There was no warning, only repentine and furious fire. It started quickly, and spread around the village as, well, fire. The deep darkness of the night suddenly turned a sick orange and red, launching the shadows of the walls against the smaller houses on the inside. One second it was a damp summer night, the next one, hell tried to devour reality.

  The watchers, even though they were mostly Anxiety and Attention, saw nothing, until they suddenly could see too much. Blazes spurring into life, avidly licking the thick three trunk buried in the earth, circling around the small houses on the outskirts, and beyond it, terror.

  Legions of small figures, going as far as the eye could see. Their armors and blades, instead of flickering and shimmering against the orange wave that took over the world, gobbled it down, and sent back not a single sign of having received any light, and that’s how their presence was given away. Everywhere they stood, reality seemed to be covered by secret, one that was not for the eyes of those watching them. The ground beneath them was suddenly interrupted by the shapes of their bodies, hidden behind their unwillingness of being seen.

  Their faces seemed to float in air, a few centimeters above the wooden stick of the holdings of their weapons. Most unsettling of all, were the beards. They revolved and twitched, tangled into more of the dark metal, that had been hammered and shaped into threads thin and malleable, but also sturdy and resistant.They seemed alive, moving around like a hundred tentacles of a particularly impatient creature, grabing around the dark shapes that stood in perfect lines and rows, staring the gates of their targeted village. Far behind their perfect lines, the captains and their advisors stood and watched the preparations for battle.

  None of them took a step forward, but they all sung and hit their weapons against their shields, their beards forming an amplifier around their mouths, increasing the anguishing cacophony of the night. Their voices interwingled with one another, carried even further by their reverberating metal bangs. Marching, fighting, building and singing, those were all parts of the life of a Dwarf legionare, and their level of syncronization could be rivaled ny none in the world. After attacking the eyes of their preys with fire, they moved to their ears with their music, filled with agression and violence.

  The walls, already weakened by the heat, started to tremble as if grabbed by a baby giant. The pillars in which some watchers stood were particularly targeted, and many were launched in the air, screaming as they fell. As if an earthquake reached the foundations of the village, all buildings began to shake. Pillars snapped, roofs collapsed, beams bent and fell, entire buildings came down upon the heads of disoriented inhabitants.

  Huge swathes of fire were dragged forward by the music, as it tried to deposit it inside the town, but the Guards who managed to remain afoot joined their shields, steadied their hearts, and raised their own barriers. Although they could not stop the vile music, the burning did not go through them. It charred their hide armors, it scorched their wooden shields, it torched their hair. It burned. It burned their skin, it burned their arms and legs, cooked their flesh while they were still standing, and it boiled their marrow. From within their bodies, scarlet projections in the form of bones shone against their silhouettes. And yet, they held.

  Their shield were locked, their mouths were firmly shut, their feet stood planted, and not a single flame went past them, for such was their Will, they had all long became Determination, and they did not stood alone. Stoping any and all attack was the Will of their shields, keeping safe the houses behind was the Will of the wall, that the pallisade stood strong was the Will of it’s Builders, the Will of those inside the town was that their Guards held against this unrelenting force, surviving it all was the Will of village itself, and all those Wills came together to support those Determinations that burned their own bodies, so those behind them did not.

  The lives of the Guards run out before their Will, and in so was created a death spell, orders of magnitude stronger than anything those dwarven legions could throw at them. No matter how dreadful of a song it was sung, the walls now could hold. Not a single trunk moved anymore, not a single opening was given among their joinings. In their deaths, those orcs managed to make those walls immune to magic, and now the dwaves would have to move in and bring it down with their hands. The leaders of the expedition cursed and prepared to order the advance. They hoped for a sounding victory, but now a bloody battle would expect them at the end of a long and exhausting night. Still singing, ever singing, the diminute creatures of dread moved forward, each step perfectly matched to the rhythm and tempo of a thousand others. As much as they wanted to march in and bring everything down, they had to first put out their own fire, and suddenly this threatening force of nature was on the side of those who were just under the peril of being burned to the ground. Time had been bought, but would it be enough?

  In the middle of the town, stood unscathed the towncenter, with it’s tower, the highest building in the village, interrupting the sight of the stars above it. On top of it’s roof, standing alone in the top of the towncenter, was a figure considered tall even for the standard of the powerful Orcs. His sharp eyes took in everything that was happening in this suddenly orange night, his hands, each the size of a dwarven head, held a crushing grasp against the wooden tower. His broad shillouete reflect the colors of the flames all around him, but the light did not reach his head, which was still hidden against the darkness of the sky.

  In his mind, a thousand thoughts run rampant. It should be dark, and yet, the sun seemed to be coming up directly beneath their houses. Everything should be calm, but pandemonium reigned free. His people ran around the streets, Confused and Scared, while Fear took hold of their hearts. For the first time since the Calm King carved a throne in the center of the orc lands, the dwarves had left their bulwarks, and destruction was being visited to everyday’s life again. The war was to be begin anew. He had once been as temperamental as the next orc, but now his rationale remained clean as a winter lake. In his soul, there was only Resolve and his Will was to share it with all those trapped with him.

  His powerful lungs were always capable of reaching all corners inside the wall, but this night it was also carried by magic, and more than reverberating of buildings, it found it’s way directly to his fellow Feelings, scattered and scared as they were. His trompet sounded pure and limpid as a note strung from an enchanted harp. All the ears that received it perked up, as shoulders relaxed and knuckles stoped being pressed to the point of whitening their fingers. He meant no to expell the dreaded song, for he knew that would be impossible, but to instill a gram of Courage despite it.

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  His orders were concise and decided, his directions followed to the letter, and his motivation shared by all. Weapons were brought out and distributed, plans were quickly made, positions were taken. A race started between the two races. With huge axes, the orcs destroyed many of their own buildings, while the dwarves fought against their own flames. As the outsiders cleaned their obstacles and passed to work on the gates, the ones inside pilled as many obstacles as they could around the pathways to the their town, forming wedges just in front of the gates.

  Hours went by before any of them finished, as the orange of the fire was replaced by the orange of the sun, and not even the biggest star managed to tint the dwarven armors with a bit of color. Covered in sweat, both forces worked nonstop, bodies pushed well beyond their limits long before the battle actually started. The desperate magic of the orcs gave them as much power as they needed, just as the organized magic of the dwarves gave them the syncrony to perfectly move along anything in their way. Finally, long after exhaustion had been replaced by adrenaline, the giant doors, battered and broken, were pushed open from the outside, all four at the exact same time, synchronized by the perfect dwarven rhytm.

  The darkned creatures entered the town as waves coming from the sea. For every orc, there were four dwarves. And as waves hitting a rock, they stopped and were forced back. The greater reach of the orcs would’ve been nullified, had the dwarves managed to surround and overwhelm the defenders, but the barricades held firm, and the invaders were suddenly trapped. Surrounded by pallisades on three sides, and pressured forward by their own companions, they suddenly lost all the advantage of momentum.

  The orcs, staring down upon their enemies, could put their extra size to very good work. An axe coming from upwards, carried by gravity and two tons of muscles, was very difficult to be defended against. Even harder was trying to hold back a trhee meters spear, considered a short weapon for the orcs, but when coupled with their two meters of arms, could be forced against the tight formations with no threat of retaliation.

  Alas, it was not a massacre, not even a clear victory. What could not be held by a single shield, could be stoped by four working together. What would spell certain doom against any other force, could still be held back by the perfect team work of the dwarves, coupled by their legendary metal smithing. Axe blades went blind against layered shields, spear points found nothing but air when two hundred dwarves took a step to the side and back in perfect unison. They could not force their way through the improvised barrier, but they were not completlely pinned against it either.

  Their secret was in the beards. Each as strong as the dwarf from which they grew, they acted both as reinforcement and communication. A strand of hair spread out in the four directions, and each grabed the hair of the dwarves in their immediate surrounding, allowing them to perfectly communicate and pass messages from one point of their formations to the other, almost instantly, certainly far better thant they would manage using only their voices.

  When one saw a weapong coming, the entire platoon took measure to avoid it. When a dwarf raised his arm, at least trhee others raised along. A layered and mobile defense, almost impossible to be taken by surprise, that carried not only great body strenght, but were also improved by the bulk of their beards, that would raise as well, and act as extra support to the shields, holding it by it’s four corners, adding hair strength and metal strenght, all interwined in cooperation.

  All that, while keeping ther voices free to keep singing their accursed songs. Their music launched ripples in the air, causing the attacks to slow down and wooble when landing, turning the handles in the orcish hands, and unsettling their foots on the last second.

  Of course, they weren’t perfect, and as equiped as they were to stall for time, time was not their ally. Every now and then a hit would actually land true, and charge it’s price in blood. An axe that came from an obstructed angle, a spear that darted from behind someone’s back, a splash of black blood, a droped dwarf, and suddenly the perfect link was broken. In the seconds it took for the dwarves to re organize, two more would follow, and slowly but surely, the battle started to be won by the orcs.

  Until an actual earthquake hit the village. The rumbling came from far bellow, long after the away from the reach of the walls and their recently acquired magic immunity. As if it was water, the earth started to splash around, causing many to lose their footing. Parts of the pallisades came down, the path was suddenly open, and with a final push, the dwarves made their way into the city that had held out for so much longer than they expected. It was long past the middle of the morning, when the first dwarf foot was set inside the town per say. And now, they could go into the aggressive as well.

  The streets became crowded as they tried to push past the felled barricades, but things had yet not been decided. Although there were openings, the fortications still held. The relentless wave of dwarves pushed forth, but for each step they took, trhee of their soldiers were felled by orcish weapons. Instead of being able to perfectly dodge, or counting with the extra protection of those around them, each dwarf was more or less forced to fight alone against the orcs, and the causality rates started going up.

  That is not to say the orcs weren’t dying as well. The ones immediately ahead and to the side of the opening found themselves quickly grabbed by beards that rolled around their bodies and brought them, immobilized, to the reach of the dwarves. As the much smaller weapons finally found a target, green blood started to flow as well. The beards worked in perfect tandem with the bodies, and before the dwarven axe could leave the orcish body, it’s beard was already scurrying to the one ahead, angry and irritated, they crushed bones before the rest of the dwarf could come along and put an end to their enemy.

  Death by dwarf beard was a gruesome one. The lucky victims would merely get their neck broken, a quick, if painful death. The ones who met a particularly nasty beard, however, were fated to even more pain. Some strands would craw up to the orc’s eyes, mouth, nose and ears, penetrating it without slowing down, bringing about a shower of blood. Some would merely break bones, and watch as their agonizing victims tried to go back to the fighting. There were those that would reshape their metal embroidery into a sharp surface and cut their prey into pieces, separating limbs from body. Fighting a dwarf in close range was a nasty thing, but fighthing their beards was even worse.

  More than one orc was suffocated to death in that morning, prey of hungry body hair. As they moved along, some of the dwarves started to direct their strikes against what was left of the pallisades, and open space for more to join the fight. Victory was near, and soon they would be free to rampage and discharge all the tension that had been built along the night. Their armors were heavy, their arms ached, their beards trashed, but they still moved with confidence. The taste of success was in the air, and they loved it.