by E. M. Hardy
But fame and esteem wasn’t what Kurdan attacked Greenhold for.
He didn’t want to admit it, but Isiah was correct in saying that the bloodied orcs wouldn’t stop to take prisoners. No, their feverish bloodlust would carry them on until every single human in the settlement was slaughtered. They would glory in battle, bathe in the blood of their enemies, and raze the settlement of Greenhold to the ground—but they would not gain anything in the end. The riders from the human fortress further to the east would chase the remnants out of human territory, pushing them back deep into the orcish forests. The humans could simply repair Greenhold, maybe change its name so that the next wave of unwitting settlers wouldn’t know what happened here. The orcs, however, would have gained nothing but blood and plunder in exchange for all their losses.
This was why Kurdan had wasted so much time wearing down the defenders on the walls of Greenhold. The fiery vessels hurled by the mangonels, the accurate bolts of his Snipers, the hours spent grinding down the defenders—they only served to put the humans on the defensive. The mages could only hide impotently, exhausted from using their magic to extinguish the flames and afraid of bolts that would take their heads clean off. A few brave souls attempted to hurl spells at the advancing orcs, with the foot soldiers popping up as one, launching a wave of arrows and providing a distraction to draw crossbow fire away from the precious mages. Kurdan’s disciplined Snipers, however, were able to accurately pick out their targets. The mages tried blending in with the footmen, throwing leathers and mail over their magical robes to throw off the aim of the Snipers. The glow of magic as they built it up for their spells, however, was something they simply could not conceal. They stood out as bright beacons of power, and the Snipers used that glow to guide their bolts.
The orcs simply ignored the human arrows plinking and thunking around them. The light arrowheads only sunk a quarter of an inch, tough orcish hide and flesh offering superb protection against the underpowered projectiles.
Gnadug’s orcs reached the walls of Greenhold in short order, sustaining no casualties during the charge. The mages could only hide behind the gate and pour in every inch of their magic into the wood, hoping that their reinforcing magic would keep the gate locked down. The gate team roared in rage and fury as they slammed their burnt Halewood battering ram, eager to throw themselves into battle. Gnadug, however, roared even louder, commanding his orcs to throw every inch of their strength into blowing down the gate. He leapt in, throwing the entire weight of his body into his axe as he slammed it into the gate. The enchantments fortifying the gate shuddered, causing the gate to glow with the impact. Other orcs around Gnadug joined in, throwing their own weight into their own frenzied attacks. They would, as one, fall back once the battering team signaled their readiness. The team would charge in and ram the burnt Halewood log into the gates, causing the lights of the reinforcing wards to flicker violently. On the cycle went—axe team in, battering team out; battering team in, axe team out. This was the part where they would normally have been slaughtered by mages flinging spells from atop their walls. However, the orcish Snipers made sure that the mages could do nothing except hunker down behind the walls.
The enchanted wards reinforcing the gates suddenly flickered out of existence as a lucky shot from a mangonel landed behind the walls—right into the cluster of mages focusing their efforts on the gate. The flames weren’t enough to kill them outright, no, but the shock of the fortunate hit caused the focus of the mages to waver. With one mighty crash, the already-weakened gates gave way and a torrent of raging orcs flooded into the breach.
While all this was going on, a mass of orcs were ascending up the two dozen ladders thrown up along the walls of Greenhold. The orcs behind the ladders eagerly scrambled up the very instant the ladders touched the tops of the walls, crawling up the tough limbs with bloodlust in their eyes. Defenders struggled to repel them, mages and footman alike standing up to fight off the orcs, but accurate Snipers punished those who dared to do so.
The attack was too fast for most of the hunkered-down defenders of the walls to escape from. In front of them raged a mass of orcs, rushing and climbing over the walls while bolts blew off the heads of anyone that tried to stand up and push them back. Behind them rushed another mass of orcs from the blown-down gates, cutting off their retreat and preventing them from setting up defensive positions within the streets and alleys of Greenhold. Above them sailed ceramic pots, setting aflame the areas where the orcs had yet to advance into—effectively cutting off any avenue of escape for the defenders on the walls. No, the defenders had nowhere to go. They could only fight on the walls and give it their all until the last man fell.
“Surrender and live!”
The one voice shouting out the command could barely be heard above the sounds of battle, the rending of metal, and the screams of the dying. Some of the orcs near the walls turned their heads around, searching furiously for the idiot who was shouting such cowardice in the middle of a great victory. When they saw who it belonged to, however, they choked back any thoughts they had of calling him a coward to his face.
“Surrender and live!!”
The orcs around the wall took up the call, which quickly became a chant as it was passed along the orcish lines. Each orc who first heard the call reacted the same way: with contempt and disgust. When they realized who led the chant, however, they immediately turned around and carried the chant on their own lips. Soon enough, even the orcs fighting inside the city started syncing up with the chanting of the orcs outside the wall.
“SURRENDER AND LIVE!!!”
***
It all started with one bookish mage, a spindly young man called Sole.
He had come to Greenhold because of the handsome salary promised by the royal court. They needed mages to help protect the border settlement of Greenhold, and they were willing to pay generously to any that would eschew the comforts of the Academy for rough living on the frontier. This mage had a younger nephew living with him along with two parents back in the capital city of Saint Numinia. They depended on his royal stipend to get along, and would no doubt find themselves kicked out of their apartment without his aid.
Sole was nervous enough about the whole ordeal, but he calmed his nerves down as he mingled with the seasoned mages helping hold the frontier town. They boasted about how easy Greenhold was, that they only had to contend with dumb orcs that wouldn’t last long against a fireball or lightning bomb. Orcs didn’t have magic of their own, unlike the elves and nagas. Neither did they have the numbers, like the kobolds and goblins. Orcish warbands were at most a hundred strong, two hundred if they were unlucky. Sure, they were big and powerful, doubtlessly able to crush any human that got within striking range. The mages were, however, safe behind the walls of Greenhold and the shields of the soldiers garrisoned inside it. The mages reassured Sole that they had more than enough magic among them all to crush any orcish attack on Greenhold.
Those same mages now lay dead all around Sole, their skulls blasted to pieces by the terrifying weapons wielded by the orcs.
Sole couldn’t even stand up and properly channel a spell toward the orcish army without the risk of a bolt tearing through his head. The older veterans mustered up enough resolve to rise and start casting their spells, but they would always pay a bloody price. Always. Even the simplest of cantrips needed about five seconds to finish—never mind the more destructive spells designed to lay waste over entire patches of ground. Of the fifty mages assigned to guard the wall, only twelve remained among the living.
Those twelve huddled up and agreed on their next step. They would stand as one and start casting their spells to clear a path toward the keep. They would then lead the fighting men and women toward the keep, join up with the mages there and hole up in its walls. Sole hated this plan, but it was the only choice they had. Orcs didn’t take prisoners, at least not for long. The rare escapee always came back with haunting stories of torment, of how the orcs tortured
their captives over and over until death eventually, inevitably, took them. Greenhold may fall, but if they could bring enough people to the keep, then they could—
The huddling mages were interrupted by a ladder slamming into the parapet beside them.
They jumped, surprised, right before a sergeant shouted at the mages to get back and away from the ladder. The sergeant led her troops toward the ladder, vainly trying to push it off the wall. It was a futile attempt, for orcs were already holding it in place while their brethren started their ascent. Soon enough, a wild-eyed orc popped up above the parapet—only to be met by the spears of the soldiers protecting the mages. That orc lost her balance, and she fell down the wall. A fall like that would have broken every bone in a man’s body, maybe snap his neck and instantly kill him. The orc, however, simply got back up, cursed out loud in irritation, and took a spot behind the line of orcs scrambling up the ladder.
Another orc took her place, jumping on the wooden platforms on the walls before the soldiers could push him away with their spears. The orc swatted the spears away, sending a few men tumbling down into the platforms. The sergeant bellowed a war cry as she unsheathed her sword, leading her men into a charge. Her bellow was cut short as the orc drove his axe into her shoulder, cleaving it clean through. Her soldiers tipped a potion into her mouth, which helped reinvigorate her and staunch the bleeding. The bottle drained, they pulled her back toward the priests hiding behind the soldiers, who were doing all they could to heal the wounded.
Sole did not want to die. He did not want to lose his head like Markwell and Sanya. He did not want to lose his arm like the sergeant he didn’t know. He wanted to go back home to his family, to make sure that they weren’t pushed into the streets, doing only gods know what to survive.
“SURRENDER AND LIVE!!!”
A pair of orcs screamed out their maddening chant as they jumped from the ladder, joining the one already hacking and slashing away. Sole turned around to ask his elders what they should do. He found no one there. The mages cast their spells, clearing the fires behind them with a blanket of ice and wind while forming a bridge made of earth down to the dirt. They and the soldiers nearest them were already retreating to the keep up on the hill, running for all they were worth.
Sole turned his attention back to the ladder, five orcs cleaning up the last of the squad. It was strange though. Five orcs against fifteen men and women, four of which were gravely injured. Lacking the numbers and locked in such close quarters, the orcs should have already crushed them to pieces. Instead, the orcs held Sole and the other soldiers at bay as more of their terrible ilk scaled the walls.
“SURRENDER AND LIVE!!!”
The new arrivals repeated the chant, carrying it over the shouts and screams of battle. They parted, however, as one orc made its way up the walls. The other orcs kept their distance from him, casting furtive glances his way as they kept the soldiers and the priest penned into their corner.
The orc obviously held some sort of leadership position among the orcs, though he looked just like the other orcs. His tusks were average in size, his hair was tied in the same singular braid like the other orcs. His skin revealed the mottled brown-and-green that made orcs so hard to spot in their native forest. The only thing that set him apart from the other orcs was the strange crossbow he held in his hands. Sole would have been surprised by that discrepancy if his mind wasn’t soaked with fear. Only the king’s elite guards bore such weapons, which were supplied by the dwarves hidden away in their mountain fortresses. The only difference here, however, was that the crossbow possessed no enchantment that Sole could make out. It was a magically-inert piece of wood and bone; simple and crude compared to the intricately carved metals of dwarven crossbows.
It was also a weapon that could shatter mage wards and punch clean through solid oak shields.
The orc grunted out something to the orcs beside him, and they stepped further away from the trapped soldiers. That orc turned its baleful gaze toward Sole, marking out his quarry. He raised the crossbow in his direction, and Sole found himself thinking of nothing else except his little sister’s bubbly laughter, his mother’s Whiteberry pie, and his father’s freely-flowing tears during his graduation ceremony in the Academy.
“Surrender and live.” The orcish leader spoke the words with strange softness, his eyes locked squarely on Sole’s eyes. Sole was so lost in those eyes, memories of his family playing through his mind, that he wasn’t even aware of the words that slipped through his numb lips.
“I surrender.”
Chapter 25
“WELCOME BACK, SUPERMAN!!!”
Isiah winced, fake-leaning on his crutches as his friends and family screamed the greeting into his face while popping confetti all over him. He’d suspected as much, what with Olivia trying too hard to be all stiff and formal while Eddison did all he could to duck out as soon as possible. Bernabé was the biggest tell of all. He may have been the cheeriest of the bunch, but he couldn’t lie with a straight face even if his life depended on it.
“Superman? Really?”
Abigail approached Isiah and smacked him playfully on the shoulders. “Don’t blame me. I voted for ‘stupid idiot,’ but these losers here wanted to go with something flashier. Be thankful that none of us picked out what Bear had in mind.”
“Hey!” protested Bernabé, poking his glasses up in indignation. “I’ll have you know that ‘Ninja Badass’ is an absolutely respectable choice given Zeyah’s situation! Plus, it sounds way cooler than that lame—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Abigail interjected, waving Bernabé off. “There’s pizza and kim-bap rolls waiting for us.”
“Now why couldn’t you have led with that instead?” Isiah said, quirking a smirk on his lips as he brushed confetti out of his face.
Soon enough, every single one of Isiah’s friends and family was busy stuffing their faces with the varied spread of food set out on the table. Sweet and spicy chicken pops, greasy pizza slices, candied sweet potatoes, grilled cheese sandwiches, rice cake skewers, tubs of ice cream: there was no rhyme or reason to the food being served. It was just an eclectic mish-mash of favorite foods. This allowed anyone to just grab what they wanted, pile it on their paper plates, and find free spaces to loiter around while they tucked in. Isiah sat on the backyard patio, taking in the cool, fresh air of his first night out of the hospital. Olivia snuck up behind him and pulled up a free chair beside him. Bernabé followed suit, with Isiah pretending not to notice his frown—no doubt starting to get jealous of how much time Olivia spent hanging around Isiah nowadays.
“They still haven’t caught him, you know,” she said as she crunched down into a chicken pop.
“Caught who now?” said Isiah, happily snacking away on his own pizza slice.
“The driver who almost ki—ran over us,” replied Olivia, awkwardly switching out her wording mid-sentence.
“Yeah,” Bernabé said, interrupting Olivia before she could continue. “It’s like the pendejó just up and vanished after his little hit-and-run. Funny how he was able to just disappear despite all the security cameras out in the open. Last we heard from the guys investigating this, they lost him as he ducked into an alley.”
Isiah scratched his nose at that, frowning afterward. “Told you it wasn’t an accident. He had this whole thing planned out, including an exit plan for after the hit. The real question is, why would he target any of us?”
“You think it’s Blevins?” whispered Bernabé, his brows creased with worry.
Isiah hummed to himself, having thought it over for some time. “Maybe. His dad is rich and connected enough to buy a hitman.”
“No, it’s not Charlie,” Olivia replied as she shook her head in disagreement. “His father is not insane enough to risk his reputation over something as minor as a schoolyard spat. It’s one thing to bully the board in our school, and it’s quite another to hire a killer to go after the kids his son has been bullying.” Olivia smirked af
terward, a gleam in her eye. “And if he did, then mom’s hounds would have doubtlessly sniffed him out by now and crucified him in front of the press.”
“Ah yes,” said Bernabé as he shook his head. “The legendary feud between Senator Winters and Congressman Blevins. Two rivals looking to throw any piece of dirt they can on one another. I’m really surprised your mom and Blevins’ dad haven’t throttled each other to death by now.”
“Heh. They would if they could,” replied Olivia. “Anyway, let’s move on to less weighty matters. We’re celebrating Isiah’s return after all; we should be talking about something cheery, exciting, happy!”
“Like all the makeup classes I have to take?” groaned Isiah, frowning as he chomped down on a rice cake skewer. “I missed like, what, three weeks?”
Olivia sputtered into her drink, wiping the spillage on her face as daintily as she could with a spare tissue. “The doctors said that you broke practically every bone in your body. They said it should have taken you eight months before you could even start limping around like an invalid. They said that even then, they couldn’t guarantee that you would be able to walk on your own. And you’re complaining that you missed three weeks of school?”
Isiah mentally kicked himself for that slip-up.
“Maybe you should just shut up,” grunted Kurdan within his mind. Isiah wanted to follow the orc’s advice, except his friends wouldn’t let him.
“Yeah,” added Bernabé as he scratched his chin and narrowed his eyes. “You know, Livy started the Superman thing as a joke, but I’m starting to think she might have something going on there.”
“See?” blurted Olivia, splaying her hands out toward the smug teen. “Bear’s as dumb as rocks, and even he gets that something isn’t adding up!”
“Hey!”