“Did they set fire to the barley wisps?” she wondered.
Flames leaped up from the windmill. Outside the ring of houses, Howland had deemed it indefensible, so with heavy hearts the villagers had to abandon the only stone structure they had. Now they were paying for their temerity. Fire belched from the slit windows. The mill sails, woven from dry grass, blazed up furiously. Heavy wooden gears crashed through the burning main floor into the cellar.
Some of the farmers began to wail. A few left their places and started toward the mill. Raika stormed after them, catching them by the collar and cuffing their ears.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she said, shaking a weeping farmer. “Rakell’s boys would love it if you ran out there right now, wouldn’t they? Pah!” She spat at their feet. “You’d be dead quicker than I can spit!”
“The mill … the mill …” they groaned.
Into the scene tottered the Elder, Calec, still wearing his battered Solamnic helmet. “Why do you weep?” he rasped. “It’s only a pile of stones and logs! What are your lives compared to that? It’s our mill, but it’s my home, you know. Do you hear me crying?”
Gradually the lamentations faded. By the time the mill tower collapsed into the burning cellar, the villagers’ eyes were dry.
“Get ready,” Howland told his comrades. “The bandits have enjoyed easy vengeance on an empty building. Now they will want blood.”
Horns blared around them. Anxious farmers turned from one signal to another, uncertain where the danger lay.
“Look to your front!” Raika said, shoving her spearmen into line. “They’re trying to confuse you!”
Trumpet calls could not disguise the rumble of massed horses. Yellow dust rolled out behind the column of lancers. They were coming at the east end, just as Howland had predicted.
“Amergin! Choose your targets and loose at will!”
The elf let his sling drop from his fingers. “Load!” he shouted. His newly trained slingers put two flat stones in each pouch.
“Spin up!”
Ten slings whirled in fast circles.
Curses and shouting, joined by the squeals of unhappy horses, told the defenders the bandits had reached the thorn-lined gully. That was enough for the forester. The slingers slung, and the clang and clatter of missiles on armor resounded over the shouting.
Howland called to Carver, “What can you see?”
The kender cupped a hand to his mouth and called, “A saddle or two emptied, but they’re coming on!”
“Ready your whippiks!”
“Aye, Sir Howland!”
Raika drew her sword. “Forward to the huts!”
The line of spearmen tramped ahead, five villagers in each gap, as Robien had taught them. The latter asked Howland’s leave to join them.
“Go,” said the Knight, “but don’t get killed!”
Shrill screams rang from the rooftops as the children launched their darts at the enemy. Through the gaps in the huts, Howland saw the lancers were dismounting and walking forward. They couldn’t use their lances on foot-they were too long-so they resorted to whatever hand weapons they had-swords, maces, flails, even daggers. Howland almost laughed aloud. How poorly led they were!
The brigands pushed through the gaps between the huts until they reached the chicken pens barring their way. They kicked at the flimsy-looking fences, only to discover they had been stiffened. As the village spearmen looked on, the raiders began to hack at the waist-high barriers with sword and axe.
Raika exploded. “What are you gawking at? Get at them!”
Rushing into the alley, she slashed down a bandit who’d gotten astride the fence. The enemy withdrew a few steps, uncertain, and the spear carriers moved up to support their captain. There followed a confused battle in which the farmers jabbed ineffectually with their long wooden spears and Rakell’s dismounted warriors fended off clumsy attacks with their motley assortment of weapons.
Raika jumped over the barricade and advanced on the bandits. She dueled hard with a long-haired blond soldier, trading cuts and parries. He was skillful and might have beaten her had not a whippik dart lodged in the hollow of his neck. Distracted by the painful wound, he missed Raika as she lunged, catching him between his hip and lower edge of his cuirass.
Two houses over, Robien was battling two bandits at once. They spread apart, trying to flank him, but villagers swarmed down the alley and drove both men back over the overturned barrow Howland had put in place to block the way. Neither made it. Robien got the first as he clambered over the barricade, and the spearmen got the second when he stumbled. All five villagers crowded in, pinning the unfortunate man to the hut at his back.
Confounded on two fronts, the brigands tried filtering left and right into alleys, but they were held up by a line of wicker baskets loaded with dirt and stones. Led by Wilf, four spear-carriers charged the enemy. They impaled three bandits on their eight-foot spears before a second band, supported by a pair of archers, crossed the gully and began shooting down the brave farmers.
Wilf and his people could not stand against a pair of expert bowmen, so they darted down the alley into the common. Wilf cried, “Sir Howland! Help!”
He saw the danger immediately. Ordering the villagers to lie flat to avoid being picked off by arrows, Howland shouted for Carver to drive the archers away. The kender tried to comply, but he and the children had used up much of their ready supply of darts. The whippik fire faltered. The archers raised their sights and took aim at Nowhere’s valiant children.
Something amazing happened.
A boy of twelve took an arrow in his leg. He collapsed, dropping his whippik, weeping with pain. He might have slid off the roof completely had not Carver and three other children grabbed him.
Cries of outrage filled the villagers’ throats. Fathers and mothers alike rose up and charged the callous bandits with renewed fervor. Arrows dropped two, but the remainder swarmed over the astonished raiders, grappling with them bare-handed. Order was lost and discipline forgotten as the angry farmers bludgeoned, clawed, and kicked any bandit they laid hands on.
A single trumpet blared out on the dusty plain. Eagerly the bandits quit the melee and remounted their horses. By the time they were swallowed up by churning dust clouds, eight more of their number lay lifeless among the huts.
Nowhere had paid a price, too. Three villagers were dead, and six wounded to various degrees, including the boy hit by the arrow. So far the village had lost three killed and eleven injured.
Dead warriors were stripped of their weapons and armor, and these were distributed to the victors. Wilf found himself sporting a bronze helmet and short iron sword. Raika and Robien reorganized the tired villagers, passing out praise and criticism in equal measure.
“Bloody fools!” Raika raged. “Didn’t you hear Sir Howland’s order to keep down? Charging a pair of archers! Some of you weren’t even armed!”
“We beat them, didn’t we?” Caeta answered proudly.
The Saifhumi woman had to admit they had.
Water was fetched from the well. Everyone gulped down as much as they could, cutting the dust from their throats and soothing the fire in their breasts. They’d beaten off two attacks today. Small ones, to be sure, but they had done it!
Howland and Robien went back to the well and stood atop the wall. From there the Knight could see the bandit army had concentrated into three distinct groups, one south of the village, one northwest, and one due east. The aimless riding and horn blowing ceased.
Stillness fell over the plain. Dust settled. Howland got down. He leaned both hands on the well wall and sighed.
“What is it?” asked Robien, though he had an idea.
“The pointless demonstrations are over. Rakell has returned,” Howland said. Dipping his hands into the bucket, he splashed cold water over his face. “Now the real battle begins.”