Emily allowed her connection with the pigeon to fade, and as she did so the sitting room of Baron Wright's mansion reappeared around her. The wood panelled walls, the polished wooden floor, the fire burning merrily in the grate and the tall window looking out over the garden. On the small table beside her someone had placed a cup of tea in a perilously thin and exquisitely decorated porcelain cup and saucer. She picked it up to taste it but it was long since grown cold. She felt a moment of amusement as she imagined the maid bringing the beverage to her only to find her sitting in the wicker chair staring at the far wall, so totally focused on some inner contemplation that she was completely unaware that she had a visitor. What did the maid imagine had so totally seized her attention? she wondered. Maybe she was even now regaling the rest of the mansion's staff with her tale of the Baron's eccentric guest.

She brought her mind back to the matter at hand. Jane would help her save the Earth, if Emily in turn helped her to convince mankind that her imaginary friend existed. Well, Emily had no problem with that. Who cared what silly beliefs people had so long as they left the natural world alone? They would use Randall and Loach for as long as they needed them, then dispose of them. Maybe Jane could be allowed to live. It would be nice to have someone else from the twenty first century to talk to, someone she could relate to, who understood where she came from. She wouldn't allow herself to become too attached to the other woman, of course, in case it one day became necessary to dispose of her as well.

The first thing, though, was to find a way to get the orcs away from that city. Which city had it been? She selected the pigeon again for a moment, allowed the images it was sending to reappear in her visual field and looked at the location data it was tagged with. Elmton. Saxony's fourth largest city, marked for destruction by the machines as part of their policy of keeping the human population from growing too large. Right now, though, finding and killing the other three hibernators was top of their list of priorities, so Emily's best hope was to tell the priests that she'd found them somewhere else, a place where the best chance of killing them was to send the orcs after them. That ruled out a large city, therefore, with a police force and a military garrison that could be sent after them. She needed a small town. Too small to have any but the most basic of authorities in charge of it but large enough that, together with the small towns and communities around, it would require the entire orc army to destroy it. The orc army currently attacking Elmton because that was the closest one.

The priests had given her a modern, up to date digital map of Saxony to help her find the other hibernators, and it was marked with the current locations of every orc and human army so that she'd know the places Randall, Loach and Jane would want to stay away from. She called the map up onto her visual field, zoomed in on the area around Elmton and examined it. The human army on its way to relieve Elmton was approaching from the south and there was another orc army fifty miles away to the north west. She looked east, therefore, and found a cluster of three small towns surrounded by a scattering of small villages about thirty miles away. She picked the largest of the three towns, Howgill, then checked the robo-pigeons to see if any of them were in that town.

One of them was. It was currently sitting on a wall around a woodyard, bowing and cooing to a female. Emily mentally apologised to the female for taking its suitor away and told the robot bird to take flight and head for the centre of town.

The town centre was a large open space that hosted a market twice a week when it was packed with stalls piled high with goods and wares, the air filled with the smells of overripe fruit and the shouts of their owners trying to sell them. Today, though, it was empty except for a team of workmen repairing potholes in the packed gravel; one man working, pounding the ground with a thumper, while three others stood watching, chatting happily with each other. Emily had the pigeon watch them for a moment, a smile on her lips as she pondered that some things never changed,. Then she sent the pigeon to look for some townspeople.

Most of the population had left, it seemed, probably scared away by the orc army surrounding Elmton, just a couple of days march away, but there were still a few people around and she soon found a middle aged man close enough to Randall in size and build for her purposes, walking with a slight limp along one of the minor side streets. Emily deliberately held the pigeon back from approaching him too closely, not wanting it to get a good look at his face yet. She would tell the priests she hadn't spotted him at first. Instead she waited until she saw that he was about to enter a building. Then, as if she'd only just spotted him, she had the pigeon do a fast flyby. The man looked around in surprise as the bird flashed past his head but the images sent back by the bird were too blurred to be of much use. Perfect! She had the pigeon watch the building for a couple of minutes as if waiting to see if he would re-emerge, then used her head phone to call a priest.

"I might have found Randall," she said when the priest answered. "In Howgill. I can't be sure, I didn't get a good enough look at him, but I'm pretty sure it was him. He looked like he was getting ready to leave town, though. You might not have long to catch him." She used her headphone to send the best image of the man the pigeon had taken.

"Good work," replied the priest. "We'll take him into custody and see if it's him."

"Are you going to send the town's priest after him? He'll just use yama666 on him."

"You're right. We'll warn the priest to lie low for a while. This is a job for biologicals."

"Soldiers? Or the police?"

"There aren't enough of either to cover the surrounding countryside if he tries to leave. We'll send the orcs currently attacking Elmton. They'll surround the town but won't attack. They'll just pen him in until the human army arrives. The human army will drive away the orcs then move in to surround the town, to protect it from the orcs. In reality, they'll take over the job of making sure Randall doesn't leave. We'll make up a story about a plague to give the priest an excuse to examine everyone to see if they've got a head phone."

"Okay. In the meamtime I'll keep looking for the others."

"Acknowledged. Keep up the good work. We are preparing your reward."

And I'm preparing yours, thougnt Emily in the privacy of her own head as she signed off. And I intend to make sure that it's everything you deserve. The thought gave her satisfaction and she was smiling to herself as she selected another pigeon in the vicinity of Elmton. Might as well enjoy some more of the action, she thought, before the orcs left.

☆☆☆

"Sounds like the fighting's getting fiercer," said Maisey Craddock, the tavern owner's daughter. There was fear on her freckled face as she stared out the window in the direction of the city wall. "Do you think they've broken through?"

If they had, they would all be dead within the hour, Randall thought. He'd seen what orcs could do once they got inside a community's defences. The stories he'd heard people telling each other in low, fearful voices told him that hiding was pointless. They'd seen it before in other cities the creatures had taken in the past. Once all organised defence was ended the orcs would systematically search the city for hiding places whether they were in attics, secret rooms or basements, and anyone they found would be tortured for a full day before being killed. Better to face the creatures with a weapon in your hand, they said. At least that way your end would be quick. Everyone huddled in the tavern had been given a weapon of some kind, therefore. Even Toby, the five year old son of the stable keeper. He was staring at the peeling knife he was holding in his hands as if he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it while his mother held him close, trying to keep him from seeing the tears in her eyes.

"I wish I could be on the wall with the other men," said Randall, trying to put a tone of frustration into his voice as he sat with the woman and children. He rubbed his leg as if it was paining him. "With the injury I received fighting the chieftain in Duffield slowing me down, though, I would only be getting in their way. If the orce come here, though, I can at least be the first to face them. I won't live to see the rest of you meeting your ends, and for that I give thanks to VIX." Maisey reached across and gave him a sympathetic pat on the back of his hand.

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Privately, though, Randall intended to run and hide. There were thousands of sheds and alleys in the city, it would take the orcs time to find him, and then they would spend a day torturing him. And in the meantime the army was coming. All he had to do was stay alive long enough for the army to engage the orcs and, if they were victorious, drive them away. The torture would be terrible, Randall knew, but the one thing he wanted more than anything else was to survive, no matter what the cost, no matter what damage the beasts did to his body. Survive, even if the cost was to be reviled as a coward by soldiers who knew that the orcs only tortured people who'd run and abandoned others to their fate. He could always assume a new identity in another part of the country and leave his shame behind.

In the meantime, though, he gripped the spear tighter, trying to give the impression that he was ready to use it. How long should he leave it before running? he wondered. If he ran too soon, he ran the risk of being spotted by the people of the city who would very likely kill him in disgust. If he left it too long, though, he might be spotted by orcs before he found a good enough hiding place. Part of him wanted to go now. Just shoulder his way past the other occupants of the common room and ignore their cries of condemnation. Across from him he saw Greg and Susy, the twin nine year old children of one of the serving girls, looking scared but serious as they gripped their child sized spears in their pudgy fingered hands. He imagined the look of shock and betrayal that would appear on their angelic faces if he suddenly abandoned them. He forced down the twinge of shame and guilt he suddenly felt with annoyance. To hell with what they'll think, he told himself. They'll all be dead soon.

Screams came from the streets outside, along with the bestial roars of orcs. That settled it. Somewhere nearby the wall had been breached and orcs were pouring through in their thousands to begin the slaughter. The defenders would be abandoning the rest of the wall to fight them in the streets but it was a toss up which would reach them first. Humans or orcs.

Human defenders would only prolong the inevitable, though. The whole defence strategy was to keep the orcs outside the city long enough for the army to arrive. Only professional soldiers had a real chance of defeating orcs one on one in a stand up fight, and although the city did have a garrison of professional soldiers they were too few to defend the whole city once the enemy was inside.

This was it then, Randall knew. It was time to run. He took a last look around at the other occupants of the common room. The elderly and the crippled, unable to fight on the wall. The children and the women given the duty of looking after them. His eyes met those of sixteen year old Maisey Craddock, who smiled bravely at him. Randall tried to smile back, then glanced over at the door at the back of the room; the door into the kitchens and then the rear storage room. It had an exit into a back alley. He could be through it and running from the tavern before the others had time to do anything more than cry out in protest at his betrayal.

So do it, he commanded himself. Run. Run now. He found himself remaining where he was, though, and felt his hands gripping the shaft of the spear more tightly, as if he might be about to use it. No! he shouted at himself in the privacy of his own head, You are not going to fight! You can't save them, but you might be able to save yourself. Just survive! Do whatever it takes to survive! Don't care what these people think of you. Don't throw away your life trying to be good. That which survives is good, so survive!

His eyes were drawn back to Maisey Craddock, though, to her wild, tangly ginger hair and the thousands of freckles that crowded her face. Those freckles had an almost hypnotic effect on him. He couldn't leave them. He couldn't leave those freckles to die at the hands of the orcs. Fool! he screamed at himself. Don't be a fool! Just run! Get away! Instead his body moved closer to the main front door, the door through which the orcs would come, and his hands raised the spear as if they were under someone else's control.

There were sounds of fighting just outside the door, followed by the sound of someone screaming as they died. Then the door burst open and an orc leapt in, its jaws opened wide in a bellow of fury. Several crossbow bolts flew past Randall as the old people pulled triggers, but every one of them glanced off the beast's steel armour. Randall, who for one crazy moment had actually decided to fight, was frozen to the spot in horror and Maisey ran past him, screaming as she thrust her spear at a gap in the creature's armour.

The orc swung its shield to bat her aside, but in so doing it left its left side exposed. Randall saw the opening and, without really knowing what he was doing he thrust his spear up at the creature's throat. The iron tip penetrated its tough, hairy skin and sank deep under its jaw, penetrating its trachea and then the spinal cord. The creature fell dead, it and Randall staring at each other as if neither could decide which of them was more surprised.

Two more orcs were close behind it, though. Maisey, blood gushing from a cut on her head, threw herself at one of them and Randall attacked the other. He thrust with his spear again, but whatever angel had guided its tip the first time had abandoned him and the sharp steel merely skidded off the creature's breastplate. The beast swung a scimitar and Randall ducked to the side, sobbing with terror. He didn't duck fast enough, though, and blood flew in a crimson spray as the scimitar tore open a gash in his arm. Then Randall was sprawled on the floor, helpless to defend himself as the orc towered over him, preparing to lop off his head.

Randall curled into a ball, whimpering with terror, his arms around his head, but then came the sound of a rams horn blowing. The two orcs froze, staring at each other as if in puzzlement. The sound came again and the two creatures turned, bounding back through the door as they ran back towards the wall leaving the humans staring at each other in astonishment.

"That was the retreat," said one of the old men at the back of the room. "One of the chieftains sounded the retreat."

"Why would they do that?" asked another. "The army must he here! The orcs left to fight the army!"

"But the army's still six days away!"

"That's what we were told. Maybe we were told wrong."

Randall climbed back to his feet, his whole body shivering with adrenalin. He felt someone take his arm and looked to see Maisey helping him. "You're hurt," she said, looking at the blood staining the sleeve of his tunic.

"So are you," said Randall, gently brushing the hair away from the wound to her forehead. It didn't look serious, he was relieved to see. It had already stopped bleeding.

"You were amazing!" she said, her face radiant with hero worship and admiration. Her green eyes shone as she stared at him. "The way you killed it! One stab with your spear! Is that how you killed the chieftain?"

"It was a bit more of a battle," said Randall, falling effortlessly back into the fake story he'd made up. "We fought for quite some time before I managed to strike the killing blow. Unfortunately he got in a few hits as well." He rubbed his leg again as if it was hurting him.

The children were gathering around the dead orc, yelling battle cries as they stabbed it with their weapons, while the older men gathered around the door, staring fearfully out into the street in case the orcs returned. Maisey began pulling at Randall's tunic. "Let's take a look at that cut," she said. "Get it sewn up before you bleed to death."

"See to your head first," said Randall but the girl was insistent and so he allowed her to help him out of his tunic and shirt, being rather concerned about the injury he'd received. He was relieved to find that it wasn't as deep as he'd feared. "Guess you'll be going to see a priest," said one of the older women as she washed it with a cloth soaked in whiskey. Randall's head phone identified her as Dolly Bannermane, Maisey's forty year old widowed aunt.

"They'll have their hands full with the badly injured," Randall replied, who had no intention of letting a priest read his DNA. "This'll heal by itself."

"You don't want it to get infected. A priest can put a blessing on it, stop you getting blood poisoning."

"It'll be fine, I'm sure. The whiskey will kill the germs. If it does gets infected I'll see a priest. Until then, just sew it up for me if you'd be so kind."

"It'll hurt," Dolly warned. "The priests have the power to take away the pain."

"Randall isn't scared of a little pain," said Maisey as another of the women examined the wound to her head. Her eyes were still glowing as she stared at him. "He's a hero! A great hero!"

She must have missed seeing him whimpering on the floor as he waited for the orc to kill him, he realised. What would she think when one of the others told her? Dolly must have seen the doubt on his face, though, because she leaned closer to whisper in his ear. "Of course you were scared," she said. "Who wouldn't have been? You stood and fought, though, and you saved Maisey's life. I'll make sure she understands. The courage of even the bravest man can falter now and then."

"Thank you," said Randall gratefully. "To tell the truth, though, I wouldn't mind if I go down a little in people's estimation. A reputation can be a heavy burden to carry." The modest hero, he thougnt as he pondered how he could use this incident to further his plans. People love a modest hero.

"I suspect that your burden will only grow heavier," said Dolly to Randall's delight. Her hand was resting on the back of his hand in a way that Randall found rather suggestive. His heart, whose rapid beating had begun to slow, began to race again. Dolly was a good looking woman, and the gleam in her eyes suggested interesting possibilities in the future.

Then she returned her attention to his injury, though. "Jenny, pour a bottle of Frank's Finest into a bowl and soak some cotton in it," she said. "We've got some sewing to do."

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