Nearly one hundred Dwarves at a dead run made up the military push approaching the forest's edge. Were there a benevolent god watching down on the fortress the morning fog would still hang thick but now all lines of sight were clear and all eyes were free to observe the trees spring to horrid, wormy life. The boughs and branches quivered and became unnaturally animate as an undead mob spilled onto the clear-cut plains.
“Hold position!” Cried Cerol. “Infantry, protect the archers!”
The huddled mass of sharpshooters fired outward often scarcely missing their protectors in an effort to cease the relentless advance of the rotting horde. Screams of exertion, horror, and insatiable hunger filled the air as the wave of festering legions collided with a wall of dwarven shields. Blades, hammers, maces, spears, and axe heads all lashed out with deadly intent crushing bones, severing limbs and impaling the inexpert but tenacious opposing army. As those frightful creatures were held off balance by the infantrymen crossbow bolts peppered them quickly thinning their numbers. In the earliest moments of the engagement the dwarven defenders held the clear advantage and eagerly decimating the first wave with the defenders suffering sparse and minor injury.
But the ghastly tremors of the forest did not cease and the flow of animate, decomposing warriors quickened. Soon every fallen abomination was replaced by two more of his kind and they charged with nightmarish persistence towards the defenders. The warriors of Arrowstockades were the fiercest of Dwarven kind but even the greatest of their ranks could not boast indefatigability in the face of mortal combat. As the defenders grew slower and their attacks less precise the blighted strikes of the unliving began to find purchase.
Cries of pain rang out as the first defenders began to fall. Fueled by unspeakable magics the undead possessed seemingly infinite strength and even dwarven armor buckled under their blows. When the hard shell of the defenders held out rotten hands grasped at limbs and began twisting, pulling, bending and otherwise mangling their quarry. The most expert fighters did their part to protect the wounded but a black chill suddenly tainted the air and the twice dead invaders began to rise again. Bodies were quickly torn apart, their armor largely ignored and even the most expert combatants could not hold off for long. Soon the spark of undeath found the very warriors who had come to resist the invasion. The forces of Arrowstockades had begun to turn against themselves.
The battlefield soon grew slick with fresh blood and vomit as both sides faced massacre. The trees were decorated with undead limbs and offal some of which would occasionally be compelled by an unseen gesture to rejoin the fray. The mutilated dwarven dead began to pile up in greater and greater numbers. The armies of Arrowstockades were the most fearsome on the planet and their commander known and feared the world over. Law-Givers, princes, and even demons claiming to be gods had come to Arrowstockades in an attempt to wrest control from it's Dwarven masters and they had all found their end burned to ash and turned into brilliant glass gems.
But the dread necromancer Kopoh Torturedrest had been a general in a forgotten age and his knowledge had not been diminished by the gulf of ages. His conquest of the northern regions had been unrelenting and precise. His forces had grown to unimaginable strength and no elven, human, or dwarven army had posed any real resistance. So long as he controlled it the attackers were truly unstoppable.
“First Infantry!” Echoed the voice of Cerol. “On me, we hunt the necromancer!”
The sight of their comrades being slaughtered, the seemingly infinite scope of the dark army, and their commander departing shattered morale. Without their dark master the soldiers of Arrowstockades collapsed into anarchy soldiers and captains cried out issuing conflicting orders to the headless army.
“Break rank!”
“Scatter or we're all doomed!”
“Hold the line!”
“Back to the gates!”
“Every dwarf for himself!”
The once rigid phalanx was instantly reduced to a cloud of scattering dwarven particulate as the squads were torn between fighting on, fleeing, attempting to return to the fortress, and in the case of the baboons staring in horror at the charging undead army.
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Topic: The Increasingly Tragic Tale of Dumplin (Read 78112 times)