The Middle of Nowhere

by Paul B. Thompson

  “What about Laila?” Malek demanded.

  “I’ll restore her to you. I swear it, on my forgotten honor as a Knight.” The old blind man smiled thinly, enjoying the irony of his words. He turned to Howland.

  “Sergeant?”

  Howland responded reflexively. “Yes, sir?”

  “I seem to have lost my sword. Will you lend me yours?”

  Howland weighed the purloined blade in his hand. His own sword had been taken away. This was the only weapon he and the brothers had between them. Nevertheless, he found Marren’s outstretched hand and pressed the pommel into it.

  “Thank you,” Marren said. “I’ll try to do some damage with it.”

  “Put half its length in Rakell if you want to do some real good!” said Malek bitterly.

  They heard rather than saw Marren slip away. Hobbled by Nils’ injuries, the three men made slow progress across the field. Every time a loud noise erupted behind them, they stopped and looked around, but as far as they could tell, they weren’t being pursued.

  By the time they reached the spot where Howland, Ezu, and Amergin had met their escort at the beginning of the night’s adventures, the vision of all three men was nearly fully restored. They circled wide and came upon the trench, with its fearful hedge of stakes and earthen rampart.

  “Who goes there?” called a voice tentatively from the darkened defenses.

  “Fangoth!” Howland replied.

  “Is that you, Sir Howland?”

  At his clipped affirmation, a plank wobbled over the rampart and fell across the trench. Malek and Nils tottered across. Howland came last.

  Khorr, backed by wide-eyed farmers clutching cut-down lances, greeted Howland heartily. They were likewise delighted to see Nils and Malek again. The happy reunion palled, however, when Khorr looked behind them and asked, “Where’s Amergin and Ezu?”

  “We got separated,” Howland answered grimly. “Keep a sharp lookout for them.”

  On Nowhere common, nervous villagers crowded around to hear Howland’s account of the mission.

  “Rakell lives,” he said heavily. Groans followed. “He never had any intention of parleying with us. He only agreed to the meeting so he could capture and decide our fates first.”

  Raika asked about Amergin and Ezu. Howland told them everything, from Ezu’s powerful “sneeze” to their rescue by Marren uth Aegar.

  “Ezu a true wizard? I don’t believe it!” Robien said.

  The other hired fighters were not so skeptical. Raika, remembering her special gifts and the uncanny way Ezu came and went, found it easy to believe the strange foreigner had hidden powers.

  As for Marren, older folk like Caeta recalled when he first came to Nowhere. Weak and wounded, his clothing and horse had marked him as a man once of substance in spite of his diminished circumstances. Nilea, a village woman, had nursed him to health. She subsequently became his mate and the mother of Laila. Marren survived but never prospered. The wasting sickness took hold of him, and he spent twenty years dying a hair’s breadth every day.

  “So Marren was a Knight,” Nils mused. “If Laila becomes your wife, will that make you noble, too?”

  Malek saw no humor in the question and glared fiercely at his older brother.

  “One more thing you should all know,” Howland said in a low, shamed voice. “Just as Marren and Rakell were old comrades in arms, so too were Rakell and I.”

  No one responded until Malek said, “You spoke of your service to the Dark Order. You were forced to do what you did. It was not of your choosing.”

  “No, I was a sergeant in the army of Lord Burnond Everride. I was never a Knight, much less a general. I lied about that. I’ve misled you all this time. You should have an honest commander, not someone like me, and I recommend you choose Robien.”

  “Nonsense!” said the bounty hunter. “No one here could have commanded as well. No one has more experience of war than you. You are our commander, Knight or not.”

  Caeta agreed. “We don’t care what you were before you came to us. Since the battle began, you’ve proven again and again you deserve our trust. If you are not a Knight, so be it, but we have made you our general. No one else.”

  Howland looked away, ashamed to let anyone see the color in his face. If ever there was a time for a blindness spell, this was it.

  Just before dawn, Amergin returned. He rose up from the uncut grass and ran to the barricades on the northeast side of the village. Easily vaulting the tangle of fences and vines, he stole up on the two farmers on guard there. Both were sleeping.

  He tapped one on the shoulder. The scruffy, yellow-bearded man awoke with a yell and grabbed the spear leaning against his shoulder. His shout aroused his comrade, who dropped his spear, tried to pick it up, and promptly tripped over the shaft of the other man’s weapon.

  Amergin clamped a slim brown hand over the yelping farmer’s mouth. Eyes wide, he saw he was facing the Kagonesti forester, not a bandit sneak attack.

  “Know me?”

  The farmer nodded, slowly.

  “Don’t shout. Yes?”

  Again a nod.

  Amergin took his hand away.

  “Happy day!” exclaimed the not-so watchful watchman. “We feared you were taken by the enemy!”

  The fallen guard got up and likewise expressed delight upon seeing Amergin. “Howland returned with Malek and Nils,” he said. “Did you know Sir Howland was not a real Knight? They say he used to be Rakell’s bootblack, or something—”

  “No, stupid, he used to groom Marren’s horse!” He added for Amergin’s benefit, “Our Marren was a real Knight—”

  The elf left them arguing. Beyond the line of huts, Amergin came upon Raika’s spearmen, deployed to intercept anyone who emerged. They’d heard the guards’ cries and taken up positions without waiting to rouse their captain from her bedroll. Some deeds were more dangerous than others.

  The forester quickly found himself surrounded by a bristling ring of spears. The farmers knew Amergin, of course, but they were so shaken by their ordeal that the elf had to calm them before they lowered their weapons.

  Robien arrived. Howland was still resting after his busy night, so the bounty hunter was in charge.

  In Elvish, he said to Amergin, “Glad to see my bounty is still safe.”

  Amergin did not deign to respond to this sally. In the common tongue he said, “So Howland is safe.” With rare emotion, he added, “What of Ezu?”

  “There’s been no sign of him,” Robien answered. Nor had Marren or his daughter Laila turned up.

  When the sun was well up, a shout of dismay went up from Carver’s lookouts, posted on the hut roofs. Their cries awoke Howland, who left the shadow of the old well and asked what it was the young sentinels saw.

  “The bandits! They’ve staked someone out!”

  Howland, Robien, and Malek clambered onto the nearest hut to get a look. Sure enough, the bandits had erected two poles on the plain, out of whippik range. Between the poles was the dark outline of a man, tied to them and hanging limply.

  “Is it Ezu?” called Carver from his perch.

  Robien shaded his eyes. “I don’t think so. Whoever it is has white hair—”

  “Marren!”

  Malek asked, “What about Laila? Where is she?”

  Howland had no comforting reply. The general of Nowhere slid down the thatch and dropped to the ground. Robien and Malek followed., “I wonder what did happen to Ezu?” the old soldier mused. “I don’t think normal bonds can hold our friend the traveler.”

  Malek broke away, running to a stand of captured arms. He sorted through a pile of swords, trying to find one straight and sharp. Each blade that failed to measure up he tossed aside violently. The others followed him, exchanging looks.

  “Going somewhere?” asked Howland mildly. The angry youth ignored him.

  “You escaped once by the fortunate intervention of a wandering wizard. You won’t be so lucky a second time.”

  �
�Talk about luck!” Malek said, eyes blazing. “You went to kill Rakell and failed. Then you got lucky and escaped. I will not fail, and I do not care about your brand of luck!”

  He found the best of the hard-used blades and shoved it through the rough sash tied around his waist. Howland and Robien did nothing to stop Malek as he stormed to the south barricade and started climbing over it.

  “You won’t get to Rakell, you know,” Howland said.

  “I don’t care about Rakell or my life! I must save the woman I love!”

  “If you’re killed, what good will your sacrifice do?”

  Malek faltered. Howland pressed on. “If you’ll stay here and put that fury to good use, defending your neighbors, I’ll make you a pledge,” he said.

  Malek halted atop an old rail fence. “What do you mean? Speak plainly!”

  “Just this: If you remain here and fight like a soldier instead of a love-struck berserker, I pledge that I myself will kill Rakell and do my best to free Laila. She hasn’t been punished like her father. I’ll wager she is safe for the time being. The coming battle will decide everything, and I pledge to you that I will trade Rakell’s life for my own. Is that plain enough?”

  Malek snorted contemptuously, but Howland waved aside the young farmer’s disdain.

  “On my honor—” he almost said “as a Knight”—“On my honor as a soldier. Good enough?”

  Malek jumped down. He went to Howland and put out his hand. Before he could grasp it, Malek drew the nicked edge of the blade over his own palm, drawing blood. Never taking his eyes off Malek, Howland drew his dagger and scored a cut on his hand too. Old soldier and young farmer pressed their bleeding palms together, wordlessly sealing their pact.

  “Good enough,” said Malek.

  All night long every living soul in Nowhere labored. When Howland’s plan to cut off the dragon’s head failed, there seemed no hope of staving off a final, destructive attack. However, the general of Nowhere had one last stratagem. Everyone’s help was required to make it work. Almost a quarter of their strength had been killed or wounded, but the remaining defenders strove mightily through the night. The night took on a chill, the first hint of autumn, and the clarity of the cool air brought out every one of the myriad stars salting the heavens.

  Looking up from his labors, Howland felt for the first time that there were no gods looking down on them. Live or die, their fate was in their own hands. Such notions used to worry him. Now, faced with imminent destruction, he found the spiritual solitude strangely comforting. If there were no good gods to come to their aid, there were also no evil ones to persecute them.

  Dawn arrived in a light mist. Unlike the ponderous fogs they’d experienced before, this mist clung low to the ground, running in thin streams before the south wind. Day broke dark, with heavy clouds rising in the east and south. The bellies of the clouds were gray as slate, heavy with rain.

  Villagers were still hauling baskets of earth to an earthen redoubt backed up against the rampart behind the trench. A simple triangle with sides eight feet high, the redoubt was constructed all in one night, using all the dirt formerly packed into the farmers’ huts. Howland wanted to dismantle the roofs and use the rafters to make a palisade atop the mound, but the villagers ran out of dirt—and time.

  A very tired Raika was overseeing the dumping of earth when she heard a low rumbling, combined with a high-pitched squeaking. Standing on the highest part of the dirt pile, she looked for the source of the sound. It originated from the bandits’ eastern camp. A large, indistinct object was rolling through the barley stubs, propelled by more than a dozen grunting warriors.

  “Sir Howland!” she cried. “They’re coming from the east!”

  Howland, Malek, and Robien climbed the loose earthen mound and spied what Raika had seen.

  “A siege engine?” asked the elf.

  “I can’t tell. It isn’t tall enough to be a fighting tower,” Howland said.

  Even as they tried to evaluate this new threat, the bandits ceased their shoving and stopped. Distant shouted commands reached the defenders, the words indistinct.

  “Hey! Hey!” Carver was standing on one of the huts. “They’re forming up to the south!”

  A quick glance confirmed the kender’s alarming report. Lines of horsemen had filed out of the south camp and taken up places along the low rise, facing the village. Their ranks had been thinned, but they still represented a daunting force for the depleted defenders.

  Amergin, out of the village on reconnaissance, came running back, chased by three lancers. He vaulted neatly over the chest-high barricade on the north side of Nowhere, leaving his pursuers frantically trying to rein in. Carver’s boys pelted them with whippik darts, but the riders fended off the missiles with their shields before galloping away.

  Out of breath, Amergin presented himself to his commander.

  “They’re coming,” he panted. “All that remain.”

  “From the east and south, too.” Howland looked down from the mound at the hard-pressed Kagonesti. “Thank you for your efforts.”

  Amergin dismissed his gratitude with a slight toss of his head.

  “They mean to come at us from all sides this time,” Raika muttered.

  “It was bound to happen,” Robien said. “Could we—?”

  He never got the chance to finish. There was a loud crash from the east, followed by a soft whistling. The next thing the people of Nowhere knew, a sixty-pound boulder landed just inside the ring of houses. Screaming children and old folks scattered as the rock, chiseled round to fly true, bounced on the hard soil and sailed on. It ricocheted twice more, finally burying itself in the soft slope of the new redoubt.

  “So, they’ve brought out the catapult,” said Howland.

  “Can they knock down our defenses?” asked Raika.

  “They can smash up the huts, but their stones won’t have much effect on a pile of earth.” Howland pointed to the hysterical villagers cowering by their homes. “Get them inside,” he said. “There’ll be more stones, ten or more an hour if the catapult crew is good.”

  Malek, who’d stayed at Howland’s side most of the night, wondered where the bandits were getting their projectiles. “You don’t find stones like that lying about, not in this country.”

  Howland agreed, looking a bit relieved. “They must have brought a store of boulders with them. That’ll limit their fire.” He gave orders to recover any loose catapult stones and haul them to the top of the earthen mound.

  “What for?” asked Raika.

  “I mean to return them to their owners.”

  Wounded villagers as well as those too old or too young to fight clambered up the sides of the mound. Inside, the dirt walls were held back by stakes, planks, and matting, leaving a tight sheltered zone inside, roughly twenty-four feet by twelve at the widest point. The villagers not fighting crowded in, huddling close together. Babies wailed. At one point a catapult stone hit the edge of the rampart sending a shower of dirt over the cowering families. Panic broke out, as one wounded villager cried out that they were being buried alive.

  At this juncture Khorr appeared above them, brandishing a battle-axe taken from a fallen bandit. With all the power of his considerable voice, he boomed,

  Take heart, hopeless, helpless ones!

  Heroes of thy own hearth help thee!

  Spilling the blood of the invader!

  It was as much from the force of the minotaur’s delivery as the words he recited that the terrified villagers were calmed. Khorr’s band of spearmen raised their weapons high and cheered. Not to be outdone, Raika bullied her contingent into a battle cry, too. The result was not as stirring as Raika wanted.

  “Milksops!” she shouted. “My one-legged granny can shout better than you!”

  “Why does your granny have one leg?” asked Bakar.

  “Shut up! Now yell like you mean it!”

  From out on the plain, the bandits raised a cheer of their own. To Howland it sounded forced.
This was not the fight they had joined Rakell’s band for. Easy pickings and plunder, that’s what they preferred. Brawling with fear-maddened peasants was not the sweet life they’d been promised.

  Carver came running. The usually unflappable kender was genuinely agitated, though it was impossible to say if he was frightened or thrilled by the news he bore.

  He tugged Howland’s shirt sleeve, and when the old soldier bent near, the kender said (quite loudly) in his ear, “Ogres!”

  Howland paled. Raika uttered one of her favorite expletives. Robien wiped his smooth chin and lips with one hand, drawing air in through his teeth with a sharp hiss.

  “How many?” asked Howland.

  Carver counted to ten on his fingers and said, “Six!”

  “Khorr!”

  The minotaur circled around the mound. “Yes, Sir Howland?”

  “I have an especially dangerous task for you.” He relayed Carver’s news. “It’s your job to try to stop the ogres.”

  Khorr tapped the head of his axe against the palm of his large hand. “Do you think it is possible?”

  “You must try. Our survival depends on breaking every element of Rakell’s attack. No matter how well we fend off his human warriors, everything will be for nought if the ogres can break through at will.”

  The minotaur nodded his massive, horned head thoughtfully.

  Howland clapped Khorr on the arm. “Good. You can do it. A minotaur is worth any number of ogres, after all!”

  “But is a poet worth six trained warriors, I wonder?” Khorr replied.

  “Good stuff for your epic,” said Raika encouragingly.

  “If I live to compose it.”

  The sixth boulder launched at the village demolished a hut on the north side, sending up a plume of yellow dust. Because the huts had been emptied of dirt, they fell easy victims to the plunging stones. The catapult crew shouted with joy at their success, but Howland sent Malek and four farmers to recover the rock.

  The bombardment continued until the mist evaporated. A hot, humid wind scoured the scene, driving dust in the bandits’ faces. The wind died. The turgid clouds, which had been crawling from east to west like a school of malignant jellyfish, stopped with the wind. For a moment, calm reigned.