The Middle of Nowhere

by Paul B. Thompson

  “It’s a book!” said Carver.

  “A recitative,” Khorr corrected. “The pictures help the poet recite the story.”

  “What poem is it?” asked Howland.

  Khorr’s liquid brown eyes glistened. “The Saga of the Nine Captains! The greatest sea-epic known to my race!” He turned back to Ezu, who was standing quietly, examining some of the flowers pinned to his trouser leg. “My ancestor, Kozh the One-Horned, was one of the Nine Captains! Did you know this?”

  Ezu, distracted, looked up and said, “Why, no. How could I?”

  Raika put her arm around the traveler’s neck, a friendly headlock that brought blood to his face. “Rascal! You’re all right! But what about Sir Howland? What does he get?”

  “Sir Howland will get what he wants, soon,” Ezu replied. His tone was devoid of playful banter or double meaning. Raika released him. “But it is not I who will give it to him.”

  The Knight bowed his head slightly, accepting Ezu’s pronouncement—or was it a prediction?

  Khorr strode back to the bonfire, now reduced to a pair of lesser fires divided by a pool of glowing coals. He spread the wooden leaves of the ronto and began to recite:

  Nine captains commanded, nine ships should sail,

  To all corners claimed by the horned-folk’s king.

  Who will wander? Who will wager their lives?

  Said Kruz, conqueror of the kingdom.…

  Fascinated farmfolk crowded around the declaiming minotaur. Children crawled into their fathers’ and mothers’ laps, still sucking on Ezu’s wonderful treats. Their breath reeked of spice, mingled sage and mint, and they listened wide-eyed as Khorr related the adventures of the nine minotaur captains.

  Raika pushed through the crowd, claiming a prime spot at Khorr’s feet. Carver joined her.

  No longer the focus of attention, Ezu turned to go. Howland called out, “Master Ezu—a word, if you please.”

  The genial traveler paused. “Yes?”

  Howland waited until he was nose to nose before saying in guarded tones, “I wonder: Who are you? What are you up to?”

  “I told you, Sir Howland. I’m a mere traveler.”

  “But no ordinary man.”

  Ezu bowed. “You’re very kind—”

  Howland caught him by the arm. “How could you have these things? Kender spice candy? Brandy from Saifhum? A book of minotaur poetry? By my Oath, do not tell me these were souvenirs of your sojourns!”

  “I can only tell you the truth, good Knight. This one has been to Saifhum, Mithas and Kothas, and Hylo where the kender dwell. All my little gifts tonight could have come from there to here with me.”

  “ ‘Could have’?”

  “A good juggler leaves his audience guessing, doesn’t he?”

  Without any effort, Ezu freed himself from Howland’s grasp and walked away. The old warrior’s fingers closed on air. He blinked in astonishment.

  “Ezu! Ezu, your prediction: What is it I shall get?” he cried.

  Ezu’s voice drifted back, like the fading notes of his pipe: “Honor. Honor …” His silhouette merged with the black outline of the old well.

  Howland ran a few yards after him. In the deep shadows away from the dying bonfire the flower-bedecked, horn-headed stranger was nowhere to be seen.

  Work on the defenses came to an abrupt end the next day. The first gilded grains began to fall from the drooping barley stalks. All other considerations were ignored as the ageless signal was seen. It was time to harvest the crop. Amergin and Robien had to disable their many traps in the field. All other work stopped as the villagers devoted themselves to the task. Raika grumbled about the villagers abandoning their drills, but Howland was not displeased.

  “It’s sound for them to harvest,” he said. “The food is needed, and it would look suspicious to Rakell’s scouts if they found the crop moldering in the fields. Surprise is still an important element of our success.”

  “How can there be any surprise?” Khorr said. “Two of their men disappeared, thanks to Amergin and Robien, and you fought them at the watering ford. Surely Rakell knows armed strangers are in the area?”

  “He may, but I’m counting on him not linking the incidents to Nowhere. He must lose men all the time to desertion and small, local skirmishes.”

  While the farmers labored over their crop, Howland conducted a tour of their defenses. The trench barred the open end of the village. It was deep enough to stop any charge by mounted men, and the road leading to it was strewn with sharpened stakes and mounded earth. Khorr and thirteen villagers would defend the trench.

  “You’ll be the first to fight,” Howland told the minotaur. “Rakell has no respect for the farmers, and the best way to break an enemy’s resistance is to crush them at their strongest point.”

  “He will not pass,” vowed Khorr.

  “That’s the spirit! Once he realizes your position is strong, he’ll turn away to spare his troops casualties.” Howland put the trench at his back and surveyed the rest of the village. “Next, he’ll try to filter his horsemen in between the houses.”

  “And we’ll sting them from above with our whippiks!” cried Carver eagerly. “We’ve made over four hundred darts!”

  “That’s good, but take some other missiles to the rooftops with you—stones, wood, baskets of dirt—anything weighty. Understand?”

  The kender gave the Knight a sloppy salute.

  “Carver and the children will punish them, though they won’t be stopped by youngsters with whippiks,” Howland went on. “The filled huts and disguised fences will confuse them, but if Rakell is any leader at all, they’ll eventually break through.”

  “Next we meet them with our spearmen,” said Raika.

  “Yes. Each of us will lead a band of villagers to counterattack any raiders who get through.”

  “Where do you want me?” asked Robien.

  Howland sighed. “With Hume gone, I will need a second-in-command. Will you take the job?”

  No one objected, so Robien agreed.

  “Stay by me, then. I may have to send you to the others with instructions from time to time.”

  “How will it end, Sir Howland? When will we know we’ve won?” Raika asked.

  Gripping his sword hilt, the Knight replied, “When there are no more enemies to kill.”

  Two peaceful days passed, then three. The barley crop slowly accumulated by the threshing pits, where teams of farmers beat the brown stalks to liberate the grain. Women and old folks tied the battered straw into sheaves, which they returned to the fields in neat, orderly rows. Seeing the bundles of straw gave Howland an idea.

  “Make some of the sheaves hollow,” he told Malek. “We can post lookouts inside them to keep watch for the bandits.” Grunting agreement, Malek did as Howland asked.

  Since seeing his beloved at the stream, Malek had fallen into a black gloom. At first his brother Nils believed Malek was upset by seeing his bride in servitude, but Raika offered her opinion.

  “He’s not sad. He’s furious,” she said sagely. “All he can think about now is burying his blade in Rakell’s chest!”

  In four days, all the barley was cut. The formerly lush fields were now patches of stubble, dotted with standing sheaves. Green garden plots, once bounded on all sides by brown grain, now stood out like islands of fertility on the barren plain. The corn would stay green another four weeks, the beans and other small crops only two.

  “It’s amazing Rakell hasn’t struck yet,” Howland mused. “How many days left of the thirty he mentioned until his return?”

  “Today is the thirtieth day,” Caeta answered.

  Howland gave swift orders. “No one is to leave the village alone, or travel more than an hour’s walk away. I don’t want the brigands picking up fresh prisoners they can interrogate.”

  “That means no hunting,” Nils said. “No fresh meat.”

  Howland was adamant. The enemy was due at any time, and they couldn’t afford to loose a single v
illager, either as a fighter or an informant.

  Amergin, who came and went like a ghost, offered to go on an extended reconnaissance and restore his ring of traps. Howland agreed.

  “Don’t get caught!” he said in jest. The idea that Rakell’s idle troopers could catch the elusive Kagonesti seemed ridiculous.

  With a new sling made for him by Caeta and a sackful of stones and stars, Amergin slipped away.

  The sun was setting. Farmers carried on their threshing by torchlight, and the womenfolk prepared special harvest cakes for everyone. Howland and his little troop sat in a half-circle by the village well, eating hot barley cakes smeared with wild honey and fresh butter.

  Raika said, “If I ate like this every day, I wouldn’t mind the low pay!”

  “If you ate like this every day, you’d be bigger than Khorr,” Carver quipped.

  Raika aimed a kick at the kender, who scooted out of reach. When he made a few more unkind remarks about Raika’s increasing girth, she got up to give him a real blow.

  She never delivered it. The half-eaten cake fell from her fingers.

  “Hey, don’t waste good food!” Carver protested.

  Raika pointed to the horizon. Howland jumped up, shading his eyes against the setting sun.

  The low rise south of Nowhere was two miles distant, separated by fields stripped clean by the harvest. Sitting along the ridge were a line of horsemen. By the setting sun’s ruddy light, Howland could see the gleam of steel.

  One of the village women saw the horsemen too and let out a shriek. People ran back and forth, snatching up children and dashing to their huts, only to remember they were filled to the rafters with earth.

  Someone beat the bronze gong by the well. Howland barked, “Stop that noise! Stop it, I say! It’s only a scouting party!”

  Robien cracked the joints of his long fingers and said,

  “Shall we go after them?”

  “No. There’s no point. We can’t stop Rakell from returning. If we reveal ourselves now, it’ll only makes things harder for us later.”

  They stood to arms all night. Villagers sent to take up spy positions in the hollow barley sheaves reported small bands of horsemen riding around the village all night, but none closed in. This might have been because of the Kagonesti traps they blundered upon. Many were found sprung, and several marauders were killed. Men and horses were also injured, and the brigands evidently spooked. By the next morning, all the village’s spies, Amergin included, reported the enemy had ridden away. There were none in sight.

  It seemed like a miracle. Was their fear of Rakell’s band exaggerated? Had the enemy been repelled by a few forester tricks and traps? Many thought so. Raika and Carver loudly proclaimed victory, and more than a few villagers rejoiced.

  Two men did not celebrate. Malek still burned to free Laila from Rakell’s thrall, and Howland uth Ungen remained at his post by the well, carefully honing his sword.

  The army of robber lord Rakell did not appear that day or the next. When they were three days past the deadline Rakell had set for his return, the people of Nowhere grew confident they had escaped another brutal invasion. Amergin ranged farther and farther out from Nowhere, seeking Rakell’s riders, and found none. He scoured the land as far south and east as the stream where Hume was killed but could find no fresh signs of the enemy.

  Caeta spread the news, and the farmers wept with joy. Even those who’d lost loved ones to Rakell’s first visit were vastly relieved.

  Amidst a growing mood of celebration, Malek sought out Howland. He found the Knight at the edge of the south barley field, alone, whittling a gnarled stick.

  “I don’t believe the danger is past,” he said without preamble.

  Howland shaved off a curling wisp of wood no thicker than a feather. “I agree.”

  Malek looked relieved. “You do? What can we do, then?”

  “The initiative has passed to the enemy. For now we can do little but wait and watch.”

  Malek swept the Knight’s judgment aside with a swift wave of his hand. “I can’t do that! Laila lives, and I must find her!”

  Howland stopped whittling. “Are you willing to do that, even if it means you never return to Nowhere?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some unforeseen event has thrown the bandits off their schedule, something more serious than Amergin’s traps. Rakell may have encountered the dragon overlord. He may have been defeated by another, superior force. He may have gone away to ravage another province. We won’t be safe until we know for sure. Are you willing to track him down wherever he went?”

  Malek didn’t hesitate. “Yes!”

  Howland nodded. “What about your brother? Will he go after his captive son?”

  The young farmer looked over his shoulder at the cluster of weather-worn huts that was his home. “Larem is his only boy. He’ll go, too.”

  “Make sure, then bring him to the well at sundown.”

  Come dusk, Malek and Nils presented themselves to Howland. With Howland was Robien.

  “Welcome,” Howland said to the brothers. “I asked Robien to lend us his counsel.” He lowered his voice. “I’ll be as straight as I can with you: Far from being safe, as everyone thinks, I believe we’re stll in danger. Rakell is on the move with his entire force, however large that may be, and I’m sure he’ll show up here sooner or later.”

  “Why do you think so?” asked Malek.

  “I’ve turned events over and over in my mind all day. The bandit chief is doing exactly what I would do in his place. I’m convinced Rakell’s gone on a wide sweep north or south of us, and he’ll turn around and strike when it suits him. He knows something’s amiss in Nowhere, and he’s trying to draw us out.”

  “How could he know?” said Nils.

  Howland scowled. “In many ways, I’m sorry to say. It’s my fault. We made ourselves too well known at the stream crossing, digging the trench and with the elves’ traps. Add these things together and you get one answer—armed resistance, centered on the village.”

  Four farmers, well-soaked with homemade beer, lurched past with Carver, singing loudly. They hailed Howland as they went by.

  “Poor fools,” Robien said. “They’ll be shocked when the enemy reappears on their doorstep.”

  Malek said, “Tell us what to do, and we’ll do it!”

  “Find your bride.”

  Malek flushed with excitement. He was about to swear his life to the task, but Howland cut him off.

  “Save the heroic declarations,” he said. “What’s needed now is resolve, not posturing. I want you two—” he nodded at Malek and Nils—“to strike out on your own. One of you go northwest, the other southwest of the village. Search out Rakell’s force.”

  “Why can’t you go?”

  “I don’t dare send my people,” Howland explained. “I need locals who know the land and who won’t look out of place if they get spotted. Go as far as four days’ journey from Nowhere,” he told them, “and circle back to cover as much ground as possible.

  “Know this: You may not find anything,” added Howland. “You’re tracking men on horseback and a pack of ogres, but they are skilled at moving with speed and stealth. But we must try to find where the enemy is. Will you do this?”

  “We will,” Nils said for both of them.

  They collected food and water for eight days’ travel. Before crossing the plank laid over the trench, Robien stopped Malek and pulled the sword from his scabbard.

  “What are you doing?” Malek exclaimed.

  “No farmer carries a sword. If you’re caught, the enemy will know you’ve been away from the village to buy arms.”

  “He’s right,” said Howland. “Leave the weapon.”

  “You can’t send me out unarmed!” Malek cried. “That blade has Rakell’s name on it!”

  “You can have a knife and a staff,” said the Knight. “No more. Your purpose is to find the enemy, not attack him.”

  Grudgingly, Malek unbuc
kled the Quen sword belt and gave it to Robien. He and Nils crossed the trench and walked away from Nowhere, heading due west. They would stay together three or four days, and if they didn’t find Rakell they would split up.

  Watching the brothers recede in the distance, Robien said, “How can such foolish farmers find the foe?”

  “Perhaps they won’t. Perhaps the battle will be over by the time they return.”

  For once the cool-headed Kagonesti was nonplussed. “You want them to miss the battle?”

  Howland nodded. “Rakell will strike in two days, maybe less. He’ll come out of the south or north, not the west. By the time Nils and Malek return, we’ll have conquered, or been conquered. Either way they’ll be reunited with their loved ones.”

  “Why send them away then?”

  “I owed them this. They’ve given me a chance to restore my honor. I give them this chance to preserve their lives.”

  Howland returned to the village, leaving the astonished Robien staring after him.

  Raika picked her way along the line of silent huts. It was dark, and even the stars were cloaked by clouds. Each hut had been filled to the roofline with dirt, so there was no one inside. Raika wasn’t looking for a villager anyway.

  “Ezu?” she called softly. “Ezu, where are you?”

  She’d been searching for him for a while all around the sleeping village. He didn’t keep company with anyone after dark but habitually disappeared until morning. Raika wanted to know where the traveler spent his nights, and how. Was he just an eccentric foreigner or a devious spy?

  She hoped he was honest. His gift of thornapple brandy had touched her deeply. It was the first taste of home she’d had in a long time. If Ezu was a spy, she’d profoundly regret burying a sword in his guts.

  “Ezu? Ezu?”

  The only sound she heard was the chirpping of crickets. She called the traveler’s name again a little louder. Still no answer. Feeling parched, Raika crossed to the village well. She felt the stillness all around her. At the well, she leaned into the open pit to draw up the bucket. When she straightened, someone stood directly across from her, a blank black outline looming by the well wall.