The largest open space in the city of Elmton was the cattle market in the Bowley Quarter, up against the outer wall between Caledonian Road and Sandhill Street. It had been built by the City of Elmton Corporation in the year 752 and opened by Prince George, later King George the Second, in a lavish ceremony that was still talked about to this day. It consisted of thirty acres of compacted sand that was normally divided into hundreds of individual pens by portable fences of woven willow, but today they had all been cleared away to create a single open space that was filled by a milling crowd of ten thousand excited citizens.
George Randall looked out at the people who had gathered to hear him speak. Around the outside of the crowd were pretty much all the police in the city, helpless to take any action against such a large crowd and limited to taking note of ringleaders in the hopes of being able to take them in for questioning later. Randall wasn't worried about that, though. If things went as he planned, the police would soon be taking their orders from him.
The one thing that had worried him in the days of preparation leading up to this event was that the aristocrats might send the city's garrison of professional soldiers against the crowd. One thousand soldiers might or might not be able to disperse a crowd of ten thousand civilians and arrest ringleaders, but there was sure to be casualties, and maybe deaths, on either side one way or the other. Randall personally wouldn't have minded a few martyrs for the cause if not for the possibility that he might be among them. As it turned out, though, the aristocrats feared the orcs more than him and the soldiers were all on the walls in case they returned. The wall was literally right behind him where he was standing on an auctioneer's block, though, and he could feel the middle of his back itching as he imagined arrows being aimed at him by soldiers looking in over the city instead of out over the countryside.
A vast sussurarion rose from the crowd as they waited for him to speak, gradually growing louder as they grew impatient and began chatting among themselves. More people were still drifting in in ones and twos and Randall had wanted to wait until the crowd was as large as possible before speaking, but if he didn't start soon he would start losing them. He'd waited as long as he could, therefore. It was time to begin.
He stepped forward and raised his hands. Immediately, a cry went up from the crowd as people shouted and cheered. "They belong to you already!" said Deeks, standing close by. "You barely have to do anything. Just point where you want them to go and they'll go."
Randall nodded to himself. The crowd already knew what it wanted. All they needed was someone to step forward and lead them, something that few people were willing to do because of the fear of being labelled an agitator and hung by the police. Someone brave or ambitious enough to do it would have arisen sooner or later, though. Randall had simply had the good fortune to arrive on the scene before that could happen. Events had acquired too much momentum to stop now, though. The size of the crowd gave men courage, and if Randall were to do something stupid and lose the faith of the crowd, one among them would simply step forward to replace him. Randall would be left behind, able to do nothing but watch helplessly as the crowd swept someone else to glory. So let's make sure that doesn't happen, he thought.
He was forced to wait a moment longer, though, by the power of the adulation and worship he felt sweeping over him. The power of the crowd made him dizzy with excitement. This was why people became pop stars, he thought as they chanted his name and punched their fists in the air. This was why they became evangelists. There was an energy here that was at the same time terrifying and glorious. The power to sweep away an established hierarchy and create a new one with himself at its peak. A power that no-one could withstand.
Wrong, he corrected himself. The machines could withstand it. If the priests of this city even suspected who he really was they could send down their wrath from the heavens to destroy the whole city. They would kill a hundred thousand people without hesitation and regret if it meant that he died as well, so be careful! Be oh so careful! He must appear to everyone, humans and priests alike, to be nothing more than an ordinary man out to correct the injustice that had killed his fictional son.
He raised his hands again for silence and waited until the last voice had fallen silent before speaking. "My people!" he began. By saying it, he hoped to make it true. A few cheers rose from the crowd and he waited for silence again before continuing.
"My people! By the grace of VIX the city is safe. The orcs, the enemies of all mankind, have been driven away by our courage and ferocity. We stood together, we fought as one, and the orcs, who have massacres other cities, saw that they could not defeat us." He knew it wasn't true. He had no idea why the orcs had left, Jane had told neither man about her communication with Emily. Randall saw an opportunity to create his own narrative, therefore. If he told the crowd that their fighting spirit had defeated the orcs, they would believe it, because they wanted to believe it. To control a crowd, Randall knew, you just had to lead it where it already wanted to go.
And the key to leadership, he knew, was to identify the influencers in the community. The people that other people listened to. If one could recruit those people to one's cause, they would bring the vast majority of the people with them, do the recruiting for him. He had already used that method with great success with the help of his head phone, but the downside of this path was that once you started down it you could never stop in case the influencers began to feel forgotten and betrayed, in which case they could turn the city against you just as fast.
His head phone had gathered a vast database of information on the people of the city by now and he selected the people he'd heard being gossiped about as the best fighters and greatest heroes in the recent battle with the orcs. He called up a face recognition app and circles appeared in his visual field around the people he'd selected. He pointed to one of them while simultaneously selecting the file he'd gathered on him. Information on the man appeared in the forefront of his memory, ready for him to use.
"Bill Douglas," he said. "Put your hand up, Bill. Show everyone who you are. Bill killed three orcs on the wall as they jumped across from the seige tower. How's Betty, Bill? She must be very proud!" The man dropped his eyes modestly, but his face was glowing with pleasure.
"And Andy Cunningham. Saved the lives of three men as they lay dazed and bleeding. Stood over them and held off the orcs who would have chopped them to pieces. Now, those men are in the care of the priests instead of waiting to be buried in the Hill of Slain. If he's teaching his sons, Frank and Henry, to be as brave and fearless as him then this city has no need to fear the orcs in the future." Cheers rang out and the man was pounded on the back by the men standing nearest to him.
"I could name a hundred more," Randall continued. "Ben Markham, Ned Fields, Philip Wilson, Tom Gown. And Cherry Walker, a sharpshooter with a bow and arrow. Proof that our women do just as much to defend the city as the men."
"And she ain't bad looking too!" A man in the crowd volunteered, bringing cheers and wolf whistles from like minded individuals around him. Randall laughed along with them, not caring what the politically correct feminists of the twenty first century would have thought. When the people you're trying to recruit are male chauvanists, you become the greatest male chauvinist of them all.
"You're no sloach yourself, Mister Fletcher!" someone in the crowd shouted. "We all heard what you did in The Weasel!"
"And with a bad leg anall!" Someone else added. More cheers went up, and then people were chanting his name, the cries growing louder as more and more people joined in. "Flet-cher! Flet-cher! Flet-cher!" Randall basked in their adulation, feeling it lift him up until he felt that he only had to spread his arms like wings and he would literally rise up into the air like some kind of herald angel. He began to feel euphoric, as if he was high on drugs. God, but this was fantastic! No wonder people became addicted to this kind of power! It was almost enough to make him give up his vendetta against VIX and just settle down here, among these people he'd manipulated into loving him.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
The dream quickly faded as the lessons of history came back to him, warning him of tne dangers of that kind of life. Adulation could turn so quickly to hatred. If things began to go against the people of the city, they would blame him as their leader, their lucky charm who had suddenly grown feet of clay. Instead of their hero he would become their scapegoat and he would suffer the same fate as a thousand other demagogues before him. No, he cautioned himself. The adulation of the masses was the means to an end, not an end in itself. This crowd was a tool he would use and then cast aside when he had no further use for it. The machines were the prize. Give him control of the machines and there'd be no further need to seduce and cajole. He could simply command, like a god.
"So many heroes!" he cried out, and the crowd responded with more shouts and cheers. "We are blessed to have so many heroes, so many that the orcs turned tail and fled when they saw what kind of men they were up against." He paused to give the crowd time to fall silent again. He wanted to make sure that his next words were clearly heard by everyone.
"And yet, there are those in this city who are not heroes," he said. There had still been a few muttered conversations going on at the back of the crowd, but now they fell silent as every man and woman in the cattle market gave him their full attention. They knew who he meant, and ancient grievances were suddenly remembered. Ancient resentments began burning in the thoughts of every man present. He had barely begun, but already the mood of the crowd had turned dark and dangerous and Randall felt an icy tingle running up his spine. The crowd was on his side at the moment, but if they ever turned against him they could tear him apart like a rabbit in the grip of a pride of hyenas.
He felt a moment of sudden doubt. What if he lost control and the aristocrats were massacred to the last man by a howling mob? Did he really want that much blood on his conscience? Perhaps he could use the men he already had to excavate Gorsty Common... but no. The aristocrats would wonder what so many people were doing out in the countryside and would send people out to investigate. The priests would find out... No, he needed the aristocrats to sign off on the excavation work. He needed their co-operation in keeping it secret from the priests. He had no choice but to continue with what he'd started and see it through to the end.
He braced himself to continue, therefore. "The aristocrats!" he said, and a murmur of anger rose from the crowd. "They sit safe in their big mansions while we shed our blood to protect them. They even have their own wall to separate themselves from the rest of the city so that if the orcs break in, as they did, if they massacre everyone in the outer city, as almost happened, they will still be safe! They can sit, safe and sound, in their big fancy houses drinking wine and being served by maids and butlers while we, and our children, are being eaten!"
There was a young girl at the front of the crowd, staring owlishly up at him with huge blue eyes. Randall reached down a hand, took her by the arm and pulled her up onto the auctioneer's block with him. He turned her around to face the crowd and put his hands on her shoulders.
"This sweet little child might have been torn apart by the orcs!" he said. He felt the girl shudder with fear but ignored it. "Imagine those jaws tearing out her throat. Imagine her stomach being torn open and her intestines ripped out. Any one of you would stand between her and a thousand orcs, as would I, even though we knew it was hopeless, but the aristocrats would just pour themselves another glass of wine while they waited for the army to arrive." He gave the girl a gentle push and she climbed back down into a crowd. A woman ran forward to gather her up in her arms.
"I don't want any harm to come to the aristocrats," said Randall. Many in the crowd disagreed, though, and shouts of "Hang them all!" rose from a thousand throats. Randall raised his hands for silence. "I don't wish them any harm," he repeated. "All I want is for them to play their part in the defence of the city. Many of them are young and strong, with better weapons training than any of us have ever had. Any of them could outfight any of us, and could even hold their own against a professional soldier. Some of them even go out and fight orcs for sport! Their knights, dressed in fancy armour and with a whole platoon of soldiers to make sure they're never in any real danger, and when they've had enough they come back to the city, to the safety of their mansions. We die, and they make a mockery of it! And then they crow about what great warriors they are while good, honest farmers are picked off in ones and twos by small roving bands of orcs."
"Death to the nobs!" a man shouted, and the cry was taken up by the whole crowd. "Death to the nobs! Death to the nobs! Death! Death!"
Randall raised his hands again but the crowd ignored him. Randall shouted for order but with no effect. Those people at the back of the crowd, where the police were standing, turned to face the nearest policeman and advanced on them angrily. The policemen backed away fearfully, raising truncheons, even though they would be useless against such a large, angry mob. One of them blew a whistle, pointlessly. Every policeman in the city was already there.
Randall felt himself close to panic as he saw a massacre about to break out. This wasn't what he wanted! This could ruin everything! If a massacre broke out the army currently on its way to the city would impose martial law the moment it arrived. It would enforce law and order at the point of a spear and single out the worst offenders to be hung. And the very first man made to climb the scaffold would be him!
Randall continued to shout in a desperate attempt to stop the bloodshed before it could begin, but then the sound of a bell rang out across the cattle market. The auction bell, rung on auction days to warn the crowd that the bidding was about to begin. Randall turned to see who was ringing it, along with half the crowd, and saw Maisey Craddock pulling on the long rope, her densely freckled arms being pulled high over her head as the twenty kilogramme bronze bell swung on its high, wooden frame.
The high pitched pealing, almost deafening at this close range, seized the attention of the crowd and the atmosphere of hostility evaporated as fast as it had formed. Randall signalled for Maisey to stop and the girl stepped back, grinning broadly as she raised a hand to sweep the hair back from her face. The bell rang a couple of times more as it continued to sway, and then silence fell.
"I don't wish any harm to the aristocrats," said Randall to the crowd, and this time they listened. "They are men, like us. Greedy, cowardly men, but men nonetheless, and all men must stand together against the orcs. All I want is for them to do their fair share in the defence of the city, and I know that's what you want too, deep in your hearts. You are all good, decent people. The killing of a human, even an aristocrat, is abhorrent to you, as you will remember when the high feelings from the recent battle have abated. Some of you have lost loved ones, I understand that. I have also lost people I loved. I understand the grief and the fury, the need to find an outlet, but the orcs are the enemies of us all, aristocrats and commoners alike. We will only endanger ourselves more if human fights against human.
"I intend to lead a delegation to present out grievances to the aristocrats. With a crowd of this side behind me, they cannot refuse my request. They will have no choice but to grant me an audience, and when they do I will present my demands, that those among them fit and able enough to hold a spear join us on the walls when the orcs attack. If they agree to this, then they will have my gratitude and I will wish them nothing but good health and prosperity for the rest of my days."
The crowd milled with confusion. They were in the mood for a lynching and this talk of peaceful coexistence went against the grain. Randall gave a small nod to the men he'd stationed around the crowd and they stepped forward, raising their voices to be heard.
"Mister Fletcher is right!" one of them shouted. "All we want is for them to shed their share of blood. No more than that."
"All we want is what's fair," another man shouted. "Make them stand the wall with us."
"Aye," agreed a third. "That would be just. All we want is what's just."
Gradually the mood of the crowd turned and more men, men not already a part of Randall's inner circle, began to echo the sentiment. Randall decided to strike while the iron was hot, use the crowd while they were still primed for a confrontation. "I am going to confront the aristocrats now," he said therefore. "Who's with me?"
A great "Aye!" went up from the crowd. Randall climbed down from the auction block and the crowd parted before him like Moses parting the Red Sea. He walked along the channel they formed, the men and women of his inner circle falling in behind, and then the whole crowd was following as he marched along Caledonian Road towards the gate in Harper's Wall.