Lanek sprinted to the doors of the monastery, waving the Night Arrows through. He turned to the nearest shaman, telling her to keep the people moving. With that out of the way, Lanek ran into the monastery itself and into the tower, calling for Caelis. She materialized next to him, demanding answers before falling silent at the sight of him.
“What’s going on? Why are all these goblins here? What the hell happened to you?”
“We never made it to Laethon, we were attacked by Void creatures and had to fall back to the Night Arrows village. A huge pack of gaunts attacked the village, so we had to evacuate and come here. We can go into more detail about what happened to me later, I just wanted to let you know about the Night Arrows as soon as I could.”
“Fine, but I expect answers. What can I do to help?”
Gesturing for Caelis to follow, Lanek walked over and introduced her to the shaman he had put in charge of getting people into monastery. “I want you two to work together to get these people to the upper floors, specifically the third floor living quarters. I don’t care if they get settled into rooms at the moment, I just want them off this floor in case we can’t hold the gaunts at the main doors. In that scenario, I want to make the gaunts bleed when they try following us up the tower.”
Caelis and the shaman immediately got to work, guiding the people to the third floor. Meanwhile, Lanek returned to the plaza in front of the monastery and watched as the last of the Night Arrow civilians entered the monastery. He shouted at Talwarg, waving to the monastery as they began to form up in the plaza.
Nodding, Talwarg and his forces pulled back into the main hall. Lanek could hear the gaunts shrieking in the distance, rapidly closing in on the monastery. He turned to Talwarg and gestured at the doorway.
“How many of your warriors have shields? I want to set up a shield wall if possible to hold those bastards in the entryway.” Hearing his words, Liv immediately set up in doorway.
“Only a handful.” Talwarg ordered two of his largest hobgoblins to take up position on either side of Liv, each sporting a tower shield and an axe. “Now what? Do we just take their places as they fall?”
“Nope, you see those two doors on either side of the main entrance? They each lead to a small room with hidden murder holes that face the entryway. There are six holes in each room, each of which are large enough to thrust swords and spears through. Send some people in there and have them wait until you give the order to open the holes and begin attacking.”
“When do I give the order? How do they open the murder holes?” Talwarg smiled wickedly at the possibilities the murder holes would provide.
“As soon as the entryway is completely full and the gaunts cannot retreat. The holes are easy to open, there is a lever near the door that will cause the stone covering the holes to slide out of the way when pulled.”
Talwarg moved to his warriors, passing on the information about the murder holes to a pair of hobgoblins who proceeded to take their small squads of goblins into each of the two chambers to wait for Talwarg’s order. Behind them, Caelis and the shaman were ushering the last of the civilians up the tower. While they waited for the charge of the gaunts, Nerek walked up behind Liv and the hobgoblins making up the tiny shield wall and pressed his hands onto the back of each of the hobgoblins, leaving a glowing red hand print on them.
“What’s that?” Lanek asked curiously, watching Nerek gather his shamans near the center of the great hall.
“The Mark of Wurgoth. It will allow its bearer to fight without tiring for an entire day at the cost of utter exhaustion for two full days once the Mark wears off. We are also going to try to summon a totem of the Hordefather to this chamber. If successful, it will provide minor and constant healing to our people and their allies within range for as long as myself and my apprentices can supply it with mana.”
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“If successful?”
“We’ve never been able to use it before, it requires us to ask for the Hordefather’s aid. As you know, he hasn’t been answering until recently. Now, please leave us to it, my khan. This will require all of our concentration.”
Lanek grimaced inwardly at the use of his title, but he couldn’t ignore its efficacy. All around him, every single member of the Night Arrows that heard Nerek’s words seemed to stand straighter and Lanek could almost feel their fear become much less potent. Nerek looked on in satisfaction as Lanek did not object to the use of his title. The human… no, the dranrid, would come around eventually. How could he not? The Hordefather chose him and I mean to make sure he lives up to that responsibility.
As Nerek and his fellow shamans began praying to their god, focusing their efforts on the totem, they felt the energy in the room shift. While the energy built, Nerek felt a heavy hand rest on his shoulder in response to his prayers and he nearly wept at the touch of his long-silent god. From the center of the hall, an ethereal banner formed from thin air and bearing the symbol of the Hordefather, a mailed fist with a crossed spear and axe behind it.
Nerek and his shamans were so engrossed in their summoning of the totem that they paid no heed to the deafening howls of the gaunts rushing the monastery. The creatures parted as they charged, circling around the structure even as some of their number rushed the main doors. Try as they might, they could find no other entrances to the monastery. Even if they were to reach the windows placed high upon the walls of the main floor, the windows were too small to allow a gaunt through. Such was the paranoia of the Order of the Talon that the gaunts were forced to enter through the main doors, right into the spear and axes of Liv and her shield wall.
Lanek stood just behind the front line, his sabre darted through gaps in the shield wall to cripple or outright slay those gaunts that were stopped by the defenders’ shields. To either side of him, Lanek saw goblins with small short swords, daggers, and spears darting forward to strike at the gaunts as well. However, the battle was not as one-sided as Lanek had hoped it would be, watching in frustration as a pair of goblins mistimed their attacks and were unable to retreat before they were pulled into the packed hallway of gaunts and torn to pieces, screaming in agony all the while.
Even as he watched, he could see scratches and cuts appearing on Liv and the shield hobgoblins as talons were able to reach their flesh due to the sheer number of attacks being directed at them. Talwarg suddenly shouted for the murder holes to be revealed as one of the hobgoblins guarding the doorway with Liv was pushed back, clutching his ribs after being struck by a particularly vicious blow. Before the defensive line could be broken, the spears and swords thrust out of the murder holes, driving the gaunts into a panic and giving Wurgoth’s totem time to heal the wounded hobgoblin and allow him to rejoin the shield wall.
Lanek joined Talwarg. “I’m going up to the top of the tower, I need to see what else is out there.”
“Go, I got things here. These bastards will not get past us.” Talwarg growled.
As Lanek went to the tower, he was joined by Ograch. Ograch caught his eye and patted the full quiver on one of his hips. Lanek looked him over and saw that he also had a full quiver on his other hip and one on his back. His friend was ready to do some work.
“I’m coming with you. I’ll be much more useful shooting from the tower than standing around down here.”
“Sounds good to me, let’s go see if we can find you some targets.” Lanek said, before turning to find Ivan standing on his other side, hands carrying a large pack filled with sharpened stakes. “You’ve been busy. More explosives?”
“No, but I hope they prove useful nonetheless.” Ivan replied. “Wood does not hold explosive runes very well, to the point that if they even activate they would do little more than annoy something the size of a gaunt. What about you? Planning on some salvos?”
Lanek shook his head. “Not unless I have no other choice.” He explained as they climbed the tower. “I would rather not level any buildings we could use later if I can help it.”
Upon reaching the top of the tower, Lanek stared out at a sea of gaunts. He had suspected that the gaunts had received reinforcements at the hill and likely would have attracted others during the chase, but this was ridiculous. From the his perch on the tower, he could see gaunts packing the streets from the monastery all the way to the gate.
Desperately, he looked all around, hoping to see the dungeon responding to the incursion, but found nothing. The dungeon was choosing not to get involved in this battle. They were on their own.