The End of Days - Part 2
A Multi-part Fantasy One Shot
Part 2 of my answer to January prompt. Enjoy!
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.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for Part 3 tomorrow (Thursday 30th January).
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I'm re-reading this. Good writing.
Good writing.