Knowing is Halfling the Battle_An Arthurian Fantasy Romp Read online

  “I said you should try listening sometime.” The bell at the gate began to toll. “Another drill?” Gerdy asked. She went to look out the window with Myra.

  “Do they usually line a thousand men in green outside the Wall for drills?”

  “No,” Gerdy said. “They don’t.”

  The bell’s sonorous tone reverberated around the tower room.

  Bong... Bong... Bong...

  Not so far away from the castle, at the Watch headquarters, Sergeant—that is, Captain Todder was enjoying the day from his window. Outside, the sun was bright. There was hardly a wisp of cloud in the sky. The Bay, however, was choppy under a gusty wind. The whispers of fall, his gran would call it. White-capped waves broke on the hulls of the ships now bustling toward the river.

  If there was one thing Todder could say for the king—really there were several things he could say—but the one that came to mind now: the king had a knack for business. Everything was bustling, not just the ships. But all manner of businesses boomed—even the magic shops that had briefly closed before his reign were open and thriving. Todder had never seen Dune All-En so busy, so prosperous.

  King Epiman had even seen fit to call back the Navy. And now, a monstrous destroyer lurked in the center of all the well, bustle, in the Bay. Its large sails were furled; the great ship was anchored with cannons ready.

  Todder tapped his finger against his chin, deep in thought—his deep might be shallow for others, but being a tall man, he was only in the water to his knees where many in the city would probably drown.

  He was having trouble getting used to the idea of captain. It was just… Well, it was just he’d been a sergeant for so long, almost his entire twenty-year career—up until that troll business a few months back. The new king, this Epiman fellow, had seen fit to promote Todder all the way to Captain of the City Watch.

  Todder had never been good with names. Faces, yes, but names always eluded him. Now it seemed even his own was illusory.

  Captain Todder, he thought, reminding himself.

  Captain Todder, he thought once more.

  Nope, this time he hadn’t thought it. This time, it was being called out.

  “Uh, Captain,” a watchman said again from the door. “You needed to see me?”

  “Yes,” Todder agreed, nodding. “That’s right. Come in.”

  The boy entered.

  Todder hoped he was getting a bit better with names. His new proficiency was actually due to the name tags now emblazoned on all military uniforms. One such name tag looked Todder square in the face right now. Its owner, a stout young man by the name of Schulz. Schulz had a questioning look on his face.

  Todder was forgetting something.

  “Right,” he remembered. “The paperwork.”

  He handed a thick stack of folded parchment to Corporal Schulz.

  “Whoa!” Schulz was duly impressed by the weight of it. “How many this week, Captain?”

  “Over a hundred,” Todder said, smiling. “A hundred recruits. That K’nexes is doing a right fine job, he is. And you lot, well, it all goes down to you, now doesn’t it? Each week we get a whole bunch of new watchmen. Each week they’re out patrollin’ and catchin’ more criminals. And then those criminals… well, they end up in this stack.”

  “But what’ll we do when—”

  “Don’t you say it,” Todder scolded. “The day there’s no crime in Dune All-En is the day I’m dead… or worse.”

  “That soon?”

  Todder gave the lad a hard look. “Now, Corporal Schulz, best be on your way.”

  “It’s, um, Shultz, sir.”

  Todder peered at the tag on the corporal’s chest. “Nope, I believe it says Schulz, right there. No T.”

  “Well, my father pronounces it—”

  “Listen, son. Why don’t you have the tailor just put in that T, if it’s so important to ya.”

  “But my father—”

  Todder sighed. “Fine. Corporal Schultz,” he said, emphasizing the T. “Please send that paperwork down to be filed.”

  “Too much T this time, sir.”

  There was a whole system around the paperwork. K’nexes, the Grand Counselor, sent his recommendations along to Todder, who looked them over with a sergeant’s eye. (His eyes were not a captain’s just yet.) So, to ensure the recruits were correctly stationed about the city, and that the forms were filed correctly, Todder had Captain Snyder, his old boss, look them over for him—from his cell in the dungeon. Snyder was one of the last vestiges of the former regime. A man who had briefly—very briefly—been involved in the plot against Epiman.

  Todder pointed at the door, afraid he might have to utter the corporal’s name once more—this time, in irritation.

  But Schulz saluted him. And when he reached the door, he stopped cold.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  “Hmm?” Todder tilted his head. His old ears told him nothing. He squeezed the wax from the hair sticking out of his right ear. Then could Todder hear it, faintly.

  Bong... Bong... Bong...

  “Dammit, Brendan!” Todder groused. He spread paperwork across his desk. “Sergeant Sands is supposed to notify me if he’s doing a drill.”

  There was a slight chance that Brendan had notified the captain, but there was no note from Brendan on the captain’s desk.

  “I don’t think—”

  “You don’t think what, Schultz?”

  “Hey! You got it right this time.”

  Todder was stone-faced.

  “Oh, I was just saying, I don’t think it’s a drill. Two rings for a drill, sir. I hear three.”

  Bong... Bong... Bong...

  2

  War and Not Peace

  A prodigious army spread out beyond the Wall, blockading the city. Row upon row of soldiers in formation, still filling in from the Road. Wearing green tunics above their armor, with chainmail hoods that did not gleam in the midday sun but were instead a dull slate gray. Their flags, and there were many of them, were the same green color, crested with a white eagle salient.

  Brendan stood on the rampart above the gate, peering over the Wall. Most of these soldiers were pikemen and archers. He could tell because of all the pikes and all the bows. A few men were on horseback, but they didn’t have the stately appearance of knights in armor. Instead, they rode as if to herd the other men into place. Then each horse fell back behind the regiment.

  “Sarge,” called an archer behind Brendan. “What are we to do?”

  Brendan scratched the back of his head. “Nothing, just yet. Do not engage until they do.”

  “Right, Sarge,” the archer said regretfully.

  Ten years of prosperity my arse, Brendan thought. It had barely been five months since the deposing of the old king.

  Still, they had prepared for this. Brendan had known this day was coming. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the idea had struck him, sometime after he had caught that wizard doing magic outside the pub. Well, lots of ideas had struck him since then, but this one was simple, really. He thought that the Watch and the Army should prepare for a siege at the Wall.

  And that’s what had they had done. Once a month, Brendan staged a false battle to train those willing to fight for the city—even men who weren’t in either the Army or the Watch had participated.

  The archers had practiced by shooting quarrels at targets in the void of grassland between the Wall and the forest that bordered the Road.

  Another of Brendan’s ideas, probably his best to date, was a method to signal the Navy ships in the Bay. Cannon fire could be used to deter enemy invaders.

  Now the real thing had arrived. Brendan’s stomach twisted and somersaulted as it filled with bile. He stepped to the edge of the Wall and threw up.

  3

  The Pony and His Halfling

  Dust swirled as horses galloped past on their way to the Wall. Epik zigzagged around them. His armor, donned in haste, creaked with each step. It was new, never tested by even
a training sword.

  The castle stables were located in what was, perhaps, the only green space in the city, aside from Primary Park. There was pasturing, a barn, and two practice jousting rings. The semi-annual tournaments were held in the center of Madhattan, in the arena at Madison Triangle Garden. Named for both former king Jimmy “the feudalist” Madison, and for the shape of the structure, with its small grandstand for the nobility on one side and large and flat standing room only section on the other side.

  Epik had seen one joust in the arena, and it was about as much fun as sitting around in the heat of the sun while eating poorly made but expensive food could be.

  The thought that he might take part in the next tournament sent a hopeful pang to his belly. Epik was eager to prove himself as a knight. And this trouble at the Wall could be his first chance to do just that.

  One last horse, a knight in gleaming silver perched grandly astride it, galloped out of the open barn doors. The sound of thundering hoofbeats echoed in the halfling’s still-pricked ears. The tolling of the bell at the gates had stopped.

  He took a deep breath. A mistake. The castle barn wasn’t as grandiose as one might imagine—being attached with the castle and the king in name only. It was still just a place to lock up massive beasts and let them crap on the floor. The air was thick with it—the horse dung, that is, and the dirt, and the hay. Epik sputtered then waddled to the center of the barn where a mound of hay was piled to the rafters. All fifty of the stalls were empty. Even the one that was home to his pony.

  “Buster,” he called. The pony was nowhere to be seen. “Where are you?”

  Epik circled the mound of hay.

  “Buster!”

  He sighed. Why did he have to be the last one ready? No one had known what was happening at the Wall. Yet the other knights were quick to head off into battle. All except for Sir Wallack who had let some squire borrow his horse. Now it seemed Epik would be unable to ride to the gate as well.

  “Buster!” Epik had completely circumnavigated the hay. He started again, completing a half circuit before turning back.

  And found himself face to face with his errant pony.

  “There you are,” Epik said, relieved. “You’ve got to stop doing this. We’re needed at the Wall. Something’s happened.”

  Buster backed away. Epik held out his hand. A ruby red apple, fresh from his etiquette lesson, enraptured the pony, who began to nibble approvingly.

  Now, he just had to mount the pony, a task ordinarily taking a fair amount of effort for a halfling without the aid of a squire. But Epik just so happened to know a bit about the magical arts—more than a bit really.

  Over the past few months, Epik had come across a number of wizarding texts. He found the first volume of The Art of Sorcery in the ruins of Gabby’s shop, along with a few histories of the realm. He found two volumes at the castle—he had quite literally stumbled across them; almost as if they were laid out and waiting, knowing when the halfling would happen along.

  Epik drew his wand, flicked it toward the ground, and rose to levitate over his steed. Then Buster moved, and Epik had to swim ungracefully through the air to find his way to the pony’s saddle.

  “Giddy-up,” Epik said, feeling foolish.

  Buster didn’t move.

  “Fine!” Epik was flustered. “There’s another apple in it for you when we make it to the gate.”

  Buster approved, and he departed the barn at an easy canter.

  Men and some women crowded the streets of Jersy. A few had come to see what exactly was going on, but most were there to participate—to fight.

  They had come running from their regular jobs, without chainmail or the armor of the Army who were already at the fray, gathered in tight rows at the barricaded gate of the city. There was hardly a proper weapon amongst the commoners, no maces or swords, not even an axe, but there were butchers with cleavers, barbers with scissors, and one clerk with a very sharp looking pen. Women arrived with frying pans and brooms. True, there was a blacksmith here and there with sword, but they tended to hold them in the center of the dull-and-in-for-repair blades.

  Epik felt out of place. He searched the streets for a familiar face and was relieved to see the rangers, Coe and Rotrick, accompanied by two of their dwarven companions. And there was Captain Todder taking his former post beside the barbican, the entrance through the gates. Formerly, he’d sat there on a chair like a fat oaf; now the old man was barking orders at any of his watchmen within earshot.

  And above him, Sergeant Brendan Sands stood on the rampart, several other men climbing up to join him, bows and quivers of arrows shouldered.

  “What’s going on?” Epik asked the rangers.

  “Invaders,” Coe said, acknowledging Epik with a slight nod. There was no love lost between the halfling and Coe, but Epik had recently helped the ranger out with a task. A very curious task.

  “You didn’t want to put on your armor?” Epik asked the lot of them. None were dressed for battle. Coe and Rotrick were garbed in their usual ranger attire, jerkins of black and shirts of forest green. The dwarves were strapped in leather but without helmets or mail.

  “Didn’t have time,” Coe said.

  “Was eatin’ lunch at the pub when we heard the bell.” Two-finger, the red-bearded dwarf, pointed at the Rotten Apple pub.

  “Well, who’s out there?” Epik asked.

  “King’s Way by the look of the flags,” Rotrick said in his deep drawl. Like Collus, Rotrick was a ranger. He wore a wide-brimmed hat to shield his face from the sun. Coe had pulled his hood over his own head.

  “There’s a whole army out there.” Two-finger pointed one of his two fingers at the aforementioned amassing army. “Be attackin’ us any minute now, I think.” The dwarf’s fingers returned to the throat of his axe, and he anxiously rolled it between his hands.

  “Attacking us? But what about the Wall? It’s been fixed.”

  Coe and Rotrick looked away from the halfling, smiling.

  It was true, the Wall had been fixed.

  “A wall’s not going to stop anyone with a mind to getting in,” Wellspoken, the black-bearded dwarf, told him. “These troops have ladders and other means to get past a wall. Here comes one of them now.”

  The dwarf was right. Epik could hear something, a disturbance in the air, a sort of whistling. Then…

  BOOM.

  Shards of rock went flying as whatever had flown through the air met the Wall with force.

  “Catapult,” Two-finger said. None of them had flinched. Buster tried to bolt, then kicked and hopped in circles, much to Epik’s dismay.

  “I thought this was a knight’s horse?” Coe laughed. “Who trained it?”

  “Milford,” Epik said. “It’s a Milford trained horse.”

  Rotrick and Coe again exchanged a smirk. Epik knew he was the butt of some joke. But that was typical for a halfling in the city.

  “Better hop down and come with us,” Rotrick said. “If you want to live and all that.”

  “But where are the other knights?” Epik had already scoured the crowd looking for them.

  “Lad,” Coe said, not unkindly, “I hate to be the one to tell you this. But you’re the last one. The whole lot of ‘em rode out the gate before it was closed. Possibly, they thought that men with pikes were not a match for armored men atop regal beasts.”

  “And they were as wrong as wrong gets,” Rotrick said solemnly.

  “So, I’m—”

  “Hop down, lad,” Rotrick said soothingly. “There are other ways to win a fight.”

  At that moment a cloud of arrows pierced the sunny sky. Most landed on the thatched roofs of Jersy, places like the Rotten Apple, Epik’s former employer, and the Dayz Inn where Epik had stayed his first few nights in the city.

  A few arrows did find the ground. And one very unlucky arrow buried itself inside the tufts of Two-finger’s red beard. The dwarf picked it out, broke it in half, and threw it aside.

  Epik did as
the rangers suggested. He uncinched the saddle which promptly slid sideways, carrying him to the ground with a thump.

  “Best lose most that armor as well,” Wellspoken said.

  Reluctantly, Epik led Buster to an out of the way alcove and left the majority of his armor there with him. The copper armor lay gleaming in the midday sun. All that was left to protect the halfling was a thin chainmail shirt.

  Another cloud of arrows darkened the sky. This volley found marks other than Two-finger’s beard.

  Coe picked a few up and put them in Rotrick’s quiver, then he took Epik by the shoulder.

  “You don’t happen to have a spell to vanish a few thousand men, do you?”

  “No.” Epik raised a hand to shade his eyes from the sun. “These men probably have wives and children—people who want to see them come home. I can’t vanish anyone with loved ones.”

  “Shame,” Coe scratched his thin beard. “That’s the trouble with magic. It only seems to work about half the time. And generally the wrong half.”

  “Worse than the pull-out method,” Rotrick laughed.

  “What’s the—” Epik began, but Coe cut him off.

  “We’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way.” The ranger took action. “Todder,” he said. “It’s time we open the gate before we’re all dead.”

  “Aye, dead men do the city no good,” Two-finger said.

  “Right-o,” he replied and waited expectantly. When none of his men took action, he barked, “You heard him! Raise the portcullis and get this gate open.” The old captain looked at Coe. “There anything else I can do to help?”

  “Make sure we don’t lose the Wall.”

  “Right,” Todder agreed uncertainly. But the request seemed to have a lit a candle in his mind. Todder called up the rampart to Brendan. “Sergeant!” Brendan appeared, a worried expression flashed briefly on his chiseled jaw. “It’s time to put your plan into motion.” Todder pointed toward the Bay.