Tin Men

"Oh, look, the tin men have come out to play again!" The taunt was heavy with hardly supressed glee as it floated down over the ramparts to reach the dwindling army below. "How many do you think we can take down this time?"

Just as expected, a flurry of angry responses rose from the enemy ranks.

"It's amusing," he said, turning to his companion archer, "You would have thoguht that they wuold have figured it out by now. We're provoking them solely for our own entertainment."

"Fools... but, it's entirely their own fault for trying to put a fully prepared city under seige, let alone try to raise this particular fight again."

"A few far off-target arrows careened over  of their heads in the next minute. Instinctively, the two men ducked, despite the fact that the arrows clattered to the stone floor several yards away.

Racaus laughter followed the arrows' flight, but the two archers silenced it quickly with a half-dozen precisely aimed arrows of their own.

"Fools," he said again with a shake of his head, "If theyt keep this up we'll have picked off the majority of them before we even launch the main attack."

"Careful you don't say that too loudly- no need to enlighten our friends on the one thing that they don't need to know."

"Good point, I wouldn't want to spoil the fun, after all."

"Watch it, I wouldn't let Commander hear you, if only for propiety's sake."

"I see no reason for concern- we're completely following orders."

"Yes, and I'm quite sure both heckling and taunting the outpost beseiging us to the point of retaliation were included in that order," he replied sarcastically.

Manthion grinned ruefully. "No, I suppose not."  He paused for a minute before adding, "but it's certainly working."

The older archer looked at him for a long moment before breaking into a fit of laughter. "I see now why Commander took such a liking to you," he said finally, dodiging the newest array of falling arrows.

Once sure of his relative safety, Manthion peered over the ramparts before yelling down to them, "we weren't even talking about you that time!" which only sent his companion off in another wave of laughter.

Manthion looked up from where he had been peering over the ramparts, his tone light, but the sparkel of laughter had faded from the other's eyes as he silently watched the westward  mountains and the storm that had been brewing there for the past several days. "Any day now, that storm will break and we'll be free of this blasted war."