The Challenger
This is the first of a set of stories exploring the fictional world of Quenaunor. The next story is here.
Riluk merely glanced at his troops. They all bore rifles, designed for reloading rapidly, and the springs in the rear of each cartridge glimmered in the sun. He knew they were ready for the battle that would come soon. He would allow the challenger to make the first move. The sun climbed higher, and still the challenger waited, just outside of range. He considered trying to sneak a few snipers closer in to start picking a few of them off, but dismissed the idea as pointless. They would have to advance eventually, and he held the hill. As the sun reached its peak and began to drop, a stir of movement came from the challenger’s camp, where the challenger’s soldiers sat, trying to stay in the scant shade their tents offered, but always keeping their weapon within easy reach.
The challenger had walked to the edge of the camp, a tiny figure at the bottom of the hill, and as he passed by, men stood and saluted. He waved them down, obviously telling them to stay in the shade and conserve their energy. He looked up, and Riluk’s eyes locked onto his face. Then the challenger did something that startled Riluk. He smiled. Facing a battle he had almost no hope of winning, he smiled, as if he knew something that Riluk didn’t. Riluk jerked, breaking eye contact. When he looked back, the challenger was moving among his troops again, saying a few words to each man. Riluk shook himself, telling himself the man’s smile had been nothing. He was a warlord, he reminded himself, ruler of an entire city. A measly challenger whose army didn’t even have a regular uniform posed no threat. His troops would break and run as soon as their companions began to fall around them.
The hours stretched on, and, as Riluk raised his hands to shield his eyes from the sun, the challenger’s camp suddenly stirred into motion. They formed up, small units coming together in tight bunches. He had to squint to see them, and realized that this was what the challenger had been waiting for. Now his troops could fight with the sun at their backs, making it harder for his own troops to see. It was a clever trick, but it would not be enough to save his opponent’s undisciplined and outnumbered troops. He shouted, and his own troops formed up in a defensive formation, using whatever scant cover the top of the hill provided. His uphill position meant his own troops would be able to fire a few meters before the challenger’s, a few meters that would allow his troops to fire and then drop to the ground, to reload, minimizing the amount of area they presented to the enemy. It was a method he had developed, and one that had won him the city he ruled. All armies used it now, but back then, it had given him the edge his army, which had resembled the one the challenger had now, needed.
The challenger’s troops began to advance, his small, tight-knit units weaving across the slope. He saw his soldiers bring their weapons up to their shoulders, aiming at the advancing opponents, who were almost within range. He saw a few of his more adventurous men fire, and yelled “Hold”. Then the troops, who had been advancing at a slow jog, broke into a run. However, they were not running up the hill, but rather to the side, some in one direction, some in the other, still moving towards his men, but at an angle. He saw his troops begin to move their rifles to follow the moving units, and then he saw it. Each group was moving away from the troops aiming at it, and towards troops aiming at other groups. Then, shots began to echo up from below, the twang and snap of a mythril spring, and his men began to fall. Not one of his troops was in range of the soldier he was aiming at, but almost all of them were in range of a different soldier. He yelled frantically, telling his men to get down. His opponent was obviously more intelligent than he’d previously thought, but he still had the advantage of the hill, and, although many of his men had fallen, he still had more than the challenger did. He yelled out another order, telling his men to choose their targets carefully and begin firing slowly. Several of the challenger’s troops fell. They hadn’t yet had a chance to reload, so he pressed the attack, ordering men to advance slowly down the hill. The challenger’s troops began to fall back, unable to reload under the heavy fire.
Suddenly, a shift in their structure. He gasped, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Every soldier the challenger had was charging up the hill, and not a single one had reloaded. And yet, every one was aiming, firing, and his troops were dying. His troops fell, and began to break, many dropping their weapons and surrendering to the advancing soldiers or fleeing. It took less then five minutes for the challenger’s small army to defeat the small remnants of his forces he was able to keep. The challenger walked up to him as he stood there, defeated by a rag-tag band of troops far smaller than his own. He had one question. “How?”
The challenger, or warlord as he now was, responded slowly. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen one of these,” he said, handing his rifle to Riluk. It looked similar to his own rifle, except for a cylinder around four times as wide as the barrel that rose from it just behind the trigger. The challenger tapped it. “That contains seven shots, and spins when you press the trigger. You don’t have to reload until it runs out of shots.”
Riluk looked at the weapon, looked at the new warlord, and saw himself, twenty years earlier. He laughed to himself, softly, and thought cheerfully that in about twenty years, someone else would be explaining their new strategies or weapons to this man. He was still laughing when the new warlord took his rifle back, stepped back a few steps, and shot him directly through the heart.
Notes: This story is intended to explore the world I’m building, or more specifically its early history, and as such the plot is not focused on as much. Although the story gives an account of a single battle, it is meant to be representative of many such battles, in which a small advance in technology or strategy is turned into a resounding victory against one of the warlords that ruled much of the area this story takes place in up to around five-hundred years before the major stories I want to write take place. This is why I only ever referred to the challenger as “the challenger” or “the new warlord”.
