The rangers’ machetes sliced through the air, their blades spinning in fluid arcs, and in an instant, the sky was ablaze with the brilliant light of their core technique – Blade Dance. The flash of the sun on their steel illuminated the terrified faces of the orcs just as the swords tore through them.
With a sickening thud, over a hundred orc bodies dropped to the ground from the city walls, their final, desperate screams still echoing. The dead orcs’ descent dampened the morale of the advancing horde, halting their attack.
"Damn them! Cowardly elves!" Azog bellowed, his voice filled with frustration as he watched the elves stubbornly defend their city. He hadn't expected such resistance. These elves were different from the weaklings he'd imagined. They were veterans of the Last Alliance, warriors who had fought at Mordor and faced the Black Gate. The elves of Los Saint-Neil fought with the legacy of their ancestors burning in their hearts.
"Why aren’t they tiring?" Azog snarled, watching helplessly as the elf rangers, like reapers, methodically cut down the orcs attempting to scale the walls.
Azog had never fought against a proper elven army before, and he was now witnessing their disciplined tactics. If Roland were here, he would have scoffed at Azog's naivety. The elf army was relentless, and their strategy simple but effective. First, they wore down their enemies with volleys of arrows. When the battle moved to melee range, their spearmen and rangers took over, showing no sign of exhaustion. Even when the elves seemed spent, they had reserves of magic and determination that made them lethal to the end.
Azog cursed his bad luck. His second-tier orc warriors had been cut down as easily as grass by the elves' blades. In a desperate bid to stop the bleeding, he waved his hand, signaling a retreat of his elite troops.
"Let the cannon fodder deal with them!" he ordered.
The trained warriors pulled back, and in their place, hordes of ordinary orcs surged forward, driven by fear and bloodlust. Novia, the elf commander, gritted her teeth. Killing professional soldiers had taken enough effort, but wasting precious strength on ordinary orcs was a frustrating prospect.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
At that moment, trolls lumbered toward the city gate, carrying massive logs to batter down the defenses. The elf archers, who had been resting behind the lines, saw the approaching behemoths and immediately nocked their arrows.
"Take them down!" the commanders ordered.
A volley of arrows flew through the air, piercing the trolls and sending them crashing to the ground, their bodies riddled with elven arrows. But the orcs were not done. A new threat emerged as trebuchets, carried by even larger trolls, appeared on the battlefield. They stopped just beyond the elves’ shooting range and began to launch boulders at the city.
"Prepare the exploding arrows!" Novia shouted.
Another barrage of arrows, this time tipped with explosive magic, streaked through the sky and hit their targets with devastating force. The trebuchets and their troll operators were obliterated, leaving nothing but smoldering remains in the field below.
Azog roared in frustration, unable to match the elves' precision and firepower. He called for his troops to regroup, realizing that brute force wasn’t enough to overcome the defenses of Los Saint-Neil.
From the west, the sound of orc horns blared, a deep, ominous wail that echoed across the battlefield. James, locked in combat with orc soldiers, looked up and felt a chill in his bones. Reinforcements had arrived.
"God of Light, help us," Carlos muttered as he watched the horizon darken with the advancing orc horde. It was a wave of bodies, banners, and steel. The half-orc army had successfully bypassed the Woodland Kingdom’s defenses, and they were now circling the city, cutting off any hope of retreat.
Azog grinned. With the Polge army at his back, he no longer feared the elven reinforcements or the Holy Glory Knights rumored to be hiding in the city. Now, he had enough forces to surround and crush Los Saint-Neil.
As Azog bellowed orders for the final assault, Roland and his army reached the west bank of the frozen river. They had been delayed by the ice, forced to march north to find a safe crossing. From atop a nearby hill, Roland surveyed the battlefield. His heart sank as he realized the scale of the orc reinforcements.
“The Woodland Kingdom failed,” Roland muttered grimly, recalling Thorin’s warning not to trust the elves to hold the line.
"Your Highness, we should retreat," Reynold said, his voice laced with urgency.
But Roland shook his head. “No, we still have a chance. The star elves have a Dragon Knight, and a Dragon Knight means at least one forbidden spell.”
His words sparked hope in the weary soldiers around him. A Dragon Knight could turn the tide of the battle, and if they were lucky, the orc horde could be obliterated with a single magical strike.
Suddenly, a deafening roar filled the sky. A majestic blue dragon, its scales glittering like stars, burst from the city. Novia, realizing that Azog’s reinforcements were overwhelming her forces, had called upon the full might of the Dragon Knights. As the dragon soared above the battlefield, the tide of the war was about to change.