"Watch out!! The orcs are pushing through the breach!!"
A voice rang out and rolled down from atop the wall.
Orden lifted his head.
One of the Dawi soldiers on the wall was waving a torch in his hand, sweeping it wide from side to side.
A low fog had crept as far as the open ground inside the wall, spreading a thin sheet over the earth. It had risen to ankle height, faintly swallowing the feet of the spearmen lined up across the clearing. Even the soldier atop the wall looked blurred through the pale mist. Only the orange glow of his torch swayed alone above it.
"Loose!! Don't let them cross the moat!!"
Another voice followed from atop the wall. Beside the breach, orbs of bright light flared, signaling danger.
The twang of bowstrings sounded. Thwip, thwip-thwip, thwip. Arrows flew out past the wall. Soon the roar of orcs rose up from below. Screams tangled with bellowing, and beneath it all, the dull thud of something colliding.
"They're coming through the breach! Into the breach! Watch it!"
"The orcs are coming in!!"
"Winged soldiers!! Ready javelins!!"
"Bring more arrows! Now!!"
The voices crossed over one another — shouts burying voices, and shrieking metal tangled with screams burying the shouts in turn.
The roaring of the Dawi soldiers, the sharp ring of the Winged soldiers' feather-blades, the whistle of thrown javelins, somewhere along the wall the crash of stone breaking loose and spilling down — every sound came pouring down through the stones of the wall, with no telling which direction it came from or how high. It was hard enough just to say which sounds fell from above and which rose up from the breach in the fallen wall.
Orden took a step forward.
Vargo hurried over, falling into step beside him.
"Warchief. You need to hold this position, right here."
Orden looked at Vargo.
"I know, Master Builder."
His gaze turned toward the breach.
"Still — was it decided from the start that we'd have to stand this far back from it?"
"Sarun-Ke Keuraber asked for it this way."
Vargo went on.
"There are still cracks in the wall around the breach. Another trebuchet stone could come flying in, or stones already shaken loose by the impact could come down on top of that. If we form up right in front of the breach, the moment more of the wall gives way, our men get buried under the rubble. Better to draw the orcs in from this distance and pour arrows into them from both palisades. Far more effective."
Orden looked toward the breach. White dust still drifted slowly from around its edges, where the haze from the collapse hadn't fully settled.
Orden drew a short breath.
"Even so."
He said.
"That just means we need that many more soldiers. Half the land-side wall's already come here, and it's still not enough."
His eyes swept over the ranks gathered before him. Dawi soldiers with spears and shields stood in the front line. Behind them, the volunteers were arrayed. Some still stood there with travel packs slung over their leather armor, as if they'd never had time to set them down. One of the merchant house guards stood with arms crossed, facing the breach. The hilt of the longsword at his hip jutted out from beneath his folded elbow. Beside him, another guard murmured something low. The second guard tapped the end of his scabbard lightly with a finger.
At one end of the formation, a handful of elves stood clustered together, long bows in hand, facing the breach.
The soldiers of Damu, together with those who had come forward to defend it, were not few in number. But whether that number would be enough to hold back the orcs pouring through the breach — that, no one could say yet.
*****
Atop the wall.
Keuraber stood at the very edge of the breach.
The blood from the gash on his forehead had dried. White dust still clung to his face, and fine traces of the same powder lingered in his hair.
His eyes never stopped moving. Then his gaze settled, dropping down into the breach below.
In the clearing behind the wall, Vargo, the carpenters, and the masons were raising the barrier. Palisade posts had been driven in at even intervals. Between them, stone and lengths of timber were being packed in fast. Soldiers hauled sacks of earth to fill the gaps. Small stones bundled together with rope went into the empty spaces. Thud, thud. The sound of hammers rose up.
It wasn't a wall in any finished sense. The materials were mismatched — stone and timber and earth stacked together as if propping one another up. But it was taking shape. And it wasn't going up slowly, either.
Keuraber dropped his gaze past the breach, out beyond the wall.
Orcs kept crossing the moat. Their shield-line trod across a bridge tangled together out of heaped timber, the shapes breaking apart and rejoining through the mist. Arrows drove down into the raised shields. The front of the shield-wall buckled once under the impact, but the orcs' steps didn't slow.
Keuraber's eyes swept the wall on either side of the breach.
The cracks weren't spreading any further. The chance of more collapse looked slim. But slim wasn't the same as none. The stones at the edge of the wall beneath his feet shifted, just slightly, every time weight settled on them.
'I need to find where the core stone sits.'
Keuraber shifted his footing to the side.
He turned his eyes toward the watchtower. Atop it, the ballista was swinging to adjust its aim. Two Dawi soldiers turned a winch to draw back the string. A Muwa Winged soldier set a thick bolt into the groove with two conjured hands. A soldier calling out the bearing shouted. The ballista shifted a little further.
And overhead —
Muwa with brown feathers dense with white speckles flew above the breach. Crossing over it, they spread both wings wide with conjured light, signaling to the other Winged soldiers.
The signal caught, and the Winged soldiers shifted position at once, spreading out to cover both sides of the breach. A few Muwa banked sharply above the breach and took up positions looking down over the outer wall. A javelin sat ready in every conjured hand.
From the breach came the roar of orcs again, rising — closer now than before.
Keuraber's eyes flicked toward it for a moment. Then dropped back down.
Vargo's voice rose up from the clearing.
"We need more earth!! Moon side! Get more sacks up on the right of that row!!"
The sound of workers moving followed.
Keuraber murmured quietly to himself.
'Reckon it's time we got ready on this end too, then.'
*****
Dust rose up from the breach again in a thick cloud and scattered.
Black shapes began moving through the white haze. Orcs, shields raised before them.
Heavy footsteps came down over the sloped rubble. One by one, black shapes emerged through the dust into the breach.
The shield-bearing orcs slowed their steps, as if checking the palisade waiting inside the breach. The orcs coming down behind them bunched up and stopped as well, pressing in close.
Orden raised his voice.
"Ranks, further back!! Draw them in deeper — we hit them from both sides!"
The soldiers stepped back in unison. Dawi archers peeled off from the sides of the formation and took up positions inside both palisades. The Winged soldiers rose high and spread over the breach, javelins gripped in conjured hands.
Into the empty space left by the retreating soldiers, Vargo's rough voice rang out.
"Don't just stand there! We finish this foundation before the orcs come down on us! Bring more sacks of earth over here!"
For volunteers like Daoba and Bouma, who weren't regular soldiers, raising this barrier solid was a more urgent task, right now, than taking up arms.
Daoba came hauling a thick timber post nearly his own size on his shoulder, grunting with the effort, and the waiting carpenters snatched it from him at once, swinging their hammers to drive it firm into the ground.
"Bouma! Get that gap over there stacked with stone!"
At Vargo's urgent shout, Bouma, caked in dust, hoisted up heavy stones bound together with rope.
Breathing hard, he stamped the stones down firm with his feet, then took up the remaining sacks of earth and packed them tight into the gaps between the palisade posts.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of a dirt-caked hand, caught his breath, and pulled a small piece of jerky from inside his coat, biting down on it.
Behind the stone wall still going up.
Bouma chewed on his jerky. His jaw moved slowly. His eyes stayed fixed on the breach. Dallen, perched on his shoulder, looked the same way, his little head turning slightly side to side, tracking the sounds.
Beside him, Daoba tilted his neck to one side. A small crack sounded.
"Not scared?"
"'Course I am."
Bouma said it only after he'd swallowed the jerky in his mouth.
"Anyone who isn't scared looking at a wall come down like that — something's wrong with them."
Daoba let out a short breath through his nose. He said nothing more.
Between them, Bazz flicked the tip of his harpoon lightly with a finger. A small metallic ring sounded.
"The orcs coming through over there — they'll have to get past the palisade before they reach us, right?"
"If the palisade holds," Bouma said.
"It'll hold." Bazz set the harpoon upright.
"Master Builder Vargo says it will."
None of the three Dawi said anything more.
From the direction of the breach, the crash of steel on steel, someone's scream, the scrape of armor against armor, and the rush of footsteps all tangled together and rolled in like a wave.
But cutting through all of it came a low, clear sound. Steel sliding free of its sheath.
It was Nia.
Droko's small foot kicked hard against the side of the scabbard. The scabbard was pushed aside, revealing the blade above it.
Nia gripped the hilt of '180 Gold Coins' and lifted it. The long, thick blade came free of its sheath slowly, unhurried.
A dim glimmer of light ran the length of the steel.
Sword drawn, Nia looked down at the blade once, then lifted her eyes to the thin mist rolling ahead.
"Comin'."
Nia muttered it low. Nothing else.
"Javelins and arrows are wasted on this lot!! Hahahaha!!"
Just then, a booming voice mixed with laughter came from behind.
Orden turned his head toward the sound.
It was a Mooloomook.
It was smaller and lower to the ground than an ordinary Mooloomook. Its thick hooves and short, stout legs stepped closely together, and even as it trudged over the rubble in the clearing, its body never wavered.
A Dawi rider sat astride its back, bundled in thick layers of fur, a long spear gripped in one hand.
Behind it came more Mooloomook of the same build, each carrying a rider, lined up in a row. Some had spears slung across their backs, others short bows. Every rider wore the same thick fur coats and short fur caps. They carried a particular scent about them, the kind that clings to those who've spent long stretches on rough mountain trails — the smell of wind and road.
Orden stepped forward.
"Nisharin!"
The rider swung down off the Mooloomook's back. The voice was already coming before his feet touched the ground.
"Did I come too late? Most of the caravan's still stuck on the mountain trails past Pestronak — I grabbed what riders I could and rode hard to get here."
His face was weathered rough by the wind. Dirt and dust clung thick in the fur along his jaw. His eyes were already fixed toward the sounds carrying over from beyond the wall.
"You've come at just the right time. You're not late at all, Nisharin."
Orden said.
Nisharin's mouth pulled into a grin.
"Would've been better to get here sooner. Hahaha! Still — the later we are, the more orc heads we'll knock down into the dirt to make up for it!"
Nisharin gave the Mooloomook's flank a slap with one hand and swung back up onto its back.