That night, George Randall, who had slept in the finest hotels in the world with human room service staff instead of robots to serve his every need, slept on hard, itchy straw next to goats.
The watered down stew had done little to satisfy his hunger, particularly as his body drew upon its reserves to recover from the rigors of hypersleep, and he awoke to find himself ravenously hungry. It was the mouthwatering smell of oat porridge that had awoken him, he found. The cottage was still almost pitch black, lit only by the glow coming from the ashes of last night's fire as Gelda stoked them back to life, but steam was already coming from the cauldron hanging above it as the farmer's wife cooked breakfast. Randall found himself hoping that she was cooking up enough for six this time. He thought he was quite capable of devouring the entire contents of the cauldron all by himself.
There was a brief gust of cold as Wilks opened the door to go out into almost perfect blackness. Dawn must still be hours away, Randall thought, but having to make a living in this primitive lifestyle evidently required them to work all the hours of the day, and then some. He wondered whether they ever got tired of living this way and yearned to return to proper, civilised living. Frozen food straight from the supermarket, ready to eat after a moment in the flash oven. Proper indoor plumbing... Some of these people must occasionally go back to civilisation, he thought. He wondered what the others thought of them. Were they weakling failures who deserved pity for not being able to 'cut it' in the medieval community, or were they traitors for walking out on friends and family?
What did Wilks and his wife really think of their four houseguests? he wondered. He knew they were letting them stay for the night out of a sense of religious obligation. Did they have sympathy for these four unfortunates they'd found wandering naked and lost in the countryside, or did they actively resent them for eating their food and crowding them in their own house? Either way, Randall knew, they wouldn't have to endure their company for more than one night. Somewhere out there were cities and civilisation with all the luxuries and conveniences of modern life, and Randall intended to find them.
The door opened again as Wilks came back in. "The outhouse is at the end of the path," he said as he shivered the cold out of his bones. "If you need to use it, and I 'spect you do."
Randall nodded his thanks, glad that he was finally becoming able to understand their strange accent and way of speaking. After listening to them talking together for long hours the previous evening, he was becoming able to understand them as easily as if they were from his own time.
The watery bowl of stew the night before had done little to fill their bowels, though. Randall only needed to empty his bladder and he went outside to do it. Outside, the only light came from a crescent moon low down near the eastern horizon, but his eyes were already adapted to the dark and the wooden outhouse was visible a short distance away, as promised.
As he approached it, though, the rank odour coming from it deterred him and he went behind a bush instead. There was a brief shaft of ruddy red light from the cottage as another of its occupants left to answer the call of nature, but Randall ignored it, trusting in the darkness to cover his modesty.
When he'd done what he needed to do he took a moment to look up at the sky. It was ablaze with stars. More than he'd ever seen in the polluted skies of the Earth in the time before he'd gone into the hibernaculum, and the milky way stretched across the sky, every tiniest detail of its intricate structure clearly visible. Not even the skies of Switzerland, where he'd taken most of his holidays, had been this clear. He stared up at the spectacle, amazed at how clear the sky was now and feeling a little appalled by what they'd done to it in his own time. They'd had no choice, of course. Industry was needed to keep the economy functioning, and there was no way to have industry without pollution. Losing the sight of the stars, and most of the wildlife on the land and in the oceans, had been a small price to pay for keeping civilisation moving and he'd never felt bad about enjoying all the benefits of modern life. Now, though, he couldn't help but feel a surge of delight that the people of this new age had found a way to restore the planet.
He turned to look at the moon. Its dark side was visible, he saw. Lit by reflected light from the Earth. It was a sight he'd never seen before. A sight that, in his time, hadn't been seen by anyone on the surface of the Earth for several decades.
There was something on the dark side of the moon, he thought. Details he couldn't quite make out. He told his head phone to take a photo of what he was seeing, then digitally zoomed in, increased the contrast and sharpened it. The resolution was limited by what his fleshy, biological eyes could see, of course, and for a moment he found himself wishing he'd gotten himself the artificial eyes that had been the latest rage in the years before he'd entered hypersleep. Technological miracles with optical zoom, a twenty megapixel resolution and capable of seeing ultra violet and infra red. He'd scoffed at the cost of such a frivolous extravagance at the time, since he'd usually been in range of a camera of some kind that his head phone could interface with if he'd wanted a better look at something, but now he cursed his, almost literal, short sightedness. Still, no point berating himself for bad decisions now. He had to make do with what he had.
The retinal webbing at the back of his eyeballs provided a good enough image for his present purpose, though, and Randall was astonished to see the details revealed on the dark side of the moon. There were tiny points of light scattered across the gloomy surface, he saw, some of them connected by dark lines that branched and forked and ran parallel to each other like an old style circuit diagram. Elsewhere he saw geometric shapes. Linked hexagons like some colossal honeycomb and tinier circles that might almost have been craters except that they were all exactly the same size and appeared to be spaced at regular intervals. The whole effect made it seem as if the whole moon was covered by a single colossal city, or at least an industrial complex of some kind.
Randall felt his heart beating with excitement. That was where civilised man now lived, he thought. Maybe the whole of the planet Earth had been given over to these pastoral, anti-technological tree huggers. The world returned to nature. The ecosystem restored, millions of extinct species brought back and released into the wild. The planet given back to nature. The dream had probably been for mankind to be removed from the Earth completely, to live out in space. On the moon, the asteroids, maybe even in gigantic space habitats dozens of miles across. There must have been some fools, though, who'd dreamed of a return to a medieval existence and who had demanded that they be allowed to stay. Well, that was fine as far as Randall was concerned. Let them stay and grub in the dirt as much as they wanted, but he had no intention of remaining among them.
Occasionally, there would be children born down here who wouldn't be satisfied with the medieval life, he thought. Even if their parents took great care to keep the truth from them, the children would inevitably find out that another way of life was possible. A lifestyle filled with wonder and opportunity, up there. Among the stars. Surely, the civilised people out among the planets wouldn't abandon people who hadn't chosen this lifestyle. They would offer them the choice. To stay and live the simple life, or join the majority of the human race out in space. There would be places where spaceships would land, and humans from other parts of the solar system would emerge to offer those who wanted it a way off the planet. Randall's mind was made up. His course was set. To find one of these places and accept their offer to rejoin civilisation...
"Help!" a female voice cried out. "Need help over here!"
It was Jane, but it didn't sound as if she herself was the one in need of help. She was calling out on behalf of someone else. Randall picked his way towards her voice, using his head phone to brighten the images his eyes were seeing as much as possible in the gloomy light, and when he'd gone halfway back to the cottage he saw her kneeling beside a prone form. Emily, by the look of her shorter cut hair. "What happened?" he asked.
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"She just collapsed. We came out together to answer our calls of nature. Mutual protection, you know? And she just suddenly dropped." The young woman had her fingers to the older woman's neck, feeling for a pulse. "I think she just fainted, but her heart's racing! I think she's really sick!"
She's dying, thought Randall. Like the rest of us. Another reason to find civilisation.
Jane turned her head to stare up at him. "Aren't we supposed to put her in the recovery position or something? Make her comfy?"
Until the ambulance arrives, thought Randall sourly. The others were arriving, though. Loach, Wilks and Gelda, the farmer's wife holding an oil lamp by a leather strap so that its light swung from side to side making the shadows sway as they loomed around them like lurking monsters. Wilks was holding his spear, Randall saw.
"Was she attacked?" asked the farmer, his head turning as he tried to look in every direction at once.
"I think she just fainted," said Jane. "I think she's coming round now."
The older woman was indeed stirring, Randall saw. Her eyes opened and she gave a start to see everyone gathered around her. "What happened?" she asked. She tried to raise herself up by the elbow and Jane took her by the shoulders to help her.
"You fainted," the younger woman told her. "How do you feel?"
"Fine," insisted Emily. "I'm fine." She shook the younger woman off and tried to climb to her feet. She wobbled a bit and Jane took her arm again to help her. Emily pulled herself free, but then wobbled again and reluctantly allowed the younger woman to help her. A moment later she was back on her feet, but Jane kept hold of her in case she came over dizzy again.
The farmer looked relieved and lowered his spear. "We should get back inside," he said. "Get some hot porridge inside you before you leave us."
Randall suppressed a smile. We put you up for the night, he translated to himself. Did our Christian duty. Now it's time for you to push off and let us get back to our normal lives. Randall agreed heartily with the sentiment. He also wanted to get back to his normal life.
"We haven't, you know. Yet," said Jane, though. "Perhaps one of you could hang around nearby in case she comes over funny again..."
"I'm fine!" repeated Emily, picking goosegrass burrs from her potato sack clothing. "I just came over funny for a moment."
"I'll stay," said Loach. "I also have to shed a tear for Nelson. I'll see they're okay."
Randall nodded and headed back towards the cottage. A gentle breeze was beginning to pick up and it was starting to steal the heat from his body. He suddenly realised how cold he was. The newly rekindled fire in the cottage called out to him with its promise of glorious warmth and he hurried back to answer it.
☆☆☆
Half an hour later, Randall scraped the last of the oat porridge from his wooden bowl with his wooden spoon. He was still hungry. He wanted to lick the bowl to get the very last grain and smear of milk, but a lifetime of appropriate behaviour prevented him from doing so. He put the bowl aside with a sigh of regret, therefore, glancing enviously across at Jane and Emily who were only half way through their breakfasts. For a moment, he entertained the fantasy of stealing their bowls and finishing the last of their porridge himself, but he put the thought out of his head. Until he'd gotten back what was his, he might need their friendship. Best not to do anything that would upset them.
"May I ask you a question?" Loach said to Wilks. "Why did you take your spear out with you just then? Who did you think had attacked the girls?"
"Who do ye think?" replied the farmer with amusement. "Don't ye have orcs where ye come from?"
"Orcs?" said Jane, thinking she must have misheard. "Like Lord of the Rings?" She smiled at the others to share the joke.
"I don't know what this Lord of the Rings is," replied the farmer with a glance at his wife. She shook her head back at him. "We don't get orcs around here very often. Twas about three years ago a bunch o' them attacked the Lumley place, wasn't it, Gelda?"
"Four years back," his wife replied. "The year of the deep snow."
"Yeah, yez right. Four years back. Ye mainly see them up north, beyond the Crummhorns, but that year the snow was reet deep and they came down in search of food. They raided a bunch o farms. Killed the folks, took their livestock, until the army came to chase them out. God bless King David, I say. He keeps these lands safe for honest, God fearing folks like us."
"So these orcs are animals of some kind, are they?" said Loach. "Like wolves?"
"Animals, aye! Right animals they are! Evil as devils and cruel as midwinter. Ye really don't have them where ye comes from?"
"No animals of any kind except farm livestock," replied the mob boss. "The only animals we had to fear are human animals."
"Ye should go back, then. Back to where ye came from. The orcs move south every five years or so, it seems, although there were that time back when I were a nipper they came in two years running. Everyone thought they were safe cos they'd been the year before so they took their ease. Went strolling alone through the forest, happy as babbies, without their heavy spears swinging and banging around their knees. Jack Regan were the third one never to come back home. That were when we started wondering whether the orcs were still around. A couple days after that they hit Tettlehall, hard. Nigh on a thousand of 'em. Near burned the place to the ground before the army came to drive them away."
The hibernators glanced fearfully at each other. "So they're not wolves, then," said Jane. "Not just big, fierce animals."
Wilks stared at her. "So ye really don't have em where ye come from?"
"No, we really don't. What do they look like?"
"Half man, half beast. Taller and heavier than the biggest man. Covered with shaggy hair and with the jaws and teeth of wolves. When they kill a man, they'll fall on him in a pack and eat him like wolves, tearing their flesh apart with their teeth and eating it raw. They're more than just beasts, though. They have their own speech and they can work metals. They have their own blacksmiths, their own craftsmen. They make their own weapons. Swords, spears, bows and arrows as good as those held by anyone in King David's army. It takes three times as many men to best an army of orcs, but by the mercy of God they're slow to breed and their pups take as long as a man to grow to full size."
"Do they live in cities?" asked Randall.
"Nay. They make camps where they live for a year or two. Build smithies and dig iron out of the ground. Gather up sheep and pigs, breed em in pens. Then they'll pick themselves up and move off to a new place ten or fifty miles away. And every few years, when they get fed up with the taste o horse and goat, all the tribes for a hundred miles around'll get together an march on human lands. Thank God it doesn't happen more often than that."
"Where did they come from?" asked Jane.
"Come from? There've always been orcs, ever since God made the world, back in the beginning. Why he made them, no man can say, but they must serve His purposes is some way. We just have to have faith and trust in His plan, and kill as many of them as we can."
"Far be it for me to disagree," said Emily, "but there haven't always been orcs. We told you that we've been asleep for a long time. Maybe more than a hundred years. There were no orcs in the world back in our time. Trust me on this."
Wilks just shook his head in sad amusement. "The great cathedral in Lendaron were built six hundred years ago," he said. "There's an inscription carved into the foundation stone. 'May the grace of God give us strength and wisdom and protect us from the orcs'. I know, I've seen it. My dad took me to see it when I were just a babby. They say there were a massive invasion of orcs a few years earlier. Almost the whole kingdom was overrun! That's the reason for the inscription."
The hibernators stared at each other in fearful astonishment. "How far back does your history go?" asked Loach.
"Well, little is known of the Dark Times following the fall of the Old Ones," replied the farmer, "but it was nigh on a thousand years ago that the first priests brought the truth of God back to the world. They say that people were few in the land back then. Scattered tribes struggling to survive..."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," said Loach, though, leaning forward intently. "These Old Ones. Who were they?"
"Ye never heard o' the Old Ones?" exclaimed Wilks, sharing a look of astonishment with his wife. "Ye never heard of Orcs, you never heard of the Old Ones..."
'Yes, yes, we're shamefully ignorant," said the crime boss impatiently. "So who were they?"
"Sinners and unbelievers. Criminals and monsters. They sinned before God by seeking forbidden knowledge that they used to work terrible magic. They say they could fly through the air and that their wagons could move without horses to pull them. They built great towers of glass that reached higher than the clouds as if, in their pride and arrogance, they wished to assail the very gates of Heaven and challenge the rule of God Himself."
The hibernators stared at each other again. Randall felt his mouth go dry and he seemed to feel his guts shrivel up inside him as his whole body began to tremble with adrenalin. Looking at the other hibernators, he saw that their faces were pale and their eyes wide. Jane looked as if she were close to fainting."
"What happened to them?" Loach managed to ask.
"God punished them for their sins," replied the farmer with satisfaction. "Blasted their cities with fire until every last one of them were dead!"