Chapter 50: Retaliation March
“Again, I give my utmost thanks.” The chief rasps.
We stand in the chief’s house, lit dimly by candles in the darkening night.
He coughs, thumping his chest, and an orc quickly hands him a cup of water, which he gratefully drinks. “Shouting at this age does me no good, but they needed to hear what I had to say. Ra’tlub fell dangerously close to destruction today. Some may not understand or believe, but truth is truth.”
I nod. “As bad as things went, I’m glad we won the battle, and the city still stands. Your warriors are right to be proud of their strength.”
“Our warriors, brother.” He corrects, a smile in his eyes. “I did not say that as a mere token of appreciation. Stories of your actions today, both in calling reinforcements and your power in battle, have spread quickly among the people. You will find that you have earned the respect of our warriors today… And probably a few toasts in the coming days.”
“That is, assuming we all return alive.” I note soberly.
He nods seriously. “Yes, it will not be a simple battle. We were lucky that they did not come prepared for our fortifications, but in the same way we have little experience assaulting such a thing. I was hoping that you could provide some ideas.”
I glance at Jakin, and he coughs lightly. “Ahem. Ah, there are roughly three… No, four… Five ways of defeating a fortified position. The most common method in the kingdoms is to simply surround it, prevent anyone from going in or out, and thus cause them to be unable to hunt or harvest food. Over the course of months, they will slowly starve, and eventually be forced to surrender or die of starvation.”
“Even I could not wait so long, let alone our warriors.” The chief chuckles.
Jakin shrugs. “Just laying out the options. The next would be to destroy the walls. Normally, with stone fortifications, this would be extremely difficult, but for wooden walls it isn’t impossible to set them on fire. Depending on how they’re constructed, it might be possible to break them down with a battering ram.”
“Battering ram?” He raises an eyebrow.
“The simplest battering ram wouldn’t be difficult to make even in only a day or two, given enough people. Simply fell a large tree, strip the trunk of branches and cut off the end. Then have a group of people carry it and simply slam it end first into whatever you want broken.” Jakin explains. “Typically, it would be used to breach a gate or door, which is a bit easier than a wall. Breaching a gate, door or other weak point in the defences being the third method, the fourth is to go over the walls. If you can manage to set a ladder against the wall, ideally multiple ladders, that will let warriors head over the defences and attack the defenders directly.”
The chief nods slowly. “Ram, ladders… We can do that.”
“The last method would be to go under the walls by digging a tunnel. Frankly, I don’t think our forces here have the skills or patience for that method, either.” Jakin finishes his list. “Generally speaking, when assaulting a position, they’d use as many of these methods as possible. Some would attempt to breach the gate, others would use ladders to go over the walls, magical and ranged bombardments on the defenders, and so on.”
“I can count the number of magic users we have on my hands.” He sighs. “So many things we don’t have the skills or resources to do. We need to advance to survive, but my age is catching up to me. I can only place my hope in the young…”
His gaze goes far away for a few moments. He shakes his head slightly and refocuses. “Sorry, my mind wandered. I’ll organise for a ram and ladders to be crafted by the uninjured tomorrow. Aaron, you used fire magic to burn the goblins. Are you able to burn down their walls?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.” I say, thinking. “So long as I’m able to focus on burning the wall for a little while, it should catch fire. My only concern is the weather. If it so happens to be a dry, hot, windy day, then there’s a risk that that fire could spread to the grass, foliage, and so on. Then we’d be trying to outrun the blaze as well.”
“Yes, I’d rather not set our warriors on fire.” The chief agrees, talking half to himself. “Then, ideally the weather would be damp - But not too damp, or you won’t be able to start a fire – cool, and still.”
I smile wryly. “Well, that’s up to the whims of the weather. I’ll try it if conditions are good. It would still probably be best if I do it somewhere away from the main forces, perhaps the opposite wall?”
“You’ll need some warriors to fight alongside you, then. With just your party, you could well get overwhelmed by numbers.” The chief nods. “It shouldn’t be a problem to assign you as the leader of a small group. Their actions and lives will be in your hands. Can you bear that weight?”
“I will do my best to ensure their survival and our victory.” I say seriously, looking him in the eyes.
“That’s all I can ask. Get some rest while the sun’s still sleeping. We have busy days ahead of us.” The chief says, dismissing us.”
Busy days, indeed.
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The morning comes, and the whole city is busy. Many orcs are wounded, or tending to the wounded, but their natural regeneration makes injuries that would take weeks to heal for a human heal at a rate that makes me guess days, instead. Those with minor injuries forgo care and get to work.
Bonfires had burned through the night and into the day to dispose of the many, many goblin corpses, and the bodies of fallen orc warriors were returned to their families, the sounds of mourning and rage audible everywhere in the city.
Trees are felled and processed, weapons are checked and maintained, food for the march and for those left behind hunted and preserved (such as they can) and other kinds of preparations are underway.
The usual barter is all but forgotten, materials and labour voluntarily offered where needed in order to face the goblin threat. I would think it impossible in any city or town I’ve seen before, both this world and the other – people focusing on themselves over the community for better or for worse, people trying to take advantage of the circumstances for their own gain – but here it seems the needs of the community take precedence over everything else.
That isn’t to say that selfishness doesn’t exist – some are taking the opportunity to have new weapons or armour made, for instance – but even that selfishness isn’t taking advantage of others’ selflessness. Nobody is going back for a second time to try and get another made to trade away later, and even their old gear is simply given away for less equipped warriors to use.
But I digress. Our group is also lending our labour where it is needed, mostly moving supplies and helping craft the ladders. We ourselves have no particular preparations to make. Our equipment we check and maintain after every combat, such as we can. Any dents or damage done to our armour we can only roughly hammer back into shape. We already crafted all the bolts we could use before the last battle, and we likely won’t have much opportunity to use most of them even now.
It’s a bit of a shame, but we’ll probably have opportunity to use them in the future, so hopefully our time making them won’t end up wasted.
Still, despite the rudimentary battle strategies we’ve witnessed the orcs using, I am cautiously optimistic about the upcoming battle. As I see it, we have two decent advantages. The first is that we won the last fight. Huge numbers of their fighting forces have been killed off, and most likely the army we saw represented most of their forces. If we’re in luck, when we arrive, we’ll be facing only a small or mid-sized force compared to yesterday.
Second is the orcs’ natural toughness, stamina and regeneration. Even among the surviving goblins from yesterday, quite a few would be injured. The same is true of our orc warriors, but they can recover much more quickly and keep fighting regardless. So, most of our injured will be able to fight by tomorrow, while they’ll be trying to handle large numbers of wounded. The impact of that drain on manpower and resources shouldn’t be underestimated.
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One way or another, we’ll see the truth of things before long.
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We set off on the dawn of the new day. Our march is only loosely organised, and I can tell the twins’ dissatisfaction as they look around. There are some carts of supplies pulled by beasts, barely kept in check by their handlers. Many orcs carry packs, and there are groups of warriors that have broken from the main group to hunt for fresh meat and edible plants.
Still, it doesn’t feel as if the supply situation would be sustainable if this were a longer march. We won’t have enough for the march back unless we raid the goblins’ storehouses. Is this the first time they’ve gone to war since the tribes merged? Hunting could sustain a small group or raid party as they move, but not an entire army. It’s just not feasible.
Some might argue that in this battle either us or them will be destroyed, so why bother preparing food for the return trip if we can just raid the enemy’s food stores if we win? But it isn’t impossible that in the circumstance that we are winning the battle, the enemy leader orders their storages set ablaze to prevent us from using them. The potential losses are high, and all not bringing those extra supplies does for us is at most let us travel a little faster.
“Your arm holding up fine?” Xiltroth questions as we walk.
I nod. I’d removed the cast out of necessity before the battle a couple days ago after getting some basic healing from Greg. “It’s been solid. Bit of soreness yesterday, but far as I can tell that was just from all the fighting. How about you? You holding up alright?”
He looks up, watching the clouds as he speaks. “It’s all happened so fast. Things felt like they were going back to normal after coming here, in some ways. We were doing a quest. Goblins. Simple, familiar. Then it was a city full of them. The invasion, fearing the worst, planning what we would do if Ra’tlub fell…”
“It was almost like a nightmare, only able to watch the madness unfold around me. But now I’m in the thick of it, and it’s all become very real.” He looks a little lost.
“You know, a nightmare is only a nightmare until you step forwards and face the darkness.” I reply.
“Problems rarely go away if you run from them, in reality. At one point or another you’ll either choose to face them, or be forced to. Course, that’s easy to say but not to do. Everyone fears death. If we fail here, you, me, the twins, Heather, Greg, we all might die. The orcs could be wiped out, and then the goblins would be free to expand, maybe even affecting our friends to the west or the kingdoms.” I continue, intentionally being ambiguous about the halflings in case anyone overhears. No need to break open that can of worms right now.
I shake my head, wondering whether I had ended up scaring him more. “What I’m trying to say, is that it’s normal to be afraid, to be overwhelmed by things like this. The important thing is that you’re able to get past it when it counts and keep fighting. And if you have difficulty or make a mistake, then we’ll be there to cover for you.”
“I know. I know we’ll get through this, one way or another.” He nods, gaze clearing. “It wasn’t long ago that things like monsters and war were like a distant fantasy to me. I’m used to the battle, blood. It’s just a lot bigger now. Messier. Harder to understand, predict what might happen. Think I prefer smaller battles. Even if the opponent’s stronger, at least you only have to keep your eyes on them, instead of worrying about something on the other side of a city.”
I nod. “It’s true, larger battles are much more difficult to manage. It’s part of the reason strategists are so important in large scale wars. But even without that component, usually it wouldn’t be as messy as that last battle. Groups of soldiers would have leaders, then groups of those groups would have leaders, and so on. In this way, the general of an army would only have to order a small group of people, who would then order the leaders under them, and so on.
“What’s more, there would be dedicated messengers relaying these orders and information between leaders, to make sure that the general understands the situation at all times and can relay accurate orders, and so that the soldiers understand what they have to do.” You continue. “It’s still chaotic, don’t get me wrong - that’s inevitable for anything of that scale - but there is at least some organisation.”
“That’s very different from small-scale battles. I guess the orcs just haven’t made that jump yet.” Xiltroth sighs. “At least it’s just a one time thing.”
“If there were large scale battles like this all the time, it’d probably be the end of civilisation.” I chuckle.
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A disorderly crowd of roughly fifty orcs stands in front of us. Standing on a tree stump so that all of them can see me, I address them loudly. “Thank you all for gathering. I’m sure you’ve all heard that you’ll be following my lead in the coming battle. If any of you have any problems with following me, speak up now.”
A few orcs look at each other, but nobody speaks up. Perfect. Now I just have to hope that nobody decides to challenge my authority in the middle of battle.
“Good! Then, I’ll explain what will be happening. We will be setting off before the main force and moving to attack from behind their city.” I say simply. “Then we’ll charge fast, I’ll open a hole in the wall, and then we’ll move in a group inside their city and kill every goblin we see. Any questions?”
In actuality, there will be a few more steps, but this is what I boiled it down to, to make it as simple as possible for them to understand. For instance, before attacking we’ll wait for a signal from the main force to ensure they attract the enemy’s attention before we make our move, and I’ll be setting the wall on fire behind us after we go in.
I could just spray fire everywhere, and originally that’s pretty much what I had planned, but we need their supplies. We can’t afford risking them burning up in the fire. So instead, I’ll just set enough on fire to attract a lot of attention, and then we’ll move from the scene.
“Why don’t we split up inside the city? We’d kill more, right?” One of the orcs asks.
“Good question.” I nod at the orc. “It’s because the goblins are clever. If we split up, the goblins may group up and pick us off one by one. We may kill slower in a group, but we’ll be much safer. And the more of us are alive, the more of them we can kill.”
Though they may have formed a city now, they haven’t forgotten their roots as goblins. Their primary tactic is to use larger numbers, traps and ambush tactics. If we group up, inside their city that simply won’t work.
It’d be a whole other thing in one of the kingdoms’ fortresses. After a history of wars and experience attacking and being attacked in and from fortified positions, getting inside the walls is only half the fight. An important half, but not the end.
Buildings taller towards the centre that allow archers to easily fire down at any captured walls or towers, maze-like layouts that make getting to your objective long and confusing, series of gates that allow sections of the fort to be sealed off, not to mention whatever magical defences there may have been that I wasn’t privy to. Every single aspect of a fort’s construction is made to make it as difficult as physically possible for invaders to get in and progress through it.
All things I am very thankful we don’t really have to worry about, even if a city’s defences wouldn’t be as extreme as a fort’s.
“As you all know. Goblins are weak. Their biggest danger is in numbers. Even if the ones on the walls have bows or slings, so long as we cover our heads with our arms, they shouldn’t be able to do much damage.” I tell them. “And once we’re at close range, well. They may as well already be dead.”
Several orcs chuckle darkly.
“With that, there’s nothing more to say. Let’s kill a hell of a lot of goblins, and return home to tell the tale!” I shout, raising my warhammer into the air.
The orcs break into cheers and yelling.
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We move between the trees, sticks snapping dully underfoot, more muted than usual due to the light smattering of dew over the ground. There had been a light sprinkle the previous night, and the winds right now are quiet, almost still.
I’d offer up a quick prayer of thanks right now if I were a religious man - the conditions seem, at least to me, to be pretty much ideal.
As we navigate through the forest, one orc makes a noise of surprise as his foot falls through the leaf coverage into a concealed pit below. A nearby orc reflexively grabs his arm and halts his fall, and with the help of another orc they easily pull him out. I look down the hole and see sharpened wooden spikes, a rudimentary but undoubtedly lethal trap combined with the fall.
“There may be more traps in the area.” I call out. “Grab a stick or something and poke the ground with it as you walk, if it goes through the ground don’t step there, and let the people around you know. If you see any ropes lying around, break them.”
The orcs grab sticks or start poking the ground with weapons, and we start moving again at a slightly slower pace. Ultimately, even with such simple countermeasures, it’s sufficient. With our numbers and the orcs’ natural proclivity for destruction, any snares and pitfalls get destroyed and exposed. And if anything gets missed, there’s always plenty of people around who can help.
After some time, we reach our destination with only a few minor scratches the worse for wear. Peeking through the trees, I can see our target: The goblin city.
“Hold here, we’ll wait for a signal from the main army!” I announce, then creep to the edge of the tree line, squinting towards the city.
“Xiltroth, how many do you count on the walls and towers?” I ask him.
He narrows his eyes, his mouth moving slightly as he silently counts. “Thirteen, I think.”
“Hm, I count the same.” I nod. “In some places, thirteen is considered an unlucky number, but I wonder, for us or them? Well, if all goes well some of them should move to other walls.”
Xiltroth shrugs. “Even if they don’t, we should be able to take down that many no issue.”
“True, thirteen goblins pose little issue. But there’s likely more behind the wall, plus the difficulty of the wall itself.” I note. “I don’t think it’ll be a big issue considering the difference in combat ability between us and them, but I’ve heard it said that to attack a fortified position you ideally need three times the enemy’s number of troops.”
“Maybe. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll lose.” The corner of Xiltroth’s mouth tilts upwards.
There’s a distant roaring sound, and the goblin sentries start being a lot more active.
“I do believe that’s our signal.” I say, putting my helmet on. I raise my voice. “Not much longer now, people! Get yourselves ready to charge!”
In just a couple of minutes, the visible goblin presence on the wall facing us has halved. That’ll do well enough.
I step out from behind the tree, into the open. “You warriors ready for the biggest fight you’ve ever fought!?” I shout to the orcs behind me.
““WAR!!!”” Comes the roaring reply.
“CHARGE!” I yell, breaking into a run.