Less than a second after the Orc magic attack, the defenders answered with a barrage of their own, but with the same lack of results as the Orcs had had. Just short of the Orc lines, the waves of magic hit their protective magic shield and fizzled out.
The magic exchange continued on for the next ten minutes at a high level of spell casting, and then slowly tapered off to a more manageable level.
Myst was crouched down along the wall, watching the exchange. The Orcs mages finally got a spell through the defenses, as a yellow star burst impacted against the wall, fifty yards south of the gate tower. It did not seem to have had much effect, but a cry of "Kill", came from the massed Orc troops.
The Moon Elves sent a barrage of magic back in return, and two spells slipped by the Orcs. Both blue balls of fire ripped into the front lines of the assault Columns, and Myst could see the damage being done as the fireballs slashed through the ranks, flinging burning Orcs aside like bloody dolls, before bouncing in sprays of fire and misted blood, to smash into more troops before exploding in terrible eruptions of burning flesh.
"Will you look who showed up for the party," Moss pointed at the rear of the Orc formation.
Myst raised his head above the parapet and looked out where Moss was pointing.
"Wondered when they would show up."
Four regiments of Shadow Elf Cavalry rode into position behind the Orc army. Ready to exploit any Moon Elf weakness, and to protect the Orc infantry from the Moon Elf Cavalry.
"I make one regiment Dragoons, one Heavy Cavalry, one Lancers, and the last Hussars."
"Looks that way, Moss, and they most likely have deployed an equal number around the east gate as well. Strange, you normally don’t get all four main types of Cavalry in a single Brigade?"
The Calvary scared Moss. Dwarves don't ride horses well, and distrust the beast. And cavalry could decimate an Infantry unit like nothing else. If and when infantry were caught unaware or retreating, the cavalry could kill them in a mass undefendable slaughter, which gave most infantry nightmares to think about. The Infantry's only protection in the open was to mass together in formations called squares. Pike men at the outside and fusiliers in the center shooting out. The horses would not charge a well formed square. They would shy away at the last moment and toss their riders, if the cavalry tried to force the square. But if the square broke, for any reason, the slaughter was on.
Yes, Moss hated the Cavalry as only an infantryman can. Hell, he didn't particularly like the Cavalry on his own side, well except for Myst…! But of all of the different cavalry units, the thing that scared him worst was the Lancers. The Lancers with their long spears ready to rip into your gullet or ride you down like a dog, pinning you to the ground with that wicked long lance. The Heavy Cavalry, in their breast and back plate steel armor, steel helms, and long swords could inflict damage nearly as well as the Lancers, although much slower in their armor. And Moss didn't like the Dragoons much either, just damn mounted archers, with way too much attitude. Dragoons could force you into square and then pick you off at range, most unfair! Lastly the Hussars, being light cavalry without lances or bows, had a much harder time breaking an infantry square, but they were the fastest of the Cavalry units, and you couldn't run from them, and they might just pounce on you before you could form a rally square.
Just then, the Orcs returned a hail of magic at the defenders, and Moss and Myst ducked quickly down below the edge again. Now, more and more hits, about ten percent, were getting through to the defenders. A green fire-ball ploughed into a patch of earth and stone at the base of the wall; then bounced up and over the wall, to smash into a tiled stable. It detonated in a flash of fire, tearing the roof asunder and splaying tiles and beams across the street, the wall itself seemed unaffected by the magic assault.
The Orc magic would not have much of an effect on the city’s wall; it had been made with magic to withstand magic, but now the Orcs had brought up their ballista’s and catapults. The steel javelins and boulders were crashing into the fortifications. Some protective magic designed to stop mundane missiles was greatly lessening the impact, at least it would until it weakened and gave out.
Dust and smoke hung heavy on the air, as the defenders tried to find shelter at the base of the parapet.
Four Orc assault Columns began to move across the field. Four thousand troops in each of the deadly waves closed in on the west gate. Hundreds of orc archers roamed between the Columns, firing at the wall. Moon Elf mages rained down fire ball after fire ball, with greater results. The enemy mages could not as effectively shield moving troops. Again and again, the fire lanced through the massed columns, yet again and again dozens of Orc troops were cut down, like wheat before the scythe.
Doggedly, unstoppably, the Orcs closed up ranks and kept coming and coming closer to the city wall. The steel drummers beat the attack at the back of each Column; the sun flashed on the shields and spear tips of the attacking Orcs.
"Gods save us," Moss said in awe as the Orc attack rolled like a dark wave toward the wall. Now, not more than fifty yards away from them. The Moon Elves crossbow men took their places along the wall.
"Fire!" Brigadier General Verdun shouted, and the massed defenders sent a volley of steel tipped bolts into the attackers. "Reload."
Twelve seconds later, "First rank, Fire!" Every other man fired his crossbow.
"Second Rank,--Fire!" The other half released a hail of bolts.
"First Rank,--Fire!"
The Moon Elves kept up the volley fire as their bolts tore into the Orcs. A wall of dead formed at the head of each Column, but the Orcs climbed over their dead as the drums beat out the quick attack., "Boom, Boom,-TA Boom-Boom-Boom. Boom, Boom,-TA Boom-Boom-Boom."
Myst and Moss kept up independent fire, looking for Orc Officers and sergeants to kill. Kill the leaders and the Orcs would falter and the damn drums would go silent.
Orc skirmisher, with their curved horn bows, had deployed to each side of the attacking columns and they were sending flights of arrows up into the ranks of the defenders. An arrow ricocheted off the stone next to Myst’s head. He ducked, but was left with a cut from the flying stone, just above his right temple.
"Shit!"
"Duck next time. Look to the left," Moss pointed, as the first Orc column made it to the base of the wall.
The left side of the gate house was held by the 3rd Infantry Regiment. It's colonel, until last week, had been a rather junior captain, and beyond them was the 4th Regiment, whose colonel was actually a colonel or at least he had been a hundred years ago. On the right side of the gate house was the 2nd infantry, who held that section of the wall by themselves, anchored as it was by the lake shore. The last unit in Brigadier General Verdune's brigade guarding the west gate, the 1st Infantry Regiment, was held in reserve; it fortunately was commanded by a former major from the regiment’s 1st battalion, who had been too sick to attend the party at the Royal Palace; one of the few staff rank officers to survive that night.
But now the 3rd was in trouble. Scaling ladders had sprouted up like mushrooms; little pitched battles fought to keep control of the wall, and Orcs threatened to overwhelm the defenders
Myst charged down the steps from the gatehouse to the wall, his sword flashing left and right in the melee. Blood seemed to spray in fountains from his powerful cuts, as the Orcs were pushed back from the top, and the ladder was pushed down, spilling a half dozen Orcs to fall onto their comrades.
Moss had run down to the next weak spot, and his battle ax hacked a wedge of death that caused the surviving Orcs to jump from the wall in fear.
More Orcs had just started to again reach the top of the wall, when Brigadier General Verdun, committed the 1st Battalion- 1st infantry, one of the two battalions of his reserve Regiment. The Moon Elves rushed up the stairs and fell into the slaughter house that once was a city wall.
Myst was shouting a war cry, as he hacked and slashed in the midst of the chaos on the wall. He fought to the edge of the Orc attack, stabbing
his sword into the screaming millstream of death. The Moon Elves with their long sabers, that resembled the Dwarven cutlass only lighter, reaped a bloodbath as the Orcs were pushed to the edge of the wall. The Elves were pressing their counter-attack, clawing at the Orcs, cutting, slashing, lunging, driving them back, back to the very edge of the wall. A slash just missed taking Myst across the head, as some unknown Elf caught the Orc’s blade on his sword at the last moment. The wall was so thick with fighters, that they were trampling the wounded and dead alike. The pushing, shouting, stabbing, screaming mass of Elves and Orcs fought on and on, past exhaustion.
An Orc stabbed with a short sword. Myst twisted, lunged, and the warm blood flowed onto his hand as his sword found the enemy's chest. He twisted the blade to break the suction and pulled his bastard sword free of the wound, the Orc already dead.
"Kill the bloody bastards," Myst roared.
With a final push the Moon Elves cleared the wall of Orcs. The waiting attackers stopped on the ground in confusion, as their comrades lost control of the battlements.
Elves quickly switched to their powerful compound crossbows, and rained bolts into the now disorganized Orc columns.
Pots of burning pitch were hurled into the head of the milling column as a Moon Elf mage came up next to Myst and loosed a ball of green magical fire into the center of the column at point blank range. It burst in a tremendous detonation that sent the Elves on the wall ducking for safety as the wall itself shook with the power release.
All of a sudden, the steel drums fell silent and brass horns signaled the Orc withdrawal. A cheer went up from the walls as the bloody Elves reveled in their victory.
Myst looked around the wall for Moss. There under a heap of bodies, the Dwarve’s ax lay partially exposed. Myst ran over to the bodies, throwing them aside until he found his friend.
Moss was covered with blood, at least some of it his own. His studded leather cuirass had been slashed across his right side and blood flowed freely.
"Ach, but that hurts now."
"Next time, duck."
"Donna make me laugh, tis not a kindness."
Myst reached into his pouch and came up with a small vial that contained just a few ounces of liquid. Breaking the top off he forced the liquid into Moss' mouth, and made him drink.
"Are you crazy? Do you know how much those things cost? Some damn priest will be along in a few minutes, doing healing for free."
"Shut up will you, Moss."
The wound in his side and a number of other minor cuts and abrasions had already healed over. In fact, Moss felt better now than he did when he got up this morning.
"Five hundred silver, gone just like that. Hell I could have had a whole barrel of fine South Island dark rum, and a couple of whores for less money than that. And I ain't even drunk, and I'm hornier than hell now to boot, ya jackass!"
"Just one of the fun side effects to the healing potion, Moss."
"Excuse me, Colonel Myst, Sir," inquired the former Major commanding the Regiment.
"Yes, Colonel Manzetti?"
"Sir, the Orcs. They are breaking formations?"
Myst looked over the killing fields before the wall. Indeed the Orc units were withdrawing to their camps. Surprisingly, it was now late afternoon; where had the day gone?
"That's it for today, Major, er Colonel. The Orcs don't like to attack at night. See to your wounded, try to get as many as possible in condition to fight in the morning. Or flee tonight if we are lucky…"
"Come on, Moss," Myst easily pulled the two hundred pound Dwarf to his feet. "Lets get back to the embassy."
~
Myst sat in Moon Elves Castle situation room; a large windowless vault hidden on the top floor. On the far wall, a detailed map of the area, complete with up to date information of the military formations. They had come over from the Embassy, after coming up with a possible plan to evacuate the city down river.
"This is the situation we face," informed Zara, who had spent the last couple hours using the eyes of a hawk to observe the Orc blockade of the river. "The river is nearly two hundred yards wide at the exit from the lake. The Orcs have a chain stretched across the river. On our side, they have a full brigade of troops guarding the chain. On the far side, there are what appears to be 'only' a battalion of archers. Of course the Moon Elves have no troops anywhere on that side of the river. They do have that lost brigade of light Cavalry hidden six miles down the road to Port Orland, but that’s it. No other reinforcements are within a day’s march."
Myst stood up and walked to the map. The assembled military and civilian leadership were waiting for him to come up with their salvation.
“Hell, this isn't even my fight, but these people have no one with any command experience left alive, so I guess there's no other choice.”
"What we have come up with is this. At the third hour of the morning, the city will evacuate to the boats and barges in the harbor; there, they will wait for the chain to be dropped. To do this I propose that you're Cavalry make a diversionary attack at the Orcs guarding the chain on this side of the river. They need not really attack, just to engage the Orcs so they believe they are facing a determined attack."
General Conalli, stood up, "How are they going to remove the chain, if they don't press the attack, bloody as that would be?"
"Because we will land a small force on the other side of the river. And then drop the chain, and keep the archers busy, while the city is evacuated downstream. What I will need is a dozen battle mages to land here, I and a small party will land here, and what we will do…."
CHAPTER 24
The storm moved in as the darkness fell. The sun had set below the horizon, and the sky was unnaturally black with oncoming thunderheads. The cold wind, whipped leaves and grass into the air as the storm broke overhead. Lightning flashed across the sky in a blinding display of nature’s power. Thunder crashed in Myst’s ears, and cold rain began to claw at him with icy fingers that chilled to the bone.
“Good. The storm would help cover their activities from the Orcs. Maybe a little less lighting would be great...”
They were down by the harbor, checking their equipment for the night's sojourn. Myst had chosen Elise and a dozen veteran scouts from the local forces as well as from the embassy’s guard detachment. Moss would stay with Kayla and the Gnomes on the embassies barge, to protect them and get them out with the first boats.
“See that she survives, Moss, whatever you have to do…” Myst told the dwarf before setting out.
“Aye Laddie, I’ll see to it,” Moss vowed. “Nothing else matters.”
Lightning flashed again as they made their way to the low skiffs that would take them out on to the dark lake.
Myst shivered in the cold wind that came off the lake. To the east the sky was dark but for the glow of Orc watch fires.
"This should be fun," Elise's tone was ripe with sarcasm.
"Get your pretty ass in the boat, sooner this is done the better."
Out into the lake they paddled, it was almost two miles to the river and the Orc barricade. Well short of the river, on the far side of the lake, they slipped over the side of the boats and gently, so as not to make waves, swam in towards the far shore.
Myst reached the shallows and gathered in his Earth Magic, letting it ripple out from him; he could feel the presence of the Orcs in the area. There were four on guard where the chain was anchored into the river bank. They did not seem overly watchful; in fact Myst thought that the closest one was asleep. But then they were not the only Orcs around; his magic indicated that there were 'many', Orcs camping thirty yards into the woods. How many was many? Myst did not have a clue; it could have been two dozen or two thousand, the magic had its limitations.
Silently, he glided over the ground to the log on which the first Orc was dozing. A thin blackened blade appeared in Myst’s right hand, as his left reached around the face of the Orc.
There was no sound, as Myst covered the Orc’s mouth with
his left hand, and the dagger in his right punched up and into the notch behind the Orc's right ear. Death was instantaneous; the Orc never even knew that it was dead. Myst left the corpse behind the log, and wiped the blood and brain matter off his knife.
Elise had joined him at the log, slowly she eased her crossbow on to the log using it as a brace, waiting to see if any of the other sentries had heard anything and would call out. None had; the quiet of the night went on.
One of the other raiders crept up and handed Myst his crossbow, and then took up position next to Elise. Myst had to slither down to the end of the log, to see the fourth Orc who was a bit farther away than the two that Elise and the raider were aiming at.
Slowly he eased the crossbow up, bracing it against the log. He aimed at his target, lining up the front sight with the Orc’s heart. Slowly, gently, each move so as not to draw the eye and alert the ears of the guards, he flicked the safety on the crossbow to off. The quiet "click," could be heard as the safety disengaged on his weapon.
Then from Elise, a soft "click."
As soon as the third faintest click sounded, Myst started to silently count.
“Five, four, three, two, one.”
They fired simultaneously, the bolts streaked across the small clearing to thud into the chest of each of the Orcs. At this short range, the bolts punched deep into the Orcs, throwing them violently back with the impact.
Like a silent wave, the dozen raiders left by the water’s edge, swept past Myst and the dead Orcs, to take up defensive positions. Not a sound had been made that would have alerted the Orc camp only yards away.
Myst crawled over to the anchored chain, to see how to quietly drop it into the river. Elise slid up next to him, and looked at the chain. It was as thick as a man’s thigh, and spiked into the hard ground with a hooked steel spike that looked like it must have weighed five hundred pounds or more.
"What now? The spike probably goes six feet into the earth, how are we going to do this?" Elise whispered in his ear.
Myst held up a glass jar filled with a sickening glowing greenish substance, he had taken from his pack.
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