Hope and Darkness

Chapter 9

At dusk they came. 10 archers stalked toward the town, and the leader promptly fell into a bush. A second later the others also hid themselves. The leader turned back to the others. “As soon as the fight begins, the commander wants us to hit them in their side with arrows. Got it?” His 2 companions nodded. The leader looked into the distance. A trail of smoke emerged from approximately where there camp was, and an alarm bell started ringing where a large mass of bodies was. “Now!” All 10 sprang up, reaching into their quivers to pull out arrows. One was thrown back as a massive arrow flew straight into his heart. The leader was hit in his right shoulder, and then hit in the chest by 2 crossbow bolts. As the group fell, terrible realisation came upon them. Too late. The final archer drew back his bow, looking for his adversaries and preparing to shoot any he saw. He never got the chance. Another arrow hit him in the shoulder and he was left screaming from the pain until a final missile killed him. It was a mercy kill. Out of the vegetation a dozen soldiers in camouflaged clothing, almost mirroring the way the volunteers had when they’d gone to raid the hideout. One of them checked on the dead darkness archers. The leader of this band of archers looked at the land surrounding the 1st palisade around the village and shook his head. “What has Jeremy got himself into now?” He wondered aloud. Behind him another 2 dozen soldiers emerged. “Time to go help the old goat,” he told the people around him.

Jeremy was thinking much the same thing. Though compared to the young soldiers around him he was old, he managed to put enormous power into his sword strokes. Right now technique didn’t matter. It was all hack and hack and stab and shove and hack. There were too many to worry about prisoners or deflecting strokes. If you could kill them first they couldn’t kill you, so that meant you wouldn’t need to block anything. Completely insane, but completely practical. At the back some of the townswomen were throwing projectiles at the horde, while others were carrying the wounded back. Toby and Matthew had been on watch with Charlie and Justin when the group of now 400 darkness soldiers had attacked. They had been discussing the strange yellow crested men when they were attacked, and all thoughts of the strange people left their minds. With them were 75 men, or one third of the men in the town. Some didn’t have equipment that matched the professional soldiers, so the blacksmith had spent the initial stage of the battle handing his biggest hammers to some of the men. One of the group held a dentist's tools for pulling out teeth. The scouts had easily spotted the large group miles away. As soon as he’d heard the news, Jeremy had sent one of the more able horsemen on a mission asking for help from his old friend, William, who was now the commander of a rather reasonable force of trained professional troopers. Officially, he was a leader in the Church of Hope. Toby picked up an unused bow in the tower of the guard post. Although he was a lot better with throwing weapons, at this range all he needed to do was bring the string back and release, and devil knows what would happen to the poor sod who was hit. He worked mechanically, aiming at the centre of the pack of black-clad soldiers so he knew he wouldn’t miss. Before too long some of the inexperienced archers joined him, climbing up the only ladder located at the bottom right hand corner. It was as easy as hitting a barn door with a rock from 5 metres away, and the fact that so many of the darkness soldiers were eager to kill only bunched them up as an even bigger target. Once he’d run out of arrows, Toby jumped down the ladder. He ran into Charlie’s room. He knew there was a window there that could be disguised as part of the wall on the outside, as it was now. As soon as he found it, he ran to the palisade. He turned around and saw the last group of defenders arrive from the village. Most of them were farmers, but they would be good enough for what he had in mind. He started singling people out. Once he had about 20 he ran back inside the palisade, opening the window, and secretly dropped behind a bush. One by one his group of farmers dropped with him. He turned to the group and grinned. “Are you guys ready?” One of the farmers whispered to one of his friends, “I don’t even know what we’re doing.” When he judged the time right, Toby stood up and threw a javelin, and immediately ducked behind the bush. One of the other soldiers next to Toby threw his own weapon. It was a pole with a knife tied to it. About half a dozen of the black troopers noticed that 2 of their number were killed by throwing weapons, and when one turned towards the bush, Toby got up and yelled, “Charge!” All around him the farmers rushed out, and they quickly caused chaos all around that right flank. Strangely Toby heard a familiar war cry on his side. He turned to his left and was surprised when he saw Harley’s humongous form slashing with a one handed axe, with his brown hair streaked with sweat. He hasn’t fought since he became the militia leader, he thought. He got so distracted that one of the soldiers was about to impale him on a spear. Luckily for Toby, and unluckily for that soldier, Matthew jumped from the tower, twisting into a roll, and used his sword to lash out at anyone who came to close. Together the 3 led the ill-trained and ill-equipped farmers closer toward the palisade. Once a very brave soldier tried to challenge the 3 of them together. He hadn’t even begun to get into a stance before he was killed, with an axe stroke from Harley, A sword swipe from Toby, and a quick stab from Matthew. No-one tried to take them all on together after that. The shock at being attacked in their vulnerable flank was quickly replaced by anger, and the farmers started falling, one by one. With growing desperation, the group sprinted toward the palisade. Running, Toby rolled under a spear and thrust at his attacker, then blocked a sword cut aimed at a farmer. He struck with his shield, and then kept on running. As they finally reached the palisade, the farmers cheered and brought their shields to cover the gaps in the wooden wall. Lucy appeared next to Toby and she began picking off archers with ease, under the protection of Samuel’s large round shield he had ‘liberated’ from a sea raider around year ago. With a sinking heart Toby realised that the small building that served as a place to treat the injured was overloaded. He knew the battle would end soon, but not in the village’s favour.