Dragon Alliance Dark Storm : Dark Storm

by J. Michael Fluck

  This time, the remaining gnolls were a little more prepared for the devastating formation charge of the weir knights, but it still did not prevent another thirty or so from being impaled by lances or cut apart by holy swords. Two paladins were dismounted by the flying tackles of lucky gnolls, and a general melee then broke out. It did not last long, however, for in spite of their greater strength and foot speed, the leather or hide armor of the hyena like creatures proved easy to slice through and the paladins’ mithril-alloy armor was not easily penetrated. The last gnoll fell to Lenor’s downward stroke that cut well into the creature’s shoulder and upper chest. Lenor counted his wounded, which were two with minor injuries and one with a pretty nasty gash on his lower neck from a lucky gnoll ax that had found a small opening in the knight’s armor. He sent them back with a small escort and began to move toward the harbor again.

  They did not get far before they saw the approaching force of regimental strength, consisting of Shidanese, grummish, orcs, Morgathians, ogres, and a few giants, including an evil mountain giant. Upon seeing the weir knights, the Shidanese all raised their scimitars and spears and shouted, “Death to the infidels! Death to the nonbelievers!” and started to charge toward them. Lenor estimated the Shidanese alone were at least of battalion strength with almost a regiment of Morgathians and other enemy forces behind them. This was beyond even his brave and powerful knights, so he turned his men around and headed back to the weir garrison at a full gallop to let them know what they were facing.

  The paladins quickly rejoined the weir soldiers as they were marching down the main thoroughfare. Lenor informed Pekram and Lieutenant Ablich of what was bearing down on them. “All right, Lenor, take your knights and try to circle around to the rear of their column and give them something to think about there. Lady Beckann, can you send your elf archers forward to slow them down to buy us some time to set up in that narrow portion of the street where we can canalize them and help even the odds a little?” Pekram started to form their close battle plan.

  “Sergeant Pekram, we’ll send all of our archers forward, bait the Shidanese in, and hit them from the rooftops. Your sharpshooters and other crossbowmen with those new repeaters now have almost the same speed, accuracy, and firepower of elf archers, so any left will not last long against them. We will then fall back to the support corps wagons, reload, and rejoin the rest of the weir garrison. I will move in between the garrison and the support corps, for without Silvanth to protect us from the air, I don’t want the garrison defenseless in case an errant chromatic decides to break off from that horrific battle up there and take an attack run,” the elf clan matriarch answered, to which Pekram and Ablich nodded.

  “We’ll keep our current formation, but I don’t like this city-type terrain. We must be prepared to fight from both sides, especially with an enemy as numerous as they are. After they get frustrated with our usually tough defensive formation, even the Morgathians will figure out to try and flank us,” Pekram told the assembled leaders.

  “Lieutenant Willaward, have your one catapults as far back from the infantry and dwarf line as possible while still being able to fire onto the enemy column. Lieutenant Wheelor, keep your land dragons just over our shoulder in case we face too many giants to the front or something powerful to our backs. Captain Vicasek, we’ll need armed escort of the wounded back to your healers and a steady supply of bolts and arrows to the line. With only one catapult firing, they should have enough of a supply of spike ammunition on their basic load to last for a while. If we get in too much trouble, we’ll fall back to the teleportation circle as our last defense and I’ll call Captain Mkel and Gallanth, who will hopefully be able to help us,” Ablich added as his part to tie all the combat arms pieces together for a better synergistic plan.

  “Good touch, Lieutenant; Draden Weir, Dwarves, and Elves, I know Captain Mkel would normally have a motivational speech at this time, but I am not as good with words as him. So all I have to say is fight your hardest, show no quarter for none will be given to you, and protect the soldier next to you as they will do the same. This is for our republic; these pieces of otyugh scum will be judged for what they have done, and we will be the ones to make that happen!” Pekram shouted out as he drew his sword, to which the Draden Weir soldiers, dwarves, and elves all raised their weapons and cheered in response. “Now, follow me!” he yelled out again as he turned and led the garrison forward. The elf archers started to sprint ahead to meet the coming foe. “Dorin, it’s up to you and me to hold this line together. Are you with me, old friend?” Pekram leaned down and whispered to the red-bearded dwarf.

  “From here to the underworld and back, my tall friend,” Dorin replied and smiled, grasping his mithril battle-ax and shield. Eldir led the two platoons of sixty elf archers forward at a full run, which elves could do even in full battle dress and also do very quietly. As they passed the narrow part of the market section of Atlean, he directed two of the three squads in each platoon to move to either the rooftops of the three- to four-story buildings there or the upper windows and prepare to fire and move on his arrow shot. The other two squads were to move forward and harass the charging Shidanese and Kallysh soldiers, who were screaming and moving up the street several hundred yards past the bend in the road. When Dekeen was with Mkel and Beckann was elsewhere or with the support corps, Eldir, the master weapons smith, was usually in charge of the Draden elf clan. Eldir, while an older elf, being likely over a thousand years in age, was still very nimble and one of the most deadly archers in the clan after Dekeen himself.

  The two squads on the street sprinted forward and finally encountered the Shidanese battalion about three hundred yards down the main street. The elves stopped, quickly formed a line, and began to fire at the lightly armored Kallysh warriors. The front line of the cloth-clad desert soldiers quickly fell to the elves’ arrows. They let the Shidanese move another couple of dozen yards and fired another volley, again downing another twenty. The deadly elf archers repeated this process several times until the battalion was within fifty yards. They then deftly pulled back, reformed their line fifty yards further back, and fired a quick volley. The two squads kept this routine up until they had baited the Shidanese battalion well into the kill zone of their clansmen. As they fired their last volley, Eldir, from the rooftop of the nearest building, drew his bow and fired, hitting what he thought was a Shidanese captain or sheik. The other sixty elf archers started to rain a steady torrent of arrows down on the unsuspecting Shidanese.

  As the Kallysh warriors were starting to fall by the dozens, their archers tried to return fire, but they were notoriously bad shots and proved this rumor true. They were good at barrage and volley firing against an approaching army, but ineffective against covered point targets. The Shidanese commander soon realized he was boxed in. He had arrows coming at him from three directions and did not have the high ground in this urban terrain. He sent the remnants of two companies to each side of the street into the buildings to root out the elves. This also proved fatal, for in a hand-to-hand fight, the speed and dexterity of an elf with a short sword was also deadly. It did slow the arrow fire down a bit, which allowed the last platoon of his forward company to charge at the twenty elves in front of them. They used the last of their arrows to down all but a few who made it to them only to be cut apart in a sword-on-sword duel.

  At this point, the remainder of the Shidanese fell to arrow strikes, as the bearded Kallysh commander was hit in the heart by Eldir and fell, cursing the infidel elves in his dying gasp. The Shidanese battalion, consisting of six hundred of their best Kallysh soldiers, was now decimated. As Eldir started to regroup his two platoons, a giant-thrown boulder crashed into the building to his left, and two ballista spears whistled over their heads. Most of his elves were either out of arrows or dangerously low, so he decided to get them back to the support corps wagons to get their second basic load of thirty to forty arrows a piece. This would enable them to get bac
k into the fight when the Morgathians charged the weir’s infantry and the dwarves.

  As the elves passed through the now-formed weir’s infantry and dwarf line, Eldir stopped to give Pekram and Dorin the report of what had happened and to inform them happily that they had one less battalion to worry about. Both Weirleaders briefly smiled at that knowledge, but this was interrupted by a giant-thrown boulder that crashed fifty yards in front of them. Dorin looked at Pekram and acknowledged that it would be up to them to take care of those giants who got past the archers and land dragons and without the weir council, Mkel, and Gallanth; this might be a tough fight. The screams and war cries of the Morgathians, orcs, and grummish then echoed from around the bend in the road.

  “Hold steady, boys! It’s just them spouting off. Shooters, get ready. Gemorg, Hartsean, the first fight goes to you. Even the odds for us!” Pekram shouted out to the sharpshooter section’s two leaders, who gave sectors of fire and target priorities to their marksmen. Those specialized sharpshooters were firing from three wagons, so they could shoot from a raised prone position. The crossbowmen of the weir’s infantry company would fire into the charging enemy formation for simplicity, but with their new, more powerful repeating crossbows, they would be able to pour a murderous fire into the Morgathians. As the enemy rounded the bend in the road approximately two hundred yards away, the sharpshooter section and the ballistae started to fire into their ranks. Over a dozen immediately fell as the small, fast bolts sank through the Morgathian and orc chain mail and lighter armor. The ballista gunners sought out the giants and ogres to hit or fired explosive-tipped spears into the enemy ranks. The infantry’s crossbows then started to fire rapidly at the Morgathians and were able to keep up a steady volume of bolts, almost equal to the elves’ rate of fire. Most were penetrating even through the Morgathian shields, especially as they drew closer. This advantage impressed even Pekram, who was always skeptical of such new devices. If they would have had the elf archers behind the dwarves, they could have likely stopped the rushing enemy column. However, he was satisfied with the fact that they had reduced the numbers of the enemy regiment by almost half as the Morgathians had to climb over piles of their own dead and wounded.

  One common giant broke through the Morgathian line and charged the weir’s troops at a full run. All the sharpshooters keyed in on him, and soon, he was riddled with bolts that were sinking in past the fletching. Being hit with dozens of bolts finally took its toll, and he was brought to his knees with a final shot from Hartsean through his right eye, which killed the brute. This distraction allowed the Morgathians and orcs to sprint the final fifty yards with either raised swords and weapons or spears poised for the rush.

  The Morgathian commander was amazed at the intensity of the barrage of bolts and arrows his men and orcs were receiving. They were firing as fast as elves, and for a moment, they had even stopped his regiment’s charge with the sheer firepower. They had a hard time climbing over the bodies and wounded that were piling up at the front of the assault, and these were men, not elves, firing at them. Nonetheless, he had his death knights and giants push the column forward for the only way to silence those crossbowmen was to put a spear in them. He then ordered two companies to backtrack and come around to the rear of this stubborn Alliance makeshift battalion, for even though he hated to admit it, he knew that the Alliance Army and especially the dwarf shield formation was very difficult to break.

  Pekram shouted for the infantry and the dwarves to hold their shields locked and brace for the impact with spears ready. As the enemy soldiers and orcs reached their line, Pekram shouted, and they all thrust their spears at once, which skewered the majority of those at the front of the charge. They then quickly withdrew their spears and took the impact of the rushing army on their shields. The weir’s line was barely nudged backward due to the Morgathians losing their momentum from the crossbow fires over the shoulders of the line infantry. As the orcs tried to break a hole in the row of Alliance shields, they were cut down. The Morgathians and even the grummish had similar luck, and the grinding fight was on.

  Pekram walked back and forth just behind his soldiers, giving them encouragement and sundering an orc or Morgathian soldier that had managed to gain even a notion of an upper hand against one of the weir infantrymen. The dwarves needed no such reinforcement, for this was the fight they were made for. Just as the senior Draden Weir sergeant thought that they could withstand the odds set against them, he heard the shouts of the two companies of orcs and Morgathians moving in behind them. He looked back to see the black-armored Morgathian soldiers and hideous insect like orcs running to the rear of his line, weapons raised as they sprinted.

  This caught the two platoons of elves that were making their way back to the fight, and they began firing at one of the companies that split to pursue them. They were raking the two hundred enemy soldiers and orcs that were advancing toward them back to the support corps assembly area, but they seemed determined to fight to the finish. The other two-hundred-man strong company blindly rushed to the rear of the Draden Weir line. The crossbowmen shifted and started to fire as fast as they could into the charge and did inflict dozens of casualties. This slowed them down enough for Pekram and Dorin to split the line and initiate the turnstile defense with the employment of second platoon and the elf infantry platoon, which were now committed. They were fighting literally in two opposite directions with the line only two men deep now, front and back. Pekram knew his men would tire quickly this way, but he had no choice. The land dragons and their crews were barely able to incinerate and fire enough ballista spears to keep the ogres and common giants at bay, so they could not break the infantry’s line with their strength and size.

  Beckann hurled a fireball, and Watterseth cast a searing light spell at the attacking enemy company, just over the heads of the elves, who were managing an organized retrograde. This blew two holes in the attacking enemy’s charge but didn’t seem to deter them. By the time the elf archers rejoined the support corps assembly area, Captain Vicasek and Lieutenants Willaward and Clydown had formed a wall with their floating wagons and catapult sections and were ready to defend it. The crossbowmen of those sections were adding to the elf archers’ fire to devastating results. When the fight went hand-to-hand, the Morgathians and orcs had been reduced to less than half, which made the odds just about even. From atop the wagons, they had the advantage of the high ground and used their long spears to good effect, as well as the continued fire from the crossbowmen led by Milljim and the elf archers.

  An ogre managed to knock a sapper and a support corps soldier off of one of the wagons with a lucky swipe and jumped up on top. When he leaped down to the other side looking for someone to fight, he was met by Watterseth, who struck him in the side with his powerful mace. With a clap of thunder, the nine-foot-tall creature was sent sprawling to the ground. The impact against its dirty brownish hide armor by the powerful dragonstone holy mace sealed its fate.

  Beckann then reared her unicorn up and jumped over the lower part of one of the catapults. The large, white-horned horse knocked over several orcs in the process. She raised her staff, its dragonstone glowing in an intense, scintillating blue. With her bright violet eyes focused, she cast an ice storm spell that covered a forty-by-forty-yard area in a barrage of ice crystals and frost rays. This effectively wiped out two-thirds of the remaining enemy. Willaward and Clydown then led a countercharge against the thirty-six Morgathians and orcs that were left and quickly killed or captured all of them.

  Pekram and Lieutenant Ablich were barely able to keep the two-front fight going, even as the odds were starting to even. The crossbowmen and sharpshooter sections were delivering a steady, accurate, and deadly fire on the Morgathian regiment, but they were slowly taking a few casualties themselves and were running low on bolts. Each man out of the fight was felt. Pekram thought to himself that if they could just hold on a little while longer, the elves would be back or Mkel and
Gallanth could break from the fight above to hit the Morgathians one good time and allow the weir to gain the upper hand.

  He then saw an orc in the company to their rear take an arrow in the back, and then another orc was hit. A magic missile hit a Morgathian in the head, knocking him over. Beckann, the elves, and the sappers had arrived. Lenor’s knights then charged in from the flank of the Morgathians to the weir’s front and began to whittle them down. “Yes!” Pekram spoke out loud as he turned and thrust his large, two-handed sword into the chest of an orc that was about to hit one of his men on the shoulder. “This fight is ours now!” he shouted out for his men to hear him.

  “By Tiamat, how did their support soldiers defeat a whole company of my men and orcs,” the Morgathian commander cursed.

  “Sergeant, send in the blood-seekers, and, Togart, unchain your giants. We must break them now or the momentum is lost!” the death knight shouted out his orders, and the four-armed hybrid demonic orc creatures let off their chains charged toward the Alliance line. The eighteen-foot-tall mountain giant Togart lifted his eight-foot-long gargantuan spiked mace and shouted to the common giants in his command to attack, and all ten remaining roared and charged the Alliance line.