The battle had raged on long and hard with the first wave of grunts, but the next wave would be harder still, for we could see ogres wandering through the grunts ranks now. Most of our camp was asleep and defenseless. Men had been sent to arouse more men but they were so far away that if we collapsed under the Orcish pressure, then the whole army would be destroyed. Success here tonight depended totally on us.
Our lines had grown dangerously thin. All of the footmen were here, but they were spread out across the whole northern section of the camp. Bryz had a good deal of knights here too, but they were busy fighting the fires started by the now dead goblins. Our main force that was awaiting the onslaught consisted of my archers.
'We will be lucky if they stay out there long enough for us to finish our wall of dead grunts,' I said.
'I hear that one,' replied Bryz.
The first battle had been a disaster for the Orcs, even though we took heavy losses. Their failure to destroy us the first time had gained us a small advantage. The battleground was strewn with dead bodies and unoccupied weapons. The order was given a short while ago to pile the bodies up in a makeshift wall and the weapons were to be stuck in the ground pointing north to slow down the enemy.
'Look at that! They are getting ready to attack!'
'Are the walls ready yet Bryz?!'
'Not quite, Roark... Shall I send a diversion to hold them off for a while?'
'You mean some of the dwarfs that are awake?'
'No, I mean ALL of the dwarfs that are awake.'
'By all means, send them, old chap, but hurry,' I said impatiently.
Bryz rode off at full speed to brief the dwarfs and I ran off to where the wall was being xonstructed. As I scoured the dark battleground with my keen elven infravision, I saw several squads of small dwarfs scurry towards the enemy on their small legs with their explosives. Off to their doom, they were, but they didn’t care as long as they died in honor for their homeland Khaz Modan, hoping to take a few of the enemy with them.
And take a few of them they did, as the seemingly far off explosives went off in a dim blaze. Bryz rode up from behind, returning from his deed.
'It is done.'
'So I saw.'
'What do we do now?'
'We wait Bryz, we wait...'
The wall was completed finally, and most of the men had sat down to have an early breakfast. Fire started by the goblins died down and campfires sprang up and took their places. The line was reinforced and things were looking brighter for us as more men came up.
I look long and hard at the enemies location to see if they were in confusion from the explosives. It didn’t occur to me that they weren’t there until I realized I was looking at some trees.
'Attack! We are under attack! To the walls archers,' I shouted, half panicked.
Panic struck all men, hardened or not, that were awake and aware that there was a battle. The archers rushed to the make-shift walls and steadied their arrows so they were ready to shoot out north over the plain.
'Where are they?' asked an archer.
'I don't kno...'I started as a shriek of pain from the right cut me off. I jerked my head in the direction of the cry.
'It's a trap!' someone shouted.
'Hold your ground,' I shouted.
A grunt’s head popped up in front of me. I jumped back in surprise, but soon recovered and punched him in his jaw. The grunt squealed and dropped back down to his side of the wall.
'Aim over the wall and lose those arrows!' I yelled at my archers as I realized where the Orcs were.
The arrows were loosed and the battle commenced. Several of my archers were pulled head first over the wall, and what happened to them after that is beyond my imagination.
'Footmen! We need the footmen! NOW!'
A messenger ran up from behind in the fray.
'Sir, the eastern flank is under heavy attack! If reinforcement don’t get there soon, we will all be destroyed!'
He started to run off towards shelter but ended up holding his chest as he pummeled down with an axe in his chest.
'We've go Axethrowers!' someone yelled.
'You! Shut up and come here,' I yelled.
The ranger and his archers ran over, arrows ready and awaiting orders.
'Sire?'
'Come with me, this situation here will be under control soon enough, but the eastern part needs us immediately! Come on!' I urged.
We ran for a time that seemed like a lifetime. on the way I spotted Bryz. He and a group of his knights were slaughtering some ogre magi's.
'Bryz,' I yelled, 'Quick, bring some of your knights to the eastern flank or it will fall!'
Bryz nodded and clamped his visor down over his face.
'Alright men, lets go kill some bloody Orc mates!' he grunted to his men through his helmet.
Throwing down their battered weapons, they drew new ones and charged after Bryz to the battle. They swept by me and my archers and into the night.
'Come on men,' I shouted over the heat of the battle, ‘Keep running! We must make it or it will soon be over!'
A stone hit me in the head with tremendous force and blood began to pour down my head. A knight rode up, whispered something, and my wound healed. They were paladins! I started to say something but everything went black and I knew no more...
* * * * * *
The dawn was extremely bright and the smell of burning flesh made it very unpleasant. I moaned and stood up. I had no mortal wounds, in fact I had no wounds at all, but my head hurt severely. I remembered vaguely that a knight had healed me and I assumed that Bryz's knights were paladins. Could that be what he was hiding from me?
I saw Bryz standing some distance away. He spotted me and rode over.
'There you are Roark. We thought we had lost you.'
'That you almost did.'
I eyed him suspiciously. I knew that he was hiding something still and he would not admit a thing. I will call upon a few of my own trusty knights to watch him without him knowing later, I thought to myself.
Turning, and ignoring anything else said by him, I spotted the Orcish fortress in the dawn light and remembered that it would soon be time. The plain was already littered with dead bodies from both sides alike.
'Did we suffer much Bryz?'
'That we did, but we wiped out every one of them and still have significant forces to assault the fortress.'
'Good, good...'
It was not long now. Soon the assault would begin...
