Suddenly, A Severe Winter Was Coming (2)
“A meal break is permitted for soldiers who do not form part of the current battlement roster. You can recuperate in the barracks until you are called again. However, make sure that you keep your standard armament.”
Even upon hearing these orders from my Uncle, none of the soldiers left the ramparts. They did not move. Their eyes were still glued on the Wolf Riders that were moving in the distance.
“Tcha.” My Uncle clucked his tongue and motioned for his officers to enact his orders the old fashioned way. They pounced into action, clubbing and kicking the soldiers’ asses, finally shoving them down the stairs by their necks.
“Why did you choose not to do it?”
My Uncle asked this as I was watching the commotion.
“What do you mean?”
“Why didn’t you save them? If you had been a knight of the quad chain, you would have been required to save the Rangers.”
“Even if I sent out the castle’s knights, I could not have saved them in time.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“It was clearly a trap. What could I do?”
My Uncle did not deny this.
Wolf Riders are known to move as fast as conventional cavalry. The Rangers had had a very slim chance of making it over the snow alive when the Orcs attacked.
Yet, I would never know whether I had kept the knights back for some other unknown purpose. My Uncle spoke once more, interrupting my train of thought.
“Moving on, I’ve been thinking of marching the troops out towards the secondary gate as soon as possible.”
Vincent approached and did his job: Explaining to me what he had seen occur. After his report, he said this about the Orcs:
“Your Majesty, if any door is open, they rush in, and if a gap exists in your defense, they will stab and bite until they’re sure you’ve stopped breathing.
Common sense doesn’t always work when battling them because their goal is not as strategic as ours. They only seek total annihilation.”
Vincent’s face was grimly set. I felt a great sense of responsibility settle upon me, for I could not save those troops. Nevertheless, he was adamant in expanding his advice:
“Winter has just begun, we cannot move around.”
There were good reasons why battles with monsters were tiring. Their purpose in waging war was different from that of humans. For them, siege-craft meant nothing.
They merely wished to best their prey and consume its meat.
Even if the beasts were well-fed, or scorched by fire and cut by blades, they could not ignore the smell of meat.
That was how the monsters perceived the Winter Castle.
“In addition, snowfields may seem to offer no cover for the foe, but in truth, it gives them an advantage.”
Vincent’s expression became serious.
“The possibility of the Orcs hiding behind that ridge cannot be ruled out. They can easily flank us through the snowdrifts.”
“The Wolf Riders are approaching!” My head snapped up as a lookout shouted out a warning.
Their eyes firmly set on us, the beasts who had decimated the Rangers were approaching our gatehouse.
Some of the wolves were carrying the mangled bodies of Rangers within their maws.
They all came to a halt, cunningly outside the range of our archers.
Chomp. Gnaw. Gnaw.
For a while, the beasts focused on their prey, chewing with such ferocity that I heard the bones crunch. At last, they stopped this macabre act as the Orcs reigned them in, with the bodies of the Rangers flopping like broken dolls to the ground.
“Huh? H-Hey!” A soldier of the line shouted.
“Alive! They’re alive!”
Some of the Rangers did indeed show signs of life. A few of them were slowly crawling closer to the walls, using their comrades’ corpses as cover.
The Wolf Riders did not move. I got the impression that they were waiting for something.
After a while, my suspicions proved true as another group of Wolf Riders appeared. Their wolves also held human bodies clenched in their jaws.
Vincent identified them as Winter Castle Rangers, who had been on a recon assignment.
These bloody Rangers were also flung to the ground, but they were all breathing.
More groups of Wolf Riders appeared one after the other. And each time they appeared, the number of rangers lying on the snow increased.
I counted thirty-six corpses and twenty-two living Rangers in all.
“It’s really bad this winter.” The voice of my Uncle was heavy with emotion.
“We’ve suffered more this time around.”
Vincent’s voice was as heavy as that of my kinsman. The soldiers that stood near us were all shocked to the core as well.
The question of morale entered my mind, for there were still survivors upon the field.
It was a tactical dilemma.
Many honest soldiers held the irresistible urge always to save their comrades, no matter the odds. Yet, the collective good always had to be held into account.
The men that now lay at lupine feet were all veterans of Winter. Most of them understood that at times commanders had to make decisions that, while of strategic benefit, came at the cost of their lives. Having given no order to charge the Orcs and liberate the Rangers, I knew my inaction had dealt my men’s morale a heavy blow, yet we had avoided an obvious but dangerous ploy by our foe.
Days like these seldom boded well for the future of Winter Castle.
“This is the first time that something like this has happened. It is unusual for the Orcs to attack so swiftly and so effectively,” stated Vincent.
“The last battle we fought, they were swift. Now they have come with Wolf Riders. What are their plans?”
I had spoken the day before with my Uncle of this previous battle.
For some reason, his words reminded me of those damned Elder High Elves.
Sigrun. Did that blasted elf have a part to play in this?
After considering the situation, I started to doubt whether she had a finger in this pie.
“Waaaghhhhh!”
A roar, unlike any sound humanly possible, pierced my ears. It came from a beast utilizing its vocal chords’ full capacity.
The Orc upon the greatest wolf was gesturing at us while still shouting: “Waaaaaghhh!”
“Commander, sir! What are your orders?” The senior officers were gathered around my Uncle. We all knew that the Orcs were preparing to execute their prisoners.
“We wait,” said my Uncle, after seeing that such was my wish.
“Commander, sir! There is no time for this! We won’t be able to save them later!” Bellowed an impatient knight, sword in hand. With every moment, it seemed as if he wanted to vault over the wall and charge the Orcs.
My Uncle raised his hand. All voices ceased at once as the soldiers averted their eyes. He then turned to me.
“What do you think they are going to do?”
Instead of answering him, I looked once more towards our foe.
The extraordinarily huge Orc raised a bloody flag. To any other man, it would seem but a simple flag. However, to me, its pattern was known.
The Orc cried out.
What to my soldiers sounded like bestial howls of hatred, I understood as words.
“Let us do battle! I will fight with honor and take victory for my Legion!”
The language of ancient Orcs, long lost to scholarly memory, freely flowed out of its bloody maw.
As I saw the Orc waving its flag overhead, I remembered the conversation I had with Sigrun.
[There is something I need to tell you about, deep within the mountain range.]
[A very ancient being is slumbering there.]
[If you about him in song, I bet it will be a cool poem!]
I now knew what she had meant. I now knew what I needed to do.
The great king was within my grasp!
That noisy Orc had managed to give me the answer I so dearly sought, and I knew why it had collected Rangers.
* * *
“So you’re saying that those Orcs are holding hostages in order to request a duel?”
As I nodded, my Uncle sighed.
Orcs who demand a duel with words of honor are strange, yet a human who spoke Orcish was rarer still. My Uncle’s expression showed very clearly that he was unused to such things. There was no other way to handle this situation. I had to accept this.
“Crak harakgu! Krarakda gnukdok! Crax!”
I stood on the wall and shouted this at the Orcs. That uncomfortable language flowed out of my mouth, each syllable feeling and sounding as if I was chewing iron nails.
The Orcs were surprised to hear my response. The giant Wolf Rider, who seemed to be the chief, pointed at me and shouted.
Roughly interpreted, it went like this:
“No, how does this human know the language of the clan?”
It was an expected reaction for an Orc. I ignored his question and shouted: “I’ll accept the duel, if your fighters dismount their wolves and lead them three hundred steps away.”
The Orc chief made a crude noise in response.
“It is for clan blood, human! Many must fight.”
I held the silence for a while, letting my demand sink in.
I realized that this creature had a complex chain of thought for an Orc and was thus a foe to be measured well.
“I’ll send the others back!” shouted the Orc chief, who furthermore promised that he would personally kill the Orc who broke the laws of honor.
“What the hell are you saying?” asked my Uncle.
Others were also looking at me as if I was one of the wyrd.
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” I responded.
Excluding the five Orcs chosen to participate in the duel, the other Wolf Riders were all retreating. My Uncle and his officers struggled to hide their surprise.
“I, I… What are they doing?!”
“No, what the hell is this?”
Although they’d been through dozens of winters in Ballahad, not one of the men on the walls had ever seen such a thing.
The Orc chief now bellowed out more terms for the duel.
“There are five of us participating in the duel. Our opponents should be the same humans we fought in the mountains.”
Much discussion followed as to determine who were to face the foe.
Vincent was chosen and the Knight of the Triple Chain, who had fought on that day.
“I shall go! I will avenge the Rangers’ enemies!” Vincent cried with passion.
A great cheer erupted from all the gathered soldiery at his words. Two places within the party were by default mine and Arwen’s. A few knights, veterans and grudge-bearers toward Orcs, grumbled that lords would be risking themselves out of hand. I enlightened them to a simple fact: Regardless of the situation, I was the one who spoke Orcish.
I ignored their opposition, yet understood their concerns.
“Where did you learn the words of the Orcs? I’ve never heard of the Orcs as talking opponents,” asked my Uncle.
“I studied.” This reply I gave him, my smile cold.
Only I knew that it took hundreds of years to master ancient Orcish and other tongues beside it.
The Orcish chief and his five warriors were starting to show signs of impatience.
My Uncle looked in their direction. “If we had known this before, would it be possible to settle things with them in a diplomatic fashion?”
“This is a very rare occurrence, uncle.”
Only those Orcs who served the Clan King directly could speak the ancient language, and the beast before our walls was among those servants.
After embarking upon my journey across the world, an elven embassy had visited the kingdom, among which had been Elder High Elves.
Simultaneously, the Orcish king appeared in the North for the first time in four centuries. Should I consider this a coincidence?
No… there were few true coincidences in a universe of cause and effect. When strange beings moved about, strange events followed them like carrion fish in the wake of a wounded whale.
“Let us go and meet our fate!” I said to those who had finally been chosen, my comrades in the fight to come.
Krrroooo…. Krooooo… Krooooo….
The guards within the gatehouse ratcheted their chains as they lifted the great gate using nothing but their strength.
Krooooo…. Tchaaaaak.
It now stood open. I could not help but wonder how swiftly the Wolf Riders beyond that white snowy field could swarm into our position.
I led my party of knights from the gate, some soldiers bewildered at my recklessness, yet looking on in expectation, for they revered our prowess in battle.
A feeling of brief transcendence struck me, and I made sure my knights saw the purest aspiration towards victory written across my entire being.
Even if this duel had been on behest of the Orc chief, I would gladly grant him battle and, if need be, oblivion.
Vincent and the knights each pointed out which Orc they wished to face, looking for faces they knew.
I acted as interpreter and informed each Orc in turn on who their opponent would be.
Those Orcs that had still been mounted now descended to the ground, the wolves somehow knowing that they now had to keep their distance.
“Well, Your Majesty? I’m sure I can deal with him,” Vincent said as he thrust his chin at the giant fellow who had directly challenged me.
I did not even acknowledge his words. Instead, my eyes locked onto the chieftain’s.
This one was, of course, mine, and mine alone to engage.
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