"BATTLE STATIONS!" Kivish bellowed. "Civilians inside! Archers on top! Fighters to entrance corridor! Close the gate!"
Obin Taxedjade the Silvery Flame stood on a hillcrest, lit from behind by pale morning light, scenting the faint traces of life and warmth emanating from underground. The 700 year old female dragon, huge and majestic, sensed her prey and slithered unerringly towards the wide open entrance gate.
"Damn it, pull that lever before it gets inside!"The dragon picked up her pace and roared triumphantly as she charged towards the gaping entrance. Just when she was about to reach the drawbridge, it however creaked, shuddered and then suddenly slammed upright. The bridge had never been tried, but in time of need it had worked flawlessly.
"By Thukkan, she's murdering those poor dogs!"Frustrated from easy prey and loot, Obin took her rage to guard dogs chained next to the entrance. One by one she ripped them to mangled pieces, and then drew a deep, crackly breath like a huge hellish furnace.
"Watch out, she's going to-"And the world turned white.
As she annihilated the quivering, barely alive dogs with her incandescent breath, the upright drawbridge behind them softened and bent like a slice of dwarven cheese over hot plump helmet roast. Obin took a second breath and blasted the red-hot stone surface with her full infernal force.
Original designers of the bridge had never accounted for a fully grown dragon coming to test their defences. When the second blast of dragonfire hit it, it's materials simply gave away and rained over the dragon in a shower of molten stone and metal droplets.
"The bridge is just... gone! But that's impossible!"Heat from the dragon's breath had been so immense that the stone drawbridge had just melted and ran off in rivulets of magma. Even Obin herself seemed impressed: she seemed to hover uncertainly over charred dog remains, uncertain about what to do next. She reached down to pick up a blackened dog leg and munched on it thoughtfully.
"This is it, men. This is our final stand. We will fall, so that Doomhollow may stand!"Commander Kivish led his troops to take a desperate stand. Drawbridges couldn't be fully trusted, so he ordered a solid stone wall built behind the inner gate, effectively locking them outside with the dragon.
However, Obin seemed perfectly content feasting on dog carcasses outside, so as wall builders gathered with their tools, militiadwarves retreated behind the wall-line to wait. Then the drawbridge was closed.
"It's ripping the trade depot apart!"Sound of the inner bridge closing seemed to shake the dragon awake and she thundered down the access ramp into the traders' hall. The front chamber had been a penning area for the fort's remaining guard dogs, which she promptly reduced to ash and smoke with her devastating fire blasts. Only dog-shaped shadows on the wall hinted there had been other living creatures in the room besides the dragon.
Then Obin turned her attention to the only other notable object in the hall: the trade depot. She tore into the structure with terrible rage, bringing it down and scattering materials across the room. The only thing left was now the equally vulnerable inner drawbridge. Wall behind it was still woefully unfinished.
Then she... left.
"What is she doing? She had us on a plate already!"Dragons can't fly, but most people just instinctively think they
should, that flightless dragons were somehow
wrong in some very fundamental, primordial sense. Dragons get that feeling too, which might have been the reason why Obin suddenly decided to go outside to hunt ravens instead of rampaging through the vulnerable fortress. In jealous rage she blasted her dragonfire upwards from the ground, bathing the whole area with unnatural apocalyptic light. Treetops caught fire from the conflagration and spread destruction from tree to tree.
"Such destruction... it's like the whole world is on fire!"Multiple wildfires spread through the forest, burning anything once or still living. Trees crashed down in billowing clouds of sparks and smoke. Obin rampaged through countryside in pursuit of anything moving.
Meanwhile, dwarves hatched plans.
"So, your opinion is that it can't be fought?" Staalo asked commander Kivish.
"Oh, it definitely
can be fought, at least for a short while. I just can't guarantee victory with conventional military approach." Kivish grimaced. "But me and my men are ready to sacrifice ourselves if it benefits anything. Just make it count."
"Hmmm... What if we trap it instead? Lure it in and when it thinks it got us..?" Staalo mimed trap action with his hands.
"That... might work. Risky, but I like it."
"It's coming! Move! Move! Move!"The plan was put to motion. In the abandoned surface fort level a convenient hole was punched, leading deeper into the fortress. Largest and strongest cage traps ever made in the fortress were loaded across the possible route. Then the outer wall was holed by a brave volunteer.
Across the field, Obin stopped her pursuit of winged creatures. She sniffed the air, again detecting the faint aroma of warm, living flesh and glittering treasure. Then she launched herself towards the breach in the fortress wall.
"No, no, you idiots! Get back! GET BACK!"As the dragon approached the trap, a fatal oversight in the plan became apparent. The marksdwarf squad,
The Maroon Treaties, was still stationed on the guard tower roof, and as they saw Obin closing in they started taking potshots at her. Then, as if gripped by some collective battlelust-induced madness they all decided just to charge the gigantic reptile waving their crossbows ar her.
The opportunity was lost. Commander Kivish didn't have a choice anymore.
"The Rapid Clasps! Attaaack!"The plan had gone catastrophically, disastrously wrong. There was now no other choice than to send the melee squad to save the marksdwarves who at the moment were bashing the dragon with their almost useless crossbows.
The warriors charged into the mad melee churning in the narrow space just outside the breach. There was no time for planning, tactics or finesse, it was just a desperate lunge towards the monster, in hopes to kill it before it annihilated them all with its devastating dragonfire.
They converged around the dragon, shields up to have some chance to survive when the inevitable blinding blast of destruction would rain on them. They hacked at the monster, madly, blindly, hitting wherever they could.
Battle raged on, and Kivish noticed they were doing very little actual damage despite their initial vigor. He started to question his training methods and uniform choices: why didn't he have any axedwarves? Over half of his squad were hammerdwarves, and the only thing more useless than them against a dragon were crossbowdrarves... which basically were even more useless hammerdwarves. He needed axedwarves! This thing needed some bloodletting! His only consolation were the few spearmasters in his squad who seemed to be landing some serious hits. Slowly.
Slowly... too slowly. Dwarves were getting tired, and were more vulnerable to Obin's terrible teeth and claws which seemed to rend through armor like nothing. First
Ingish Orbdrilled was down with an arm missing and terrible wounds ripped through his cheek and thigh. He saw
Sibrek Buckswords stagger by, her face and head mangled to bloody mess. He cheered when
Avuz Hallmint blocked a torrent of dragonfire, right before the beast descended on the unlucky dwarf, claws slicing; Kivish thought he saw a hand fly through the air.
They were losing.
Then, suddenly, the tide of battle turned. Experienced veterans can often sense the moment when the ebb and flow of combat subtly changes and initially losing battle starts to seem winnable. Even Obin was gradually getting exhausted. The speardwarves were hitting the monster's vital organs, causing it to retch and choke. Then, with terrible risk to herself,
Kûbuk Wealthpage manoeuvred herself directly in front of the dragon, and with a reckless jumping lunge she jammed her spear right between two bony plates in the reptile's skull.
"Victory... but at what cost?"Obin shuddered, and then squeaked in a tiny voice. It was a suprisingly comical sound from such a huge creature. Then all her legs seemed to give way at the same time and she collapsed and died, limbs twitching few times. Kûbuk's spear, now named
Contesthoods, still protruded from her massive skull.
Obin Taxedjade the Silvery Flame was dead. Doomhollow was safe.
Poll
Author
Topic: The Doom of Doomhollow - Year 10 - [Finished] (Read 53817 times)