by RW Krpoun
“We’re holding the Red Line, but the entirety of the Second Cohort has been committed,” Commander Fassburg advised the Lord Regent at the latter’s roof-top command post. “The secondary attacks all along the North Town wall have been contained, but the Wall Companies are taking heavy losses, and most of the Seventh Cohort had been committed to weak points. The Guard Corps is beginning to be committed along the Red Line; when they’re fully engaged it’s all over.”
“How are the Orcs faring?” Chaton asked, staring out across the rooftops towards the flickering shadows at engulfed the battered defensive works.
“They seem to be holding up well,” Fassburg admitted. “It’s going to be a very close-run affair.”
“How are things proceeding?” Descente demanded of Kansa as the operations officer climbed into the observation tower.
“It isn’t very promising,” the Markan paused for breath, having run through the trenches after a personal inspection of the breach and the fighting at the Red Line. “The Black Death are a leaderless mob and have taken staggering losses, while the Bloody Skulls are fragmenting as they climb through the breach, the opening is too narrow and there is light artillery firing on the breach itself. The Grass Vipers are refusing to move unless we can do something about the artillery fire, and the Eye Rippers are hard-pressed to hold the walls to either side of the breach, although their internal organization is still holding up.”
“What are the chances of breaking the Red Line?”
“Poor to none without a major commitment of additional troops,” the operations officer shook his head. “The defenders throw reserves into every breach that’s opened, while their archers chew up each wave that crosses the open ground. If we keep pouring units through the breach we may be able to overwhelm them, but we’ll pay a frightful price in doing it, assuming the Eye Rippers can continue to hold the flanking walls and we continue with the secondary attacks to keep the rest of the garrison pinned down.”
“So it boils down to the fact that the breach isn’t wide enough.”
“Yes, sir, if it were twice as large we could get the Orcs through with far fewer losses and their sub-units largely intact; we could also move mantelets through without disrupting the flow of troops.”
The Grand Commander stared at the narrow gap in the battered wall, the fires on the far side back-lighting it like a crack opening into eternal torment. “So goes the battle; once again it is proved that careful, deliberate action is the only way to win a siege. Sound the recall; we shall go forth, defeat the Heartland Army, and then return to storm the city after the proper preparations have been completed.”
Rolf lunged forward, using his height and Moonblade’s reach to thrust past the front ranks and open the throat of a Urchek in the second rank who had let its shield drop while trying to organize the Orcs around it. The Orc platoon leader collapsed, red-black blood spraying across the Orcs in front of it as Rolf recovered and grunted as a renac slammed into his side, raising yet another bruise. The big Corporal’s mouth was as dry as a desert, his lungs ached as they heaved within his chest, trying desperately to take in enough air to feed his burning muscles, and his arms were numbing from the back-shocks of a hundred strokes of his sword. It seemed as he had been fighting forever, but the veteran in him knew it had only been for a few minutes. The Orcs were pushing out into the cleared area behind the Line a slow step (and several corpses) at a time, and a section of Silver Platoon had been added to the Badgers trying to contain the break-through, along with a dozen members of the Guard Corps who had come up in response to Durek’s request for help.
It was a confused action of the worst sort, stabbing and hacking at half-seen figures as the line swayed back and forth in the flickering, unreliable light of distant lamps and bonfires, an insane melee such was repeated a hundred times along the entire Red Line and up on the sections of the wall that flanked the breach. Rolf was battered and bruised, with a half-dozen minor cuts that ached but neither hindered nor threatened his life, the usual pain of a battle and one which he was accustomed to ignore as he strove to add to the enemy’s losses, one dead Orc at a time.
He didn’t hear the horns as he hewed at an Orc, too intent on the fighting to waste time on background noise, and in any case the din of shouts, screams, cries of pain, boots thudding on hard-packed dirt, and the rattle of weapons against shields, armor and bone all but drowned it out. He did notice that the press eased considerably, but paid it no attention other than a quick glance to either side to ensure that it was not due to a breakthrough on the flanks; there were Orcs to kill, and he had no idea when this opportunity would come again.
Then the Orcs were withdrawing, falling back in no good order at all, their unit cohesion long since smashed, and aside from a few such as Kroh and Rolf, the Badgers in the line facing them were willing to halt and let them go, having had more than enough fighting for one day.
Rolf wasn’t ready to stop the killing, however, and he and Kroh kept the pressure on the Orcs as they retreated into the passageway, where the archers continued to take a toll even as the tide reversed. The big half-Orc skipped over a writhing Orc who lay on the ground clutching a mortal belly-wound and beheaded an Orc who had slipped in a patch of mud, losing the protection of its shield as it flung out its arms for balance. He kicked the still-standing corpse into the disorderly ranks and lashed out, using Moonblade’s superior length to chop at arms and legs while remaining outside the reach of their renacs. Few of the wounds he was inflicting were fatal, but it was safe work, as the Orcs were burdened with their wounded and concentrating on staying together as a group. Kroh, on the other hand, was making wild-looking but carefully controlled rushes at the retreating mass of warriors, leaving one or two dying after each charge.
Chopping a long line of red down a scarred upper arm, Rolf leapt back from a spear-point which missed by inches; working his shoulders to try and limber up the burning muscles, he stepped forward again only to find himself confronted: an Orc was standing fast and letting the others withdraw.
The big Badger mentally shrugged and eased forward, careful of his footing; killing an Orc hero would round out the battle for him. He could see the insignia of a Talachek on his foe’s helm, and grinned at the irony: two Corporals facing each other in battle. It stood to reason that a leader would try and hold him off; that was why this Orc had become a leader, just as why the two Badgers harrying the Orc rear guard had likewise been promoted.
The Orc had seen a lot of fighting, the Badger saw as he closed: the scale armor was badly scarred, and the shield was battered and notched, while the creature’s renac had a spray of blood across its surface that was too light and bright to be Orcish. As the two came together a siege tower outside the walls fell victim to Human magic and exploded into flame, instantly becoming an eighty-foot-high pyre. The sudden wash of harsh yellow light spilled over the entire Red Line, halting Rolf in mid-step for a long second, his heavy jaw dropping in astonishment. The Talachek he faced was illuminated as clearly as day by that portion of the burning tower that extended over the city walls, and by its harsh light Rolf found himself facing a half-Orc of roughly his own age and size. Fortunately for the Badger, the Talachek hesitated as well, having seen his foe clearly for the first time.
The two stood frozen in place, eyes locked; then the renac shifted, and Rolf instinctively brought Moonblade up, and the moment passed. The Talachek stepped forward, striking at Moonblade’s gory blade with his battered shield as he swung low with his cleaver-sword. The Badger Corporal countered by shifting his right hand forward to the ricasso (a short section of blade which was left unsharpened just forward of the hilt, protected by two short forward-curving projections from the blade) as he deflected the shield-strike with Moonblade’s pommel, and skipped sideways to avoid the renac while bringing his weapon forward off his shoulder in a deft short stroke that sliced the Talachek’s left ear in half and carved a bloody furrow down one hairless cheek, white bone flashing briefly before i
nky-red blood filled the wound. Moonblade scored a long groove across the iron scales that protected the Talachek’s chest as Rolf bored in instead of backing off after the successful strike, knocking his foe off-balance.
The Bloody Skull warrior further complicated his problems by lashing out with his weapon as he was struck, further unbalancing himself, while the stroke struck sparks off the Badger’s steel helm. Rolf’s ears rang from the blow, and he knew there would be a bruise where the padded rim of his helm met his hairless skull, but he ignored the pain as he recovered and shortened his grip, grunting with the effort as he brought his weapon around in a full stroke, aiming for the calf. The Talachek dropped his shield in a desperate attempt to block; Moonblade was blocked, the enchanted steel cutting through the facing leather and deeply scoring the wood beneath, but while the edge was diverted the energy and weight behind the stroke was not, the iron-bound rim of the shield being driven in from the shock of the blow and Rolf’s follow-through, catching the Talachek squarely on the shin and knocking him to his knees.
Rolf caught the renac’s swing with the flat of Moonblade’s blade and kicked the Talachek, who had jammed the rim of his shield into the dirt to brace his sword-stroke, square in the face, following it with a stroke that sheared through the scale armor jack and drove deep into the Talachek’s side. A quick thrust to the now-exposed neck ended the fight and the Talachek’s agony as the foe doubled over in a reflexive response to his wound.
“They’re withdrawing through the breach, sir,” Kansa advised the Commander.
“Very well, order the Eye Rippers to withdraw, and have the surviving siege towers pulled back.” Descente turned to climb down from the tower. “I’m going back to my headquarters; advise all commanders to report to me as soon as possible.” It had actually gone better than he had expected: the defenders had been hurt in the attack, not as badly as the Hand had been, of course, but more Orcs were en route from the Plains, while aside from the Navians, the defenders could find no more trained troops. It had been a useful test of the defender’s will, if nothing else.
“Four dead, twenty-two wounded badly enough to warrant a Healer’s services,” Dayyan reported to Durek, passing him a list of names. “Serjeant Uldo said none of the wounded would be permanently affected.”
“Good.” Durek examined the list as the standard bearer saluted and trotted off. Four dead: he recognized all four names, although none were officers or of the Inner Circle. Two, in fact, were from the young men they had recruited as wagon-drivers back at the Grand Crossing after liberating them from indentured servitude.
The Dwarf sighed and took off his helmet to scratch his sweaty hair. He had expected to lose Badgers, five or six by his best guess, and while he hated to lose any of his people, at least none of the fallen had been people to whom he had been close. It was a lot harder when it was an officer or Inner Circle member, a veteran whom he had served with for years.
The Captain tucked the list into his pouch and stood, hanging his helm from his belt. There were a thousand and one details to attend to and living Badgers to supervise and direct. The time to mourn for the dead was later.
Kroh found Rolf sitting on a dirt pile near Position Three, drinking ale and idly fingering a renac. “There you are,” the Waybrother rumbled. “You’re usually on the mop-up team, but I couldn’t find you, so you missed out. We must’ve put down thirty Orcs too wounded to make it back out the breach, and we weren’t the only team out mopping-up. Got any more of that?”
“There’s a keg and another mug around the side,” Rolf pointed absently.
“Ah, and wrapped in wet canvas so it’s cold, or at least cool,” Kroh tossed off the first mug-full in three long gulps and refilled his mug. “You need topping off?” He refilled the mug the big Badger passed him. “Quite a fight, quite a fight. It was Black Death and Bloody Skulls what hit us, and Eye Rippers up on the walls; the ‘Death took one true stomping, that’s for certain. Something special about that blade?”
“I’m going to keep it.” Rolf handed the weapon to the Dwarf.
Setting his mug on the ground, the Waybrother examined the renac, although he had seen plenty of the type before. It was typical: a straight, pommel-less hilt with a brass butt-cap and hardwood plates fastened to the exposed tang by three bronze rivets, the hilt long enough for four Human hands or three Orcish; the brass cross guard was just a inch-thick nub with quarter-inch projections, although given the length of the hilt there was no real danger of a trained user’s hand slipping too far forward onto the edge. The blade was two inches wide at the hilt, widening to three inches by the time the blade was fifteen inches long. The remaining five inches of blade flared out to be nearly five inches wide, the sharp single edge of the blade actually curving forward slightly, ending in a point that was useless for stabbing. The dull back-blade swept back from the edge in three descending crescents, making it appear that the end of the blade had once been the base of a triangle that had had three bites taken out of it. It was an awkward-appearing weapon, one that novices often jeered at and used as an example of Orcish stupidity: see, they can’t even make a real sword. But Kroh didn’t sneer at the weapon: the steel was first-rate, and the workmanship was excellent, even loving; the design was simple and easy to build, and the weapon, in the right hands, was very deadly. It was designed to do only one thing, to deliver a chopping blow with terrible force, and it did that extraordinarily well. The length of the hilt and the odd forward-curve at the end of the blade gave it tremendous leverage whether used one-handed or by both; Kroh had seen Orcs lop off the limbs of heavily armored opponents with a single blow, no mean test for any weapon.
This particular weapon was better quality than most, which meant that it had belonged to an officer, and had been decorated, which was not at all uncommon, although the quality of the work was surprisingly good. The Bloody Skulls insignia had been engraved in a good hand on the wide end of the blade, and a dozen thumbprint-sized runes followed the twin blood grooves down the back of the blade, apparently marking battles or victories of some sort. Web-like designs had been burned into the hilt’s wood panels with a hot wire, and small brass charms had been inset into the wood.
“Nice steel,” the Dwarf shrugged, moving the weapon through a few practice swings before passing it back. “I’m not too fond of swords, but I have to admit, a renac can get the job done. Odd they never went with a point, though.”
“If I had been raised by Orcs, I would have been a Talachek by now, most likely,” Rolf observed, hefting the sword.
The Waybrother eyed his comrade strangely. “Yeah, I suppose, or even higher, maybe; some tribes treat half-Orcs all right, and some shun ‘em.” Kroh watched Rolf finger the renac for a bit, curious as to what had prompted such an unlikely statement. He knew the big Badger as well as any, perhaps better than anyone but Veda Sligh, the Corporal’s low-key girlfriend, and the comment had been completely out of character. One thing Rolf was sure of in all the world was that killing Orcs was the best thing you could do with your life.
“You ever killed any Fortren, any Dwarves of the Void?” Rolf asked in an oddly hesitant manner.
Kroh looked longingly at the nearest lantern, which was twenty yards away, and dug out his tinderbox. “Yep, a few, although they’re hard to come by.”
“Did you ever wonder what...did you ever wonder if you could have been one?”
“What, a Fortren? Nope, never had any interest in the Void.” Kroh would have severely injured nearly anyone else who had asked him such a stupid question, but Rolf was on the short list of Badgers around whom the Dwarf restrained his temper.
“No, I mean, have you ever thought about what it would have been like to have been raised as a Fortren, by Black Dwarf parents.”
“Ah,” Kroh nodded, and paused to get a candle lit. Digging out his cigar case, he snipped and trimmed a cigar while he considered the question. “No, not really, ‘cause if I had been raised as a Black Dwarf, a Void-follower, I wouldn’t
be me, you understand? Not Kroh Blackhand.” He puffed the cigar alight and blew out the candle.
“Ah.”
The two sat in silence for a while, Rolf toying with the renac and Kroh puzzling over the big half-Orc’s odd behavior. Finally the Waybrother blew a smoke ring and squinted through the darkness at the hulking black shadow beside him. “You get that blade off a half-Orc?”
“Yup.”
“Killed him?”
“Yup.”
“Looked like you, did he?”
“Could have been my brother, ‘cept my....father was from the Northern Wastes, not the Blasted Plains.” It was the first time in six years that Kroh had heard Rolf refer to his Orcen parent.
“You know, it’s funny, but I never really think about you having a father,” Kroh observed. “This half-Orc, he was an officer, I suppose, from the quality of the blade.”
“Yep, a Talachek, a Corporal, just like me. He stepped out and protected his troops, just like I would.”
“Huh.” Kroh scowled and tried to think of something to say, but he was coming up with a loss. All right, Rolf killed a half-Orc who looked like him, and was a leader of the same mold, those were the facts. After a few minutes the problem began to annoy him. “All right, so what? So he looked like you and was a Corporal, why moon over it? You probably killed a couple Talacheks tonight, and probably a couple other half-Orcs as well, the Bloody Skulls have quite a few in their ranks. Other’n how they look you’ve got nothing in common with any of ‘em.”
Rolf was silent for a while. “That could have been me, if I had been raised by Orcs.”