Darek was just an average merchant trying to make a living. He had traveled to Avalon thinking that a besieged city would be a good place to sell his wares, which consisted of your everyday weapons and armor. It turned out to be a great place for business, but he hadn't counted on the condition of the siege.
In the Peasants' Bailey it was hell on earth. The peasants looked so sickly that Darek wondered if death by disease and starvation was more common than death in combat. The soldiers could hardly get a decent meal, and he didn't want to guess what the peasants had been eating.
Escape by the river running into Avalon was more dangerous than staying because the Ahoul had blockaded it. If he had realized things were this bleak, he'd never have come regardless of the money to be made. But here he was and there was no turning back now.
Fortunately, he'd managed to get into the outer bailey and set up shop there. He'd had lots of costumers so far which brightened his spirits but he'd also heard several bad rumors. Some said the Ahoul had almost breached the south gate. Some said that Avalon would fall within a matter of days. Darek realized that these rumors were the opinion of people who saw the conditions as worse than what they really were, but he also saw that things weren't looking very good.
"Should I move to a less risky place?" he thought "If the Ahoul make it into the south gate some of them might get into the outer bailey and I might be caught in the combat.
Darek knew absolutely nothing about physical fighting and he wasn't about to learn any time soon as far as he was concerned.
"I think I'd have to have no other alternative before I'd play the part of a soldier" he thought "And I hope the day never comes.
He'd decided to move to the inner bailey the next day before anything serious happened. Granted there was more competition there but at least it was safer.
"I guess I'll relocate and wait for the siege to end. He thought "At least I'll be safe for the time being instead of waiting for the Ahoul to break in here, God forbid they ever do.
Unfortunately that day came sooner than he thought. That night as most of Avalon was sleeping a party of Ahoul were preparing for an assault on the southern gate. They snuck as close to the bridge across the moat as they could without being detected then paused waiting on their commander, the Sha'man, to open the gate in his own particular style.
With a wave of his hands the Sha'man disappeared. The Ahoul with him heard soft footsteps heading to the bridge. Then about two hundred feet from the gate the footsteps paused. The Ahoul silently prepared their weapons. Suddenly on the bridge a fireball appeared. It grew to about three feet across then shot toward the gate. The fireball hit the gate. Suddenly all Avalon was awakened by a deafening explosion. The gate was practically incinerated. The Sha'man had done his main job.
The sentries on the wall had seen the Sha'man's fireball generate out of nowhere. They sounded the alarm. As the soldiers in the gate prepared to defend it the Ahoul in the village marched toward the gate to take it. The Ahoul reached the bridge then charged across a few of them falling before the arrows of the defenders. While some of the Ahoul stopped and returned fire the majority rushed through the gate. At first they found little resistance, but more and more soldiers came down and joined the fighting.
The Sha'man, who had come across the bridge and joined his comrades in the fight, managed to blast his way through the enemy lines. Then he destroyed the portcullis that blocked the way into the outer bailey, allowing about five dozen Ahoul to enter. Fortunately, enough troops had come from the outer keep into the outer bailey to defend it. Regardless, a few Ahoul managed to avoid fighting the soldiers and went to find civilians to kill.
Darek had been awakened by the explosion and had watched the Ahoul storm into the outer bailey. An Ahoul warrior had spotted him and was coming toward him. Darek ducked inside his tent and thought about what to do.
'I'll have to fight him,' he thought.
But his fear yelled at him, 'You said you wouldn't fight unless you had no alternative'
'Aside from dying I pretty much don't have another alternative,' he thought.
'But you don't know anything about fighting!' his fear said.
'Now is a very good time to learn,' he thought.
Darek managed to overcome his fear. He looked around his tent at his equipment and quickly grabbed a wooden tower shield. As he reached for a longsword, the Ahoul warrior came in carrying a flail.
The Ahoul saw the sword in Darek's hand and swung his flail at it. Darek jerked his hand upward just in time to save his hand from being crushed. The blow still managed to knock the sword out of his hand and send it clattering to the floor behind him. Darek barely raised his tower shield in time to block the Ahoul's second blow. The flail lodged in his shield as Darek hit the floor.
The Ahoul tried to pull the flail out of the shield, but after trying it he found that the task was harder than he thought. Darek felt the tugging on the shield. He quickly thought of what to do. He reached back for his sword, grabbed it, and jumped to his feet. The Ahoul saw that, with its flail stuck in Darek's shield, he was helpless. He gave it one last determined tug and it broke lose. Darek used the momentum gained from that pull to launch himself forward and stab the Ahoul right in the heart. He pulled his sword out and the Ahoul dropped to the ground.
Darek had never really killed another humanoid creature before. He stood there for a moment reasonably shocked and thinking.
'I've just killed an Ahoul,' he thought. 'What now, am I a murderer'
'No,' he thought. 'After all it was in self-defense'
'What now?' he wondered.
Darek heard the screams of civilians as they ran from the Ahoul the less fortunate getting cut down.
'I suppose I should go help everybody,' he figured.
'Are you kidding?' his fear yelled at him. 'Go risk death when you can stay relatively safe in here?'
'And let innocent civilians die when I can at least try to intervene?' he thought. 'Is that what you want me to do?'
With that, he grabbed a new tower shield and ran out of the tent to help turn back the invaders. He emerged from his tent and looked around. More Ahoul had managed to break in and were fighting the soldiers and chasing the civilians. Darek saw a woman running from an Ahoul scout. He crouched behind a nearby cart and waited. The woman came running past the cart with the Ahoul close behind. Darek stuck out his sword just in time to trip the Ahoul. He quickly brought his sword down, burying it between the scout's shoulder blades.
Darek quickly took his sword out and looked for another enemy to fight. He spied an old man trying to fend of an Ahoul. The old man was losing badly. Darek saw that the Ahoul he just killed had a dagger in his hand. Darek pried the hand of the dead Ahoul open and grabbed the dagger. He turned to see the Ahoul aiming a death blow at the now defenseless man. Darek new he had to act fast. He threw the dagger at the Ahoul. It lodged in the back of the Ahoul's neck. The old man he had just saved nodded his thanks to Darek and rushed to the outer keep.
Darek heard screams behind him and turned around to see more people fleeing from an Ahoul warrior. Darek rushed forward. Just before reaching the Ahoul, he jumped forward and brought his sword down in a slicing arc. The Ahoul barely managed to move his shield in between him and Darek's blow. The sword bounced off the shield. The Ahoul raised it's own sword to slice Darek into pieces. Darek blocked the blow and aimed a counter-strike. As the Ahoul dodged his sideways slash, Darek realized that this would be a hard battle.
The Ahoul stepped forward and brought another blow down towards Darek. Darek stopped the Ahoul's slash with his own sword, then threw the Ahoul's sword back. He quickly slashed and turned sideways at the same time. His sword caught the side of the Ahoul's blade, throwing the Ahoul's sword arm to the side. The edge of Darek's shield caught the Ahoul's hand. Darek slashed and turned the other way. His shield came between the Ahoul and it's shield, catching the Ahoul's shield and throwing it out of the its hand. Darek's sword ripped across the Ahoul's chest, slicing through its armor and leaving an ugly gash in the Ahoul's chest. Darek then delivered a downward slash, wounding the Ahoul again and knocking it flat on its back. Darek raised his sword again and stabbed downwards, finishing the Ahoul.
Darek looked around for more Ahoul, but the fighting in the outer bailey was done and the soldiers were running towards the south gate. The south gate was where the last of the resistance was being defeated. Darek rushed towards it. On the way he noticed that his fear didn't put up any resistance. He figured he'd probably overcome it completely by now.
Darek reached the south gate. The fighting in the gate was still rather fierce. Darek joined in slashing, parrying, and stabbing. He made to the doorway of the armory. He was attacked by a huge Ahoul warrior who drove him back into the armory with his constant swinging at Darek with his warhammer. Darek finally managed to decapitate him and then ran back to the doorway. Before he managed to rejoin the battle, there was a shout of victory and the defenders of Avalon chased the Ahoul out of the south gate, across the bridge, and into the village.
Darek didn't bother to join in the chase. He figured his part in the battle was done, but he was wrong. As Darek was standing there resting he noticed a glimmer coming from the finger of the Ahoul he had just beaten. He stooped to examine it and it turned out to be a ruby ring. Darek noticed that the ruby seemed to glow with a fiery red light. On a hunch Darek slipped the ring on and then hovered his hand over a torch, not close enough to burn him but enough for him to feel the heat. As he expected the heat was considerably less than what it should be.
"It must be a ring of fire resistance," he thought. "Cool!"
Suddenly, he heard a noise behind him and was on his feet and ready in a moment. What he saw was another Ahoul but one that seemed a bit different. It looked a lot more human and instead of warrior's armor he wore a robe and other more casual clothing. Darek noticed that the Ahoul wasn't armed.
"I might as well take him prisoner," Darek thought.
Darek begin to move toward the Ahoul carefully ready to avoid any attack it might launch at him. Suddenly, with a wave of his hands, the Ahoul sent a fireball shooting straight for Darek. Darek dodged aside in the nick of time. The fireball smashed into the wall behind him. Darek wasn't sure what to do. He'd hardly ever seen magic before and he didn't know how he should attack a mage.
He new he couldn't count on help coming any time soon because everyone except the wounded had chased after the Ahoul and the wounded were in no condition to fight. Darek wasn't about to run because if he did, the Ahoul might kill the wounded, wreak havoc in the outer bailey, or escape into the village ruins.
Darek decided to rush the Ahoul. He ran forward as fast as he could, occasionally leaping out of the way of a fireball. As he got closer it became harder to dodge the Ahoul's magic. Just as he was about to bring down a blow, the Ahoul cast another fireball. Darek barely managed to bring his shield in front of the fireball before it hit.
Darek was sent flying backwards. The fireball shattered his shield, and as he went flying he lost his grip on his sword. But due to his ring of fire resistance he wasn't badly burned. Darek picked himself up of the ground and ducked another fireball that hit the weapon rack behind him. Darek searched franticly for a weapon while dodging more fireballs but the racks had been pretty much emptied by the defenders.
Just as he thought he was doomed, he noticed something on the floor. It was a dagger that was knocked out of the weapons rack by the fireball. It had been caught in enough of the heat so that it was glowing orange. Darek picked it up, and due to his ring of fire resistance, it only felt warm to him.
Darek suddenly had an idea. He ran to a small room nearby, dodging magic as he went and keeping the knife out of site. When in the room he ran to the side farthest from the door. The Ahoul rushed in after him not expecting that it's prey would be armed. Darek waited until he was through the doorway and facing towards him. Then with all the strength and accuracy he could muster, Darek threw the hot knife right at the mage. The knife lodged in the Ahoul's forehead and the Ahoul sank to the ground without making a sound.
Darek let out a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. Suddenly, he heard something running towards the room he was in. Darek readied himself for another battle but was relieved when a soldier of Avalon rushed in to see what was up.
"Are you alright?" he asked, looking from the dead Ahoul to the exhausted Darek.
"I'm fine," Darek replied. "Just spent, that's all. How did you know I was in here?"
"I'd just given up the chase and was coming back to the gate when I heard some explosions," the soldier said. "As I ran here to find out what was going on, I heard that the explosions were coming from the armory, and when I came in there I saw the dead Ahoul in the doorway."
The soldier looked at the Ahoul and then back at Darek.
"Are you sure you're alright?" he asked.
"Quite," Darek answered. "Why do you ask"
"Because if I'm not mistaken that's a Sha'man, one of the most powerful kinds of Ahoul who specialize in magic"
"Now that you mention it, this Ahoul did rely on magic"
"If it is a Sha'man, then you've accomplished a great feat!" the soldier said "Killing one of our strongest foes with no armor and a simple dagger"
"While, if you have time, I'll fill you in on what happened," Darek responded.
It turned out that the soldier did have time and Darek told him the whole story. After some other soldiers examined the place where Darek had fought the Ahoul and some of the civilians confirmed Darek saving them, the King recognized Darek's amazing deeds and rewarded him with a thousand crowns (the currency in Avalon). Darek also looted some of the bodies of the Ahoul and picked up some valuable items, the best of which he saved for himself in case of another attack. He also joined the defenders of Avalon and became rather famous for his deeds.
Eventually, the siege of Avalon was lifted and the Ahoul defeated. Darek lived a happy life after the war.
He also learned that between the pay and the loot, and despite the awfulness of it, being a soldier in war it can be quite profitable.
The End
Hi, this is the writer. I'd like it if you would read and review. Give me some feedback on how you enjoyed this. I might write more fanfic later, though I'm not quite sure.