Hilert stood shivering on the rampart. He was thickly bundled in many layers of furs and wool. Whenever a man had guard duty his tent mates would donate a blanket or wrapping to make sure he was as warm as possible. This was doubly important tonight, as the temperature had plummeted below anything any of them had ever experienced. indeed it was so cold that breathing itself felt like inhaling little crystalline knives. On top of that the wind was blowing at gale force.
Hilert cursed, he couldn't hardly bring himself to peek out from under his hood and couldn't see anything through the stinging sheets of ice when he did. It was utterly pointless for a man to be standing guard outside tonight, no one would be foolish enough to be out on a night like this unless they happened to have a sergeant that hated them. Unfortunately Hilerts relationship with his squad leader was less than amicable. It wasn't fair, Sergeant Patorin always gave him shit details like this just because his family was from way out east.
Hilert stood wrapped in his self-pity and was oblivious to what was happening around him. Even had he been unusually alert he might have missed the whispered sounds of soft leather on stone coming from over the wall. The climber froze as he peered over the wall and saw the sentry standing not two feet directly in front of him. At first he thought everything would be ruined by random chance, but when he realized the sentry hadn't noticed him he grinned. Bracing his feet on the poorly fitted stones below the embrasures he lunged up and over and grasping the imperial by the front of his clothing and yanked him back over the edge. Such was the speed of the attack that the stunned guard did not even make a sound until the barely audible thump as he hit the ground almost a hundred feet below.
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Captain Durvos sat up at his writing desk, the fire glowing in the hearth barely keeping the chill of the brutal winter storm at bay. He glanced down at the letter he was writing. He had been troubled by the conduct of Turiyos for some time now but only recently had it become pronounced enough that he felt he had to take action. The Harudish migration had given them a golden opportunity to secure the Empires northeastern frontier and that fool was throwing it away with his greed and sadistic hatred of the outlanders.
He had known how precarious his position was, he was new to the command and had few friends he could count on out here. As luck would have it though an old companion from the Arsus had recently arrived with dispatches from the Capital. He had had him over and plied him with good wine from the western vine country and finally managed to convince him to return to Torre with a private missive to his father, the very letter he was drafting now.
He was still struggling with how to explain the situation, his distaste for Turiyos and his methods warring with his inbred respect for the authority of his superior officer. His internal conflict was disturbed when the wind briefly subsided and he clearly heard someone cry out. He couldn't be sure, but it sounded like a shout of alarm.
He stood without thinking and strode briskly to the entrance, sweeping up a heavy cloak without slowing and proceeded out into the bitter night. He paused outside the officers quarters, the wind was picking back up and he could hear no more of what had brought him out.
He was about to turn back around and return to his writing when he noticed that the sentry on the upper wall was not at his post. He snarled, even though the weather was abysmal was no excuse for deserting your post. That was especially important during nights like this. He begin towards the guardhouse, vowing to have the man flogged in front of his entire regiment for endangering the garrison. Such was his preoccupation with this task that he passed a full ten paces past before he stopped and turned around. There against the wall he saw the crumpled remains of a sentry. He stepped closer to examine the man, thinking at first that he had fallen or been blown off the wall, but as he leaned in he saw the bloody wound on his neck. Durvos had not been on many battlefields, but he had seen what terrible damage the Harudish battleaxes could do to a man.
"ALARM, ALARM!" He shouted into the night, "To Arms, the fortress has been infiltrated!"
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Argatrides grinned at the call of the imperial. Finally they had noticed their sentries being killed. He was relieved, they had managed to slay so many of the guards that he had begun to fear that they would never rouse the garrison. Now he knew that they could forgo the sneaking about and face their foes as the gods intended.
"Follow me dogs, it's time to start the slaughter in earnest!" He shouted to his housecarls as he unlimbered his massive axe. He and his men were bare to the chest, when the herald had come through to bless the warriors he had felt a strange glow in his heart and had stripped off his furs and mail. His men watched as he began to shudder in religious fury. They had all joined him as he began to chant the old call of the red demons. He heard the rushing sound in the back of his mind again, the bloody handed ones had touched him and his men and they could not be defeated today.
"KRANG, KRANG, KRANG!" He raised his axe over his head and pointed down into the courtyard as the first of the imperial soldiers began to coalesce into their rigid formations.
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Turiyos glared at the bloodied courier. The man had come through to the command post from the fourth company area from Capt Anillis begging for reinforcements. "The devils swooped down on us from all directions and we barely managed to keep them out of the armory, everyone is holed up in their trying to keep them out."
"Your commanders incompetence does not interest me, perhaps if he had been more rigid in his enforcement of discipline instead of trying to curry favor with his underlings some of your companions might still be alive. You will go to the eastern campus and inform the officer in charge their to sally out into the training grounds and clear the walls in front of him. This is entirely too large an effort to be merely a nuisance raid. We must reoccupy the riverine fortifications and be prepared for the possibility that they might attempt a crossing.
The courier slapped his chest and scurried off into the darkness. Off to the east the first faint glimmerings of sunrise could be seen. If he was any judge Turiyos though the day would break in less than an hour. At that point he was confidant that his men could be organized and crush these barbarian reavers. He was impressed with their daring but he knew that their could only be a very few of these raiders on this side of the Hurus. There was some danger know because of the surprise of the attack and the difficulty of fixing the raiders in place.
"Durvos, come here."
"Yes sir?
"I am going to order the Vallian militia over that way to clear the secondary courtyard there. That will secure your flank. I want you to take the Guards detachment and the rest of the fifth company and push forward to the walls. We need to get a look at the encampment over there and see what is going on."
"As you say sir." Durvos surveyed the battle raging around him, or what he could see of it in the dark. There was some sporadic fighting throughout the compound but as yet none of the major strong points had been taken. He knew that there was fighting up on the wall and if more barbarians managed to cross they could easily scale the walls if there wasn't anyone up there to stop them.
He gestured to the drummer and a rally signal was beat out. Slowly the men assembled around him waiting for instructions. "We have been tasked with retaking the main fortifications. I want a wedge formation with the guards in the van. Fifth company fill in the flanks and rear. MOVE!"
The men turned to obeying his orders, the well-trained guardsmen sliding into formation with practiced ease, the raw border troops somewhat more raggedly. They locked shields and started forward in unison. No sooner had they come within sight of the wall then a mob of barbarians came from out of the various outbuildings and began to form an opposing shieldwall. The result was less regular, less coherent than the imperial formation but no less effective for that. Their shields were smaller and round, and what armor they wore was far less sophisticated than the imperial scale that the guardsmen had. Nevertheless they had their own advantages, the wicked bearded axes that many of them were armed with was purpose built to hook on the upper rim of imperial shields and drag them out of position, and each one of those men had been born and raised in a culture that demanded that men be strong and hard, inured to the rigors of battle and incited by the clash of arms.
All of these thoughts fled from his mind at the first clash, Durvos did not consider himself heroic, but he placed himself at the very apex of the wedge without thinking and this kept many of his men in place that might otherwise have shied away. Durvos drove into the barbarian across from him with his shield with all the force he was capable of. The impact was of unthinkable intensity and he felt his shoulder strain with the blow. He lashed out with his sword and was rewarded with a cry of anguish and he felt the pressure decrease slightly. The man next to him was forced back by a giant in dirty fur and mail, he tried to force his way deeper into the imperial line to cause it to buckle, but Durvos stabbed him in the kidneys and watched the light fade from his eyes. The battle was so closely fought that the man could not even fall after he died, only slowly was he dragged down and trampled by his own side and his enemies.
Durvos' momentary distraction was almost the end of him, he heard a solid thunk and turned back to see an axehead hook onto the rim of his shield, without conscious though he his guard down to the ground to release it, and lifted it back into position and slashed underneath the cut his opponents hamstring. The man screamed and lost his footing.
Back and forth the combat raged, until slowly Durvos could feel the opposition ease, after what seemed an eternity but in reality was only a paltry few minutes the pressure slackened greatly and he watched the barbarians turn and flee back into the alleys and cross ways they had come from.
"No, rally to me!" He called out as some of his men fell into pursuit. "We'll see to them later, first we have to secure the walls."
He surveyed the situation on the walls as they approached. He could see there were some scattered skirmishing their, but the arrival of over a hundred imperial troops should be more than enough to bring them fully under control. As they ascended the first series of switchback stairs to the top he began to detail out his men to secure gatehouses and towers. he kept only a small detachment of fifth company men with him as they reached the top of this section of the walls. He spied a group of northerners just coming over the walls. The two groups saw each other at the same time, there was no time and no space for formations of maneuvering. They simply rushed at each other by mutual agreement in a mad desire to kill.
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Belgarix led his men up and over the wall. They had had no contact with the infiltrators but judging by the confusion they had been successful. As the last of his men joined him a group of imperials climbed the stairs. He pointed with his heavy Pollaxe and shouted in rage and hatred. The two groups came together with a resounding crash and almost immediately half of them were cut down. The frigid stones beneath their feet were soon slick with blood. Belgarix cut down another of the imperial soldiers and spied their leader. A man with fine scale armor and a silvery-bladed sword in his hand. He charged forward, bowling over two other foes in his haste.
His initial strike was met expertly by the face of his enemies shield. The little sword snaked out like lightning towards his belly, but he dodged back and turned it with the shaft of his weapon. Over and over the two slashed and hacked at each other, Belagrix was bleeding from a half dozen minor wounds and finally the imperial had to abandon the tattered remains of his shield.
He felt a strange stirring in the center of his being. He had drank the foul brew given him by the herald this morning. The hooded one had said it would give him great power in battle. Suddenly a white-hot rage flared into being and all of the world disappeared from his view except for the hated tormentor in front of him. He knew something unimaginable was happening to him, but there was so little left of his rational mind that he spared no thought to the changes taking place, he simply dropped his weapon and leapt at for his preys through, screaming in incoherent rage.
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Durvos gasped in surprise, the young Harudish chieftain he had being fighting with suddenly stopped, grimacing in pain and began to change before his very eyes. His hands began to curl into long vicious claws and his face elongated into a blunt muzzle. His eyes began to glow with a baleful yellow light. The creature let loose a deafening roar and attacked.
Durvos watched the beastman fly through the air in slow motion, he knew that he watched his death approaching in the razor toothed maw, yet he was calm. Instead of trying to meet the assault head on, he merged with it, absorbing the impact and letting it carry him over onto his back.
As a younger man, before the army, before the politics and the compromises, Durvos had been something of a promising wrestler. This was something that was encouraged in young men of prominent families but after his school days he had left it behind. He turned to that training now and even as he felt the iron sinewed claws reach for his throat he brought his legs up into the creatures abdomen and pushed with all of his might. The foul thing was lifted over the prostrate soldier and catapulted off the wall, arms windmilling and screaming its hate. Durvos rolled onto his side to see the creature laying motionless on the ground far below. He clambered to his feet and turned to see the remaining barbarians fleeing down the parapet. They would no doubt be a nuisance but right now they were someone else's problem.
The sun had finally crested the mountains and the stinging sleet had quieted. For the first time since this whole episode began he could see clearly. With the dawning of the new day he felt the first stirring of hope that this incursion might be repelled. He ordered his men up to the wall in case any other enemies might appear. As he stepped up to the fighting step he looked out across the fortifications and felt the courage flow from him like water.
The only sound on the wall was the clatter of his sword as it slipped from nerveless fingers. below him, he watched as the Nations of the North approached on foot. The river had frozen solid over the night and now they came unimpeded by the tens of thousands. There was no more thought of victory here, or even survival as he saw that some of the numberless hordes were sweeping out behind them even now.
There was only time left to curse his commander for his shortsightedness, and to pray that this did not signal the end of the Empire.
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