The army was posed. Stretching over almost all of the once beautiful plain. Cursing, I turned towards the Orcish fortress of Dol Ackmar. The once flourishing plain was now trampled almost to dust, and what for? Our army looked pathetic compared to the great fortress standing before us. Why had Ghaal, the head alliance fortress of the north, ordered our nations to launch such a pitiful assault.
Bryz, on my right, was much more confident that the attack would succeed, despite my doubts. With dread hanging heavily on my shoulders, I ordered the stage 1 assault.
Arrows were fitted into their places and the shafts were pulled back. Ballistas rolled into position and their missiles were tightened into firing position. Magiks were brewed under the chanting of mages, and explosives were readied.
Suddenly the chanting stopped, ballistas stopped creaking, and the dwarfs stopped going nuts over their explosives. Everything was silent. The elves, which made up the main part of the ranged troops, stood like stone, frozen in position to fire, and quiet as usual. Their faces were solemn as they searched for targets along the enemy battlements.
They found nothing. They stood by, awaiting targets. The ballistas did not, however. Their ropes were cut and their huge missiles few with tremendous speed towards the poorly made, but yet strong Orcish walls.
None of the missiles fell short and none overshot. All found their targets some made only dents while others left gaping holes. A howl of rage from within arose and soon the battlements were almost overran by their own defenders.
'Archers! Fire,'I yelled.
Bows twanged and arrows buzzed in the sky so thick it looked like a hive of enormous bees coming to ravage and conquer. Screams of pain and horror came from on top of the walls as many Orcs fell dead. Others, wounded, trying to dodge arrows, or those who got pushed by those trying to escape the arrows wrath, plummeted shrieking from the top of the battlements to the sharp-rocked terrain surrounding the fortress's area.
Soon axes rushed up to meet our arrows as axethrowers and beserkers of the enemy arrived. A man next to me clutched his chest and fell forward onto his knees gurgling. I whipped out my sword from its sheath neatly and sliced off his head, instantly ending his pain. It was the least I could do for him.
I turned once again to watch the battle. Bryz and his guards had fallen back out of the enemy’s range.
'Taking the cowards path, as usual,' I sneared to quietly to myself.
To my right, where Bryz was no more, stood the battle standard carrier. He waved our standard to and fro three times. The dwarfs, anxiously awaiting the command to use their explosives, saw the signal and scurried off towards the two main gates of the fortress.
Desperate axes, spears, and stones rained down on them. Many fell before they reached the safety of the overhanging gateway arches.
Two zepplins filled with troops slipped unnoticed into the sky. The goblin pilots were scared stiff, as far as I could tell, and the troops were in a hurry. I suddenly realized they were trying to get in a position to shoot the dwarfs who were still setting up their explosives.
My archers were too busy to shoot them, so I fitted an arrow into my bow shaft and cocked my bow towards the sky and took careful aim at one of the goblin zeppelins.
My bow twanged and the arrow flew like a bolt of lightning and struck like a flaming stone. The zeppelin, no longer able to hold itself up and no longer able to contain the air within itself, quickly descended and exploded into flames upon impact.
My second arrow flew swiftly out after the first and stuck the second zeppelin. It imploded into itself and crashed onto the first wall of Dol Ackmar, causing a large portion of it to give under the pressure.
Out of the holes we created poured hundreds and hundreds of ogres. How the hell could the fortress maintain such an army with no obvious means of supporting itself? I had no time to figure it out, because not only were the ogres advancing rapidly, but the ranged Orcs and trolls on the battlements were still launching and throwing their missiles at us.
I turned to call for Bryz's help, but he was not there! Instantly I felt betrayed. Where was Bryz and all of his footmen, Paladins, and knights of the army of Zenx?
I had no time to wonder or question for my archers were getting nervous and my ballistas and their crews were already running.
'For Dath'alas!' I cried loudly.
Instantly my very thin line of knights came charging over the rigid hills behind us in response to the battle cry.
'For Dath'alas!' they cried in return.
'Ride my knights! Ride! Be the elites of Dath'alas that you are!'
Charging at full speed, they brushed quickly by the archers who had compacted their ranks to 20 per every other row instead of 10 per each row. The knights dropped their visors and unsheathed their swords. The archers dropped back into their normal formation after the knights went by, and with renewed courage at the sight of the knights, provided cover fire. The knights banged their swords on their shields to intimidate the giant ogres.
Some of the ogres had slowed at the sight of the knights and their intimidation tactic and became spread out before recovering, but that is all the advantage we needed. My knights slid through the now spread out ranks of the heavy ogre population like an arrows through water.
I suddenly realized that my knights were losing. What was killing them? There was NOTHING there! A sudden twin explosion at the twin gates caught my attention. The dwarves had done it! They had destroyed the main gate. It was then when I realized it was the enemies ranged units that were killing us. I started to call for my archers but I realized I could not bother them because they were providing cover fire for my knights.
'Al'thalas!' I yelled.
Soon a band of my mages, referred to as the Al'thalas, came over the hill in a quick trot. They were chanting and mumbling as I spoke.
'See the battlements?,' I asked.
The head mage nodded slightly in reply.
'I need some blizzard storm shards up there, and I need them up there fast.'
The mages, without responding, spread out into a line going from east to west. They outstretched their arms and chanted louder. The sky grew bright with a rainbow color and made the battlefield look like heaven. In a flash the colors slammed together into hard shards of ice and smashed down on separate locations on the battlements. Large squads of the enemies ranged units disappeared and others were turned into a tossed salad of blood as millions of shards ran into and drove through them.
* * * * * *
I rode up to the battlements with my troops and grappled up to the top of the smoking and battered battlements alongside my men. When we reached the top we found no opposition. The next wall of the fortress was even stronger then the one I stood on at the moment. How would we ever defeat it with our current army? Even if Bryz was here, how could we take it?
Where were Bryz and his army of Zenx now anyway? I suddenly wondered as I remembered he was not there. He had left us in one of our greatest moments of need. I smiled inwardly, for I knew we didn’t need him. We had succeeded so far without him, and we could continue to. Or could we? It didn’t matter right now, for we had won. oh, yes, we had won and the first wall of the Dol Ackma...
END OF PART 4
Back to Part 3[an error occurred while processing this directive]dat"-->
