The Quarry

[Rage Menelas]

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Tracking the black bullet, Charlie zeroed in on a village on the horizon. It was built into the bowel of some kind of shallow hollow in the terrain. A natural fountain formed at its center, huts gathered around it like thirsty animals patiently awaiting their turn to get a drink.

Now he noticed movement up on a rise overlooking the village to the south. There were three formations of men stationed purposefully there. He angled Saar'floe up to get a better look.

The formations consisted of two ranks, the front ones of which stood behind tall shields carrying long spears that menaced anyone directly before them. Behind this wall of shields knelt another rank of warriors armed with bows.

Now he could see an unorganized mass of warriors heading directly toward the ordered ranks of spearmen. He estimated their numbers at several hundred, armed primarily with long bows and some type of bladed weapon at their hips.

The attackers now saw the men behind the shield wall standing placidly some hundred and fifty yards before them. Their confidence level must have been high for they outnumbered the defenders by something like 5:1, their scattered disposition no doubt severely exaggerating the disparity in their minds.

The attackers paused deliberately, fitted arrows and unleashed a ragged volley. The missiles arced high across the field, raining down diagonally onto the defenders only to shatter against a determined line of upraised shields. Another ragged volley followed to similar effect. After a third the attackers, obviously frustrated, became enraged. They put away their bows, drew long knives from their belts, and unwisely rushed headlong toward the mass of bristling spears. The defending archers now rose up from behind the shield wall and let loose a devastating volley of their own, and another and then a third.

Half of the attackers went down in this hail of destruction, crippled, dead or dying; the rest faltered until their chieftain or warlord – Charlie knew not which – rallied them forcefully, running about the field gesturing and screaming insanely. This had the desired effect. The attackers, overcoming their reticence, renewed the assault, raving on toward the steady formations of their unfazed foe.

A hundred howling warriors brandishing long knives broke violently against the shield wall. Many were impaled by the long spears of the defenders in the first few seconds of the assault. Many of the rest were impaled by a regimented stab, step, stab routine that the ranked spearmen then performed. Of those that tried to retreat, most were cut down by the defending archers, feathered shafts suddenly sprouting from their vulnerable backs. Now a word was given and the spearmen finally broke ranks and charged across the field, savagely running down the survivors to a man.

Charlie had been mesmerized by the battle until now. Looking down at his console, he found what he was after and initiated the tractor beam. It fell onto the field of battle, across one of the warriors, lifting him bodily up into the ship.