Paul Thompson - The Middle of Nowhere

Howland saw Carver fall, but he was deeply engaged with enemy horsemen. He and the farmers had rushed to attack, jabbing their spears at the faces of bandits and horses alike. They danced backwards when the puffing steeds stormed at them then advanced again when horse and rider turned away to face other threats. In this way they managed to bring down three or four bandits, who were promptly dispatched as they rolled helplessly on the ground.

One after another, Amergin’s slingers had been lanced or ridden down until only the elf and two village women remained. They retreated to an alley between huts. There they held off several onslaughts until bandits swarmed at them from the other direction. Amergin and his surviving slingers were swallowed up in a wave of flashing armor and snorting horses.

Seeing Amergin beset, Howland forgot the sword in his hand and snatched up a loose stone, which he hurled at a near rider. It clanged off his helmet, dazing him, and in the confusion that followed he was speared from three directions by desperate farmers. Raika swooped in, trailed by her spear company. She might have known next to nothing about wielding a lance, but even a tyro can stick a sharp point into a target. The brave woman aimed her weapon at a well-turned out bandit with saffron plumes on his helmet. Her lance head skittered across his ribbed cuirass and caught on the brace on his shoulder. The brigand and Saifhumi sailor went flying off their respective horses. Raika bounced up, full of fight, but the bandit rolled over dead, pierced through the throat.

Howland fought his way to her side. “What of the ogres?” he yelled.

“Still coming, but slow! My one-legged granny-”

He missed the rest, as he dodged an enemy lance. The southern attack had disintegrated. Remnants of the enemy force were streaming the gaps, however. Panting hard, Howland watched them as light rain flecked his face, stinging from many small cuts and scratches.

“Reform your people,” he told Raika. “Where’s Khorr?”

“I left him to watch the ogres.”

“All right. Go back and wait with him. He will need your help.”

The villagers carried off their own dead and wounded, secreting them inside the redoubt. Howland tried to look for Amergin, but men and horses lay in heaps in the narrow lane, and arrows were raining down on the battle scene from enemy archers on the plains.

He and Robien then tried to push their way inside the hut where Carver had vanished, but the weakened structure began to collapse the moment they yanked at the door.

“Lookout! Catapult!”

Howland and Robien threw themselves down. A smooth sphere of sandstone hurtled through the air with deceptive slowness. It hit a few yards from Robien and dug in, caught by the thin layer of mud made by the rain.

Howland rounded up the closest available villagers. Only six were still fit to fight, three women and three men. Howland’s little army was thinning every hour.

With their kender leader gone, the young boys and girls also left the rooftops and presented themselves to Howland. The old soldier was deeply moved by their gallantry. They were too young to stand and fight armored horsemen, but the situation was so grave he had little choice. He ordered the young folk to take up positions atop the redoubt, guarding the salvaged catapult stones.

“Stand ready to roll them down when I give the signal,” Howland said. “Not before! We’ll be fighting with our backs to you, so we won’t see them coming until the last moment. Wait for my command.”

Carver’s whippikers responded unanimously, “Yes, Sir Howland!”

At the far end of the village, Khorr bellowed a warning. The ogres squad, six strong as Carver had reported, had almost reached the first huts. The minotaur and his loyal spearmen formed a wedge. Behind them were arrayed Raika’s band in loose formation.

Khorr stood at the front, waiting, his axe laid on his shoulder. No one saw his lips moving soundlessly as he recited the fourteenth Windwave Ballad under his breath. It was the Song of the Shipwrecked Sailor about a minotaur who fights off a tribe of ferocious cannibals single-handed then persishes when the battle is over from the prick of a poisoned arrow.

The leading ogres put aside their weapons and tore at the barricade with their bare hands. Great nobby knuckles flexed, and timbers snapped like straw. Seeing this, Khorr launched himself at the ogres. His men, full of pride in their stand in the trench days ago, followed close behind.

The first ogre had just broken through the flimsy barrier of fencing and vines when the burly minotaur appeared before him. Used to dealing with puny human, elf, or dwarf foes, the ogre was taken aback to see such a large creature rushing at him. He stepped back and groped for his battle-axe, hanging by a lanyard from his waist. Khorr charged in, kicking and swinging his broad blade. Khorr’s axe severed the ogre’s hands at his wrists. They hit the ground still gripping the axe handle.

Sweeping his axe up, Khorr ripped the ogre from belt to chin. Mortally wounded, the creature dropped but too slowly for the minotaur, who planted a foot on the ogre’s chest and kicked him aside and continued on.

Consternation reigned among the remaining ogres. No one had told them they would have to face a battle-mad minotaur, the only creature in the world ogres regarded with a degree of awe. They abandoned their attempt to tear down the barricade, backing away from Nowhere to regroup.

Raika slipped in behind Khorr in time to see the ogres beating a retreat. Spotting the thoroughly dead ogre Khorr killed lying in heap six yards away, Raika whistled excitedly.

“Now yell,” she advised her towering friend. “Brandish your axe!”

Khorr threw back his head and roared so loudly that even Raika felt a thrill of fear. He made chopping motions with his bloodstained blade, cleaving the air in all directions.

“How’s that?” he muttered over his shoulder to her.

“I’m convinced,” Raika said.

The ogres were made of stern stuff, however. Overcoming their surprise, they stood shoulder to shoulder and screamed defiance back. In unison, they raised their axes and started for Khorr at a dead run.

“I could use your help,” Khorr called. Crouching behind what remained of the barrier, the farmers extended their spears and braced themselves.

“What, no poetry?” Raika said, licking her dry lips. No amount of rain seemed to moisten them.

Khorr blinked his limpid brown eyes. For once he couldn’t think of an appropriate stanza to quote. Maybe the old legends of heroes who fought with a never-ending stream of verse on their lips were just that, tired old legends-

Only one word came to mind, Raika’s favorite obscenity. Khorr said it flatly. Behind him, the Saifhumi woman laughed long and loud.

“Now that’s poetry!”

The ogres hit the defenders like a landslide. One of them literally burst through the shell of an empty hut, scattering wattle and daub everywhere. Khorr caught the lead ogre’s thrust with the flat of his axe and tried to turn the creature’s blade away, but the ogre was powerful. Khorr’s bronze muscles coiled, writhing under his skin like snakes in a sack. Slowly, then with increasing speed, he turned the ogre’s axe, despite the fact his hulking foe was using both thick arms to resist Khorr.

Raika popped up under the minotaur’s arm. She ran her iron-tipped spear into the ogre’s armpit. Dark blood gushed forth. He tried to bat the woman’s spear away, but when he let go of his axe with one hand, Khorr overpowered him.

The ogre’s right arm flew back, and in the next instant the minotaur cleaved his skull.

Behind the first ogre was another, this one armed with a pair of cleaverlike swords called falchions. He came at Khorr with both blades flailing, and the minotaur had to give ground. Raika jabbed at the ogre, who chopped the head off her spear. She dropped the useless pole and whipped out her sword. She felt as if she were facing a bear with a dirk.