The Middle of Nowhere

CHAPTER ELEVEN

All too soon the late morning sun scoured away the mist. What was revealed when the fog burned off made every heart in Nowhere skip a beat.

Arrayed on the plains around the village were scores of horsemen, many more than the thirty-odd riders who had originally swooped down on the farmers and carried off their people to slave in mines. From his perch atop the tallest house, Carver counted eighty-nine horsemen, ten ogres, and most ominously of all, a wheeled catapult drawn by six brawny oxen.

Standing on the stone wall surrounding the well, Howland, Raika, Robien, and Amergin watched the bandits as they galloped about They did not close on the village though, not yet. Howland had an idea why.

“Rakell isn’t here yet,” he surmised. “Look at them! All this to-ing and fro-ing! No decent commander would countenance such a waste of energy. Rakell must be delayed.”

“You mean he may show up with more men?” said Raika.

“No more than a dozen, I’ll wager-Rakell and his personal retinue.”

“The odds are too much. I never bargained on this,” Robien said.

“None of us did.” Howland lowered his hands from his brow, where he’d shaded his eyes against the glare. “I hope none of you had any other plans for your life.”

He jumped down, calling for Caeta, her father the Elder, and other prominent villagers. Old Calec tottered up to Howland wearing a rusty iron pot on his head. At first Howland took it to be a misused cooking pot, but on closer inspection he saw it was an old-style Solamnic helmet, of the kind worn by the yeoman infantry.

“Where did you get that?” he said sharply.

Calec touched the helmet absently. “Marren’s house. When we cleared it out, we found many old armaments,” he replied. “What do we do now, Sir Howland? The enemy is more numerous than we expected-”

Howland plucked the helmet off the aged man’s head. Judging by the nicks and dents, it had seen hard use.

“Marren had this? Laila’s father?”

“Aye, with some other martial goods.” The elder gestured, and the villagers behind him displayed various soldierly items: a pair of leg guards, an armored skullcap, and a good war dagger with an iron blade a foot long. Howland examined these things closely. They were all of Solamnic workmanship, a style he knew well. He dated the arms to his youth, thirty to forty years ago. Thirty years ago Howland had been a proud and powerful young warrior, serving the gracious lord Harbard.

“Sir Howland!” Robien prodded him insistently. “Sir Howland, the enemy!”

The present returned like a slap in the face. Howland saw a squadron of lancers were trotting straight at the trench.

“Everyone to your places!” he cried. “They mean to test our mettle. Show them what we’re made of!”

He hurried to Khorr with Robien at his heels. Raika mustered her little company of spearmen, and Amergin organized his slingers.

The bandits came on deliberately, sizing up the defenses as they came. Bodies of the men who’d fallen during the melee in the fog still lay in the newly mown field.

From atop the earthen bulwark Howland peered into the trench. Khorr had taken his place in the center of the ditch, flanked by an equal numbers of villagers on either side.

“Fight hard!” Howland said. “They’re searching for weakness. Don’t show them any!”

Arrows flickered into the dirt on either side of Howland’s feet. The old Knight disregarded the danger until Robien pulled him down. How he wished the farmers had bows of their own!

“Get Amergin,” he said quietly. “Tell Carver to hold the whippiks until the enemy presents a better target.”

Robien raced away with Howland’s orders. When the bandits were within lance-reach of the line of stakes, Howland stood and shouted, “Now, Khorr, now!”

The minotaur came roaring out of the trench, followed by screaming farmers brandishing spears, clubs, and axes. They had strict orders not the leave the shelter of the stakes, but with the hated foe so near, some forgot what they’d been told and ran out too far. Two villagers were promptly trampled into the dirt. They might have perished had not Khorr stormed in, swinging a mace in each hand. He clubbed down two riders and dragged the impetuous farmers to safety.

Noting the frenzy of the villagers’ resistance, the bandits broke and rode away. Howland guessed what was next. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Amergin and his slingers were coming. They were, at a dead run, Robien with them. A quick check showed Carver and the children were in place on the rooftops.

Fifty yards from the stakes, the riders suddenly turned and spurred hard, charging back on Khorr’s troops. As Khorr had been instructed, he kept his men out of the trench, seemingly confused and leaderless.

“Stand where you are!” the minotaur boomed. The farmers shifted nervously, fearful of the thundering horses and bright lance tips rushing at them. Above, Howland held his breath. He could have shouted instructions to Khorr and his men, but he wanted to see how they would perform without him.

“Spearmen, kneel!”

In ragged order, the farmers went down on one knee, extending their spears forward. They filled the gaps between the larger, heavier stakes.

Ten yards. Eight. Six … two of the villagers yelped and dropped their weapons, scampering frantically into the trench. Howland swore out loud. The rest held.

The bandits boldly charged home. They must have believed the villagers would break. All they had to do then was maneuver between the sharpened obstacles and massacre the farmers. The riders were brave, but their judgment poor. Most of the farmers stood fast, and the stakes were closer together than they appeared.

Horses screamed and reared as they collided with the sharp wooden points. Warriors fell heavily from the saddle. In moments the gallant charge became a mass of bloody confusion.

“Now, slingers! Now, whippiks!”

Around Howland, Amergin and his slingers loosed a storm of pellets on the trapped horsemen. Lacking enough metal stars, they had to use smooth stones, which while deadly against unarmored targets, were not so effective against iron helmets and breastplates. The storm of flying stones took their toll, however, and the whippik darts completed the rout. More than one rider, hearing the terrible sound of airborne projectiles, glanced upward to receive a stone or dart in the face.

One by one the bandits turned tail and galloped to safety. The last to fall was a hard-riding fellow at the rear of the formation. Amergin slipped one of his few remaining stars into his sling and let it fly. Sunlight flashed off the whirling, pointed disc until it buried itself in the small of the rider’s back. He threw up his hands and slid lifelessly from his horse.

Khorr raised a cheer, which the villagers atop the mound echoed again and again. From the rooftops, the whippik corps jeered the retreating brigands with all the crude and cruel vigor that comes naturally to children.

“Enough!” Howland said gruffly. “We haven’t won yet.” To give weight to his words, a score of archers rode forward, out of range of slings or whippiks, and peppered the trench and mound with arrows. Everyone hastily took cover.

“I count eight,” Robien said, sliding his sword back into its scabbard. “And six animals.”

Howland peered over the trench. Eight new bodies littered the ground. He didn’t bother to count slain horses.

“They won’t attack here again,” Howland said. “Next they’ll try the houses.” The perimeter of the tiny village suddenly seemed very wide and long. Where would the enemy strike?

He told Amergin, “Go to Raika. I’ll join you after I have a word with Khorr. Robien, stay with me.”

Amergin led his slingers away. Howland and the bounty hunter climbed over the rim of the mound and slid down into the trench. Wild-eyed farmers presented a hedge of spear points to him when they landed.

“Easy, lads. Don’t you know your own commander?” said Robien.

“Beg pardon, sir!” said the nearest villager, a burly woman with stout arms and a childlike face.

“It’s all right. You did well.” Howland slipped among them, patting the sweating, trembling farmers on the back as he went. “You fought well. Be proud!”

“They’re not so tough!” declared a young man in a leather apron, the village cobbler.

“They won’t mess with us again!” said his companion. Howland let them brag. Soon enough events would deflate their buoyant spirits.

He found Khorr standing over the two men who’d run away from the bandits’ attack. They huddled together miserably in the bottom of the trench. Though Khorr towered over them, looking very fierce, Howland could tell the minotaur poet was sorry for them.

“What am I to do with you?” Khorr said not very forcefully. “Every hand is needed. I can’t send you back to wait with the gray-haired grannies, can I?”

“Answer your commander!” Howland barked when the men said nothing.

“No, sir!” they chorused.

“They must stay,” Howland said for all to hear. “No one is excused from fighting, not now. We can’t spare anyone! Put these white-livered dastards among those who fought most bravely. Maybe their courage will rub off.”

The unhappy pair slunk away. In private tones, Howland said, “Keep alert. I don’t think they’ll attack you again, not today, anyway.” He pointed to the opposite end of Nowhere. “They’ll try the east end next.”

“How do you know, sir?” the minotaur asked.

“Rakell’s not here yet. Some underling must be in command. I suspect he wants to impress his master and capture the village before Rakell arrives. I’ve watched the bandits. They’re fine riders, but they know nothing of tactics. Their next move will be to attack as far away from the trench as they can, thinking they’re being foxy.” Howland grinned. “I’ll teach them a thing or two.”

“Yes, sir!”

Khorr boosted Robien and the old Knight out of the trench. As man and elf descended the earthen mound behind the trench, they heard the minotaur’s deep voice proclaim,

Let us sing of wind and wave and wonder,

Shouting seven songs of wild wanderings!

Sea and sky, land and lie,

Ballads long and martial-!

“Windwave Ballads, first canto,” Robien declared.

Howland smiled. Fighter or not, Khorr was an inspiration to his men. Many captains counted as greater warriors could not claim that.

As he crossed the village common, ignoring the cowering old women and weeping babies, Howland saw columns of dust rising outside the ring of huts. The air was still, so the dust gave an excellent indication of where the bandits were moving. Large numbers were riding hard from west to east, just as Howland predicted.

He bumped solidly into someone. He was about to shove the lout aside when he realized it was Ezu.

“The battle is joined?”

“Yes. Stay out of the way, will you?” Howland tried to slip by, but Ezu moved the same way, and they collided again.

“I beg your pardon!”

“Get out of my way!” Howland snapped. He stood stock still until Ezu stepped carefully to one side. The Knight strode on, leaving Robien to catch up.

“I hope you win!” Ezu called after him.

“I wouldn’t give you two coppers for your life if we don’t,” Howland fumed to himself.

Movement at the edge of his vision caught the Knight’s eye. Carver and his young cohorts were moving along the row of houses, the kender leaping over the gap between huts then catching each child as they followed. They chortled with delight, sounds that cheered and chilled Howland at the same time. He was glad they were not scared. He was appalled they were not terrified.

Raika paced back and forth in front of her recruits. They tried to look soldierly, but their drab, loose-fitting clothes and unkempt appearance spoiled any semblance of warriorlike demeanor. Their spears leaned this way and that. Trembling with excitement, Raika snatched the spear from Bakar’s hands and rapped his skull with the shaft. He howled, clasping his head.

“You’re a soldier, not a scarecrow!” she yelled. “Try to act like one!”

Amergin and the slingers stood in a loose half-circle, facing the arc of houses that enclosed the east end of the village. There was a small, rain-washed gully beyond the huts, deep enough to hide a man lying down but not deep enough to hinder a horse. On his own initiative, Amergin had sown this gully with strands of thorny creeper.

The houses, packed with dirt, were linked together by a series of disguised obstacles-chicken fences and animal pens, reinforced with stones and heavy layers of earth, cesspools with their plank roofs removed, nearly invisible lengths of horsehair twine strung between buildings at the precise height of a mounted man. When Howland and Robien arrived, everyone was tense but ready.

Smoke drifted over Nowhere. Raika stretched up on her toes to see what was burning.

“Did they set fire to the barley wisps?” she wondered.

Flames leaped up from the windmill. Outside the ring of houses, Howland had deemed it indefensible, so with heavy hearts the villagers had to abandon the only stone structure they had. Now they were paying for their temerity. Fire belched from the slit windows. The mill sails, woven from dry grass, blazed up furiously. Heavy wooden gears crashed through the burning main floor into the cellar.

Some of the farmers began to wail. A few left their places and started toward the mill. Raika stormed after them, catching them by the collar and cuffing their ears.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she said, shaking a weeping farmer. “Rakell’s boys would love it if you ran out there right now, wouldn’t they? Pah!” She spat at their feet. “You’d be dead quicker than I can spit!”

“The mill … the mill …” they groaned.

Into the scene tottered the Elder, Calec, still wearing his battered Solamnic helmet. “Why do you weep?” he rasped. “It’s only a pile of stones and logs! What are your lives compared to that? It’s our mill, but it’s my home, you know. Do you hear me crying?”

Gradually the lamentations faded. By the time the mill tower collapsed into the burning cellar, the villagers’ eyes were dry.

“Get ready,” Howland told his comrades. “The bandits have enjoyed easy vengeance on an empty building. Now they will want blood.”

Horns blared around them. Anxious farmers turned from one signal to another, uncertain where the danger lay.

“Look to your front!” Raika said, shoving her spearmen into line. “They’re trying to confuse you!”

Trumpet calls could not disguise the rumble of massed horses. Yellow dust rolled out behind the column of lancers. They were coming at the east end, just as Howland had predicted.

“Amergin! Choose your targets and loose at will!”

The elf let his sling drop from his fingers. “Load!” he shouted. His newly trained slingers put two flat stones in each pouch.

“Spin up!”

Ten slings whirled in fast circles.

Curses and shouting, joined by the squeals of unhappy horses, told the defenders the bandits had reached the thorn-lined gully. That was enough for the forester. The slingers slung, and the clang and clatter of missiles on armor resounded over the shouting.

Howland called to Carver, “What can you see?”

The kender cupped a hand to his mouth and called, “A saddle or two emptied, but they’re coming on!”

“Ready your whippiks!”

“Aye, Sir Howland!”

Raika drew her sword. “Forward to the huts!”

The line of spearmen tramped ahead, five villagers in each gap, as Robien had taught them. The latter asked Howland’s leave to join them.

“Go,” said the Knight, “but don’t get killed!”

Shrill screams rang from the rooftops as the children launched their darts at the enemy. Through the gaps in the huts, Howland saw the lancers were dismounting and walking forward. They couldn’t use their lances on foot-they were too long-so they resorted to whatever hand weapons they had-swords, maces, flails, even daggers. Howland almost laughed aloud. How poorly led they were!

The brigands pushed through the gaps between the huts until they reached the chicken pens barring their way. They kicked at the flimsy-looking fences, only to discover they had been stiffened. As the village spearmen looked on, the raiders began to hack at the waist-high barriers with sword and axe.

Raika exploded. “What are you gawking at? Get at them!”

Rushing into the alley, she slashed down a bandit who’d gotten astride the fence. The enemy withdrew a few steps, uncertain, and the spear carriers moved up to support their captain. There followed a confused battle in which the farmers jabbed ineffectually with their long wooden spears and Rakell’s dismounted warriors fended off clumsy attacks with their motley assortment of weapons.

Raika jumped over the barricade and advanced on the bandits. She dueled hard with a long-haired blond soldier, trading cuts and parries. He was skillful and might have beaten her had not a whippik dart lodged in the hollow of his neck. Distracted by the painful wound, he missed Raika as she lunged, catching him between his hip and lower edge of his cuirass.

Two houses over, Robien was battling two bandits at once. They spread apart, trying to flank him, but villagers swarmed down the alley and drove both men back over the overturned barrow Howland had put in place to block the way. Neither made it. Robien got the first as he clambered over the barricade, and the spearmen got the second when he stumbled. All five villagers crowded in, pinning the unfortunate man to the hut at his back.

Confounded on two fronts, the brigands tried filtering left and right into alleys, but they were held up by a line of wicker baskets loaded with dirt and stones. Led by Wilf, four spear-carriers charged the enemy. They impaled three bandits on their eight-foot spears before a second band, supported by a pair of archers, crossed the gully and began shooting down the brave farmers.

Wilf and his people could not stand against a pair of expert bowmen, so they darted down the alley into the common. Wilf cried, “Sir Howland! Help!”

He saw the danger immediately. Ordering the villagers to lie flat to avoid being picked off by arrows, Howland shouted for Carver to drive the archers away. The kender tried to comply, but he and the children had used up much of their ready supply of darts. The whippik fire faltered. The archers raised their sights and took aim at Nowhere’s valiant children.

Something amazing happened.

A boy of twelve took an arrow in his leg. He collapsed, dropping his whippik, weeping with pain. He might have slid off the roof completely had not Carver and three other children grabbed him.

Cries of outrage filled the villagers’ throats. Fathers and mothers alike rose up and charged the callous bandits with renewed fervor. Arrows dropped two, but the remainder swarmed over the astonished raiders, grappling with them bare-handed. Order was lost and discipline forgotten as the angry farmers bludgeoned, clawed, and kicked any bandit they laid hands on.

A single trumpet blared out on the dusty plain. Eagerly the bandits quit the melee and remounted their horses. By the time they were swallowed up by churning dust clouds, eight more of their number lay lifeless among the huts.

Nowhere had paid a price, too. Three villagers were dead, and six wounded to various degrees, including the boy hit by the arrow. So far the village had lost three killed and eleven injured.

Dead warriors were stripped of their weapons and armor, and these were distributed to the victors. Wilf found himself sporting a bronze helmet and short iron sword. Raika and Robien reorganized the tired villagers, passing out praise and criticism in equal measure.

“Bloody fools!” Raika raged. “Didn’t you hear Sir Howland’s order to keep down? Charging a pair of archers! Some of you weren’t even armed!”

“We beat them, didn’t we?” Caeta answered proudly.

The Saifhumi woman had to admit they had.

Water was fetched from the well. Everyone gulped down as much as they could, cutting the dust from their throats and soothing the fire in their breasts. They’d beaten off two attacks today. Small ones, to be sure, but they had done it!

Howland and Robien went back to the well and stood atop the wall. From there the Knight could see the bandit army had concentrated into three distinct groups, one south of the village, one northwest, and one due east. The aimless riding and horn blowing ceased.

Stillness fell over the plain. Dust settled. Howland got down. He leaned both hands on the well wall and sighed.

“What is it?” asked Robien, though he had an idea.

“The pointless demonstrations are over. Rakell has returned,” Howland said. Dipping his hands into the bucket, he splashed cold water over his face. “Now the real battle begins.”

By dusk, the stifling calm had held for half a day. Formations of bandit horsemen rode away, leaving smaller bands to pitch camp in plain sight of the village.

Wounds were washed and bound, and the evening meal was prepared. A kind of unnatural lethargy took hold of the farmers. The euphoria of fighting off their enemies had passed, leaving in its wake the numbing realization the fight would go on, tomorrow, the day after, maybe as long as anyone on either side remained alive.

Howland convened a council around the well before the first stars of night appeared. All his people were there along with the leaders of the village: Caeta, Wilf, the elder women and men, and old Calec, alone still full of fighting spirit.

Howland explained the situation. They’d driven off two haphazard attacks, undertaken, he believed, by some junior leader of the bandits. Now Lord Rakell was present, and things had settled down.

“Don’t let the lull fool you,” he told them. “When Rakell moves, things will be different. If he’s any commander at all, he’ll use every weapon in his arsenal against us.”

“Will the ogres come too?” asked Caeta.

Howland nodded solemnly.

She shuddered.

“What can we do, then? Have we any chance of survival, let alone of winning?” Robien said.

Howland hooked his thumbs in his shirtfront and gazed at the fire. “We do.”

Farmers and mercenaries alike exchanged looks of wonder.

“Ten days ago you believed we were doomed,” the Elder rasped. “Why, now, do you think we can win?”

“A good general must understand his enemy,” Howland replied. “Seeing them fight today, I understand them better now. Rakell rules them with an iron hand. His men must fear him. I’m counting on that. I myself will deal with Rakell.”

“You can’t hope to negotiate!” Raika said. “Not with murderers who shoot down children!”

“I will not negotiate.”

Howland was silent for a long time, thinking. The others debated with increasing anger, as everyone proposed his own wild scheme to win.

Carver said, “If we can take a few prisoners alive, we can make them tell us where the gold mine is!”

“There’s no gold mine!” Wilf retorted.

“If his warriors grow weary of Rakell’s rule, perhaps we can turn them,” Robien suggested. “If only a dozen desert, it will discourage the rest.”

“The ogres-!” Caeta began once more.

“Be silent!” Howland said suddenly. His voice was like a thunderclap. Even Carver shut his mouth for once.

To Robien, Howland asked, “How does one kill a poisonous snake?”

“Strike off the head.”

No sooner had the bounty hunter spoken, than he, Raika, Amergin, and Khorr all perceived Howland’s plan.

“Strike off the head!” the minotaur repeated. “A classic notion. In The Lay of the Blue Dragon, the hero Zadza frees the minotaurs of the Scarlet Isle by beheading the vile beast Murmoroc.”

“This is no time for poetry,” Raika said.

“On the contrary, I would like to hear the tale of Zadza,” said Howland, leaning back against the well. “In brief prose, if you please, Khorr.”

The minotaur spread his big hands. “Your loss, friends! The Lay of the Blue Dragon is a wonderful piece, 1,629 septameters in five cantos …” Khorr sighed, sending a shower of sparks skyward from the campfire.

“The climax of the story is thus: Zadza, unable to defeat Murmoroc in open battle, stages his own death. The minotaur tribe of the Scarlet Isle send supplicants to the dragon, begging for mercy. Murmoroc agrees, if the minotaurs send ten females and ten males to him as sacrifices. Unable to offer resistance, they sadly agree.

“Twenty-one minotaurs show up at the dragon’s lair-”

“Twenty-one?” said Caeta. “Why not twenty?”

“I can guess,” Howland said, smiling. “Zadza was the twenty-first.”

“Yes! You know the poem?” Khorr asked.

“No, but I recognize the tactics. Go on.”

“Zadza comes disguised as a funerary priest. While he burns incense and sprinkles the water of death over the twenty sacrificial victims, he lulls Murmoroc into inattentiveness.”

“And then?” said Carver, rapt.

“He cuts off the dragon’s head with his axe,” said Khorr.

The kender applauded.

Howland said, “Very good. That’s just what I have in mind.” He beamed at all the puzzled faces. Turning to the Elder Calec he added, “You’re going to help me.”

“Help you what?”

“Cut off the dragon’s head.”