I will admit that I didn’t always pay perfect attention when my mom dragged us all to church on Sunday. My mind tended to wander a little bit, and by a little bit I mean pretty much the whole time. Services were long, sometimes lasting more than two hours, and we always attended the later service because Sundays were one of the few days my dad got to sleep in a little. So, I would sit there, thinking about the book I was reading, or wondering what was happening in the NFL games that had just started, or in later years checking out the pretty, dressed up girls around my own age. Every once in a while I would stand with everyone else and mouth the words to some hymn. There was one time, though, that I paid real attention to what was happening. That was at my oldest brother’s funeral.
The church was packed, full of not only family and friends but also those people from town who thought that attending was a required demonstration of their patriotism. At least half of the people in there had never spoken to my brother. I don’t know if you remember from when I mentioned it earlier, but my brother was killed when he was deployed to Afghanistan with the United States Army. That day, I sat there with rapt attention. I wanted answers. Sure, my brother and I didn’t always get along and he picked on me all the time, but he was my brother, damn it. I wanted to hear what the preacher had to say about God’s plan and how that plan led to the death of a nineteen year old I loved.
I was confused as hell when he started quoting from that Turn! Turn! Turn! Song by The Byrds that I sometimes got subjected to on long car rides when my parents were listening to oldies radio. Don’t get me wrong, for oldies radio it was a decent song, but I couldn’t understand why he was using that as his source material. But as he talked, my confusion lessened. It turned out that the bible, specifically Ecclesiastes, was the source material for the song. Who knew? Probably me if I had paid more attention. That made much more sense. When I got home, I looked up the tune on the internet and found out it was written by a well known folk artist named Pete Seeger and he didn’t try to hide where he had lifted the lyrics from.
If you are unfamiliar with the bible verse and the song, both list a series of polar opposites to show that there are seasons in life for “every matter under heaven.” One contrasting pair referenced is a time to kill and a time to heal. When I left church that day, I still didn’t understand why my brother had to die, but the words stuck with me.
After I got done with my speech, those words forced themselves to the forefront of my mind. If we were going to ever have that time to heal, or time to do much of anything else worth doing, we had to end the bandit threat. Unless they fled on their own, that meant that this season was killing season.
I may have come up with the plan. I may have lit the fire that got this whole thing started. I was not, however, some military genius. I was not in charge and for that I was glad. I would have gotten a bunch of people needlessly killed. Aleyda probably could have competently directed our forces given her extensive experience with warfare but nobody was going to take direction from a slave. The elders huddled, shooing me away with their stern looks, and eventually decided Anxo would take charge. I thought he was a good choice but only time would tell.
By the time the recruitment drive was finished, there were fifty eight people willing to take the fight to the bandits. A few had military experience but they only numbered around a dozen. The rest were a mixture of physically fit farmers and herdsmen and a few people from town who didn’t want to miss the adventure. There were more males than females, but there were at least fifteen or twenty women who were ready to take up arms. That number included one grumpy looking dwarven blacksmith who had gone back to her forge and returned with a nasty looking hammer with a long spike on the back that was obviously meant to pound flesh, not metal. I reminded myself not to get on her bad side. She gripped it like she knew how to use it.
Everyone was told to report at dawn the next day with their weapons and whatever supplies they required to spend a couple of weeks out in the countryside. I hadn’t brought two weeks worth of supplies. Therefore, my evening was occupied by chasing some down and spending more money. Finally, after the inn closed, Aleyda, Goulug and I each claimed a section of the inn’s dirty floor near the fire and turned in for the night.
Since it was winter, dawn didn’t come all that early. I woke an hour or two before the sun rose, full of nervous energy. I started pacing around the room but the pops and cracks of loose floorboards caused the others to stir and I didn’t want to wake them so I bundled up and headed out into the arctic predawn air.
I wandered around the center of town, and eventually happened by the barony soldiers’ camp. There were a couple of sentries on duty. I explained what was about to take place and asked if they would consider coming with us. More trained soldiers would certainly make a difference. After my impassioned plea, one of the sentries responded.
“We wish you nothing but success and hope you have fun. We’re good here.”
Fuck those cowards.
As dawn approached, more people began filtering into the area. Some were armed with real weapons – swords that were family heirlooms, well-made bows, staves, spears with sharp metal points. Others wielded a variety of tools and farm implements like pitchforks, hammers, wood cutting axes, and machetes. I suppose that those would do in a pinch. Aleyda and Goulug wandered out to join me. Finally, Anxo made an appearance, a short sword at his hip and a longbow on his back. When he arrived, the milling around stopped and everyone turned their attention to him
“I won’t lie,” he said. “Some of you won’t be coming back the same as you left. Some of you won’t be coming back at all. Blood will be spilled but we can’t let these motherless whores take what we have worked so hard to build. We fight for each other because if we don’t fight we won’t have anything left worth fighting for. I won’t throw your lives away needlessly.”
I thought his speech was concise and to the point, saying exactly what needed to be said. Based upon the cheer that erupted in the square, I wasn’t the only one who thought that way.
“Our first step will be to locate our enemy and assess them,” he continued. “If they are unwise and keep sending out foraging parties, we will defeat those first, lessening their numbers. If they hole up in their camp, we will encircle it and deny them supplies. We will starve them out.”
He called for several people by name, apparently hunters or woodsmen. After he gave them instructions that I couldn’t hear, they went trotting off in the direction of the former goblin village.
“All right you lot,” he called out. “Time to get moving.”
And move we did, in nothing that resembled any sort of disciplined march. As we walked, Anxo talked to people, calling them over one by one or in small groups. When he was done talking to them, he assigned them to units. Eventually, it was our turn.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Do you know how to use that?” he asked, pointing at my sword. I nodded in reply. “How about her?” he said, gesturing to Aleyda.
“She’s probably a better fighter than anyone we have with us,” I replied.
“That’s a big claim,” he responded.
“She can back it up. She’s new to this world and has been training to fight since she was a small child. Where she comes from, fighting is about all there is. The fact that she’s still alive is a testament to both her luck and skill.”
“I don’t mean to offend anyone, but she is more skilled than anyone in the village,” Goulug interjected.
“Is she trustworthy?” Anxo asked.
“I trust her with my life,” I replied.
“Are you still nasty with that staff?” he asked, turning his attention to Goulug.
“I’m not quite as good as I used to be,” Goulug replied. “But I am still better than most.”
“I expect you are,” Anxo said. “My father used to say that skill is its own reward. Today it isn’t a reward so much as a burden. You three go join the veterans. You will be in the thick of it.”
I nodded to him and scanned the camp, trying to locate a group that looked better armed and more experienced than the rest. Eventually, my eyes settled on a group of mostly older orcs, including one of the elders that I had met the previous night, and one armored and armed dwarven blacksmith.
“Them?” I asked, pointing in their direction.
“Yes,” he replied.
We turned and headed off without another word. He was a busy man and had a lot of other people that he needed to see to.
As we approached, I studied my new unit. I was a little worried. Several of the old soldiers looked like they hadn’t been keeping up with their physical conditioning very well. Their weapons, though, looked universally well-tended and well-used.
Sathebeena stopped haranguing an orc in mid sentence when she saw us approach, although it seemed like the orc was receiving his dressing down with affable equanimity.
“So you lot must have passed the test,” she said. “You know that the pointy end goes into the enemy, right?” Everyone standing around her laughed.
“Yeah, I think I know that much,” I replied.
“It’s good to have you all,” she said. Then, she reached out to shake all of our hands, testing our strength, When she shook Aleyda’s hand, she must have felt the calluses that could only be developed by a lifetime of gripping weapons, because she gave Aleyda a brief look of respect.
We traveled all morning but did not make particularly good time. The ground was still fairly treacherous due to the recent storms and we were climbing up into the hills. Its not like we were some well conditioned military unit used to marching. We didn’t move like an army, we moved like a mob. Even at our slow pace, though, the miles passed.
When we were high up in the hills getting close to where the goblin village had been located, one of the hunters who had been sent out early came trotting down the hill into sight. He ran up to Anxo and they began having an animated but brief conversation. Then, Anxo moved to our unit.
“We have a problem,” he announced to us. “Somebody in the village must have been feeding the bandits information. Our scouts found the camp abandoned. The bandits appear to have moved out early this morning.”
I heard more than one sigh of relief from the people around me. Maybe nobody would have to die today.
“So, we’ve won?” Sathebeena asked. “We’ve driven them away?”
“We may have driven them away from here, but I think they intend to do some damage on their way out.” He looked at me. “James, they are headed towards your farm. I think they are bent on revenge for the ones you killed.”
His words hit me like a punch in the gut. There was no way that the people we had left at the farm could defend against that sort of force, and we were moving much too slowly to make up the distance between us before they got there.
“What can we do?” I asked tersely.
“Most of us can’t move fast enough to catch up with them, but if you push hard, you and a few of the younger ones can. You have to get there and you have to hold them until we can bring our force to bear. If you can hold them off long enough, if you can fight hard enough, there is still a chance.”
And that’s how I ended up leading a war party that I never wanted to lead. We were a motley assembly if there ever was one. Besides me and my companions, we had three of the younger hunters and another twenty three of the more fleet of foot orcs. They were universally young and inexperienced. None of the veterans were conditioned well enough for a forced march. Besides Goulug, I was the oldest person in the group.
After quickly organizing, we started off at a quick trot. We soon reached the former goblin village. The bandits’ trail was easy enough to follow but one of the woodsmen mentioned it was a couple of hours old. We were in a race and the prize at the end was a fight for the lives of my people and Goulug’s family. If we failed, then everything we had worked so hard to build would be gone.
We alternated between a quick jog and a fast walk as we pelted headlong toward our farm. Our speed was reckless at times. I exhorted the woodsmen to wrack their brains, to think of any shortcut that we could take to get back home before the bandits arrived. Thankfully, they thought of a few. We deviated from the bandits’ trail, making our way directly towards the house. I hoped that when we arrived, we wouldn’t find a massacre.
We were all footsore, tired and out of breath when the house finally came into view in the late afternoon. I looked for signs of damage but couldn’t see anything. Everything appeared to be peaceful, almost serene. Mero was out on the front porch and he started to bolt inside when he saw our group burst into view, but quickly recognized me and stopped his flight. Instead, he ran out to meet us. I swept him into my arms, hugging his fiercely.
“Is everything alright,” I asked. “Have you seen the rest of the bandits?”
“Bandits? No, everything is fine,” he replied.
Turning to the hunters, I spoke.
“I hate to ask you to do this, but Goulug’s house is that direction,” I said, pointing east along the hill. “They may have gone there first. Can you head that way and scout a little. If we all survive this, I will make it worth your while.”
With a nod, two of the hunters peeled off moved towards Goulug’s property.
Patrick stepped out of the house, his arm in a sling.
“What’s wrong,” he asked, eyeing all of the tired people around me.
“The bandits are headed this way. I think they are fleeing but they might be trying to get some revenge. We need to be ready to fight.”
We all moved into the house. Even the oversized great room was full with our large group. I asked Jahhaf to bring whatever food out that he could round up quickly. We had just started to eat when one of the scouts burst in.
“They are coming,” he said. “They’ll be here soon.”