by Dean Henegar
Initial Invasion Force:
Reavers: 2500.
Executioners: 400.
Town Guards: 650.
Kobold Miners: 125.
Deep Gnomes: 20.
Tunnel Wurm: 1.
Nharia: 1.
“That should be more than enough to do the job. I’ll have Nharia lead the attack. You won’t need to waste my expertise on one little outpost,” Zipp said with confidence.
The selected forces marched in, and a timer began a countdown for the battle to start. Narbos found he was able to shift his view to where the army would arrive in Hayden’s Knoll. It was set to spawn around a thousand yards from the transition point. He supposed it wouldn’t be too fair to have a large invasion force spit out inside the defenses. Sure, a small group of raiders or a scout would likely be allowed to spawn inside, but not an entire invasion force.
“Hey, buddy, you might want a pair of these. Not only are they stylish, but they’ll also let you check out how the battle is progressing,” Zipp told Narbos while handing him a pair of garishly designed goggles. When he put them on, his point of view shifted to that of Nharia. He could see through the elf’s eyes but couldn’t communicate with her in any way. It was a useful item and would provide him a ringside seat to the coming fight.
***
When the war announcement was made, Sergeant Gillman snapped into action. The defense of the eastern transition point was in his hands, and he followed the procedure laid out by the colonel. After pulling the sealed envelope from his pack, the sergeant read his orders once more before implementing them.
“Call the garrison to arms! Send me the scouts on the double,” Sergeant Gillman ordered. Soldiers who had not been on guard began to don their armor and equip their weapons. There were four scouts inside the defenses while the others were out on patrol. Once the four inside had gathered, the sergeant began to issue orders. “You four are to gather the other scouts on patrol outside the gates. I need you all to position yourselves at least a quarter-mile from the transition point and conceal your presence. We need an exact count of the enemy’s forces as well as an idea of where they are headed. Once you have an exact count, you are to proceed immediately to inform the colonel. You will not assist in the battle. Your job is to get him the information he needs.” The four gathered up their gear and a field pack, as it looked like they would be outside the garrison for some time.
The two platoons of regulars headed up onto the walls, hauling extra bundles of javelins. After the most recent round of upgrades, the main gate was now housed between a pair of stone towers. A scorpion was mounted on each of the towers, and the extra height should enable them to outrange most similarly sized siege engines. To assist the regulars on the wall, the sergeant sent the squad of Drebix raiders and the squad of skirmishers.
He held the section of berserkers and the shaman in reserve. Behind the main gate, the five ogres of the Goreaxe clan stood ready to repulse any foes that might make it over the walls or through the gates. Once his scouts had made it through the gates, the sergeant ordered them sealed. The ogres easily pushed the reinforced iron gates closed and inserted the crossbars that would keep them secure.
It didn’t take long for the enemy to arrive. A thousand yards from the main gate, a swirling portal opened, and the invaders began to march out in what seemed to be an unending horde. He stopped counting when their numbers exceeded two thousand. There was no way he could win this fight with the few forces at his disposal.
“Well, it looks like we have a fight on our hands, Sergeant,” the shaman began. “I thought you a fool for sending out the scouts. Their crossbows could have been useful on the walls. Now I see that wouldn’t have made a difference. Maybe their reports will help our army win in the future.”
“We can’t win this fight,” the sergeant admitted with a sigh.
“No, Sergeant,” one of the berserkers said. “We can’t win this fight, but we can bloody them so badly that they’ll quiver in fear when they finally face our army in the field. When they see our army, they will remember what just a few of us did to them. No, we can’t win this fight, but we can plant the seeds of their future defeat.”
“Well said, Drebix. Let’s see which of us has a taller pile of dead foes when we’re done today,” Sergeant Gillman said as he drew his gladius.
Chapter 8
As her force moved into position, Nharia looked toward the fortified transition point in the distance. The stone walls of the transition point were strong, but she should have no trouble taking them with such overwhelming numerical superiority. She arranged the raiders into blocks of five hundred and assigned a section of the wall to each block. She ordered the town guards and the kobold miners to assault the main gate. Her deep gnomes had brought piles of simple scaling ladders and portable battering rams. They could have crafted entire siege engines once here on site, but there was no reason to waste the time. Her attackers would take heavy casualties, but that didn’t matter in the long run. She had the bodies to spend, not to mention that none of her people were in the attacking force.
The tunnel wurm emerged last from the portal, and she could feel the fear coming from the defenders when they caught sight of the monstrosity. She ordered the wurm to burrow under the main gate and emerge inside the defenses. The creature would prevent any reinforcements from joining the wall and divide the defenders’ attention. The beast was likely powerful enough to take on the whole garrison, but the great Zipzisilerpicazant wouldn’t be happy if she killed off one of his best weapons so early in the war.
“Go on, follow your orders and take the transition point. Try to bring me some live prisoners if you’re able to. I can use them later,” Nharia ordered. Her Painblade abilities could be improved by torturing defeated enemies. The results would be delightful, and with the entire zone in a state of war, she doubted very much that there would be a shortage of subjects to test her skills upon. She pushed aside thoughts of future pleasures as the army began its advance. This wouldn’t be some slow, set-piece battle; this was one furious rush to take the transition point quickly, no matter the cost.
With a loud clack, the scorpions in the towers fired. The pair of huge bolts arced down and into the mass of town guards and kobolds rushing the main gate. A half dozen attackers were taken down, mere drops in the bucket as far as Nharia was concerned. The weapons were powerful, though, and perhaps even a threat to her when she moved into their range.
She waved a pair of deep gnomes over and had them hold still. The slaves obeyed like they had been trained to do. A slash of her blades left the two slowly dying in agony, and she absorbed their pain into a protective shield. The job was sloppily done, but it was the best that could be expected with the limited time she had available. Her defenses bolstered, Nharia continued her rush toward the transition point.
The horde entered javelin range and the first volleys began to rain down. The defenders didn’t need to make precision throws, given the size of the horde charging them. Nharia watched her forces fall by the score, but there were more than enough to continue the fight. Only at the main gate did her forces waver a bit. The town guard and kobold miners had stalled, trying to decide if it was safer to face the swarms of javelins or risk the wrath of their leaders by fleeing. Nharia secretly wished they would break and that her master would give the cowards over for her to play with.
Luckily for the guard and kobolds, the tunnel wurm made its appearance inside the walls. Shouts of alarm broke out, and the scorpions, along with many of the defenders on the wall, turned away from the attackers, focusing their weapons and attention on the new threat. The first of her troops were even now arriving at the wall, several falling to traps placed nearby. With a heave, the scaling ladders were set up and the attackers began to climb.
When her forces fled the zone, they had left a little surprise inside the transition point, a surprise given to her by the great Zipzisilerpicazant. It was time to reveal that surprise. Nharia pulled a glowing re
d stick the size of a pencil from a pouch at her waist. With a small grunt of effort, she broke the magical stick, releasing its energy and granting her a brief view of what her act had unleashed. Beneath a layer of straw in a storage room, the red stone she had hidden glowed brightly. A painful squeal sounded, and the stone began to crack and flake away. With a pop and a rush of sulfur-scented air, a portal sprang to life and a half dozen lurkers emerged. Then the portal closed with a snap, the power of the gem having been drained away. The maddened creatures had been imprisoned in the stone by her master, and she knew that the lurkers would be completely mindless with rage after their time in captivity. This new threat from within should provide an additional distraction that would help reduce the pressure on her attackers, who had begun climbing up the walls.
Nharia reached the base of the wall shortly after the first ladders had docked. She had chosen a section of the wall away from the main gate, where she figured most of the defenders were concentrated. Her shield flared and lost a small portion of its protection as a dead legionnaire fell from the wall and struck her. While the fall didn’t cause any damage, several of the reavers climbing up the ladder were knocked off and fell into the mass of sharpened stakes that lined the base of the wall. The ladder, now shed of most of its weight, was pushed away by the defenders. Two other ladders, along with the reavers on them, were knocked aside as it fell.
The mass of troops below wasted no time in raising the ladders once more, and climbers were already moving up. One sharp-eyed soldier on the wall pointed out Nharia to the other defenders; he must have figured her for the leader based on her noble bearing and the fact that the others kept their distance from her. A volley of javelins followed, and her shield failed under the barrage. She pulled a reaver in front of her for cover and thrust her dagger into his back, siphoning his pain to replenish her life.
By focusing on her, the soldiers at the top of the wall allowed several of the reavers to climb over. The soldiers fought back and were more than a match for the reavers; they grouped up and presented a wall of shields and steel to any who made it over the wall. The legionnaires held for a time, but the narrow walkway lining the wall only allowed for two people to fight side by side, and eventually, they were pressed from behind as more reavers made it over. Under a flurry of axe blows, the reavers cleared out the remaining legion forces above her.
Now that this section was clear, Nharia began her climb. She needed to direct her forces, and she couldn’t do that while standing at the base of the wall. The reaver climbing in front of her fell as a javelin thrown by a Drebix warrior lodged in his gut. She pushed aside the dying reaver and finished her climb, hoisting herself over the wall to get a look at the battle’s progress.
To her horror, the tunnel wurm was actually struggling against the group of defenders in the center of the courtyard. The arrival of the wurm had unfortunately coincided with the maddened lurkers emerging from their stasis. The lurkers attacked the first thing that caught their eye: the giant tunnel wurm. The bodies of four lurkers were smeared on the ground, and the remaining two were climbing up the tunnel wurm, biting and slashing as they went. The clawed legs lining the wurm lashed out against the lurkers, ripping them to shreds, but not before the beast sustained even more wounds. The defenders ignored the lurkers, concentrating on the giant wurm instead.
A pair of armored ogres, her hated enemies from the Goreaxe tribe, hacked at the beast, and several spear-sized javelins stuck deep into the wurm. A magical totem on the ground ineffectually spat balls of fire at the creature, and the wurm paused to slurp up the shaman who had cast the spell. Several human berserkers swinging large axes were then crushed as the wurm landed its bulk on them.
The rows of legs lining the beast tore apart the remaining berserkers it hadn’t crushed. Despite its impressive performance, the human berserkers had taken chunks out of the wurm, and streams of orange gore flowed down its wounded flanks. Several of the clawed legs had been shorn from the beast as well. Besides the two remaining ogres, a human soldier with the markings of a leader also attacked her most powerful creature.
Help for the wurm was on its way in the form of a stream of reavers climbing down from the wall. The human soldier pulled away from the fight with the wurm and engaged the reavers entering the fray. He cut down three before being flanked and taken apart by her reavers’ handaxes. The time the human had purchased with his life enabled the scorpions flanking the gate to finish their long reload process. With a clack, each siege engine fired at the wurm; the creature was too big and too close for them to miss. The wurm squealed in pain as the powerful scorpions drove their bolts deep into its body. Unbelievably, the weapons fired again almost immediately, Nharia just now noticing the second pair of arms on each of the strange weapons.
Damage from the volley of scorpion bolts, along with the other wounds it had sustained, finally killed the wurm. In its death throes, the great beast crushed one of the ogres and a half dozen of her reavers. With a fierce roar, the remaining ogre charged into the mob of reavers, its greatsword cleaving her troops in half with each swing. Numbers again proved their worth, as her forces surrounded and eventually killed the ogre. Even Nharia was impressed with the pile of bodies surrounding the hated ogre after it had finally fallen.
As her forces cleared the rest of the walls, Nharia sent groups of reavers to examine the collection of buildings within the transition point, worried about an ambush from hidden defenders. A team of reavers began to remove the beams holding the main gate closed, only to be dropped by javelins thrown by defenders in the fortified towers flanking the gateway. The kobold miners and the town guards were having no luck in hacking or battering their way through the reinforced gate, so she sent a messenger to tell them to climb up any available ladders.
The last of the defenders on the walls fell, and the few troops garrisoning the towers were all that stood in her way. The scorpions reloaded and lashed out with another volley, killing more reavers, but their long reload time meant they were doing less damage than the javelin-wielding soldiers inside the towers. Angry that they had failed to breach the main gate, Nharia ordered the kobold miners and the town guards to assault the towers. It was time to let the cowards be cut down instead of her more effective reavers and executioners.
The rest of her forces took what cover they could as the kobolds swarmed along the wall with some siege ladders. Rising fifteen feet higher than the walls themselves, the towers proved too high for the ladders unless they were set precariously on top of the wall itself. There was only enough space for the kobolds to set one ladder on the wall, making it easy for the defenders to hold them back.
The more numerous town guards did the same thing with the other tower while others of their group began to hack at the reinforced doors on the ground level. Her forces climbing the ladders were easily slain; their only contribution was wearing out the sword arms of the defenders and drawing the attention of the javelin-throwers away from her other forces.
After several long and bloody minutes, the town guards finally began to chop their way through the doors at the base of the towers. Once the opening was wide enough, a defender thrust a javelin through, skewering one of the town guards who had been too focused on widening the hole in the door. A few more of the attackers were killed by the time the doors finally fell. Her forces rushed inside, and the clash of arms rang out. It took longer than she anticipated for the town guards to finally emerge from the tops of the towers. No doubt they left a trail of corpses scattered throughout the defensive structure. As her forces closed in, the scorpions’ human crews set fire to their siege engines, preventing them from being captured.
When the last defender had fallen, the transition point portal flared up, and the army of her master began to march through. Despite the high cost, she had opened the way and the conquest could continue.
Chapter 9
The eastern transition point for the zone of Hayden’s Knoll has fallen. You may now use the portal normally.
A cheer went up from the army as it began to march through the portal and into Hayden’s Knoll. Narbos was pleased that the attack had succeeded in just over an hour, but the cost had been staggering. He had lost over 400 reavers, 94 of his kobold miners, and 79 of his town guards, not to mention the precious tunnel wurm. He feared that the loss of the wurm would be felt later when they tried to assault the larger and more well-defended towns.
Narbos was no expert, but in his opinion, this Nharia wasn’t all that great of a leader. Her wasteful assault had cost him far more than he had planned to lose, not to mention that virtually all the troops killed in the battle were his own. The Hypogean allies only lost the—admittedly very valuable—tunnel wurm. He figured the defenders had killed his attackers off at a rate of nearly four to one. Those ratios didn’t bode well if Delling and Raytak were able to raise a sizeable force.
“Look at that, big guy. We wrecked these fools and the transition point is ours!” Zipp said excitedly.
“A few more ‘victories’ like this and we won’t have an army left,” Narbos complained.
“Bah, don’t get all bent out of shape. We only lost some fodder and a wurm. There’s more where that came from, not to mention that every battle we fight isn’t going to be against prepared defenders inside of fortifications. Besides, I got big plans for this war, and I’m just getting started,” Zipp boasted.
Narbos didn’t have much of a choice; he had to count on Zipp being able to produce what he had promised. “I’ve still got faith in you, Zipp. Besides, my troops should respawn quickly enough.”
“Well . . . maybe the reinforcements won’t be quite what you figured, friend,” Zipp said as notifications and system rules on the war began to populate Narbos’s interface.
