Stormlands ( Book 2 of the Torrent Skies Saga)

Chapter Twenty-Two: Irrefutable

The weather on Itrea had improved dramatically in the past day. The storm had swept past, and in its wake the ground was scrubbed clean of blood. Aughk'tor was bustling, as more Sahn-Raidar men arrived and were escorted through.

Beymor disliked being inside the walls while fighting still raged in skirmishes outside. The orcs had not retreated far, and had a habit of attacking once again in small groups, ensuring no one was well rested, and no commander had time to tie his boot laces. But now they had reinforcements, and would rout the orcs. They would send them crawling away, or so he hoped.

Along with Sahn-Raidar, the Uhma'zarhin's had arrived in force and Aughk'tor was nearly bursting at its seams with all the people it contained.

He hoped that one day, the people that filled his city would not all be fighters. He hoped that they could be artists, musicians, crafters. He hoped that one day, instead of watching clerics carry wounded and bloodied men through the streets, that he could watch as children ran and dogs barked, and that he could see flowers grow. Instead of rubble, every building would be a beauty to behold, instead of dirt and dust and waste. One day, the city would shine like a gem under the mountain peek it called home.

Eventually, Aughk'tor would be perfect. But today was not that day, and a bitter thought told him that it may be a day he never saw.

As the last of the soldiers made it through the gates, they were escorted down the half-paved, curving roads, and out the other side to join the growing force beyond. Graiden jogged away, as soon as he was no longer needed, in search of reports on the orcish movements. He was a stern and well studied commander, in Beymor's eyes. He had fought in many a battle, and even a few that he should have lost.

But, to both of their surprise and chagrin, these orcs were proving far more tactical than any others they had faced before. Sahn-Raidar was used to fighting orcs, and hill giants.

On Ellispyre both foes had been an unrelenting occurrence. Beymor had first tangled with them in such a fight on the plains of his old home, and he would bet a months worth of coin that anyone one that had worked as a soldier in Sahn-Raidar for more than a year could write a full discourse on their habits, tactics, and favorite things. Yet these orcs were different. They fought with a strange amount of forethought, and possessed a commander who acted as if he was once a scholar. They kept their brutality on the field, but they tempered it with patience, and observance.

They had plenty of weapons and machines, as well. Orcish grinders were akin to monuments on the blood scattered plains, deserted there after they had been disabled and their operators killed.

And the hill giants were a whole other matter. No longer were they just big and lumbering, now they were fully armored in plate mail, adorned with spikes that had killed more than one man.. They employed a suicidal yet effective tactic of simply rushing into the lines and falling to thrash until their death. They wielded axes and swords the size of oxen, and somehow they could stay as quiet as the orcs on approach.

Sahn-Raidar boasted the most magically inclined fighters in the world, despite their small size. Their healers and mages were their largest advantage, and they used them well under the pressure the orcs put upon them.

Beymor shook his head. Their men, he thought. Not mine. He was only acting as a commander for the sake of Aughk'tor, and the people who followed him out of pride and stubborn tenacity. What a thought. He had gone from a simple smith, to the caretaker of a blooming city. He would much prefer if Aughk'tor had no blood staining its walls, because when it came right down to it, he despised fighting. He knew how, and had a long life of experience behind every swing of his axe, but it brought him no joy or pride.