genshou said:
I don't think people are digging that far underground. It's probably through your sig. But as long as people don't start anything that would get the thread closed, it's nice to have it stay alive.
True. There was a time shortly after I started it when it got closed (and reopened due to a few people mailing the moderators, which pleasantly surprised me), and I'd rather it not happen again.
I like to say that moderation gives monks something to think about besides
sects.
Ouch
!
Anyway, since the thread keeps getting raised, and I am relatively freer for a few days, I thought I'd revisit Cedric a bit. So I wrote a little something, picking up where I left him (in the fiction, not in my campaign), helping his friend Orion defend a castle against an invading horde. Enjoy!
The Siege
Sir Orion wiped away the sweat from his brow, as well as the blood leaking from beneath the bandage hastily applied to the spot where an eager bugbear had almost given him a tonsure. Turning to his companion, he asked, “So, how does it look to you?”
Cedric stood back from where he had been leaning over the battlements and turned a grimy, bloody face to Orion. He grinned and said, “Me? It looks like we’re
ed.”
Orion shook his head. Something was slightly different about Cedric, but he couldn’t place it, and it had been bothering him all day. But nobody else seemed to notice anything and there wasn’t time for worrying about it anyway. “Stop joking. What do you mean?”
Cedric’s grin broadened. “All right, Mr. Happy Commander. It looks to me like we’re in worse trouble than I’d feared.” He lifted his sword and pointed at the enemy horde less than a bowshot from the walls, as the desultory flights of arrows flying to and from their ranks evidenced. “I hadn’t figured that Kurgash was actually sending quite so many troops.”
“Nevertheless,” said Orion, nodding at the dead goblinoids and ogres littering the space between the walls and the horde, some piled in heaps against the battlements, “We’ve inflicted some heavy losses. The men have stood to their task well.” He pointed at a couple of spots where blackened corpses lay in wide spirals around a central hole in the ground. “Your mines were brilliant.”
“Not brilliant enough, Orion. If they lose five to our one they’re still coming out ahead, and though we’ve done better than that so far, it’s not going to last when the breach occurs.”
“Are you sure that’s inevitable? The walls have stood so far.”
“They’d stand a lot longer if it wasn’t for those bloody rams. I should have considered that bastard Grond might throw in with Kurgash and start providing him with siege engines.”
“You can’t think of everything, Cedric.” Orion smiled, despite himself. “After all, you’re not perfect.”
Cedric chuckled, looked upwards theatrically and spread his arms. “See? I tell you that all the time, but do you listen? Nooooo!” Then he looked back at Orion and said, “Anyway, let’s get down there. The western corner is weak and I’ll bet they know it too. That’s where they’ll hit hardest next time, and I doubt it’ll stand another assault. Time to get Gahon and his shiny friends there and let them show what they can do when it gives.”
A peal of war-drums marked the end of his speech, followed immediately by the thunder of hundreds of marching feet. “Looks like next time is here,” said Orion grimly, as he grabbed up his helm and headed for the stairs.
“Ah well,” called back Cedric, already a few steps ahead of him, “Time to do our best anvil impersonations.”
As he looked back at Orion, the latter stopped dead for a moment. As Orion gathered himself and hurried on, though his ears told him of the advance of the horde, his mind was focused elsewhere. He’d realized what was different about his friend. Though his smile and words were the same, since the morning Cedric’s eyes had been cold, gray and humorless, the eyes of someone who had only one aim and expectation - to kill and be killed. Orion shivered slightly as he followed his friend down to the battle.
***
“Thank you, mas...,” gasped Horstein, before a flood of blood choked his last words. Cedric quickly, but gently, lowered the old soldier's corpse to the ground and then leaped to his feet, sword lashing out even as he rose to disembowel a charging hobgoblin.
“Hold them!” Cedric shouted, as he strode into the melee, “Do not let them pass!” Another goblinoid locked blades with him, snarling into his face, before Cedric's swiftly rising boot took it in the crotch and turned the snarl into a whimper that was cut off by his descending blade.
All around Cedric, soldiers were struggling to hold back the tide of foemen pouring through the breach. Though the limited space and the fact that the humans had marginally upper ground was helping them hold their own, the sheer weight of numbers was likely to soon prove decisive.
“Cedric!”
Cedric paused to throw a quick glance back, to see Orion standing beside the contingent of mounted knights waiting impatiently. Sir Gahon was at their head, heron banner flapping beside him, a look of combined excitement, pride and eager anticipation on his face.
“Now!” yelled Orion.
Cedric spun around to cut down another foeman and then yelled in his turn, waving his arms to make sure everyone heard. “Back! Back and to the sides!”
The relieved men broke from the melee as best they could, swinging wildly as they did to force their momentarily surprised foes back. The goblinoids and ogres paused for a moment in bewilderment as their enemies fell back and away, and then raised bloodthirsty howls of triumph as they came surging into and through the breach.
And right into the spears of the knights as they came hurtling down with all of their momentum. Lances split hobgoblin skulls and ogre chests, while the bulk of the heavy horses knocked others down beneath the trampling hooves. Screams of fear and anger replaced the momentary shouts of triumph as the column of knights slammed through those who had entered the breach and into those clambering up the small slope to it. Surprised and not expecting to reach the foemen yet, many of these latter troops were cut down before they could raise a weapon.
Meanwhile, Cedric and his men had leaped back into the melee, joined by other soldiers, to dispatch those that had survived the charge. After a couple minutes of bloody extermination, Cedric looked up at Orion’s anguished shout of “No, NO! Come back, you fools!”
Rushing to the breach, Cedric looked down at a scene of complete carnage. Caught at a disadvantage, the troops immediately beyond the breach had been mowed down by the cavalry. Though not without loss, as the corpses of horse and rider attested. Nevertheless, the tactic had worked even better than hoped for, with a large space cleared before the wall and the large force that had concentrated on the breach scattered and fleeing back to the body of the horde. Even better, the three rams lay unattended nearby, left behind in flight.
But what wasn’t nearby was Gahon's force. They were halfway across the field, slaying as they went.
“Damn you, Gahon!” yelled Orion fruitlessly, almost crying in frustration. Turning to the second, smaller group of reserve horsemen, he quickly began, “Thalin! Take your troop after Ga...”, when he was cut off by Cedric. “No! You can’t send them after Gahon.”
“But they’ll be killed!”
“They’re already dead. Look!”
Orion turned to see Gahon's troop, still inflicting heavy losses, but now seeming diminished and much closer to the horde, the bulk of which was racing forward to swallow them. And on their flank, not engaging but rushing past so as to cut off a retreat, was a flying column of small figures on loping mounts.
“Worg-riders,” said Cedric. “They’ll never make it back, and anyone who goes to them is dead.”
“But we have to try! We can’t just leave them and watch them die!”
“We have to,” said Cedric calmly, but with finality. Looking up at Thalin he added, “I’m sending troops out to destroy the rams. If anyone approaches, ride them down. And return immediately.”
Thalin looked at Orion. “Commander?”
Orion swallowed and then nodded, “Yes. Yes, do as Cedric says.”
As Cedric spun away and began yelling orders, and Thalin and his troop moved forward, Orion headed towards a set of stairs near the breach, leading up to the battlements. Climbing up there, he joined the archers and other soldiers, standing in horrified fascination and looking down at the scene outside.
To Orion’s momentary surprise, Gahon’s riders were actually at a standstill. They’d cut down the foes immediately surrounding them and had evidently realized their predicament. The body of the horde was almost upon them, and two wings of light infantry had rushed out to flank them. Even if they could have fought past those, the wolf-riders were now in their rear, moving in to close the trap.
Orion saw tiny heads swing back and forth and thanked his stars that he couldn’t see their expressions. And then the riders began to move again. Instead of making a futile attempt to flee, they were heading into the main horde. There were gasps and cries from all around Orion, as the gleaming column crashed into the dark tide seeking to envelop it. As it did so, the infantry wings closed behind it.
The riders drove forward, cutting deeper and deeper as their numbers dwindled. Finally, there was only a tiny remnant, with nothing more than an eddy and a ripple in the ranks of their enemies to mark their presence, until gradually that too faded away. By then, however, neither Orion nor the people around him could bear to look any longer.
But as Orion headed slowly down the stairs, he saw Cedric standing silently in the breach, gazing expressionlessly out at the field where the riders were dying. As Orion neared him, Cedric turned to his friend. His face might as well have been carved out of stone, with neither sorrow nor pity nor any human emotion marking it.
In a voice that matched the face, Cedric said, “There’s a very thin line dividing heroism and idiocy.”
I should know.
