In End Game by American science-fiction writer Joe Haldeman, we witness the intergalactic war between humans and the Tauran species. The humans benefit from a special power field which makes all advance weapons obsolete. In this field, both sides revert to medieval weaponry, such as swords, spears, darts and, of course, bows and arrows. The story was first published in 1974 as a serial in Analog Magazine and, later on the same year, as a novel with the title The Forever War.
“With elaborate gestures, I managed to get everybody collected in the centre of the field, under the fighter’s tail, where the weapons were racked.
There were plenty of weapons, since we had been prepared to outfit three times the number of people. After giving each person a shield and short-sword, I traced a question in the snow: GOOD ARCHERS? RAISE HANDS. I got five volunteers, then picked out three more so that all the bows would be in use. Twenty arrows per bow. They were the most effective long-range weapon we had; the arrows were almost invisible in their slow flight, heavily weighted and tipped with a deadly sliver of diamond-hard crystal.
I arranged the archers in a circle around the fighter (its landing fins would give them partial protection from missiles coming in from behind) and between each pair of archers put four other people: two spear-throwers, one quarterstaff, and a person armed with battleaxe and a dozen chakram throwing knives. This arrangement would theoretically take care of the enemy at any range from the edge of the field to hand-to-hand combat. […]
I set the shield up in front of me—it had little extensions on the bottom to keep it upright—and with the first arrow I shot, I knew we had a chance. It struck one of them in the centre of his shield, went straight through and penetrated his suit.
It was a one-sided massacre. The darts weren’t very effective without the element of surprise—but when one came sailing over my head from behind, it did give me a crawly feeling between the shoulderblades.
With twenty arrows I got twenty Taurans. They closed ranks every time one dropped; you didn’t even have to aim. After running out of arrows, I tried throwing their darts back at them. But their light shields were quite adequate against the small missiles.
We’d killed more than half of them with arrows and spears, long before they got into range of the hand-to-hand weapons. I drew my sword and waited. They still out-numbered us by better than three to one. […]
We moved from body to body, pulling out arrows and spears, then took up places around the fighter again. Nobody bothered to retrieve the quarterstaffs.”
If you liked this frangment, consider buying The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
