Rage, cold and sharp, cut through the fog of my fear. “Then we’ll have to die better than they deserve,” I snarled, my voice a low rasp.
My eyes scanned the horde, looking for a weakness, for anything we could use. And then I saw him.
On a low ridge overlooking the entire plain, a lone figure sat atop a monstrous, tusked beast. He was a silhouette of absolute power against the bruised dawn sky, larger than the others, his armor darker, seemingly drinking the light. A tattered banner of blood-red cloth snapped in the wind beside him. General Korvak. The Bonecrusher. He wasn't leading the charge. He was watching. Assessing. A master strategist observing the board before making his first move. His stillness was more menacing than any army. A shiver traced its way down my spine, cold and sharp. It felt like his gaze was sweeping over our pathetic wall, over every single one of us, and finding us wanting. It felt… personal.
He raised a mailed fist.
The drumbeat stopped.
The silence that followed was absolute. For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then he chopped his hand down.
The Orc army let out a single, unified roar. It was not a sound of mindless rage. It was the sound of a landslide, of a tidal wave, of an entire mountain breaking apart. It hit our walls like a physical force, and with it came the first volley of arrows. They were thick, black-fletched things the size of small spears, and they blotted out the sky.
“Shields!” I bellowed, hoisting my own battered shield above my head. Wood splintered, men screamed. The assault was overwhelming, designed to sow chaos and break our already fragile morale. It worked.
And then came the battering rams. They weren't clumsy logs; they were massive, iron-headed engines of destruction, pushed by teams of hulking Orcs who moved with the inexorable force of a glacier. They struck the main gate. The first blow sent a shudder through the entire city. The ancient timbers groaned. The second blow splintered them.
The third shattered the gate entirely.
The Red Tide poured through the breach.
All semblance of military order on our side evaporated. Our defensive line dissolved into a hundred desperate, individual skirmishes. Grunts who had been trembling on the walls now fought with the feral courage of cornered rats. But it wasn't enough. For every Orc we managed to drag down, three more took its place. They were too big, too strong. Their heavy, cleaver-like blades shattered our swords and splintered our shields.
I scrambled down from the parapet, landing hard in the mud of the street below. The battle was a vortex of screams, clanging steel, and the wet, tearing sound of flesh. An Orc lunged at me, his face a mask of tusks and fury. I didn't try to meet his charge. I was a pebble against a boulder. Instead, I ducked low, letting his momentum carry him past, and drove the butt of my spear into the back of his knee. The joint buckled with a sickening crunch, and he went down with a roar of pain. I didn't wait to finish him. I just kept moving.
This wasn't a battle. It was a slaughter. And my only goal was to live through it.
But as I navigated the chaos, trying to find a defensible position, a new sound cut through the din of war: the terrified screams of civilians.
A knot of them—a baker and his wife, a few stable hands, a woman clutching two small children—were trapped in an alcove between the armory and a tannery. A single Orc warrior stood before them, toying with them. He was smaller than the brutes at the gate but still towered over me, his muscles coiled like thick ropes. He backhanded the baker, sending the man sprawling into the mud, and laughed a deep, guttural laugh as the woman shrieked, pulling her children behind her skirts.
Something inside me snapped.
The careful, five-year-old construct of Kael—the quiet, unassuming grunt who kept his head down—crumbled. The fury I’d felt at Valerius, at my uncle, at every man who had ever looked at a woman and seen a thing to be used, it all coalesced into a single point of white-hot rage. I wasn't going to run. I wasn't going to hide. Not while that son of a bitch grinned at the terror he was causing.
“Hey, you ugly bastard!” I roared, my voice raw. “Pick on someone your own size!”
It was a stupid thing to say, given he was nearly twice my size, but it worked. He turned, his piggish eyes fixing on me. He seemed almost amused, a cruel smirk twisting his tusked mouth. He hefted his notched axe and sauntered toward me, leaving the civilians for later.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the tight cage of my bindings. This was it. Life or death. I wanted to live. Gods, I wanted to live so badly it was a physical ache in my chest.
Guerrilla warfare, I thought, the words of some long-dead instructor echoing in my head.Use the terrain. The enemy's strength is his weakness.
He came at me with a straightforward, overhead swing, aiming to split my skull. His strength was immense; the axe whistled as it cut through the air. I didn't try to block. I dove to the side, rolling in the slick mud. The axe slammed into the ground where I’d been standing, burying itself six inches deep in the packed earth.
He roared in frustration, wrenching it free. While he was off-balance, I scrambled to my feet and charged, not at him, but past him. I slammed my shoulder into the wall of the tannery, using it to pivot,and drove my spear point into the unprotected flesh of his thigh.
He howled, a sound of pure agony, and spun around, swatting at me with his free hand. I was already moving, ducking back into a narrow alleyway between the buildings. It was a filthy, claustrophobic space, barely wide enough for me to pass through. For him, it would be a trap.
“Come and get me, you fat piece of shit!” I taunted, my voice shaking despite my bravado.
He took the bait. With a bellow of rage, he charged into the alley. Just as I’d hoped, his broad shoulders wedged him tight between the brick walls. He was stuck. His furious struggles only scraped him raw against the stone.
I didn’t hesitate. I stepped out from the other end of the alley, facing his exposed back. He twisted, trying to reach me with his axe, but the narrow space gave him no room to swing. His eyes were wide with a dawning horror. He knew what was coming.
I set the butt of my spear against the muddy ground, aimed the point at the gap in his armor just below his helmet, and threw all of my weight forward.
