A roar, so much deeper than any song coming from the tired dwarves, resonated in the air, coming from the top of the towncenter, where the Rationalized still stood and watched the invasion unfurl. From his lips, came Sadness, Regret and Determination, all in equal measure. The orders that accompanied his emotions were hatable, but they had to be given, and worse yet, they needed to be followed.
As their hearts registered what they had heard, the defenders started to shift their actions. Those that were not yet entangled in close combat, abandone their positions, and ran deeper into the city, in small groups of five or so. Sadly, that was less than half of their forces. The others, the ones who had no more hope of extracting themselves from the immediate conflict, embraced Madness.
To go Berserk meant to abandon everything that made an Orc an individual, and embrace the purest form of emotion. They all knew how to do it, instinctevily, as it was the opposite of what they spent their entire lives trying to do. To let go of their complexity, their thougths and their development, to embrace the most primal of emotions, go further back than the state they were in when they were born, to eternally abandon all hope of one day reaching enlightment, of being able to move forward. Such was the extent of the order the Rationalized saw himself forced to give, and such was the sacrifice every single one of those poor bastards were willing to make.
Individual screams, each capable of deafning the conjoined song of the dwarves, rippled trhough the ai, expelling feelings as a infected wound expells pus. Happines, Hope, Expectations, Curiosity, they were all released to the skies, removed from bodies, discarted as weights that hold down a dismantling carriage. Emotion and sound, mixed and trhown away. Inside the huge bodies, only Anger and Fear remained.
Hate filled their bodies, and nothing but violence remained. Protecting their homes did not matter anymore, nor any desire other than causing pain. No longer even considered a person, those poor creatures became destruction incarnate, unable to recognize anything other than an enemy, everything became a target to rip and destroy, their world were now devoided of beauty or reason, nothing but death remained in their existence.
Suddenly, beards were being ripped apart, brown skins became too hard to be penetrated by axes, and black armors were crushed by bare hands. Each orc warrior, now a whole new threat, multitudes stronger than before. Their muscles became as steel, their old weapons forgotten in the floor, and their old hands now vehicles for death. With one hand they would hold still the head of an invader, and with the other, pull with blunt force the beards that were once suffocating them, each part of their victims squiggling in pain, as the ripped hair tried to reach back to the face they once occupied.
From orcish lungs came howls so strondous, they drew blood from the tympanum of the dwarves around them, and made beards try to hide inside their armors. Not only the other race was hurt, though. At every second, the damage the orcs caused to their own bodies, increased and accumulated, and even though they couldn’t be cut, a dwarven axe hade more than just it’s blade to cause damage. Whenever the weapons made contact into a body, they sent terrible vibrations that traveled trhough flesh and bone, going much deeper than any cut could, damaging muscles and nerves in a particularly nasty way, meant as much to incapacitade, as to hurt. Were their enemies any other than Berserkers, a single strike would be enough to drop them to the floor.
As terrible the obstacle all those Berserkers had became, they also were being surpassed, one by one, even if at a terrible cost. Their strikes crushed enchanted shields, their claws cut armors just as well as flesh, they ripped beards as rotten vines. Each attack either left a bleeding mass on the floor, or sent flying a mangled body. Whenever someone tried to grab their legs, they would punt and struggle, and leave behind a mangled mass of dead meat.
But each dwarf they killed, charged it’s toll. Blood started to drip from their eyes, noses and ears. Their claws broke, their bodies became covered in awful bruisings, their movements got slower and slower. Whenever they got hit in the chest, their whole body shivered, and eventually, they were all battered down, to the point that even if not dead, they were fallen into the floor, uncapable of moving anything other than their heads. And even then, they kept on fighting. Any who were careless enough to get in reach, had it’s leg bitten off by a Hateful mouth, that cut bone, flesh and metal all with the same ease.
Despite all their might and Fury, one by one, the defenders fell. They never expected to survive, however. Their only objective, just like the Guards that Burned, was to buy enough time for their comrades to set up another layer of defenses, and in that they succeded. The dwarves were now alone in the entrances to the village, accompanied only by dead bodies and biting heads. The streets imposed a whole new level of threats, and it was far into the day already. Their commanders grew agitated and impatient, they had been made promises of an easy and quick victory, that had already revealed themselves full of falseness.
That was supposed to be a quick incusion, over even before the start, lasting no longer than a couple hour, without a single loss to their side, assured by fire and music, but now half their troops were dead, there had been more than enough time for the surrounding settlements to notice the agitation and send scouts to investigate. Their only hope of pulling any kind of victory from such a mess, relied on the other promises of damping runes to keep an illusion of normal from those who looked from afar, and to kill enough survivors to make sure they couldn’t organize an attack while the dwarves retreated. A mess, that did nothing but get worse by the second.
All the while, the Rationalized stared at everything from atop his tower, telling himself the tears running down his face were merely result of the ashes that floated in the air. He continued to push down his feelings, and focus entirely on the unfurling of the situation beneath him. “Later” He told himself “You can break down later.”
The dwarven leaders grumbled and consulted one another, sending messages via a single thread of beard that surrounded the entire village, too thin to send anything but the most basic messages. Advance or retreat, was the thing they all pondered, but that was a moot discussion, for they all knew that going back now, would be a crushing defeat, and the empire could not afford to start this war in such a way. Even worse, they could not afford to go back in such states after leaving without orders from the high command, acting rogue as they were, guided by an entity not related to the military.
Finally, they started passing down the commands. The units were to reassemble and advance, staying together as much as possible, but spreading out whenever they came to a bifurcation in the paths. Impatience weighted on their minds, and they were finally prioritizing speed over safety. Hitting their axes on their shields, timing all their steps perfectly, starting their song anew, the legions marched down the streets, doing their best to cover all the possible paths at once.
Turns out, their best was not good enough. Most orcish villages are messy by nature, with very little regard for things as being straight or understandable. Their streets were full of roundabouts and sharp curves, with pathways that died suddenly against a bunch of houses, or others that seemed to follow eternally, never reaching anywhere. They had no such a thing as a main street, no sinalization, nothing that could make sense to an outsider. And the villages of the War Border, in particular, were purposefully made even worse.
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Where there would normally be two paths, there were built five. Streets that would fit four orcs, side by side, barely allowed for two to stand shoulder to shoulder. The buildings were high in both sides, and made the road dark even in the middle of the day. Curves on top of curves, so sharp they formed U after U, all crowned by the lack of any sort of illumination. It was a nightmare to navigate in the best of days, and an absolute disaster for any invading force.
And a disaster it was. The narrow ways quickly forced the invading forces to spread thin and in small numbers, and gave even more advantage to the orcs. Even if it limited their possible movements, it was more detrimental to the dwarves. Two Warriors could hold a street against practically any number of attackers, the accentuated curves made it impossible for the marching columns to know what they were about to face, the weird roads gave access to flanks and allowed all sorts of hit and run tactics.
The dwarves quickly lost their precious coordination, stuck in a place too foreigner for even their beards to be of use to communicate, while the Rationalized still gave his orders as if seeing pawns on a board. There had even been time for them to set a couple traps. Pilled boulders and logs on roofs in particularly narrow pathways extracted a heavy toll on the invaders, making them a lot more reticent to keep on exploring those streets of death.
The once mighty columns of dwarves were now pilled in lines of threes and twos, thin and perfect for a mad charge coming from the sides. No more than two orcs were needed to put a hole in the already weakened formations. As they made a curve and unnconciously put all their attention on what could wait ahead, two gutural howls would come from the sides and two orcs would seemingly sprout from the earth, coming from behind a house that seemed to have no road behind, leave a bloody stripe on their wake, and disappear on the other side, just as quickly as they appeared.
From the fools that tried to follow them, only death screams could be heard, followed by eerie silence. And yet, they kept on advancing, and yet, the orcs kept on dying. As many dwarves as they took with them, they simply didn’t have the numbers to keep it up. For a people used to surround a drow their enemies in bodies, that was a very new, and disconcerting experience. They had to fight with care, and alone, two things to which they were not used.
As costful as this village was revealing itself, it was also being conquered. The streets were being swept by dwarves, they kept pushing to the towncenter, the orcs continued getting cornered and ruthlessly killed. Watching from atop, the Rationalized continued to give orders he knew would lead to his followers deaths, but what else was he supposed to do?
As much as he wanted to jump down and get in the thick of battle with mallet, swing at some small motherf******, crack open their skulls and just release all the sentiments bottled inside of him, he knew that he could do much more good for his people up there, even if that meant being effectively out of immediate danger. His roars started to carry frustrations, alongside orders.
Thinking about it now, Rationalized realised he always knew that was not a battle for suvivor. From the very first second he could take a look around and see four times as much dwarves as there were orcs in the village, he knew they were fighting to stall the enemy for as long as they could, and hope that other towns would send in enough soldiers to wipe out those damned invaders, even if just after the last inhabitant of his home had fallen prey.
The streets were painted in black and green, spilled from all directions, to everywhere. Floor, walls and even roofs seemed to be victims of furious painters who spread their dyies directly against such a deturped canvas. The sun burned with a glazing bright in the sky, mixing with the temperature of the fire that still surrounded the village on most part. Had anyone been in the state of mind to notice such things, they’d realize the smell of death all around them, and inside of many.
Finally, a first group managed to reach the townsquare, and had the chance to cut down the orcs center of command! It lasted a total of four seconds, before two huge orcs came out, each of their own secret hide, and spread blood butter into the main square, almost a gift to all the flowers that blossomed there. The five dwarves that made their way there were disposed of before another group had the chance to come for their reinforcement. And another. And another.
Their mallets, each with a head as big as their own, made short work of the metal protection the legions brought with them. Too few to manage to organize a proper defense, the invaders suddenly found themselves being the ones surrounded and dispatched. Their shields did nothing to hold the impact of the attacks, and their arms fell completely shatered after each swing. Their reach was once again against them, as not even their double elbows offered them a chance against the five meters weapons brought down against them. With each strike a disgusting cloud of blood sguished in the air, and a sticky fog started to form.
It was finally becoming clear that the attacks on the way hadn’t been at random, or trying to cause as much damage as possible. They were targetting specific paths, to interrupt and delay them, and stop all the legionaries of reaching their objective at the same time. From up there, Rationalized kept sending his troops to what seemed certain death, but every time they bought precious seconds that allowed the two elite Warriors positioned at the bottom of his tower, to make short work of the few that entered the place at a time. The logs and boulders, that brought with themselves so much death, also did the job of separating groups and forcing one or the other to take even longer and more inescrutinable paths, all with the same objective.
Even then, it had not been enough to buy their survival. One after the other, the orcs had been picked off and finished. Even the two great warriors had suffered casualties, for more and more dwarf groups were starting to reach the plaza at the same time. They had been surrounded, and were being slowly bled to death, as bull that have it’s heels nicked by dogs, a thousand cuts started to appear in their powerfully built bodies.
Once again reunited and sharing a bearded link, the dwarves restarted their damned song. Glad for finally being outside the narrow streets, they reformed their ranks and waited for orders. One step. After another. One step. And another. Their cacophony got louder and louder, motivaded by the perspective of finally ending those bloody business. So what that they lost two thirds of their force? So what that they acted without orders? Soon they would be on their way back, loaded with the most precious resources they could get from such an excursion, and their home would receive them with open arms. Yes, all that wood would buy each and every single one of the surviving members, a very special reward from their nobles, maybe even from the king.
So, they sang. They hit their blades against their shields, they used their beards as amplifiers of the music, they brought their trumpe- no self respecting dwarf would ever blow a trumpet, that was an orcish instrument. But the sounding of it was clear in the afternoon sky, far too many and coming from all sides, impossible to be a last defiant act of the Rationalizer. So that could only mean… No it couldn’t. There was no way. The runes were supposed to last for another entire day before fizzling out, there should be no way for the other orcs to see what was happening. Unless… And yet, unmistakable, undeniable trumpets sounded and resounded in the air, one after the other.
From the peaks of the mountains, from the depths of the surrounding forest, even from the river came the signal of reinforcements. From his high position, the Rationalized could not believe his eyes. Row after row of orcish soldiers seeming to sprout from the earth started to surround the village, and flyin over their head, banners! So many of them! Most astonishing of all, the Calm Banner, supposed to be miles inside the Desolated Lands, flung proudly ahead of the biggest host. The Excited Prince had arrived in rescue of his people.