a hill and shout "Bug!" As soon as they hear that word, every far to help , dear heart,’ she said ‘Now eat your supper before it gets cold’

O they came across the fields to his house He took them out to his tool shed and showed them his improvised weapon They all seeet any more of these knives for us, Veltan?’ the bulky wheat-farmer Benkar asked ‘If we all had metal knives like that one of yours, we could tie them to poles like you did, and then we could lend the outlanders a hand when those bug-men come down out of the o said a bit dubiously ‘The outlanders hts start, and I don’t really have any idea of just how valuable this knife really is’

‘It’s soo,’ the bearded shepherd Nanton said ‘If all of you farot, you could slow the bug-men down, and then s Not verylike that alive Soested that the outlanders sort of looked down their noses at her people - right up until her bow-and-arrow -people by the hundreds’

‘If somebody tries to look down his nose at a flared

‘We’d have to practice for a while,’ the farot the only iron knife in the whole of Veltan’s Domain?’ Benkar demanded

‘It’s the pole that does most of the work, Benkar,’ Eknor said ‘We can practice jabbing with just the poles Then when the outlanders get here, they can give us knives to tie to the end of the poles and we’ll be ready to go to work It won’t really be too much different from e do e harvest wheat All we have to do is walk side by side in a straight line - harvesting bug-rin This was turning out even better than he’d hoped it would The word ‘bug’ had brought all the local farmers to his side alerent It was entirely possible that they weren’t nearly as helpless as Veltan seemed to believe they were Nanton and Eknor had responded to the threat exactly as O up

As the days passed, Ohtterritory to join the impromptu ar their still-har their lines straight while Nanton gave the shepherds extensive training in the art of hitting targets with their sling-thrown rocks at increasingly longer distances

They’d been at it for more than teeks when on a sunny afternoon a crash of thunder shook the ground and Veltan was there ‘What are we doing here, Oo?’ he asked

‘It sort of cao explained, ‘so I tied it to a long pole, and it started to look ht that was very interesting, and we’re hoping that the outlanders ive us more of these knives’ He looked around to h to hear him ‘I cheated just a little,’ he said quietly ‘After you told -", and ord got out, they all caht Then Nanton and the shepherds joined us with their slings I think the outlanders ht be a little surprised when they find out that we’re not quite as helpless as they ht ere’