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.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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.”