Cold wind swept through the mountain pass, sweeping up loose snow, and creating a hollowing song. Ice hung off the walls and snow piled at the bottom. Frost clung to every exposed surface.

Yet it was all ignored by the men and women guarding the pass. They stood defiant against the cold and frost. The Fortress behind them was a mess of frantic people, each running in different directions, but the men and women on the wall stood tall and unmoving, even as the harsh winds beat into them. Yet it was an organized chaos, each of them had their duty and place.

Standing on the balcony of his office, unaffected by the weather or the chaos, Prince Aurelius stared through the building blizzard at the massive army that was massing for an assault on the mountain pass. They pushed their engines of war forward as their infantry marched forward in large formations.

“My lord, the Savages are advancing.” The Prince’s aid informed, bowing deeply.

Savages. The image brought to mind by such a term were large shirtless barbarians that simply charged forward blindly. But the Savages of the North were no such thing. The Prince had lost many good men to their ambushes and flanking maneuvers. No soldier of the North would dare to underestimate their strength, cunning, and ferocity.

The Savages of the North were just as organized and disciplined as the Lissurian Military. They were called Savages because they were in fact a collection of City States that constantly warred against each other. However, when an outside force threatened any one of them, they would band together nearly seamlessly to defend themselves. Their culture was one of strength. They had no nobility, no generational kings or queens. Those who had the strength to firmly grasp power were the ones in charge.

Within their culture, lay a custom as firmly enforced so as to be law. If a champion could rise and defeat the champions of all the other city states, they would rule for a decade before they would cede their throne and venture into the wilds to battle the powerful Monsters. The stories told that one who could constantly battle the Monsters of the wilds for another decade would return as their God. None had. Yet the custom remained.

The Savage army before the mountain pass fortress was led by their current Champion. The Prince had received plenty of information about him. He had ruled for nine years and would be expected to leave for the wilds when the snows melted. He was prepared to meet his end with strength and blood. But before he left, he wanted to make something of himself worthy of being told in their histories for ages to come.

The Champion was a giant of a man whose power lay in strength and durability and rivaled that of numerous Experts. The Prince was prepared to face him in a duel, but it would still come at a cost of numerous lives of his own soldiers. The custom between the Savage City States was that their soldiers would fight for a single day. When the sun rose on the second day, the Champions of both sides would duel after giving their forces time to display their strength.

The Prince was tempted to force the duel by attacking first, but regardless of the result, it would end poorly. Even if he defeated the Savage Champion easily, the Savage Cities would see it as an insult. The army would pull back for now, but would return eventually with an army multitudes larger. As one of the few Experts in the world, and one of the strongest, the Prince could slaughter many Adepts easily, but even he would be overwhelmed with numbers.

The Prince looked down at the brave men and women who stood on the wall. To maintain the Northern Defenses, this pass could not be allowed to fall. The Savages would destroy the Pass Fortress and return to their lands victorious, but with the Pass destroyed, the Gilaen Empire would march through with their armies. The Prince was proud of their Military, but he was not foolish. If this pass fell, the Gilaen Empire would be able to quickly conquer their Kingdom.

When the Fortress had been built many centuries ago, the builders had also mined tunnels from the fort to high up on either side of the pass. This allowed the defenders to have mages or archers in the small bunkers. It had taken several hundred Mages and Miners nearly a decade to carve them out of the hard stone. The Savages and Gilaens both knew that using ladders or other methods to climb into the bunkers was a waste of man power. The tunnels were narrow and twisted to give the defenders the advantage.

However, they also knew exactly where the bunkers were. The moment the Savage army passed the bunkers, magic and arrows rained down on them, only to be met with a storm of magic and arrows gifted to them in return. Few Lissurian Soldiers were harmed during the barrage, even fewer were killed. But the suppressive fire was enough to force their heads down and prevent them from returning attacks.

At the same time as the bunkers released their attacks, the siege weapons of the fortress loosed. Large boulders were thrown, crashing into the siege weapons of the Savages. Massive wooden bolts were launched from their ballista, little more than sharpened logs, and dug through several ranks of the Savage formations.

Normally, any defensive structure would have to be concerned about mages mining underneath the walls or destabilizing them. But the Mountain Pass was considered top priority, worth the cost of enchanting not only the fortress itself, but also the ground around it. The Enchantment prevented unauthorized magic from controlling the earth and even made the earth stronger, more firm, making it even harder to mine through than the mountains. The Enchantments also had numerous other uses, such as alerting the defenders to any attempt made at mining, however fruitless as it was, given time, it could still have an effect.

Yet even under the barrage of stones and ballista bolts, the Savage Army pushed forward, their own trebuchets throwing their own stones from the relative safety of their camp. But the Savage trebuchets weren’t aimed at the massive wall, but at the fortress behind them.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Ninety meters away from the wall of the Mountain Fortress, the archers of the Defenders began to rain their arrows down on the attackers. Even with shields, many Savages fell. At Eighty meters, the attackers were faced with a moat five meters deep and filled with water. The stone bricks of the moat were enchanted to prevent the water from freezing, while not increasing the temperature. In armor, most soldiers would struggle to swim, with many failing. In below freezing waters, none to fell in came back out without help and of those who were rescued, many died from exposure within minutes.

The Moat was twenty meters wide and spanned the entire length of the pass. The Attackers were prepared. They threw down airtight wooden chests, creating treacherous, but buoyant bridges. Untold hundreds died in the attempt to build and cross the bridges, even as they wheeled wooden walls forward, granting cover to the attackers. Most Magic lost effectiveness past fifty meters from the wall, so after the Moat, the rain of arrows was joined by Magic.

After the Moat, came a forty meter stretch of land that rolled and dipped to prevent siege weapons from being wheeled forward further and further slowed the attackers while providing no cover. After that came another twenty meter moat, this one ten meters deep.

If by some miracle, a Savage Soldier survived all of this while under the constant barrage of arrows and Magic, they then had to scale the hundred meter tall wall, where they would be attacked from above and the sides, where towers jutted ten meters out from the rest of the wall every fifty meters along the wall.

But the Savage Army had come prepared, having attacked the Mountain Pass numerous times in the past and the fortress and changed very little since its creation. They built bridges to allow their infantry to pass, then widened and strengthened them to allow their siege towers and battering rams to pass. They slowly built the path over the steep ridges, and even more bridges over the second Moat. The bridges at the second Moat were more numerous to allow more ladders to be brought forward.

Occasionally, the suppressive fire on the bunkers lessened, which the attackers quickly regretted. The Defenders had also learned from previous attacks. Those within the Bunkers were hard hitters who had a long recovery time between attacks. Anytime someone within the Bunkers were allowed to launch their own attack, it was devastating on the Attackers running past.

Boulders thrown by the Defenders’ Siege Engines repeatedly slammed into the Siege Towers of the Savages, but many did little damage. Each Siege Tower had several Mages capable of defending the Towers, as well as Archers on top providing suppressive fire on the Defenders atop the wall. But several Towers did break. A Boulder would score a lucky shot, or the Mages within would be overwhelmed by the number. As each tower broke, the debris would scatter and rain down on the Savages around it.

The Battering Rams took even more losses, as they couldn’t be as defended. Most were left burning husks, the Savages pushing them forward lit aflame and screaming. However, three did manage to make it to the Gate, a behemoth in itself, standing at ten meters tall. Above the Gate, the battlements hung over, allowing the defenders to rain down attacks directly. The first Ram only got a few hits on the gate before it was destroyed, forcing the attackers to remove it before the next one could be brought up.

A fleet of ladders numbering over a hundred were thrown against the wall, each one quickly filling with soldiers. The Defenders met those on the ladders, refusing to allow even a single Savage to stand on the battlements. Those climbing continued to have arrows and magic rained on them, their shields could only protect them so much. As each attacker fell from the heights, they impacted the meter of ground between the moat and the wall with a sickening crunch.

The Siege Towers were the last to reach the tower, and only four made it, out of the two dozen they sent forward. More than the attackers were hoping. The Tower ramps opened, falling onto the battlements with hooks digging into the stone, and revealing the wall of shields charging forward. Yet, even as prepared as the attackers were, many were still blasted away by the Defenders’ Magic. The Attackers were supported by their own Mages and Archers from the top of their Towers. And the Mages of the Defender’s towers attempting to blast away the tops of the Towers.

The Prince watched all of this, hundreds of soldiers; soldiers he had personally trained, die. And he was unable to assist. By the culture of the Savages, he was the Champion of his side, and wasn’t allowed to fight until the second day. The Savages had begun their attack at dawn. By the time the Towers reached the walls, the sun had already passed midday. But to the Prince, it wasn’t quick enough. Several more hours passed, both Savages and Lissurians making pushes and retreats. Bodies stacked, both on and around the wall.

Even as the sun set and night took hold, the Savages charged forward, forcing the Lissurians to bring even more reinforcements from within the fortress. Blood had long since began to pool anywhere it could, turning the Moats a deep red, and reflecting the pale moonlight. Yet even if the moon had been obscured by the clouds, the soldiers from both sides would still have plenty of light to fight by. Fires were littered throughout the battlefield, either rubble or corpses, it did not matter.

The battle continued throughout the night. The Savages only pulled back as the Sun’s light filled the early morning sky once more. The Savages were allowed to leave the battlefield uncontested. The Lissurian Soldiers had no energy to pursue in any way. The Soldiers of both sides had had their time to fight. It was now time for the Champions.

The Prince had watched the entirety of the battle, not once did he turn away. Not to eat, nor to sleep. As an Expert, he could last several days without either. Massive boulders were removed from behind the Gates to allow him to pass through with his Honor Guard, his most elite and trusted soldiers. The Savage Champion met him in the middle of the blood soaked and corpse laden battlefield with his own Honor Guard. Neither of the Honor Guards were expected to do anything, they were only there to keep the other side honest. And to return to their lands with the body of their Champion if needed.

The Savage Champion was more bear than man. Standing well over two meters with more scar than flesh. The rules of the duel stated that only a single set of weapons were allowed, with no armor. Despite the temperature being well below freezing with a cold wind sweeping through the pass and clouds overhead threatening another day of blizzard, both Champions stood shirtless before each other.

The Savage Champion wielded a poleaxe and shield in each hand, while the Prince used a long sword and shield. Both saluted each other, each in their culture’s fashion, before readying themselves.

The Prince had been forced to watch his own soldiers die without being able to assist. Now it was time to prove once more to the Savages why he was called the Northern Sentinel.