Holddeep
25th Slate, 354
Like many dwarven settlements on the plains, Holddeep was a twinned town comprised mainly of dwarves in a traditional underground complex with a smaller client population of humans living in the surface buildings and tending to the open fields surrounding the settlement proper. Although often possessing surface populations barely greater than a small village, some of the dwarf towns held scores of citizens labouring away beneath the rock. Haltriver, the capital of the plains demense of the Searing Crypts, was no bigger than an ordinary human town on the surface but concealed a tremendously well-defended populace of over three hundred.
Holddeep was itself considered secure; a wall surrounded much of the human village, two men or three and half dwarves high and a man wide. Although distant from the goblin fortresses to the north, raiders were still known to reach the desert's edge and confrontations with Gibdur had been fought in the past. Still, a force of sixty dwarves and goblins on the march was something for the small town to be concerned by. When the invaders were first sighted, archers on the towers started yelling orders for preparations and the town filled with bustle as defenders ran to get into place.
They need not have hurried. The army marched a circle around the town two bowshots distant, more concerned with establishing a perimeter to prevent messengers escaping than rushing straight into battle. Inhabitants of the cottages that tended to the croplands had fled into the safety of the town's walls before the army had arrived, but in the haste to secure the town one or two latecomers had been left to the mercy of the army. They played no further role in the siege, but their houses were torn down and what scant trees in the area could be found were hacked apart by dwarven axes for the manifold needs of war; shelter, fortifications and those parts of a siege engine that did not require pre-manufacture. A number of Threepools' specialists were siege engineers and they had travelled with the force to ply their trade. By evening, fully-constructed catapults and short siege walls had been dredged up around the circumference of the town where the army camped. The defenders of Holddeep spent a restless night waiting atop their walls for the attack. Before the next dawn, it came.
Datan spun around, ducking and dodging the blows of the hazy violet figures, trying to get away from his position. He felt the approach of the silvered dwarf behind and charged, cleaving through one of the violet attackers with his axe and charging away. He made it nearly twenty feet before the bolt of darkness emerged from his chest and he found himself falling down the mountainside again, tumbling towards that endless blue mist. Just before he hit it, a hand reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. Datan jerked his eyes open and grabbed it forcefully.
It was Jora, and he was looking up at the dull blue of the night sky above Holddeep. Many of the fellow slaves were asleep. Her brow was furrowed, her lips thin.
"You're going to want to see this," she said.
The pair crept through the snoring, rag-covered bodies of dwarves and goblins, many of which would likely lie in cold mud by the end of the morning. Datan thought it strangely fitting they should sleep like the dead in preparation. Jora took them outside the camp, behind the fresh but still sizeable stump of a tree. Tucked under the thick roots were a pair of heavy packages.
"I was trying to sleep when someone started throwing pebbles at me," Jora explained. "I got up to find out who saw someone hiding behind this trunk. By the time I got here they'd gone, but I found these instead." She drew the familiar sabre from one of the packages with a soft song of steel. "What do you think?"
"I don't think," Datan replied harshly. He unwrapped the other package and ran his fingers over the polished hickory staff of his axe. "What I know is that we have weapons now, and armour. We need to do something."
"Yeah, we can r-" Jora began to say, but her words wilted as Datan gave her a look that said more than words could. Goden flashed briefly in her mind's eye and she drew her lips tight. She spoke again in cropped words. "We can't take on the whole army ourselves."
"Not with Broose on their side -"
"If he's on their side," interruped Jora.
"- no," finished Datan. "Maybe we can get into Holddeep and try to get them out. Or maybe we can shore up their defences. Either way, let's get out of here before-"
"Hey!" called a voice from the camp, though not too loudly. "You two, come help get the others up. We've got orders to assemble in rank, quiet as possible. No lights until command gives the signal." Jora and Datan glanced at each other.
"Right you are," said Datan, watching as the figure wandered away to wake the other slaves. Military discipline apparently was not strict in the slaves' part of the camp; the dwarf had neither shot first nor bothered to ask questions. A lucky break, though it meant the two had little chance of making it to the walls unnoticed as Datan had begun to plan. It did not matter too muc, he had still to figure out how to get to them without being shot by the defenders.
"Looks like we're getting into Holddeep the easy way," muttered Jora, pulling on her leathers. "Or the hard way, depending on how you look at it."
"Where's the General?" asked Claspreadies, checking over his crossbow. Dwarves were too short to work longbows effectively, so he stood apart from the rank of four human archers at the front of the column. There were twelve in all, four to each of the groups of twenty surrounding the city. "Thought he'd be here to see the first real battle."
"I imagine he is," said Brickbeard, swinging his battleaxe in one hand, then the other, loosening his muscles in preparation for the order. The sergeant kept one eye on the archers and one eye flicking between the two other columns around the city. The camps had been struck quickly and quietly and the troops martialled into position before the pre-dawn light had arrived. It was just beginning to filter through over the distant swamps to the east.
"I don't see his standard, though that could be the light. Can't see much at all."
"Don't worry, that'll change soon enough." Brickbeard nodded meaningfully at the trough in front of the archers. "Though if Broose judged it right, Stonebreaker's definitely out here."
"Where are you?" muttered Broose as he scanned the two columns in position. Petra, standing behind him like a dog waiting for its master, cocked her head.
"Sarge?" she asked in a quiet voice. Some distance behind her, goblin siege engineers stood ready by one of the three completed catapults.
"Stonebreaker," said the blonde soldier. "He's watching the battle, I know he is. Somewhere in the ranks, or the supply train. Bah. Mind on the task in front of you." Petra remained silent, but her head turned at the flash of light from one of the columns. Broose set his jaw and jammed his helmet over his head. "There's the signal."
Captain Nirur Torir watched the two columns as their torchlights flickered to life in response to his own. He gave a nod to the standard bearer wielding the flaming shaft of wood and pulled on his centurion's helmet, the visor painted with a rough red streak in honour of Gigin's own. The captain hefted his warhammer and barked orders to the column behind him.
"Troops at the ready!" There was shuffling behind and in front as the soldiers and slaves adjusted themselves in position. Slaves carrying heavy wood and leather barrier shields stood at the fore-ranks of the column, shivering with night cold and fear. Two hefted the trough before the rank of archers. Torir lifted the hammer as a sign to prepare and the war cry welled from the soldiers behind.
"By your command!"
"Catapults fire!" cried Torir. The goblin siege operators cut the tethers and all three catapults hurled their loads at the town walls, two striking the tops and shaking the masonry but one (relatively) harmlessly flying over and landing in the streets below.
"Forward march!" he yelled, pushing forward with the slaves at a steady march. The other two columns began to press on, slaves stumbling and hurrying to keep pace with the measured progress of the soldiers pressing them on from behind. Soon enough the first arrows from the defenders began whistling through the air towards the column, most falling short or plunging into the barrier shields but a couple managing to strike slaves at the fore. One shrugged through the pain and kept moving, the other fell and was trampled swiftly by the boots of his own side.
"Quick march!" ordered Torir, the column hustling forward under the flights of arrows, soldiers raising their shields above them. Dangerous as they were, Torir took heart in the reduced number of arrows in the sky. The General had estimated a score of marksdwarves and archers amongst the defenders, enough to give their army trouble in a straight offensive, but forcing a three-way split had weakened the enemy rather more than it had Stonebreaker's own, principally melee forces. Archers were best employed en masse, where they could beat the odds of arrows running stray. Or with a few dirty tricks.
"Halt!" barked the captain. "Plant shields!" The shieldbearing slaves at the front planted the wooden barriers and huddled against them for support and protection, as did most of the other slaves. The warriors raised their shields and formed a tight shell against the arrow-fire. Torir's torch-bearer brought his carried fire down onto the trough carried by the slaves.
"Archers, light your arrows," commanded Captain Torir as the torch-flame spread rapidly across the trough of lamp oil. The human bowmen nocked cloth-wrapped arrows and lowered their bows to light them. At the other sides of the town, two more lines of fire appeared in the waxing pre-dawn glimmer.
"Draw!" The archers stepped back, lifting the bows and drawing the strings back across their faces.
"Aim!" The archers tilted the bows up, aiming through the gap in shields and over the town walls.
"Loose!" The command rang thrice about the town's edges, once from each knot of shields and barriers. Twelve tiny sparks of flame arched over the town walls. Several skittered harmlessly into the town's dirt road or upon walls and one struck an unfortunate citizen in the chest, but enough found their mark in the thatched roofs of the human inhabitants to start the desired conflagration. Another volley of flaming missiles made it over the walls before the attacking commanders decided the defenders were sufficiently distracted to make their advance. Cries ringing from all quarters, the three columns charged the walls, bringing up long siege ladders while the catapults made their second round of fire. Heavy stones plummeted over the walls, one catching a defending archer squarely in the chest and taking him over the edge. Despairing archers shot their last few missiles and swapped bow for axe as invaders began clambering over the side.
Two of the first up the ladder under Brickbeard's command were Jora and Datan. Jora leapt over the edge, kicking one of the defenders back as Datan hauled himself up. Another defender, a silver-bearded dwarf, prepared to strike at him with his axe, but paused in surprise as Datan wrenched up the goblin climbing after him and threw it down the ladder, knocking down several of the invaders. Datan kicked the ladder away and turned to him, wielding his own axe cautiously.
"Friend or foe?" challenged the silver-bearded dwarf urgently.
"Friend!" shouted Jora. "We're spies and we're on your side!" She spun around as a dwarf tried to get over the side and stabbed downward furiously with her sabre, repeating Datan's trick of knocking down the invading troops. The two spies fell back to the thin rank of defenders as the silver-bearded dwarf beckoned the eight surviving troops to a gatehouse at the corner of the wall.
"We might stand a chance in here," he grunted. "Who're you, anyway?"
"Jora and Datan," said Datan bluntly. "You are?"
"Captain Urnriddled," said the dwarf. Jora peered at him oddly.
"You have a brother, by any chance?" she asked.
"Half-brother, yeah. Tried to find some town in the desert, bloody fool. Look, this is hardly the time for small talk, is it?" Urnriddled glared at the invaders, having finally clambered back up the ladders, approaching the guardhouse in a rush. He set his axe and prepared.
"We're from that town!" Jora called, stepping into the attackers with her blade and sending a human pikeman sprawling into the town streets and the contents of his belly onto the walkway. "He made it!"
"Oh good! Maybe we can have tea together!" yelled Urnriddled, cracking a dwarf's brain open as another defender behind him fell to a goblin mace. The goblin tugged on the mace, trying to get the flanges out from the body, a problem made swiftly irrelevant when Datan's axe blade severed his arm.
"And crumpets!" laughed Jora gleefully, revelling in slaughter as her sabre cut through another pair of attackers. "You have to have crumpets!"
"Cap'n!" yelled one of the defending dwarves from the doorway at the other side of the guardhouse. "They're coming in from the other s-" He was cut short. Datan assumed the arrow sticking out of his eye had something to do with the matter. As the dwarf fell, he caught sight of the dozen onrushing troops before the pressing matter of a swinging maul brought his attention back. He side-stepped, but the maul still struck him hard on the shoulder. But for the heavy layer of muscle there his collarbone would ahve broken. The blow still took him to a knee.
"You will die!" cried the goblin in a gleeful voice, battle-madness gleaming in his yellow eyes. Datan swapped grips and brought the axe cracking into the goblin's ribs with his off-hand.
"Not this day," he growled, wrenching the axe free. The goblin's mace proved strangely fortunate as the stones around him shattered with the impact of a catapult rock striking the guardhouse. A flying stone passed through where his head would have been had he been standing. A quick glance confirmed that two of the other defenders had not been so lucky.
"Stop genuflecting and get moving!" shouted Urnriddled, backing towards the stairwell down to the human town. "We can't hold this with five!" Datan stood and hurried with Jora and the surviving defenders to join him, parrying strokes from the attacking men and dwarves as they descended and hurried through the streets toward the stone entrance to the grottos below. The doorway was essentially a stone bunker with two enormous sandstone gates. The remnants of the defending archers, already more than halved in number, ran towards the gate. Urnriddled's survivors made it there last, performing a fighting retreat against the growing numbers of attackers. Just as the group reached the doors, a bolt shot clean through Urnriddled's gut. Jora rushed to help him, but Datan held her back. He knew a fatal wound when he saw one, even if it wouldn't be immediately so. He locked eyes with Urnriddled, who saw it too. The grey-eyed captain held his abdomen and turned, readying his axe.
"The trap switch is at the end of the hall," he grunted, eyeing the approaching horde. "Tell my brother..." He searched for words and then cursed for lack of them. "Ah, he knows." As Datan dragged Jora down into the grottos, Urnriddled prepared to make his final stand. Datan was secretly glad not to hear it as he and Jora rushed to the end of the long corridor leading into the grotto, yanking down the heavy leaver at the end. Counterweights fell and the heavy sandstone doors swung shut. The soft creaking of hidden gears testified to the activation of the traps under the hallway, which soon became as silent as a snake and no less deadly.
"Damn turncoats," muttered Brickbeard as he approached Broose and Captain Torir, standing by the stone doorway and the butchered corpse of its silver-bearded defender. To Urnriddled's credit, three bodies gave him company, two of them soldiers. "Put a dent in my column."
"Hey!" shouted one of the human soldiers, waving his spear. "Why aren't we going after them? We can take 'em!"
"First of all," growled sergeant Broose, "when I want you to speak I'll tell you. Do it out of turn again and I'll wear your tongue as a garter-strap. Secondly, we're fighting dwarves, sunshine. You're free to walk down that hallway if you can wrench the door open yourself, but I'd bet a hogshead of ale you'd be minced finer than sausage by the second step."
"So what do we do, sarge?" asked Petra in a rather more level voice. Hints of brain stained the end of her hammer and she had a vaguely distant look in her eye.
"How do you get rabbits out of their hole?" said Torir, ignoring the fact she had interrupted. "Broose, Brickbeard, get your dwarves to gather up every scrap of wood that isn't burning yet. Holddeep will be ours by daybreak."
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Bumper sized update today to make up for Friday. Would have written enough to complete the siege, but it's 3AM and I'm too tired to continue. That will get added on sometime in the next two days.
Also, changed the update schedule. The actual schedule is the same as it was before, only now it's accurate.
Also, added a sort of poll to sate my curiosity on something.
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Topic: Olonkulet - Bloodlines (Read 62450 times)