Paul Thompson - The Middle of Nowhere

“What for?” asked Raika.

“I mean to return them to their owners.”

Wounded villagers as well as those too old or too young to fight clambered up the sides of the mound. Inside, the dirt walls were held back by stakes, planks, and matting, leaving a tight sheltered zone inside, roughly twenty-four feet by twelve at the widest point. The villagers not fighting crowded in, huddling close together. Babies wailed. At one point a catapult stone hit the edge of the rampart sending a shower of dirt over the cowering families. Panic broke out, as one wounded villager cried out that they were being buried alive.

At this juncture Khorr appeared above them, brandishing a battle-axe taken from a fallen bandit. With all the power of his considerable voice, he boomed,

Take heart, hopeless, helpless ones!

Heroes of thy own hearth help thee!

Spilling the blood of the invader!

It was as much from the force of the minotaur’s delivery as the words he recited that the terrified villagers were calmed. Khorr’s band of spearmen raised their weapons high and cheered. Not to be outdone, Raika bullied her contingent into a battle cry, too. The result was not as stirring as Raika wanted.

“Milksops!” she shouted. “My one-legged granny can shout better than you!”

“Why does your granny have one leg?” asked Bakar.

“Shut up! Now yell like you mean it!”

From out on the plain, the bandits raised a cheer of their own. To Howland it sounded forced. This was not the fight they had joined Rakell’s band for. Easy pickings and plunder, that’s what they preferred. Brawling with fear-maddened peasants was not the sweet life they’d been promised.

Carver came running. The usually unflappable kender was genuinely agitated, though it was impossible to say if he was frightened or thrilled by the news he bore.

He tugged Howland’s shirt sleeve, and when the old soldier bent near, the kender said (quite loudly) in his ear, “Ogres!”

Howland paled. Raika uttered one of her favorite expletives. Robien wiped his smooth chin and lips with one hand, drawing air in through his teeth with a sharp hiss.

“How many?” asked Howland.

Carver counted to ten on his fingers and said, “Six!”

“Khorr!”

The minotaur circled around the mound. “Yes, Sir Howland?”

“I have an especially dangerous task for you.” He relayed Carver’s news. “It’s your job to try to stop the ogres.”

Khorr tapped the head of his axe against the palm of his large hand. “Do you think it is possible?”

“You must try. Our survival depends on breaking every element of Rakell’s attack. No matter how well we fend off his human warriors, everything will be for nought if the ogres can break through at will.”

The minotaur nodded his massive, horned head thoughtfully.

Howland clapped Khorr on the arm. “Good. You can do it. A minotaur is worth any number of ogres, after all!”

“But is a poet worth six trained warriors, I wonder?” Khorr replied.

“Good stuff for your epic,” said Raika encouragingly.

“If I live to compose it.”

The sixth boulder launched at the village demolished a hut on the north side, sending up a plume of yellow dust. Because the huts had been emptied of dirt, they fell easy victims to the plunging stones. The catapult crew shouted with joy at their success, but Howland sent Malek and four farmers to recover the rock.

The bombardment continued until the mist evaporated. A hot, humid wind scoured the scene, driving dust in the bandits’ faces. The wind died. The turgid clouds, which had been crawling from east to west like a school of malignant jellyfish, stopped with the wind. For a moment, calm reigned.

Trumpets blared on three sides. Howland shook hands with everyone close by-Khorr, Raika, Carver, Amergin, Caeta, Malek, and Robien.

“Good luck,” he told them all.

Everyone ran to their place. The outer line of defense, the huts and barricade, would be defended until the enemy broke through, which Howland conceded would eventually occur. When that happened, everyone was to fall back to the redoubt. Once there, there was no place left to retreat.

A few fat droplets of rain landed in the dust. As the bandit army started forward, a light shower began. Howland looked up at the sky.

“This is good,” he mused to Robien. “Rain will slacken their bowstrings and weaken their catapult skein.”

“Blade to blade, then,” said the bounty hunter.

Howland grunted.

The three bandit contingents were not well-coordinated. The southern band, presumably under Rakell’s command, started forward early. The eastern segment, where the ogres were stationed, got moving next, but the slow-walking creatures held their human allies back, and Rakell’s mounted troops moved farther ahead of them. Lastly came the northern contingent, mostly men on foot, marching in loose order toward the little ring of huts.

A horse neighed close by. Howland turned to see Raika mounted on the animal. Bakar handed her a brigand’s lance, which she couched inexpertly under her arm.

“Bend your arm more!” Howland called to her.

Raika acknowledged his advice with a wave. She turned her horse around and trotted to the east end of the village to await the ogres.

Forty yards from Nowhere, Rakell’s southern force lowered their lances and charged. Howland couldn’t believe an experienced commander would allow his cavalry to charge huts and fences. He ordered Amergin and his slingers forward to empty as many saddles as they could.

“Save one iron star for Rakell!” Howland said.

Amergin held out his hand, displaying the missile he was keeping for just that purpose.

At ten yards the slingers hurled, felling six bandits at once. Two tangled their feet in their stirrups and were dragged by their charging mounts. Amergin drew his group back a few steps and hurled again. Four bandits went down as well as two horses, then the enemy was upon them. The lead riders leaped their horses over the low barricade, coming down amidst the slingers. Amergin and the rest drew swords, but they were scattered and intimidated by the bandits’ lances.

“Come on, they need help!” Howland cried. With Robien and ten farmers with spears, they ran to the slingers’ rescue.

The second line of horsemen reached the barricade, dismounted, and rushed the barriers with their swords. Carver led in his young whippikers. Leap-frogging from roof to roof, they got above the enemy and scourged them with darts made from the bandits’ own arrows. Furious, some of the bandits abandoned the barricade and tried climbing the huts to get at the dart-throwers.

“Go back, all of you!” Carver shouted, pulling boys and girls away. Foolishly brave, some children were willing to go toe to toe with the bandits, but they wouldn’t stand a chance.

Two bandits stood unsteadily on one roof. The thatch, which supported the diminutive kender and children well enough, had been softened by rain and now sagged uncertainly under the armored warriors. Stung by days of frustration and defeat, their faces contorted, the bandits gingerly crossed the conical roof, slashing at the fleeing children.

Carver let out a yell and drew his sword, a brigand’s curved saber he’d ground down to suit his reach. Scrambling over the tight thatch, he drew off one bandit, and they traded cuts. Carver parried clumsily, holding the ungainly weapon in both hands. The bandit wasn’t much better off. After a third blow, his left foot plunged through the roof, and he fell, losing his sword. Carver darted in and plunged his short blade into the bandit’s ribs, behind his iron breastplate.

He had no time to celebrate his victory. The second bandit dealt Carver a smashing blow to the head with the crossguard of his sword, sending the kender stumbling backward. His new opponent raised his blade high for the killing blow. Carver tried to deflect it, but the thatch gave way under them both. Kender and bandit plunged through and vanished.