Andrew Hartley - Act of Will

“These are our neighbors,” said Maia simply. “They need to come too.”

I stared at them.

“Right,” I said. “Come on.”

And I led them.

It was getting darker, and that was all to the good, because back here on the track behind the houses there was only a scattering of barns and workshops, and a series of low, erratic hedges between the fields and cart tracks. There would be almost nothing in the way of cover till we reached the edge of the forest a very long mile to the north.

We moved quickly, but part of the village was already well ablaze. The sky was orange, flecks of burning tinder swirling and sparking in the heavy smoke, but there was no sign of the raiders, and I was fairly sure that I had killed the only one who could have seen us go. And besides, there was no reason for them to expand their hunt beyond the village. That wasn’t their way.

Except, of course, that there was a reason this time. Me. The raiders might have torched a dozen or more villages over the last few months, but this was the first time one of their number, one who had appeared with them out of the fog, had charged ahead of the attack and tried to sabotage the assault. They had lost me in the chaos of the battle-if you can call the slaughter that was going on a hundred yards behind me a battle-but I might just have done enough to make them curious about me. A bunch of random villagers, they couldn’t care less about, but one of their own undermining their murderous labors? A very different story. They would come after me. After us.

It wasn’t just Maia’s family I had to worry about. Once we had been joined by her neighbors, another family from the last house on the street, and a straggling handful who had just been milling about, there were about twenty-five of them, mostly children. There were three who looked like they might die of old age before we reached the forest, and a handful of women, one of whom was shrieking with grief and terror. Maia’s mother-a woman with a hard, tear-streaked face-took the woman’s hand, but she just got louder. Her husband had been killed in front of her, and one of her children was missing. There really wasn’t much you could say, but her screaming was like a beacon in the night, telling the raiders exactly where we were.

There were only four men who looked capable of putting up a fight should the raiders catch up with us, and, apart from Maia’s father, who still cradled the crossbow, they boasted no more than kitchen knives and a pitchfork, weapons-wise. I was the only one on a horse, and all that seemed to do was make us conspicuous. I dismounted, gave the reins to Maia, and told her to lead the women and children along the track towards the woods. Once they reached the last farmhouse, they were to get off the path and make for the tree line. I called Maia’s father over, and gathered the other three men at the back of the slow, wailing column.

We were hidden behind the houses of the main street, many of which were burning. I could hear that there was some fighting going on at the far end, but it was only a token resistance, and the raiders would be on us soon enough.

“When the raiders come,” I said, “they’ll have to go through us.”

The men nodded, and I found myself listening to my voice as if it had come from someone else: someone like Orgos or Mithos who knew what he was doing and had organized tactical retreats like this dozens of time. I pictured the Cresdon audiences gazing up at me in this new and unlikely role and almost smiled.

One of the men was only a teenager with a blond wisp of a beard. His eyes looked scared. Maia’s father, a burly man whose name was Grath, put a heavy hand on his shoulder as if to pass a little courage his way, and then started walking backwards behind the women, his eyes on the village’s blazing silhouettes. I cocked my crossbow and tried to stay low, scuttling backwards like a crab.

The first horseman appeared behind a sprawl of low buildings with chimneys that I took to be a smithy. He had a torch, or I would not have seen him. Another joined him, flashing blackly into view as his horse cantered past a wall of flame. Then another. They were looking for me; I could feel it. They seemed to talk and then wheeled to face me, peering into the darkness.

We were a good 150 yards away and we had no torches or lanterns. There was a hawthorn hedge slanting across a field between us and them, not enough to obscure us completely, but enough to demand rather more of their eyes. We might have made it, had it not been for the crying of the bereaved.

The raiders caught their keening on the wind and their attitude shifted, grew tense and alert, like dogs. Then they began to move. They approached slowly at first, but you could feel their pace increasing with their certainty. Yes, there were people out there running away, and yes, they could reach them and kill them.

But there were still only three of them.

“Keep moving,” I called to the column of refugees as they trudged along the track towards the trees. “They are coming.”

The cries of grief slipped into a higher, more panicked register.

“Grath,” I said to Maia’s father, “hold the middle of the path.” I pushed into the hedge on one side and gestured for the kid with the crossbow to do the same on the other side.

There wasn’t time to think, and that was probably just as well. In a moment the three horsemen would be upon us.

Our two crossbows seemed to shoot simultaneously, but I couldn’t see what happened. One of the horses snorted and reared, and his rider crashed to the ground. I drew my sword and tried to block the downward slash of one of the other raiders’ scyaxes, but the force of the thing was too much for me and I fell to the road, those great hooves stamping around me. The kid was grappling with the fallen raider, rolling on the ground and grunting with pain and anger. Grath was using a pitchfork to stab and parry at the third horseman. Then his pitchfork fell to the road, and Grath slumped back, kicked hard in the stomach by the raider’s great chestnut mount, and I looked up to find a bronze face looming over me.

I struggled to my knees to block his scyax with my sword, but my strength had gone, and his blow put me on my back again. The raider stooped low in the saddle and raised the scyax above his head to strike. I looked over at Grath, but he was lying where he had fallen, and the kid was still locked in battle with the other raider. He might win, but it would take about five seconds too long.

So, I thought, with sudden clarity, this is it.

I tried not to shut my eyes.

And then there was silence. Real silence. The silence of a shocked, spellbound audience, when you can’t even hear the creak of the stage or the crunching of nuts in the pit because everyone, every living soul in the place, is momentarily still.

Then there was a swish of air, a thud, and the raider above me rocked quietly out of his saddle, the pitchfork embedded in his chest. I rolled and looked for Grath, trying to gasp out my thanks, but Grath was still lying on the road, winded and groaning. Maia’s mother stood in the center of the lane, slender and pale, her eyes streaming, her right hand still raised and open.

The third raider reined his horse to a stuttering halt and turned back to the village. He wasn’t about to take us on alone, and he would return with more, but for a moment, it was over.

As Maia’s mother crumpled to the road, giving way completely to her grief and horror, I realized something. Until now, our mission had been about obligation, a way to make some money and stay alive. The only emotion my duties had instilled in me so far had been fear. Now there was something else: outrage. I didn’t know that I could do anything to stop the raiders, but the party was the only force I had encountered so far that might even come close. I needed to get back to them.