“You're a soldier,” he said at last. His voice sounded as if it were starting from somewhere around his boots.
“I am.”
“You've seen things. Fought things.”
“I have.”
“And you're here to help us?”
“Yes.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Why?”
I ran through all the reasons in my mind, then just decided to answer as simply and honestly as I could. “Because I really don't have much of anything better to do.”
“I see.”
I removed my gloves and extended a hand. “Ben Finn,” I said. “Formerly I served at . . .”
“Don't much care where you've been, only where you're going to be.” He hadn't taken the hand I had outstretched. I took no offense; not everyone was much for handshaking. “What is the significance of that ring?”
I glanced down, having worn it so long that I didn't even think about it. It was nothing special: a simple silver ring with an ornate “F” emblazoned upon it. “Family heirloom,” I said. “Nothing more. Not even particularly valuable. Why do you ask?”
“It was not a crest I recognized.”
I chuckled at that. “My family is not one prone to crests. I'm hardly that highborn. We made these ourselves, my family did. Nothing you need concern yourself about.”
“I concern myself with the safety of this town,” he said. “Beyond that, I care very little.”
“Then I believe I can be of some service to you in that regard.”
“All right, then,” said Old Henry. “Welcome to the fightâ”
And suddenly a fierce clanging sounded outside, a cacophony of bells that signaled one thing to me. The soldiers immediately started scrambling to their feet, grabbing their equipment. The older men looked eager; the younger men nervous but determined.
As if he hadn't even heard the bells, because his voice was so calm and detached, Old Henry said, “I hope you didn't make yourself too comfortable.” Then he turned to the men who were down in the main area, as well as the ones who were hurrying down the stairs from above. “You all know your posts. You all know what to do. I suggest you do it. You.” And he glanced my way. “Come with me. Let's see what you can do.”
We headed out into the main square of the town, where citizens were hurrying toward their homes, locking the doors, and obviously praying that the militia would manage to beat back the attacks. A set of rickety stairs led to parapets above, where soldiers were already lined up, taking aim with rifles. I noticed that a squadron of swordsmen had set themselves up at the large double doors that served as the community's gate, which had been closed and was in the process of being barricaded. Everyone was moving with smooth efficiency, and I had to think that was largely Old Henry's doing. He had obviously reached a position of trust in the city by overseeing everything that needed to be done, then making sure that everyone did it.
Old Henry climbed the rickety stairs, which shuddered under every heavy step he took. I followed, moving two steps at a time, trying to make sure I didn't get thrown off the stairway. We reached the parapets, and I started to look over the top of the wall. It was a stupid, amateur move, and the only thing that kept me from getting my head blown off was Old Henry grabbing me by the back of the shirt and yanking me to one side. A bullet pinged past me; I could practically feel the air sizzling.
There was a rack on the wall that had helmets, shields, a length of rope, and additional ammunition. Old Henry snatched a helmet from the rack and slammed it down on my head. “Are you sure you've done this before?” he said.
“Just give me something to aim at, and I'll show you.” I made sure to crouch as I said that.
He tapped a small aperture in the wall and I peered through it.
Sure enough, a small army was charging the city. They looked very organized and very determined. A number of them were carrying ladders that were clearly intended to help them scale the wall.
They were the ones I went for first. The aperture was just wide enough to provide room to aim. I unslung Vanessa and started firing immediately. Just as immediately, attackers tumbled over, hit by perfectly placed shots. Not a single shot wasted, not a single shot missed.
I turned to Old Henry to see what he had to say about such precise marksmanship. Funny how I'd only known him for a few minutes, and yet his opinion was already important to me. Apparently, though, he was satisfied by what he had seen because he had already moved on down the parapet, guiding the efforts and endeavors of others as they worked to beat back the invaders.
“That's brilliant shooting!” came an excited but nervous voice from near me. I turned and saw that it was, of all people, the sentry who had first granted me access to the city. He was in a proper crouch and had his rifle at the ready. It was older than mine and less efficient but would get the job done if he could just manage to keep his hands steady. “I'm Russell, by the way.”
“Hello, Russell. Not the best time for chitchat, I'm afraid.” I was busy reloading my rifle and wishing that there were a way to pack twenty or thirty shots into it at one time.
“How do you manage to shoot so well?”
“Practice.” I took aim and fired several more times, taking down several more soldiers who were trying to get a ladder close enough to mount the walls. “You take a deep breath, aim, let out the breath, and shoot. If you hit the target, you do it just that way again. If you miss, you make adjustments. It's not much more complicated than that.”
“Got it,” said Russell. I promptly stopped paying attention to him as I continued to fire at the enemy.
All things considered, I should have been grateful. These were, after all, merely humans. At least they weren't hollow men or other nonliving or hell-spawned creatures that required multiple direct hits to be halted in their tracks. Compared to other things I'd had to deal with in the past, this was practically a vacation.
Suddenly, I heard an outcry from right next to me. Russell had stood up, trying to take aim, and he was clutching at his shoulder as a red splotch spread over it. His face went white, and the rifle slipped from his fingers as he looked at me with wide-eyed alarm. Then he pitched forward; I'm not sure he even knew where he was at that moment. I reached out for him, but my hand grasped only empty air as Russell tumbled over the edge of the parapet.
“Good riddance,” came the voice of the gnome. He was perched just under the parapet, and he was grinning widely at seeing the young man fall from the shelter that had proven so inadequate. “One less human.”
I have no idea what motivated me at that moment. It might have been the sneering gnome taking pleasure in the misfortune of someone else. Maybe I didn't want to see what those bastards would do to him in his final moments (assuming he was still alive) or to his corpse (assuming he wasn't). Or maybe it was just that I knew that death wasn't necessarily the end. That terrible things could happen even after death, and I had no desire to see that inflicted upon a youngster who was just trying to fight for the survival of his people.
Whatever prompted it, within seconds I had snatched the rope from the rack and lashed it around my waist. I looped the other end around an extending hook that a rifle was dangling from. Then I grabbed a shield and threw myself over the top of the wall before I had time to consider what I was doing.
I slid down the rope at high speed, wincing as it tore at the skin of my palms. I should have been wearing my gloves. I didn't have time to worry about it, though. The rope had hit the bottom and was partly curled up on Russell's fallen form.
The attackers were still a distance back because of the fusillade that had kept them at bay. I brought the shield up. It was specially reinforced, metal lined with hardwood. It provided sufficient stopping power for any bullet save a direct hit at close range. Otherwise, bullets deflected off it or were sufficiently slowed that they did not penetrate.
A fallen ladder lay nearby. It was going to be unwieldy, trying to angle it single-handedly up the wall, but it wasn't as if I had a lot of choice. Climbing back up the rope with Russell slung over my shoulder wasn't really an option.
I made it to Russell and was both gratified and amazed to see that he was still breathing. He looked up at me with startled eyes. “What the hellâ?” he managed to whisper.
“Damned if I know,” I said as I started to haul him up.
Then an angry roar alerted me and I looked up just in time to see a particularly large brute bearing down on me. He had a shotgun that was incredibly large.
Compensating for something,
the gnome's voice sounded in my head.
He fired at nearly point-blank range. I brought up the shield just in time because, had the blast hit home, it would have torn me in half. As it was, it knocked me clean off my feet, and I could see a massive indentation from the shot in the shield. It had dented it severely and, were it given another opportunity, would probably punch right through it.
I yanked out my pistol and fired blindly. But even my blind shots are better than most men's shooting with both eyes on the target. The soldier went down with half his face gone.
More were coming, though, and I slung Russell over my shoulder even as I kept my gun leveled, hoping that my awkward positioning of the shield would be enough to stave off immediate death. Getting to the ladder, getting it upright, climbing up it while fending off attackers, none of it was going to be easy. But I had no choice.
It turned out that I was exactly right about that, yet wrong at the same time.
Abruptly the rope around my middle yanked tightly and I was hauled off my feet. Russell was nearly thrown from me but I just managed to hang on to him as we were pulled straight up the wall. I banged against it several times as we hurtled upward and jerked to a halt just short of the top. I had shoved the pistol back into my belt in order to free up my hands and twisted around to keep the shield between us and the attackers. More bullets pinged off it as I shoved Russell over the top of the wall, then, pushing up against it with my feet, drove myself behind its protection as well.
I had figured that two or three soldiers had teamed up to drag us to safety. I was astounded to find that there was only one man there: Old Henry. He was crouched low, paying no attention to bullets that were flying just over his head. One actually grazed his skull; I saw a thin line of blood appear as if by magic. Either he didn't realize it was there or, more likely, didn't care.
“That was a damned stupid thing to do,” he said tightly. He seemed to want to say more, but instead opted for, “Keep shooting. And no more damned heroics.”
Doing as I had been bidden, I took up my place again and targeted more of the soldiers. When I glanced over my shoulder once again, Old Henry and Russell were gone. Presumably Henry had taken the boy to safety so that someone could attend to him. I'd seen more wounds in my time than I care to think about, but one of the benefits of that undesirable experience was that I was able to tell at a glance whether the wound was going to be fatal or not. In Russell's case, I was reasonably sure that he would be able to pull through, assuming that he was attended to quickly.
As for me, I had my own problems to deal with.
The battle raged for much of the day. The assailants of Blackholm were not given to grand strategies. They were trying to overwhelm through sheer force of arms and unrelenting determination. They crashed up against the wall, obviously hoping to overwhelm it in the same manner that rising floodwaters overcome piles of sandbags. The question was, were weâthe town's defendersâsufficient proof against the would-be waters?
The answer, as it turned out, was yes. After a time, the battlefield was so strewn with bodies that it was making it difficult for the surviving soldiers to cover the ground. They were so busy dodging or stepping over their fallen comrades that they made easier targets of themselves, and we did not hesitate to take advantage of that lack of maneuverability.
Long into the afternoon, I found myself waiting for another target I could pick off. It had been a while since they'd last presented me with an opportunity, and my trigger finger was squeezing spasmodically even though it wasn't actually wrapped around anything. That was probably good because I didn't want to be wasting ammunition with accidental shots.
“I think they've gone!” came a voice from a distance away. It was one of the other soldiers, crouched at his station in the same manner as I was. He was looking to me questioningly.
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe that's what they want us to think?”
“How do we find out?”
“Only one way,” I said and, taking a deep breath, I stood straight up. I studied the terrain, searching for some sign, any sign of movement. I was more or less risking my neck on two principles: that I would be able to spot the movement of any assailant before he could draw a bead on me and that they weren't particularly good shots to begin with.
There I was, a perfect target, waiting for them to take their shot. They had no reason not to. We were going to be posting sentries anyway, even if we believed the battle to be over, so there was no real reason for them to think that they could catch us unawares. So why not seize the opportunity to dispatch a man who had not only killed a considerable number of them but actually had the temerity to leap down to the battlefield, recover one of his own allies, and scale back to safety, scarcely mussing his hair as he did so?
Long minutes stretched past. There was not so much as a rustling of the leaves in the nearby forest.
“Shoot him, you idjits!”
came the irritated voice of the gnome from wherever he was currently secreting himself.
“Do you need an engraved invitation, like this is some sort of cotillion? What are you, a bunch of girls or something? You must be, because you sure shoot like them! He's standing right there! Maybe you're so overwhelmed by his presence that your hands are shaking too much! Here's a thought. Why not take those shaking hands and shove them down into your privates because that's the only way you'll be getting any excitement down there!”