Albert

  "Oh shit, here they come," shouted the gatekeeper, who was standing a few steps away from him on the palisade, excitedly.

  "Stay calm, wait until they're a little closer, until you throw or shoot," he reminded his men again, wondering what their opponents' plan was.

  All he saw was the Dragon's men bursting out of the nearby forest, yelling, and running towards their city gate and the surrounding palisade, waving their weapons wildly over their heads, while the people of Schlucht waited tensely and with bated breath for them to come within range.

  When the time finally came, no one could remember who fired the first shot, the first shot that would transform the almost palpable tension of Schlucht’s defenders into deadly action, the first shot that would unleash hell.

  What everyone would remember, however, was that it was an arrow that shot down from the palisade on its own and found its target in the eye of the fastest bandit.

  It was safe to assume that it was a random hit.

  Even the best hunters of Schlucht would hardly be able to shoot at the eyes of moving targets, not to mention that none of them would aim for the head in such a situation, but it happened.

  This lucky shot, if you could call it that, however, caused the man hit to suddenly fall backwards and lie motionless, which slowed the onslaught of the Dragon's men for a brief moment as they stared at the body of the dead bandit with faces that expressed everything from horror and confusion to disbelief, just like the residents of Schlucht outside whose gates blood was now probably being shed for the first time since anyone could remember.

  This was not the plan, he thought during the surprised silence on both sides, which felt as if it had lasted an eternity.

  But like most perceived eternity, this moment ended abruptly when an angry cry rose from the throats of the attackers and they continued their onslaught with renewed energy, making sure to hold their shields in front of them in some way, be it in front of their chest or their head.

  The cry and renewed onslaught of the dragon's men, however, also tore the defenders out of their state of shock, who now began to shoot at the bandits and throw all kinds of everyday objects at them.

  The Battle of Schlucht had begun.

  A part of Albert was aware that he was in the middle of a battle. At 60 years old, the next comparable situation he could think of was a few insignificant tavern brawls that he barely remembered.

  In other words, he had probably never been in a situation as dangerous as the one he was in right now, and yet he felt surprisingly composed.

  He was nervous and scared, no question about it, but in fact he had thought that as soon as the fight started, any ability to form coherent thoughts would immediately leave him, which strangely wasn't the case.

  From his position on the palisade, it seemed almost surreal how a horde of armed men and women just a bit below him charged towards them with murder in their eyes, some of them seemingly sporadically falling to lie motionless on the ground or writhing in pain when hit by an arrow or one of the improvised projectiles.

  He saw how some of those who had fallen and were still able to move tried to crawl away from the battlefield, some of them becoming tripping hazards for their fellow fighters.

  Others were actually helped up by one of the other bandits and a few were even taken back to the edge of the forest by them, but many were simply trampled to death; it didn't seem to follow any real logic, he thought.

  To his left and right he saw familiar faces, shooting bows and slingshots at the people below them, while those without such weapons threw everything they could down.

  He saw knives, hammers, plates, pots and chairs flying down and either missing their target, sending them to the ground or at least sending them tumbling back in a daze.

  Behind him the large crowd of the inhabitants of Schlucht went wild. Although they had found no more room on the palisade, they were constantly bringing new projectiles and handing them out to the waiting hands on the palisade.

  It looked to him as if the whole town had turned into one big ammunition depot.

  "If you have problems with their shields, then aim at their feet and legs, they can't protect their whole body with those things at once," he heard Ivar's voice booming from somewhere, which he had probably strengthened with magic again.

  Part of him was aware that Ivar would probably have a scratchy throat later because of this, before he realized that this was probably the least of his worries and that they should all be happy if there even was a later for them.

  He was suddenly torn from his thoughts back to reality when he heard a scream distorted with pain somewhere next to him.

  He jerked his head to the side and saw the gatekeeper standing upright on the palisade, a large stone in his hand and an arrow in his chest.

  To Albert it looked as if he was moving his lips, but he could not hear what he was saying amongst all the noise erupting around them, insofar as he was actually speaking, before he tipped forward and fell onto the charging bandits.

  He vaguely noticed how his body buried two bandits under him, but what concerned him more was where the arrow came from.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  While he was still searching the crowd below him for the person responsible, he heard someone on the palisade shouting the words "archers" and "cover" and he saw the defenders crouching around him, and he unconsciously joined them, now half crouching behind one of the treetops that made up their palisade.

  Despite their now crouched position, the inhabitants of Schlucht continued to shoot and throw as best they could, but they hit much less often now, as everyone was afraid of being hit by one of the arrows that were now sporadically shot at them every time they stood up.

  "Look out for the archers and shoot them first," he heard Ivar again over the noise, while he himself continued to look for the archers in question and finally found them.

  They were not standing at the back of the forest edge, as one would think. After all, even though the dragons men probably had better weapons than them on average, that doesnt mean that they knew how to really use them.

  They simply weren′t good enought to hit them from further back.

  Instead, some of them had simply stood in the crowd to take their shots while their comrades walked around them.

  "There! The archers are hiding in the crowd try to look out for them," he called, feeling a warm feeling in his throat again. Without really thinking about it, he had magically raised his voice again and thundered his words over the ongoing madness.

  What followed was a short and mostly one-sided exchange of fire.

  Albert himself could not handle bows and did not know whether it was more difficult to shoot downwards or upwards.

  What probably made more of a difference was the fact that the inhabitants of Schlucht could simply duck behind their palisade when in doubt, while the archers of the Dragon's men stood in the open field with their bows.

  I wonder how they were able to hit anything from that position in the chaos, it must have been a lucky shot. Well, no luck for our gatekeeper... damn, what was the guy's name again? he thought thoughtfully.

  While he feverishly tried to remember the gatekeeper's name, the bandits' archers fell one after the other, whereupon more of them dared to come out of cover and continue their fire.

  In the meantime, however, several bandits had already reached the palisade and began to smash the palisade and the gate with their axes.

  They were quickly struck down by arrows and other projectiles, but he saw how a cluster of several attackers had formed right at their gate, some of whom were forming a kind of roof with their shields to protect those who were beating on their gate like possessed.

  Although Albert couldn't check the gate directly, he didn't like the groaning noises of the wood he heard coming from there and again the warning from his book about what usually happened once the gates were breached flashed through his mind.

  "Barricade the gate, or er, block the way, push something in front of it, get your tables out of the houses and carry them in front of the gate quickly," Albert shouted in a loud voice, again using intrinsic magic, now even louder than before, which clearly drowned out the noise of the battle, which made both defenders and attackers pause for a moment to turn in his direction.

  However, this interruption did not last very long and the fight was quickly resumed, although he was also relieved to see that some of the people in front of the gate quickly ran into the surrounding houses and came back from there with all kinds of dining tables, chairs and cabinets and piled them up in front of the gate, quickly making it look as if they had erected another palisade there.

  Meanwhile, the defenders of Schlucht continued to shoot and throw at the ever-growing group of bandits who were hiding under their shields and continued to hit their gate and now also the surrounding palisade.

  In his book he had read about so-called shield walls and but was not sure if this could be called one yet, as the illustrations in the book looked a lot more orderly than the crowd that had formed under them.

  Shield wall or not, to his horror he had to realize that it worked.

  Arrows shot down at them, only to get stuck in their shields with a sound that reminded him of a dartboard.

  By now so many arrows had penetrated their shields that the Strange Half Shield Wall looked to him like a grotesque giant porcupine fiddling with their gate, and part of him wondered if such a creature actually existed somewhere.

  He finally made his way briskly to the part of the palisade that was directly above the monster porcupine, where the people around him were desperately shooting downwards.

  Even as all sorts of heavy pots and chairs crashed down on them, the bandits just groaned and grunted with effort as said objects bounced off their shields, tearing off the shot arrows, but none of it was able to scatter the porcupine.

  Suddenly Albert felt someone tap him on the shoulder and when he turned around, he saw Ivar standing in front of him.

  "We can't get through there," croaked Ivar, gesturing downwards.

  "We have to carry the cauldron to them before they break through, just help me with that," he continued, and Albert wondered for a moment what he wanted with a cauldron, after all they had already thrown all sorts of cauldrons and pots down before he realized what his friend meant.

  Together with Ivar he made his way to the large soup cauldron, which was a little further back on the stairs leading down. When he opened the lid, he immediately had to step back and turn his face to the side as a cloud of scalding hot steam rose towards him.

  "Just be careful when you carry it, if we get any of that stuff on us people will hear us screaming all the way to Emmertal," he said worriedly as he grabbed one of the side handles of the cauldron while Ivar took the other.

  "Okay, on three, one," Ivar began.

  “Two,” he continued.

  “Three,” they said together and carefully lifted the cauldron so that it barely hung above the ground and walked with it to the edge of the palisade, with everyone who saw them making way for them with pale faces.

  Slowly and with short steps, they carried the cauldron to the edge of the palisade, both of them keeping their eyes firmly fixed on the movements of the water in the cauldron, adjusting their pace if necessary.

  Convulsively ignoring the noise of battle around him, he stared transfixed at the slow circular movements of the steaming water.

  The only thing that was important at the moment was to get the cauldron in its place without spilling anything.

  As he struggled forward step by step with Ivar and the cauldron, part of him couldn't help but wonder why water of all things should be their secret weapon.

  He couldn't remember ever having seen anyone hurt by water in his life.

  Of course, he had heard all kinds of horror stories from sailors during his time in Aurum, but he had never paid much attention to them, since sailor's yarns were... well just sailor's yarns .

  Otherwise, he had basically only used water for drinking or washing his whole life.

  Even hot water was used for cooking, but in his experience a slightly burnt tongue was the worst that could happen, and yet they carried the cauldron as if it was some magical artifact for mass destruction.

  The situation was so bizarre that he wanted to laugh about it, but he was too afraid of spilling some of this hell water.

  He didn't even want to think about what this water could do to a person's skin.

  When they finally reached their destination and carefully started to tip the cauldron over the palisade, he suddenly realized that he was going to find out, for better or for worse.