Double posting FTW
Attack in the Tunnels
Duma was doing his rounds of the caravans, checking on the nobles especially. Tisgand was getting more and more troublesome. At first he was just a petty annoyance but he was getting more and more bossy, demanding things and making a fool of himself. Last time he went past his caravan he was shouting at a wood worker for failing a mandate. Duma had given him a backhand to the head and to shut up.
Harper was also getting worse; he’d taken to walking right at the front of the line always expecting an ambush. While it was good to have someone on alert it was taken its toll on Harper. He almost never ate, only took the bare amount of alcohol to stave off soberness and Duma hadn’t seen him sleep since starting off.
Duma sighed and walked to Cilob and Ascubis’es caravan. As he neared he pulled himself up, glad that he could take the weight off his feet in between checking them. Ascubis was gambling with a guard and Cilob was talking shop with a hunter.
“Greetings ladies and gents” spoke Duma. Most of the Caravan waved and other wise acknowledged his arrival.
Kogan, the head guard for this caravan pushed through the press of bodies and sat next to Duma, saluting before he did so.
“All is well sir, I bit of trouble from Cerol and Kumil but they’ve been holed up in her so that’s to be expected from kids”
“And Fikod?”
“Oh he’s no trouble, sits and scribbles in his book. Mostly schematics, says it was his dream to be an inventor but never had the time to plan anything”
They both shared a brief laugh.
“Well he’s got plenty of time now, keep up the work Kogan”
He patted the guards back and slipped out of the back of the wagon and continued to walk against the crowd, shacking hands and returning salutes were necessary.
He’d just sighted the last wagon when a shrill horn blast echoed off of the walls of the cavern. Everyone around him stopped solid, then the sounds of combat filtered back and everything exploded into action. Duma was running full pelt to the front following a group of guards and a few of his band of adventurers. He could hear Medtob barking orders and the screams of wounded and dying.
As Duma burst through the first rank and saw the swirling melee. They were being attacked by a sizeable amount of Iron Men. All of them were unarmed but that didn’t matter when you were made of arm, a punch to the gut was likely to go through you and get your self impaled on an arm.
Ascubis roared and charged out from behind Duma with Cilob bringing her Crossbow up and firing a bolt.
“A company! Get forward and support B, C stay at the back in case we get a rear attack”
Medtob was still shouting orders while hacking at one of the things, slashing with abandon and fire in his eyes. Duma joined the melee adding his hammer to the mix. He swung his weapon and smashed an Iron Man in the side of the head, making it stagger but it recovered quickly, fine cracks appearing on the side of it’s head. It charged but Duma was ready and swung up, catching its chin and taking his head off. It’s body froze and fell over, he presumed it dead and continued to fight. He buddyed up with a guard, a spearmen only to be killed when he was caught in a head lock, his head exploding in gore and blood. It looked rather bad at the moment.
Duma found himself back to back with Harper, deep in the line of enemies and far from there comrades. Harper slashed out with his steel axe, making ragged vents in Iron Men that surrounded him.
“We need to find our way back to the front line” shouted Duma, swiping the legs from under one of the monsters then bringing his hammer down on it’s face.
“Aye, that is a plan” responded Harper, digging his axe in another’s torso and ripping it out taking a huge wodge of iron with it.
“CHARGE!”
Harper and Duma looked over to the battle line and saw a line of speardwarves charge forward, impaling the first line. They were followed by a line of hammerers, axedwarves and sworddwarves that smashed into the next line of foes, allowing the speardwarves to disengage and fallback to charge again, this tactic took out more then 30 Iron Men, reducing them to less then a quarter of their starting strength. Deciding the battle was lost, they turned tale and left, bolts raining down a few managing to take some down.
Duma and Harper walked back to the head wagon, wounded and dead being dragged aside. Duma walked up to Medtob and thanked him for his timely rescue. He then asked what he was to do with the wounded and dead.
“Well I’m going to put as many in one wagon and the rest I’ll disperse throughout the others, makes it easier to treat them. Most have miner injuries that will heal when we get out of this tunnel”
He looked at a body that was being dragged past, a sad glint in his eye.
“The dead can’t be buried without slowing us down and we can’t bring them with us, so I think we shall give them a pyre.”
Duma nodded, Dwarfs have a strict code when it came to the dead. Most were buried in tombs, their sprits returning to the mountain heart. If that was not possible, they were burnt so their bodies weren’t ravaged by vermin and flies. Dwarfs used a special technique that made the fire burn so hot that no smoke was released which was handy when you lived underground.
After the service, the convoy continued on its way, spirits high from the recent victory, but it had cost many lives.
On a better note, Harper finally got some sleep.
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Topic: Dwarf Fortress Episode V: The Elves Strike Back ~ BACK FROM THE UNKNOWN~ (Read 9411 times)