It had been long odds from the start, Ensharia knew. Numbers aside, her newly recruited orcs were far from the finest soldiers, and nothing near the equals of those under Venka’s command. She fought at the front, as they slammed into the edge of the war camp and took a horde of soldiers just around a siege tower. Shock and the confusion of seeing fellow orcs falling upon them bought precious minutes and yet more precious lives as they cut into Venka’s forces, Ensharia herself wielding a stolen mace to take off heads and ruin torsos with every swing.

But there had always been long odds.

A spear came at her, a big, nasty spear with great big points on one end and a great big orc on the other. Ensharia didn’t have time to parry, so she blocked with her arm- felt the metal sink a half inch through her reinforced flesh, then brushed it aside and brought the mace down on its wielder. Her blow squeezed brain matter out through the helmeted orc’s eyeholes, and she stepped over the thrashing corpse to find her next enemy.

Behind her, Garutan had finally started fighting in earnest. The man was not blind with rage, like some of his allies, but he didn’t hesitate either.

There had been no missing Garutan’s size from the start, between his height and breadth he surely weighed double or more what most of the other orcs did, even starved and worked in slavery. But Ensharia couldn’t have known the Vigour dwelling in his body beneath the bulk.

A grunt escaped him, not a roar. Nothing more than the product of exertive muscles and tensing lungs, powering his arms along in a great arc as the axe they held split an armoured orc almost cully in half. Entrails spurted out, sloshing across the faces of an entire row among the enemy, blinding them for the vital moments Garutan needed to take his weapon to them once more. He slew in every direction, felling enemies like they were trees, standing, it seemed, in a fathom-wide circle carpeted by blood and pulped flesh, and rimmed by wavering, hesitant enemies too intimidated by the orc’s bottomless might to come nearer.

Another spear, Ensharia swatted it aside only to find a great hammer slipping in under her guard. She had no armour of Fleshcrafted resilience, that had been taken from her when she was captured, and so only bare ribs were left to resist the impact. It was enough to throw her from her feet and back into the ranks of her orcs, knocking the wind from her. Ensharia was jostled, shoved and fell into the mud, wheezing for breath while feet and weapons slammed down all around her.

Her head was clipped by a heel, then caught outright by another. Vision blurring for a moment as preternatural resilience contested impossible weight, then her thoughts regained clarity.

Ensharia barely even realised she was screaming as she rose, swinging, then swinging again. She’d soon smashed a space out of the enemy’s mass of bodies no smaller than Garutan’s own, but it was too little.

She was one woman, her enemies a thousand orcs, and among them were Elites. She could tell even then her hastily-assembled horde of starving slaves was thinning quickly in numbers, and more quickly by far in morale.

There hadn’t been enough orcs on her side, or else too many on Venka’s. They had chosen the wrong moment, waited too long or too little. They’d missed their chance, and she’d led thousands to death.

Ensharia swung one last time, saw an orc step into her guard even as she downed another, and braced herself for its sword to fall. But the blade did not oblige her, and when she fought back her wince and opened her eyes anew, blood was wet and warm on her face where it gushed from the enemy’s opened up throat.

She saw a flash of spinal bone poking out through the jagged wound, then the orc dropped back and Swick the Swift stepped out from aside its jittering corpse. He had knives, two of them. Ugly things, crude and thick, but more than sharp enough to do the work that needed doing. More than sharp enough in the hands of a Hero, in any case.

He moved like quicksilver, and the orcs like slow lead. Swick merely appeared in one place, with dead men falling away from him, then disappeared to re-emerge elsewhere amid another spout of ichor. Ensharia couldn’t tell what was his translocative magic and what was sheer, simple speed, but she knew where he was always by the living men who weren’t there with him. And their own side saw it, too.

It was palpable, the realisation among her orcs. Then tangible, and then it was a mighty current of will and rage resurging at their backs. They charged on ever more fiercely as their enemy’s cohesion broke around Swick’s attacks from within, and Ensharia charged faster and harder than any other.

Collin’s father had been balding before his death, he’d been balding for years. He’d always wondered why, always laughed when he’d been told stress might have anything to do with it. His first command, as a general at least, had educated him on exactly what the causal relationship there might have been.

If he felt any greater weight of emotion against mind, his wits would surely be squeezed out the ears like butter from a churn. He could hardly have retained less control of the fucking conflict in that eventuality, because it had long since progressed from disadvantaged fight to bloody chaotic mess even in spite of his orders.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Sir, the retreat is finished.” Said one soldier, who Collin didn’t recognise. He was his messenger, he thought, one of them at least. It was rather hard to track them. Half the originals had been killed, two thirds of those who remained were in comas, and most of the ones now serving were hastily conscripted non-combatants made to keep the chain of command from snapping like-

-One of the walls imploded, crumbling as Venka’s new weapons finished chewing through and letting dozens of tonnes of stone and mortar fall inwards like the perfect metaphor for Collin’s situation. Bastards, they’d made him poetic.

Venka’s new weapons. Oh, those had been a surprise. And about as pleasant of one as a spear up the arse. A few weeks ago Collin would’ve been stumped as to what they were, now he was just suspicious.

After all, Silenos Shaiagrazni had taught him to recognise cannons when he laid eyes upon them.

“I want the Rangers, all of them.” Collin replied, after a moment, watching the wall further crumble and drawing the very obvious conclusion. Their defence in the martial district would not live long past its infancy, another withdrawal would be needed. Into the very keep itself.

Into the very laboratory of Silenos Shaiagrazni.

“General, you must-”

Another cannon shot, Collin was rather amused by the regularity with which they seemed to be interrupting conversation of late. This one struck the stone far above his head, projectile gouging a great, jagged rent from one corner of a towering building and leaving mortar to rain down. He moved quickly, shoving the messenger down, shielding him with his own body and wincing as fist-sized rocks peppered and bounced from his back.

It was a petty pain, less than the punches of orcs- and Collin had long inured himself to those.

“Leave, now.” He ordered the messenger, watching him scurry away, then sweeping his eyes back to the final wall of the district. The men were fleeing from it already, unable to continue their defence now that enemies were swarming through breaches to attack them from behind.

Less than half, Collin thought, would manage their escape back to the rear lines. His error had been calling the retreat too late, and it had killed men. He buried the thought like so many others of its kind and turned himself to hurry back as well.

Collin found his own path easier, guarded by soldiers and wardens, as the ways of generals seemed always to be. Within minutes he was surveying the entire battle from a new vantage point, one of many balconies in the keep. He did so with an eyeglass, finding a rare limit to his Ranger’s sight in the extreme distances involved.

It had been hard to deny from the start, but after seeing the bizarre chaos at the back of Venka’s forces diffuse into subsequent, smaller explosions of violence over the following days, Collin had come to conclude that his initial, instinctive guess had been right. There was friction in the General’s camp- a lot of it.

He’d spread word at once, of course, having not coined even a lie which would have positively imprinted on morale as well and extensively as the simple truth of such a thing. Over the hours, though, that fact had started to wear thin as far as comforts went. No doubt it was the main reason their defences still held strong, but even it couldn’t distract from the ever-tightening noose of orcs and- increasingly, now- undead closing in around them.

The keep was all they had left, and they barely even had the men required to fill it. Collin wondered idly how many he’d sent to their deaths by insisting upon fighting Venka. Most who had defended, he was certain of that much, and it was no small thing to admit.

Of all the battles he’d read up on throughout history, and all the great victories or crushing defeats, a scarce few had featured losses so severe as even half of either side’s starting men. And here he was, standing bereft of surely more than two thirds his own soldiers. What sort of general was that?

A bad one, Collin decided. It was, perhaps, the first correct decision he’d made over the course of this entire smegging siege.

“General!” Came a messenger’s voice, speaking that wretched, sickening word apparently heedless of the chill it sent crawling down Collin’s spine. Call him scum, animal, but not general. Anything but that.

“What is it now?” Collin asked, forcing his voice to the appropriate heights of arrogance and certainty. It was, surprisingly, not hard. “Is the sky falling, or has the Devil come up from beneath? Both at once, maybe?”

If the messenger found his joke funny, he was in too much of a rush to even reply with the ceremonially appropriate nod.

“No, general, I…I’m sorry, it’s Gyvain.”

Collin’s blood ran cold.

“Where?” He asked.

“At the first breach.” The man replied, misunderstanding the question entirely.

Collin had wanted to know where the old bastard was resting with his wounds. Evidently, he hadn’t been taken back.

“One of the enemy’s new weapons, a piece of debris from the impact clipped him, then the orcs overran his position. I…I am sorry, I was told he died well.”

That, Collin knew, was a lie. There was no dying well, just dying sooner or later. Gyvain’s sooner had been staved off longer than might have been expected, at least. He sighed.

“How long until we have all the remaining Rangers assembled, and what are their numbers?”

“Minutes at most, general.” The messenger replied. “I’m told there are fifty-two remaining.”

Fifty fucking two, less than half their previous numbers. Kaltan was a ruin already, and ruined more with every passing moment. Collin let a snarl of anger escape him, throwing an aimless punch which clipped a fancy bit of stonework and sent it cracking free of the railing.

“Have them diffuse across the highest places in the keep, I want their range put to good use picking off enemy officers. Waste none of them in melee any longer, they’re to snipe only.”

Was that another order he ought to have given sooner, or would they already have been defeated had he not left his quickest, greatest killers fighting in the various breaches? Always decisions, never answers.

The messenger looked to be on the verge of agreeing, then paused and stared out. Collin followed his gaze, wincing as he anticipated the sight of some lich flying at him ready to tear him apart.

He saw none. Instead his eyes were met by the sight of King Galukar.