“1st, 2nd, 3rd Legionary Cohorts on the walls!” Iroh roared, his voice carrying through the still air, “2nd, 4th, 8th Gunner Cohorts, prepare to be relieved!”
A collective sigh of relief from said cohorts echoed through the ranks, the other gunners cursing their luck. Soon the stairs up the wall were flooded with movement. Two lines, one of weary, tired light infantry and the other of eager, fresh heavy infantry. The Steel Legions were one of the premier heavy-foot soldier units in the entire empire. Rivaled only by the Imperial Guard of the Royal Army or the Arcturus Firstborn in the north.
The wall shook with every step, metal helmets catching the sunlight and clinking against thick shoulder cauldrons. The legionaries had discarded their normal long spears. Which they used to fight on open fields, in favor of one-handed swords that would be better suited for the close-quarters nature of the coming battle. They eyed the lightly armed gunners with no small amount of disgust and repulsion. Many of those in the legions were the second or third sons of the knights and lords of old. Those who had fought alongside Kaedin in the reclamation wars. While the gunners, a new corps, drew their men from the ranks of the common man. Farmers and urban rats who were considered more expendable than the gear they carried and used.
“Move!” a legionary spat, shouldering past Oliver and Simmon, to the front of the wall.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going!” Simmon shouted back at him. Then he turned around muttering, “asshole.”
The drums began to sound again and the resting troops snapped back to attention. Ranks were reformed and men whispered last prayers before doing final checks on their weapons. Behind the wall, the battlemages began chanting again. Oliver peered over the legionary in front of him and down on the field below.
The ground appeared to almost boil, turning into a liquid-like substance that bubbled and popped. The corpses of the hundreds of dead orcs sunk deep into the muck before disappearing completely. Massive bursts of water would erupt from the mess, turning the ground into a brown sludge. It churned and rolled for several minutes before slowing down. The priests went silent, at least a dozen of them face down in the grass. Medics and Surgeons ran to their aid, bringing with them flasks of the foul-tasting liquid that every healer seemed to carry on them.
“What just happened?” he asked.
The legionary snorted, “what, never seen a magician before?”
“I have, just never any as powerful as them.” Oliver admitted, “it’s like they turned the ground into soup.”
“Pretty much what it looked like to me,” he agreed, “let’s just hope they didn’t take some of the wall's foundation with it.”
Oliver gasped, “They’d do that?”
“No,” the legionary shook his head, “well, not on purpose at least. But you never know. There’s always some level of unpredictability with magic.”
“Oh,” Oliver said, hoping that the slight tremor he felt under his boots was only his imagination. But the way that the other men stirred and looked around in a panic dashed those hopes against a river. The trumpeting call of warhorns was the waterfall that those hopes fell into.
The war drums beat louder, at a more furious tempo that matched Oliver’s rapidly increasing heart rate. The legionary in front of him cursed and drew his sword, “here we go again.”
Oliver snorted, “again? You weren’t even on the walls the first time.”
“Shut it, coward,” he snapped, “I don’t need to listen to a word from someone like you. Content to sit back and shoot from afar like a mewling girl.” he spat on the ground and glared at him a moment before returning his eyes to the field.
At the edge of the forest, thousands of greenskins gathered, their sickly green-yellow eyes gleaming in the relative darkness. A deep voice rumbled from the depths of the trees, more than likely the enemy general giving a speech to his men.
From the command tower, the legate of the 1st Legion, a massive man wearing a huge plumed helmet of dyed red hair raised an immense claymore into the air.
“We are Legion, forged in fire!” he roared, his voice carried by the might of magic so that it boomed across the forest.
“Bathed in blood and encased in iron.” the legionaries finished, rattling swords against shields. Minutes passed and the rattling died down, engulfing the wall in silence.
Then the orks charged, thousands swarmed from the tree line. Only to begin sinking into the filthy mud. The first rank was swallowed whole; hundreds of green skins disappeared in seconds. The second rank, seeing the downfall of the first, tried and failed to stop as they were carried forward by those behind them.
“Gunners ready!” Iroh shouted, and Oliver shouldered in front of the gawking legionaries who were still watching the orks. They sunk down to their waist before stopping, looking around in confusion. Those looks turned into pain as the other orks stomped on their heads and shoulders, using them like steps to keep running.
“Fire!”
The front ranks of the hoard dropped, falling into the mud. The ranks further behind ignored the fire, shoving dead and dying comrades forwards to use as shields or boards for some kind of sick bridge. Thousands perished before they reached the wall, their bodies so numerous that they completely filled the artificial swamp the magicians had created.
Orks stumbled and tripped on the corpses of their own as they rushed to the bottom of the wall.
“Legionaries, to the front! Don’t let them get a foothold on the wall!”
Oliver heard the legionary in front of him hop up and down, “Glory in life. Honor in death. Glory in life. Honor in death-” he continued repeating himself as the orks began jumping for the massive iron handles that they had jammed in just hours before.
“Fix bayonets!”
Something whistled from below and blocked out the sun for just a moment. Oliver looked up at the massive red ork that soared through the air. It hurtled towards the ground, landing right beside him and pounding Kyle into the ground like a fucking tent stake. Immediately it went to town on the surrounding soldiers. Washington’s head was cracked open by the beast's enormous war mace, splattering brain material everywhere. Another gunner rammed it through with his bayonet, only to catch a backhand to the face that sent him tumbling over the edge of the wall.
The Given man pulled the firearm out of his side, snapping it in one hand. At the same time, using the other to swing at new victims. Uttering an oath, Sergeant Irons managed to push Washington out of the way before ducking under the watermelon-sized spiked ball himself. Cocking back the hammer on his gun, he fired a point-blank round into the ork’s huge chest.
Red and purple goo sprayed everyone in the neighboring area as it stumbled back in shock. Using this opportunity, Oliver and Simmons charged the Given man, bodily shoving it over the edge of the wall and down on his fellows.
Simmon grinned, “Well, that was ea-” A legionary slammed into him, his red tower shield extending around them as four heavy slams hit it.
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“Keep your heads down you stupid-” whatever he was going to say was cut off as he dropped to the ground. A massive dent in his backplate, the two gunners looking up in shock. Another ork roared at them, barely an arms width away. It bared its huge yellowed fangs, barling at them with little regard for its own safety. Blood poured from half a dozen stab wounds, a dagger stuck in its chest.
Oliver swiveled his firearm around, cocking the hammer and pulling the trigger. Instead of a thunderclap and a fireball, the gun let out only a small huff of smoke. Simmons’ gun didn’t fail him however and the metal slug punched a hole in the beast's abdomen. Not even flinching, it swung at them with a metal hammer. Cursing, he dropped to one knee. Feeling the wind whistle overhead, he shot up, bayonet closing in on the ork’s throat like a raptor after a bird.
He felt the blade sink deep into flesh, the resistance as nearly a foot of solid steel tickled the greenskin’s brains. Oliver twisted the gun in his hands, blending its brains to soup. The ork slumped dead on the ground and he let out a sigh of relief.
The battle raged on; across the wall, men began to buckle and back up as the orks continued their reckless assault. More were making it onto the walls. A hand grasped Oliver’s shoulder from behind and he flinched turning around. It was Centurion Graves. He leaned in, shouting to be heard over the roar of battle, “We’re pulling back! Prepare to disengage and regroup behind the mainline.”
“Yes, Centurion.”
“Spread the word,” he said, shoving his way past him. Oliver quickly turned to Simmons and repeated the order. After that he retreated to the back of the formation, using that time to reload his firearm and take a drink.
On the watchtower, Iroh gripped the railing with both hands. His personal guards looked on nervously, ready to intercept anything that came his way. The battle was faring poorly for the humans. The mostly green legionaries weren’t used to such high-intensity combat lasting for so long. In human conflicts, battles were decided in minutes or even seconds. When two sides would meet, clashing furiously for moments before one would break and run.
But the orks seemed to have no sense of self-preservation. They charged with reckless abandon, leaping onto the walls even as their comrades were skewered or shot to pieces.
Just when he thought the battle could not go any worse, the ground began to shake. Something deep in the forest let out a scream of fury. For a moment, the battle stopped. Then the orks began streaming away from the wall. Slowly at first, single orks and pairs ran from the bottom of the wall. Then groups of ten and twenty. Those still on the wall even began leaping off the edge, many catching swords or bullets through the back.
Quickly the entire clearing was emptied, leaving only the dead and dying on the field. Wasting no time, Iroh began rotating the men on the wall, “Call off all the gunners and bring the 1st through 3rd cohorts of the other 2nd and 3rd legions to the wall.”
Messenger boys saluted before running off as he continued, “Get me a casualty count and a report from the battlemages. Also, someone bring the Highlord up to the tower.”
“Yes General.”
Something moved in the treeline, huge oaks shook and snapped as a beast crawled on all fours into the open field. Then it began to unfold its massive limbs and stand up. The demon towered thirty feet into the air. A structure made purely out of stone, with thick green vines crisscrossing its body. It stood on two hind legs with two huge arms, not dissimilar to those found on a gorilla, hefting a large sharpened log with ease.
A Jungle Golem.
“I want every single goddamn mage we have on hand up here now!” Iroh shouted, a new sense of urgency in his voice, “Have 4th Cohorts of all three legions equipped with pikes and formed up at the gate!”
The ground shook with each step the golem took. The few remaining archers and gunners on the walls loosed arrows and slugs that sparked off its body uselessly.
“Sir!” a messenger boy shouted, “I brought Captain Ash.”
“You called for me?” the skinny man asked in a high-pitched voice. He turned to look at the golem before nodding, “I can see why.”
“Do you think you could take it down?” Iroh asked. Ash tilted his head looking at the demonic creation.
“No.” he.
Iroh took a deep breath as the lumbering stone machine took another step closer. A lesser general would have snapped or lashed out in anger. “Explain.”
“Those greenskins have magicians of their own, and a lot more of them. They’ve been placing wards on that fucker for a while now. I can feel the energy radiating off of it from over here.”
“Do you have any suggestions then?”
Another voice spoke up, “well, we’ve got a whole lot of fire dust that’s just laying around.”
He turned to find General Kahl, his armor was smeared with visceral and covered in dents.
“And what would we do with it?”
He shrugged, “They use fire dust to blast stone in the mines, don’t see why we couldn’t do so here.”
Iroh crossed his arms, “and how would we transport that much dust?”
“Ask Ash, he’s one of the premier mages in the empire.”
Said man thought about it for several seconds, “we could use telekinesis to create a shaped charge. That would be much more effective than a simple explosion.” to their confused looks he explained, “a shaped charge would focus all the energy in one direction. Similar to what a firearm does.”
“I see. Do you believe it possible then?” Iroh asked, “take down the golem with dust that is.”
He sighed, “I don’t know. But what I do know is that we’ve got a hell of a higher chance doing it this way than with a couple of cohorts of men with sticks.”
“Very well, do what you can. With any luck, we'll have one less problem to deal with.”
Ash turned around and bellowed to the magicians below. In seconds they had three huge crates full of compacted fire dust hovering into the air and over the wall. The troops below stopped to watch with wonder as thousands of pounds of explosives floated over the battlements. From the forest below lights glowed and Ash shouted out a warning. It came a second too late as jets of fire erupted into the air.
The battlemages erected wards around the crates. They knew they wouldn’t have a chance at stopping the fire outright with so low that they didn’t even attempt to. Instead, they placed them at 45-degree angles from the incoming fire, hoping to deflect the blast.
The fire hit with bright flashes of energy and several of the battlemages began to sweat profusely. Then one jet punched through the ward and it exploded instantly. A bright flash of heat and light that disappeared in a heartbeat, leaving only an afterimage and a thunderclap. The other two crates shook from the impact of the shockwave but were otherwise unharmed as the fire jets extinguished. They began to rapidly gain momentum and speed, closing in on the golem which looked up at them with uncaring eyes.
“Ready?” Ash asked, the men around him growled their assent, and white clouds flowed from them. They outpaced the crates by a huge margin, forming into an almost solid blue conical wall. The crates passed through them as if they were made of honey.
“Fire in the hole,” he shouted, covering his ears. The two remaining crates ignited with a muffled bang. The light that came from it was tinted blue and barely brighter than a campfire. Iroh’s brows shot up in alarm when the ward shattered seconds later. Huge plumes of smoke billowed into the air obscuring the entire area. Four of the battle priests collapsed on the spot and were carried off by runners.
The two generals remained silent, waiting. Neither got their hopes up or cheered like the men below them had. They had been fighting long enough to know that premature celebration could lead to death.
“We need to make an analysis.” Cahl said, “that thing could still be coming. Ash, get rid of the smoke.”
The captain gritted his teeth, he was at his limit. All magicians had one, a point of no return. He could feel it in his soul that even if he took more in from the huge gemstone reserves, casting any more magic would have catastrophic consequences. “I can’t.”
“Then find someone who can. We can’t stay blind.”
“Yes, general.” he said through gritted teeth, “Mathews, get your lazy ass up here and clear this smoke!”
“Aye captain!” a man shouted, he was obviously fresh and eager to finally have something to do. He inhaled a massive amount of energy from a fist-sized emerald. He drew both arms to his right side and made an exaggerated pushing motion. A gust of wind blew from the east, carrying the smoke away in seconds.
The golem lay in two parts having been sheared in half at the waist. On a closer inspection, Iroh could tell that the bottom half wasn’t moving. In fact, it had begun to crumble like a sandcastle in the rain. What worried him was that the top half was still moving.