Blood Ties

  “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 hell—?” 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 we—the town’s defenders—sufficient 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!”

  He went on like that for some time. I hate to admit it, but I was actually grinning. If I wasn’t the target of his diatribes, he could be rather amusing to listen to.

  With all of that, the air still remained silent of anything save the gnome’s insults and the occasional laughter from the other defenders of Blackholm, who were clearly finding the gnome as entertaining as I was.

  Finally, the gnome became aware that we were enjoying his comedy stylings. “Shut up! Stop laughing, you clucking chickens!” he snarled, but by that point we were so merry that even the insults he hurled at us simply generated more laughter. Angry that he wasn’t getting the typical responses of annoyance and outrage that he was accustomed to, the gnome finally fell silent. I could only imagine his frustration and wondered whether he would be so aggravated that he would just take off. I doubted I could be quite so fortunate, but I could always be optimistic about it.

  Having satisfied ourselves that the enemy had either temporarily retreated or indeed given up entirely, I quickly established sentry points so that we could watch for any further incursions. The men didn’t hesitate to take my instructions as if they were orders, never questioning my commands or my right to give them.

  What can I say? I suppose I have an air of authority about me.

  Satisfied that the parapets were attended to, I made my way down to the ground and quickly returned to the barracks. I assumed, correctly as it turned out, that that was where Russell would be.

  He was lying unconscious on one of the beds, his shoulder thoroughly bandaged. There was a spot of blood visible in the bandage where the wound had been seeping through, but it appeared to have stopped. He was pale, which was understandable.

  Old Henry was standing over him, staring down at him.

  “Did you get the bullet out?” I asked.

  “Went right through him. Clean shot. Near as we can tell, no major organs were hit.” He never looked my way but still he spoke to me. “That was a damned stupid thing you did.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “You were one of the best marksmen up there.”

  “One of?”

  He didn’t smile, but he did deign to look at me. “We needed your gun and your eye in defense of Blackholm. Risking both to save a single young man who isn’t even a particularly competent soldier . . .” He shook his head.

  “I’m sorry if my priorities ran into conflict with yours.”

  “Never say you’re sorry when you’re really not,” said Old Henry. Then he paused, and his voice softened. “You did what you felt you had to do in order to live with yourself. I can respect that and consider it a worthy achievement. And I suppose I should thank you”—and he glanced toward Russell—“for saving my son.”

  “Your . . . ?”

  I probably didn’t cover myself with glory with my reaction, which was to stand there slack-jawed and wide-eyed. “Are you serious? He’s your son?”

  “According to his mother.” A vague suspicion passed through his eyes. “As for me, I have my doubts. But life is what it is, and so I accept her word and play the hand I’m dealt, as I’m sure she did.”

  In my experience, when one doesn’t know quite what to say, it’s preferable to say nothing at all. I knew one thing of a certainty, though, and that was that Old Henry was clearly someone who placed his dedication to protecting Blackholm above every other consideration.

  As if my rescuing his son was no longer something worth discussing, he said brusquely, “How long will you be staying here? I ask because you strike me as someone who tends to move around quite a bit.”

  “I have been known to.”

  “Makes it more of a problem for your enemies to target you?”

  “Fate, actually.” I smiled mirthlessly. “If I stay in one place too long, fate looks down and says, ‘Ah, there he is. Let’s visit some particular devastating mishap upon him, or maybe just strike him with a lightning bolt.’ ”

  “You jest, but with an undercurrent of truth. Well, while you’re here, I’d like you to do as much good as you can. The recruits are already speaking of you with reverence.”

  “As they do you.”

  “Be that as it may, I want you to work on training them. I’m a brawler, Finn. If the enemy overruns the wall, if it comes to face-to-face combat, then stand behind me and be secure that none of them will get to you. Far preferable, though, is preventing them from getting to us in the first place. In that regard, you appear to excel, plus you have the sort of foolhardy bravery that fools tend to admire.”

  “Thank you,” I said, unsure if that was a compliment or not.

  Chapter 6

  The Nightmare Begins

  FOR WEEKS, MATTERS IN BLACKHOLM progressed very smoothly. In retrospect, one would have thought that that alone would have warned me that it couldn’t last. But I was, and admittedly still am, something of a vain bastard, and I told myself that the enemy had learned its lesson. I had shown them (well, the others and I had shown them, but mostly it had been me) that any and all assaults on Blackholm were destined to be a waste of time, energy, and lives.

  Still, one could never assume. So I spent my time doing exactly what Old Henry had instructed me to do. I worked with the troops. Actually, I suppose that “troops” might well have been too generous a word since they remained raw at best in their skills. I credited them for being eager to learn, however, and I did my utmost to impart my extensive knowledge to them.

  By day I would provide them instruction on both marksmanship and tactics. In a combat situation, being able to hit one’s target is only a part of it. You also have to discern quickly which targets are the ones you should be aiming for. Take down the leaders, kill those individuals to whom the others are looking for guidance, and oftentimes you can send the others running. You don’t just want to destroy the soldiers; you want to destroy their confidence.

  By night I would provide them entertainment. I didn’t sing or dance or anything equally ghastly. But I had tales to tell, yes I did. And if I do say so myself—and since this is my narrative, who is there to gainsay me?—I tell them rather well.

  There would always be some soldiers who would claim that I was exaggerating either the level of threat I would face at particular points in my tales, or perhaps making too much of my own part in the proceedings. Most of the time such accusations had only the smallest pinch of validity, but ultimately it didn’t matter, for they would invariably be shouted down by the more accepting and credulous who only wanted to know one thing: what happened next.

  Having recovered from his ordeal, Russell regularly joined us at the evening get-togethers and was as attentive as anyone in the group. Old Henry, his father, tended not to. On occasion I would glimpse him at the periphery of the gathering, perhaps lending an ear to one of my more outrageous tales before moving on his way. His vigilance was incessant, and he never seemed satisfied with the notion that there were guards posted, wary and attentive to
any possible assault. He was never satisfied lest he was ascertaining personally that all was well.

  As for the gnome, he became a great favorite of Blackholm, much to his frustration and chagrin. Rather than be offended by him, it became something of a badge of honor to be insulted by him because the hardened residents of the town were impressed by the cleverness of his diatribes. His were not simply mindless exercises in namecalling. His insults were often quite clever and inventive, and it turned into a bit of a status symbol to be subject to his ungentle attentions. “You’ll never believe what the gnome said to me!” would be the way conversations extolling his “virtues” would begin, and the people would compare notes and sometimes even agree: “He’s got you there. You really do have a turnip for a nose. Many’s the day I’ve wondered how you didn’t suffocate and die with that thing mounted on your face.” Then there would be raucous laughter, and somewhere crouched behind a barrel or hiding in a corner, the gnome would tremble with fury and wonder about the hell he had willingly dropped himself into. But something about the perversity of his nature wouldn’t allow him simply to depart once and for all. He had to stay and keep trying to upset people and wouldn’t take lack of offense for an answer.

  One day and night passed into the next, and the time of peace stretched to such a degree that I began to conclude one of two things had transpired. Either the warlord was trying to lull us into a false sense of security, or else he had simply given up and moved on to easier fare.

  Then came an evening when we had settled in for the night. The men who had drawn guard duty were patrolling, overseeing what hopefully promised to be another quiet night. I was lying in my bunk, fingers interlaced behind my head, staring up at the ceiling.

  I should have been asleep, but was not.