When I said we had planned and drilled for these circumstances, it wasn’t just hot air. We had spent a few hours each day working up strategies and practicing. Every single one of us was armed with something, down to the smallest child. We were not going to give in without a fight unless we could somehow resolve things peacefully. I didn’t expect that would happen.
When Bowen, Xeng, Goulug and I stepped into the yard, the plan was already in motion. Our house had three entrances. The front door and its wide porch was obvious but there was a side door off of the sleeping quarters and one in the back of the house as well. Patrick, Aleyda, Lapina, and Goulug’s oldest son, a teenager named Urbul, who was apparently named after Ugor’s father, were our flanking force. As soon as we started out the front they headed towards one of the other entrances to try to favorably position themselves.
Those of us stepping out to the front of the house were well armed. Bowen and I each carried swords, the ones looted from the orcs long ago. Xeng had his wood-cutting axe over his right shoulder. Goulug carried the staff I had looted from the redoubt, as the staff was the traditional weapon of a herdsmen. I had sparred with him a little bit and he knew how to use it.
The seven men who strode up to the house were a mixed lot. Five were orcs and two were humans. Both humans and three of the orcs were unarmored, carrying spears with wicked leaf-bladed metal heads. I had no doubt they could use them effectively. The other two orcs were armed with swords and armored. One of them wore some sort of studded leather armor, while the other one, the apparent leader, sported a well worn but stout looking set of chainmail. When they approached the house, they walked with confidence. I doubt anyone had ever successfully stood up to their robbery and bullying. I hoped that was about to change.
“Greetings,” the orc in chainmail said. “We are not here to kill you. We are here to collect your supplies and valuables. You have a really nice place here, and I assume are well stocked with both. We’ll start with your weapons. Hand them over.”
“Who are you and why should we give you anything?” I temporized. We needed as much time as we could to get the others in position.
“Ah, a mouthy one,” he said with a booming laugh. “The mouthy ones are so much fun. Who we are is unimportant. What we are not, though, is a bunch of upstart peasant farmers who bought some weapons and dream they know how to use them. Our history is written in our blood, spilled across dozens of battlefields. While you enjoyed our protection, out here living the good life, we fought and died to keep you safe. Now the bill for that has come due. We have come to collect. And you will pay, either willingly, or with your blood. Who knows, you may even live long enough, bleeding out on the ground, to hear the desperate cries of your women being subjected to the tender mercies of my fellows. Or we can do this the easy way. No blood needs to be spilled. Look at us like a storm. Sometimes storms do damage and you have to rebuild and recover. There is no rebuilding when you have passed from this world.”
I was impressed. Truly, I was. This guy had worked on his villainous monologue until it had become almost poetic, a work of art.
“Right,” I replied. “A dozen battlefields? Certainly none of them were around here. This area is peaceful, or at least it was until you lot came along. We give up our weapons and then you kill us anyway. You do everything horrible that you just threatened us with anyway. That sounds like a bad deal to me.”
“I am a man of my word,” he spat back angrily. “If I say you will not be harmed, you will not be harmed.”
I heard a faint whooshing sound from the side of the house. One of the unarmored humans must have heard it as well as he started to spin in that direction, raising his spear. Urbul stepped out from the side of the house, the sling in his hand spinning. Then, he released his missile, sending it skimming towards the head of the human who was turning to face him. The stone flew true, cracking into the skull of the man and dropping him to his knees with a dazed expression on his face, blood pouring out of the side of his head. Ah, the sling, the other traditional weapon of the herdsmen.
“Ambush!” one of the unarmored orcs screamed. Then, there was chaos, the fight beginning in earnest as our reserve force charged around the side of the house. Anticipating this, the four of us also sprung forward to engage.
We had them outnumbered and surprised but as the orc had said, they were veterans of many battlefields. There would be a lot of blood spilled and much of it would be our own.
The interlopers fell back in good order, taking up a defensive position where the length of their spears could be put to good use. I screamed at my people to stop their charge. Then I turned to Urbul.
“Light them up,” I told him.
The whooshing sound began again and another stone tumbled towards the massed bandits. One of the unarmored orcs grunted in pain as the stone impacted the arm that he had raised to ward his head, but it hadn’t done much damage.
“Urbul’s a strong lad,” I said. “He can keep this up all day.”
That enraged their leader. He gave a terse command. “Advance.” Their formation started moving towards us with a measured tread, spears glistening in the light.
The strange thing about weapons is that they can only point in one direction at a time. We retreated as the bandits moved towards us, eventually falling back to the porch. Aleyda and the others weren’t idle, though. They moved around to a position behind the bandits, threatening their flank. And all the while, the sling kept firing, sending painful but not very damaging stones into the massed enemies.
I don’t know if the Home Alone movies existed in Werner’s world, but his devious mind obviously accessed some of the same source material. Falling back to the porch was a good plan. It pulled the enemies within range of our trap.
The porch itself, about three feet off the ground and accessed by a pair of steps, was surrounded by a sturdy railing. The only convenient way up onto it was up the steps. This created a natural funnel, one that we were prepared to use effectively. Now, the steps were quite wide, at least ten feet. When we retreated to the porch, we all skipped the first step. To the bandits, it must have looked like we were fleeing headlong towards the house. That wasn’t true, though. We really didn’t want to put any weight onto that first step.
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The bandits moved towards us precisely, not exactly fast but quick enough. Soon, they had reached the foot of the steps. Don’t look upward, nobody look upward I thought as we stood, our backs pressed up against the front of the house. Then, the first three bandits stepped up onto that treacherous first step, obviously not noticing the thin line that ran up the post to their left up onto the ceiling of the porch.
The line was attached to a pin. The pin was the release mechanism for a heavy log, suspended with just the right length of rope to clear the bottom of the porch floor. The first step had been weakened, ready to collapse and pull loose that pin. I really didn’t want any part of that log. It weighed a few hundred pounds.
Werner was obnoxious, but he was an obnoxious genius. Just as he planned, the stair collapsed, causing the first rank to stumble and pulling loose the retaining pin. The log dropped in front of me, swinging forward in a sweeping parabolic arc just inches from the porch floor. That made it about chest or head high for the first rank of soldiers. It met them with a meaty thunk, the force of the swing largely absorbed by their torsos and skulls, pushing them backwards into their companions and fouling the formation. The log hung lank, weaving back and forth in a diminishing arc. Xeng swept forward and cut the ropes holding the log up with his axe, sending it to the porch with a thud. Then, we charged forward.
Aleyda and the others didn’t stand idle either, bounding up to engage the enemy from the rear. The enemies had arranged themselves with the spears to the front and the swordsmen behind to maximize their reach advantage. I thought Aleyda’s group was likely in for the harder fight as they faced the armored opponents.
The spearmen were just staring to recover from their disarray when we reached them. Xeng was in the lead and he plowed into them, his shoulder lowered. The orc he made contact with never had a chance to get his spear up in time as he was blasted backwards off his feet, rolling into the legs of the bandits behind him. Xeng started swinging his axe in wide sweeps, eschewing defense to create havoc. I moved away from him to engage. I wanted to be nowhere close to that axe. If I were in the wrong place at the wrong time, it would split me open just as surely as an enemy.
Apparently, Bowen’s thoughts ran in a similar direction as he followed me closely by my side. We pressed in on the spearmen, trying to get inside their effective range. Then, it came down to poke, hack and slash. We didn’t escape unscathed. I was pounded in the head with fists, and poked and cut by the edge of spears. Whenever an opponent would fall to the ground, Goulug was there, delivering strong blows with his staff to their heads, necks, their upraised arms. I knew he was strong, but enraged and defending his family, he exuded a ferocious, manic intensity. We were routing the bastards.
The fight devolved for me into a series of fleeting images. My eyes swept towards Patrick as he cried out in pain, his left arm going limp as he battled the orc with the studded armor. He gave as well as he got, though, stepping forward and cracking the orc upside the head with the pommel of his sword. Lapina, wielding my rapier, sprung forward and skewered the spearman wounded by the sling from behind, impaling him and taking the fight right out of him. I could hear Xeng roaring in anger, pain and frustration, his axe spinning, always spinning. Aleyda was dueling the leader, their techniques so measured and precise that nobody else dared intervene.
One by one, the bandits fell. I only accounted for a couple of them, and that’s with Goulug’s assistance. Xeng’s semi-berserk, blender on two feet fighting style wounded several. Bowen was economical in his attacks, waiting for just the right moment to unleash a devastating strike. Patrick cried out fiercely when the orc in studded leather armor finally succumbed to his assault. None of us were unscathed, nursing our injuries the best we could.
Finally, the only bandit left was the leader. There was a small break in the fight as he and Aleyda eyed each other, both out of breath, their chests heaving to draw in precious air.
“I fought in twenty battles by the time I was twelve. I am no longer twelve. Come, let’s finish this.” She stepped forward to engage.
The orc, of course, couldn’t understand a word she was saying, but I am certain of two things. One, he knew he was overmatched. Two, he also knew that she had not said anything nice to him. “Even if I fall the rest of the men will come for you, and you will pay,” he replied, rejoining the melee.
Eyeing the two combatants, it was clear that they had both been wounded. Aleyda fought with a weapon in each hand. One of our swords in her right and a long wicked dagger in her left. Aleyda’s injuries looked superficial, mostly shallow cuts. She had obviously been struck or headbutted in the face, though, because I could see a large goose egg above her right eye. The orc was in poorer shape. His armor protected him from being gutted like a fish but he bore a collection on wounds on his face, arms, and legs.
I might say that I could have stood in her place and have been equally effective. That would be a lie. Essence crystals or not, a few months of experience could not replace a lifetime of training. She flowed like water from one stance to another, from offense to defense. Attacking relentlessly, she never let herself become overbalanced, always ready to defend. Without his armor, the orc would have been dead already twenty times over. The armor was effective, though, protecting his vitals and making Aleyda work hard for her victory. All things end, though, and the fight with the orc was no exception. Aleyda launched a chopping attack at the orc’s neck. He quickly raised his right arm to parry, but the attack was a feint. When his arm lifted, Aleyda slid forward another step and stabbed her dagger into the orc’s armpit. The orc’s armor was leather there, designed to prevent him from being constricted, to preserve his freedom of movement. The tip of the dagger pierced the leather, plunging into his body. She didn’t withdraw the dagger. She left it sheathed in his body, dancing backward out of range of his return strike.
Blood poured from the wound down the side of the armor, and the orc started spitting out more. She must have nicked his lung. Instead of going back on the attack, Aleyda defended, protecting herself while crimson dripped onto the dirty snow and ice remaining on the ground. Soon enough, the orc couldn’t move anymore, slumping to his knees. Aleyda watched dispassionately as he bled out, only relaxing when he had drawn his last breath. Then she, too, slumped down to her knees, her energy spent.
We had won, but it hadn’t come without cost. Although none of us had fallen, everyone had wounds that needed tended. Well, everyone except Urbul, because he was smart enough to never let the enemies get close enough to strike him. The worst wound was probably Patrick’s arm. It was cut deeply, almost down to the bone. There were sutures in his future.
I walked over to Aleyda, reaching out to her with my hand. She grasped it and I pulled her to her feet.
“Thank you,” I told her. “We couldn’t have done this without you.”
“I know,” she replied, not at all modestly, and then she began to laugh. Shuffling around the battlefield, she hugged each of us. “But I could not have done this without each of you either. It was not our day to die.”
After getting everyone back into the house to get their injuries tended, I thought about the last threat the orcish leader had made. He was right, we couldn’t defend ourselves against twenty more bandits if they attacked with their full force. Once again, we were reacting instead of acting. We weren’t the only ones with skin in this game. The whole plateau was being threatened. We couldn’t be the only people willing to fight. There had to be others. I was certain that because of their wounds Xeng and Patrick didn’t have another fight in them. At least not soon. But there had to be others that wanted to protect what they had spent a lifetime building, right?
If the barony was turning a blind eye to the situation, then we would need to take care of it on our own. It was time to form a posse and go hunting some bandits.