In the few hours since the militia had formed, a circular ditch had been dug through the crops around Dreker’s farmhouse and then filled with sharp wooden stakes. Godsbeard grew in tall leafy stalks, so the ditch would be well hidden until the beastmen were right on top of it. They hoped most would fall in to be killed or maimed before they could reach the farm. It depended on how stupid they turned out to be.
Yevin was up on the roof of the barn keeping watch. Uthen was sharpening pitchforks and spades into makeshift weapons. A dozen of Dreker’s neighbors had come to help defend the farm from the beastmen, but there would be no help from Candlewich.
The city guard captain Dreker had talked to had refused to believe that beastmen were raiding farms. They lived deep in the jungle, he said, and there they had stayed for as long as anyone could remember. It didn’t seem to matter that Dreker had seen them with his own eyes, feasting on the wreckage of Harlin’s farm up the road. City people always found it easy to dismiss the country folk.
Dreker heard Yevin’s bird call, the signal that he had spotted something on the road. The farmers each ceased their preparations, picked up spears or tools, and gathered together with Dreker on the rise where the farmhouse was built. It gave them a commanding view of the edges of the farm and the hills around it.
Dreker’s daughter Mabby was waiting on the trail with their oldest and slowest cow on a short lead. The other cows were safely penned up within the ditch. Mabby’s task was to make sure the beastmen came to the ditch with speed. Dreker could see her look up to Yevin on the rooftop, where the boy was pointing straight up the road. They weren’t clever enough to approach from a hillside or from the brush, they just marched right up the easiest path. This might actually work.
After watching for long minutes, Dreker finally saw them come into view where the road wound around the nearest hillside. The lead beastman was the one wearing Harlin’s wide-brimmed black hat. It carried the same torch Dreker and his boys had seen it playing with the day before, but it was long extinguished. Most of the other beastmen carried weapons of some sort, crude clubs or farm implements. One particularly huge beastman carried a large wagon wheel, holding it on its arm like a shield.
Mabby was to yell out when she saw the beastmen, then run to the edge of the crops where she would abandon the cow. But she stood on the path, watching the beastmen come closer. Dreker worried she had froze up in fear, but then Mabby looked back to the farmhouse, right at her father, and spat on the road to show her nerve. She looked back at the beastmen.
The lead creature finally spotted her, lifted its dead torch in the air and bellowed. The others, nearly twenty by Dreker’s count, answered, and began running. Dreker watched in horror. She’d waited too long, they’d be on her in seconds.
Mabby turned her head to one side of the road. “Oh no!” she cried, then turned to the other side of the road. “Oh, help! Terrible monsters!” Then she turned and finally began jogging back toward the farm with feigned daintiness, dragging the cow by its lead. She looked over her shoulder and released the rope as she hit the crops, then sprinted to the ditch.
The beastmen reached the cow and dragged it bellowing to the ground. Several stopped to rip into its hide and feast on the raw meat, but most of them chased Mabby into the crops, growling and yipping as they ran.
Mabby reached the ditch and nimbly ran across the plank placed there. She dragged the plank across after her and ran up the hill to the farmhouse, panting for breath but grinning as she reached Dreker’s side.
“I did good, Pa?” she asked.
“You waited too long you foolish girl,” Dreker grumbled. But he mussed her hair and said “You did good, Mab. Now stay inside and keep watch.”
The beastmen were coming to the ditch. The first one ran recklessly and fell in, then screeched and writhed on the stakes fixed through its body. The hatted beastman stopped short at the ditch, looking down at it carefully. Dreker could see it was about to jump across.
“That’s gonna be all that fall for the ditch,” Dreker yelled to his militia. “We’ll hit them as they jump over!” He led the farmers down the rise to form a line in front of the ditch.
Disaster struck quickly. Dreker was the first to get down to the inner edge of the ditch, and the hatted beastman was waiting for him. Dreker charged at it with a strong thrust of his pitchfork, catching the monster in the stomach with three prongs. The beast howled, then knocked Dreker on the head with its dead torch. As he fell backward the farmer shoved on the pitchfork and sent the beastman tumbling back into the ditch.
Dizzily looking around, Dreker saw the militia already being beaten by the beastmen. With fresh blood on his face, he managed to get to his feet and stagger back up to the farmhouse to survey the battle. For every beastman held at bay, two more were rampaging about his farm. He shaded his eyes to look to the barn roof, where Yevin was lying flat to escape the notice of any of the creatures. As he looked about for Uthen, something hard and heavy made a crunching sound as it slammed into Dreker’s chest. He found himself staring at the sky, struggling for breath.
The huge beastman stood over him, then bent down to pick up the wagon wheel that had just broke the farmer’s ribs. The creature hefted it up high over its head. Dreker laid his head back and looked toward the farmhouse. He saw Mabby pulling Uthen by the hand as they slipped out into the crops, away from the fight.
Things had not gone according to plan. The fight was lost. The farming community in these hills would be wiped out. At least this would get the attention of the city guard in Candlewich.
Dreker heard the beastman snarl as it brought the great wheel down on his head.