Rank: Knight, 3rd Auxiliary
I reviewed my stat window as I tightened the straps of my shield and readied myself for the battle to come. My sword gripped loosely in my gauntlet, felt lighter with my additional boost in strength.
I would need it before the night was out. The smoke was as thick as the glow of flames rising all around us. The fire was a beast, devouring buildings, consuming bodies, and filling the city with the scent of burning flesh.
Around me, my brothers ready themselves for war. Draxus tilted his head, looking up to the sky and the blackness beyond.
“The night’s gone on too long,” he said, voice rough from shouting and smoke.
I leaned against the wall beside the high window, watching the shadows move in the streets beyond.
“It’s almost morning.”
“And whether we’ll live to see it is a fucking gamble.” Kato strode into the room, his sword on his hip and a new helmet jammed onto his head. It was several sizes too large and shifted as he moved. No doubt it had been scavenged from the dead.
“Any sign of movement?”
I shook my head and Kato swore. We had been posted up in this building for an hour, and the men started getting restless. The tension in the air was thick and judging by the way that Draxus kept glancing at me he felt it too.
“Everything hinges on this plan working,” he said, jaw clenched. “We can’t afford any mistakes or men will die.”
I grimaced as I thought of the soldiers on the wall, of Lord Dacon and his message.
“Men have already died,” I said. “And more will follow if we don’t end this.”
Draxus only grunted. For a moment it was silent, the only sound the distant crackle of smoke and whistle of wind through the timbers of the old abandoned house.
“What will you do after all this?”
The question caught me off guard and I turned to look at my friend. He leaned against the wall, arms folded across armor.
Draxus tilted his head.
“You’re a Knight and a gifted one,” he said. “If you play your cards right then within a year or less you could become landed, maybe even titled. You collect and sell enough loot and monster materials, and you might set yourself up for a comfortable life away from all this.”
His tone was wistful. I turned back to the window, pondering.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, and it was true. I hadn’t taken the time to consider a life outside of the Kadian Army. Since I had first arrived in this world, surviving had been my only concern. I had moved from goal to goal, guided by circumstance, and of course, by the quests in my notification window.
“What about you? If we survive our service in the Army what do you think you’d do? Where would you go?”
Draxus fiddled with the hilt of his sword, a smile on his lips.
“I’d settle down,” he said. “Find a nice woman to marry, maybe buy a farm. I’d live in some far-off place where the monster count is low and the folks are friendly. And I’d raise a family.”
I arched an eyebrow at him.
“You have no designs to reclaim your title or lands?”
Draxus’s lips thinned.
“That’s… complicated.”
A candle flame sputtered and we both glanced at it. Draxus searched for the words. At last, he said.
“There was a time in my life when I would have made enemies with the bastards that killed my parents and took my home. Traitors, they called my mother. But I knew it was all lies.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
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“But I wouldn’t bring that pain…. That burden on my family. No, what’s done is done. It’s better to let it go than allow the world to fester and turn.”
There was wisdom in his answer, I supposed. But somehow it felt.. Unsatisfying. As if it was something left unresolved. I thought about the Inquisition, of the crowned prince and the God King himself.
Unbidden the sight of bodies hanging from a tree flashed in my mind and I blinked hard, trying to clear my head.
If I survived this war and earned myself land and wealth would I walk away from this conflict? Could I do as Draxus had done and turn the other cheek? Somehow I doubted it.
I opened my mouth to say as much but a flicker of movement on the opposite rough caught my eye. In the gloom, I could make one one of my archers crouched on a nearby rooftop. As I looked he caught my eye and pointed down the road.
The sound in the city had shifted. I could hear the clank of armor, the grunt of the Ork language faint but growing. The time had come.
I held out a hand to my men, signaling silence. The house Blackthorne archers began to shift on the roof, crouching on the eves and reading quivers of arrows. Each movement was slow and measured.
Draxus shifted minutely, hand dropping to his blade. Any moment now our enemies would come into sight. I could see their swaying shadows darting across buildings. There must have been twenty of them, maybe more.
The archers strung their bows. Their sergeant met my gaze, hand raised and ready to give the signal. I waited.
Orks came into view. Dozens of them, horned heads casting evil shadows on the stone walls all around. They were bloodied, and one of them was laughing. In his hands, he held something large and round. He tossed it to one of his companions, who caught it with a grunting laugh.
Bowstrings creaked as arrows were drawn to ears. The sergeant awaited my signal, my chest rising and falling.
I waited until the Orks had passed beneath us. Waited until they spotted the bodies in the ground all around them. Watched as their expressions changed from amusement to recognition. For it was not human bodies that lined the streets, but Orks.
I said the word so calmly that the archer sergeant almost didn’t seem to register at first. Then he blinked and dropped his arm. Bowstrings twanged in the night.
Arrows glinted, cutting through the air as they arced down towards my enemies. The sharpened points buried themselves in the chinks of armor, in exposed throats, eyes, and arms.
I turned away from the window and signaled to my war party. We tromped down the steps of the building, all subtly abandoned. Heavy boots crashed on wood, armor clanked and jingled. At the bottom of the steps, Hade wrenched open the door.
My war party steamed out into the night like a flood through a dam. The night air was full of the howls and snarls of injured Orks. The first volley of arrows had sowed the seeds of confusion.
The Orks had begun to rally, their crude shields raised as they scanned the rooftops. Their rear flank never saw us coming. As an Ork archer fumbled with a black bow Jorgen caught him through the stomach with a well-placed spear thrust.
Our momentum carried us past and into the fray. I took a swing at an Orks unprotected leg, crunching his nose into my shield as I went by. A yellow tooth skittered along the stone, coming to a stop near the boot of one of my soldiers.
It was crushed moments later in the trample. The Orks had begun to rally now, trying to form a ragged line to face us. But as they did so, the archers rained arrows from above. Orks howled and fell to the stone.
Their corpses joined those of their brethren on the ground by my boots. The streets ran red with the blood of Orks, and I was at the heart of it. I caught an axeblade on the lip of my shield and thrust forward and up.
My blade pierced the meat of the Orks arm, and with a growl, he dropped his blade. Draxus took his head off moments later.
Pressed from both sides the Orks did the only thing they could. They attempted to retreat, huddled together in packs as they pressed against the walls of the buildings. A few broke from formation to rattle at the barred doors.
It was useless. There was no way out, I had made sure of that. Arrows took the stranglers down. The Orks kept their mishappen shields raised in a ragged shield wall. Among them was the Ork I had seen only moments ago laughing as he played with a human head.
He was a brute of an Ork, tall, broad-shouldered, and mean. One of his black horns had been sheered off, leaving nothing but a few inches of stump on one side.
My men advanced with me, weapons raised and faces grim. This was the business of war, and there would be nothing but blood before the night was out.
The skirmish didn't last long. Pressed against the walls of the street with nowhere to go, the remaining Orks made their useless stand. They died badly, many wounded multiple times before they eventually collapsed and were set upon by my men.
Only one horn remained, his yellow teeth bared in a rictus of defiance. He stumbled as Hade's spear caught him just above the knee. A blow from my shield was enough to send him slamming into the street.
His sword skittered across the cobbled stone. He tried to reach for it but I planted my boot on his wrist, grinding it into stone.
The Ork turned to look at me, and in his eyes, I saw real fear. He raised a hand towards me.
"Wait," he said, his speech halting an unfamiliar. "I can give you-"
My blade passed through his mouth and he gurgled blood as it punched out the other end. I leaned on the hilt, holding his gaze as he died. I would be the last thing he saw.
Nearby, the human head of a young soldier lay fetched up against the wall. The hair was plastered to the forehead with blood and grit.
"You've been avenged," I told him, as I crouched down. I reached out and gently closed his eyes. He had been somebody's son. Somebody's father, maybe. A husband, a soldier, and who knew what else.
That was the thing about war, it was indiscriminate. Sometimes it was calculated. Sometimes it was random.
I wiped my blade on the tunic of an Ork before sheathing it again. My men walked through the corpses of Orks, putting down the ones who had managed to survive with a squeal of blades.
One tried to crawl away but he was dragged back, his throat slit as he was thrown on the pile of bodies.
I turned away at the sound of boots on stone, raising my shield reflexively. It was only Eric, returning from his post at the end of the street.
"Ser William," he said, coming to a stop before me. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, eyes lit with fevered light.
"The Outriders are moving Ser," he said. "The Firebrand comes."
Equal parts thrill and trepidation gripped me. I met Draxus's gaze and nodded.
"It's out of our hands now," I said, turning back to face the empty road. The Orange glow of fire grew ever brighter as our doom approached. Kato whipped his blade through the air, spraying an arc of blood.
"Just know that if we die here Will, I'll fucking kill you."