Chapter 4: Preparations

Turning his back to the man, Mordred spread his arms out and said to the villagers," My friends! A great evil approaches. An evil whose bloody hunger can never be satisfied, whose greed has no bounds, whose brutality is unmatched in all of Alagaesia! And it will kill us all! That is, unless we try to stop it."

He stopped to stare at the villagers, and then continued," A great host of Urgals is heading in our direction. They will be here before sundown tomorrow, so we must prepare our defences if we are to survive. Ditches must be dug, shields made, weapons handed out!"

Looking at Vrael, he said," But we cannot do it alone. People of Yazuac! If you care for your homes, your wives, your children…then help us. With your help, we can drive these creatures out of our land for good and create a land of peace for ourselves where we need not be threatened by these beasts." He stopped and gazed at the many villagers surrounding him, his grey eyes fiery. "People of Yazuac," He said, more softly.

"Without your help, we will not survive." He said lowering his voice at the final sentence.

A tumult of cheers arose from the crowd as the many villagers shouted their agreement. Vrael was impressed at how the old man caught the entire village with his speech and managed to encourage the villagers to work together on the defences, for it seemed that the whole village was now willing to fight off the Urgals.

Clasping Mordred on the shoulder he said," That was quite some speech." With a small smile, Mordred replied," I try my best."

Gazing at the villagers gathered, Mordred asked Vrael,"How many villagers are in the town? My memory fails me."

After a few seconds of deep-thought, Vrael replied, "one-thousand at the least, sir, but that includes women, children, and those too old to fight. In total, the number of fighting men we have would be around seven-hundred strong."

"Very well." said Mordred. "That will do. All except the elderly can prepare the cities defences."

Raising his hands in the air, he quieted the villagers and told them how the village was to be defended.

"A ditch would be dug inside and outside of the walls, atleast three-feet deep and would stretch all around the town. The inner ditch would be similar, stretching all around the town, except for the stairs leading into the walls. This would provide a 'double defence' for the village, slowing down the Uragals and allowing the archers to pick them off." He said.

For this task, Mordred recruited five hundred villager, with two-hundred-fifty working on each ditch.

As he was about to start on the next defence, a commotion arose at the far end of a crowd. After several minutes, three men dressed in robes pushed their way to the front, huffing and puffing along the way. The man in the middle--a middle aged man with a bald head—exclaimed," Mordred! Who gave you the right to stir up trouble in our village! Because of your pretty little speech, the entire village is leaving their duties to join your silly 'game'."

Eyeing the bald man in the face, Mordred spoke to the smaller man with anger in his voice, "It's not a game Esbereth. Did you not hear anything that I've just said? An Urgal host is approaching to attack our town! Do you expect us to sit idly while these creatures take our lands and slaughter our familes?"

The man flinched at his words, then said, "And what if this 'host' does not arrive, eh Mordred?" as he spoke, spit flew from his mouth."What will you have accomplished then?" he continued acidly."If these Urgals do not arrive as you have said, than you would have desecrated our town and forced its people to work for nothing!"

Mordred's reply came slow and threatening. Lowering his voice he said, "What if they do come Esbereth? What if they come and we're not prepared? What will you do then? Would you rather have our families slain than to tell them to do a couple hours of work? And if the Urgals do come when we are unprepared, we will not be able to escape, for they will surely catch us. Nor can we attempt to slow them down as we have not the weapons and armour to do so! Whether they come or not, we still need to be prepared!"

After a brief silence, Mordred did nothing but stare at Esbereth. Then softly he said, "I have but one question to ask. Will you and your companions join us? With a few more magicians at our side we will accomplish things much faster.

After a long silence in which no one talked or moved, the bald man finally spoke. "We will."

Smiling, Mordred said, "I knew you would."

Mordred then turned again to the villagers, and said, "For our next line of defence," he started.
Looking at Vrael, he continued, "For our next line of defence…Vrael will tell you."

Vrael looked at him, mouth agape.
'I can't believe he just did that!' he screamed in his head.

Turning to Mordred he whispered, "Why did you do that? How am I supposed to know what our next line of defence is?"

"My mind is old and I had run out of ideas. Whereas yours is young and is filled with ideas." Mordred said, grinning. Standing behind him, he winked, "I'm sure you'll think of something."

Taking a deep breath he turned towards the villagers, all the while thinking of any idea that could get him out of this predicament and help defend the village. He scanned his mind for an idea, recalling several stories that he had heard. One such story came to him, where a town, under attack by invaders, used wooden stakes placed at an angle to slow the invaders advance.

Taking this idea, he retold the story to the villagers and afterwards, had half of them cut trees from nearby forests and roll them into the town where they would be sharpened and placed outside of the walls.

The remainder of the villagers were to help make weapons and armour. Due to the number of people helping, the tasks were completed fairly fast though the ditch-making took extra long and progress was slow, as the ground was dray and hardened. However, with the combined efforts of the spell casters, this too was completed in due time, and by midday the defences were complete and the arms made.

Now the arduously long task of waiting had come, for the Urgals were set to arrive by dawn and it was still midday. To pass the time, Vrael and several other warriors went over to the training field to spar in preparation for the battle, and as always, Vrael and Halmar were battle partners and—as always—Vrael was once again the victor.

The sun had just begun to set when a watchman shouted, "The Urgals are here! The Urgals are here!"

The men immediately stopped fighting and ran up to the walls. In the distance, they could see a thin line of Urgals marching towards them.

Mordred then ran up to Vrael and said, "Vrael, I am putting you in charge of this portion of the wall."

"Me? Why?" he asked, shocked.

"I have seen you fight. You will make for an excellent battle commander." Replied Mordred, and with that, left to stand at the other portion of the wall.

Vrael was both pleased and afraid at the new. He did not know how to lead any group of warriors, especially those who were older than him. From the other side of the wall, Mordred gave him a reassuring look.

From around him, Vrael could sense the tension in the men. He knew that many were afraid, and for some, this was their first time wielding a weapon.

Most of the villagers stationed on the walls carried bows, along with swords and wooden shields that the carried beside them. Vrael was glad to see the wooden shields for he knew that it was his father who made them, or coordinated their making.

Vrael himself did not carry a shield for his claymore was meant to be used with both hands. Among the scattered villagers, he noticed some of them wore chain-mail as proof of their earlier fights. He could tell that these men at least knew how to wield a sword and would do anything to protect their families. Because of this, he was glad to have them by his side.

Looking behind him, he saw that the village was deserted, for the woman and children were already sent to the chapel. As the Urgals drew closer, he tensed. There seemed more than two-hundred of them! From his elevated view, he could guess that about five-hundred Urgals were now marching towards them.

The other men seemed to notice this at well and began to look at each other with worried looks. Even Mordred seemed upset.

Walking to the men, he tried to comfort them by assuring them that their families would be safe and everything would be alright. As long as the defences held, they still had a good chance of prevailing.

The next chapter is going to be exciting! Also, there will be a little surprise for the villagers…
Try and guess what it is!