by John Ringo
“Let me be clear about this,” Sheida said carefully. “You are on my side.”
“Oh, yes,” Edmund said. “If Paul’s planning on creating a centralized planning situation and forcing people into molds, he has to be stopped. He has no idea what that means. Not really.”
“So what do we do?” she asked. “Edmund, you’re just about the only real expert in warfare left on Earth.”
“Nah, just the only one you trust,” the smith replied. “I don’t know the conditions. Weapons?”
“No, none, no blades anyway,” she added thoughtfully. “No projectile weapons, explosives won’t work under the protocols anyway.”
“If they’re planning a physical attack on you at the Council meeting there has to be a way to hurt you,” he pointed out. “Is Paul trained in hand-to-hand combat? Killing a person hand-to-hand is difficult.”
“No, and we have Ungphakorn and Cantor on our side,” Sheida pointed out. “I’d take Cantor over Chansa in a fight any day.”
“Porting?”
“The Council Chamber is sealed to entry for any but members, without permission. And no porting is permitted, in or out. They cannot call for reinforcements. But, nor can we.”
“Poison?”
“Transmission method?” she asked. “They cannot bring projectors in, our own fields would soon detect contact or aerial poisons, and no harmful species are permitted in the room.”
“Poison is subtle,” Edmund pointed out. “There are binary poisons; they could have taken an antidote…”
“Well, I won’t drink anything if they ask,” she said with a winsome smile.
“You’re sure of what you think?” the smith asked.
“I’ve been reading people for a long time,” Sheida said. “Paul is planning something. Something big. Something big enough that he thinks there won’t be anything I can do about it. I can’t imagine what it could be but seizing control of the Council and that would take seizing the Keys. My coalition is solid.”
“Well, I’ll show you a few tricks and there are a few things that you can probably get in the Council Chambers that won’t be considered threatening by Mother,” he said. “Beyond that, there’s not much I can do.”
“Thank you Edmund,” Sheida said. “Just talking about it has helped. Cantor just gets… very ‘bearish’ and Ungphakorn gets cryptic. You just get logical.”
“I’ve had more practice,” Talbot replied. “Both at thinking about violence and having people try to kill me. Comes of growing up wanting to be a hero,” he added sadly.
CHAPTER SIX
Herzer’s mount shifted under him restlessly dancing a crow-hop to the side; clearly it was more avid for the battle than he.
Herzer tapped it on the mane with his rein hand, shifting his lance in the other. “Ho, Calaban,” he said absently. The north wind blew the smell of wood smoke and less savory scents from the orc encampment on the ridge above and he scanned its defenses from the cover of the woodline. It was an even bet that they had spotted him, but they weren’t pouring out to attack. That meant either that there were few of them or that they were unusually well led, for orcs. The first of course would be wonderful, but the latter was much more likely. The force that had descended on the local towns was not small; there had been at least twenty in the group that attacked Shawton. Figuring a quarter of that for guards on the camp, that meant at least twenty-five up there. And they hadn’t left on a raid, not by day. That meant they were holing up.
The main entrance was a narrow defile on the south side with a guarded gate at the top. On the west there was another gate, this one up a steep, tortuous switchback. That was quite impossible on a lone-hand raid. As was climbing to the cliffs above the emcampment; Herzer didn’t have the gear and if he got into a fight in the camp he’d need his armor to survive.
The battle was both real and unreal. The area was “real,” an unhabited area of eastern Norau not far from his house. The camp and palisades, as well as the cleared areas around it, had been constructed for him as part of the “enhanced reality” game that he was running. The horse, orcs and other defenders, if any, were constructs of nannites and powerfields. The horse that he sat was almost fully “real” but didn’t have the individuality of real horses. It was as close to “reality” as he could get, though, given his limited power budget. It would have been much “cheaper” to build a palace on top of a mountain than to create this battlefield. But everyone had their priorities.
He kept the primary objective — rescue the hostage — in mind, but the question was how. Realistically, if he could keep them moving around, he was a match for twenty orcs. They were strong and fast but relatively clumsy and poor fighters. Even in plate and mail he should be able to outmaneuver them. And his armor was proof against most of their weapons.
He fingered the lance for a moment then put it in its boot, reaching behind him to unlash his pack. If the orcs killed him it would leave most of his worldly possessions for them to loot. But it the orcs killed him he wouldn’t need any of them anyway. Climbing rope and lanterns were not turning out to be useful on this particular quest. Without the weight the pack represented, Calaban could carry him with relative ease, despite the weight of his armor, weapons and not inconsiderable body.
He weighed weapons for a moment then kept his lance, axe and sword, dropping the bow with the pack. He had need for all three that he kept, cumbersome as it was to carry them. The sword and axe went onto his saddle as he lifted the lance back out of the boot.
“All right, Calaban, let’s give them what for,” he said, nudging the horse with his knee as he hefted his kite shield.
He trotted out into the meadow below the encampment and stopped just short of the shallow brook. Most of it was high banked and relatively deep, at least thigh deep. Not easy to cross on foot and impossible for the horse. But opposite the entrance the bank had been broken down at a narrow ford. The slopes to either side were still impossible, and movement would be restricted to one rider at a time. But it was where he had to cross.
Now he could see orc heads popping up over the gate, but still none of them stepped forward. Very well.
“Orcs! Orcs of the encampment! I have come to deliver your souls to hell!”
“Go away! We have nothing you want and live in peace with humans!” a high voice screeched back.
“You have raided the towns of Evard, Korln and Shawton. I know for I have tracked you back to your lair! And you have taken the daughter of the Earl of Shawton for ransom! Deliver her to me unharmed and I will spare you your lives!”
There was derisive hooting from the far side of the wall but he was just as glad. That meant they might come out and fight him on the flats.
“Go away horse-rider! You cannot defeat us for we are the Tribe of the Bloody Hand and we have never been defeated!”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything you misbegotten goblins. Is it true that you were made by mixing pigs and apes?”
The screeching redoubled on the other side of the fence but they still didn’t come out.
“The orcs were the first peoples!” the voice screeched back. “They were before the elves and the humans! It is you who were begotten of pigs and apes you… you…”
“No, tell me true? Is it true that your mother was a waterfront whore who couldn’t get anyone to pay for her because she was too ugly? So she did it with the creature from the black lagoon when he was drunk? And thus you were begotten, a black, dripping monstrosity that even your friends among the orcs, the only people who will have you, run shrieking from in horror?”
“I… I… aaaaarrrrr!”
The gate at the top of the defile opened outward and a swarm of orcs poured through, at their head a broad and tall troll.
“Oh, shit,” Herzer muttered, timing the moment to start his charge. The troll, fortunately, was outdistancing the orcs rapidly. Finally Herzer leaned forward and kicked the horse into movement. “Hi, Calaban! Forward!”
He c
ouched the lance and balanced the weight of it, aiming it to strike the troll broad on the chest. The fearsome creature seemed to pay no attention and seemed uninterested in blocking, intent on coming to grips with his tormentor. Thus Herzer was able to lean into the weapon at the last moment and drive it home fully. The impact drove him back onto the high rear cantle of his saddle and nearly stopped Calaban, but the troll was mortally wounded. The creature roared as the spear jutted out of his back in a welter of red blood, and grasped the shaft, swinging it from side to side as he thrashed.
Herzer started to draw his sword but was struck, hard, on the upper arm just as the sword cleared the scabbard; the weapon clattered to ground as he was nearly unseated.
After a moment he pulled his axe out instead and kneed Calaban in closer to the creature, which was maddened with pain. The horse stood a scoring across the flank as he maneuvered into position, then in a double-hand blow Herzer cut the head from the troll. The horse stepped back daintily as the giant beast fell to the ground.
The orcs, who were just approaching the scene of the battle, let out a cry of fear at that but they didn’t stop, charging forward in a mass. There were far more than twenty but Herzer felt sure he could prevail.
He backed Calaban around to avoid the first rush of orcs, swinging the axe to strike down a few on the fringes as he did so. He really needed his sword or lance for this work; the axe was a short-hafted ground-fighting weapon.
A group of orcs was trying to get around behind him, possibly to try to hamstring Calaban, but he didn’t need to worry about that. As one of them rushed in, swinging its short-sword, the horse lashed backwards with both feet, killing the creature and tossing it into its fellows so as to bowl several of them to the ground.
However, that short pause had been enough for others to gather around, swinging their black crusted swords and axes and trying to grab at reins or drag Herzer from the saddle.
Herzer kicked the horse in the side again, swinging downward on either side to try to clear a path. Finally the team broke out of the mass of orcs, headed up along the streambed. He kicked Calaban again but felt her falter as a flight of crossbow bolts flew down from the hilltop.
Realizing the horse could never face the battle in her wounded condition he rolled off to the side and slapped her on the flank. More bolts flew down towards him but he was able to deflect them with his shield as he trotted back towards the reduced mass of orcs.
Again they charged him but there were a few low trees, willows and a few scrubby poplars, along the riverbank and he darted into them to break up the charge. It was a wild time for a moment in among the bushes as orcs charged in from either side and he hew and slew with abandon. They got in a few licks of their own and he felt a distinct catch in his side where an orc champion had landed a telling blow with a battle-hammer. But the champion was at his feet in a welter of gore and not the other way around. So all was well.
He finally broke contact across the brook, which he could negotiate better than the orcs could since it was only thigh deep on him here, and swung to the east, moving back to the original ford. The orcs paralleled him on the far bank and then tried to dart ahead to the ford, but he made it there first.
In the narrow slot to the ford on “his” side of the river there was no way that more than one, or at most two, orcs could attack him. There he stood his ground, hammering on orc shields as they hammered right back. A few more of them had poured out of the encampment but he was killing them faster than they could be reinforced, his relatively light axe crashing through their guards and shattering shoulders, arms and heads.
The narrow ford soon became clogged with bodies and the following orcs had to clamber over the piles of the dead. Occasionally they fell towards him and he had to step backwards to avoid being pushed over, so he had slowly been backed towards the top of the bank. However, there were fewer than ten orcs left in the attacking force and, apparently realizing they could not defeat him in the meadow, they suddenly gave out a cry and ran back to the defile, then up through their gates, closing them firmly behind them.
With the retreat of the foe the battle fury came off of him and the pain from his wounds flooded in to replace it. Besides the catch in his side, which felt very much like a broken rib, he now noticed a rather nasty gash on the back of his right leg. A few inches deeper and he would have lost all use of the leg. As it was, he didn’t even recall getting it.
He whistled for Calaban and stumbled across the body-choked ford to the far side. There were probably some things worth looting on the bodies, but that could wait.
His lance was done for, until he could either give the head of it back to a good armorer or find an appropriate hickory sapling. He’d really rather let someone else fix it; he was for a town and a good rest as soon as this battle was done.
The horse walked up from wherever it had disappeared to as he found his sword under a body. He retrieved rags from one of his remaining saddle bags and wiped the blood off of it and his axe then loaded both onto the horse along with his shield, which was starting to get heavy.
He worked on Calaban’s wounds next. First he numbed the wounds with an odd gray poultice then worked the barbed heads out of the flesh. The latter was difficult because the horse, despite the successful local anesthesia, danced around from the odd pulling sensation. When he finally had the bolts removed he packed the punctures with salve that would speed the healing.
After that he worked on his own problems. He was tired and sore but except for treating the gash on his leg there wasn’t much he could do. He had some bruises and the rib, but they would require more work than he could do in the field. Finally he put a bandage, liberally laced with salve, onto the slash on his leg and laboriously repaired the mail over it. The cut had been an attempted coup de poing but it had not been quite powerful enough to cut through the well-wrought Alladon mail. At least not enough to do any real damage.
His wounds tended to, he took out a small vial and regarded it cautiously. The material in it was unpleasant to drink, oversweet but with a bitter undertaste, and it had limited effect. But it would invigorate him for a short period of time, enough to defeat the rest of the orcs. And if its effectiveness ran out he could take another. But each successive use gave less time invigorated. He’d need some real rest soon.
Finally he loaded his weapons back up and strode towards the gates of the encampment. No bow fire greeted him so he headed to the base of the defile and yelled up at the wooden palisade on the hilltop.
“I call upon you to let the daughter of the Earl of Shawton free. If you do so I will spare your lives. If you do not I will kill all the fighters and burn your village, turning your women and children out into the winter. Heed me!”
“Go away!” came the reply, not so loud or fearsome as before. “We have never been to this Shawton.”
“This is your last chance!” Herzer yelled, pulling out a vial of the herbal stimulant.
“Go away!”
“Stupid bastards,” he muttered, draining the vial in a single draught and tossing it over his shoulder. He drew his axe and raised it over his head. “For Mithras and Alladale!” he bellowed. Over his shoulder, out of the clear sky, a boom of thunder rolled. Cool.
He charged up the defile, holding his shield over his head against the anticipated rain of stones. Sure enough, every orc in the encampment seemed to be pelting him with rocks, chunks of wood, dead cats and whatever else could be found. With the exception of a couple of what must have been fair-sized boulders none of it was a hindrance and he quickly made it up the slot to the gate.
There were apparently stands behind the gate, but unlike in the defile, only a few orcs could look down at him here and he swung his shield to the rear to give himself room for two-handed swinging. The gate was made of thick logs held up with ropes and hinges but there were narrow gaps between the logs and he swung through the gaps at the bar on the far side. Some judicious chops at the logs opened up the gaps to where he could get
at the bar better and he fell to a steady swinging rhythm, quickly chopping through the thick barrier.
As soon as the bar parted he dropped the axe and swung the gates open, ripping out his sword as the remaining defenders charged him at the gate.
He could see the earl’s daughter now. The girl was no more than sixteen, with fair skin and red hair, unbound and flowing to her waist. She was tied to a post in the center of the encampment, and a spit and fire had been erected nearby. It was clear that the orcs had been intending to have her for supper when Herzer arrived and interrupted. An orc shaman capered in front of the fire, casting in foul-smelling herbs and gesturing maniacally.
Now it was another fearsome melee but with nearly an arm’s length of good Narland steel in his hands, the orcs didn’t stand a chance. He pushed forward into their mass, striking from side to side and parrying their blows with his much battered shield.
But just as he neared the end of the defenders the shaman gave a last great cry and a fearsome apparition, a man-sized demon, arose from the flames. It was covered in spikes and had a vague resemblance to the orcs but that was all the description that Herzer could make as the thing leapt through the air and slammed into his shield.
He swung at it and connected on the shoulder. But for all the good the Narland steel had made it might have struck stone. It bounced from the shoulder with a jolt in his hand as the demon’s fist struck him in the chest.
The blow threw him backwards to slam into the palisade and he shook his head trying to clear it of the ringing as the demon pounced once again.
Suddenly, horny fingers closed around his mail-protected throat and started to squeeze. He flailed with his sword at the demon’s side but it was to no avail. Slowly the world around him went black…
“Fisk,” Herzer muttered, sitting up from the ground and looking around at the training field. His throat still had a psychosomatic tight feeling to it, but VR always did that. “I hate losing.”