Stormlands ( Book 2 of the Torrent Skies Saga)

Chapter Nine: Declarations and Decisions

It was surprising how quiet thirty orcs could travel when they were determined. Excitement was the strongest thing in the air, and their eagerness for a fight could have matched the eagerness of a hunting cat on the prowl. The lights of Aughk'tor were visible in the distance. Their prey was waiting and sleeping, unaware. Nothing but their orders kept them still and silent.

"Lets go," one orc hissed, staring at the walls in the distance like an urchin might stare at a steak. "They are lazy... they will die quiet."

"Quiet," another said, with a glare.

The orc in the lead turned his head towards the two arguing figures. They were nothing more than imposing shadows in the pale moonlight. "We will wait." He snarled, one fang showing as he turned to those behind him. "Tarak demanded patience and we will heed him." Around a thick leather tie on his neck hung a pair of stained teeth. The scouting group they had encountered earlier had been nothing more than sport.

They would wait till near the end of this watch. Long enough the dwarves would be tired, and the replacements would still be sleeping in their beds.

And so they waited, despite the eagerness they held.

Despite their size and number, their approach was silent as a whisper and the shadows of the night kept them concealed from the tired dwarven watch. It was all thanks to the witch. She walked near the middle of the group with her hands outstretched, chanting as they crept forward.

They stopped a good distance outside the lights that hung from the walls, waiting for a signal from their leader and pulling heavy bows from their backs.

As the orcs began their silent charge, the witch dropped the spell that kept them all hidden and cast something else, plunging her hands into the dirt, and whispering to it. A shudder ran through the ground, and beneath Aughk'tor's walls, shaking the stone foundation. A terrible creaking sound echoed from the city, but the walls did not tremble or break. Instead, the stone flowed out from them, thinning them and producing large bipedal stone creatures, that disappeared back in the stone, and appeared atop the wall.

The witch willed them forward into the city, to kill whatever was in their path, and to lead the orcs who had hidden beneath the ground, and in the mountain tunnels for just this purpose, tonight.

The lead orc stood ready, listening with apprehension. Soon, sounds met his ears. A startled cry, a scream, followed by more outbursts at several points throughout the city. He grinned and raised a hand to the orcs behind him. They were ready. He watched as half the guard on the wall dropped from sight. He heard the twang of bows as his archers loosed their arrows, watching again as guards dropped, this time from the deadly poison tipped arrows.

Another bout of arrows flew, but not all of these found their marks. The dwarves were alert now, moving and alarming the rest of the settlement. Crossbow bolts flew back towards them, quickly. Felling two orcs in the process.

They were scattered across the city, the wall guard only a quarter of its normal number, with every one of them watching over their shoulders.

As the orcs reached the gate they pulled swords, axes, and spears from their backs, but they made no attempt to scale the walls, no attempt to breach the gates or plunge the walls into darkness.

Despite the hail of bolts that fell upon them the orcs managed to kill nearly every dwarf at the gates, and another several fell from the walls, injured or killed by poisoned arrows. And when their numbers thinned the witch and her archers retreated, disappearing back into the night.

She knew that the orcs who had attacked from the inside of the city were safe, when she saw them on the outskirts of the forest with her creations of stone. Their attack had killed a sum of people, surely. They could have killed more without a thought for their retreat, and fought till the last man. But this had shaken their enemy. For the next time they came to these walls, they would bring all of their numbers, and their siege machines. This had simply been a message.