Rising of a Mage: Book 03 - A Mage Risen

by J. M. Fosberg

  “Kletterns, get going up those stairs. You wanna get as far up them stairs as you can ’fore the sun comes. If they start shooting, keep going. Remember, the wizards are going to start shooting magic. It will just take a little bit for them to make their magic after they see the dwarves.”

  The Klettern clan chief took off running. If the dwarves hadn’t known they were there yet, they would by the time the Kletterns got to the base of the mountain. It was too dark to see the orcs’ movement up the stairs. The moon was providing almost no illumination. Fredin stood there staring at the mountain in the dark. Every few minutes he would hear the scream or squeal of an orc that slipped off the stairs. The dwarves had probably poured something down the stairs to make them slippery. After about an hour and a half the morning twilight was providing enough light to see the stairs. Fredin was amazed. He had known the stairs were going to be long, but this was incredible. It had to be close to three miles of winding stairs up the mountain. No wonder he hadn’t heard the sounds of fighting yet. Over the next few minutes he watched a couple more orcs slip over the edge of the stairs and fall to their deaths on the jagged rocks of the mountain below. Dozens of others slipped, but didn’t fall over.

  The Klettern clan included close to twenty-five thousand orcs; there were now less than five thousand left at the bottom of the stairs, and the orcs in front would soon be within range of the crossbowmen on the landing. Fredin stood waiting in anticipation. He looked over at the wizard, who was staring on as well. “They will start firing on them in a minute. They’re just at the edge of crossbow range now. Let them try to surge up the steps after the firing starts. I wanna see what these dwarves have planned.”

  Vingaza looked over at Fredin and smiled. He had to admit the orc was a tactician. He had watched Fredin’s movements. He had sent the orcs that would pose the biggest threat up the mountain because he knew that the beginning of this fight would lead to huge casualties for those orcs. He was going to use the other orcs to fight, but he wanted to use his own trusted clan if he could. He was planning on winning this mountain and having his own full force to hold it when it was done. The orcs who did not answer to him were pawns to be sacrificed. He would have made a good Black Dragon if he had been human, Vingaza thought. Then his attention snapped back to the mountain when he saw a dozen flaming arrows fly through the air.

  Grizzle and Jabaal stood on the landing at the top of the stairs. The sun was just starting to illuminate the sky. They watched as tens of thousands of orcs made their way up the stairs. For the first time in millennia, Evermount was under siege. They knelt on the landing, behind the wall, as the orcs came up those stairs. They were only three hundred feet away now. Jabaal looked to his left and right, at two dozen dwarves waiting with loaded crossbows. The orcs were in range now. Grindel had given command to Grizzle, but he stood next to his son, watching. At two hundred feet Grizzle gave the command.

  “Fire torches!”

  Flint ground against steel and three torches were lit on each side of the landing. The orcs saw the torches and started charging up the last two hundred feet of stairs. Grizzle gave the second command.

  “Fire the mountain!”

  The six dwarves on the outside of each line put the tips of their crossbow bolts, wrapped in rags and dipped in oil, into the torches. They fired out at the steps. The twelve on the inside stood up and fired at the orcs charging up the stairs. Some fell; others tripped and fell over the edge. The next twenty-four dwarves stepped up. Twelve lit their bolts and fired, while the other twelve fired at the dwarves trying to climb over the fallen orcs. More than half of the orcs hit by the fire arrows had fallen over the edge, but the rest fell down onto the stairs, lighting the oil there. Many of the orcs had already slipped on their way up the stairs and been covered in the fuel themselves. Within minutes the top quarter of the stairs was on fire and spreading quickly. Very few orcs were actually burned, as most chose to jump off of the stairs to their deaths. The orcs at the bottom of the stairs were still trying to make it up, but the ones that the fire hadn’t reached were trying to scramble down. By the time the orcs at the bottom realized what was happening and stopped fighting their way up, it was too late. Maybe a thousand of the orcs who had been on the flaming stairs made it to safety, and most of those had leapt or been thrown off the stairs close enough to the bottom that they had not died from the impact.

  Fredin watched as the arrows flew through air, lighting the stairs on fire. Thousands of orcs were dead in minutes. The fire was really catching now and would spread more quickly. He looked to Vingaza. “Can you put it out?”

  Vingaza looked up and then back at him. “That is oil burning up there. The only we could put it out is with a strong enough wind that it couldn’t stay lit. That would throw all of your orcs off of those stairs anyway. The oil would still be on the steps and you would be watching this whole thing happen over again when the next clan went up those stairs. The best option is to let them die like you knew they would. It’ll be another hour before all of that oil burns away, but then the stairs should be clear for the next clan.”

  Fredin looked up at the mountain. He had known he was going to lose a lot of orcs, and fast, trying to make his way up the mountain, but he hadn’t anticipated twenty thousand this quickly. He resigned to wait out the fire, but there was one thing he could do first.

  He walked to the base of the stairs where the orcs who had escaped were now watching the fire burn down. He called out to them—about five thousand orcs. Most wouldn’t hear what he said, but the word would pass on. “Kletterns! You have no clan chief. I am Fredin of the Dungins. I make claim to the Kletterns. Is there a challenge?”

  The orcs were still scared to death of the fire. None were in any mood for a fight. He waited ten minutes for the word to spread, then made his claim. “The Kletterns are no more. You are all now Dungins. Make your way to the back of the camp and join with the Dungin clan.”

  The orcs were more than happy to get away from the fire that had just destroyed their clan. He had turned another loss into a gain. Now he was resigned to watch the fire burn down before sending the Opfern up next. The orcs would realize the risk now, though, so he called for the clan chiefs again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Second Assault

  The clan chiefs stood around Fredin. Not one of them still held to the primal battle lust they had shown just a few hours ago. If it weren’t for him, the entire horde would likely have abandoned the mountain altogether.

  “The fire is gone. Now that the oil is burned down, they cannot use it again. All they can do now is fire crossbow bolts down the steps. Get some orcs out front with shields. They will only be able to shoot down so many with orcs rushing up to the landing. When they start shooting, the wizards will shoot their magic at them. Opfern, your clan will go up first. The Verrit will—”

  He was cut off before he could finish. “The Opfern will not go first. The Opfern will leave.”

  Fredin stared down into the other orc’s eyes. Opfern stepped back a step, but didn’t look away. “Does Opfern challenge for leadership of the horde?”

  Opfern looked around. All eyes were on him. “Opfern is leader of the Opfern clan. Opfern will go.”

  Fredin let one side of his lip turn up into a smile. That disturbed the Opfern clan leader even more. He moved his hands towards his weapons, but he was too afraid to draw them. “The Opfern are part of this horde. Fredin leads the horde. You will leave the horde when Fredin says.” Fredin turned his back on the clan chief and looked at the others. Then he pointed back behind him. “A mouse has a bigger sac than this one. How does he still have a clan?”

  He knew he had gotten the reaction he had intended when he heard steel sliding against leather. He didn’t even reach for his sword. Instead he spun around, grabbing the other orc’s sword arm as he stepped toward him. The orc had barely cleared the end of the steel from the scabbard. Fredin outmatched the smaller orc’s strength at least twice over. He might a
s well have been a human. Fredin reached his right hand up and squeezed the other orc’s throat. With one hand he squeezed until he felt the clan chief’s throat crush in his hand. He dropped the orc to the ground and turned to the other clan chiefs. They were all watching Opfern as he fought to draw his last breaths. It was one thing for one clan chief to kill another, but to crush the other’s throat with one hand like he was a child? That gave them all pause. “Does any one else want to challenge the command of the horde?”

  When he received no response he gave his orders.

  “The Narren will lead the attack. Get some shields and get up those stairs. Don’t stop until you have that landing. The Topel will follow the Nareen, then the Dumme, then the Wahreg, then the Vorig, then the Weigand, and the Dungins will come up last. Now Narrens get up the mountain. Someone gather the Opfern. They have a new clan chief.”

  The Narrens were halfway up the stairs when the fifteen thousand Opfern were assembled in front of him. “Opfern, I am Fredin of the Dungins. Your clan chief was weak. He was afraid of the dwarves, who are as small as children. Opfern is dead. The Dungins claim the Opfern clan. Is there a challenge?” He waited nearly half an hour to allow the word to spread. When no one came forward he made the claim. “The Opfern are gone. You are all Dungins. Go!” With that the fifteen thousand new Dungins were led to the back of the army to join the others. His clan was over fifty thousand now. He had half of the horde.

  Grindel, Grizzle, and Jabaal stood on the landing, watching the orcs come up the stairs. There were a hundred dwarves on the landing. Fifty stood at the chest-high wall with crossbows in hand. The other fifty stood behind them. They each held a second crossbow. Next to each of them was a barrel full of bolts. There were a dozen dwarves inside who would come running out to refill those barrels, and there was a chain of dwarves leading down into Evermount who would pass up more bolts as the supply got low. Every dwarf in the line was a trained warrior. If one dwarf fell or slowed in firing or reloading, another in the line would replace him. They also had another surprise waiting in the tunnel. If the orcs got close to the landing there were dozens of dwarves ready to spring the next trap.

  The orcs were three hundred feet away, the maximum effective range for the crossbow, but they could shoot accurately a little farther here because they were shooting from an elevated position. Grizzle waited another minute. The dwarves knew what to do. The orcs thought that the shields in front would help. They wouldn’t. The orcs had given shields to the next fifty orcs all the way down on both sides. But there was only so much you could cover with a shield on that narrow staircase. If they held their shields out to the side they were exposed at the top. If they raised the shield up high they were exposed down low. They were two abreast coming up the stairs. They couldn’t fit more orcs in to try to gain more coverage. The shields would give them some reprieve, but it wouldn’t be enough. Once the orcs began falling it wouldn’t matter. The bolts would rain down.

  The orcs were at two hundred and fifty feet. Grizzle waited. Two hundred feet. He wanted to give the dwarves their best chance. He would have loosed already if they didn’t have those shields, but he wanted the orcs in front to go down. He waited. At one hundred and fifty feet the orcs began to sprint up the stairs. The gaps in the shields grew immediately.

  “Fire!” he yelled over the war cry of the hundreds of oncoming orcs. The dwarves echoed the command down the line. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

  The orcs in the front took bolts in the legs and feet. When they fell they were trampled by the orcs behind them. Those orcs were either shot or they tripped, which resulted in them being trampled as well, or falling off the stairs. In minutes there was a pile of orcs blocking the path. The dwarves who had built Evermount had done well. After three miles of stairs, the orcs’ legs only had so much strength in them, and the narrowness of the path slowed their movements, too. They pushed orcs over the side, but their bodies were quickly replaced with others. There was no way that they would make the landing. Then something happened.

  Fredin stood next to Vingaza, watching as the first orcs began falling over the edge of the stairs. “Wait. I want to make sure they don’t have another trap set up.”

  After a few minutes Fredin was satisfied. At least two hundred orcs had died in that time. He nodded to his new advisor. Gescheit blew the horn. Vingaza watched as the just under fifty wizards, and all the under wizards they had brought with them, fired whatever magic they were capable of firing at the distance. It wasn’t nearly as far as the three-mile winding staircase, but it was still a mile and a half to two miles as the crow flies. That was a great distance for a wizard to push his magic. Many of the wizards had made their way right up to the base of the mountain to fire what they could. Most of them shot small balls of fire. Many of the less capable wizards who had been brought along as aides were quickly finding out they didn’t have the ability to make that distance.

  Jabaal stood watching as crossbow bolts rained down on the orcs. The dwarves were firing and reloading faster then the orcs could clear away the dead. Then he saw dozens of balls of fire flying at the landing. He dove to the side, tackling Grizzle. The two of them fell to the ground, knocking the king down with them. The landing turned into chaos. Fire burst on the wall. Some fire balls smashed into the mountain above the landing, raining rocks down on the dwarves. Evermount didn’t let go of its stone easily, though. The balls of fire the wizards were able to throw that distance weren’t strong enough to do much damage, so the rocks that fell didn’t do much more than bounce off of armor or leave minor cuts and bruises. The dwarves were jumping back up to resume firing.

  When Grizzle got back to his feet he saw that the delay had given the orcs a chance to clear away the bodies, and they were now charging up the last hundred feet. Dwarves were starting to shoot again, but enough were still down or had been wounded that the orcs were going to make the landing before they recovered their defenses. He threw Gorgon’s hammer, the hammer that Gorgon had made and Bordin had blessed when Gorgon had sacrificed himself in the battle against Miskrull. The hammer was a heavy, square thing that narrowed near the handle and rounded on the ends. It flew down the steps, smashing orc after orc, knocking them down as if they were nothing more then bottles on a wall. Some were knocked backwards, some took glancing blows that sent them spinning off the wall, but the hammer was not slowed. It flew down the steps five hundred feet until they started to curve. Grizzle called the hammer back. Just as the hammer returned to him he had to dive back to the ground as another volley of fire assaulted the landing. This one lasted longer than the last. Every time a dwarf stuck his head up there was more fire coming. They were peeking up just long enough to let bolts go then were diving down again. The orcs were making progress, though.

  Grizzle called down into the tunnel. “Roll away. Roll away! Now!”

  Vingaza watched as the first volley of fire ended. The orcs had nearly made it up before one of the dwarves had thrown some kind of magical weapon that had cleared five hundred feet of stairs. With the orcs all lined up like they were on the stairs, that throw had cleared away close to a thousand of them.

  Vingaza let the wizards fire their next volley. They weren’t strong enough to maintain a constant attack. Each wizard fired one ball of fire then needed a few minutes before he could fire the next. Vingaza waited until the last of the balls of fire was on its way before sending his own volley.

  Fredin watched the second round of fireballs go flying through the air. He knew that it was only enough to get the orcs back up to that set of stairs leading to the landing. It wasn’t going to be enough to get them onto the landing. Then Vingaza let his first round of fire go. A dozen balls of fire followed the other wizards’ up the mountain. Then he sent another dozen. Vingaza had sent at least as much magic up the mountain as all the other wizards combined. Fredin realized for the first time how powerful he really was.

  Grizzle stayed low as volley another volley slammed into the mountain. The dwarves were
still firing down at the orcs, but avoiding the fire and the rocks wasn’t easy. It wouldn’t be but another minute before the first orc made the landing. The wizards would have to stop their attack then. He heard the dwarves in the tunnel calling as they made the entrance of the cave. This group of orcs wouldn’t make the landing. He heard the dwarf’s commands. “Push! Let’s go! What are we, dwarves or kobolds? Push! Push! Push!” Then the first eight-foot-tall boulder rolled out onto the landing. The dwarves had been chiseling these over the last couple days, getting them as round and smooth as they could so they would roll straight. He heard the final command.

  “Heave away!”

  The boulder rolled over the landing and started down the stairs.

  Fredin watched as the orcs made their way up the fatal funnel. Thousands of orcs had died there. Now, while the wizards suppressed the dwarves with the bombardment of balls of fire, the orcs were finally about to make the landing. Once they did that, the dwarves would be lost. There were just too many orcs for them to win once they made it into the mountain. But just when he thought the tide had turned, a huge boulder rolled out of the mouth of the cave. Fredin watched as another thousand orcs were lost in seconds. On those five hundred feet of stairs more orcs had died in the last couple of hours than anywhere else in the world. Of that Fredin was certain.

  “Vingaza, is there anything you can do about the rocks?”

  Vingaza had watched. He could replicate the whole thing they had just done, but after two volleys he needed a few minutes to recover. He called to one of the Ambar wizards. “Darren, come here.” Darren was one of the most powerful wizards who had come with them. That meant he was about a tenth as capable as Vingaza, but he would be able to handle this.