The Middle of Nowhere

by Paul B. Thompson

  Howland studied his map, frowning. “Once the bandits find they can’t just ride in as they did before, they’ll try to break through the ring of houses. The huts are too flimsy to stop ogres,” he muttered.

  “Fill them with dirt,” said Khorr.

  The leaders, clustered around the map, looked up at the hulking poet.

  “Fill the huts with the dirt left over from digging the trench,” the minotaur said. “It has to go somewhere. If the houses are full of dirt, no one can break through them.”

  One or two villagers sent up a wail, at the idea of filling their homes with dirt.

  Howland grinned a little. “This affair is beginning to intrigue me!”

  “Then you’ll stay and fight, after all?” asked the elder.

  “If your people stand with us, we’ll stay,” the Knight declared.

  Many of the younger farmers cheered, and their cries were echoed by Howland’s motley troop. Some older villagers still seemed unsure.

  “If we resist, Lord Rakell will kill everyone of us,” one said.

  “Those who do not fight do not deserve to live!” old Calec growled.

  He seized Sir Howland’s hand in rough but fervent fellowship. The Knight shifted the aged farmer’s grip from the downward, country folks’ grip to the upright warrior style.

  “Now we are sworn to the task. Time is short. Let’s begin,” said Howland.

  The outline of the trench was scratched in the earth that night. By dawn, digging was underway. Baskets were filled with dry earth and hauled to the farthest houses. The villagers cleared their belongings from the huts and dumped the dirt inside. When full, each hut would hide a mound of earth nine feet high.

  According to Howland’s instructions, each member of his band took five or six villagers to train. Carver gained an instant following among the Nowhere children, eleven of whom eagerly lined up to learn the secrets of the whippik. Raika showed the best weavers in the village How to lash round stones onto rake handles to serve as maces. Khorr stripped to the waist and joined in digging, where he did the work of four men. A small contingent worked alongside him, and he recited the minotaur war epic Six Axes for King Banu as they labored on the trench. Amergin and Robien took their bands of followers into the fields to learn how to lay forester traps. Elderly villagers were set to converting garden tools to spears.

  Howland, Hume, Malek, and Nils looked on as the preparations began.

  Malek said, “Sir Howland, did you mean what you said? Is Nowhere really doomed?”

  “I would not be here still if I thought so.”

  Thus reassured, Malek and Nils picked up their packs and walking sticks and set out to scout Rakell’s camp.

  Alone with his leader, Hume said, “You made them believe it, sir.”

  Grim-faced, Howland accepted his comrade’s judgment. “I did what I had to. People too afraid to greet their defenders stand no chance against ogres and mounted brigands. I had to stir them up, find the rams among the lambs.”

  They started after the brothers, down a path through the waving lake of grain.

  “Tell me truly, Sir Howland, can we win?” Hume asked.

  “No honest commander ever knows that,” was the Knight’s sober reply.

  Where the farmed land ended, the wild land took over. Stiffer than barley, plains grass did not bow with the evening wind. It stood against the breeze, sighing and shivering. The well-marked path from Nowhere soon faded into the undergrowth. Hume drew his sword and took the lead, cutting a path for the others.

  A hundred paces beyond the cultivated field all traces of settled life vanished. The change was profound. In the standing barley, men were the masters, and the wild creatures of the plain were interlopers. Just a few steps away from the growing grain, roles were reversed. Farmer or warrior, in the wilderness everyone was alone.

  Nils related that as a boy he’d hunted rabbits here, creeping through the high weeds with a crude, two-pronged spear. Half a day’s walk south of Nowhere there was a stream, he said, a brook that flowed from the east a few miles before vanishing.

  “The westernmost spur of the mountains lies more than forty miles from here,” Howland told Malek. “If my memory and the maps of my old master, Garab uth Dreher, can be trusted, that is.”

  “Forty miles! Are we going that far?” asked Malek.

  “We can’t spare the time. If we don’t find any trace of Rakell’s force by noon tomorrow, we’ll return to Nowhere.”

  Stars appeared in the purple sky, lighting up one by one like lanterns hung in distant windows. The party rested under a wind-tortured elm tree, drinking from the same flask and eating from a common bag of parched corn.

  “How long have you been a soldier, Sir Howland?” asked Nils.

  “All my life. I was born to it.”

  “Did you always serve this Lord Garab?”

  “No.” The Knight took a long swig of cider. “My first liege was the noble Harbard uth Farnan, may he rest forever in the company of fallen heroes.”

  Hume rubbed his bare dome. “I know that name. Lord Harbard was a great Knight?”

  “A great Knight and a gallant warrior,” said Howland. “From the time I could walk I served his house. I would have—should have—died for him.”

  Awkward silence engulfed the lonely elm. Hume and the farmers remembered the state Howland had been in when they found him in Robann. Was his fall into degradation and despair linked to the fate of Lord Harbard?

  Malek screwed up his courage and began to ask, but Howland replied before the questoin was complete. Night shielded the Knight’s long face, so only his voice transmitted the pain of his long-ago memories.

  “I was but six and twenty when the end came. It was a terrible time, the Chaos War. The Order gave Lord Harbard the task of defending the city of Fangoth from the Knights of Takhisis. He had an army of five thousand, which seemed like more than enough to do the job. Four thousand were yeoman infantry, free men trained in arms and called up in time of war to defend our country. Backing up the yeomen were four hundred mounted knights and six hundred archers, who were elves from the old Qualinesti realm. With this force, Lord Harbard was confident he could defeat treble his number in Nerakan levies.”

  Nils and Malek were ignorant of politics outside their land, but the deep sorrow in Howland’s tone forestalled them from asking for details.

  “Fangoth is ringed on three sides by heavy forest. Only the east lay open, and from the east the enemy came, three thousand five hundred of them. In command was Burnond Everride, the Hammer of Nordmaar, the plunderer of Throt and Estwilde. Ah, what a bold and dangerous man! Had he known more honor, he could have been a gracious foe, but Highlord Burnond was too ruthless and cruel.

  “His army seemed a joke to us. A thousand mercenary halberdiers from Saifhum—”

  “Raika’s home?” said Hume.

  Howland grunted an affirmative. “Rugged fighters, but their only loyalty was to their paymaster. Burnond had five hundred Knight-lancers of the Dark Order, but the bulk of his force was two thousand goblins, armed with pike and shield. Goblins! Can you imagine taking the field against Lord Harbard and free yeomen with a mob of stinking goblins?” The old Knight’s voice had risen almost to a shout. He mastered his anger and continued.

  “Harbard arrayed the army in an arc to protect Fangoth. The archers were twenty paces to the fore, and the yeomen were drawn up shield to shield to withstand any charge of Burnond’s horsemen. We Knights sat under the walls of the city, in reserve. Lord Harbard told us we wouldn’t have much to do! A few volleys of arrows, and the goblins would run away—that’s what he said.

  “Burnond formed his goblin infantry into a solid phalanx six ranks deep. They were armed with long pikes, twelve feet long. The rear ranks laid their pikes on the shoulders of those in front of them, making a moving hedgehog of steel points. To motivate the goblins, Burnond placed young fanatics of the Dark Order at their backs with whips, to scourge the goblins if they faltered. C
an you see it? Vile vermin, driven like pigs to slaughter by blows of a rawhide whip! Where is the glory in such warfare?”

  Crickets chirped in the deep shadows. A rich tapestry of stars covered the sky from horizon to horizon. Somehow the faint glitter of a million stars made the night seem darker rather than light.

  Howland wrung the last drops from the cider flask. It was mild stuff, not like the rotgut sold in Robann taverns.

  “A veil of archers could not stop two thousand pike-men propelled forward by whiplash,” he said dully. “The elves loosed and loosed, finally aiming over their knuckles at the black wall of spear points coming at them. In the last moment Lord Harbard gave them leave to withdraw. The elves wore no armor. No one expected them to fight infantry of the line.

  “The goblins pushed on, driving deep into the yeomen. Their pikes were so long, our men couldn’t reach the enemy with their swords. Hundreds of yeomen were slain without striking a blow! When the curved lined began to bow backward under the press, Lord Harbard ordered his Knights forward. We rode around the right end of our own line, thinking to take the goblins in the flank. Burnond had foreseen this move, curse him. The Saifhumi were waiting for us. Lord Harbard thought they would scatter if charged with sword and lance, but they had been trained by Lord Burnond to stand before cavalry. Harbard, Harbard, you should have ignored the halberdiers and gone after the goblins!”

  “What happened, Sir Howland?” said Malek.

  “We were cut to pieces. The Saifhumi had hooks on the ends of their bills, and they dragged our men from the saddle and hacked them to bits. They cut off Lord Harbard’s head then his arms and legs.… His bloody limbs were thrown back to us! I was unhorsed, and trampled. When I awoke, I was a prisoner of the Knights of Takhisis.”

  The balance of the battle went just as badly for Harbard’s army. The yeomen fought and fought until horsemen of the Dark Order threatened to cut them off from the city. Then they broke. The city, unprepared for a long siege, surrendered to Burnond Everride six days later.

  “Defeat wasn’t the worst of it. My ruin had just begun. After the battle of Fangoth Field I served the man who murdered my liege,” Howland said, whispering. He acknowledged Hume’s shocked expression. “Shocked? Garab uth Dreher was Lord Burnond’s cavalry chief, and I lent my sword to his service. We captured men were given that choice—service or mutilation. Warriors who refused to serve the Knights of Takhisis had their eyes put out, or had a hand or foot chopped off. Then they were turned loose, to wander as beggars, object warnings to anyone who would resist Takhisis’s rule.

  “I was young and vain, and like most young men, I valued my body more than my soul. I could not bear the thought of being maimed and useless. I told myself, if I stayed whole, I could one day fight to bring down Burnond Everride and his kind. I joined them and fought battles against my former companions.

  “When Chaos raged loose on Krynn, the Knights of Takhisis joined the Knights of Solamnia. I tried to rejoin my comrades, but they rejected me, calling me a turncoat. After the war, that reputation stayed with me.

  “You’d think that sort of reputation would be good for a hired warrior, but it’s not. It’s death. Keeping faith with your companions is the only virtue a mercenary understands, and they demand it above all. For decades I scratched the barest living from my skill at arms.”

  Howland stood and drew a deep breath. “Now I’m no good to anyone any more as a warrior, except to dirt-poor farmers from Nowhere.”

  Hume hung his head, unable to speak. Malek burst out, “Your past doesn’t matter here, Sir Howland! Save my betrothed and my brother’s son, and you’ll always have a place of honor in our village!”

  Howland said nothing to this promise but stood by the slumped Hume. “What say you, soldier? Do you think me worth following now?”

  Hume raised his heavy head. His broad, bald brow glistened with sweat.

  “I am one-quarter ogre,” he said, choking. “Do you know what that means? Not human. Not ogre. Used for my strength and steadfastness and despised for my broken ancestry. Do you think me worth having as a follower?”

  Howland laid his hand on Hume’s shoulder. “No child chooses his ancestors. If you are true, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Hume stood and met his leader’s gaze. “If you keep faith with your soldiers today and tomorrow, then yesterday means nothing.”

  Truth breaks many strong bonds, but sometimes it also forges them.

  They found Nils’s stream before dawn and followed it eastward. Howland reasoned a mounted outfit like Rakell’s would need plenty of water in a dry region like this. Sure enough, they found a spot where the clay bank had been churned up by many shod horses’ hooves.

  “How old would you say these tracks are?” Howland asked.

  Nils felt the yielding clay with his fingertips. Ferns just above the creek bank had been trodden down, but the leaves were still green and pliable.

  “No more than day,” said the farmer.

  “I agree. What does that imply?”

  Hume said, “They water here often!”

  Howland nodded. He waded through the shallow stream to the opposite shore. “There’s nothing like twenty or thirty horses’ tracks here. More like six or seven.”

  “A patrol!”

  “Yes. Rakell is careful. He sends out patrols every day to sweep the plain for signs of trouble.”

  “Or useful prisoners,” Malek added bitterly.

  “We’ll set our trap here,” the old Knight assured him. “Four men can ambush six right enough. We won’t pick a fight with Rakell’s entire force, just whittle him down a bit and take some prisoners, maybe.”

  The watering spot had little obvious cover from which to stage an ambush. Both banks were gentle, grassy slopes without big trees or boulders. Greenery on the banks was lush enough to hide in, but men on horseback might see them lying on their bellies in the weeds.

  Nils wandered away from the others, probing the bottom of the stream with his walking stick.

  “Look here!” he called. “The water’s deep enough here to hide us!” He demonstrated by sitting down in the stream a few steps west of the ford. He drew his knees up to his chest, and all but the crown of his head disappeared beneath the silvery water. He popped up again, gasping.

  Howland said, “That’s a start. We’ll need more than two feet of water to make this work.” Gathering his comrades to him, he explained his ideas.

  Like a silent furnace, the sun came up. The steam-colored sky returned, and the air was heavy with unbroken sweat. A line of riders appeared, shimmering in the morning heat. Seven horsemen, lean and alert, rode slowly down the path to the creek, four on the left, three on the right. Marching disconsolately between the lines of horses were eight prisoners, bearing balks of timber across their shoulders. Long leather buckets hung from both ends of these timbers. The daily water detail was near its destination.

  Chatting idly as they meandered along, the riders were equipped with a mix of arms and armor. All had breastplates of some description, ranging from a fluted southern pattern to a heavy, riveted relic of old Nordmaar. Each warrior carried a sword and shield (slung on his back), but for herding sluggish captives they also carried light spears, which could be cast or carried.

  Leading the water detail was a hard-faced veteran with the insignia of a corporal on his helmet. He rode into the flowing stream and let his horse drink his fill. Twisting on his thin, worn saddle, he said, “Men on the left, water your animals. Those of you on the right, watch the prisoners.”

  The last of the four men on the left side of the column steered his horse into the water. Near the center of the stream, the animal balked, bobbing its head many times and nodding.

  “What is it? A snake?” asked the corporal.

  The rider reined back his horse. “Don’t know, corp. Something’s got old Dodger spooked.”

  In the water three dark objects rested on the bottom. They resembled logs, driven into the sandy c
reek bed. The trooper was about to poke at them with his spear when his comrades on shore, still unwatered, loudly complained about the delay.

  “All right, you lot. Let your animals drink.”

  The last three riders waded in with their horses, none of which shied from the unknown objects. When their mounts were slaked, the corporal ordered the prisoners to fill their buckets. The captives filed in, dipping first one side of their carriers, then the other. The corporal moved out of their way, riding up higher on the north bank.

  He spotted something startling in the grass, a man’s limp arm, fingers slack. Hand on his sword, he guided his horse toward the motionless limb. It proved to be attached to a squat, powerfully built man with a shaven head. Purplish red stains covered the man’s face.

  “Dugun! Fetz!” he said loudly. “I found someone!”

  Work stopped. The prisoners stood in water up to their knees. The two named men rode across to their corporal.

  “Ugly brute!” said the one called Fetz. “Is he human?”

  “Looks like your brother,” quipped Dugun.

  “Shut up and check him,” snapped the corporal. Dugun dismounted and kicked the body, none too gently.

  “Hey! Hey!” When he got no response, the brigand squatted beside the unmoving body to see if the man was still breathing.

  He never got the chance to find out. In the blink of an eye, the “dead” man drove a slim iron dagger into Dugun’s chest.

  “He’s alive! Watch out!”

  The corporal’s warning was too late. Hume rolled to his feet, snatched the sword he’d been lying on, and thrust upward. His point caught the corporal below the hip guard of his breastplate, driving deep into the man’s side. Blood spurted from the corporal’s lips. With an incoherent cry, he toppled from his horse.

  Screaming, the captives threw down their buckets and fled to the south bank. One of the riders in the stream put a ram’s horn to his lips and sounded a long, wavering blast. The stream around him erupted, and the three sunken “logs” burst from the water. Malek, Nils, and Howland had plastered themselves with gray mud, leaves, and waited on the creek bed, breathing through hollowed-out cattail stems.