Paul Thompson - The Middle of Nowhere

With a screech, one of the ogre’s falchions slashed across Khorr’s chest. His banded armor stopped much of the blow, but bright lines of blood appeared. If the minotaur felt any pain, Khorr didn’t show it. He chopped hard, not at the ogre’s hands but at his weapons. Catching the left falchion on its flat edge, Khorr’s axe cracked the wrought-iron blade. Khorr brought his right foot back and parried the ogre’s next attack. Weakened by the minotaur’s blow, the ogre’s left blade snapped off. He threw down the stump of the broken weapon and lunged point-first with the remaining one. Khorr was taken completely off-guard. Six inches of iron pierced his belly.

He grunted in surprise. His grotesque foe exposed yellow tusks in a ferocious snarl of triumph. Khorr shook his head and backed off the ogre’s blade then drove the upper point of his axe into his opponent’s chest. Driven by the minotaur’s mighty muscles, it went through a quarter inch of bronze cuirass like a nail through a pewter plate. Khorr gave the axe a hard twist, cracking the ogre’s ribs apart. The monster fell dead at his feet.

The minotaur poet staggered backward, blood seeping from his wound. Raika sheathed her sword and tried to shore up her great companion.

“Stand up! You’ll be all right!” she cried.

“Who can be all right with a hole in his belly?” said Khorr. He dropped to one knee.

Three ogres were dead, slain by the minotaur. Now the other three crashed through the defenses on either side, scattering the farmers who tried to oppose them. Seeing their mighty leader falter, Khorr’s men linked arms and threw themselves at the closest ogre. Eight men, each armed with a metal-tipped spear, impaled the ogre and drove him backwards into a still-standing hut. Ogre and hut collapsed together. Shouting Khorr’s name, the villagers rallied behind him.

The last pair of ogres reached the village common, opposed only by Raika’s scattered band. They encircled the ogres, keeping a safe distance while jabbing ineffectively at them.

Bolstered by the sight, Khorr rose to join the circle around the ogres. In as harsh and commanding a voice as he could muster, the minotaur said, “Lay down your arms and you shall be spared!”

The creature facing Khorr spat yellow phlegm. His meaning was clear.

Raika claimed a lost spear and urged her timid followers forward. Stabbing at the ogres’ faces or feet, they kept them off balance long enough for Khorr to land a telling blow on the arm of the leader. This ogre sagged to the ground, and Khorr’s men quickly finished him off, impaling him again and again.

Alone, the last ogre threw down his axe. The farmers, thinking he meant to give up, lowered their guard.

“Look out!” Raika screamed.

Drawing a dagger the size of Carver’s sword, the last ogre took a great leap and landed on Khorr. Locked together, the giants toppled into the mud. Raika tried to rush in and stab the ogre in the back, but she was knocked down by a flying fist. The blow almost broke her jaw.

The dagger flashed once, twice, covered in blood as it rose. Khorr had lost his axe when the ogre tackled him. All he had left were his enormous hands. Despite his wounds, he got his foe in a headlock. Over and over they rolled, right to the center of Nowhere. At last Khorr got hold of the ogre’s great flapping ear and with a supreme heave wrung his enemy’s neck. It cracked like a flash of lightning. The ogre let out a final grunt, and his limbs went slack.

Raika was there. She and two farmers levered the ogre’s stinking carcass off Khorr.

“Hey, poet!” she cried, “don’t die yet!”

“Death is not the end,” the minotaur said faintly. “Every epic closes with an epitaph.”

His hand slowly opened. Into the mud fell his most prized possession, the ronto , the memory book Ezu had given to him.

Raika picked up the rain-spattered book. Howland, Robien, and the villagers from the redoubt came running up.

“In all my life I’ve never seen such a fight!” Howland exclaimed. “Did Khorr kill all the ogres single-handed?”

Raika looked up at Howland. She was glad of the rain coursing down her face.

“Yes. Yes, he did.” She knew it wasn’t true, but it would make a better story that way.

Rain fell harder, changing the dusty common into a bowl of mud. Both sides used the downpour as an excuse to draw apart. When Rakell’s hired ogres were repulsed, the bandits on the east side of Nowhere retreated hastily. Unsupported, the northern prong of the attack also withdrew without closing with the defenders.

If the bandits were hard-pressed, the defenders of Nowhere were bereft. Only a few adults escaped any injures, and these carried Khorr’s body back to the redoubt, struggling through the mud all the way. Wrapped in the best blankets the farmers had, Khorr was laid to rest in the trench he had so ably defended.

Atop the earthen wall, Howland looked out over the somber scene, sorely troubled. In a single engagement he’d lost half his remaining people. Brave Khorr was dead. Carver was still missing. They’d not been able to dig out the collapsed hut where he’d plunged through the roof fighting his bandit foe. Amergin had disappeared. During the fight with the ogres, Rakell’s men had cleared the field of their dead and wounded, horses included, and of the Kagonesti forester there was no sign. Dead or captured, he was lost to Howland either way.

Caeta came to him with a steaming bowl of broth. She draped a hairy cowhide cape over his shoulders to keep the rain off.

“What word?” she said.

“A few riders passing between camps. That’s all.” Howland sipped the broth. It was chicken, hot and salty.

“Why don’t they give up? Haven’t we cost them far more than the worth of one little village?”

Howland pulled the cape up closer to his neck. “That may be the problem,” he replied. “We’ve hurt them greatly. Now Rakell may be fighting for the sake of pride, not profit.”

She didn’t ask what he thought their chances were. Everyone knew there was no escape.

The rain persisted. Late in the afternoon a lookout cried out for Howland. He climbed the slippery slope of the redoubt and immediately beheld what had alarmed the farmer.

Walking uncertainly across the harvest-bared south plain came a lone figure, cloaked and cowled against the weather. There was nothing special about him, save that he was alone and on foot. He had no visible weapons, nor did he carry a flag of truce.

Howland called for Robien. The bounty hunter hastened to Howland’s side.

“Water’s getting deep inside,” the elf said, indicating the interior of the redoubt. Rainwater had collected to the point that the wounded and aged villagers had to abandon the redoubt for drier positions atop the earthen wall. A few even went back to their homes, saying it was better to die under their own roof than to cower in the mud.

“Never mind the water,” Howland said. “We have a visitor.”

Robien spotted the solitary figure. “Who can it be?”

“We’ll know soon. In the mean time, keep a sharp watch on other fronts. This may be a trick to draw our attention away from another spot.”

The loner on foot moved deliberately, but before long he was near the outer ring of huts. Howland, Raika, and Malek went to the same gap in the houses the bandits had broken down earlier. As soon as Howland entered the narrow lane, he saw the stranger had stopped. He stood outside the former barricade, unmoving, as rain streamed off his smoke-colored cowl.

Raika bared her blade. “Doesn’t feel right!”

Howland nodded but moved forward. Malek caught his arm and stopped him.