Power To The Horde

By Ashgan the Weary

The enemy army was already at war - machine range distance by the time I found my master. I was very, very frustrated because he had just disappeared! I was looking for him all over the castle, but he was nowhere to be found! Countless possibilities were racing through my mind:

"What if someone inside our very fort was a traitor and somehow managed to kidnap my master? What if one of their digging teams (it is amazing what suicidal goblins can do) happened to break through the foundations of the castle? What if something had just gone terribly wrong?"

And so, I was running around the castle like a madman, with my sword unsheathed, swearing out loud, telling everyone I saw not to leave the castle and just wait for a little longer. And then, I found him. He was standing in my private chambers, apparently feeling the wall with his hands. I called out to him with my disturbed voice:

"Master, I am truly sorry, but now is not the time for one of your "trips" into some secret passage within the citadel! You very well know that there are no tunnels leading outside the walls. There is no running away now, they are too close to us already" my tone was desperate. "I wasted too much time looking for you and it is too late now. I might add that it is all your fault, but there is no point, we're already dead."

Master Nawor replied in a similarly disturbed voice: "Just wait, damn it! I am looking for something exorbitantly important, alright?" he continued to feel the stones but nothing happened.

"So, he hid something in my room. I would never have thought he'd do something like that, especially hiding something so important it was obviously worth dying for" I thought to myself. I asked him with a tint of hope in my utterance: "Is there a chance we might survive this, Lord?"

"Yes, a slight one, but still better than the one we would've had if we'd had fled the castle. How are we standing, anyway?" he asked the question to which I did not exactly know the answer, but at that instant, our captain of the guard rushed into the room and shouted:

"Thank goodness I found you, masters! Sir Yamdo, it would be best if you joined the men at the ramparts, the siege has begun."

I left master Nawor behind in my room with his obscure goal within the wall and went to see the horror with my own eyes. To my surprise, the siege was taking a different shape than the one I had expected. They did not even deploy their rock throwers, which would've smashed us all into pebbles but only mounted their battering rams and came at the gates. It was indeed a large army and it consisted mainly of orcs but a number of the undead could be spotted amongst them. Goblins were running all over their position, but I did not even count them as soldiers. Anyway, this was very peculiar, this almost pacifist siege, what were they aiming for? Why did they not crush us quickly and painlessly? The only thing I could think of were human prisoners, in good condition, a frightening prospect.

The battering began, but the gates held. Down in the castle courtyard, where the gates opened, my men were reinforcing them from the inside with big beams and heavy equipment. I ordered to start pouring the boiled oil. Screams and moans could be heard from down under and for a short while the sound of rams smashing against the metal gates ceased but was soon replaced by the very same noise. Music to my ears. The rest of their army patiently waited further away, safely out of reach of our out - of - date ranged weaponry. This would take a while, I realized, and I ran back to my master to inform him of the goings on and check on his progress.

He still hadn't found what he was looking for. "So, how are we standing?" he repeated the same question.