The End of Days
The Complete Fantasy One Shot
This version is for submission of the story to the Mega Contest.
This story is based on the prompt found here hosted by
, , and . The tale must contain sorrow and glory while also being about humanity surmounting overwhelming odds to demonstrate the courage of the human spirit.Each part can be read separately here.
Part 1
Lord Andarin stood atop the battlements of Hastos, the Last Citadel. Flags rippled noisily in the night winds. Torches burned along the high stone walls, thick and imagined to be impregnable. Andarin knew better. He had seen Tavirnum fall, with walls just as tall and thick as Hastos. He had fought at Calahancia when the orcs surmounted the walls and descended like flood waters into the city. He had heard of Farhar, Ustaros, and Balnum. All mighty places with thick walls, stout soldiers, and gallant kings. They too had fallen to the immeasurable horde from the south-east. Andarin surveyed the dark, his eyes leaping from torch marker to torch marker for signs of movement. All around the citadel were fires burning at ten yard intervals all the way out for a thousand yards, the light enough to dull the stars above. That was for the best for the Gods should not witness the end of man, the sorrow of a god could bring ruin upon the world. What would that matter if man were extinct? Andarin thought. It would be best if the world ended with us, the elves of the east and dwarves of the north have retreated and abandoned man to this plague of orcs, let them suffer the end of time. Andarin tore his eyes away from the plains below, bereft of structures, trees, grain, cattle, anything that the orcs could use. He descended a set of steps into the citadel, his white cloak billowing around him.
'Lord Andarin, how bad is it?' Autarch Ralin said. Deep creases had etched themselves on the autarch's face in the recent weeks, more of his hair had dulled and become grey, and purple rings clung to his eyes at all times.
'No sign yet but the enemy is out there. The most recent report placed the horde at Tabitha's Crossing, Your Exaltedness,' Andarin said. He stood opposite the autarch, an enormous model of Hastos and the surrounding plains between them. Other lords and military men joined them.
'That's a two day march from here!' Lord Varron's eyes widened. He was a bear of a man with a ruddy complexion and Andarin was surprised to sense fear in the man. Though what man facing down extinction wouldn't feel the serpent of fear coil in his belly?
'Recall all the remaining scouts if we can,' Autarch Ralin ordered. He leaned over the model of Hastos, his knuckles pressing hard into the citadel's northern farmland, now little more than a field of ash. 'Give the men a chance to say goodbye to all they hold dear, followed by a hearty meal and a good rest. No drunkenness, a man should face death sober.' He glanced around the map table, 'You all too. See to your wives, your children, kiss them for it may be the last time a man shows his love for his wife.'
The assembled lords nodded and dispersed with only the clank of steel as their chorus.
Lord Andarin sat by a roaring fire, his wife, Rhii, beside him. The pair stared into the flames raging within the intricate marble fireplace, his father's portrait hung on the chimney breast looming over the couple. Father would have had a plan to deal with the horde from the south-east, Andarin thought.
Rhii gripped his hand and rested her head on his shoulder, 'You don't have to face this in silence, my love.' The light of the fire made her skin radiant, her eyes glow. 'I've armed all the servants, even I have a sword at my bedside should it come to that. I imagine every woman in Hastos has armed her household, I hear a few have snuck into the army.'
'I've heard that too, along with boys and girls too young to raise a sword. In any other time we'd root them out but...' Lord Andarin bit his lip, staring into the flames.
'The fate of man rests on a single battle.'
Andarin turned to his wife and smiled, 'Precisely. It all comes to this. Our Final Battle.' He kissed Rhii feeling the warmth of the fire on her cheeks. He did not stop, did not want it to stop. Rhii kissed him back and they showed each other their love.
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As Autarch Ralin had ordered no solider had drank wine, beer, or spirit in anticipation of the coming battle. Lord Castoris swore by a good stiff drink the morning of a battle, “Too loosen the spirits and free up the sword hand,' he'd say but even he had avoided the bottle and become dour because of it, or perhaps the looming orcs were reason enough. 'They come from the south-east then?' Ralin circled the map table.
'All reports say so, Your Excellency,' Lord Andarin said. The direction of attack was crucial for the first few hours, after that it became less relevant as the enemy line inevitably wrapped around Hastos due to sheer numbers.
'The outer walls will be held until the last possible moment. Breach units have been organised every tenth of a mile along the wall with double units for the gates. If two gates are breached carry out a fighting retreat to the inner walls. If the worst happens retreat to the Bastion, the underground tunnels will be filled with the people who cannot fight, everyone else will have a sword or mace and be ready to fight to the last in those tunnels. I pray to the Gods who have forsaken us it does not come to that.'
'Do we have any idea on how many orcs there are?' Lord Varron growled. He tugged at his curled beard, ensnaring his own fingers then sliding them out of the rings.
'To quote one of my scouts; “The earth was awash with stink all the way to the horizon, and from the north to the south”,' Lord Andarin recalled.
'I see,' Lord Varron stared glassy eyed at the model citadel.
'I don't believe it,' Poneptus folded his arms across his barrel chest. 'There's no way an army that size can march. There's not enough food, let alone drinking water. It's not possible.' He shook his head as if each shake would kill an orc.
'I can only recall what the scouts said but I trust my men. If they say the orcs covered the land in all directions, I believe them,' Lord Andarin said.
'How do we kill that many? How?' Lord Galen voiced his disbelief but at least six other Lords muttered agreement with him.
'We have our methods, you know as well as I do, Galen Shend. You all need to remember, this is the Citadel of Hastos! For thousands of years this city has stood against the worst monsters in all the world, the largest armies, the fiercest of foes. Our ancestors repelled dragons when other cities were reduced to glass and ash, ruins that still mare the world, our ancestors gave the Great King of the Yellow Sea his first defeat which ushered in his demise, our ancestors fought off the imperial ambitions of at least seven emperors. Hastos stands at world's end because it is the last refuge and I will not be the Autarch who loses it,' Ralin's words grew more ferocious with each syllable until he was snarling the words with indignant rage. He grimaced, 'We know what we must do. We have known this battle would take place, we have known since the first sightings of these sanguine skinned fiends. When the first city fell all those years ago I knew this day would come and so I made us prepare. For years we laboured by the sweat of our brow, prayed to the Gods till our voices gave out, and trained every man, woman, and child who could hold a sword to do so, then we trained them in the bow and spear for good measure. Our granaries and cellars have food for a years long siege, we have ten arrows for every orc out there, maybe more, every single person has a chain mail vest. There is nothing more we can do, the end is here, my lords, and we are prepared to face it,' Autarch Ralin's voice grew sombre.
Lord Andarin stood upon the battlements facing the south-east as he did everyday from morning to night imagining the horde descending upon Hastos. How he would repel them. Wondering what siege craft the orcs would muster. Attempting to find the words he say to his men when the time came, when the shadow loomed over the Last Citadel and the world would see the end of man. Would the elves of the east or the dwarves of the north care? No, Andarin thought, for the last of their kinds fled many years ago unwilling to face the plague that approaches. It seemed the orcs had been born with a hatred of man and man alone.
The archers along the battlement stood resolute as the white sun began to cast the long shadows of dusk along the plains below. Igniters were already setting the torches aflame that covered the land like a pincushion. Andarin left the Tower of the Shrew and headed towards the Tower of the Fox all the while his eyes never veered from the horizon.
'It's today isn't it, m'lord?' an archer said.
Andarin halted his march along the top of Hastos's walls to find a man younger than himself, his hand was shaking, his other gripped his longbow until his knuckles were white. 'Likely today, yes.'
The archer nodded, his lip quivering.
'You've trained for this, likely for most of your life,' Andarin made a guess of his age.
The archer nodded, 'I have, m'lord,' he managed to say.
'Then you know what to do,' Andarin placed his hand on the man's shoulder, the leather armour creaking.
The archer turned his head, the feathers sprouting from his helm dancing, 'I do, m'lord.' He clenched his jaw. 'It's just...'
Andarin waited to see if the man would finish his sentence. He didn't but his eyes glazed over. 'Each man along this wall has a job he has trained to do for his whole life. Like the links in your mail vest, each is needed to complete the job, each is vital to the one next to it. Without you, or him, or I, the defence fails and man is snuffed out. Our ancestors fade into nothing and our Gods wither, our children perish and our grandchildren never see the light of day, forever trapped in the Crypts deep beneath the earth. We are the last defence and we have trained our entire lives for it,' he squeezed the man's shoulder, saw his back straighten, and continued on. The men he passed stood firmer, squarer, their eyes more determined.
Andarin reached the Tower of the Fox. The braziers burned. Arrows filled pots along the wall. A nest of rocks had been gathered for the catapult. Archers spied out from the slits, ready and daring. He climbed up the ladder to the roof. Countless stones were piled against the merlons, three men leaned against the wall staring out at the horizon. 'Any sighting?' the lord asked.
The three men flinched and stood to attention, 'No, m'lord.'
'Pity,' Andarin said. 'I'd rather fight in the day.'
'Me too, m'lord,' the soldier stared into the middle distance.
'Carry on, I only came to observe the horizon,' Lord Andarin said, joining the trio at the wall. The torch field burned bright in the shadow of the citadel, the Igniters had moved on to the next field. Scanning the horizon from left to right he saw nothing. No birds. No cattle. No wild fox or deer. Nothing. The forests had been torn down for arrow shafts, ramparts, palisades, and various supports for the gates of the city. More trees had been felled for firewood for the stores and for the blacksmiths. Andarin hoped to see the day when the forests returned but that required victory, and survival.
'M'lord, may I ask a question?' the youngest of the catapult trio said.
'You may.'
'Where did the orcs come from? What do they look like? Mam says they are brutish and twice as tall as a man with tusks and red flesh, that they were born of malice and hate but that can't be true, can it?' the two older men side-eyed the younger one.
'The orcs came from the desert. It is thought the people of the desert were the first victims, though it is so long ago and so far away that no one really knows. In the deep sands where men cannot travel, where the winds never cease, and the landscape is ever-changing, a god died. From its rotting corpse the orcs were born, thick with the blood and gore of their god. That and its rage. An orc has a head, two arms, two legs, five digits on each hand, but that is were similarities with man end. An orc is monster of infinite hate, wishing only to kill you and eat your flesh. If they enter a blood frenzy I pray you are far from it. At Calahancia I fought an orc twice my height, though they are not all so gigantic. We do not know what became of their corpse god, I only pray it no longer spits forth its adhering fiends. We do know the orc hates man uniquely, but we do not know why, it is speculated we killed their god and ushered them forth but I don't believe it,' Lord Andarin had lost his focus on the horizon, staring at nothing.
All three men were watching him, listening. 'What else, m'lord?' the oldest said.
'They bleed... and they die,' Andarin finished. He stepped back and turned toward the ladder, ready to move on to the Tower of the Kestrel.
'M'lord... look,' the older of the men said, pointing to the horizon.
Andarin was halfway down the ladder and clambered back up.
'It's them...' the soldier's voice was faint.
Andarin rushed to the wall and saw the shifting shadow of orcs marching.
'They do not have organisation. No siege craft have been spotted,' Lord Andarin said.
'Yet,' Lord Poneptus added. All the Lords of Hastos stood around the map table in the central hall of the Bastion. Autarch Ralin paced around the outer ring of them all.
Andarin placed a model of an orc on the map to mark where the attack would begin. 'Here, the eastern wall will be first and hardest hit. I have archers on the rooftops of the tallest buildings to assist those on the walls. Catapults and ballistas are well supported and the Tower of the Chimera has two of each.' That tower sat at the corner of the east and south walls, higher and wider than the regular towers. 'The gate is secured and murderholes have been constructed. If they try for the gate they will pay for it.'
'Very good,' Autarch Ralin interjected. 'But what do you need?'
'Commanders, Your Exaltedness. Lords to direct the men in smaller units. We need to be agile and respond to the worst threats with haste,' Lord Andarin said. A cluster of lords murmured their agreement.
'Very well, Lords Castoris, Hove, and Kifarin, assist Lord Andarin on the east wall. What of the south?' the Autarch continued his encirclement.
'My focus is on the gatehouse, it's the weakest of the four and even after bricking it up I have my reservations,' Lord Galen said. 'Lords Maramon and Yugaron along with my sons, have the battlements under control, equipped with catapults with flammable ammunition, Your Exaltedness.'
'Very good,' the Autarch proclaimed. 'How do you plan on holding the gatehouse? Or, should I ask, for how long?'
'As long as she will hold. I have men reinforcing her still even now. A thousand men with long spears can hold any breach for many hours, potentially a full turn of the sun, Your Exaltedness.'
'Bold words but I trust them,' Autarch Ralin said.
'Thank you, Your Exaltedness.'
'Now what of the north and west? They will inevitably be attacked too, though the west has the advantage of the cliffside,' Ralin said.
'We have plans for that, Your Exaltedness. My men and I believe we can drive them over the cliff and down into the valley,' Lord Essen said.
'How?'
'A sortie, Your Exaltedness.'
'Are you insane?' the Autarch retraced his steps to stand behind Lord Essen.
'No, Your Exaltedness. If I lead a charge of heavy cavalry out before the orcs reach the gate we can split the enemy then use that to send out the heavy spearmen and in the pincer drive them towards the edge,' the young lord made it sound simple.
'You'll be overrun from the north and south before you even engage. You do not appreciate the sheer number of orcs, lad,' Lord Tenso, veteran of a dozen battles with the orcs, said. His beard was grey and spilled over his breastplate, few men had seen so many battles, fewer still had survived. Andarin had seen one other battle against the orcs and that was more than over half the Lords in the room.
The other lords were silent.
Autarch Ralin stepped into the ring of lords, parting them like bread. 'Stick to defence, Lord Essen, if a crack in their number appears then perhaps your idea could work, but I cannot sacrifice the heavy cavalry like that, we need them inside the walls harassing the enemy when, if, he makes it inside.'
'Very well, Your Exaltedness,' Lord Essen bowed his head, his fellow lords assigned to the west wall bowing also.
Autarch Ralin narrowed his eyes and held Essen in his gaze. The tension grew over as time flowed by but then he broke the stare and asked, 'I hope the north have prepared more sensibly?'
'We are, Your Exaltedness. Double archers near the east wall to assist Lord Andarin as required. Catapults and ballista too. The gatehouse is sturdy, the gate itself sealed within a portcullis on the inside and a secondary gate on the inside,' Lord Wellen said.
'A sound strategy. Lord Essen you will remain within the walls like everyone else. We cannot risk exposing one flank for a wild charge. Return to your posts and prepare to face the enemy,' Autarch Ralin growled. 'The gates of the Bastion will remain open for your retreat. Pray to the gods for a strong sword arm and true aim. Pray for heavenly wrath. Pray that they have not forsaken us,' Ralin's words hung in the air like a threat.
Part 2
The orcs had reached the first line of torches out beyond the walls of The Last Citadel. The flames were snuffed out as the red skinned beasts surged forth at a sprint. Some within their number carried flaming braziers on long pikes, others rode in chariots with great pits of fire on the back belching gouts of black smog. All carried swords, maces, pikes, bows, and any weapon looted from battlefields and the fallen cities of man for the first orcs had been born with only their claws and fangs and while brutally efficient even orcs knew the advantage of a sword of claws.
Lord Andarin stood atop the Tower of the Chimera, while Castoris on the Tower of the Fox, Hove on the Tower of the Shrew, and Kifarin on the Tower of the Kestrel. Other lords and commanders occupied the gatehouse and towers beyond and Andarin had arrange a system of flags to communicate from one to the other. His heart wavered at the sea of orcs on the plain before him, what good was a flag against such a tide of evil and chaos.
A thousand thousand horns trumpeted and the orcs staggered to a halt, many of the first rows being knocked down by those behind. Hissing and scowling those knocked over rose and formed an eery line a quarter mile from Hastos. 'What are they waiting for?' Andarin muttered. Huge soot marred orcs stood astride the chariots carrying an ancient oak trunk a hundred foot long strapped with seaweed encrusted ropes, steep angled eyes and sharp fangs had been carved into the end of it. The longer Lord Andarian searched the faster his heart beat. Salvaged catapults were pulled by clusters of smaller orcs while taller ones got to work setting up trebuchets, others wore helmets and patrolled through the disorganised ranks. There was some semblance of a hierarchy, some understanding of warfare beyond animalistic drives, but it was of the crudest sort. What god had birthed such a creature and why had the gods allowed them to run rampant? Lord Andarin would never have answers, he knew that, but that didn't make the questions burn any colder.
Focus.
Andarin saw no reason to allow the enemy, which spanned to the horizon with tens of thousands marching to surround the citadel completely. 'Catapults! Ballistas!' he yelled. A soldier raised the corresponding flag. Catapults thrummed and hurled boulders or flaming balls of pitch and manure. 'Do not stop!' Andarin yelled. A soldier beside him lugged a boulder onto the cup of a catapult while two others angled the weapon. A short tug on a rope later and another volley sailed through the air. Ballistas rained three foot long steel bolts down on the orcs. A chorus of mewling and shrieking thundered out across the plain. The stars above dim.
Bolts skewered two or three orcs at a time, pinning them to the ground. Boulders crushed dozens of monsters at a time while the fire balls smashed apart dousing entire groups of orcs in burning pitch and oil soaked manure and hay. Flaming orcs flailed and ran wild throwing off scraps of fire to land on the ground or a fellow orc.
A second cacophony of horns boomed from the orc's position, horrid and discordant. The orcs charged.
'Archers!' Lord Andarin rose his hand, the soldier next to him rose the corresponding flag. 'LOOSE!' his hand fell, the flag also, and the thrum of bowstrings deafened him. Thousands of arrows tore through the rampaging orcs but it did slow the horde, if anything the godspawn became more enraged. 'Do not stop loosing arrows!' Andarin ordered. Fresh recruits, boys no older than fourteen, began running bundles of arrows to the archers along the wall, restocking quivers and pots as soon as they were near dry. At times the boys had to race down the steps to the citadel below to unload the carts and barrels of arrows. Bows thrummed in concert with the springing of catapults and twang of ballistas.
Orcs crashed into the walls of Hastos, clawing and raking at the mortar and stone in a frenzy while saner ones brought siege ladders. The giants with a mighty oak as their battering ram slowly advanced on the eastern gate, 'Focus on the battering ram! The battering ram!' Andarin yelled. The soldier beside him raised the necessary flag and the message leapt from one tower to the next and within a minute arrows began to bloom from the huge orcs lumbering with the oak tree trunk. Andarin leaned over the brim of his Tower to see raging orcs clambering at the walls and climbing on each other in an attempt to get higher. They seemed less than animals. The tide of orcs had begun to wrap around the citadel, the southern and northern wall had begun their defence and soon the western wall would too. The miles upon miles of fields and thousands of torches used to illuminate the darkness were now awash with gore skinned brutes born of a dead god. There was no relief coming. No reinforcements. No god to obliterate the enemy. Only men like Andarin, mortals prone to pessimism.
The battering ram had been dropped but as quick as it hit the earth did more huge orcs come and hoist it back up again. The tree trunk had become a long, thin hedgehog. There was a sickening crunch as the ram slammed into the gate, boiling water and oil would be poured through the murderholes while flaming arrows were pelted down afterwards. Andarin hoped it would be enough.
Ladders came next. Three rose and fell against the battlements to Andarin's left, another two to his right, hooks latched onto the merlons preventing them from being pushed over. 'Spearmen, to the wall!' Lord Andarin ordered. A flag was raised and pockets of archers retreated to allow the spearmen to form semi-circles around each of the ladders. He watched as the first orcs raced up the rungs only to receive the tip of a spear in the face. A great cheer erupted from the men as the first orcs were repelled. Andarin did not join them for he saw how many clustered at the base of the ladders.
The stars flickered and only too late did Andarin realise why. 'Get down!' he shouted as he dove against the hard stone crenellations of the tower but it was too late. Bone tipped arrows rained down on the walls and into the streets below. Thousands cried out, hundreds died in a single volley. The soldier raising the signal flags fell down, an arrow in his skull. Lord Andarin collected the flags and stood tall. 'Great shields, to the walls!' he raised the proper flag and a legion of men scaled the steps and raised enormous plates of steel half as tall as a man over the heads of every archer and spearmen atop the wall. Two shielded Andarin, two more tracked the catapult team. The wall was now crowded and any orc that dropped over the lip of the ladders would have to be killed quick lest someone else be killed and fall. 'Archers! Catapults! Focus your aim on the enemy bowmen!' Lord Andarin did not have a flag for that command. 'Shout it down the walls!' His throat ached against the din of battle. He heard men bellow out the words, 'Enemy bowmen!' and the twang of bowstring echoing after. It was a risk to take their sights off the infantry but it had to be done, for a time at least.
The walls rumbled. Dried and ancient mortar crumbled down and flitted on the air like dust. A second quake shook the walls. Andarin peered over the precipice. The ram was battering the gate but that was not causing the tremors.
'Get down, my lord!' one of the shield bearers wrenched Andarin back. A volley of bone tipped arrows crashed against the merlons where his head had been.
'My thanks,' Andarin graced the man with a nod. The walls trembled once more. He rushed towards the southern side of the Tower of the Chimera. The orcs had rounded the corner and had begun their assault on the southern wall and gatehouse. And there, at an inconspicuous point on the wall a cluster of orcs carrying pots of burning oil threw themselves at the stone. his shield bearers stood over him, protecting him from easterly arrows as Andarin watched an orc run at the wall and toss himself at the stonework. There was an explosion, a rage of fire up and out from the wall, and then a quake that shook the fabric of the citadel. Stone crumbled and cracked. Another orc threw themselves at the wall. 'Why there?' Andarin said to himself. He turned to his shield bearers, 'We must descend to ground level and see to the defence of the wall itself. With me!' He found the senior catapultist, 'You have command of the Tower.'
The man flinched in shock, 'Yes, my lord,' he managed. He took position near the pot of flags, a shield bearer coming to protect him from enemy bowmen.
Lord Andarin scrambled down the ladder. A man with a shard of bone in his cheek screamed. Another had his shirt tied tight around his thigh, the blood pulsing out in great gushes. Everywhere he looked there were injured. Spearmen thrust with a rhythm he feared they could not maintain as orc after orc appeared atop the ladders. Andarin jostled through the soldiers and scampered down the steps, his shield bearers in tow. At the middle height of the wall there was a platform that had no openings to the outside but was wide enough to store ammunition and for soldiers to coalesce, there he gathered twenty spearmen who in turn he asked to find ten men each and meet him at the base of the Tower of the Chimera. He rushed on.
Boys with daggers on their belts unloaded carts of boulders and arrows, pitch and clay pots that would be filled with anything flammable. The first volleys had been made beforehand but the next had to made as they went, it was not what Lord Andarin wanted but it was the only way. There had simply been too much to do. Soldiers rushed out of Andarin's path, saluting as they did so, a hand on their heart with a short bow. Make shift catapult towers rocked with the force of the weapons mounted atop them. Men with wicker baskets strapped to their backs filled with boulders climbed ladders to reach the tops. Archers lined the highest roof tops standing on rickety platforms and loosing volley after volley over the wall in steep arcs. Spearmen with tall shields blocked the roadways deeper into the residential areas, the men stern and stoic as the battle raged above them. A hail of bone arrows whistled through the evening air, the sound of brittle bone snapping against steel echoed in fits and spurts.
Lord Andarin reached the corner at the base of the Tower of the Chimera, where the east and south walls met, almost one hundred spearmen had arrived already. It would not be enough but it was a start. The south wall boomed, a storm of mortar dust blowing over the men and scattering the road in a fine layer of dust. Cracks had begun to form in the stone, vertical and climbing like ivy. Andarin grabbed a boy running past carrying a dozen quivers full of arrows, 'Find the commander for this section of wall and tell him Lord Andarin orders the men off that section before it comes crashing down.'
The boy stared up at him, stunned.
'Go! Now!' Andarin slapped the boys back and he pelted into the tower and up the ladders as swift as a gutter rat. A further ten spearmen joined up and soon enough Andarin had the two hundred he'd sequestered. Another explosion rumbled against the wall. A few of the men flinched and looked up at the cracks appearing in the wall, spreading far beyond their epicentre. 'We need to clear the area. Get soldiers down from the towers, the rooftops, clear the road for a good twenty yards.' Another explosion hit the wall and a great crack thundered through the stones.
A faint light glowed overhead drawing the attention of the spearmen and finally Andarin. Fireballs crested the wall and crashed into rooves and walls, piercing the weaker buildings and smashing against the stronger to rain fire down on the streets below. Men screamed. Fires raged.
'Clear the area, before this wall comes down,' Andarin ordered. The men saluted and the Lord retraced his steps to the full unit of spearmen blocking the road. A man's guttural scream echoed above Andarin. There was a thud and then a sigh. A pool of blood expanded around the fallen man just ahead of Andarin, he looked up and could barely see orcish swords clashing with Hastosi spears.
Andarin reached the spearmen, 'Who is your commander?'
'Lord Shend, my lord,' the captain with the plumed helmet answered.
'I have no time to request your transfer but I need you to defend the south wall with me, the orcs will soon find a way through,' Andarin told it plain and he could see by the shock on the men's faces they did not expect to hear such words. The walls of Hastos were impenetrable, it was thought.
'Very well, my lord,' the captain said, after a moment's thought.
'What's your name?'
'Akralia, my lord.'
'Well, Captain Akralia, follow me.'
Lord Andarin marched with one thousand men behind, his hand resting on the hilt of his own sword. He shifted the sheathed blade, drummed his fingers along the hilt, and rolled the pommel against his palm all to distract him from the battle raging above, a battle he had left in the hands of a catapultist.
Bone arrows whistled overhead highlighted by flaming shot from catapults and trebuchets. The trails of flame stained the crisp night sky orange. Fires raged on roof tops and throughout the streets, fire fighting teams were hard at work to try and control the flames. Andarin looked to the stars but the gods were not watching. More detonations shocked a small section of the southern wall near the Tower of the Chimera. The facades of the polished stone bricks began to rupture, some cracking off entirely.
By the time Andarin reached the wall he could see through one of the mortar lines, flames, rubble, and orcs amassed beyond the wall. He retreated back for the only thing he could was wait. The initial two hundred had cleared the area and stood amassed at a distance of twenty yards.
'See this wall,' Andarin said to Akralia. 'It's going to come down. I don't know how much or when but it will and when it does a thousand thousand orcs are going to try and enter our home. You and your men will defend here, you cannot allow any orc to pass through.'
'Not one, my lord,' Captain Akralia pressed his palm to his heart and nodded.
'Not one,' Andarin repeated. He gazed upward to the battlements and was thankful the men had been moved.
'My lord, I only have one thousand men,' Akralia said.
'There are two hundred men here to bolster your ranks. More will come,' Andarin saw doubt in Akralia's eyes. 'More will come.'
Andarin investigated the section of wall one last time and wondered why the orcs had chosen there to try and breach the walls. He gave up, there was no sense in trying to understand the mind of an orc. 'Captain Akralia, you have command here.'
'Yes, my lord,' the captain saluted.
Lord Andarin rushed for the Tower of the Chimera and hurried up the stairs and then ladders to resume his post. The catapultist and his shieldbearer were dead, the flags scattered about charred and pierced with bone arrows. The catapults were aflame. His own shieldbearers resumed their gallant defence, raising their tower shields high over their heads and Andarin's. The Lord squinted into the gloom and torchlight along the wall. Orcs and humans vied for control of the battlements and more red skinned monsters climbed the ladders every minute, a never ending horde, a scourge. Good Hastosi men lay dead on the wall, trampled by their allies and enemies alike in defence of the Last Citadel, the final home of humanity. In a matter of hours the walls had been scaled.
'No,' Andarin clenched his jaw. 'We will drive the orcs from the walls, you two find hammers, rocks, anything heavy enough to break the hooks from their ladders. Go!' Andarin slid down the ladder, his cloak fluttering behind him. He drew his sword and strode out on to the battlements, guiding the soldiers out of his way. 'Stay strong men, we will drive these vile creatures from our home,' he emerged from the Tower onto the battlements. The din was deafening, the stench made him wretch, the flickering torches blinded him, and always in the corner of his eye he could the enemy stretching out to the horizon their ranks highlighted by sporadic torches, braziers, and burning ordnance.
Eight spearmen stood side-by-side, filling the width of the wall. The first and second rows thrust and jabbed at an ever bulging host of orcs, when one died two scaled the ladders. An orc grabbed the shaft of a spear and pulled the man holding it out of formation. Three others leapt on the poor soul, a sword from one raked his arm, a mace caved in his cheek, and a spear pierced his gut. The man fell down, dead. Unarmed orcs dropped to their knees and began to devour the spearman, tearing at his flesh with their claws and biting into him with fangs to rip through the meat. The man beside Andarin vomited. Two others flinched, buckling the line. The orcs pounced on the opportunity. A second and then a third man fell, orcs ravaging the bodies before they were cold.
'Courage, men!' Andarin raised his arming sword and for the first time thought Castoris's habit of drinking before battle had merit. He charged forward, filling the rank of the dead soldier, 'Form a line,' the words were garbled as an sword came for him, wild and lustful. Steel met rusted iron and the orc shrieked. Streaks of soot lined its hollow cheeks and bald pate, the gore coated skin glistened in the torchlight. 'Fight! Fight and survive!' he skewered the orc through the throat. The men roared in fury or celebration of a good kill and surged forth, spears thrusting in unison. A trio of orcs died in the first attack, another six in the second. Andarin pressed on, his eyes set on the ladder a mere three yards away but every inch would cost blood. 'Forward!' he lunged two-handed with his arming sword. A shock of blood and gore burst from an orc's shoulder. The beast became enraged and threw itself onto Andarin clamping its teeth round his arm. Fangs pierced Andarin's bracers. The Lord stepped back and the men to his left and right stabbed the orc to death. Andarin pried the fangs from his arm thankful they only gave him a superficial cut through the steel and cloth.
Lord Andarin held the line, his men too. Seeing their Lord bleed appeared to encourage them and the spearmen advanced, stabbing their spears in unison in order to inch closer to the ladders, closer to ridding the citadel of orcs, at least for a time. 'And step forward!' Andarin bellowed. The unit of spearmen stepped ahead in one clash of steel. Several orcs lay dead or dying. 'And again!' Andarin growled, thrusting with his arming sword. Another cluster of orcs fell. 'Again!' he thundered. A trio of orcs remained. Three more emerged from the peak of the ladders, it was not enough. Eight spears jabbed and six orcs perished.
'Shield bearers!' Andarin called. One shouted back and threw a blacksmith's hammer over the heads of the spearmen. It clanged on the stone. Andarin rushed for it. An orc leapt over the parapet, swinging wildly with its mace. Andarin grabbed the hammer in his left and blocked with the sword in his right. The mace crashed against his blade and knocked him over. Spearmen rushed forth as two more orcs appeared, then three more after that. Andarin found his feet and saw nothing but doom surrounding him. He lashed out with sword and hammer, killing one and braining a second. The others all fell to spears. Andarin panted, thankful his men had regained their courage and with it their skill. He rushed to the first ladder and hammered the hooks, breaking the crude iron they had been forged with. 'Push it over! Push! Push!' he called to the men. With the cross guards of their spears the spearmen levered the first ladder away from the wall until it toppled over crushing the orcs on the rungs and flooring at least twenty more caught in the fall. Andarin was already on the next ladder and then the next and when the last one fell from the wall the men huzzahed. 'Clear the wall, set up a defence. Recover what supplies we can, and every tenth man arm himself with a hammer!' he handed his to the nearest spearmen.
Andarin lumbered through the men savouring this small victory as arrows sailed through the air and catapults shot fireballs over the wall. Organisation and morale would bring them victory, Andarin knew, and any chance to improve both had to be taken. He allowed himself a smile when a huge pillar of fire erupted along the south wall, near the Tower of the Chimera. Stone and flames tore through the air. The blast shook the wall beneath Andarin's feet and he fell to one knee. Mammoth chunks of masonry flew through the air, far further than the twenty yards Andarin had prepared for. One block slammed into the road, crushing thirty of Captain Akralia's soldiers. Dust clung like fog in the air of the street below. Fires spread. Orcs poured through the breach in the wall, clambering up the rubble and above the fog before dropping down into the citadel. Already the cries of death could be heard. Lord Andarin rushed to descend the steps.
Men lumbered aimless from place to place, choking on smoke and dust. Soldiers aided their wounded brethren, many with lacerations on the face and arms caused by shards of stone, while others lay dead, crushed by large sections of rubble or with their skulls or chests smashed in by bricks.
Fires raged licking up at the crude towers and leaping along the timber structures of the buildings, if the orcs didn't destroy Hastos the flames would. Andarin rallied the capable men he found amidst the smog and headed towards the sounds of fighting.
Orcs snarled in the soot filled air, the clash of steel a constant din, yet Lord Andarin could not see the enemy through the dust. He advanced towards the glow of fire he assumed was coming from the breached wall. The question of how was alight in his mind, the wall was thick and made of solid stone yet the orcs had spent untold lives, and explosive, to burst through. Where they doing the same at other sections of the wall or did they not have the materiel? Already, mere hours into the battle, Andarin and humanity were forced to react and victory would not be gained by merely reacting.
Within a matter of minutes Andarin had gathered a few hundred men, some with minor injuries, to retake the outer streets and push the orcs back. The crimson skinned beasts emerged from the ash fall fog like predator's stalking their pray. 'Form a line! Spears ready!' Andarin yelled and his soldiers closed ranks and formed a phalanx, he stood at the side of the first row. 'Advance!' the men shuddered force, their steps sounding as one.
The orcs, mostly small and agile ones, surged forth like ants, throwing themselves onto spears and into the gaps between the spears. 'Second row! Third row!' Andarin called, his unit becoming bristled. The enemy attempted to encircle the unit, sprinting to the side and leaping at Andarin and the men at the sides. Andarin hacked the first out of the air when the second grappled him round the shoulders and slammed him into the ground, his breath escaped him and he held the orc by the throat as it snarled and hissed and bit at him. Its skin was burnt by untold hours in the sun, rancid flesh hung between its fangs, while the gore from its dead god formed bulbous warts and growths all over its body. Andarin felt disgust, then fear, then hate, hate for the monster that would destroy all he held dear, all he loved, Rhii flashed in his mind and he roared squeezing his hand around the orcs throat until he heard a pop. The monster fell limp, saliva hanging like silver tears from its lips. He tossed the corpse aside to find men from the back rows had surrounded him, one offering their hand.
'My lord,' the soldier said, a tone of apology. A gash marred the flesh beneath his eye, the blood dried and stained with ash. He was young, younger than Andarin, and perhaps too young to serve but that was the way of it. Humanity was young and inexperienced, fathers, uncles, grand-fathers having perished near the beginning of the end. Andarin had inherited his father's position decades before he should have, as had many of the Lords. Even the Autarch was considered “young” for his position, though he was close to Andarin's father's age.
'My thanks, fill the gaps. See to the flanks, widen the march!' Andarin ordered. Blood and flesh flecked his chin and armour, his white cape now grey-brown with ash and gore, the rim tattered by tears and cinders. He ran to catch up to the front line, now a few yards from the the breach. Man will not vanish because of its youth, he thought.
The fighting was thick, the orcs pouring in like oil. Archers had turned their attention inward, loosing arrow after arrow into press, they could not miss for the sheer number. Andarin pressed the advantage, gaining distance gradually but at limited cost, a far improvement to how he'd started. He heard the orders of another man bellowing through the dust heavy air and knew someone else had organised a similar response on the southern road, together they would succeed.
Hours of fighting passed. Andarin stood upon the corpses of orcs and men alike, rubble interspersed between them. What had begun as urban warfare became rural as he led his phalanx up a hill of rubble and death. Another unit of spearmen had joined him, miraculously led by Captain Akralia who had lost an eye in the explosion, a shard of stone filled the socket. The wound wouldn't kill him but the captain knew the infection that followed probably would and so he had fought on with nothing to lose but his life. The soldiers cycled their front and back lines to ensure the men remained fresh and expelled the orcs from Hastos but the enemy did not stop their assault. Giants approached the breach and would test the spearmen to their limit, alongside where shorter orcs, nearer to human in height, carrying pots with small flames atop. Andarin turned to Akralia, 'We need archers to focus on the smaller ones carrying burning pots.' Akralia saluted and set about coordinating the attack.
'MY LORD!' a voice shouted over the din of battle. 'A messenger requests an audience!'
Lord Andarin peered down from the mound of rubble and clambered down, leaving his men to the defence of the breach. The ranks parted for him, many more men had joined and over a thousand now filled the streets beneath the Tower of the Chimera to defend the fissure. He found the man who had called him and he directed Andarin to the messenger.
A boy, tall and all skin and bones, stood before Lord Andarin, panting. His face was marred with smoke and blood, his shirt and trousers ruined. The boy stood upright, saluted, and peered over Andarin.
'What's the message?' Lord Andarin said, the ringing of steel sounding again.
'The north gate has fallen. Lord Wellen is dead, Lord Panon has assumed command but he is trapped in the Tower of the Boar, besieged by orcs. He requests assistance.'
Lord Andarin's heart sank, bile rose in his throat, was it all for naught? 'How did Lord Wellen die?'
'He was... crushed, my lord. When the gate was broken open the orcs sent their ogres ahead and our line was scattered. Lord Wellen led from the front and was killed in the first charge,' the messenger said.
Andarin retained his stoic exterior. 'There are many commanders between the Boar and the Chimera, why request this of me?'
The messenger squirmed, 'Lord Hove is dead. Lord Castoris is occupied with the assault on the east gate and Lord Kifarin... refused the request.'
'How did Hove die?'
'I do not know.'
'I will do what I can. Go to the west and find Lord Essen, inform him that I request his cavalry at the north gate. Tell them to advance along the outer lanes in order to flank the enemy. Find a drink of water then go,' Andarin ordered.
The messenger placed his hand on his heart and bowed before breaking into a gazelle-like sprint.
Andarin was stunned. Ogres, giants, orcs of freakish stature and strength. He needed archers and there were hundreds, if not thousands, unable to take up their assigned positions because of the wall breach and rampaging fires. He set off to find their captains to answer Lord Panon's call.
Part 3
Lord Andarin marched through the labyrinthine ways of Hastos. Echoes of battle drifted on the wind. Fires raged, the smog smearing the sky with thick black clouds. The gods were blinded and humanity was alone against the orc menace. The north gate was ahead of Lord Andarin and his, roughly, one thousand three hundred archers, flames rose as high as the walls and devastation had snaked its way through the wooden buildings crammed into the Last Citadel. There would be no gentle life after victory as rebuilding would take generations. That was if they won.
The road ahead was clogged with soldiers and supply carts. Gargantuan shadows thrashed in the deep fire smoke. We made it, Andarin thought. 'Archers, prepare!' he yelled. He continued to march as he heard the shhhh of a thousand three hundred arrows leave their quivers and being nocked. He continued marching until he reached the soldiers. 'What's the situation?' The men were injured, most with broken arms or legs from the look of it. The carts weren't supplies, they were carrying dead men.
'Giants, my lord, rampaging through our lines. Spears take them down but we are losing a hundred men for every kill,' the man spoke in a monotone, his eyes vacant and bloodshot.
'They aren't real giants,' Lord Andarin reminded himself. 'Merely tall orcs,' the thought made it easier to imagine killing them, for giants were mythical ancient creatures of the earth, intimately joined with the spirits of the land. No giants had been spotted for a thousand years. These monsters were not giants. 'Clear the road, Lord Panon awaits and my archers will deal with these overgrown fiends.'
'Yes, my lord,' the man saluted, wearily, and shouted the command up and down the road. The wounded who could walk did so while others were carried. Donkeys used to pull the carts were unhooked from one and led to another in order to move them all.
Andarin watched and waited as the “giants” slaughtered men wantonly. 'Faster!' he hurried through the narrow road his archers behind him at a sprint. It would take longer but he had a chance to save precious lives. 'Can you hit those orcs?' he pointed, querying the nearest archers.
'Some of us, my lord. Better to get closer,' one of the archers said.
Andarin grunted and led them further on. The wounded thinned out nearer to the fighting and between them and the infantry was a vacant stretch of road. Andarin formed his archers up, many still filtering through the bustling street. 'Loose! Loose! Loose! Aim for the tall orcs, bring them down. Save our soldiers! Save Hastos!' Andarin raised his sword and slashed the air, 'LOOSE!'
A hail of arrows hissed into the air. The sky twinkled as torchlight glinted off the arrowheads in a breath of silence. A thousand minor thuds sounded as the arrows hit their targets or missed. Arrow shafts bloomed from the orcs, the flights flitting in the wind like a spring meadow. Volley after volley arced through the smoke clogged night. Lord Andarin watched each hail of arrows pelt the enemy praying none hit Hastosi soldiers. After the sixth volley the first ogre fell, its head a pin cushion. Incensed Andarin directed his archers to focus their sights on one of the giant orcs at a time. The next fell in a single volley. A cheer erupted from the infantry and they began to advance. Wounded men were carried out between the lines, the dead were left behind.
Lord Andarin surged forward, needing to keep pace with the infantry as to not shower Lord Panon's men with arrows. He reached the rear lines of the infantry and the men began loosing freely. Fires raged atop the gatehouse, the towers enshrouded in flame. The walls were littered with corpses and man and orc. There was no sign of the cavalry.
More orcs fell yet for each one slain another emerged through the shattered gate. Andarin could see the Tower of the Boar through the smog but he knew now he would not make it and in all likelihood Panon was dead.
Still, the orcs had to die.
A horn sounded from the rear, a booming guttural sound that was foreign to Lord Andarin's ears. The archers continued to loose and the infantry pressed a steady advance. He thought he had mistaken where it had come from but it sounded again and the archers beside him looked quizzical. Andarin peered through the thick air, squinting at shadows shifting where the wounded had gathered. He climbed onto a stall at the side of the road and from there to the low roof of a small home.
Orcs.
Thousands of orcs.
Rampaging through the streets.
For the first time Andarin thought of death not as a noble prospect for a good warrior but a horrid end to a life half lived. He steeled his heart. He would not die here, nor would humanity, and if it was his fate he would do it with dignity, sword in hand. And so would his men, 'Archers, swords!' the men looped their bows across their back and drew their knightly arming swords. 'Turn about face,' the men responded with a disciplined turn, smothering the fear evident on their faces. 'Engage the enemy!' Lord Andarin gestured with his own weapon and hurried down the flank to rouse the men's hearts.
The melee was a bloodbath. The fighting had broken out into duels and small pockets of fighting, all sense of organisation decimated by the swift surprise attack. 'Form a line!' Andarin yelled but the archers embroiled in combat couldn't hear him and even if they had would be unable to reform. His hope was in the men behind him but as he turned to give encouragement and fresh orders orcs descended from the rooftops crippling the formation and annihilating all hope.
A putrid hissing alerted Andarin and he spun around as two orcs rushed him. One swung a rusty mace, catching the Lord on the shoulder, while the other threw himself at him. Andarin was knocked to one knee but managed to raise his sword to skewer the second, unarmed, orc through the bowels. A fetid stench poured out, black bile coursed down his steel, the monster falling limp on the blade. The other orc swung again, cracking Andarin across the skull.
His vision swam and he fell into the mud and blood that the streets of Hastos had become. He heard the orc screech and knew the end had come. Andarin shut his eyes to the pain and awaited the mace that would dash his brains across the cobbles.
Seconds went by.
Men shouted around him. Orcs hissed. Hands grabbed him and hoisted him to his feet.
'He's alive,' cold fingers held his chin, a calloused hand slapped his cheek. 'Wake up, my lord. You're not dead yet,' the voice was unfamiliar.
Andarin swayed in the strangers arms, his vision doubled. Blood trickled down his face. He raised a hand to his head, it came away sticky with gore.
'Bad wound but you'll live. Get some spirits on it,' a gourd was uncorked and Andarin's head was doused with something that stung.
Andarin winced, 'My thanks, stranger.'
'Get him his sword. We need every one who can fight to do so, thank me if you survive the night.'
Lord Andarin's vision began to settle and the strangers six faces merged into one. He didn't know him but he knew from the white bandana he was a surgeon or at least a healer. 'Still, my thanks regardless, good man. I will endeavour not to die too soon.'
The surgeon laughed, 'Don't make promises you might not be able to keep,' he stowed the gourd of harsh liquid in a pack and turned to a man beside him. 'Go back and see to that soldier with the broken arm, then meet me in the Bastion to restock.' The assistant nodded and set off at a sprint into the melee. 'Now, let me see to your bandage and get you back into the fight,' he unrolled a length of clean white cloth.
At some point the men holding Andarin up had left. 'Very well,' Andarin held his sword tight. The melee around them continued, the pockets drifting further apart as the Hastosi soldiers pushed the orcs back. Andarin knew it wouldn't last, there were too many orcs and not enough men. The surgeon wound the cloth about his head and tied it off.
'Not the tidiest but something is better than nothing. On your way, my lord, and I pray I see you again,' the surgeon saluted, lifted the pack onto his pack and darted into the melee. He ducked, dodged, and wove through the fighting, heading in the direction of the Bastion, the central fortification at the heart of the Citadel, a towering castle that loomed over the rest of the city.
Andarin was left alone. Duels taking place up and down the street. He moved to the nearest group fighting to turn the tide and begin gathering his men. As he neared orcs appeared on the roof top, twenty, thirty, or more, and descended on the handful of archers. They were slaughtered and as the orcs feasted more appeared on the roof. Andarin ran up the street, back towards the south, and began fighting with a pocket of injured soldiers, ones he had marched past barely a few hours ago. The ground trembled and an explosion cracked the air like thunder. A blazing furnace pierced in the east engulfing the gatehouse and a long section of the wall Lord Andarin had been tasked with defending. He was numb to the shock and fear now, numb to the aches and pains of combat. He slew a few orcs and rallied a group of men to him, together they carried on south, then east, gathering remnants here and there. Where once there had been full units of a thousand men posted there was now only survivors and injured, most gravely so. The heat of the blaze grew intense even a quarter mile from the east wall gatehouse, Andarin halted as figures appeared in the smog and flame ahead of him and his petty band.
Lord Kifarin emerged from the smoke, bleeding from a gash along his jaw and a few stab wounds on his arm and leg. The man's skin had become charcoal, his eyes bloodshot. 'The east wall has fallen, they breached the gate then blew it up. I don't know how,' the man coughed and spluttered his words to Andarin. 'The south held for a while but the breach you defended was widened by catapults. We've been undone,' Kifarin aged when those words fled his lips, his eyes sank, his jowls sagged.
Andarin knew the north was lost, 'To the inner walls, like planned. While one man can hold a sword we will live.' He grasped the shoulders of his fellow lord and shook him. 'Come on, get your men moving!' Lord Andarin turned back and headed west towards the centre of the Last Citadel.
Subscribed
The inner walls were breached. Orcs scrambled up the walls using hooks as long as an arm driven into the mortar. The gates had been smashed to pieces, the portcullis's melted. Everywhere Andarin looked there was dead men and dead orcs but always more men. Smoke rose in great billowing columns from the great houses within the inner city, his own would be among them. His wife, Rhii, became his focus and he rushed ahead, barging past the scant survivors, and into the inner city. He leapt through the gate, the dead piled up like a cairn in two metre gap in the smashed wood and deformed iron. For the first time that day he saw the bodies of women and children, those who refused to flee to the Bastion until necessary, those like Rhii who wished to remain in their homes rather than be crammed into the fortress beneath ground with the rest of the populace.
A servant, in a family livery and short sword in hand, wept at the body of his mistress, her two young children beside her. Her husband, their father, would likely be fighting. Would likely be dead, Andarin knew.
The hissing and horns of the orc horde echoed behind him as the last resistance broke and the monsters gained a clear run to the Bastion. Lord Andarin knew he had to go, had to join up with the remaining lords and the Autarch to defend the Bastion, the last hope of mankind. The Bastion could hold for weeks, but they had also thought the walls would hold for days not hours.
An orc burst out from a postal station nestled on the roadside between mighty oak trees, their limbs charred and burning. The orc screeched. Andarin spun, his sword a blur, and slew the beast without feeling. Another emerged, meat dangling from its teeth, and died similarly. Andarin could think of nothing but Rhii as he watched the servant weep. He headed for home.
His house, the house of his family for a thousand years, was burning. The gardens torn up, the windows smashed, the roof caved in in parts. Flames licked out the windows and scorched the stone and brick. It had not been a grand home, not like those built in the last few centuries out in the fields were land was plentiful but it had been his and his to tend to in order it survived for future generations.
Yet now it burned.
And Rhii was inside.
Lord Andarin sprinted towards the burning building and scrambled through a window into a room that was not burning. The smoke rose from beneath the door and the wall hangings seemed paler, drier, than before. He found the door to the next room and forced it open. The roar of fire deafened him and he failed to hear the hiss of orcs. A sword pierced his arm, the rusted metal shearing at his flesh like a lumber saw. Andarin grunted with pain and slashed wildly. Steel met steel. A second orc emerged from behind a pipe organ, then a third, and a fourth, until the music room felt cramped. Andarin lashed out at the nearest, failing to strike and feeling the beat of a club on his back. He fell to one knee. The orcs launched themselves at him. He scrambled backwards through the door and found his feet. He lunged, catching a pursuer in the neck. The body slumped in the doorway forcing the next orc to jump. Andarin slashed its legs, removing one at the knee. More orcs appeared from the smoke clogging the room. Andarin felt his lungs tighten but he could not leave, not now. He waited for the orcs to attack, as their nature demanded, and picked them off one by one in the doorway.
Close to twenty lay dead in and around the doorway forcing Andarin to climb over them. He crouched beneath the smoke, though it would soon engulf him, and hurried for a door into the hallway. The tapestries burned bright along the walls and smoke rose from the carpets eager to burn. He hurried to the door leading below, into the cellar, where he hoped Rhii had had the sense to retreat too for if she didn't she was surely dead.
A damp scent crawled up his nose as soon as he opened the door, the fire would have a difficult time spreading to the cellar. Lord Andarin descended the polished stone steps into the darkness below.
Rubble littered the steps half way down, a hole in the wall to blame. He peered into the darkness, a faint light flickering on the other side. It was a section of tunnels he hadn't known existed, the wall had been ruptured from the tunnels. Andarin quickened his pace.
At the base of the steps he found a brazier, faint with only a couple of coals still burning. He found an unlit oil lamp and lit it with a wick on the embers. The lantern bloomed with a warm homely light that banished the darkness and revealed blood on the floor and splattered across the shelves stacked with ancient scrolls and priceless trinkets from bygone ages. He followed the trail of blood deeper into the cellar, deeper than he had explored, until he was certain he was underneath Lord Panon's home. Skulls sat in recesses on the walls, stone caskets lay on the floor with waist high statues of people, likely of the occupants. The blood trail thinned out and led behind one of the caskets.
'Rhii?' Andarin said, weakly, his throat dry as old bone.
'Andarin?' Rhii whimpered. She emerged, her dress in tatters, her hair smeared with greasy smoke and blood. She held a sword in both hands, gore up to her wrists. 'Is it over?' she staggered towards Andarin, shaking. Her hands reached his head, 'What happened?'
'The battle continues,' Andarin said, taking her hands in his.
Rhii began to sob.
'Though I think I know a way to the Bastion from here,' he wrapped an arm round his wife and guided her out of the crypt and back into the cellar. A faint hiss echoed on the old stone and he hurried, urging Rhii along. 'Where are the servants? Your mother?'
'Dead. I think. I don't know. I... I...' Her sorrow drowned her words.
'There is no need for words,' Andarin kissed her forehead. 'Let us get to the Bastion.' they climbed the steps, the heat of the fire engulfing the door out. Andarin led Rhii through the hole in the wall half way up the steps that the orcs had used. The tunnel went left and right, he chose right as that was in the direction of the Bastion.
The sounds of fire and fighting faded to nothing leaving the couple with the sound of trickling water and their own breathing. There had been many branching paths to the tunnels but Andarin chose none of them figuring that a long straight tunnel would be the main one.
He was correct.
The tunnel ended in a set of stairs with an iron bar gate at the peak. The metal had rusted over years and the lock had long since corroded to nothing. It swung open and Andarin knew he was in a storage room of the Bastion. He ran, dragging Rhii along, up to ground level and then through a courtyard and into the fortress. Soldiers and commoners dove out of his way, them clean and fresh for battle, him drenched in sweat and blood with a bandage about his head and his cloak singed. He reached the command room. Autarch Ralin stood, sword in hand, joined by two other Lords.
'Andarin! We heard you were dead!'
'Not yet, Your Exaltedness. How goes the defence of the keep?'
'Poorly. We do not have the men.'
'So our end has come.'
'It appears so,' Ralin swallowed.
'Then I will die fighting,' Andarin raised his sword.
'NO!' Rhii shouted.
'I must, for even with so little chance of victory I must try,' Andarin kissed his wife. 'Stay here, this is the safest place,' with that he rushed to the battlements.
The orcs surrounded the Bastion on all sides. Smoke clogged the sky and Hastos lay in ruins, not a single building in the inner or outer city remained standing. The Autarch was right, there were not enough archers to man the walls, nor enough spearmen to hold the gates if – when – they were breached.
'Where are the rest of the soldiers?' Lord Andarin asked an archer captain.
'Dead or underground with their families. Some commanders felt they had a better chance in the cellars and dungeons, my lord.'
'Who allowed them to go?'
'There is no stopping a man facing certain death when he has the chance to see his wife and children again, my lord.'
'You are here.'
'As are you, my lord.'
Nothing more needed to be said.
The orcs began climbing the walls, using the iron spikes and hooks from before while the giants piled up corpses to simply walk. No matter how many arrows plummeted down the ranks of monsters grew no thinner, though it was hard to see in the smoke. The rising sun made the air glow, obscuring his vision moreso.
The first ogre ascended, a little over twice as tall as Andarin and wielding a club as thick as an elm tree. A single swing cracked the merlons and sent a dozen archers sprawling. Andarin backed away as the beast set its narrow black eyes on him. The ogre raised its club to squash Andarin. The Lord darted into the beast but the club came down quicker than he thought possible. Andarin dove under the orcs legs, flailing with his sword. Blood, or something resembling blood, spurted out from the beast's calves. It roared and tried to grab Andarin. Fat fingers clawed at Andarin's legs. He hacked at the fleshy digits, removing two and splitting a third. The ogre spun with its club outstretched. The heft of wood slammed into Andarin, knocking the wind from him and sending him rolling down the hill of corpses. He tasted blood and struggled to catch a full breath, he rose anyway.
Orcs surrounded him, but not nearly as many as he had thought. They hissed and screeched, slowly forming a circle to ensnare him. The ogre rampaged on the battlements, distracted by the archers and spearmen up top.
The ground trembled, the sensation coming from the west. Lord Andarin turned to see orcs running his way, waving swords and maces overhead. Then, from the sun lit smoke and fog, emerged cavalry.
'CHARGE! LEAVE NONE ALIVE!' Lord Essen sounded his horn. He slashed left and right, decapitating orcs with each swing.
The cavalry wove around Andarin, slaying every orc encircling the Bastion. Soon Lord Essen appeared again from the morning fog, this time slower and showered with blood and guts. 'Andarin! I am pleased at least someone lives,' he removed his helm.
'Why have you stopped? Is there not more bearing down on us?' Andarin panicked but the ogre atop the walls was dead as were the orcs that had scaled the walls.
'No, Andarin. We have won,' Lord Essen said. 'I am organising hunting parties to scour the vicinity, we cannot let a single one of those fiends escape. Does the Autarch live?'
'He does.'
'Good. Good, last thing we need is new leadership. We won Andarin, cherish the feeling,' Lord Essen kicked his horse and rode north. 'With me men! There are still orcs to hunt!'
The cavalrymen roared and joined their commander.
Lord Andarin gazed upon the citadel bathed in blood and dawn. Never had the scent of death been so beautiful.
Thank you for reading.
Word Total - 11’952
Originally published 29th-31st January 2025.
Thank you for posting this! Added to my list.