Энди Вейр - Rat

“Take Aim!” came a booming voice from behind, obviously directed at the archers.

“Fire!”

The archers loosed their arrows in unison. The twanging of the strings sounded like some horrid musical instrument that had fallen from a great height. And the twanging did not stop. Each archer, finishing a shot, would load and fire another one. They were not well-disciplined enough to fire every round simultaneously.

Ahead, Orcs all along the battle line dropped to the ground in the hail of arrow fire. Shortly thereafter, another little “present” from the mages flew overhead and pounded into the Orcish lines. But no sooner did Orcs fall than were they replaced with reinforcements.

Glawyn looked at the men around him. They were from all quarters of the city. Some were still in their bed clothes. Others wore elegant business outfits, blacksmith’s aprons, traveler’s cloaks, foppish party dress, and rags. Glawyn wondered how this attack come so suddenly and without warning? How could the Army not know the Orcs were headed for Tordanal? He looked around himself again. The man to his right wore merchant’s robes.

“Hi,” said Glawyn. “A merchant, eh?”

“What?” said the stocky merchant. He was a little elderly for military duty, perhaps 40 years old. But all the men here today were volunteers, and every man was needed. “Oh, yes.” He never took his frightened eyes off the advancing Orcs. “They’ll be firing back soon.”

“Why haven’t they already?”

“Their bows don’t have the range ours do.”

“How do you know that.”

“I sell a lot of weapons. Not to them, of course. Still. I know weapons. They may not have the range, but their arrowheads are barbed.”

Glawyn stuck out his hand. “The name’s Glawyn. It’ll be a pleasure getting slaughtered with you.”

The merchant shook Glawyn’s hand. “Clwydd. Merchant of House Medrus.”

Then, the first wave of Orcish arrows hit home.

Rat held Talfryn close as she listened to the rumbling pillars of fire leaving town.

“Are we gonna die?” Asked Talfryn.

“No,” said Rat with as much confidence as she could fake. She wondered about Glawyn. She knew him. She knew him better than she knew anyone else save Talfryn. Somehow, she just knew he was out on the battle lines. He feared nothing. It was one of the qualities that endeared him to her. It also might very well get him killed today. She tried to put it out of her mind.

The arrows whipped through the air, grounding in the dirt around the soldiers’ feet. Each arrow thumped the ground with a sound that would not be frightening if you didn’t know what it was. Sometimes, the sound was a fleshy damp crack, signaling a hit. The air was filled with the screams of the wounded and the silence of the dead.

Glawyn cringed as he saw another wave of arrows arcing toward the picket line. He closed his eyes and hoped. He heard the thwip thwip thwip of the arrows nearby and several sklurtches as men were wounded or killed. He felt two arrows brush him. One on the arm, and one on the leg. He opened his eyes to assess the damage. Both had penetrated cloth, neither penetrating flesh.

“Pretty lucky, eh?” he said to his new friend Clwydd.

“Wish… I could say… the same…” said Clwydd, clutching an arrow in his right shoulder.

“Clwydd!” Exclaimed Glawyn.

“I’ll be all right… Just muscle.” He fell to his knees.

“But—”

Glawyn was interrupted by an unearthly howl from all along the enemy lines. The Orcs were charging.

Glawyn held his sword in both hands and shifted from foot to foot. “Here they come.”

Clwydd pulled the arrow from his shoulder with a scream. Had he known more of military matters, he would have pushed the arrow through and out the other side. As it was, the barb brought a lot of muscle with it. He nearly passed out from the pain. Blood poured down his right arm.

“Charge!” Came the order down the line, and the men counter-charged into the Orcish charge.

Glawyn hesitated, looking at Clwydd.

“Go, boy! Go! Don’t worry about me.”

Glawyn charged. He had past panic some time ago. He had reached that peaceful lake that lay on the other side of panic. It was a form of emotional shock that takes hold of a man when he is in an inescapably dangerous situation. It was one of the main reasons humans were so good at battle. The fear leaves. It was quite unexpected.

What the Orcs had working in their favor was an unquenchable appetite for evil and a bloodlust that no human could understand. They also had a considerable advantage in numbers. The human line crumbled before them, many Orcs felling men left and right with mighty swings of horribly barbed swords.

Glawyn met the line of battle with a yell and quickly found himself face to face with an Orcish warrior. Glawyn fell, half by tripping, half on purpose, and avoided a mighty blow from the Orc. The off-balanced adversary was caught off guard by his prey dropping out of sight; he nearly toppled. Glawyn took advantage of this and ran him through.

The Orc’s dead body fell atop Glawyn, pinning him to the ground. Glawyn could only look around him at the carnage that ensued. The men were getting cut to pieces. The Orcish onslaught barely slowed down. If he didn’t move soon, he would be in Orcish country because Orcish country was advancing past him at a steady run.

He wriggled and squirmed to get out from under the hulking body. It took him quite a while. Once successful, he adroitly dodged blows from passing Orcs and ran with them to get back to his own line. Those that noticed were so surprised they barely got time to swing before Glawyn passed them by. He was always an excellent runner.

He reached the skirmish line, where the Orcs had their first major trouble. Those men that did not charge stayed behind with their pikes and tried to hold their ground. Many of the Orcs simply impaled themselves on the pikes, because while being bloodthirsty warriors, Orcs weren’t especially good tacticians.

Glawyn leapt across the retreating line and scrambled forward. He felt momentarily safe, and was even considering looking for a pike to help hold the line when the Orcs overran that, too. The men were in full disorganized retreat.

He broke in to a full run. He was well ahead of the Orcs, now. He glanced left and right to take in his situation and came skidding to a halt in the bloody muddied battlefield when he saw Clwydd laying on the ground amongst several dead bodies. Clwydd writhed in pain.

“Clwydd! You’ve got to get out of here!”

Clwydd pointed to a gash on his leg. “Got that at the skirmish line after you left. I can’t walk. You better go, son.”

Glawyn bent down and pulled Clwydd to his feet, supporting him on his bad side.

“No sense in us both getting killed, boy! Save yourself, gods damn it!”

“Come on.”

Clwydd grunted disapproval and hobbled forward with Glawyn’s help. They made some progress, but it was slow with Clwydd’s bad leg and the arrow-punctured bodies they had to clamber over.

Glawyn looked behind him to see the Orcish line advancing mercilessly. “Ok, we better play dead.”

“I’m nearly there anyway.”

The two fell to the ground and lay still, closing their eyes.

The Orcish line was a rumbling that would not stop. The tension was unbearable. Finally, the rumbling came upon them and was all around them. They could hear the breaking-glass-like language of the Orcs as they yelled their battle cries. In the middle of the chaos, an armored boot stomped on Glawyn’s arm. It took all his resolve not to cry out in pain.

Finally, the line passed them by.

Glawyn opened his eyes. He saw the Orcs running, screaming into the Low Quarter.