“Get up, you worms!” Raika cried, kicking Bakar in the rump. He yowled and leaped to his feet, incensed. Raika folded her arms and stood nose to nose with the outraged farmer.
“You have something to say?”
“Yes!” he declared, not without a quaver.
The third volley of arrows sprouted along the edge of the common.
“Speak your mind,” Raika said coldly.
“Stop kicking me!” the timid farmer declared.
“Then don’t present your rump to the sky!” She said this pleasantly, and her scowl slowly turned into a smile.
A rush of wind, and the fourth volley probed farther into the village. One stray missile brought down a rooster, pinning the bird to the ground in a spray of gaudy feathers. Other arrows clinked off the well wall or stuck shivering in the windlass frame.
Sheepishly, the farmers got to their feet. They huddled against the walls of the north side huts, confident the dirt-packed dwellings would protect them.
Raika ran to Howland, standing alone near the center of the common. The sixth volley arrived in pieces, arrows dropping at wide intervals all over the village.
“They must be lofting them straight up,” Raika said.
“Almost. The wind is breaking up the volleys,” Howland replied.
“How far can they reach?”
“A good, dry short bow can send an arrow three hundred yards.” He looked back unconcerned at the far-off line of bandit bowmen. “They seem to be having trouble reaching past two hundred.”
“Good enough!” Raika stormed back to her troops, yelling at them to stand up.
The bandits’ northern force was coming on at a steady pace but in no real formation. Howland relaxed a little. His band, backed by close to thirty villagers with long spears, ought to be able to hold off a similar number of brigands with swords. If Amergin’s scheme came off, they’d give the bandits a surprise.
Twenty yards from the village, the attackers raised their swords high and screamed bloodthirsty war cries. Atop the huts, Carver and the village boys made obscene gestures back at them.
Arrows continued to fall out of the brilliantly blue sky behind them, randomly, like thunderbolts. Howland ignored them, even when one struck close by his right foot.
Whippiks swung high, and the bandits had to raise their shields to protect their faces from the darts. Unable to see forward, their charge slowed. Raika moved her spearmen into the gaps between the huts.
“C’mon, you murdering sons of dogs!” Raika shouted. “Come fight us, face to face!”
They did just that. Splitting into groups of three or four, the brigands leaped over fences and other obstacles in their path. Raika and the spearmen countercharged. Crude as they were, the wooden spears easily pierced the boiled leather jerkins most of the bandits wore. Drawing back, the invaders lowered their bronze shields to fend off the spears. When they did, Carver’s whippiks scourged their heads and shoulders. Most of the whippik darts were made from dried cornstalks weighted with small stones in the hollow cores and tipped with two-inch long dragon-toe thorns. Though rarely lethal, the darts made painful wounds. Once a bandit had four or five of these nasty missiles in his neck or face, he lost all interest in further fighting.
Horses neighed loudly. Farmers and bandits alike paused their battle long enough to see what was disturbing the animals. What they saw delighted the villagers and dismayed Rakell’s raiders.
Amergin and six hand-picked men had stolen out of Nowhere, circled wide of the scrap going on between Raika’s troops and the bandits, and attacked the men left behind to guard the horses. There were eight of them, minding close to forty horses, and they could not let go the animals’ reins to defend themselves without losing all their comrades’ mounts. Amergin and his slingers had popped out of the grass ten yards away and swiftly struck down one guard after another. Freed, the high-strung horses broke away, inspired by stinging stones flung against their rumps. As the last bandit guard was struck down by Amergin, all the horses scattered to the winds.
Panicked by the sight of their precious mounts abandoning them, the bandits quickly ended the attack. Some even threw down sword and shield and ran full-tilt after their animals. Amergin and his slingers had a field day bouncing hard stones off the fleeing brigands. Their rout was so complete the defenders sallied forth to drag some of their fallen foes into the village, where their arms and armor were stripped off and distributed among the villagers.
Victory seemed total when Howland heard a shriek rise from the east end of Nowhere. The wounded and elderly had crept away from the barrage of arrows, sheltering in the curve of houses on the northeast border of the village. They were safe enough there, but when the bandits were repelled, some of the villagers came out to see the enemy’s defeat. Among them was Calec, the ancient headman. As he hobbled across the common on stiff, aged legs, a stray arrow took him high in the thigh. He went down without a sound but his neighbors raised a wail.
Howland hurried to the old man’s side. The cloth yard shaft had terrible force behind it, plummeting down from so high. It had passed through Calec’s left thigh, and the broadhead was buried halfway through his right as well. The impact had virtually nailed the old man’s legs together, piercing arteries in both limbs.
Caeta cradled her father’s head. Howland knelt by the elder, ignoring the humming arrows that continued to fall.
“They’re on the run?” whispered Calec.
“They’re beat,” Howland said.
The elder sighed, a long rattling exhalation. “Good. Hammer them like a gong-”
Caeta closed his eyes. “Good-bye, papa!”
More projectiles thudded around them. The archers could see villagers clustered around the fallen Calec and were concentrating on them. Gathering the old man’s legs while his daughter took his arms, Howland and Caeta carried Calec to a safer spot.
Amergin and the slingers returned, laden with swords, shields, and good iron daggers. There was enough captured weaponry to equip every fighting villager with a metal blade of some kind.
Calec was the only one killed on their side during the battle, but he was more than just the eldest of the village elders. He was the fighting heart of Nowhere, and now that heart was stilled.
Yet there was little time to grieve. As soon as the bowmen returned to camp, a fresh party of riders issued forth. Unlike the previous bands of bandits the people of Nowhere had faced, this new force appeared well armored and mounted on fine-looking horses. They carried banners too, the color of faded gold, whipping from the tips of their tall lances.
Raika’s and Amergin’s contingents rushed across the common to the south side, stumbling through a thick hedge of buried arrows as they came. Carver and his followers got down from the roofs and fell to harvesting this strange crop. The kender yanked an arrow out and examined the keen iron head. It was a real war arrow, and with the shafts clipped, they would make deadly whippik missiles.
Robien counted the riders as they cantered in a double line, parallel to the village. To Howland he said, “I make it twenty-eight!”
“Rakell’s elite,” Howland called back. “We won’t panic these men.”
“Could be worse,” said Raika, taking a deep breath.
Amergin inquired with a single raised eyebrow.
“Could be ogres.”
A signal trumpet blared, to be answered by horns in the other bandit camps. Once the armored brigands were in place, they halted, facing Nowhere. Long, pointed banners flipped slowly in the light midday airs.
“Robien, go to Khorr. Have his men stand ready to reinforce us,” Howland said. The bounty hunter departed on his mission. Wilf stepped up beside the old Knight, nudging him.